Eden: Easter Island 6/12/06
Now for that long awaited post about the proxy of doom. It's long. Just a warning.
There was a raucous in Katet as everyone got ready to move once the portal opened. Eden stood beside Cayden and the two exchanged glances, obviously supportive with an unspoken ‘good luck’ expressed. As the portal formed, a light breeze blew through the bar mixing the scent of booze and pub food with the salt of the tropics.
Eden took a deep breath and stepped through the portal onto the Rano Raraku on Easter Island. She could finally feel the warmth from the breeze and then took it deeply into her lungs. She had never been anywhere exotic and the foliage and sand and topical atmosphere perked all of he sense. The high grasses on the volcanic plains moved as a single entity in the winds and the Maoi heads watched her, the group, arrive with an ancient stoic expression. Eden couldn’t help but shudder a little as the solid basalt eyes seemed to follow her as she followed the party. The atmosphere was serene and she couldn’t help but to appreciate the beauty despite the purpose of the journey.
"Okay guys. We're going to need to work on that hallow first," said Twitch. "And some fuel for building the fire." The words drew her attention away from the Fauna and she looked back at the portal which was dissipating before her eyes, blowing away with the breeze. Twitch lead a group of the more Prime talented mages- Mae, E, Lux, Sebastian, Solstice and Snowflake away and Eden looked at the rest of her companions: Cayden, Alexander and Sareth. They spent their time on the lower plains gathering dried grasses for a bonfire. Eden stuck close to Cay, laughing good-naturedly and playing around more exploring than actually gathering kindling
In her exploration she found where an old lava flow has been located, where molten stone once ran down the side of the volcano and formed a shallow bed that cooled to stone, now weather-worn with the years. The others join her including the Masters and Eden stepped back. They called the essence of the volcano down through this natural-formed channel and a hallow is formed which flows through the channel and pools at the area where it ends. It bore a fiery resonance that was comforting, wild and warm. Eden had never seen anything like it and was in awe. She could feel her heart race as the magic was used and watched with appreciation and curiosity her soul feeling heightened at the new hallow. They all worked to build the bonfire. The position for it was right in the middle of the place where the energy pooled and when the fire was lit the flames were stong, bough high by the nearness of the resonance.
She was silent, taking in the miracle before her with a quiet surrealism. She blinked and looked up when Mae passed her a small piece of parchment and a fountain pen filled with a green ink to symbolize her Path. She stepped up to the bonfire with the others with hesitation. She knew that her skills in the arcane were new and meager to say the best but they apparently intended on making her part of the ritual. She stood protectively at Cayden’s side when Twitch moved into the center of the circle, apparently to act as the focal point. Twitch began to speak, High Speech intermixed with his words, calling out to the Supernal for the healing of the rifts between man and mage, between Fallen and Supernal. He had a wonderful voice, stong, and Eden could feel that part of her soul tremble in anticipation, crawling and wanting out, wanting to act.
She let it out. One by one everyones nimbus’s began to flare, she wasn’t the only one feeling the call and her head fell back and arms stretched out as her heart beat to the rhythm of the earth filling her with adrenaline and energy. She could feel the other’s as well and she flushed, it was intoxicating. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled despite the clear skies and Eden could hear the horses on the island fleeing for safety. When she opened her eyes she could see Cayden, Sebastian and Mae surrounded by a heavenly presence and Angel wings protruding from their backs. Eden breathed deep and could smell and hear the steam from cool water falling down on a flowing heat exuding from those around her. The mix of energies, the power, filled her body in a way that she had never felt before, an almost sexual way, and she sighed audibly absorbing what she could, not knowing any better.
Twitch was chanting, the others joined until it was her turn and she parted her lips to speak the words. The hallow surged with mana and the fire crackled and popped loudly. Eden fixed her gaze on the fire and let the words roll off her tongue as if it were the most natural way to express herself and jolted slightly when the bottle was passed to her. She could not hear the others names over the noise of the fire but when she wrote her name on the paper in dark green she whispered a name she had long wanted to voice to her friends. “Autumn,” she said and passed the bottle on to Cayden and continued the chant.
She could immediately see the effects of what she had just done and the vision of it was inspiring and confusing, overwhelming and brilliant to the girl just learning this way of magic. She could see the weaves of voice and identity interlocking, growing stronger, merging and flowing with the energies of the hallow and the bonfire. When the bottle reaches Mae again, she passed mana of her own resonance into it, and the bottle returned to each of them, each giving a bit of themselves into the bottle.
Once again, the bottle reaches Mae, having closed two circles in two different paths. Twitch rings the bonfire, coming to stop before Mae after pausing to light a red taper candle in the fire, which seems to burn hotter than it should, making quick work of the candle. The two Guardians lock eyes over the top of the sacrificial bottle, grimly
respectful, those two voices dropping from the chant as Mae takes the candle from Twitch and turns it over the top of the bottle, layering wax around the rim of the bottle mouth, cooling it in layers until it's sealed tight against the world outside. When the seal is in place, Mae smiles somberly at Twitch, who returns her smile as he takes the bottle from her. Their voices rejoin the choir as Twitch carries the bottle to the bonfire, waits for the end of the last supplication, and then smashes the bottle into the flames.
For a moment there was silence, complete silence, as the chanting stops, and the wind subsides as though the island itself was holding its breath. For a brief fraction of a moment, she thought that nothing had happened; everything was so still. And then, as the parchment began to burn, streaks of color tainted the flame, the red, purple and green of the inks, intertwining and interweaving in the heat of the fire. The heat swelled outward, washing over her in a wave that wasn’t hot but almost like a physical presence, as though it were trying to push apart the circle. Eden’s head jolted overhead as thunder rumbled, she gasped in horror as the smoke from the bonfire rushed up to meet the sky, spreading with more velocity and volume than she knew was possible.
The smoke became a dark cloud, which grew like some sort of mystical personal rain cloud over all of them. It covered the sun and rapidly moving towards blotting out the blue of the sky itself. Eden’s mind raced, not understanding what happened, but knew instantly that something was wrong, these were never good signs. She looked up again and watched the mana charged smoke spread. She screamed and felt her entire being pulled: body mind and soul. The hallow was eating her, she could feel her personal energies, could feel it draining her and almost couldn’t bare it. Her eyes were wide with shock, looking up at the black skies she understood what happened. She realized, at last, the scope of what they have asked, and the sheer hubris of it, strong enough to match the very Seers they seek to stand against. “Oh god, what have we done…” was all that she had time to think.
It was again surreal but in a horrible fashion. She looked around, still silent as she watched the other mages use Prime or Space, trying to contain the damage but they only make it worse and a tear rolls down her cheek as she sees her companions begin to panic and she just watches, trying to come to terms with what was happening around her. She gaped again in a silent scream as the hand reached inside her and pulled deep into her, taking something from her that she couldn’t recognize but she felt empty, one hundred percent empty. As soon as it reached inside it left but it was not over. She eyes took in the manifestation. She had only seen one once before and it made her tremble, she only could begin to feel the fear well up inside her before pain exploded all through her body as the paradox began to rip her body apart taking energy from her flesh and souls. (This was where she took 3 agg.)
The pain was unbearable, she just stood there helpless as it sapped her skin and bones of magical energy, greedy, hungry. It took what it wanted and withdrew. The bonfire exploded and cast it’s smoldering embers over the her skin (insert more damage). She could see Twitch thrown aside out of the corner of her eye but her most pressing concern was Cayden. The clouds began to dissipate and Eden kneeled down beside her, putting panic out of her mind and pulled out her medical kit trying to fix her and the baby in her belly as best she could given both of their injuries.
Sebasitan joined her on the ground by Cayden and brushed the patients hair back as she whimpered in pain. Sorrow drained out any other emotion. There was nothing that she could do to save the baby, she was powerless to help her friend and she screamed in the frustration, cursing through blistered lips. She knew that magic wouldn’t work on her, she knew that her tools were useless with this severity of damage and even painkillers wouldn’t help right now.
Eden looked up at Sebastian, silent and frightened, as he approached his wife, her murmurs of "No, no, no," barely audible as the wind dies down. She couldn’t stand the look of agony on his face. It was her fault. She couldn’t help right now. The contractions were coming and the baby wouldn’t survive. The grief at her own inability eating at what was left of her stability.
Alexander’s voice was loud "Has anyone seen Lux or Snowflake? I can't find them!"
Eden took a quick look around, her attention focused on Cayden, but could not se them anywhere. Eden stayed with Cayden for about an hour but the discomfort only increased and Eden’s lips pursed. Her voice raised up, "We need a hospital. These contractions aren't stopping." Sebastian immediately opened a portal nearby and she and Sebastian helped Cayden stand and move slowly to the portal (1 more agg)
"What about Lux and Snowflake?" Solstice asks.
"We'll have to find them later," Eden says. "She can't wait." They aren’t my friends, they don’t matter as much to me right now…
Tthe rest of the group worked their way through the portal and they found themselves in the bottom floor of the warehouse. Eden immediately pulled her cell phone out to call for an ambulance, while Sebastian comforts Cayden. She blinks at the LED reading: Friday, June 16th, 5:30 pm. They'd lost several days in the portal. She makes the 911 call and then fills the others in on the time lapse as Sebastian helped get Cayden outside where the ambulance won't have to enter a cabal's sanctuary to get to her.
Mae and Alexander spend the night in DC, allowing Eden to patch them up via mundane means as best as is possible before the ambulance arrived. She went with Sebastian in the ambulance to the hospital and she pushed the doors to the hospital wide open after several hours of waiting, screaming in pain despite her dislocated shoulder and broken ribs, they couldn’t save the baby.
Eden made her way home to her own hallow after being bandaged, limping and exhausted, dirty and her mind hallow only to find her hallow drained and left completely dead, everything that she had built and protected gone. She let it all take her and fell to her knees sobbing harder than she’d ever allowed herself the luxury of before.
-All PCs that were involved in the ritual now flare their nimbus
automatically when casting vulgar magic. Each nimbus has modified so
that it seems bottled, as though the PC and nimbus were contained in a
sort of magical bottle with a long neck and a round middle. This
effect is obvious when the nimbus is flaring, and the bottle (if the
nimbus itself) is visible to anyone looking at the PC with Supernal
Vision active, without a test. These bottles cannot be hidden by
Awakened magic. The effects listed in this paragraph last for the
next two months (eight weeks).
There was a raucous in Katet as everyone got ready to move once the portal opened. Eden stood beside Cayden and the two exchanged glances, obviously supportive with an unspoken ‘good luck’ expressed. As the portal formed, a light breeze blew through the bar mixing the scent of booze and pub food with the salt of the tropics.
Eden took a deep breath and stepped through the portal onto the Rano Raraku on Easter Island. She could finally feel the warmth from the breeze and then took it deeply into her lungs. She had never been anywhere exotic and the foliage and sand and topical atmosphere perked all of he sense. The high grasses on the volcanic plains moved as a single entity in the winds and the Maoi heads watched her, the group, arrive with an ancient stoic expression. Eden couldn’t help but shudder a little as the solid basalt eyes seemed to follow her as she followed the party. The atmosphere was serene and she couldn’t help but to appreciate the beauty despite the purpose of the journey.
"Okay guys. We're going to need to work on that hallow first," said Twitch. "And some fuel for building the fire." The words drew her attention away from the Fauna and she looked back at the portal which was dissipating before her eyes, blowing away with the breeze. Twitch lead a group of the more Prime talented mages- Mae, E, Lux, Sebastian, Solstice and Snowflake away and Eden looked at the rest of her companions: Cayden, Alexander and Sareth. They spent their time on the lower plains gathering dried grasses for a bonfire. Eden stuck close to Cay, laughing good-naturedly and playing around more exploring than actually gathering kindling
In her exploration she found where an old lava flow has been located, where molten stone once ran down the side of the volcano and formed a shallow bed that cooled to stone, now weather-worn with the years. The others join her including the Masters and Eden stepped back. They called the essence of the volcano down through this natural-formed channel and a hallow is formed which flows through the channel and pools at the area where it ends. It bore a fiery resonance that was comforting, wild and warm. Eden had never seen anything like it and was in awe. She could feel her heart race as the magic was used and watched with appreciation and curiosity her soul feeling heightened at the new hallow. They all worked to build the bonfire. The position for it was right in the middle of the place where the energy pooled and when the fire was lit the flames were stong, bough high by the nearness of the resonance.
She was silent, taking in the miracle before her with a quiet surrealism. She blinked and looked up when Mae passed her a small piece of parchment and a fountain pen filled with a green ink to symbolize her Path. She stepped up to the bonfire with the others with hesitation. She knew that her skills in the arcane were new and meager to say the best but they apparently intended on making her part of the ritual. She stood protectively at Cayden’s side when Twitch moved into the center of the circle, apparently to act as the focal point. Twitch began to speak, High Speech intermixed with his words, calling out to the Supernal for the healing of the rifts between man and mage, between Fallen and Supernal. He had a wonderful voice, stong, and Eden could feel that part of her soul tremble in anticipation, crawling and wanting out, wanting to act.
She let it out. One by one everyones nimbus’s began to flare, she wasn’t the only one feeling the call and her head fell back and arms stretched out as her heart beat to the rhythm of the earth filling her with adrenaline and energy. She could feel the other’s as well and she flushed, it was intoxicating. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled despite the clear skies and Eden could hear the horses on the island fleeing for safety. When she opened her eyes she could see Cayden, Sebastian and Mae surrounded by a heavenly presence and Angel wings protruding from their backs. Eden breathed deep and could smell and hear the steam from cool water falling down on a flowing heat exuding from those around her. The mix of energies, the power, filled her body in a way that she had never felt before, an almost sexual way, and she sighed audibly absorbing what she could, not knowing any better.
Twitch was chanting, the others joined until it was her turn and she parted her lips to speak the words. The hallow surged with mana and the fire crackled and popped loudly. Eden fixed her gaze on the fire and let the words roll off her tongue as if it were the most natural way to express herself and jolted slightly when the bottle was passed to her. She could not hear the others names over the noise of the fire but when she wrote her name on the paper in dark green she whispered a name she had long wanted to voice to her friends. “Autumn,” she said and passed the bottle on to Cayden and continued the chant.
She could immediately see the effects of what she had just done and the vision of it was inspiring and confusing, overwhelming and brilliant to the girl just learning this way of magic. She could see the weaves of voice and identity interlocking, growing stronger, merging and flowing with the energies of the hallow and the bonfire. When the bottle reaches Mae again, she passed mana of her own resonance into it, and the bottle returned to each of them, each giving a bit of themselves into the bottle.
Once again, the bottle reaches Mae, having closed two circles in two different paths. Twitch rings the bonfire, coming to stop before Mae after pausing to light a red taper candle in the fire, which seems to burn hotter than it should, making quick work of the candle. The two Guardians lock eyes over the top of the sacrificial bottle, grimly
respectful, those two voices dropping from the chant as Mae takes the candle from Twitch and turns it over the top of the bottle, layering wax around the rim of the bottle mouth, cooling it in layers until it's sealed tight against the world outside. When the seal is in place, Mae smiles somberly at Twitch, who returns her smile as he takes the bottle from her. Their voices rejoin the choir as Twitch carries the bottle to the bonfire, waits for the end of the last supplication, and then smashes the bottle into the flames.
For a moment there was silence, complete silence, as the chanting stops, and the wind subsides as though the island itself was holding its breath. For a brief fraction of a moment, she thought that nothing had happened; everything was so still. And then, as the parchment began to burn, streaks of color tainted the flame, the red, purple and green of the inks, intertwining and interweaving in the heat of the fire. The heat swelled outward, washing over her in a wave that wasn’t hot but almost like a physical presence, as though it were trying to push apart the circle. Eden’s head jolted overhead as thunder rumbled, she gasped in horror as the smoke from the bonfire rushed up to meet the sky, spreading with more velocity and volume than she knew was possible.
The smoke became a dark cloud, which grew like some sort of mystical personal rain cloud over all of them. It covered the sun and rapidly moving towards blotting out the blue of the sky itself. Eden’s mind raced, not understanding what happened, but knew instantly that something was wrong, these were never good signs. She looked up again and watched the mana charged smoke spread. She screamed and felt her entire being pulled: body mind and soul. The hallow was eating her, she could feel her personal energies, could feel it draining her and almost couldn’t bare it. Her eyes were wide with shock, looking up at the black skies she understood what happened. She realized, at last, the scope of what they have asked, and the sheer hubris of it, strong enough to match the very Seers they seek to stand against. “Oh god, what have we done…” was all that she had time to think.
It was again surreal but in a horrible fashion. She looked around, still silent as she watched the other mages use Prime or Space, trying to contain the damage but they only make it worse and a tear rolls down her cheek as she sees her companions begin to panic and she just watches, trying to come to terms with what was happening around her. She gaped again in a silent scream as the hand reached inside her and pulled deep into her, taking something from her that she couldn’t recognize but she felt empty, one hundred percent empty. As soon as it reached inside it left but it was not over. She eyes took in the manifestation. She had only seen one once before and it made her tremble, she only could begin to feel the fear well up inside her before pain exploded all through her body as the paradox began to rip her body apart taking energy from her flesh and souls. (This was where she took 3 agg.)
The pain was unbearable, she just stood there helpless as it sapped her skin and bones of magical energy, greedy, hungry. It took what it wanted and withdrew. The bonfire exploded and cast it’s smoldering embers over the her skin (insert more damage). She could see Twitch thrown aside out of the corner of her eye but her most pressing concern was Cayden. The clouds began to dissipate and Eden kneeled down beside her, putting panic out of her mind and pulled out her medical kit trying to fix her and the baby in her belly as best she could given both of their injuries.
Sebasitan joined her on the ground by Cayden and brushed the patients hair back as she whimpered in pain. Sorrow drained out any other emotion. There was nothing that she could do to save the baby, she was powerless to help her friend and she screamed in the frustration, cursing through blistered lips. She knew that magic wouldn’t work on her, she knew that her tools were useless with this severity of damage and even painkillers wouldn’t help right now.
Eden looked up at Sebastian, silent and frightened, as he approached his wife, her murmurs of "No, no, no," barely audible as the wind dies down. She couldn’t stand the look of agony on his face. It was her fault. She couldn’t help right now. The contractions were coming and the baby wouldn’t survive. The grief at her own inability eating at what was left of her stability.
Alexander’s voice was loud "Has anyone seen Lux or Snowflake? I can't find them!"
Eden took a quick look around, her attention focused on Cayden, but could not se them anywhere. Eden stayed with Cayden for about an hour but the discomfort only increased and Eden’s lips pursed. Her voice raised up, "We need a hospital. These contractions aren't stopping." Sebastian immediately opened a portal nearby and she and Sebastian helped Cayden stand and move slowly to the portal (1 more agg)
"What about Lux and Snowflake?" Solstice asks.
"We'll have to find them later," Eden says. "She can't wait." They aren’t my friends, they don’t matter as much to me right now…
Tthe rest of the group worked their way through the portal and they found themselves in the bottom floor of the warehouse. Eden immediately pulled her cell phone out to call for an ambulance, while Sebastian comforts Cayden. She blinks at the LED reading: Friday, June 16th, 5:30 pm. They'd lost several days in the portal. She makes the 911 call and then fills the others in on the time lapse as Sebastian helped get Cayden outside where the ambulance won't have to enter a cabal's sanctuary to get to her.
Mae and Alexander spend the night in DC, allowing Eden to patch them up via mundane means as best as is possible before the ambulance arrived. She went with Sebastian in the ambulance to the hospital and she pushed the doors to the hospital wide open after several hours of waiting, screaming in pain despite her dislocated shoulder and broken ribs, they couldn’t save the baby.
Eden made her way home to her own hallow after being bandaged, limping and exhausted, dirty and her mind hallow only to find her hallow drained and left completely dead, everything that she had built and protected gone. She let it all take her and fell to her knees sobbing harder than she’d ever allowed herself the luxury of before.
-All PCs that were involved in the ritual now flare their nimbus
automatically when casting vulgar magic. Each nimbus has modified so
that it seems bottled, as though the PC and nimbus were contained in a
sort of magical bottle with a long neck and a round middle. This
effect is obvious when the nimbus is flaring, and the bottle (if the
nimbus itself) is visible to anyone looking at the PC with Supernal
Vision active, without a test. These bottles cannot be hidden by
Awakened magic. The effects listed in this paragraph last for the
next two months (eight weeks).