Gloria Mundi Update
This, the last story of Gloria Mundi, entitled "Tyrrhenus and the Bloodless Coup" (you can see my naming conventions for the stories if you click here), begins on May 1, 2005. The cabal has been busy in the month plus of downtime.
Isis has officially become an Uncrowned King.
Tyrrhenus has officially become a Forge Master.
Ogma has looked into the "Hieromagus" and discovered that it's a legend dating to Atlantis, or at least back to the Fall. It's always been something the Guardians have espoused, and basically says that someday, this mythical figure called the Hieromagus (assuredly not a Guardian himself) will return to lead the Pentacle against the Exarchs. There's a hardliner faction within the Guardians, called the Messianics, that believe that he will cull the weak and lead only the strong on. Apparently, Februs and the Shadow Chorus are Messianics. Over the years, there have been a lot of dates for the supposed arrival of the Hieromagus, but like most such things, they've never panned out. The next one, though, is 05/05/05...four days from the start date of this story.
Knit asked Ogma to look into her mind and see what the heck is going on. When he did so, Ogma saw that her brain is a mess. First of all, Knit Awakened when she was three years old. Her parents, panicking over what they saw as aberrant behavior, had extensive brain surgery done, and this apparently shut down Knit's magical growth for a while, but also fucked her up. The parietal lobe of her brain looked, according to Niamh, like scrambled eggs, and it was only because she was proficient in Space magic that she could muster the proprioception to walk straight.
But Ogma saw much more. There is a twisted labyrinth of magic in Knit's mind, involving Mind, Space, Prime, Fate and Life. Multiple spells are involved, and Ogma wasn't willing to prod for fear of setting them off. He was floored by the precision and power involved - the word "archmage" crept through his head at least once. Knit asked if there was a way to get into her own mind and unravel it. After all, who better to unravel a labyrinth than a Sphinx?
The cabal decided as a group to go into her mind. Ogma, now a Master of Mind as well as Space, brought them in, while Ti Malice watched over their bodies. Inside Knit's brain, they found the corpses of Knit's former cabal, as well as her parents, and everyone else she'd killed. With Isis' master of Matter, they buried the bodies, and Knit carved their names into the ground, laying them to rest. This helped focused her somewhat, and she led them deeper into the maze.
In the next "room", she found a wall of scar tissue, and identified this place as what was repressed by the surgeries. She cut into it a bit, and found memory and power rushing back to her. She decided not to let it all come back at once, since she wasn't sure how it would change her, but it relieved some of her psychoses, and she led them them on.
Next, the cabal found a room covered in runes. Niamh realized that they were standing in Knit's soul, and Knit realized that this was the bit that had been reshaped as part of her becoming a Sphinx. Looking between the runes, she saw an immense clock on each wall, and realized that they were all counting down to...yep. 5/5/05.
Concentrating, she found a door into the next room, but this "door" took the form of a revolving section of the wall. On the other side, the mages realized that this "door" was really a gear, and had started a huge clockwork system in motion. A man step forward, and Knit recognized him as Dexter, her supposedly Sphinx mentor. Dexter had eyes like an LED clock, counting down to the magic date. He flashed a pocket watch with a Death's Head on the fob, and Niamh and Isis recognized this as the symbol of the obscene Cult of the Doomsday Clock.
Dexter told the mages that he was behind them coming this far. Why, he asked, did they think Jack was no longer with them? Because the butterfly flapped its wings at exactly the right time to make him leave, he claimed. He said that Knit had discovered what he needed to know - the Seers were the third signatory of the Secret Concord. And now, it was time to end things...whereupon he pulled out a submachine gun and shot the cabal.
The cabal fought back, but Dexter rewound time when something bad happened (the Cult's second attainment...seriously, these fuckers are scary!), and wound up calling down little explosives from the ceiling. These floored Niamh, Tyrrhenus and Ogma, and Rotting Flesh took out Knit a moment later. He told Isis that he was surprised she hadn't stayed with Duvalier ( you know, the Bokor from New Orleans), and said that he had expected Isis (rather, Morrigan) to March on Boston with an army of the undead and drive the Nemean into the sea. They sparred for a few minutes more, but between Shifting Sands and Temporal Stutter, Dexter won out and shot Isis dead...
...and the cabal woke up on the beach, drained of Mana and Willpower, but unhurt. Knit used her scissors to slice away at the threads between her and Dexter (which she could now see, at least), and Ti Malice helped the characters back to the house to recoup.
Isis has officially become an Uncrowned King.
Tyrrhenus has officially become a Forge Master.
Ogma has looked into the "Hieromagus" and discovered that it's a legend dating to Atlantis, or at least back to the Fall. It's always been something the Guardians have espoused, and basically says that someday, this mythical figure called the Hieromagus (assuredly not a Guardian himself) will return to lead the Pentacle against the Exarchs. There's a hardliner faction within the Guardians, called the Messianics, that believe that he will cull the weak and lead only the strong on. Apparently, Februs and the Shadow Chorus are Messianics. Over the years, there have been a lot of dates for the supposed arrival of the Hieromagus, but like most such things, they've never panned out. The next one, though, is 05/05/05...four days from the start date of this story.
Knit asked Ogma to look into her mind and see what the heck is going on. When he did so, Ogma saw that her brain is a mess. First of all, Knit Awakened when she was three years old. Her parents, panicking over what they saw as aberrant behavior, had extensive brain surgery done, and this apparently shut down Knit's magical growth for a while, but also fucked her up. The parietal lobe of her brain looked, according to Niamh, like scrambled eggs, and it was only because she was proficient in Space magic that she could muster the proprioception to walk straight.
But Ogma saw much more. There is a twisted labyrinth of magic in Knit's mind, involving Mind, Space, Prime, Fate and Life. Multiple spells are involved, and Ogma wasn't willing to prod for fear of setting them off. He was floored by the precision and power involved - the word "archmage" crept through his head at least once. Knit asked if there was a way to get into her own mind and unravel it. After all, who better to unravel a labyrinth than a Sphinx?
The cabal decided as a group to go into her mind. Ogma, now a Master of Mind as well as Space, brought them in, while Ti Malice watched over their bodies. Inside Knit's brain, they found the corpses of Knit's former cabal, as well as her parents, and everyone else she'd killed. With Isis' master of Matter, they buried the bodies, and Knit carved their names into the ground, laying them to rest. This helped focused her somewhat, and she led them deeper into the maze.
In the next "room", she found a wall of scar tissue, and identified this place as what was repressed by the surgeries. She cut into it a bit, and found memory and power rushing back to her. She decided not to let it all come back at once, since she wasn't sure how it would change her, but it relieved some of her psychoses, and she led them them on.
Next, the cabal found a room covered in runes. Niamh realized that they were standing in Knit's soul, and Knit realized that this was the bit that had been reshaped as part of her becoming a Sphinx. Looking between the runes, she saw an immense clock on each wall, and realized that they were all counting down to...yep. 5/5/05.
Concentrating, she found a door into the next room, but this "door" took the form of a revolving section of the wall. On the other side, the mages realized that this "door" was really a gear, and had started a huge clockwork system in motion. A man step forward, and Knit recognized him as Dexter, her supposedly Sphinx mentor. Dexter had eyes like an LED clock, counting down to the magic date. He flashed a pocket watch with a Death's Head on the fob, and Niamh and Isis recognized this as the symbol of the obscene Cult of the Doomsday Clock.
Dexter told the mages that he was behind them coming this far. Why, he asked, did they think Jack was no longer with them? Because the butterfly flapped its wings at exactly the right time to make him leave, he claimed. He said that Knit had discovered what he needed to know - the Seers were the third signatory of the Secret Concord. And now, it was time to end things...whereupon he pulled out a submachine gun and shot the cabal.
The cabal fought back, but Dexter rewound time when something bad happened (the Cult's second attainment...seriously, these fuckers are scary!), and wound up calling down little explosives from the ceiling. These floored Niamh, Tyrrhenus and Ogma, and Rotting Flesh took out Knit a moment later. He told Isis that he was surprised she hadn't stayed with Duvalier ( you know, the Bokor from New Orleans), and said that he had expected Isis (rather, Morrigan) to March on Boston with an army of the undead and drive the Nemean into the sea. They sparred for a few minutes more, but between Shifting Sands and Temporal Stutter, Dexter won out and shot Isis dead...
...and the cabal woke up on the beach, drained of Mana and Willpower, but unhurt. Knit used her scissors to slice away at the threads between her and Dexter (which she could now see, at least), and Ti Malice helped the characters back to the house to recoup.