Meeting the Mysterium

~~Narration~~

The Portal opens to a backroom, which looks as if it's being used as a private lounge. Long time use of the arts permeates the room's Resonance with good-natured curiosity. Starling and John Dee put Calligan on a couch and see to his recovery. A young woman, Phrymides, informs the group that Tyria would like to see them.

Zero declines, asking to stay with Calligan.

She looks at Animus, Fiddler, and Joshua.

Animus accepts. Tyria had better have some idea of how to stop those obelisks. We've wasted too much time as it is

~~Narration~~

Phrymides leads the men to a large, airy office. Several tables along the walls are filled with papers and reference books, and several posters adorn the walls, which contain backwards script and drawings*.

A brunette wearing glasses stops the newtonion demonstrator she's playing with and looks up with a smile. She stands up.

"Please, sit", she says motioning to the comfortable Aeron chairs on the other side of her desk. "I'm Dr. Primoria" she introduces herself with an expectant look. You get the feeling she isn't a Chatty Kathy.

* Int+Academics -3, they're pages from the Codex Leicester

Straight to business. I like that. Animus finds his own chair before speaking. "I'm Animus. when we returned to the park, we found that each of the obelisks had a material reflection, a boulder for the subtle arcana and a dead tree for the gross arcana. Everything around the pentagram was also dead. The reflection of the spirit stone resonated with the practice of making, and I would assume that the other active stones were similar.

As to Blackfire's death, I believe the stone took his soul before killing him." Animus was suddenly very glad that Zero had waited with Calligan. They didn't need to start up that argument again. "As we prepared to leave, the prime stone activated, pulling in a good deal of energy from its environment. When I looked back across the gauntlet, the stones were tied together through lines of the abyss.

I think the process must be accelerating, because the life stone activated while we were driving back to Calligan's."

"OK, good," Tyria replies cryptically. "What about Calligan?"

"Just 'good'? Could you elaborate a bit? When there is a major threat to the Consilium, I don't like being kept unaware of what is being done about it." Animus tries to not let his annoyance show.

Tyria focuses her intent gaze upon Animus. "Thearch you may be, but I am the second ranking member of this Consilium. Now, Calligan?"



West quietly lets himself into the room to listen in. He's drinking coffee from the Museum's coffee shop. Tyria doesn't even look at him.

Animus sighs. I knew I couldn't avoind running into politics forever. He glances briefly at the newcomer but says nothing.

Fiddler had been quiet the whole time, tending to his own wounds-abyss induced or otherwise, and trying to make sense of everything.

"If I may add something," he said, "I communicated with the pentagram briefly-only a mind arcana induced exchange, but the pentagram itself seemed conscious. Animus is right... the thing takes souls... It told me so." When he finished talking, he stood in silence.

"That the stones might be behind the disappearances had crossed my mind multiple times. But what it might mean for the mages who disappeared ..." Animus shivers. "I'm quite willing to go spelunking, especially if it may help solve the problem at hand."

Fiddler looked around and nodded, "I'll do whatever I can, but whatever we do, I want to be prepared for it. The stones... caught us off guard. I don't think we could survive another abyssal intrusion of that magnitude. Blackfire already paid his life and soul."

At Fiddler's mention of Blackfire Animus looks a bit startled. "What happened to Invictus? When I heard back from you, I thought he might have been thrown across also, but he seems to have just disappeared."

"I wish I could say. All I remember was the flash, and then suddenly I was quite a distance away and in the material realm. Do you think he was taken also?" Fiddler shuddered at the thought of another cabal mate being dead, but if he had survived... we would have heard from him by now.

As they spoke, Tyria's laptop caught her eye, and she spent a few seconds reading.

"Come on," Tyria said, standing up, and heading out the door without a glance behind.

She headed back to the same workroom where they had come from, where John Dee was leaning back in an easy chair watching X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It looked like a production cut. Zero was sleeping in a chair next to the couch Calligan was on.

"Three to Carson City, John," Tyria told John.

John paused the movie, spun his chair around, and started chanting as his fingers danced.

The silver line appeared, and rotated, tearing a wide hole in space.

"Nine seconds," John said as he started the movie again.

"Tell Ruby I sent you," Tyria told them, looking expectantly at the Portal.

(( Going through the Portal takes you to the Hill & Hole thread ))