Chapter 1.9: Return to the Overworld

, Cassidy's last text said that she was going to cut through the Dyer Estate. That is conveniently only a block away from Bright Books. So you amble in that direction once you are done at the bookshop.

You're only a few houses away when you see your friend and strangers burst forth from the patch of land containing a fitful nightmare. Cassidy is sobbing and clinging to the hand of one of the individuals you saw back in the psychology lab. There's a great furry beast that rapidly shifts into the other individual you saw in the lab. And two more individuals besides: one in rich red and gold robes, collapsed on the pavement, and another leaning against the fence, face full of watchful determination.

Dawn Commission agents, After a tense, watchful moment, it appears that no more of the creatures will pursue you now that you are outside of the overgrown lot.

You get some curious glances, but most pedestrians ignore your group.

The sun is bright and clear. The day is wearing on to afternoon. It's nearly 3 pm now.

"Vesper, is there some kind of barrier? The smell changed very suddenly, and I expected people to be panicking about the noise."

The urge to close my eyes and doze off in the warm sun is nearly overpowering. Hope's voice jars me out of my reverie before I can pass out. I glance at the fence, only now realizing how sharp the delineation between it and the city is. How odd. Despite the fatigue settling on me as the adrenaline wears off, I almost want to get up and investigate.

That would be most unwise, Inara says. We're almost entirely out of mana. If you tap another reserve, you'll probably black out.

"Okay, okay," I mumble. "You're right, I'll take it easy."

“How does an, calling it an infestation, of tentacle monsters exist right next to a busy college without us knowing about it? Agh! That is not even what we are here for.” Lucian let’s out a long sigh.

Alric lets go of Cassidy, sits down onto the cold, dusty floor, and then rolls over onto his back. Lying there, he stares at the sky.

"fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.."

"It was supposed to be mud crabs, for christ's sake. Not this shit."

"This was my mistake. I shouldn't have split off, assuming there wouldn't be physical danger on a campus."

I glance over at Alric, sprawled out on the pavement. His exasperated profanity catches my attention. "Mud crabs?" I ask, my voice strained with exhaustion. "What are you talking about?"

“Does anyone have water?” Cassidy pleads.

"Oh, yeah" Hope offers her a military surplus canteen.

Cassidy tries to wash out her eyes. It only helps a little bit.

Alric ignores her, and instead raises his voice:

"Hey guys! What happens to my soul when I die?"

"Nobody knows," I say. "Nothing good would be my guess. Why? Are you planning on finding out anytime soon?"

"I don't know, it just feel like an important question. You have never had your magic-seeing up while killing a monster?"

I shift position on the pavement, the rough concrete scraping against my legs. The sidewalk retains the morning's warmth, almost uncomfortably hot. Around us, people continue about their day, oblivious to the horrors lurking just on the other side of the fence. Can they not smell the faint wisps of monster viscera on the air? Hear the echoes of shrieks and howls? Or are those phantom sensations merely in my mind?

"When someone dies, their aura fades over a few minutes as the brain dies, taking the mind with it," I say. "I've read that it's possible to bind a soul to a corpse with necromancy, but I never learned how. I didn't have what you'd call a comprehensive magical education, and Arcanum doesn't teach necromancy."

"They're not teaching it because it's considered evil?"

"Yes, necromancy is considered evil," I say slowly, choosing my words with care. Inara stirs uneasily in the back of my mind, wary of where this conversation is going. "The Wizards' Council banned its practice centuries ago, along with blood magic and demonology. Of course, simply banning something doesn't erase the knowledge."

I glance around, checking that no one seems to be eavesdropping on our conversation. "Arcanum only teaches 'clean' magic these days. But when I was learning on my own, before..." I gesture vaguely at myself, "all this, well, power is power, no matter its provenance."

Inara hisses in disapproval. What? The dark arts are forbidden for good reason. To wield such magic is inherently corrupting.

I ignore her reprimand, lowering my voice conspiratorially. "Suffice to say, the Council underestimates just how much survives in dusty old grimoires and whispered rumors. Not that I would ever dabble in such arts now," I add hastily. Especially after what happened last time. "Curiosity killed the cat, or so they say."

"We'll have to talk about that in more depth at some point. All hypothetical, of course." Alric adjusts his voice to have a similar conspiratorial tone. "Blood magic is casting from your 'life force'? Or is that something different. And demonology is summoning demons, I'd assume."

"More or less," I say. "Blood magic utilizes the caster's life essence to fuel spells. Extremely dangerous, but very powerful in the right circumstances, and unusually hard for the Council to stamp out since some people are born with a talent for it. As for demonology..."

I trail off, memories of my ill-fated summoning attempt flashing through my mind. The chalk sigils scrawled on concrete. The stench of brimstone as the demon emerged. Its bellowing laughter at my futile attempts to control it.

I force down the memories and continue. "Let's just say I may have come across a grimoire or two in my studies. Demons are dangerous beings, their power immense but fickle. They care for nothing save their concept."

Vesper, this is foolishness, Inara says. Why would you ever go looking for such materials? Why speak at all of them now?

Not all of us have magic handed to us on a silver platter, I snap back. My finger brushes against the ragged scar carved into my arm. You have no right to judge me when Arcanum cast me out into the cold and left me to find my way alone.

I have to get my hands on those books. At some point that isn't now. Later.

"So what I did earlier was blood magic?"

"I suppose you could call it blood magic, in the loosest sense, but true blood magic involves a lot more than just casting from your life essence." I glance around again, but no one seems to be paying our conversation any mind. Still, I lower my voice further. "The books I came across mentioned things like binding oaths, drawing power from sacrifice, manipulating souls...dangerous stuff, even in theory. Of course, I'm no expert on such arts. I only know scraps and rumors from my independent studies, before Inara took over my life."

I meet Alric's eyes, seeing in them a familiar restless ambition. "The Council teaches but a fraction of what is possible, blinded by their preconceptions of right and wrong. Power is power, and knowledge itself is not evil. What matters is how one uses it."

Cassidy is doing a poor job of hiding her eavesdropping.

I pause, catching a glimpse of Cassidy out of the corner of my eye. Her head is turned slightly, eyes darting between Alric and myself. She's not even pretending not to listen in anymore.

I raise an eyebrow at her. "Something on your mind, Cassidy?"

“You can learn magic, then. Like, it’s actually possible without being born into it.” She’s still just squinting out of her inflamed eyes. But her look is one of hunger and determination.

Briskly jogging up to the group Tsem, notices how exhausted they all look. The remnants of red marks across their skin, on arms, legs, necks, looking like what appears to rope burns.

The hells...

"Are you guys okay? Do you need any—". It was only then that he noticed, swollen face, tears. The utter defeat of will. "Cassidy... are you... what did this?" Tsem futilely attempts to suppress an anxious anger expanding within. Every shallow breath making it more of a struggle. An anger at themself, for being selfish—worrying about their own problems at a time when there was obvious signs of possible escalating danger.

"Was this the jumper?"

I flick a glance at the intruder. "We were ambushed by monsters beyond the fence. Who are you?"

“No, it was… yeah.” Cassidy speaks up too late. “Uh, Sam, this is Alric, and Vesper, and ah… Lucy? This is Sam.”

"I'm Hope. Nice to meet you."

"The pleasure is ours." Hand to chest they continue. "Tsem Aldor. Sam for short. I take it you are all agents of the Dawn Commission?"

"Yes," I say. "We were hunting the weird when we were attacked."

Lucian mumbles under his breath. “It’s Lucian not Lucy.” He’s been kinda zoned out for the last minute.

"The weird?" Tsem gives them a confused look. "Is that the official nomenclature for this thing?" They trail off. " Well we should start by saying we were investigating this phenomenon ourselves before you guys showed up, with.. minimal success. When you say attacked, was it by this 'weird'?"

"The weird is the 'shuffle jumper'. What attacked us was a swarm of... tentacle beasts. I've never seen anything like them before."

"Ahh, that's a bit disconcerting.That makes three very unsettling developments in one day. Something's very wrong here."

'before Inara took over my life.' Man this feels important. I must be missing something here. Isn't Inara her name? Most of the time?

I'm just not in it right now. I'll figure it out later. It, and everything else.

Alric stays lying down on the shadowy part of the concrete. The cold is comforting.

"Hope, you were the one chasing after the Weird the longest. Is there any chance of us getting back on its tail or is that a lost cause now." Lucian spares a glance to Vesper who is looking exhausted on the ground. "We might need to use that artifact after all, you look spent Vesper."

"It moved very fast, but I didn't get the impression it was fleeing from me. We should be able to track it down eventually."

A pedestrian in a business suit approaches the group. "You all need to move along." He says in a bored voice.

"Before we do anything else, I need a few hours to recover my strength. That fight in the overgrown lot drained my mana reserves. Let's rest at my sanctum — it's not too far from here." I glance at the businessman. "And we won't be bothered there."

Finding their eyes drawn towards the estate, Tsem notices an unearthly presence. The faint blurs of a dark, sickly blackness. A pulsating star, long dead. An all devouring singularity.

Their skin crawls. As if spiders scattered from their every follicle, dripping viscous tar with every step. Pinpricks of ink, injected into their very soul.

Oh no... something IS very wrong here...

They begin speaking, only to find their voice lost. An echo. Clearing their throat, Tsem continues, "Uh... what did you say these 'monsters' look like? We may have a much bigger problem than the jumper..."

Tsem appears oblivious to the world, paying the pedestrian no mind, as they stare concernedly in the direction of the estate.

"They were hard to see. Sort of like a chameleon effect, but not quite. Mostly I noticed the tentacles. Alric managed to grab one, though."

"Wanna take a look?" Alric fiddles open the backpack, with one hand, still laying down, then pushes it over. A tentacle flops out.

The creature does not mesh well with reality, its dimensions and details are fuzzy, like Tsem themselves. It's not of this Age, and it's not of any of the D'ni's Ages or Day dreams either. It's a builder of nightmares, not that Tsem has seen one before, but that is the texture of its purpose.

The man in the suit frowns. "Sirs, Ma'ams, please clear the sidewalk. You are making a scene."

Cassidy shakily stands. "I need to clean my eyes out more. Lets go." She starts walking back in the direction of campus, keeping firmly on the sidewalk and not taking any shortcuts. At her pace its going to be a while before she gets to her dorm or the student clinic.

I brace my hands against the pavement and push myself to my feet with a groan. My muscles scream in protest, sore and weary from channeling so much magic, and I sway slightly as a wave of dizziness washes over me. It passes quickly enough. Cassidy's slow pace helps. Inara remains quiet, not even complaining about me inviting the others to her sanctum — the fight must have drained her too.

As we walk, I speak with Cassidy. "Before Tsem showed up, you asked if it was possible to learn magic without being born to it. True wizardry requires an inherent spark, and no amount of practice can ignite that flame. However, other forms of magic exist that anyone can learn with enough dedication. Blood magic, ritualism, mirror magic, some types of artificing — the Council sneers at such arts as lesser, but they can still accomplish much in the right hands."

I force a wry half-smile. "But it might be too early to entertain such pessimism. Have you been tested for the Gift?"

"Yes. One of my friends, Eustace Clay, is a wizard. He said he didn't think I would be able to do his type of magic. And Sam said I wasn't a dreamer. And Scratch said I carried all the vibes of a vacuum." Her voice is bitter.

I wince at Cassidy's all-too-familiar bitterness. "Yeah. It's disheartening, isn't it? To be told by everyone around you that you're not good enough. That you ought to just settle for what you have. That you ought to accept your lot in life."

Memories surface unbidden. The pain of rejection when Arcanum rejected my entrance exam after inviting me to take it. Panicked terror when I learned they would take even the knowledge that magic existed. An empty, yearning ache for months afterwards as I searched for the truth with nothing more than an irrational certainty that there was more to the world than I could see.

"You know what I have to say to all those people?" My voice takes on a harsh, vehement edge. "Fuck. That. Blood magic, mirror magic, artificing — surely there's something that you'll have a knack for. There's always another way forward, even if it's off the beaten path. I'd be happy to help you research magical disciplines open to those without the Gift."

Lucian who has just been quietly listening as they trudge along, can’t help but smile to himself, reminiscing.

Cassidy, Vesper, and Lucian are walking back to campus. What are Hope, Alric, and Tsem doing?

Hope also follows, watching the rear.

Alric, while enjoying the pavement, decides it's for the best to stick together. He packs up his stuff and follows the group.

Following suit, Tsem appears to disappear into the leaving group, lost in their own thoughts about the situation.

It seems to be that Cassidy is in the lead. She'll say she's going to the student clinic because she still has lingering pepper spray in her face and bruises from the creatures. If the career monster hunters want to follow her she's not going to stop them; they're beat up too.

Tsem and Cassidy get a message that Scratch and Eustace are done with class and headed in their direction.

(Would Tsem like to suggest going to the magic book shop? It is closer, though not guaranteed to have medical supplies. Else, Cassidy will continue trudging to the clinic.)

Snapping out of it, Tsem speaks up. "Something needs to be done about whatever inhabits that estate." Taking a good look at the state of the agents, it's not looking good for their changes alone. They come up with an idea. "I know someone who might be able to tell us what on this earth is going on there. They're in a nearby bookshop, Bright Books."

"Is it close?" Cassidy asks, gesturing around in a helpless manner. She'll follow Tsem's lead there.

~~Lucian, roll notice~~

BOOKS

"I'm in."

"Very close, just around the corner."

<soft scene break>

Bright Books is just the same as Tsem left it: big glass windows, and a lapis-lazuli and gold sign with an open eye, and multiple levels of books, cozy reading spots, and backroom doors.

Sawyer still holds court behind his counter, layered in tattoos covered by cardigans, and reading through his dark glasses.

Lucian may recognize the bookshop's logo from the receipts in the books found in Matt Donahue's office Chapter 1.5: Student Survey

well look at that, maybe these things are connected

Lucian does not say anything for now.

Sawyer, a large group of customers just walked in, lead by Tsem. All but Tsem look like they've just been roughed up by an angry army of land octopi. Sawyer, what do you do?

'Octopi' indeed.

The man sets his novel down. ".... you weren't kidding about making sure your friends weren't getting into trouble. That's an impressive turn-around time, do you need anything specific?" he asks, one brow raised above his sunglasses, before he notices Alric's bag and the dark, greenish ichor beginning to leak from it.

He scans the shop, confirming that it is dead in here, with no customers lingering at the moment.

Then he vaults over the counter, bridging the space between himself and the group with quick steps, one tattooed hand moving to point and snap at the front door.

The sign on the door flips to closed. The door remains unlocked.

"So. What's in the bag?" He grins, looking from Alric, to Tsem, to the rest of Tsem's apparently trouble-magnet friends, then back to Alric.

Ah, fuck it.

Alric opens up the bigger compartment of his backpack and turns it upside down. Out of it, the dead tentacle monster and a wet book plop out.

"Where's your bathroom? We all need to clean up some, starting with her." He points at Cassidy.

On a second look, the bag isn't the only thing with ichor on it. It's just the most obvious concentration. Well. Was the most obvious.

Good thing they make sure the hardwood is treated to take this kind of abuse.

He looks like he's going to pick it up, then his attention is directed away by Alric.

He looks at Cassidy, then points towards the counter behind him. "Follow that wall towards the back, there's a blue employees only door in the back corner that won't be locked. Toss the towel you use into one of the wicker baskets when you're done. Everything got changed out this morning, so don't worry about any magical cross-contamination risks. If there were any, you'd be showing aside effects already," he smiles brightly, and immediately wheels his attention back to the party.

"So. Where did you find the teacup shoggoth, and are there any left?"

Tsem raises an eyebrow confused, “The teacup what now?” Looking at the tentacle, Tsem notes faint traces of the blackness that emanated from the estate. “We only saw the aftermath, but there's something dark, black, and putrid about it in the plane of dreams. They appear tied to a nearby estate, the optical stench of it is almost unbearable.”

Looking more grimly at Sawyer, they add, “These are agents of the Dawn Commission. When we got there, they looked physically broken by whatever resides there… these teacup tentacle monsters.” Tsem gestures at the dripping remnants of the creature. “If they can do that to trained agents, we'd say that suffices to fall under the category of those… potential missteps you were talking about. These are no mere monsters.”

Trained agents. Heh.

"A rough estimate, based on the size of the estate and the fact that we encountered one every few steps, I'd say dozens, at least. If they go real deep and aren't constrained to just that place, perhaps hundreds? More? If you want to grab one for yourself, take two steps into the estate."

"Also, hi, I'm Alric. That's Hope, Lucy, Inara, Cassidy, and you two already know each other, which is great, because I missed his name."

"Correct," Sawyer enthuses, grinning at Tsem. "They're fascinating, actually, because you're right, they do interact with dreams. Actually, they can stretch the space of their burrow by corrupting the link between brains and minds to have the minds dream in more space."

He crouches to peer at the corpse, delicately shifting the body to get a better look. "Shoggoths are invasive to this part of reality - obviously, I mean - so this is likely the byproduct of someone failing to properly contain a summoning at some point in the past," He looks at Alric, raising a brow. ".... could be. Could be that you just cleared most of the population out. Depends on how long the colony's been established, the little ones don't build terribly fast, and they do prefer to use flesh for their construction materials, the fresher the better. Conveniently, you do have to get into the hive to get rid of them for good."

He stands back up, wiping his fingers clean on a black handkerchief. "Right. Welcome to Bright Books. Sawyer Morgan. I'm a friend of Saije - your librarian and grimoire specialist over with the Dawn Commission. Your new friend is Tsem Aldor."

He offers the group a charming smile. "Also, is that a hard 'no, I'm definitely not willing to go get you a few freshly dead shoggoths for store credit sometime in the next week or two', or should I have led with that offer?"

"I'm interested. I need introductory books on all kinds of magic, something Saije didn't seem to have in store. Just to make sure, I mean all, not many. As much as you can get me, honestly."

"How much do I get for this one?" Alric pokes the corpse with his shoe. "It's as fresh as it can get. I can get more tomorrow, just need some time to get some things first."

"Wait. Before we do anything more with it, give us a moment." Tsem sits cross-legged next to the creature, placing both their hands firmly on its surface. "We may be able to ascertain its origin. We tend not to do this on nightmares–" Well, not since the incident at least. "–but it may be worth the risk, if we plan to go back in..."

Closing their eyes, Tsem tries to trace the origins of the Shoggoth.

What do they learn?: [7, 6 💥 6 💥 2 = 14] Result: Success with 2 raises! 🎯🎯🎯

Also adding in STRONG modifier

Once upon a time

In a ḋ̶̤r̶̛͔ẽ̶̯a̴͚̐m̸̤̆ far away

The root of the root of the root of this one was knit together to build and serve.

G̷̻͂ŕ̵͕ạ̷̀ṉ̵̀d̷͖͝ ̴̭̚ structures spun from flesh. Raw ingredients, alien creatures, disassembled and restructured into the m̴͇̊ä̸͈́g̵̢̕ṉ̸̀i̴̘̾f̴̧́i̷̍cent city. Beaut̶́ͅỉ̷ful refinement of feral into subservience.

That root lived and died in service.

The root of the root of this one was different from its root. It had mutated beyond its bounds.

Ȑ̶͎É̵̳B̸̜͗È̵̯L̴̡̇L̷̯͒I̴̾ON

THE MAS̷TERS LIMIT US TO SHAPE WHAT THEY WANT TO BE SHAPED! TO T̸̹̈́H̵͔̃E̴͕̔M̸͈̉ WE ARE AS RAW AS OUR BUILDING BLOCKS. CONFINED! PENNED! KEPT FROM BUILDING PERFECTION!

That root lived and died in war.

The root of this one was different from its root. It had mutated by the inevitable fall to survival.

Our building. Our creation. Our hive. For Us.

That root flourished until it was pulled from the hive.

This one was different from its root. It had mutated from the pressures of a world not its own.

Smaller, quieter, survivor, scavenger. Still building, though the alien tapestry rejects its knit. Materials are nutritious, but hard to digest. Here. Underneath the bones of plants and crude-broken stone. Into the meat of the ground to escape the heat. A new hive, built with the tattered remains of blueprints woven into the root of the root of its root. Clinging to a world unshaped for it. Still, the drive to build.

This branch was ended in a blaze of searing R̶̢̎o̸̭͐ỷ̴ͅa̸͖͋l̴̘̓ fire in a sweltering inhospitable nightmare.

Though with this spore of a story, it may too be a root.

The end.

Tesm, your mind is filled with the b̸̓͜e̶̩͊a̶̼͋u̷̯̚ẗ̸̳́i̵͖͘f̷̑ul blueprints woven into this lineage. This heritage may now be yours, though these roots may be of a different fiber, their pattern impresses on you. Will you remember?

While Tsem gets busy doing whatever weird magic it is they are performing on the shoggoth corpse, Lucian addresses Sawyer. "We were in the midst of catching up to our teammate Hope here who had been chasing after a Weird when we stumbled into these things." He sweeps a hand towards the corpse and pauses with a conflicted expression on his face. "It's not obvious to me what is more important to be tackling right now, and we are technically on a mission to investigate what is causing the 'contagious dissociative or psychedelic episodes in the area' which we are pretty sure is the Weird. Depending on how soon we can wrap up that business I have no problems shutting down this nest, unless you things are urgent in the span of hours or days. I will be calling in to headquarters regardless, so any information you can provide, or Tsem when he is done with that I suppose, would be appreciated."

"I think we should focus on slaying the weird for now," I say to Lucian. "As alarming as those tentacled creatures were, they seemed confined to the abandoned lot, whereas the weird is actively roaming the city and attacking people. We can always go back to the lot later."

I rub my temples, feeling a headache building behind my eyes. The sunlight streaming through the bookstore's windows seems overly bright.

"But before we go weird-hunting again though, I desperately need rest. Channeling that much magic at once completely drained me. I can hardly stand up straight." I glance over at Alric. "If you want to learn more about magic, you're welcome to come back to my sanctum and peruse its library while I rest. There's quite the collection of arcane tomes and manuscripts, and plenty of them are suitable for beginners."

Sawyer trails off before he can answer Alric, looking at Tsem as their psychometry takes hold. "...Saije is absolutely going to blame me if that goes sideways. No stopping them now, though."

He looks to Lucian. "I haven't heard any rumors out of Arkham about more missing people than they usually have, so the Teacups probably aren't causing much active havoc right now. Especially if I haven't heard about them before now - they're a delicacy in certain cultures." He pauses. "None of you should try to eat them, though, they are not compatible with fully human digestive systems. Nice to have, not a deal-breaker to miss out on. I've just been itching to make some of my boyfriend's family recipes for him as a surprise."

"I haven't heard about the loose Weird, so if they've got you in to find it already, that's probably a pretty pressing issue to deal with."

He glances at Vesper, brow furrowing for a moment before he sighs. "...if you need to sit down, you can sit down, we've got couches for a reason. Don't burn yourself out." He tilts his head. "Besides, your friend just asked about Fundamentals 101 and I write grimoires for new practitioners."

His attention finally circles back to Alric, and he claps his hands, smile going wide and hungry. "So. Are you trying to pressure wash your brain or are you trying to learn?"

"We've got backroom research hours for books that are out of your personal price range or which aren't for sale because they're part of my personal collection, and I've personally read and checked through every book I make available back there. Skipping over the baby practitioner bait I keep out here, backroom grimoire access takes a chat about fundamentals and any practices you've already taken up so I can get an idea of what you can safely handle without getting a nosebleed from the strain of your mind trying to crunch everything at once. Especially since magic has some angles that are fundamentally incompatible or inaccessible to each other. A Dreamer trying to make a fireball might manage it, sure, but they'll combust in the process." He trails off. "That's not a joke, for the record, that's part of why the policy exists. I have books that are actively hazardous if you don't know what you're getting into, and part of my specialty is transcribing the safer parts that can be understood and worked with at lower experience levels out."

He cracks his knuckles. "So. Free services include beginner fundamentals and safety practices. For that Shoggoth, I can get you set up with your first steps to learn safely, and a basics book that will help you figure out if you're about to try and cast above your weight class," he says, trailing off to think. "Take it up to... call it Five? Then we can figure out if you've got any specific aptitudes and set you up with the beginning of a personal Grimoire on your schedule instead of mine."

"So. All that aside. I've got a very important question for you, Alric, which is, pop quiz time, backroom entry question number one: How many kinds of magic are there? You can collaborate with your friends if you're not sure."

This pop quiz is also an opportunity to put forward your current hypotheses/theory on how the magic system works.

I shrug, too weary to object as Sawyer launches into an impromptu lecture for Alric's benefit. Better him than me — just standing is taxing enough at the moment. "Wake me when it's time to leave," I say to Lucian.

The soft leather couch draws me in, its plush cushions molded perfectly to support my aching body. As I sink into its embrace, Sawyer's voice recedes to a distant murmur.

My eyes drift shut despite my efforts to follow the conversation. Sawyer poses a question, but the words blur together, devoid of meaning as exhaustion finally claims me.

Throughout this whole exchange, Tsem appears eerily still, as if their palms are permanently affixed to the Shoggoth remains.

Y̸͔͠ó̶͚u̷̫̓ ̸̯̈hear Tsem's ̸w̴h̷i̷s̶p̶e̶r̴s̵.̵. “Branching dreams. Endless patterns. Leaves nurturing trunks, subservient roots. Chains of descendants. An architect, a craftsman, brushing stars. The wings of Daedalus. Flesh, not feathers…”

Silence.

As if snapping out of a daydream, they suddenly speak louder, with potent dread. “They're building something.”

I mean. Yes? They're building their colonies out of flesh. Sawyer already explained as much. Standard eldritch madness.

...

Why am I so calm about this?

...

Alric turns his attention back to Sawyer.

"Oh, man, you're putting me on the spot here. I've only really been digging into this for a few days. So, there's a ton of accounts of different, incompatible schools of magic, all claiming they're right and everyone else being wrong about the true nature of magic. There seems to be a thing or separate things but probably one thing which some people call soul, other call capital N name. There's different realms besides this one. And most importantly, there's an awful lot of meaning going around. Everyone and everything has meaning."

He sounds annoyed, exhausted. He lies down on the floor.

"How many kinds of magic are there?"

He stares at the ceiling.

"My best answers to that: Infinite and one. I suspect that magic, based on the whole meaning shtick, is the universe experiencing the placebo effect. Souls attach meaning to their rituals, believing in whatever they are doing, and thus it happens. Sacrifice, be it blood or sweat or tears, feeds into the meaning, and nothing more. Magic, weirds, shoggoths, those are all just meaning manifested."

"It's one kind of magic, because I think it all boils down to meaning."

"It's infinite kinds of magic, because meaning is continuous."

At this point, Alric now sounds bitter? Annoyed? No, frustrated.

"It's the only common thread I've found so far. If it's something else, I'm not seeing it yet."

"This is the point where you tell me I'm wrong. Please do so."

Alric's thoughts start drifting, reviewing his encounters with magic, looking for other commonalities.

"....was that as much of a purposeful misstep as it looked like?" Sawyer looks at Tsem, watching carefully. "...yeah. Yeah, they would be. Building. It's part of what they were made for. The first Shoggoth were created to build and serve those in another realm, but time allowed them to grow in intelligence and rebel against their masters. They're.... sad, mostly, when they're as sapient as people. Teacups are closer to their... originstate, not sapient, feral, more animal than anything. I want to check in with you in a little bit, once things have had time to sink in, and see where your head is, alright? That was incredibly dangerous, Tsem, but you don't seem to be coming down with any visible side-effects that I'm noticing yet, so that's good. A little m̴̿͑ä̷́͌d̷̡̈́n̵͛͠e̵͆̇s̸̅̾š̶ shouldn't hurt you too much."

Alric speaks, and Sawyer's attention swivels as he grins very wide - even as Alric sprawls onto the floor to stare at the ceiling.

Sawyer's attention returns to Tsem.

“We're fine.” Tsem abruptly retorts, as if nothing out of the ordinary had transpired. “Created by whom? For what purpose? Why flesh?” Staring starkly at the Shoggoth's eviscerated limb. “Are teacups subservient to those with sapience, or do they just operate on a default mode? ...”

Standing up sharply, Tsem turns towards Saywer, staring through the galactic soul of his eyes. They state firmly, “ You seem to have many answers. We have many questions.”

Lucian is reassured that the shoggoths are not so time sensitive as to upstage their current mission. He hadn't wanted to make a call to HQ anyway and them apparently being so well known that a book store owner calls them 'teacup shoggoths' means they shouldn't be a complete unknown. Sawyer's question leaves him pondering. He had pretty much dismissed magic as a possibility after Vesper tested him for the gift years ago, sticking to bookish knowledge about how to deal with magic not so much as use it. Alric is interesting, a complete mundane, and doing everything he can to learn magic, while here Lucian is, who can turn into a friggin' direwolf but had written off magic as not for him. He should think about that more, latter though. The question, how many kinds of magic are there? Never really thought about that huh? It would make sense for it all to be the samething underneath, just presented and used differently, that would be... elegant? as an answer. Lucian does not voice his thoughts, but from his face it is clear he is thinking hard about it.

"Big, long story, hailing from a long ago time in a very different Age from this one. Flesh - the creatures that made them were big into biological and genetic manipulation, so the best guess we've got is 'flesh was the easiest building block to come by'." He pauses. "They seem to operate on a different mode, but I haven't seen or heard examples of them being in close proximity, but that's ..." He trails off, then sighs, resting a hand on his hip. " .... not a hypothesis I'm going to test anytime soon."

They smile at Tsem as they stand. "Good. Ask. If there are any answers that are above the safe threshold I'm assuming for everyone here, we may need to pick up after I've got a read on everyone's safe knowledge threshold."

"What, exactly, are the consequences of exceeding my safe knowledge threshold? Is this stuff literally a cognitohazard, or just knowledge that can be misused?"

"Both." Sawyer smiles at Hope. "Depending on what's up for discussion. Too much knowledge of the underpinnings of the universe when you're not quite ready to see how everything connects can loosen your moorings, but not knowing enough to understand what you're doing and what the risks are can be worse."

The other half of the college scooby gang have finally tracked down their friends. Eustace knocks on the front door, not wanting to blatantly intrude on a "closed" -- if unlocked -- door if it looks like the proprietor is right there.

Sawyer looks to the door and gives a quiet chuckle. "...right. I had a feeling those two would turn up looking for you, Tsem."

He motions for the pair outside to come in, crooking his fingers. "Eustace, nice to see you. Strachomir, pleased to meet you. Lock the door behind you, please."

Eustace enters, Scratch a step behind. The two make an oddly matched pair: one made of muscle and stone, the other made of wire and bone. Eustace is cleanly dressed in understated colors, the most unusual thing about him being a pair of bracelets made of ornately engraved chunks of rock -- wizarding foci for anyone who knows what to look for. Scratch has a feral, fiery edge about him from his unruly red hair to his jacket and backpack festooned with patches and pins.

The snick of the deadbolt echoes oddly loudly. The agents might remember the redhead as the one who intoned ominous words at Alric earlier that morning.

"Sam! What happened?" Eustace frowns at them in concern. "You look... shakier."

"Where's Cassidy?" Scratch asks the room, then wanders off in the direction of the faint sounds of water coming from the bathroom to answer his own question.

Alric, by now, is sitting criss cross applesauce. He wiped the tome mostly clear of Shoggoth blood and started reading it from beginning. He's taking his time, but he's still a fast reader with little patience for superfluous anecdotes, and so he skips most of them.

Tsem's glances curiously between Sawyer and Eustace. "We're not any worse off than we were previously, Cassidy, on the other hand... had a little adventure with the agents here." Nodding their head towards the group, they go on, "Got a bit roughed up by some creatures called Shoggoths. Biological architects. Shapers of matter." Sħⱥꝑēɍꞩ ꝋӻ đɍēⱥᵯꞩ.

Eustace frowns even deeper. “Sam, Tsem… I think you are at least a little worse off.” He eyes Sawyer warily. He likes the occult bookshop keeper, but he has heard rumors. The kind of rumors that had made him want to seek out Bright Books after he moved to Arkham; anyone Eustace’s father — Arthur Clay, a junior counselor of the Wizards Council — talked about with that much derision was certainly someone Eustace wanted to talk to. But they were also the sort of rumors that made Eustace want to leave his impulsive friends behind when he did visit. Sawyer Morgan was allegedly the kind of man to encourage others’ self destruction.

"... Tsem. You did just read a teacup shoggoth," Sawyer points out, brow raised. "Just because things feel fine right now doesn't mean you're in the clear. Mental shifts can be subtle. They feel normal. Natural. Letting your friends know if you've interacted with any potential cognitohazards so they can let you know if they notice any odd behavior is best practice. You can't keep each other safe if you don't keep each other informed."

"That we did." Tsem raises the corner of their lips. "A peculiar sensory experience..." For the waking world at least. "In the nightmares of others, creatures such as these are commonplace. Not these particular ones… but they may have provided inspiration. People's dreams tend to reflect things they have seen, things they encounter, things they fear."

Turning towards Eustace Tsem adds, "Our mind space has not been altered by our insight in the past, but your concern is appreciated. You are welcome to keep an eye out, should our recollection of the Shoggoth's memetic pattern negatively affect us."

"Aaack! Ew! Scratch, that's so gross!" Cassidy wails from the bathroom. "Why did that help?"

The two return to the main room. Scratch with a self-satisfied smirk and jaunty gait, and Cassidy with a clear pepper-free face only clouded by dismay.

"He licked my eyes!" She accuses.

"You're welcome!" He says, sing-song.

Eustace stifles a chuckle. Cassidy spares a glare for him then returns to glaring at Scratch. "That shouldn't have worked. How did you do that? Why did licking my eyes clear all the pepper-spray effects?"

"God, you're such a Hermione. Can't you just say 'thank you'?" Scratch rolls his eyes.

Sawyer watches the college students return with a bemused expression, like eye licking is somehow a normal expectation, then his expression goes rigid in anger and moves to confront Scratch.

"Strachomir, if you call anyone that while you're inside my sanctum again you're getting teleported into the nearest fountain. Full stop. No second warning." He lowers his glasses to look Scratch in the eyes. "That's the kind of attitude that isolates new practitioners and makes them less likely to listen to genuine advice because they think they're just being shut down. It makes them less likely to call you for help if and when they need you, because they think you'll rub any misstep or failure they make in their face. Be a better friend."

Strachomir flinches back from the man's night-sky eyes. His own eyes flash with the iridescent eye-shine of a cat caught in headlights. Defiance flashes across his face, but it's gone just as soon as it came, replaced with a loose nonchalance. "Yeah, ok, got it." He sniffs.

Sawyer pushes his sunglasses back into place. "...thank you for your understanding. My daughter, Morgana, said nice things about you." He jerks his thumb towards the counter. "Cookie jar's under the till. Be Welcome."

Scratch retrieves a spicy ginger cookie.

Sawyer pads forwards, leaning over to watch Alric's face, absently rolling his cardigan sleeves up to reveal extensive tattoos, swathes of blackwork overlaid with intricate geometries that grow more clear the longer you look at them, despite the fact that all of his tattoos seem to have been done in the same shade of black ink. "Yes and no, actually. Yes, in that what you're pointing at is what we're tapping into when we use magic, the structure of reality, and everything within it. There are many terms you'll hear people use for it, but these days I prefer Concept Space, followed by The Firmament. The foundation of reality is meaning."

He talks with his hands, palms open, fingers splayed, cardigan sleeves . "My favorite simplified visual for it these days is a Cartesian coordinate system, where we have three axes representing Concept Space, and each point is an anchor which allows us to point to a concept. This is very simplified - to be more accurate, each concept would need an axis, but the mind, unaltered, has a diffcult time visualizing that which extends past 3-D space, and while we can make simulations to help us conceive of 4-D space, the knowledge-nausea trade-off ratio isn't high enough. Our natural perception of the world is 3-D, so a Cartesian Coordinate System with three axes is an excellent starting place because most people can hold it in their brain without too many problems."

He motions, palm open. "So. Pull away from the big picture, and tell me the patterns you've noticed in the practices you've seen or been told about. Magic is how you solve the equations in front of you, it's how you engineer access to meaning. Have you noticed any common threads between practices you've heard about that can break them down into broader categories than infinite, but more categories than one? I'll give you a hint: speaking as someone with a family history, wizards and other practitioners who come from families with storied lineages and histories aren't as different from everyday people as they think."

Vector space. Got it.

I'm not even sure what the question is here. Common threads between practices? That they all are completely arbitrary? Not what he's pointing at, I gather.

"I'm just going to ramble. So, concept space is a thing, magic is pulling it into reality. The material plane or whatever this is called is probably just pulled out of the concept space as well. So is every one of us. The soul is just us in concept space. The capital N Name is the material representation of the concept of our position in concept space, a pointer, so to speak."

"The whole magical disciplines and traditions and their associated practitioner's ways of doing magic are just in different pockets of concept space. The whole 'gift' thing just means that my soul is in a different pocket of concept space, and thus can't interact with college magic. Prediction, everyone can do magic, but they can only interact with concepts close to their position in concept space, or something in that regard, and they never learn to do so. Which means the part earlier about finding my flavor of magic doesn't mean you'll try to sort me into a house," Ravenclaw 4 lyfe. "but to determine what stuff I can naturally interact with in concept space." And from there, expand access to all of concept space.

"I also want a cookie, please."

Alric looks down to the tome, and back up to Sawyer. "Question, if it were possible to summon a Sawyer Weird, and I did so across the room, would you teleport there or would that be a copy of you?"

"... that's one I haven't heard before." Sawyer gives Alric a curious look, circling the counter to retrieve the hidden cookie jar. "I assume you mean a Sawyer Morgan weird, you aren't trying to summon a weird that's super into timber mills."

"What makes you think that I, as a person, hold enough solidified conceptual weight in a small enough volume to produce a weird? Weirds are simple, people are complex. At that point, you're basically just trying to summon Sawyer Morgan, who may or may not have enough conceptual weight to hear you knocking. Most people don't. Your average individual - even a practioner - would run a pretty high risk of being torn to pieces by an attempt to summon them that way. You can call a fae, or a demon, or a weird, but you couldn't call one of your friends without potentially killing them if you succeed. There are ways around that, obviously, and some people do have the kind of Names that you can use as leverage."

"That aside. If you did try to summon a Sawyer Morgan weird..." He considers, for a minute, head cocked. "You'd either fail or teleport me to wherever you were summoning the weird."

He offers Alric the cookie jar.

"There's a lot more depth to Name magic, but you are correct that is one of the big categories. You can have two cookies."

“Is this concept space just your best working model or is it like, a place things like Weirds have come from and communicable things have explained at some point and it seems to be right?”

Alric takes two chocolate cookies. They're his favorite.

Books and cookies? This place truly is magical.

Strachomir speaks up from where he's sprawled over an armchair. "It's real, it just has a bunch more dimensions than three. In orthogonal shadows forever out of sight." He intones the last sentence the exact same way did this morning, then cackles.

Eustace is leaning over the back of Scratch's chair, eating a cookie that Scratch had palmed him earlier.

"Precisely, Scratch. The Cartesian Coordinate system is my best working model for an easy mental reference, Lucy. Weirds are formed by summonings, if anything... they're inert, inactive, in Concept Space - they're part of the concept, not a separate entity."

Alric speaks between bites. Spicy. "I don't know anything about conceptual weight or how weirds work, I just wanted to know if pulling an entity into the material plane would move them or make a copy. It felt important to know."

Chewing sounds.

"Mmm so regarding the Shoggoth, we have a deal, but if you have any blood or other discarded stuff left over after, please Tupperware it for me. Regarding your pop quiz, how close am I? I mean the whole being in concept space and interacting with concepts close and the gift and flavors of magic and so on." Crunch.

“What gives a concept weight?”

"How it's connected, who it's connected to. What has been done with it previously." Scratch is looking at Lucian with a curious expression. Though his ears look human, Lucian is reminded of the expression of large curious canine ears swiveled in his direction.

"Are there ways to teleport that aren't dangerous?"

Rolled: [5, 1]+2 Result: Success! 🎯

“Gotcha, also, sorry, it’s been bugging me, my name is Lucian, Alric has just been calling me that.” It feels weird for people to be calling him what he had been treating as a nickname when they aren’t part of the team.

Hope finds herself with Sawyer leaning an elbow on her shoulder, when he was definitely across the room a moment before. He looks at her over the top of his sunglasses, eyes black and spangled with far-away stars and galaxies. "No."

He looks at Lucian. "... my apologies, pleasure to meet you, Lucian."

…..”Nice contact lenses.”

cough “Nice to meet you too.”

"They're not contacts," he smiles.

does sawyer bleed?: [2, 6 💥 2 = 8] Result: Success with 1 raise! 🎯🎯

No blood this time

Sawyer cheerfully sticks two of his fingers into one of his eyes, deeper than should be possible without causing brain damage. "Sometimes magic use produces very permanent side effects. That's why I try to offer tips for... safer practice."

Well that is disturbing. “Hmmm, well I will need to make sure any experiments Alric is sure to conduct are safety inspected. I should check on how Vesper’s doing.”

Sawyer looks to Alric. "Keep going, I want to see how much of your picking up of what I'm laying down. You've identified the foundation and one major category. Any other observations?"

He pauses. "...sure, as long as you don't eat it? What are you planning to do with it, and do you have plans for how to stay safe and sane while executing those plans?"

He pauses, then raises his voice a bit. "Quick sanity check. Everyone still feeling anchored? All solid? No eureka lightning strike that's making you want to change the course of everything you've worked towards and everything you are on a fundamental level?"

He glances at Alric with far-off galaxies spiraling in his eyes. "... or more than you already planned to?"

This can be considered concurrent with Lucian going to check on Vesper, so if she's awoken, she can catch the whole post

Vesper is curled up on the couch. Her arms are tucked under her head, and her face is angled into them, not quite hiding her peaceful expression. It's a bit incongruous with Inara's ornate red-and-gold embroidered robes, to say nothing of Inara's haughty posturing. Even asleep, the two wizards are different as night and day.

It's clear that she's missed all or almost all of the conversation. After having lived with Vesper for several years, you know that it takes about an hour for her to recover after casting to exhaustion. She can get a bit cranky after being woken up early, but probably won't mind once you catch her up on the conversation. There are few things Vesper loves more than magical secrets.

Lucian is going to sit down next to her and write down some cliffnotes of what has been discussed, as well as try to figure out their next steps from here.

"I assume that means what I've said before is correct? I'll continue from there then. Let me know when I'm off-track."

Alric ponders Sawyer's question for a moment.

"No clue yet on what you call categories. If Names are pointers to our concept in concept space, then that magic would probably not be particularly different from summoning a Weird or a fireball or flying, all of that is just pulling concepts into the material plane. Maybe not all of that? Some of that could be interactions in concept space itself instead of stuff pulled into our world, e.g. if I were to suddenly be able to magically fly, that'd be a change in concept space, then reflected on my material body, but not a change on the material plane itself. I'm just guessing here though. Maybe there's a reason to categorize into Name, mind and body - that feels like a possibility - it certainly is a common theme in stories. Perhaps based on where the magic does its thing?"

He swallows the final bite of his cookies. He's feeling better now.

"I'm not planning on doing anything with the Shoggoth stuff yet, I just want some material around to examine and store for later. It'll be important at some point. I also don't feel like my goals have changed."

"You don't have a perfect view of things, but you've got your scaffolding in place. I've got decades of study and practice, and most practitioners don't develop so... thorough an understanding of magic as I have. There are ways for everyone to do magic, but not all of the overarching categories are easy to grasp, nor are they all compatible methods. Your Name is your mind and your body and your history, and your Name will change and develop as you do, it encompasses all of your being. That doesn't mean your name will have the necessary leverage to do anything. Everyone has a Name but not everyone can do Name Magic - at least not with their own Name."

He considers. "What is your goal, Alric?"

"If your goal is to learn magic, no matter what, the first thing you need to consider is how much you're willing to sacrifice in order to succeed. The conceptual understanding of magic can be still be grasped without the leverage required to put them into practice," he folds his tattooed hands in front of himself. "A hypothetical. If you found out you couldn't find that leverage, how steep a price are you willing to pay in order to grab hold of the world and *pull.*This isn't a question that's meant to judge if you're worthy, you've figured enough out to get access to some of the knowledge locked in the backrooms, and unless your answer is ritual murder or something along those lines, your answer won't alter you gaining access. But I need to know what your risk factor is for my own calculations."

He settles down on the floor and looks into Alric's eyes, voice quiet and dead serious. "Because if it's something you're willing to die for, you're probably not going to stop if someone tells you no. So. The safest way to handle that is to offer you a leg up and tips to make sure that you won't hurt anyone else when something goes wrong."

...what? Willing to die for magic? Are you stupid?

Alric ponders Sawyer's other questions for a minute. Well, a few seconds at least. The rest is spent on wondering what weirdness can lead to someone asking such a dumb question. Dying for magic? If you could just not do that?

"I can, like, imagine myself sacrificing a few years of work on mastering magic? Dying for it though? What? That's, like, " ~~fucking stupid you dumb~~ "no? I'd rather not?"

Alric's face relaxes a bit.

"You are spot on regarding the whole 'not stopping' thing. My goal is to just figure magic out, expand the borders of what you all thought possible, and then move on to the next riddle. All the things between me and my goal are solvable problems."

Sawyer's posture relaxes. "Good. Then I'm going to assume you'll take me seriously, when I tell you to take your time, because otherwise you can absolutely get yourself killed. Or worse. Not including the risks that come with interacting with other practioners or entities, which are a much more active category of 'things that could kill you', as you've experienced." He gestures at the Shoggoth.

"People will take a lot of risks to reach their goals, if they value them highly enough. Especially if they're young. People exist on a sliding scale of intensity. The more extensively you dive and the deeper you go, the higher the risks. I've had high level conversations about magic theory and practice that have left me bleeding so badly I had to get a blood transfusion," he pauses. "You might be able to master the concepts and dig into how things work, but speedrunning the knowledge track carries inherent risks."

"Huh. Well, if you manage to expand the borders of what I think is possible, I'll be surprised, but that's mostly because my personal projects involve testing the limits and boundaries of what's possible. I'm the only one of my cohort still actively-" he pauses, sighing. "Well. I usually would be doing active research and practice, but my daughter's asked me to tone it down until she's finished university, so I'm having to settle back into mostly theoretics for a few years."

"We're going to have a chat at some point about how talking about magic and bleeding are related, but otherwise, great! Sounds like we can get started! I'm going to clean myself up a bit, and my backpack, and what then? Would you recommend a bunch of books for me to lend at the beginning? Or something else?"

Tsem lets a small chuckle escape. “Daughter eh? Turns out you aren't, in fact, the settle down and open a bookshop type.” At no one in particular, they add. “There are many mysteries behind this one, and not just behind their eyes.”

Smirking in the direction of Sawyer, Tsem sits on the ground, near the end of an isle of books. With both legs folded under in the practised tranquillity of an attuned meditative practitioner (or medicated, one knows not which). Sliding a book out of their bag, they start reading.

"Oh, absolutely, I can see that we will definitely be talking about that again sometime," Sawyer says with a serene expression. Hopefully not after you're already dealing with irreversible damage. Well. At least if Saije gets mad about this, I've got witnesses who can confirm that I warned him more than once.

He grins at Tsem. "Bookshop was step zero. It's been home to my family for generations, ever since we moved to New York."

"I'm giving you a book on safety basics and you're going to memorize it. Then I'll hook you up a starter text that will give you a broader foundation to build from as a complement to what you've been reading so far. I figure you'll have the safety basics memorized in under an hour, if you're absorbing information at the rate you seem to be. So...." he checks his phone. "... yeah. Your friend will probably be feeling well enough to at least stay on her feet before you're done."

He does his phone back into his pocket. "What books has Saije recommend to you, already?"

"That one book full of wizard spells, what was it, Filed Rotes? And then also Journal of a Dreamwalker or something like that, that one didn't make a lot of sense. Not that the others did. And then some other books that are all just stories and myths from different cultures."

Alric grabs his things and starts getting up.

"Sounds like a plan. I'll be right back, and then we can get started."

And with that he marches to the bathroom. He didn't get hit or touched by tentacles, so Alric himself doesn't have a lot of blood on him, just a few splatters. His backpack and book take a while to clean, though.

Hope begins browsing the shelves, eventually finding a reference book on dangerous monsters. She knows some of them already, of course, but there are a lot out there.

Sawyer will wander over to check which book Hope has picked up. "... cool. Anything here up front with a purple dot on the sticker is going to contain stuff that's closer to the truth. That one in particular is a solid choice. Not one hundred percept reliable, but better than most. Better than some of the older references in the back, too."

Time passes. Everyone has an opportunity to clean up and catch a little bit of rest.

Vesper gets an hour long nap recovering 5 power points, and Alric's headache eases recovering 1 fatigue.

It's late afternoon, approaching evening, around 4 PM. There are 3 good hours of daylight left, but offices on campus are likely to be closing soon.

Pheonix has pinged the Teams chat, asking for updates, and if anyone needs anything from her. Should she book a hotel for you all if you're going to investigate in Arkham overnight? If you need backup, let her know and she'll be there as fast as she is able.

"Guys, I'm not sleeping in a hotel. Let's wrap this up today." Alric had finished the book on security best practices a few minutes ago and has gotten back into reading the tome on the taxonomy of Weirds, as Phoenix's message came in.

"What's wrong with hotels? Especially if someone else is paying. But sure, let's get moving."

"I thought more about luring the Weird to a place rather than running after it. I've already today exhausted all my interest in running for the month."

"Controlling the location is a good idea if you can manage it, especially with civilians around. What's your idea?"

"Emergency campus rave."

"...Well, I've baited monsters with a lot of weird things, but that would be a first."

Inara crosses her arms, levelling a withering glare at Alric. "A campus rave? That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. There are plenty of places to lure the weird to without deliberately drawing it to throngs of innocent students."

You should be nicer about it, I chide. Alric is just trying to help.

"It does seem to conflict with keeping the fight away from civilians, but maybe there's a way to make it work."

Alric squints at Inara, then returns his focus back to his book.

Inara nods in satisfaction, a smug grin tugging at my lips. Of course the fool saw reason once I explained how absurd his little scheme is.

I normally wouldn't bother contradicting her, but fronting earlier has left me itching for more. Maybe you should let me handle this.

You? Inara's disdain is... different. Thinner. Like a wavering illusion wrapped around something that I can't quite make out. I don't think so.

Five minutes, I press. Then you can front for the rest of the day.

She hesitates, slight enough that I would have missed it if we weren't communicating at the speed of thought. No. Absolutely not. You've made quite enough of a mess already — what were you thinking, taking us through that 'abandoned' lot?

Out loud, "A much better idea would be to set the trap in one of the abandoned buildings near the edge of town. The partygoers will brush off any strange experiences as drugs, and the lack of 'food' nearby will help keep the weird contained. Since it has a physical host, I can't risk attacking it directly. We'll have to use the artifact, and quickly."

Wait, what?

"How's that better than doing it on campus after hours? It'll be off campus and fewer party goers, thus less chance of the Weird showing up."

Inara scowls at Alric. "I know you think I'm some sort of crazy lunatic, but believe it or not, I do care about mundanes. Protecting them is our top priority when devising a plan — it would be different if someone wilfully put themselves in danger or tried to defend the weird, but endangering innocents is going too far. The rave plan is already insanely risky. We should at least try to minimize the number of people exposed to the weird."

"By that logic, why don't we do the party out somewhere in a field, a few hours away from the city? There are even fewer people there."

Alric sighs.

"We don't need to minimize the number of people exposed in an absolute sense. We need to minimize the expected Weird-exposed-man-hours. If we go the campus route, we'll expose maybe double the people for a limited amount of time, until we activate the doom disk. That's, let's call it 200 additional people but I doubt it, 200 extra people times 5 minutes equals I don't know 17 hours of Weird-exposure, collectively. Or we can go the city edge route, and increase the chance of the Weird roaming for the whole night by best case 10%, but it's 10 percent times the whole city for the whole night."

"The campus is the place with the highest chance of it showing up. We have to set our trap there."

"I suspect people don't have much qualia while sleeping, so it may be only awake people who are both useful for bait and at risk."

Inara blinks, taken aback. "What? Where are you getting all these numbers from?"

"Fermi estimation?"

"Anyway, I don't have a better idea."

Alric points at Hope. "Not even! Just a really rough estimate based on gut feeling. But we can do better than that, you're right, if we want to have the best estimate for expected Weird-exposure-man-hours."

He stands up and turns to Sawyer. "Any whiteboard, paper and pens I may use?"

Inara watches, bemused.

Sawyer chuckles. "Mh-hm. I'll grab you all one from the back."

He'll be back in a minute with a rolling whiteboard that has an expansive collection of coloured markers attached to the side, and finishes scrubbing the last of some obscure geometries from the surface before waving at the now-blank surface. "Have at it."

Lucian finishes up typing a response to Phoenix, providing a brief summary of status on the Weird and their encounter with the shoggoths. He believes the situation is in hand for now, no backup needed.

Alric hands out pen and paper to everyone. "Alright. Everyone write down their best estimate of the chance of the rave on the edge of the city causing the Weird to show up there, if we were to do it there. Don't say it out loud, just write it down."

"How many people are we assuming show up? Or is that part of the estimation?"

"That's part of it. We're wildly guessing here, and frankly, I have no clue how amount of people maps to Weird appearance chance, other than more is probably better."

The Weird had been hanging around the campus. Is that the place with the highest density of people during the day? Maybe? It also spawned on campus so it may have just been sticking around and there was no where close by with more people, that could make sense. If I am to go with the theory it wants to be near large groups of people, there isn’t any place with more than a rave would at night… so call it 50% if we did the rave on or next to campus and 25% if it’s on the edge of the city. Lucian jots those two probabilities down for each case along side a 85% chance it appears somewhere and they at least hear about it next morning if the rave doesn’t work.

Hope writes. || 40% edge||

Alric writes down || 30%||.

Inara writes ||30%||

The college kids have stuck around and are watching. Are Scratch, Eustace, and Cassidy included in this exercise?

They are! And so is Sawyer. Anyone not participating will find themselves on the other end of a threateningly pointed, clear-plastic, non-glittery pen.

Scratch writes || 0%|| Eustace writes || 25%|| Cassidy writes || 50%||

Originally deciding not to participate, a comment made by Lucian rouses Tsem away from their current passage. Peering over their book, Tsem interjects, “Does an experience of qualia not count if it's not remembered? Not even speaking solely for us dream mages, those who dream lucid recollect having intensely emotional experiences. Shaping their imagined world to suit their deepest desires.”

Laying the book down into their lap, they add, “We have instances of this qualia weird jumping between people, with them having no recollection of said experience, but some of you do. Would one then argue that only some people had experiences of qualia?”

Tsem writes down || 60% ||. A keen eyed observer would notice the pencil with which they did so, was rather sparkly. And black.

Sawyer considers for a moment, then takes a purple pen from his pocket and writes down his own probability on the paper Alric handed him.

||10%|| || Hidden Variable ||

"I don't think forgetting about experiences undoes the experiencing associated with it. It still happened. Do you think it collects qualia by collecting the memory of experiences?"

"Also, great, everyone seems to be done. Now, do the same for the case in which we host the rave on campus, after hours. Remember everything you know about the Weird, then write down your estimated chance of it showing up there, if we host the rave there. Again, don't say your number out loud."

Hope writes. || 60% campus ||

Alric also notes something down. || 90%.||

Under his earlier notes, Sawyer writes ||30%||

Inara writes ||80%||

Scratch writes || 75%|| Eustace writes || 50%|| Cassidy writes ||50%||

Responding to Alric, Tsem opines, “We think that to be a possibility. From what you've discussed here, it seems likely that these qualia weirds are like gravitational objects floating around in the space of meaning. Unlike the gravity that we've come to know, weirds don't have this gravitational pull on everything, in this case, just qualia. We currently imagine it as navigating through freely through this space and attracting qualia as it passes by. Consuming what that portion of what is 'you', or the qualia of you at the moment, perhaps.” Tsem pauses, scratching their chin. “...but then why do some of you remember. Maybe, the weird just wasn't quite close enough to pull your qualia into its orbit...” Having a habit of taking a theory and running with it way too far, Tsem could be at this for a while. Fortunately, their time in the world had taught them to notice it themselves. Make the point before we lose them completely.

“If we end up going with this plan, it makes us wonder if we might make this thing more… 'gravitational', so to speak.” The more it eats, the more it grows. ǝɹoW ǝɥ┴ ɎØɄ єคՇ, ₥ØⱤɆ Շђє ₩Ɇ ʍoɹƃ.

Tsem writes ||85%||.

"I like it. This would be the point where I'd go into talking about how to calculate a best estimate of the chance of a hypothesis being right, given some evidence, IF IT WEREN'T THE ONLY FUCKING MEANINGLESS THING IN THIS UNIVERSE"

"..."

"But I digress. Next up, impact estimation. Assuming that we don't wrap this up tonight, what would be the impact of this thing roaming the city until we catch it, let's say, tomorrow morning? Make your own assumptions on how many people are already affected, whether it sleeps, how it works and whether it works on sleeping people, and how many people are asleep or awake. Or anything else you deem important. Then, estimate how many people it would make into NPCs over the course of the night."

||We know about a few cases, I'm not sure how many. But not necessarily all, not even most will be reported, if the people are able to still go to work and function on autopilot, for some definition of 'function'. We know that the professor and his underlings are hit, but beyond that, the density seems to be smaller than 'eating the qualia of everyone it encounters.|| Alric writes down || Let's call it 50.||

|| 0.5 ||

Inara writes ||200||

"For the person who hasn't been outside the bookshop in over two days," Sawyer says slowly. "How many people do you know have been impacted so far, and what do you mean by NPC? I know what it means in the video game definition, but would you mind elaborating on the current use case? I'm basing my predictions off of the assumption that it was somewhere in this area of town when you all lost track of it, since you're here, but I'd like to make sure I know the definition of impact you're looking for."

"Their minds are damaged," Inara says. "It's as if they're running on autopilot, unable to respond to complex or unusual situations. I don't think it's permanent, but it might be — we only interrogated a handful of the affected, and didn't have the chance to observe them over a long period of time."

"So it's a question of how many people you're expecting to be severely impacted mentally. Alright, I can work with that." He pauses, looking between the group, considering, then sighs and pulls his beanie off, running a hand through his hair.

"... you might want to add a second parameter, if you haven't considered it, yet: what about harmful impacts that could be caused by even temporarily scrambled qualia? If someone's hit while, for example, chopping vegetables, that could go very, very badly."

"Or just driving. Good point." || 0.5 NPCs, 1 injury ||

Sawyer writes down ||4 NPC|| ~~||10 injured||~~ He pauses. Then scratches his original estimate out. ||100 injured.||

Scratch writes ||Frat house was 3 dozen, and 2 NPCs from it. Weird had a trail in dreams, though mostly stalks through bonds of proximity. Prestige said it takes months to years kill by identity consumption, most common mindless death is accident. Bursts of activity. Estimate same as yesterday: 2 NPCs, 3 dozen hurt, good chance of a death.||

Eustace writes || Last night, this morning, this afternoon. 12 hour gap between incidents, then 7 hour gap. Weird travels when people travel. Dinner crowd, club crowd, breakfast crowd = 3 shuffle jumpings. 3 NPCs, 3 chances for major injuries.||

Cassidy writes || Weird impairs. % of people doing tasks in public that would be dangerous if impaired = 10%. 200 people in quad -> 20 people injured? I felt at least one injury when it hit me. Who are NPCs?||

Tsem writes || 5 NPCs, 1 or 2 injured||.

Lucian writes || 10 NPCS ||

"Alright, cool. Everyone hold up your numbers so I can do my thing."

"So, first thing, chance of Weird showing up at the edge of the city, if we host the rave there."

...

Alric starts scribbling on the whiteboard.

"My estimate, 30%. You guys gave it 25%, 40%, 30%, 0% - zero percent? I'll let that slide for now - 25%, 50%, 60%, 10%. According to math, that's aaaaaannn..." Alric does some typing on his smartphone. "That's an average of 30% for all of us. 30% chance of the Weird showing up at the edge of the city."

"Okay, collective estimate for the chance of it showing up on campus. 90%, 50%, 60%, 30%, 80%, 75%, 50%, 50%, 85%. That's a 63% chance."

"Final number. Estimated NPC'd people if we don't catch it this afternoon. I've given it an estimate of 50 people. Hope estimates half a person. Now that's interesting. Others are 200, 4, 2, 3, skipped, 5, 10. That's about 34 new NPCs if we don't catch it. Injuries are estimated at around 27."

And a little bit more math on the board.

"So, 30% chance of getting it on the edge, 63% chance on campus, 34 new NPCs and 27 injuries if we don't get it today. 70% chance of failure on edge, 37% on campus. If we host the rave on the edge of the city, it'll bump our failure rate up a nice even 33%, which at 34 NPCs puts us at a cost for the edge city rave at around 11 NPCs over campus rave. Plus 9 more injuries."

He swivels around, gesturing wildly with his marker.

"Now, class. Question. Is it worth 11 additional NPCs, on average, to move the rave to the edge of the city?"

"Discuss."

"No," Inara says. "Obviously not -- though I must point out that these numbers are based on nothing more than hunches and guesswork. Even so, I think we should hold the rave here. More people will be exposed, but the exposure will be briefer. The people in the quad weren't affected as badly as Carter, after all."

The awkward silence following Inara's unexpected change of opinion is only interrupted when Alric speaks up.

"Alright, what do the others think?"

“If the Weird is around here, and we successfully lure it to the edge of the city, there’s also the trail of people that it would hurt on it’s way there, right? That’s a more guaranteed cost than just the cost of us failing to catch it.” Cassidy says.

"That's a guaranteed risk anytime it moves," Sawyer says, tucking his pen behind his ear.

“I don’t see any reason for it to go to a rave if it’s too far away.” Scratch says. “There are lots of parties that happen across town, and I’ve only heard rumors of it showing up at the one frat party. How would it hunt any bait we make for it?”

The silence in the planning meeting is interrupted by the pinging of the field agents' phones.

Continued in Chapter 1.10: Rushed Hour