Chapter 2.6: Experiments

While the other field agents are off doing their little fight thing. It’s time for some SCIENCE!

2.6: Eperiments

Alric, where are you this fine afternoon?

Alright, this is it. Finally.

Relief washes over Alric as he arrives at home. Relief for not having to fight extra-dimensional horrors, and relief for not having any other appointments for the rest of the day. They weigh about the same.

Halfway through the door, Alric is already pulling the tome out of his backpack. With one hand holding the tome open, he walks into the kitchen and starts mixing together a hot chocolate.

Time to find out: What's the spin engineers put on this whole meaning-magic thing?

The tome. The artificing manual from a real magic book shop with magic 3D diagrams and everything! Esoteric Constructions

Like every engineering book, there are pages of tables listing out different materials and their properties, but this book lists common conceptual associations along with the more standard material properties. Silver is holy, purifying, contemplative, feminine, lunar, and water. Gold is perfection, energy, life, prosperity, masculine, solar, and fire. Iron is strength, power, hard work, coldness, war, masculine, and winter. And so on for all sorts of metals, woods, stones, fibers, bones, and other material components.

The part of the book not concerned with materials is about constructing diagrams that can dial in on a concept to bring it forth into the world as magic.

Okay, that's some good stuff. Materials and how to make sacred geometries. What are the mechanisms to bring them into the world as magic? How does one make a machine push into that direction?

Alric keeps flipping through the pages to find instructions.

The constructions are made by building one step of the diagram using symbolic numerology, ratios, angles, and patterns (there’s also big tables describing the various metaphysical meanings and usages for numbers). Then you need to “energize” that portion of the diagram with another set of lines that are calculated from the first step. This goes back and fourth progressively, with each step refining and resonating with the effect you wish to accomplish. At the end, there is an area of the diagram where the effects are concentrated. Breaching the barrier of that section of the diagram releases the effects.

How to make a sacred geometry diagram:

• draw a circle
• put numbers around the outside of the circle like a clock (the number of steps you need is dependent on the highest destination number you need and the ratios of angles you’ll need for other steps)
• pick three numbers of significance. There’s a lot of criteria you need to consider when choosing these numbers.
• Start with the lowest, your “origin,” and draw a triangle from origin, to the middle, to the “destination”, then back to origin. This is your intention array
• draw another array to energize the first. It should also start at your origin and should intersect the intention array at four points. Use different numbers than your intention array, but all must have symbolic justifications
• select one of these intersection points based on another set of complex criteria to be your primary intersection
• draw a circle who’s circumference is defined by the origin, destination, and primary intersection points. This is the “sun”
• draw another circle that fits between the origin and primary intersection. This is the “moon”
• do the next interaction of your design in the “sun” or the “moon” circle
• continue nesting diagrams until the construction is refined enough lock onto your destination effect and can’t be interpreted to point to a confounding effect

Once you have designed a working diagram to be your blueprint, you should construct it with symbolically appropriate materials at a symbolically appropriate time (usually lining up with the motions of celestial bodies.)

So these aren't the same kind of diagrams as e.g. drawn by sawyer? sawyer's diagrams had triangles and circles, but they had to be magically pushed to do their thing, whereas these build up the effect and then you breach the boundary to release it

The circles and triangles part of the diagram is the same process as Sawyer’s. Though the “magically pushing” and “energizing” steps are different techniques.

okay so, making the triangle then the sun and moon, and repeating that, is the equivalent of programming the spell and then there are other lines that also need to be added to energize it?

Every second triangle you make is the “energizing” one. There doesn’t actually seem to be any difference between the “intention array” and the “energizing array” other than the set of criteria you have to follow to draw the second triangle. There’s not the same “magic pushing” step, but it seems like maybe that step was replaced by simply having more precision in the construction of the arrays to begin with? The book certainly calls for a lot more precision than a hand-drawn diagram could provide.

Okay, got it.

Sacred geometries function like portals into the meaning space, or weaken the barrier between, or something like that. You hone in on your target concept slash concepts, and the better your diagram, the less of a pull is needed to bring the effect into reality. Sawyer's scribbles thus needed a lot of pulling and a lot of effort to keep them stable. Like a Boeing with its screws not tightened. No wonder I almost crashed and burned.

He's flipping through the pages again. Is there a "hello world" geometry he can try out?

2.6: Experiments

The closest thing to a “hello world” might be the construction that creates a zone of illumination approximately 12 yards in diameter.

This one is one of the pre-made example blueprints. You can’t cast it straight from the book though; you’ll need to construct it yourself. To get the best results, you’ll need to use gold wire, silver wire, and bamboo fibers embedded in an etched glass plate. You’ll also need to construct it under the open sky at noon on a cloudless day.

"Oh, that's just bullshit." He says out loud.

"Under the open sky at noon, on a cloudless day. Because the weather has to be just right, fantastic. And I'm an artificer. Why do I have to go outside to build cool shit."

What are the other pre-made example blueprints?

"Darkness" can be made by inversing the "Light" blueprint. (Reversed blueprints are "Sinister," and some consider them evil because Sinister diagrams are what sorcerers use to enslave spirits.) But the better way to make darkness is a regular ("Dexter") blueprint that is geared to generate occlusion and night rather than geared to drain light. In the same category, there's blueprints to create a harmonic tone and to create a zone of silence. (Sound/Silence)

There are also a variety of wards (Arcane Protection, Deflection, Protection) that are specialized to reduce influence and/or damage from different sources. There's one that protects against vampires, another that protects against fae, another that protects against other mortal practitioners, another that protects against kinetic damage, another that protects against disease, etc. The more specific the protection, the better it is, it seems.

There's another set that can allow you to commune with a creature of animal intelligence. (Beast Friend) This one works best if attuned to a specific animal, and can be used to make that animal a kind of familiar.

There are a few that can do simple manipulations of elements such as creating a small flame, levitating a rock, and purifying air or water. (Elemental Manipulation)

There's also one that grants the gift of tongues, allowing the user to speak Latin. (You could modify this to target another language, but the blueprint example is for Latin.) (Speak Language)

He'll continue talking out loud. There's no one around to complain.

"Okay, all of those are a bit more complicated. Let's just see if I can hack together a simple light device. It says for best results you need those things. The core of this is still the diagram though... But what - no, shouldn't be.. I don't have a CNC machine though. I can just, yeah, that should work. And for the coffee spell, if everything works out?"

He's taking sips of his hot chocolate in-between, paging through the materials to see what could work.

"Probably just glass is good enough at the beginning. Might be able to epoxy in some freshly ground coffee. Sand? Wood? I can try some silver if it works out otherwise. Okay, cool."

He's scanning the chapters once more: Anything else he needs to buy for this besides physical materials used in the crafting itself, and the tools to do the crafting with?

Otherwise he'll finish his hot chocolate, then head out to go shopping.

The book encourages getting to know the materials you work with and understanding why they have the symbolism they do.

Novel substances not listed in the book might work, but it is certainly not an introductory level consideration.

Other than the materials and tools to shape them, it seems a telescope might be useful, as would a set of compasses--magnetic and drafting, for constructing and orienting the diagram. Nothing that is too hard to purchase; the example blueprints don't call for magical reagents, though some of the more complicated recipes do.

Out of curiosity, does ash, more specifically perhaps vampire ash, have any useful meaning, according to the book? Alric still has half of his bag, with the other half in his vacuum cleaner.

Once he looked that up Alric will make a copy of the list of materials he could possibly buy, then head out to the nearest arts-and-crafts store. He'll find the worker that most looks into astrology, and explain to them that he needs a ton of supplies for his new Etsy store: He'll make cool looking disks from a combination of materials, with a lot of circles and straight lines, so he'll need materials for the disks - here's a list - and tools to cut them precisely to size and put them together.

He'll skip getting a CNC machine until he has working prototypes.

Ash is listed, both the wood and the remains of fire. Volcanic ash is listed, vampire ash is not.

Ash (the fire byproduct) symbolizes grief, repentance, transition, renewal, purification, cleansing, spiritual enlightenment, “dust to dust, ashes to ashes.”

You’re able to procure some middling-quality supplies.

The drafting compass you buy is only a little better than your new ability to freehand circles. You have to sharpen the pencil end of it every time you use it in order to maintain high enough precision.

You don’t bother buying a wire drawing machine—those are a couple thousand dollars outside your budget, but you can probably get the wire straight enough through annealing it and jury-rigging some clamps and weights. Speaking of annealing, you get an acetylene torch, jewelry solder (different than electrical solder), pumice, flux, boric acid, pickle and pot. You’ll also need a raw hide mallet and mandrel for shaping wire into the circles.

You also get a glass scorer, scoring oil, and a glass grinder (you might have been able to use your handheld rotary tool for that but glass needs to be ground practically underwater and your rotary tool isn’t water-safe.)

You get a bow saw with a couple of different saw blades. Files, sand paper, bench pin.

An optivisor to get good insight. Gages, a digital scale, and a laser caliper for good measure.

In retrospective, he got a little too excited. Initially he planned to just get some supplies that'll allow him to prototype some stuff, then have Phoenix foot the bill for a proper workshop.

But then he came across an acetylene torch. And tools for working with glass. And other stuff.

It's like it was meant to be, because it probably was. That's how the universe works, as far as he can tell? So he had to buy it all.

Once at home, he unpacks (partially), then starts working on his first little thing? Gadget? Artifact? He'll come up with a name later.

He'll take the pre-made diagram for the light spell, then start working the diagram into a pre-made glass disk by in-laying it with whatever wire he has available that is the closest to the wire suggested in the book.

Make a Repair roll

arts and crafts: [2, 6 💥 2 = 8] Result: Success with 1 raise! 🎯🎯

It takes all day and a surprising amount of studying up on astrology, but by Sunday at noon, Alric has an expensive, unwieldy, high maintenance, dim, but magic flashlight!

Being able to see the vectors of meaning align made the whole process a lot easier, even with how imprecise Alric’s Sight is. Alric could at least tell when his prototypes weren’t working at all.

"Could you please cooperate- you stupid- god, FUCKING FINALLY" It's a struggle, but Alric gets the final wire into place, then puts the finished disc on his window sill to charge. Later he'll collect the disc and breach the boundary, which will then release the effect. In theory.

And in practice! After activating the disc, Alric can both see and see it working! Here's undeniable proof that he can do this. He can do magic, he can build magical machines, he has his hands on the lever to move the world. From here on out, things are easy.

The exhilaration doesn't last for long, though. He's already dreaming up a billion ways on how to optimize the build process. Here's the plan:

• Setup a parameterized CAD project for easy layer definitions
• Locate a workshop or makerspace that'll allow for easier creation of high precision parts (perhaps Ignis Makerspace has CNC machines and the like? In retrospect, they did have a lot of mirrors, most of which looked custom made)
• Translate Sawyer's scribbles into a proper, clean diagram
• Double check Sawyer's work
• Triple check Sawyer's work
• Define the layer materials
• Check all of that again
• Build it

When Alric checks the artifact and tries to trigger the effect an hour later, he notices a problem: it doesn’t glow.

Roll Science

Science?: [5, 4] Result: Success! 🎯

Which direction is your window facing?

Clockwise, 1 = north (1d8) results: 7 total: 7

West!

Well, it is currently 1:12 PM (Daylight savings time) on October 15th at 42 degrees North latitude (Boston Ma.). The sun is currently at an Azimuth of 193 degrees and an elevation of 38 degrees. That means the sun is south southwest and about a third of the way from the horizon to the top of the sky.

Is the window open? It is currently 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15.5 degrees Celsius) right now.

Is the disc on the inside or the outside windowsill?

Based on the Azimuth and window direction I'd assume the disc to be on the outside to find a spot that actually covers the disc in light.

If the window sill doesn't have the space for the disc to safely be placed there, it's on the inside. Alric doesn't want the disc to drop, and he is living on the top floor.

There certainly isn't much room on the outside of the window.

Direct light is coming in through the window and falling on the disc.

Is the disc lying flat?

Is there a window pane between the disc and the sunlight?1

Alric would probably prop up the disc and align it so that as much light as possible will fall on the front / top side of the disc.

However, with 193 degrees against the west facing window, the disc's normal is not perfectly pointing at the sun. If the disc is parallel to the window, it'd be at 13 degrees. Alric probably adjusted the disc somewhat towards the sun, maybe 30 degrees for the light coming in?

There's a glass pane between the disc and the sunlight. There's no wooden beams or anything.

The glass pane hasn't been cleaned in a while.

Yep, that would do it.

The original instructions said "You’ll also need to construct it under the open sky at noon on a cloudless day"

Alright, fine.

He'll roll up some duct tape to make it double-sided, then glue the stupid disc with its stupid sunlight requirement to the outside of his window so it can recharge its stupid magic.

And then he'll get to CAD'ing the scribbles.

When he comes back some time later, there are a few motes of sunlight that glimmer mutely when Alric triggers the disk. And then it's depleted again.

But, yay! Magic!

Is it glimmering with less intensity or for a shorter duration than the first time?

Yes. The first time it was prepared outside and closer to noon. Recharging it in the evening didn't seem to work as well.

Ignis Markerspace does have a couple of CNC machines listed as available equipment on the website.

Sawyer's diagram has surprisingly regular lines and curves. How precisely is Alric recreating the diagram?

Also, Alric's grimoire does list the considerations and calculations needed for a Relief artifact, but following the instructions yields a different diagram than the one Sawyer drew. Which diagram does Alric try to construct?

What materials is Alric planning on using for the Relief artifact?

Wait. Shouldn't the disc be stronger now? The first time around the light only hit it at a very steep angle, barely, with the disc pressed against the window. Then after that I put it back there, and it didn't charge at all. Then I taped it to the outside, and that worked, barely.

The light angle improved, and thus the amount of sunlight.

Is it a timing issue? The second and third charges were after noon, but the third one was on the outside.

It might not be about the amount of sunlight at all, because that'd be physics. Maybe it's just about being under the cloudless sky at noon, independent of the sunlight itself?

I'll have to try that tomorrow.

But what happens if I charge it at night? Will it darken the room? Will it be moonlight?

Once the sun is down he'll tape the disc back to the window, using a paranoid amount of tape to make sure that it stays there over night.

--

Which diagram to use?

Well, one diagram was made by an experienced practitioner, not just that, but an arch mage that can teleport around and has his own book store.

The other is a diagram in a book with another diagram I already tried out, that not just worked, but didn't boil my brain even though I diverged from the instructions given.

He'll go with the book.

What materials is the book recommending?

Excellent. Alric will get his experimental results in the morning. (This message can be responded to later when the time comes) Is the tape touching the front face of the disc at all? What times will he check it?

For the Relief artifact, the book recommends pine wood for the base (vitality, continuity) and tin (life and breath) and brass (vitality of mind) wires for the inlays. It is recommended to leave this one in the bedroom, open to the air and visible, to promote vitality and restfulness.

The tape is touching the front, on the sides. He'll do the double-sided tape thing, but also do strips of duct tape over the sides, just to make sure. He'll try to keep the surface free as much as possible, so it's only a little bit of overlap, but it's there. If relevant, the stripes of duct tape form a triangle pointing upwards. He'll check it in the morning, after waking up. He'll probably be up shortly after sunrise, but not before.

No silver, or ashes? That's surprising. Alric would expect there to be more purifying effects, but then again, you can get an awful lot of purification just from a good night's sleep.

He'll implement the book diagram as a CAD project.

He won't build anything today, so he'll instead spend his time on making another version of the project: Alric will take the book diagram, but point it slightly away from "good night of sleep" to "waking up at the first vacation morning, feeling refreshed, free, and excited about the prospect of having several weeks to build your own projects." That's the state he wants to induce in the spell target. He'll integrate a little bit of sand and copper wire into the project to aid the concept space targeting.

He'll drive by Ignis Makerspace tomorrow to build both versions (he wanted to have a chat with Shannon anyway), and see which project performs better.

How is Alric pointing at “waking up at the first vacation morning, feeling refreshed, free, and excited about the prospect of having several weeks to build your own projects”? That is a very very very specific qualia that might be a hair’s breadth away from the original vector, but which hair’s breadth? Alric can only really feel that there are directions that magic can point, at this point. Correctly orienting, or even naming or differentiating the directions is harder than naming all the notes in each chord each instrument is playing in a symphony at a random time slice of an unknown concerto while you are trying to navigate the crowd outside the hidden concert hall and you are tone deaf and have no formal training in music and have only just recently heard of this thing called “music.” (But unlike most other people, you can at least hear that something possibly amazing is happening in the concert hall, if you could only find your way in.)

How is Alric integrating the sand? Why is Alric integrating the copper wire?

Alric points it at that qualia by following what's written in the book. The angles in the diagrams calibrate the pointer in concept space. He'll adjust the angles to point slightly more in the direction he intends. He can integrate the sand using epoxy. Copper wire feels relevant, both due to its energy conduction properties, and being used in prototyping a whole suite of projects, both electrical and mechanical.

At least, he'll give it a shot. After he's done CAD'ing the original diagram, he'll see if he can get something going in the direction of his vision. If the book isn't too clear on how to achieve the intended effect, or it's too advanced, he'll scrap the idea after an hour and spend the rest of the day on the following:

• Researching on how ghosts are created, and how they're exorcised (just half an hour of exploration)
• Training his seer ability (until he gets frustrated, about an hour in)
• Spending more time with the tome, just to get more of an understanding of all this stuff (the rest of the day)

So the angles are based on the numbers chosen for the connections. For a simplified example of the relief diagram, the first intention array is between the numbers 1, 3, and 5.

One because it is the lowest resting state origin possible and is also the number of the self. Three represents unity and protection. Five is energetic and stable. So the first array is “self protection of energy” now, there’s other interpretations of those three numbers, which is why you need more than one array to refine and resonate with the intention.

You can change the angle by grading the circle to a higher number so that 1, 3, and 5 form a more obtuse triangle, but you would need to justify the larger number semiotically. If you were to change the angle without changing the grade, you would either break the array, or point to a different whole number that carries a completely different meaning.

If you point to 4 instead of 5, you could accidentally get “self unified with death”, and you would need to counteract that interpretation with other arrays, or it would completely nullify the whole diagram

What does the book say about decimals, if anything?

Is Alric adjusting for the sand’s association with the sandman?

Your power level is not yet high enough to go off of “vibes” of copper. The Venusian metal is wily to work with, and untempered she will have the same effect as randomly soldering copper wire into any random circuit.

Decimals? What are decimals? Not real numbers! This is a ratio-only text.

What does the book say about rational numbers, if anything? Would 26 fifths work to replace the number 5?

That would be equivalent to pointing to 26 rather than 25 and would require a grade of at least 26 to represent. Or, if you use modulo math, it would be 1 sympathetic fifth fold with 26.

Sympathetically overloading the meaning of numbers is a technique listed, but doing the operation to one number requires you to apply the operation to all numbers used in the diagram and to compensate for any unwanted effects. If not compensated for, it will just add more noise than the signal you would get for overloading the first number.

Alright, fine. Alric won't do anything clever to the art of artificing, for today. He'll prepare everything for the production of his Relief disc, then move on to the other three points on his list.

Engineering is always easier in theory than in practice.

• Ghosts are created when someone dies in a particularly gruesome way, or if they have unfinished business
• Babies take months to be able to make sense of what they see with their eyes. Alric is still baby with respect to his developing Sight.
• The tome is dense and mired in a very different culture of thinking about numbers

Roll for ghost Research. Number of successes = number of questions you can get answered

So, what's up with ghosts?: [8, 3]+4 Result: Success with 2 raises! 🎯🎯🎯

First question: What exactly are ghosts?

Alright. So, Alric finds a great article on one of the blogs Saije recommended, Faeresiensis’s Field Notes, about a case where a practitioner was attacked and medically dead for approximately one and a half minutes. The practitioner was successfully revived and was, to all mundane and magical measures, alive. The practitioner did leave a ghost in the location he was attacked though. And was able to do a seance and commune with it and verified that the ghost could recall some memories the practitioner hadn’t told anyone.

Now, there is some question on if this incident was a ghost or a fetch. Ghosts are typically apparitions of dead people, while fetches are apparitions of live people, usually of the viewer, usually interpreted as an omen of impending death. But the question of classification disguises the query that is actually being asked which is: “what the heck is going on here?” The author links to different sources that try to establish a taxonomy of apparitions, pointing out that there are a lot of different things that can be called “ghosts” and what can be said for one may not be true for all, but for this one case he might be able to disentangle and shed some light on what is going on. .

The ghost the article focuses on appeared to be in a state of extreme emotion, namely vindictiveness. (The ghost did not cooperate with many of the experiments the practitioner tried.) The ghost had some ability to wield the same magic the practitioner could, and the practitioner’s ability didn’t seem to be any lesser than what it was before his brief death. The ghost seemed to have speech patterns and reasoning abilities that matched the practitioner, though appears to have basically no ability to form long-term memory. When given a visualized form, looked identical to the practitioner at the time of his death.

Some divination magic could identify the ghost as the practitioner. Divining with a focus object from before the incident could point to either the ghost or the practitioner—depending on other factors. Divining with a focus object the practitioner bound to after the incident would only point to the practitioner. Alterations to the ghost or the practitioner were not reflected in the other.

From all this, the author proposes that the ghost was a snapshot of the practitioner’s Name at the moment of death. Possibly with some additional semantic convolutions of the archetypical “Ghost” memplex, as there was some mismatch in the Names of the ghost and the practitioner, as measured in the divinations. And now that the ghost’s Name is mort instead of mortal, it is unable to update away from the snapshot.

The practitioner ultimately exorcised the ghost as it was causing problems for himself and others

Fantastic. Ghosts are just copies, but copies that can think for themselves. They just can't change over time, they're stuck. The actually-dying-to-the-point-of-ghosting and then still being brought back would also imply some form of continued existence of the soul. I'll have to meditate on that. Man, they can even do magic? There's gotta be an exploit hidden in there somehow.

Let's move on.

Second question: What's the process of exorcising ghosts and success rates / problems / costs associated with it?

Actual reliable statistics on this basically don't exist. That being said,

The simplest way to temporarily get rid of a ghost is to expose it to direct sunlight. Nearly any kind of purification also works to various levels of success.

To more permanently exorcise a ghost, you can call a priest or rabbi who has been ordained and who knows the right ritual. That's the surest bet for most people, especially if you can get someone who actually knows what they're doing. Actual experienced exorcists have a pretty good success rate, nearly 100% for the most common kind of ghost, but it gets dicey once the ghosts are more like wraiths. Additionally, most exorcists view it as a calling and don't charge for it.

To exorcise a ghost yourself without divine help is a bit more involved and much less certain. Some ghosts will simply resolve if their unfinished business is resolved, or are otherwise able to move past the emotion that is keeping them persisting. For other ghosts, there is a particular location or object that they are tied to, and to get rid of them there are rituals that one can use to purify the location or object. The most common element in purification rituals is fire, followed by water.

Amateur exorcisms are much more likely to fail because there are a lot of bogus exorcism rituals out there, and most don't even pretend to have a theory of magic backing them.

. The practitioner in the Field Notes article did give some explanation of how he exorcised his own ghost, but he notes that it is unlikely to work for other people who aren't his tradition of practitioner and aren't trying to exorcise their own ghost. The practitioner created two nested circles within each other, with the ghost trapped in the inner circle and himself in between the inner and outer circles. Over the course of hours he basically had a therapy session with his ghost and flooded the region between the circles with his aura. He eventually managed to shift his ghost's attitude a little bit, and then cut the inner boundary and flooded it with his aura when it was weakened.

No mentions of unexorcisable ghosts. Probably something I can figure out. Hell, even with just a normal ghost, it's EV plus. The sunlight is an issue though.

Definitely solveable.

Before moving onto the third question, he'll quickly shoot Phoenix a message:

I planned to do some Artificer things tomorrow. Do you need me in the office instead?

Alright, moving on.

Third question: Are there ways to guarantee to leave a ghost behind when dying, perhaps bound to a specific object like the skull or spine of a specific person, or alternatively a specific location like a prepared ghost-compatible control room?

The article doesn’t cover intentionally leaving a ghost.

The linked sources are silent on it too.

A thorough search through the books Alric has and the Dawn Commission’s digital archive only points to the conclusion that guaranteeing leaving a ghost would the kind of necromancy that is criminal because it encourages a lot of killing to get practice. And that there are extant psychopomps who enforce the prohibition on necromancy.

Idiots, all of them. I'm not looking for a guarantee that I leave a ghost, a non-zero probability would be enough. Even in a universe that runs on meaning, things can't be that black and white. Especially when I'm trying really hard to go the not-killing route here. People, I swear.

He sighs, closes the book in his hands, and places it back on his shelf.

But yeah, good and evil are a thing now. Is alignment a thing? Afterlives seem somewhat likely so far, and there are different planes - I've seen a glimpse of some fae world. Well, technically I've seen an image in a mirror and had two present people go along with the 'another world' narrative, so it might have just been something quite literally dreamed up by Shannon. But still, it's evidence.

He'll make a hot chocolate, and then move on to practicing seeing.

Monday morning.

The lamp artifact taped to the window is still taped to the window. It does not emit any detectable amount of light when triggered.

A little later Monday morning, Alric arrives at Ignis Makerspace. It's 8 AM, about an hour after sunrise, and Shannon is outside--fully covered from head to toe in PPE--power washing vulgar graffiti off the front of her building while singing to music blasting from her headphones.

He enters her field of view from a distance, then waves to get her attention.

Once he has it, he'll tell her he wanted to talk to her and he'll wait inside, no need to hurry.

She gives him a thumbs up and resumes power washing away the paint and blood.

Inside, there are fewer people than last time, two, perhaps three. This early on Monday doesn’t appear to be a popular time. And the slurs defacing the front entrance probably didn’t boost attendance either.

It’s at least a half hour before Shannon is done enough to come inside. “Good morning! Alric, was it?” She stashes her baggy poncho, thick gloves, and visor in a closet. Despite her heavy protection, she has the beginnings of a sunburn peeling at her freckles. “Thanks for waiting. How can I help you?”

"Hi, yes, Alric, that's me." He taps the top of a white box on the table. "I brought donuts! I wanted to say thank you for preventing me getting hurt, or worse, when we did the test."

He opens the box and turns it to her.

"I also saw on your website that you guys have actual equipment here. I wouldn't be opposed to renting some for a bit. Turns out, artificing is a thing, and that's more my jam, but crafting these discs by hand" - he pulls out the cobbled together and empty sunlight disc, careful not to break any boundaries, then puts it back into his backpack - "is, well, it works, but it's bad."

He grabs a donut, and after a bite, points it at the door.

"What's up with the paint on your wall?"

"Thank you!" She beams. "I appreciate the gesture."

She shakes her head at the door. "Vandals gonna vandal. My, uh... kind, aren't exactly popular. And some want myself and people around me to know that." She shrugs. "It's one of the prices of doing business as visibly as I am."

She claps her hands once and rubs them together. "But! You're here for the crafting! Yes, yes, I do believe I can help you with that!" She intones and stalks around to the back of the front desk and pulls some papers from a filing cabinet. "Mmm, yes. This one will do nicely." She mutters like she's play acting as some Diagon Alley shopkeeper. Which she is. She lays the papers out on the counter in front of Alric. In a normal voice she explains the paperwork. "Waiver of liability, workshop safety rules, and our rates. You can either rent access by the day, or buy a membership. Machines are first come, first serve. Scrap materials are free, the rest of the stock room isn't. Have you used a machine shop before?"

He reads the waiver - yes, it's not very trusting, but fae are a thing - then signs it. "Let's start with by-the-day. Regarding the machines, it's, uh, been a while. Last time was in college, and afterwards I just ordered parts for my projects custom made online."

He pulls out his laptop and shows her the diagram for the Relief disc.

"As far as I can tell, I only need to CNC and engrave these parts" - he's zooming around the project, pointing at things - "but you're the manufacturing expert."

Reading the waiver was wise. There are a couple of non-standard clauses also waiving psychic and emotional damages. But nothing actually concerning.

"Then I'll give you the long version of the training." Shannon nods.

"Right, so you CADed these up yourself and did all of the intention work during that step? The more distance you have from creating the work, the more tenuous the connection is. I'm fairly sure that heuristic is consistent across disciplines. The ground floor workshop is prepared to be somewhat more encouraging of magic than most places, but not to the point where it will do much of the work for you. Just, you know, give good laboratory conditions."

"I... what exactly is intention work? I was very intent on getting the thing built, but that's not what you're talking about, are you?"

"I mean the meditating on the meaning part. The part that actually does the magic. The 'this will be a thing of magic and this is how' part. I'm pretty sure rote mages have to do that step too, though probably not to as great of an extent as a forge frenzy -- err, crafting fugue."

Alric pulls out his tome and drops it on the table, causing it to shake a little. "But I thought the magic was in the circles and angles..." he mumbles to himself as he looks through the pages for anything that sounds like the meditation Shannon described.

The book talks about intention and energizing arrays, and the importance of understanding the symbology of what you are constructing, but doesn't say anything about meditation.

Shannon shrugs. "I just know how my magic works. I haven't tried to do sacred geometry beyond the very basic physical stuff like light management and acoustics. I had to get someone else to come in to design the feng shui."

"Feng- ugh." He drops his face into his hands, on the table, then gets his head back up with a sigh. "This is fine. This is fine. Let's start with the machine training and with the part cutting. I suspect your meditation, and this book's 'intention' plus 'understanding the symbology' point at the same thing. I'll do that while the machine runs."

Shannon grins, with only a hint of malicious glee. "Buckle up, space cowboy. But yes. Back down to earth. Let me introduce you to Bruce, our Shark table CNC. Goggles on."

She takes him into the workshop and gives him the run down of the dos and don'ts, how to load in the design files, and how to clean up everything when he is done. Then she has him explain everything back to her. She stamps a box labeled CNC on a wallet-sized card and hands it to Alric. "CNC badge complete. Please don't use tools you don't have the badges for."

Wallet-sized cards belong into wallets, and so Alric takes the card and stores it in his. "Awesome, that's progress. I think I'm good on the workshopping now. I'd like to ask you one more thing about a topic that hopefully isn't too much of a bummer, but let me get the machine going first."

He loads in the design for the Relief disc parts, drops in some of his supplies, then starts the machine. It's making noise, which gives some privacy. That's good, the next topic is a bit sensitive, possibly?

He lowers his voice and leans in a little. "I've recently been told the words 'vampire war'. Is that something you'd be willing to talk about?"

She scrunches her nose. "Yep. It's a thing. Long story short, some Chalcedony couped her court's leadership, declared herself the 'Golden Empress' and tried to implement a no killing law on all vampires. Other vampires of course didn't like that, and the war has been going on for over a decade now. I'm in favor of not killing people, but that means that the blood-suckers want to kill me too."

"What, she outlawed killing vampires and that caused a- oh you mean vampires killing people."

As Alric is thinking, his hands fold together, half prayer, half gun. His index fingers are pressed against his lips.

"Mhm. So, you and some other vampires are in favor of the Golden Empress and her rules, and others are revolting against it. Did I get that right? Also, what's a Chalcedony? And how has this war been going on for that long?"

"To be clear: I am not in favor of the Golden Empress. I am in favor of being pro-social and not killing other sapient people. She is just also approximately on that side." She waves her hand. "There's more politics and nuance. And she has some other bad policies which I am not going to get into. But kind of indicative of her whole deal is her origin-- she assumed that taking leadership of her own court gave her authority over all other courts to try to impose a law against killing humans and other sapient beings for food. Rumor has it that she didn't even know about the other courts of vampires at the time. Most vampires are obligate sanguivores, including the Chalcedony court, who are like... So you know Twilight? The YA vampire romance books? The Chalcedony lineage is like those vampires. They reflect sunlight rather than burning in it, and are among the strongest lineages as far as raw physical prowess goes. The books were a weird attempt at propaganda that got bungled, as far as I can tell. Anyway. She drew a line in the sand on an issue that was hard to enforce and core to a lot of existing--despicable--vampire culture, and was also core to how to obtain food. Do you know how many human wars were fought over food? Not a few!"

She sighs, "The war has still been going on because it is basically a guerrilla war of extermination, but one where each side can always recruit more. I was turned years after the war started, so I don't really know what peace among vampires would even look like."

I'm not reading Twilight. There are limits.

"Ah, so you haven't been a vampire for that long.. Right, I think you mentioned something about only having been in the supernatural community for a few years? Anyways, can you give me an overview over the courts, their stance towards blood-sucking, and what 'their thing' is each? The Chalcedony court is against killing humans and can reflect light. What about the others? And just to make sure, knowing any of this doesn't flag me as a person of interest, somehow, magically?"

He starts taking notes.

“Nah, just knowing this isn’t going to hut you unless you act on the knowledge or are loud about having it.“ She hops up to sit on a workbench and checks the mirrors ringing the workshop. “So one thing to keep in mind is that courts and lineages are different. They usually overlap and share the same name, but courts are political entities and lineages are about who sired you and thus the abilities you inherited. The Chalcedony court is basically gone; the Golden Empress rules over the Golden court, which is mostly made of Chalcedony lineage vampires, but I think something like half the remaining Chalcedonies are fighting her. The Golden court still has to drink blood, but their policy is to be ‘sustainable’ about it. Most lineages need blood. Mine doesn’t—I’m an Emerald, I primarily eat emotions. Wights eat… let’s round it to psyche. And Velvets eat heat. Actually, rolling back a step, all vampires consume vitality, but differ in how they access it, and I’m pretty sure all lineages are still able to metabolize vitality from blood.”

She looks over Alric’s shoulder and waits for his note taking to catch up. “Oh, and covens are another political entity, they’re smaller and local, like families or clubs. And clans are political groups that adhere strictly to lineage and are more gerontocratic than most courts. I’m mostly mentioning those to give you an idea that the war is complicated because there was a web of feuds and alliances that existed before the Golden Empress tried to hack through the knot. The factions that are relevant in Boston are my coven: the Sunshine coven, my ex-court: the Emerald Court—both of which are on the anti-human-murder side. Most of the other factions are on the pro-human-murder side, or as they call themselves, ‘the traditionalists’, those are generally Oscuro—shadow manipulators, Mortem Morsu—necromancers, and Ruby—blood magic. The Garnet court has a truce with the Emerald, they’re also blood mages, but hate the Rubies more than they dislike the prohibition against killing. And there’s also Grimms, which are basically the wild cultivar of vampire and usually feral and apolitical.”

“I think that covers the basics. Though now I feel like an NPC dumping exposition in a dialog tree.” She chuckles. “How about your backstory? How did you get into this?”

"Ah, don't worry, you seem pretty PC to me. You should see one of my coworkers, easily the most one-sided person I've ever met. Well, technically- Anyways, she's full evil and her whole character is basically 'grrr I'm so much more powerful and evil than you and I will let you know at every opportunity grr' and my pet theory right now is that the universe set me up with her so I have to kill her before she kills me and then character development will ensue and it will have meaning or whatever." He sighs. "It's a whole thing.. Eerr, but you asked about my backstory. Well, I spent a lot of time online during the pandemic, and I spent a chunk of that boundless time jumping into discord servers of absolute nutters to ask a lot of questions. Partially to practice street epistemology, partially because I was bored and man, can people be weird and it's just fun to watch them."

"So, one of those nutters kept insisting that he knew magic, and after some back and forth and me asking how I could verify that magic exists, he went silent. I didn't think too much of it, that is, until a package arrived at my door step. This guy, at least I think it was him, actually found out my address. I left all servers and deleted my discord immediately, but the package remained. And a few days later, I couldn't resist, I opened it, and soon after I found myself with a magical artifact in my hands and surrounded by flame- oh wow, that's gotta be foreshadowing."

Alric stares into the air for a few seconds, thinking.

"Oh, and then far later, I wasn't allowed into the library, but then a monster hunter came in and nabbed me to help with a feral vampire which I then killed with a bag of flour and a leafblower," - he's pretty smug about that one - "and that got me a ticket into the Dawn Commission, which linked into a standard 'kill 6 shoggoths' quest, for which I got a jump-start in artificing and almost got my brain cooked, okay that doesn't fit that well, but still."

"Question: What's Good and Evil? Like, how does that work, mechanically?"

She smirks when Alric says she seems pretty PC.

“Dang, you are pretty green if that’s your full story.”

She swings her legs while she considers his question. “I’d say that ‘Good’ is approximately ‘pro-social,’ and ‘Evil’ is approximately ‘destructive asshole.’ But that is a philosophical question of the ages. If you’re talking about D&D-type alignment… I mean, I have opinions on 5e’s implementation and the history of the alignment chart. But D&D style alignment isn’t a particularly good model as it disguises the query? Like, there are a lot of dimensions to evil, and for the most part, evil-detectors each only measure on a small set of criteria. Most of the old ones run on old criteria that no longer align with modern conceptions of ‘evil.’ They are usually asking ‘have you broken this specific code,’ or ‘do you have this characteristic.’ Like, ‘have you harmed someone who’s hosted you,’ or ‘are you undead.’ The first one would say I’m not evil, the second one would say I am.”

"Question: Why do you think the universe wants you to kill your coworker?"

"Oh, that's a question, whew. So, I suspect you know that the whole universe runs on meaning? Like, that's the common denominator. And in particular, you know that confluences are a thing? The events where supernatural people get stuck at a point and things just so happen that they can't leave? It makes little sense if you think of it as just standard cause and effect. But if you think of it from a timeless physics perspective, it's easy to explain: Causality doesn't run just in the direction of time here, but also sideways and backwards."

"I'm getting there, I promise, I did warn you it's a whole thing. So, we have a universe where causality can also run backwards, i.e. future events can influence past ones, and that whole jazz runs on meaning. From that understanding, things like fate and stories make a whole lot more sense, where fates are meaning gravity wells, at least that's how I imagine them, and stories are the meaning equivalent of chain reactions? No, that's not quite it. Stories are a way of meaningfully chaining series of events. Yeah, that sounds right."

"So. Let's see the whole co-worker situation through the lense of a story: She's maxed out her dislikeability. She's maxed out evil. Her dark secret - I mean dark - was revealed to me under circumstances where we both were completely isolated from any other people, with just her, maxed out on combat magic, and me, equipped with a crowbar of mage-slaying. She's also a psychopath, for most purposes, I don't think I mentioned that yet."

"So. From my perspective, the universe set her up as a character for which one never would develop any sympathy or attachment to. A character that the world not only would be better off without, but is also actively pursuing your own death, capable of executing on it and definitely enjoying it. She's not even an interesting character. Literally no-one would miss her, I have that on good authority, and there's probably spirits that would finally be laid to rest with her coming to an end. Okay, that one I don't have on good authority, but it's not far-fetched. If you were to pull a tutorial evil boss directly out of concept space, it'd be her."

"Question: I was looking into making ghosts, and that's part of necromancy, and apparently it's extremely ill-advised because you'll be hunted down by psychopomps, which, despite their funny name, are pretty scary looking things. How do I predict the effects of practicing necromancy? Like, if I wanted to do a little bit of necromancy, how would I know how much of an alignment shift that would cause - I don't want to go to hell - and if that would cause me to get hunted down or get me bad karma or something like that?"

Shannon sways side to side, weighing Alric’s statements. “You’re… close. But you are missing a very very very important key: you can change the story. And. I think you need to, for yours. Well, I would be trying to get out of that story if it were my trajectory. You have someone you’ve convinced yourself you’ll need to kill and now you’re asking about necromancy. Homeboy, you are a tragedy waiting to happen. Like a literal tragedy. Like a millennia-old reinforced Greek-plays-to-Globe-Theater level Tragedy. If you truly believe stories shape your path, you have not bound yourself to a good one. I say that as someone who has used a confluence to escape a shadowrun-cyberpunk nightmare.”

Alric tilts his head to the side and stares at her for a few seconds, then laughs out loud. "Alright, I'm deducting Bayes points for that. Nowhere did I just say that I plan to actually go along with the universe. Don't get me wrong, I was tempted, she's scary, but murder's just not my thing no matter from what angle I try to see it. And I really tried." He shakes his head. "No, I have a better plan, and it's non-murdery and it's going against the obvious story and I can't talk about it because the universe might listen and you know how that goes."

"But in the mean time, I'd like to increase the odds that I leave a ghost behind haunting her if I meet an untimely demise, as an additional disincentive for her. Hence the ghost research and my interest in staying out of hell."

“You’re deducting Bayes points for warning you to not go along with the story you think you see? Aww, come on. I didn’t think it was likely but the cost to warn was trivial!” She folds her arms. “Now you’re making the cost more expensive. Costing me Bayes points.” She scoffs. “Preferences updated: I’ll give you fewer warnings about low-probability-high-cost risks.”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know any necromancy. I do know of a psychopomp, and I try to keep myself as low in her hit list as possible, so I’m not interested in trying to learn necromancy. I’m also not convinced that afterlives are default? If you sell your soul, that’s one thing, but I think the default is you just halt.”

Alric chuckles. "I mean... you could've just asked what my plan was." He continues, amused, "Mhm.. I'm not buying it. I'm giving it at least 10 to 1 that you just assumed I'm a dreadful evil murderer in the making. Yeah, I'm keeping those points. They're mine now."

He pages through his notepad. "Okay, mhm, with you knowing of a psychopomp chances are they're not that rare. Do you have her name, so I could look it up? Mhm, but still, let's move necromancy down a few notches on my research list, it was a long shot anyways.. Ah, right, almost forgot: If the disc" - he points at the CNC machine - "actually works out, I might be able to work through nights in the future. Is this place open at night? And is it advisable to come around at night?"

She sticks her to tongue out at him.

“No, I’m not risking any more radar pings. … and I don’t know how much there would even be to look up?“

The disk is nearly done, in the middle of its final pass of edge clean up.

“No. I’m either out or bunkered up at night.”

"Ah, right, so much about the meditation." Alric points at Bruce. "And right, sorry, names. I really have to keep that in mind. But this was super helpful." He gestures with his notepad as his eyes are flitting between Shannon and Bruce. "I have to get to the meditating now, I fear. Are you around later? I might have a workable disc to show then, and it might be really cool."

"I don't plan on leaving the building today. I'll be around." She hops off the workbench. "I'd love to see it when it is done. Make sure you sweep up." She points to the sawdust generated by the CNC machine and circles around to check in on the other patrons.

He nods, and then gets on with it. Over the next few minutes he collects the disc and cleans up the CNC machine, then sits down at a table. Tome open, reading the instructions. Several times.

Intention. Energizing arrays. Understanding the symbology.

Intention. Energizing arrays. Understanding the symbology.

Intention. Energizing arrays. Understanding the symbology.

Intention.

It's easy to read these instructions and not have them register in your mind. Alric's preconception is that he has to build a machine, and that machine will do the magic. And if you had to guess, the magic would be in the angles and circles. And that might be part of the story. However, Shannon did mention that pretty much every discipline has, what was it, meaning-meditation?, going on.

The disc of weird banishment did require intention as well, I remember the leaflet.

Alric will study the diagram for the Relief disc, making sure to understand the intention and meaning and reasoning behind each facet of its design, and to understand it well.

It’s easy to gain a surface-level understanding with studying and memorization. But much harder to gain a deep understanding. So much of it seems arbitrary. Numbers chosen because they sound like—or happen to be the count of—random other things. Or just weird. The ratio Pi is said to represent divine perfection because the first digit in the ratio is 3, the number of perfection, but doesn’t terminate there, instead going on into infinity. It kinda just sounds like someone just found the first readily accessible irrational number and then broke their brain writing poetry about it, and now you have to meditate on the poetry in order to do magic.

But somehow, it works. Somehow following this literally arcane bizarre process actually does produce effects not strictly governed by the conventional understanding of physics.

Make a Repair roll for finishing the construction

Finishing the construction: [7, 1] Result: Success! 🎯

Alric completes the construction. Tin and Brass wires of different gauges slot neatly into the trenches carved in the pinewood base. The traces of wire have to be cut to length, smoothly bent, fitted into the groove, removed, soldered together, pickled, cleaned, then set into the base, and burnished until no flaw in on the surface remains.

In the process, Alric also earns the training badges for the soldering station and jewelers station. Shannon teaches one badge, a woman named Annie teaches the other because Shannon was busy with someone else making a mess by the table saw at the time.

Green eyes, again. Not the same necklace as Shannon though. He thanks Annie for her help and then excuses himself, for he has magic to do.

The materials are correct. He has meditated on the intent and symbolism. He even constructed the disc in the morning. This should work.

Come on, universe, cooperate. Alric presses his hand on the disc, breaking the barriers.

Annie has sea foam green eyes, blonde hair escaping her paired French braids, and confetti-freckle makeup accenting her natural freckles. She is just barely not soft spoken enough to be able to be heard over the various machines.

She wears a compass pendant necklace, but it’s not particularly flashy.

It’s hard to tell, it might just be placebo, but Alric does feel just the slightest bit restored, as though he’s had a half cup of coffee or a short nap.

I should've made predictions, but honestly, I expected more than.. almost, maybe, probably nothing? Was there too little intent behind my hand press? Do I need to charge it first, run it under coffee or something?

He'll try to see if the disc is somehow magical.

The magic vector exists, but is small.

Okay, that's something. How do I charge it up? Coffee? Connect the brass wires to an outlet?

He opens up the tome and goes through the instructions once more.

For the Relief artifact, the book recommends to leave this one in the bedroom, open to the air and visible, to promote vitality and restfulness.

Fuck, right, I remember having read that before. Alright, home it is.

He'll go over to Shannon when she's not in the middle of talking to someone.

"Hey, so, sorry, nothing cool to show for. My disc needs a nap first before it does anything. But before I leave, real quick: How do I pay, and can you recommend me any magical shops? I really want a bag of holding, this backpack is getting heavy." By now he's carrying in his backpack: His tome, his camera, his crowbar, some notebooks, some chocolate bars, and other smaller bops and pieces. It's getting crammed.

Alric payed for the day at the beginning when doing the other paperwork. “Card. Because money is the cheapest way to pay.” Shannon had said.

Shannon points him at a cork board full of local advertisements and business cards for his magic shop desires. “Bag of holding is an extremely high-end item. Think like luxury car level expensive.” She tells him. “I know of one supplier, and she doesn’t take her payments in cash.”

Alric says goodbye, collects one of each business card and advertisements - TIME TO GO SHOPPING - packs his stuff, then leaves.

He'll go home, put the Relief disc on his bed, and then setup the Light disc to charge on his window during noon. Then he'll look up each of the shops online, map out their locations and sort them by his interest, plan a route, then go shopping.

Very few of the shops show up online. And half that do aren’t in Boston.

What shops show up online, in Boston?

Many of the business cards are for lawyers, cleaners, landscapers, locksmiths, etc. very few are obviously magical. (One of the ones that is is a cutesy card depicting a chibi fox in traditional miko garb advertising ritual cleaning, exorcisms, and other shrine maiden services) Bright Books is listed online, but not in Boston.

The cards that are for relevant shops (not an alterations shop or restaurant) AND have an online presence AND are in Boston are

• Tempest Electronics
• Old Penny Pawn
• Exuviae Emporium Curiosity shop
• The Silk And Rabbit

All of those sound super interesting to Alric. He'll have to visit them all.

He maps out the shortest round trip, then gets going.

Tempest Electronics is in South Boston by the Old Harbor. Old Penny Pawn is downtown, hardly even a T station away from the Dawn Commission HQ. Exuviae Emporium is in East Boston. The Silk and Rabbit is in South End.

Depending on where Alric lives, shortest trip is Silk And Rabbit -> Tempest Electronics -> Old Penny Pawn -> Exuviae Emporium or the inverse.

Let’s start Alric at Exuviae Emporium. East Boston, by the airport and across the Main Channel from downtown. It’s a quaint brick storefront on Meridian Street, nestled in among cafés and hair salons, and from the street looks like exactly the kind of shop that peddles rock salt lamps and smudging sage.

Don't be condescending. Don't be condescending. Karens and their crystals are actually magic, you're the one who was wrong, don't be condescending.

As Alric pushes the door open, a bell rings, announcing him as a customer entering. The sound of the chatter in the street fades away as the door closes behind him.

With the smell of diffused oils pushing on his mind, he looks around to see and see what he can find here.

The inside of the shop is barely larger than a standard bedroom and shaped more like a hallway with a counter separating off half the space lengthwise. The shelves are full of sparkly rocks, bundles of dried plants, and various tinctures or pickles in jars. There’s the incense and the teas and the chimes and the sounding bowls that are typical of this kind of shop, as well as a shelf of hippy or snarky apparel.

At the counter sits an androgynous twenty-something. Short, with short black hair, a nose ring and faint facial scar, and a name tag that identifies them as Adikia. They glance up from their work of methodically hand shredding a sheet of paper into a pile of confetti when Alric enters.

"Hi." Alric nods to them, then continues looking around like someone who, frankly, is obviously out of his element here. None of these thing are super appealing to him, expect maybe as ingredients for disc inlays. He'll do another quick look around, including up to the ceiling, then starts inspecting the shelves with more care. He's not touching anything, just looking very closely.

In particular, he wants to see if anything here pings as magical. There should be some magic here, it's unlikely that a hippie shop would have their business card in a makerspace, if not for magic being the connection here.

The cashier nods to Alric and resumes mechanically pulping the paper.

To Alric’s Sight, nothing here is actively magical. There is a slight spike like an impulse signal of magic from the cashier for a split second when Alric’s back is turned, but everything else is motionless.

Alric smacks his lips, then speaks, without turning away from the particularly sparkly rock he's investigating. "Okay, so, that wasn't a Detect Arcane or whatever the kids call it nowadays. Do it again, maybe I can figure it out."

“Are you talking to me?” The cashier asks in a bored voice.

"Okay, that's fair, I do talk a lot to myself. But this time I wasn't." Alric turns to him, now speaking directly to Adikia, with curiosity in his voice. "Whatever spell you just did: If you do it again, maybe I can figure it out."

Adikia knits their brow in confusion. “I didn’t do a spell? I don’t even…” they start to whine before interrupting themselves, “I mean, how can I help you, sir? You have a spell you are trying to figure out?” They put on a fake toothy smile.

Knew it.

A big grin appears on Alric's face, and with a spring in his step he walks up to the counter. He's looking straight at Adikia as he leans forward a bit.

"Well, you did something." And with that he breaks away from the counter and looks over the shelves again, gesturing at them, while his voice goes from amused back to normal. "I'm not trying to figure out any particular spell right now, I'm just looking around, cataloging where I can get what for how much." He turns to Adikia, confused. "Where's the good stuff?"

Adikia leans all the way back when Alric approaches, sitting up tall on their stool. “Uh. What are you looking for?”

He shrugs. "Well, I'm not an alchemist and not looking for anything specific, so I have to turn it around: What magical stuff do you have? Do you guys sell special magical supplies, or tinctures? Potions? In what situations in the future other than while crafting with quartz and dried oak leaves will I think back to the Exuviae Emporium and say to myself yes, that's where I need to go now."

“Uh. These are magic supplies?” He gestures at the whole store. “You would come here for getting quartz or rabbit feet or whatever for your crafting. Do you have a referral for other services you have in mind?” He stares unblinkingly at Alric.

Alric rubs his forehead. "In the name of Nethys -" he whispers to himself, sighs, then continues. "Yes, these are magic supplies. But do you guys have any supplies that are inherently magical? Perhaps magical ink, enchanted stones, plants watered with your strongest magical potions, I don't know, you're the expert. Or maybe any end products made out of the supplies you sell here? I'm not looking for anything wild, just stuff you wouldn't sell to any mundane randomly walking in here, and no, I'm not going to drop any names. I have this shop's business card, and I didn't walk in here on accident, and if that's not enough of a referral, I'll stick with the rocks and plants."

He gestures at the shop.

"Are you fine with me taking photos of this stuff here? So I have a reference for what I can find here the next time I need to build something related, which, honestly, might be in the near future."

“Everything here is shelf stable. The fresh stuff requires a referral.” Adikia sneers, showing sharp teeth. “You can take pictures if you want.” He gets out a fresh blank square of paper to shred into his growing pile. “It’s not like I’m allowed to stop you.”

"Great, thank you." Alric takes a few pictures, nods to Adikia, then leaves.

Or, almost does. With the doorknob an inch from his hand, he hesitates, then turns back around, smacking his lips once more.

"Okay, I got to know. What magic did you do earlier?"

Adikia rolls his head and gives Alric a look absolutely dripping with scorn. “You got to? You gonna trade for that or just ask for free samples?”

What. Alric blinks a few times, baffled, then answers. "I... You know what, sure. Fine, I'll give you" - he pulls out his wallet and holds up a bill - "this five dollar bill if, in the next minute, you show me the same magic I felt from your direction right before I spoke the second time after I came into this store. Just between you and me, I'm currently giving it let's call it seven to one that you can't do it."

He takes a look at his watch, noting the current second, then waits for Adikia's response, be it refusal or magic.

“Five dollars.” Adikia curls his lip in disgust. “Sure. Fine.” He rolls his eyes. Than flicks his tongue abnormally far out. The small magic spike happens immediately after.

Any hints on what they are?: [3, 4] Result: Success! 🎯

Alric remembers that the word Exuviae means “the cast off skins, shells, or coverings of animals. Such as cicada husks and snake skins.” This meaning suddenly seems relevant.

Alric gasps as he makes the connection: Lizard people are real.

He catches himself. "Oh, that's so cool. Alright, a deal is a deal." He slides the bill across the counter. "Okay, cool, that's good to know. That's all I needed, thank you very much."

After saying that, Alric will make his way back outside. On the way to the next store he'll make a phone call.

Adikia rolls his eyes again, quickly pocketing the bill.

Who does Alric call?

Phoenix. Alric's starting to get slightly worried that the lack of an answer from his boss, who seems to generally have her shit together and should've had plenty of business hours now to answer, might be related to Shoggoth Saturday.

The call doesn’t connect. And the text from earlier still hasn’t been delivered.

Alric's steps slowly come to a halt as he realizes that Phoenix won't pick up. "Ah. That's bad."

He calls Hope. She doesn't pick up either.

He calls the HQ. Does anyone pick up?

“Dawn Commission; Knox speaking. How can I help you?” The communications director answers smoothly before the second ring.

"Alric here. Have you seen or heard from Phoenix this morning, or Hope, or Saint, or Inara? Any of those?"

“Why, hello! I have not. None of them have come in. Last I heard from Phoenix was Saturday, when she was gearing up for a fight. I wouldn’t worry too much about it though. She’s a big girl and can handle herself.”

You dense-

"The four of them went into the Shoggoth lot on Saturday, with very little preparation. It was supposed to be a job of a few hours, they didn't pack rations or tents. I sent Phoenix a message yesterday, it didn't even get delivered. My calls to her and Hope don't connect. Unless you have a better explanation, your boss and coworkers are currently being digested by Shoggoths. If you have a better explanation, please tell me."

“Saint went with them. If he died, I would have heard about it. And he wouldn’t have let the others die. I don’t speak with misplaced confidence; there are deals set up such that Phoenix’s death would be noticed.” He softens his voice, “Look, these sorts of things happen. You can’t always expect to know where everyone is all the time on these sorts of missions. There can be many reasons why they they fell out of contact. I’m reaching out, and I haven’t found anything yet, but that doesn’t mean they are dead. Don’t claw for the estate yet, as they say.”

Alric's already in a taxi towards the HQ.

"I'm not saying they're dead. Shoggoths don't kill prey with intelligence, they integrate it into their hives. Their bodies get slowly digested while their minds stay alive, becoming part of the nest. Unless you have a magical check for that, I humbly request you start to get worried."

“Mmm. That does put an edge on things.” He chuckles. “I’m already doing what I can, other than going to Arkham myself and potentially becoming part of the problem. In the worst case, there should be allies we can call on come sundown. Hmm. I suppose contacting the wizard council on Inara’s behalf may be worth the cost… do you have any ideas?”

"I'll tell you in a moment, I've just arrived. I'm up in a second."

Alric hangs up the phone, pays the taxi driver, then makes his way up to the 13th floor. He quickly finds Astreus Knox.

Astraeus is not as clean cut as he usually is; suit jacket off, sleeves rolled up, and too many empty coffee cups threatening to clutter the meeting room that he has turned into a war room.

Saije is there, along with other coworkers who Alric has seen, but have not yet left an impression on him.

Astraeus is on the room’s speaker phone, still speaking in the same unbothered tone. “…re-election campaign. Should be easy to convince him to go with a local option over those Misketonic boys. You got this, Karl.”

“Right. Well, do let me know when you do hear from Phoenix.”

“Will do.” Astraeus ends the call. “That’s the courthouse situation stabilized.” He moves a virtual task card into the “done” column on the SmartBoard. “Imani, any updates from the Emeralds?”

“Their strike team is on their way to Arkham. ETA in a half hour.” A dark skinned woman typing on a laptop replies.

“Alric, welcome. Just in time. Saije, to Alric’s point, did the egg work?” Astraeus finally acknowledges Alric.

“Nope. Failed. Just like the compass. Still hasn’t cracked though.” Saije replies.

Nevermind.

"Okay, yeah, not what I expected. Uhh.. ideas, yes. I wanted to suggest some form of divination or scrying, or alternatively, a sending spell of some form? And then find out what everyone's skills are so I can come up with an invasion plan for the lot. Otherwise, tell me how I can help."

"We tried what we have." Saije says. "The egg says she's not dead, though it can't summon her from wherever she is. The sympathy compass can't find a connection, and it should be able to track even consumed bodies. Her phone lost connection at the Dyer estate, and while we know from your research that the shoggoths can warp space, the compass should have still been able to at lest point to the estate if she was in a pocket dimension there. We tried to get in contact with Saint this morning, but he is also unresponsive. And we've had our attention split with what's been happening at the courthouse." She gestures to a tv screen in one corner of the room showing a muted news broadcast with the breaking headline Gas leak at Boston Courthouse kills 3

"We should have called you in earlier, but until you called, we had thought that Phoenix's no show wasn't as much of an emergency. She's no-showed before. None of us are combatants, which is why the field agent team got stood up. We did contact another supernatural group, and they are sending out a team of combatants to check out the shoggoth nest."

"Okay, another team covers the shoggoth lot. What does a gas leak have to do with us, assuming it's actually a gas leak?"

"It's not the normal kind of gas leak. According to Karl's sister, the whole building suddenly got flooded with sulfur hexaflouride." Astraeus says with maybe a bit too much glee.

Alric's eyes dart from Saije to Astraeus back to Saije. "That tells me very little, chemistry class has been a while ago. What's special about sulfur hexaflouride?"

"It's an inert, colorless, odorless, rare gas mostly used in electrical insulators and manufacturing. It is also six times denser than air, and so rapidly falls into a basement and suffocates people there without triggering a suffocation reaction. It also makes voices sound deep the same way helium makes voices sound high." Astraeus smiles. "Somehow, at 10:14 AM, everyone in the courthouse found themselves suddenly speaking with a much deeper voice. Within a few minutes, the people on the lower floors started to suffocate. A few minutes after that, the sulfur hexaflouride in the air was replaced with normal air once more, leaving only those traces inhaled by the unlucky victims. Something is afoot. And a case this high profile would be a boon for our commission if we can land the witch-clause contract."

"I got a hit on the missing cop rumor." Another coworker on a laptop announces. He was the guy that Alric nearly ran into when Alric convinced Inara that they had glitched into the 'backrooms.'

"Whatcha got, Luke?" Astraeus gestures.

"Officer Marcus Green was the last officer to requisition the car found on fourth street. They have already marked his account as MIA. Wow. Arkham Police Department's HR is even worse than their security." Luke says.

Oh, I remember that guy from a few days ago. That was fun.

Man, it feels like it's been months. What a weekend.

"Okay, the courthouse seems like my kind of thing. How about I make my way over there and take a look? So I'm not standing around here uselessly."

Astraeus nods to Luke. "Alright. Forward that info to the Emeralds, if you would?"

Astraeus nods to Alric. "Karl Hamming is already there. He's our social worker. Not sure If you've met him yet. Tall, blond, Scandinavian man. He should be trying to get an audience with the DA, Richard Winsor. Or he might still be hanging around with his sister, Bimasha Hamming. Let him know you're headed his way."

Alric will make it as far as the lobby before he gets a call.

Alric picks up.

"Alric here, what's up?"

It's Sawyer.

"Hey. Alric? When are you all going to hit the Dyer lot?" Sawyer sounds distracted, like he's flipping through papers. "Looks like a local cop just had a close call, but he's... probably going to be fine. Depends on if Lady Watercolour Map thinks he isn't grateful for the rescue. My kid and her girlfriend are there with Eustace and Scratch, right now, so things haven't spun completely out of control, but it sounds like something broke the barrier keeping the damn shoggoths in sometime Saturday. I'm not sure who called the Lady in, as far as I'm aware she didn't tell the kids the details, but she's keeping the shoggoths inside the lot for someone, so. Uh. Somebody is paying for this, I don't know what it's costing them, and I also don't know if they're planning to bill the Commission, but something has apparently gone all to hell in the last twenty-four hours."

There's a frustrated snap of a book closing on the other side of the call. "...and I can't go look to see what needs to be patched over there because if I step outside the probability of things getting worse increases exponentially and my kid hasn't got enough experience to help safely reinforce the wards, so right now she and the other three kids are apparently armed with spears and helping with any teacups that are trying to actively breach the barrier. So. Yeah. This wasn't in the projections. How was your weekend?"

Alric blinks a few times, that was a lot to take in.

"Oh man am I glad you're calling, hell's broken loose here as well. Give me a moment, I have to update my coworker on the Shoggoth lot situation, I've cooked up an idea over the weekend, but I didn't expect it to be used. One second."

Alric's soon back in the war room.

"Astraeus, just got a call. Whatever contained the Shoggoths in the lot, it's breached, and they're trying to get out. Someone named Lady Watercolour has saved a cop around there, might be ours, and is keeping the shoggoths in, but that's all I know. I have a half baked plan for the lot but you'll have to fill in the details, do you have casters to spare?"

"Shit. When it rains it pours. What's going on over there this early in the week? Oh. Yeah, I'll wait. I've got one of my employees getting readings for me outside to make sure we're not about to hit critical mass and he should be getting me that information soon."

Astraeus goes stock still at the mention of 'Lady Watercolour.' He snaps his fingers at Imani. "Tell the Emeralds to abort! Immediately! Shoggoths are contained and they should not engage!"

"Right. New plan. Alric, don't go to the courthouse; stay on the shoggoth case. Who is it you have on the line?"

"Sawyer Morgan, from Bright Books, near the shoggoth lot."

"Hi Sawyer!" Saije calls out.

"Okay, his info is good. You said you had a plan for... casters?" Astraeus asks.

"Mages, you probably mean." Saije says to Alric.

"Oh. Fuck. Did someone just say there were Emeralds on their way up until? Ohh.. holy fuck, okay, now I'm really glad I called, got shit that could have put us above critical, what thr fuck is going on over- okay. No. Nevermind," Sawyer gives a hysterical titter of a laugh. "This is fine. Cool. Cool. So cool. Oh Saije say hi Saije for me okay anyway tell them I've got someone outside doing a read to see if we're approaching a critical mass of magical potential here in Arkham and I'll have numbers on how much metaphorical and meta_physical_ free space we have before we need to start worrying about the kind of critical mass that means we're in for a real bad time, I don't have the updated numbers yet but Ryan should be back in soon and then I can give you a safe estimate of how many more guests Arkham can handle before we're risking a countdown to a_nother_ potential apocalyptic event centeted on fucking Arkham. The incoming class at Miskatonic has a lot more potential than usual and it's fucking up all my usual numbers over here."

Alric nods.

"I'm keeping it short. I've seen a beginner spell diagram in my tome called 'Environmental Protection'. A single mage can only keep one up, not too sure, but if we have several people stacking it on me, I can definitely go in without any issues. If you have the mages, I can bring the napalm. One second."

He listens to Sawyer.

"Saije, Sawyer says hi. He also has someone in the area collecting stats on metaphysical free space in Arkham before the apocalypse. I might have misunderstood that one."

"I think your plan will work, but I don't think it's going to be safe to have more mages heading into Arkham right now..." There's the sound of Sawyer hissing through his teeth, pulling in air before saying, slowly. "Lady Watercolour Map would be able to provide enough protection on her own to protect you from the napalm, but I don't know if you'd be able to afford asking her to handle any shoggoths that come after you. I... Ellie's there, though. She should be able to handle some of the shoggoths for you."

Why do I feel so clear headed? So.. calm?

The thought doesn't last for long, getting interrupted by Sawyer's feedback. He relays the essentials to Astraeus, then answers.

"Sawyer, I'm not going to need a lot of protection from the shoggoths, I'll literally be on fire. But I'm not opposed to having someone with me, just in case."

Then to Astraeus. "I was informed that more mages in Arkham would be bad, but the Lady might help. Just in case, can you guys tap me with the protections and keep them up until I call? It might be a few hours, but the spell itself seemed to be low effort, from what I managed to glance."

"Besides that, give me any equipment you can spare and think I could need, one or two people to help with the napalm, a credit card, car keys, and I'm off."

"I can go with." Saije volunteers. "We have a fire-resist potion in the med kit."

Astraeus glances around the room. "Saint would be the other go-to for protection, but he's caught up in this mess too. Alright. Saije, Alric, you go, if Sawyer says its fine by his calculations."

"Awesome." Alric collects the car keys and credit card from Astraeus. "Who do I have to speak to to get my spell taps?"

And then into the phone. "Sawyer, is bringing just Saije with me to Arkham okay?"

There's more rustling and a "thank you," from Sawyer, followed by a quick. "... yyyes, with the current data I've got that should be fine. When you get there, tell the kids to get to Bright Books. I'll have them stay inside here until you're all clear, just in case anyone else bursts out of the woodwork."

Into the phone "Will do. I'll call you when there's news, okay?" And after Sawyer confirms, Alric hangs up.

He turns to Astraeus again, still waiting for an answer.

"Could you clarify what you mean by spell taps?" Astraeus looks up from the laptop that had pulled his attention.

"Emeralds have acknowledged our warning, and are asking for further details before turning around." Imani interrupts.

Astraeus plants both hands on the table and leans in. "Tell them it's because there's a sidhe there who has taken a personal grudge against their sire lord." He says it like he is imparting the most juicy of gossip.

"A she?"

"S-I-D-H-E. Sidhe. It's Gaelic." Astraeus clarifies.

Isn't it a little bit too shiny outside for vampires?

No, unimportant, focus.

"Who do I speak to to get tapped with Environmental Protection stacks before I leave? That's the crux of the plan and I'm not going to give that part just in the hands of a single mage, arch mage or not, especially if it's literally the easiest spell in the book."

Wait, isn't Shannon an Emerald? Something something, Emerald, Sunshine, emotions?

There's a number of glances made around the room.

Saije speaks before the silence can cross into the uncomfortable territory. "That's what the fire-resist potion I mentioned is for. That's basically what we have."

"Morgan has a whole cult of ritual mages, I'm sure he can hook you up with at least a few different traditions of the spell." Astraeus says.

"We don't have any mages? You know what, doesn't matter. Morgan it is. Astraeus, I'll grab some more armor from the armory on the way out and get going. I'll call you when I have news."

He starts making his way towards the armory, while sending Saije to collect the potion and a first aid kit, just in case. In the armory, he'll look for any additional armor he could use himself, as well as some to give to Ellie.

Once Saije joins him again, he'll speak up. "Two questions. What's a Sidhe, and does the potion of fire resistance say anything on its label about being able to breathe in a smoke filled environment?"

"Armory is right next to the med bay." Saije smirks as she walks beside him. "A Sidhe is a type of faerie. One of the noble class, as far as I understand. Etymologically related to both the word 'banshee' and 'sith.'"

She grabs a to-go duffle bag and plastic bottle from the oversized closet while Alric opens the armory door to find... another oversized closet. The "armory" has extra sets of the same gambeson that the field agent team was given when they were hired, one shawl labeled "notice-me-not glamour," a drum of holly water, a couple bags of salt, some dried herbs, two crossbows, three spears, and little else.

"Ah, sith. The first fae I might get to talk to is a sith. Great."

Does the glamour have a description or instructions with it?

Yes. The shawl has a description on an attached tag that says that it only works on perception, cameras will see whoever wears it just fine. You must have the shawl visible from all angles to work, with the black side out and the grey side in. (it is currently folded so only the grey side shows.)

Saije reads over the potion label. "Yeah... You'll want a gas mask while you are using this where there's smoke."

There aren't any gas masks in the armory.

"You don't-" Alric folds his hands over his face, then sighs. "Ah, fuck it. You'll see. I'll take a gambeson and a crossbow plus bolts, you'll take the shawl. It'll be important later."

Alric will let Astraeus know what he's taken, then leave with Saije.

They'll drive to Alric's home where they'll collect a whole suite of tools and spare parts and shovel them into the car. Does it look relevant? Then into a box it goes, and into the car. He'll also go into the attic to collect a half-built flamethrower collecting dust. Well, calling it a flamethrower is a stretch - he built the pipe ignition, and a system for releasing the CO2 canisters with a pull of a trigger. But then he started prototyping a rail gun and never got to finish the build.

Until now. Into the car the flamethrower parts go. He'll also collect his Relief disk.

They'll drive to a gas station and fill up a ton of canisters, and the car, with gas. They'll keep half a dozen canisters empty.

They'll drive to a hardware shop to get their hands on styrofoam and any other missing parts Alric might need, particularly seals and water hoses and hose connectors.

They'll jump into a Walmart to collect a case of SodaStream CO2 canisters, and a case of glass bottles, and a bunch of linen.

And then, they'll drive to the lot.

On the way, Saije broaches the subject that, actually, she is the only mage the Commission has on staff, and she's really a magician more than a mage--more focused in unraveling how things are accomplished rather than able to wield power herself. Phoenix, Astraeus, and Imani all have their own little tricks they can do, but nothing like "general purpose" magery. The supernatural community was a whole lot broader than mages, and mages generally have a better deal of things compared to, say, shifters.

Alric drives past the lot the first time, and has to pay extremely close attention to find the lot on the second drive-by.

Alric isn't doing a whole lot of talking. The only thing on his mind is solving the problem.

He'll start with the hole near Bright Books. He'll look for anything that looks like a fae wielding magic, or a bunch of college kids wielding spears.

From the sidewalk, the lot appears normal, if hard to notice.

He'll stop the car, get on the sidewalk, then yell out: "Ellie! Scratch! Anyone?"