Retold by LoreKeeper Casstiel of the Five Horsemen in the Summer of 2012
Regarding the events in Dec 2010
The Pandemonium Awakening of Casstiel
“You’ll like this story,” I waggle my eyebrows with a playful smile. “It’s a Christmas story,” I chime in a game show host voice. Then I dive in, the town is calm, casual, but deadly serious.
“I know it’s only been three years but I feel like I’ve been on this secret road for a long time. Three years Awakened really isn’t a huge accomplishment in the grand scheme of things, but I can honestly say that I am in the top third of Mages in power. I am the LoreKeeper of the Horseman and Bridge of Souls Cabals and that means I collect knowledge and stories, experiences, thought and memory. So now I share with you my experience about that binds us in a brother and sisterhood of Supernal congress with the Watchtowers. All Awakened were all called across the Abyss in different situations and different reasons.”
“What was different and rare for me was that the first five of us, my best friends all the way back to High School and before, Awakened together in a shared astral dream experience provoked by a dream attack caused by the Nightmare Morphean. Our situation was bizarre; our interpretation of our visits to the Watchtowers was similar to others and yet a little skewed. I have never heard an Awakening story that matched any other I have collected. Similarity I have never heard of a “group Awakening” like this happening before but there is some precedence for it. The hubris of Mages would imply a shared purpose of communion with each other before we ever became a Cabal with symbolic team spell-work. The ritual synergy we could all work when we were all together and alive was astounding.”
“Where to begin? It was the night we were all hanging out a few days before Christmas 2010. Partying it up in La Roome, at the Mayor's house. That is the term of endearment from my Grandpa, who consequently has been the Mayor of our Hometown of Beulah for quite some time, Darrell Berke. La Roome or “The Room” is the newest expansion to his every growing property right off main street - a hangout room as an extension to the garage. Now instead of going downstairs we congregate there for holiday stuff family opened gifts there on Christmas Day. It was dark outside and snow is starting to fall quiet and soft. The Christmas tree with all its lights and tasteful trimmings and presents illuminate up one corner. I liked to commandeer the place when I went home, like yesterday actually, ditch the half-constructed ranch with my mom and crazy step-dad in Wilton and chill at my favorite place in town as an HQ for all the Christmas festivities. Of course Perry & Deb’s is about a ten minute walk up the way. So I'm close to all the action as both large families drive across the states and dodge blizzards to come home.”
“That night I had the gang over for our new tradition – After Commissioning in the Air Force I would take a trip home every six months. So far it had ran like clockwork since big going away party in May of 09. We would nerd out and drink our faces off. The gang was over – Kairos, Prodigy, Loudon and Nergal. We had been playing Rock Band - I like to sing, while drinking heavily. I think we played some drinking games that night so we were getting pretty hammered. It was getting late into the night and the booze was starting to wear down into fatigue when someone, I think it might have been Prodigy? Got a call.”
This time I catch the face Hannah makes. “Ah, yeah I forgot to mention, have you ever heard of the occult concept of True Names? To avoid people finding us or working magic on upon us we all use Shadow Names. So I’m Casstiel, and Keri is Persephone. Everyone picks there Shadow Name as something of an alias, you can have yours be whatever you want. I guess just make sure it means something to you.”
“On the phone was an old High School friend - Jason Ballinsky. We drifted apart as he picked up a stupider crowd... and drugs after I graduated. He said some depressing things, I mean textbook suicidal. It really sounded like he was gonna kill himself. It was terrifying, saying things like “I’m sorry” and what not Then he hung up. We freaked out trying to figure out who knew someone who would know where he was. The number was his cell phone so that wasn’t helpful. Turned out he was at that Hotel near Dairy Queen. As much as I am ashamed to say, we drove drunk through the slippery snow and ice as carefully as we could in the early morning hours of cold bitter darkness on the morning of Christmas Eve. We got to the door of his hotel room and heard something like a scuffle going on. We took turns kicking in the door for a few desperate moments.”
“Let me tell you, kicking in a door is NOT like it is in the movies. It hurt and the damn thing, even an interior door, wouldn't budge until we finally cracked something in the wall and the door swung open lazily. Jason was hanging himself with a bedsheet from the light fixture. Apparently he didn't have much line cause he was choking and his neck was intact. And like so many suicides in my high school years, he was purposefully holding his legs off the ground to do it. We tried to lift him and cut the line with a knife but he fought us, kicking and fighting us off. It's like, even with his face turning purple, he wanted to die. And when we finally cut him down he just lapsed into a coma ad wouldn't wake up. We called the cops and acted mostly sober when they showed.”
“We got back to the room, too wired to sleep right away. At this point we had already seen some weird shit. We knew the world was dark and there were creatures in it. We had already liberated the ghost town of Krem from its spiritual torment, at least the Sheriff we hoped. We also already had a run in with some truly horrible ghosts at my Dad's new place in South Dakota before he moved back to Minot, dealt with them too. Alanna had her girls roadtrip through Nevada and had trouble with a ghost-possessed human trafficking ring, kidnapping girls. Then the last straw was when people we knew started getting their organs snatched right out of their bodies. Just like the rest of the supernatural haunting our lives, we killed the SpearFinger, one of the great Native American boogeymen, and the wicked shaman who summoned her. So yeah, we were getting pretty good at spotting weird shit. And it was all mundane skill, just some guys with random skills and determination. No physic powers, no sights, nodda, all skill baby, friendship, trust, teamwork. We had become what we call in the magic business, Hunters.”
“So we started talking about all the weird shit we had seen before. Then we started talking about all the suicides that had occurred in the last 20 years. People we grew up with, went to school with, killing themselves for no reason... Statistically it was higher than major cities let alone a small town area. And they all had killed themselves the same way. I couldn't shake the feeling there had been a sinister force at work all our lives. Now that feeling has grown into a paranoid level of certainly. I now have theories about why we Awakened… and it harkens back to a darkness deep under the ground centered around Beulah. More on that later…”
“So after we discussed all the people who were gone and the strange ways they bit it. Then we all crashed. Kairos and Nergal went to Kairos’s parent’s house (yeah at the time he was still living with his parents) close by to sleep. Prodigy, Loudon, and I all crashed downstairs on the couch in my grandparent’s basement. Then we had the weirdest dream of our lives and we would never be the same afterwards.”
“I didn't mean to ramble about everything up to my Awakening. Ask my wife, I definitely talk too much.” I pause to take another sip while the coffee is still hot.
Regarding the events in Dec 2010
The Pandemonium Awakening of Casstiel
“You’ll like this story,” I waggle my eyebrows with a playful smile. “It’s a Christmas story,” I chime in a game show host voice. Then I dive in, the town is calm, casual, but deadly serious.
“I know it’s only been three years but I feel like I’ve been on this secret road for a long time. Three years Awakened really isn’t a huge accomplishment in the grand scheme of things, but I can honestly say that I am in the top third of Mages in power. I am the LoreKeeper of the Horseman and Bridge of Souls Cabals and that means I collect knowledge and stories, experiences, thought and memory. So now I share with you my experience about that binds us in a brother and sisterhood of Supernal congress with the Watchtowers. All Awakened were all called across the Abyss in different situations and different reasons.”
“What was different and rare for me was that the first five of us, my best friends all the way back to High School and before, Awakened together in a shared astral dream experience provoked by a dream attack caused by the Nightmare Morphean. Our situation was bizarre; our interpretation of our visits to the Watchtowers was similar to others and yet a little skewed. I have never heard an Awakening story that matched any other I have collected. Similarity I have never heard of a “group Awakening” like this happening before but there is some precedence for it. The hubris of Mages would imply a shared purpose of communion with each other before we ever became a Cabal with symbolic team spell-work. The ritual synergy we could all work when we were all together and alive was astounding.”
“Where to begin? It was the night we were all hanging out a few days before Christmas 2010. Partying it up in La Roome, at the Mayor's house. That is the term of endearment from my Grandpa, who consequently has been the Mayor of our Hometown of Beulah for quite some time, Darrell Berke. La Roome or “The Room” is the newest expansion to his every growing property right off main street - a hangout room as an extension to the garage. Now instead of going downstairs we congregate there for holiday stuff family opened gifts there on Christmas Day. It was dark outside and snow is starting to fall quiet and soft. The Christmas tree with all its lights and tasteful trimmings and presents illuminate up one corner. I liked to commandeer the place when I went home, like yesterday actually, ditch the half-constructed ranch with my mom and crazy step-dad in Wilton and chill at my favorite place in town as an HQ for all the Christmas festivities. Of course Perry & Deb’s is about a ten minute walk up the way. So I'm close to all the action as both large families drive across the states and dodge blizzards to come home.”
“That night I had the gang over for our new tradition – After Commissioning in the Air Force I would take a trip home every six months. So far it had ran like clockwork since big going away party in May of 09. We would nerd out and drink our faces off. The gang was over – Kairos, Prodigy, Loudon and Nergal. We had been playing Rock Band - I like to sing, while drinking heavily. I think we played some drinking games that night so we were getting pretty hammered. It was getting late into the night and the booze was starting to wear down into fatigue when someone, I think it might have been Prodigy? Got a call.”
This time I catch the face Hannah makes. “Ah, yeah I forgot to mention, have you ever heard of the occult concept of True Names? To avoid people finding us or working magic on upon us we all use Shadow Names. So I’m Casstiel, and Keri is Persephone. Everyone picks there Shadow Name as something of an alias, you can have yours be whatever you want. I guess just make sure it means something to you.”
“On the phone was an old High School friend - Jason Ballinsky. We drifted apart as he picked up a stupider crowd... and drugs after I graduated. He said some depressing things, I mean textbook suicidal. It really sounded like he was gonna kill himself. It was terrifying, saying things like “I’m sorry” and what not Then he hung up. We freaked out trying to figure out who knew someone who would know where he was. The number was his cell phone so that wasn’t helpful. Turned out he was at that Hotel near Dairy Queen. As much as I am ashamed to say, we drove drunk through the slippery snow and ice as carefully as we could in the early morning hours of cold bitter darkness on the morning of Christmas Eve. We got to the door of his hotel room and heard something like a scuffle going on. We took turns kicking in the door for a few desperate moments.”
“Let me tell you, kicking in a door is NOT like it is in the movies. It hurt and the damn thing, even an interior door, wouldn't budge until we finally cracked something in the wall and the door swung open lazily. Jason was hanging himself with a bedsheet from the light fixture. Apparently he didn't have much line cause he was choking and his neck was intact. And like so many suicides in my high school years, he was purposefully holding his legs off the ground to do it. We tried to lift him and cut the line with a knife but he fought us, kicking and fighting us off. It's like, even with his face turning purple, he wanted to die. And when we finally cut him down he just lapsed into a coma ad wouldn't wake up. We called the cops and acted mostly sober when they showed.”
“We got back to the room, too wired to sleep right away. At this point we had already seen some weird shit. We knew the world was dark and there were creatures in it. We had already liberated the ghost town of Krem from its spiritual torment, at least the Sheriff we hoped. We also already had a run in with some truly horrible ghosts at my Dad's new place in South Dakota before he moved back to Minot, dealt with them too. Alanna had her girls roadtrip through Nevada and had trouble with a ghost-possessed human trafficking ring, kidnapping girls. Then the last straw was when people we knew started getting their organs snatched right out of their bodies. Just like the rest of the supernatural haunting our lives, we killed the SpearFinger, one of the great Native American boogeymen, and the wicked shaman who summoned her. So yeah, we were getting pretty good at spotting weird shit. And it was all mundane skill, just some guys with random skills and determination. No physic powers, no sights, nodda, all skill baby, friendship, trust, teamwork. We had become what we call in the magic business, Hunters.”
“So we started talking about all the weird shit we had seen before. Then we started talking about all the suicides that had occurred in the last 20 years. People we grew up with, went to school with, killing themselves for no reason... Statistically it was higher than major cities let alone a small town area. And they all had killed themselves the same way. I couldn't shake the feeling there had been a sinister force at work all our lives. Now that feeling has grown into a paranoid level of certainly. I now have theories about why we Awakened… and it harkens back to a darkness deep under the ground centered around Beulah. More on that later…”
“So after we discussed all the people who were gone and the strange ways they bit it. Then we all crashed. Kairos and Nergal went to Kairos’s parent’s house (yeah at the time he was still living with his parents) close by to sleep. Prodigy, Loudon, and I all crashed downstairs on the couch in my grandparent’s basement. Then we had the weirdest dream of our lives and we would never be the same afterwards.”
“I didn't mean to ramble about everything up to my Awakening. Ask my wife, I definitely talk too much.” I pause to take another sip while the coffee is still hot.
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