[Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen] Patchwork - The Journal of Angoz & Etzel

 ((In Character Post (IC):

Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Mage: The Awakening
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler))

Author: Hannah Nyland, all rights reserved))

((I wish I could take credit for this, I did help design the story this little gem was part of... great work Hannah))

 The Study

While fashioned from rock like the rest of the place, the inhabitant of this room clearly at least made an effort to make it feel cozy. The lighting is warm, and the floor has been mostly covered by a large, antique rug, and the walls by wall tapestries with soothing colors; blue and purple. There’s an old reading chair set up by the door with a pile of books on it, and bookshelves filled with occult tomes and literature. In the far corner, there’s a wooden desk and chair.

There is a single, slim tome on the desk, a pen beside it. It’s an imbued item; a book that never runs out of pages; whenever the user reaches the last page, a turn of the page brings them to a new one, yet it somehow manages to stay the size of a novella.

February 29^th, 2002.

At last I’ve settled on a promising first candidate for my work; a young Sleeper named Melissa Allman. Waitress at a nearby coffee. Middle class upbringing. College dropout. Ordinary.

But after deep scrutiny, I see a bright spark of potential buried underneath the mundane. She could become so much more.

It will be done quietly, of course. There are many, many who would have more than words for me if my actions were to be discovered.

I have no illusions that the process will not hurt her. If the Iron Gauntlet has taught me nothing else in all my years, it’s that enlightenment is never a gentle process, nor should it be. This will be a trial for both of us, but I’m confident that she will see the other side, forged from the struggle. Awakened.

March 5^th, 2002.

“There was no enlightenment.

I tried to fix my mistakes after it was over, but there is nothing left to fix. These aren’t just fractures in her psyche, but a smoking crater where her mind used to be. She’s dead in everything but body, and after what I’ve done . . . the body isn’t long for this world either. Even Life magic can only heal so much.

There was no enlightenment. And there is no forgiveness for this.”

March 6^th, 2002.

“Took care of the body.”

 ((The rest of the page is blank.))

March 10^th, 2002.

“I’ve thought about Melissa the past few days.    

But this is greater than me, her, or any of us. If my work results in the Awakening of even a single soul, if I can unlock that impenetrable secret, her blood on my hands will have been worthwhile. We are too few, and the number of new mages dwindles by the year. I’ve watched it happen. I’ve felt my own power slowly fade over the centuries, felt the distance between my soul and its Watchtower, ever widening. Inch by inch, magic is crumbling, and so are we.

The tests will continue. I will never escape what I have done here, and from what I will do. But perhaps one day, they will thank me for it.”

((The journal goes on to describe further “tests” performed on over a dozen kidnapped Sleeper subjects, both male and female. The means vary wildly, but are consistently brutal. Vivisection with a scalpel. Tampering with memories and emotions. Inducing painful, terrifying, euphoric states of mind. Warping the body with Life magic. Stopping their heart. Taking a sledgehammer to the psyche. Dangerous amounts of blood loss. These are just the tip of the iceberg. Most die. The rest are released with their memories erased and nearly irreparable mental damage.))

((The writer carefully logs each Sleeper’s background and the tortures inflicted on them separately. The first couple are thick with remorse, heavy on rationalizations and light on the details of the experiments themselves. He continues to repeat that he cannot be forgiven. But the further you read, the more clinical and explicit the entries become – cold, detached. There is a feeling of tightness about them, as though if he allows himself to articulate too much he will shatter :))

December 30^th, 2005

“Test on Richard Wilmoth resulted in failure. Subject was a drifter suffering from alcohol and nicotine addictions. Abusive childhood. Experienced difficulties with authority figures throughout his life. No higher education. No close personal ties. Aged 37 at time of death.

Procedures showed initial promise, but were ultimately ineffective. Alternated bet

ween simulating the effects of heavy depressant drugs and flooding his body with stimulants, including quantities of adrenaline well past the amount naturally produced by the body. This was sustained for eight hours, during which the subject entered an altered state of consciousness, where I used events extracted from his memories in to create hallucinations of his worst inner demons for him to overcome. Little progress at this stage. Heart rate spiked dramatically and subject completely withdrew mentally instead of attempting to face the conflict. Could not draw him out.

At the eight hour mark, the subject’s heart gave out and he went into cardiac arrest. Problem resolved with Life magic and test continued. Directed psychic assaults at the subject in an attempt to force him to mentally emerge and defend himself. No success; subject remained in a near catatonic state. Experimented once again with effects of reshaping the frontal and parietal lobe-”

((This entry continues on for several pages.))

((At some point, the writer begins capturing spirits and testing the effects of spells on them to judge if they should then be used on the Sleepers. Specifically, he frequently references a spirit named Etzel.))

May 6^th, 2006                                                                                          

“A success. An actual goddamn successful Awakening after everything. And I was the one to bring it to fruition.

Until that breakthrough, I was certain I was going to lose another one; she was only a hair away from death when it happened. Fitting for a new Moros.

I’ve cut her every sympathetic tie to me and my work, healed what I could, implanted false memories of these events and a subtle urging to seek out San Diego’s Concilium members. They should be able to take care of her from here. Jodi Ashwell will have a new life when she opens her eyes.

But there’s not enough evidence yet to prove that my methods are successful. If anyone is to be convinced, I’ll need a pattern of cause and effect I can point to. And for that, I need more Sleepers.”

((Over the next four years, there are two more successful Awakenings recorded. But there is no consistency in the precise methods which triggered them, no pattern to speak of. Even the writer begins to question whether the Awakenings were a result of his tests, or a simple coincidence resulting from deliberately surrounding himself with Sleepers with great potential for Awakening. The tone of the passages sinks back into detached coldness once again.))

June 10^th, 2010.

“The next test subject is secured. I’m trying something very different this time; will be an extremely complex spell, and I’m unsure of how it will react with a living being. Better to proceed cautiously and run it on Etzel first.

Tomorrow though. Can’t remember the last time I slept.”

((From this point forward, the handwriting of the entries becomes noticeably different; harsh, angry scrawls, where before it was tight and disciplined.))

June 12th, 2010.

“Flipping back through this book is sickening. Not for what he did, no, but for the hypocrisy of it. All those tears shed for the humans he hurt, as though they were the only ones.

I remember how he kept spirits trapped in those lanterns like insects, binding us against our wills. I remember the nightly torture and tests inflicted upon us so that his precious humans might have to suffer a little less when the time came.

Yet you could “forgive yourself” for that, couldn’t you, Angoz?

I am his legacy - a maimed spirit and patchwork beast - and that thought disgusts me more than anything he has written down in these pages. In every way, I am the monster he has forced me into – sick, spiteful, and pathetic.

But no spirit in my service will be bound or harmed. They will work for me of their own free will, and be rewarded accordingly. I can think of no better way to spit on his memory.”

June 24^th, 2010

“There is no escape from this malformed body, this state of being a crawling, festering thing. No waking up from this nightmare. Even shapeshifting into another form is only a temporary relief from it, though one that I gladly accept.

Angoz’s soul . . . my soul . . . is deeply damaged, held together by Supernal willpower and little else. I felt it happen as it shifted from his possession to mine, fractured by that moment of trauma. It’s a mage’s soul, and ill-fitting, operating at only a fraction of its potential, and even then clawing at my insides the whole way.

The Astral Realms reject me entirely. Three times now, I’ve tried to meditate at the Hallow, but the doors of my own Oneiros remain closed to me. When I try to draw out the Mana into myself, the substance slips through my will, as though recoiling from me.”

September 10^th, 2010.

“I never expected to miss Angoz. But having someone to hate is still someone, and all I have left now are the rats.

I’ve made contact with a handful of spirits, and while some are willing to work for me, none will stay in my presence for any longer than is necessary. They’re afraid.

I rarely leave the sewers, or even the Sanctum. As much as this place is a reminder of my own living hell, it’s also the only safe place. If a mage were to realize what I really am underneath the Life magic and illusions, I would likely not survive the encounter.”

November 1^st, 2010.

“A dog fell into an open sewer hole today. A stray, I think, all spotted and dirty and thin with its two back legs broken. No collar.

I carried it back to the Sanctum. Healed its legs. I don’t know why. Maybe I really am that desperate for companionship. The dog eyed me warily, but it did not bite, or worse – try to run.

And then . . . I don’t know what triggered it. There was just this feeling, this mixture of rage and hunger and desperation, and the animal cried out as was swallowed up alive, body and mind, just as Angoz was. Not eaten so much as absorbed and assimilated. Just like that, a trickle of Mana, or something like it, flowed back into me, and I was sated.

I can still hear the dog, whimpering and snarling from somewhere in the back of my mind. Angoz too. I wish I knew how to make them stop.

December 3rd, 2010.                                               

“I must find a way out. Living like this can hardly be called living at all.

An unbroken body. An untarnished Supernal soul. I judge both to be unachievable as I am now. Sometimes, what is shattered cannot be put back together, regardless of effort.

But another’s mind can be usurped on the cusp on enlightenment, thrown out and my consciousness seated in its place. I will experience a proper Awakening, even if it must be via proxy and theft.

So it comes to this again; the seeking of potential. The tests will continue. I will be whole again.”

((You start to get an eerie feeling of Déjà vu as you read on. There is the kidnapping of Sleepers, the horrific torture, the hopes of enlightenment – it’s all the same, just with a different motivation this time. More deaths, more broken minds. And while Angoz’s entries became colder, this writer seems to grow more desperate the more time passes without a single successful Awakening.))

((There is something odd that happens only a few times. The writer describes kidnapping a Sleeper as usual, but instead of experimenting on them, they compel them to treat them as they would a good friend, and simply talk with them for a time. Their memories of the experience are wiped, and they are allowed to go free, unharmed. But the majority of these stories have no such happy ending.))

((The last entry in the journal is very recent :))

“I’ve been blessed with not one, but two prospects this time. Nolan, the psychic talent, I’ve had my eye on for a while, but the second took me by surprise. She practically wandered right onto my doorstep.

A Proximus. The threads of her destiny practically glow under Fate, with a strength and immediacy that I’ve rarely seen. Someone’s hour is coming ‘round.

And of course, she’s surrounded by a pack of mages, but I find that I simply don’t care anymore. This may be the best chance I ever get. To have a life back . . . any risk seems worthwhile now.”