Out of Character (OOC):
Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum
A Murder of Masques
A Chimera short by Hannah Nyland
Five places.
*
A deceptive place. It’s a perfectly pleasant day in a
perfectly pleasant little house. Paradise suburbia; a nice lawn, a white picket
fence, a well-groomed dog. The basement is a horror, of course. Coils upon
coils of blood, bodies, fresh and creative depravities. Screams well up from
the concrete.
For now, the place is empty.
**
A still place. White void
and empty space; Tabula Rasa. A woman in red and orange robes kneels at the
heart of it all, content and smiling, shuffling a deck of Tarot cards in her
hands. The cloth pooled at her feet is the only color for miles around.
All at once, the room
beings to change. An outside will has made itself known, and the room is
shaping itself to their desires. The Hearthkeeper sighs, still smiling, and
rises to her feet.
***
An emotional place. A woman paces the war room,
sharpening weapons and polishing shields. She’s rough cut, brutish and hulking.
Everything she does seems tinged with a kind of anger, and the feeling feeds on
itself, swelling until it becomes an entity of its own, snarling and lurching
in the middle of the room. The anchors are what still it, keep it contained;
Dad’s comfy armchair, Frekki’s black leather boots, Jack’s favorite video game.
But on her hundredth patrol around the room, the
Avenging Son comes across an anchor that doesn’t fit or belong. A blood-stained
kunai.
****
A precise place. Quiet, dimly lit, an impeccably
measured thirty by thirty by thirty foot cube. The walls are blanketed by
numbers, charts, and diagrams, written down in a tidy black script. An
unremarkable woman – a little short, a little reedy, her glasses a little too
large for her – sits at a large mahogany desk, muttering to herself and
scrawling down calculations in a small brown notebook. She’s surrounded by
computers, telephones, and address books at all sides.
The Weaver of Whispers glances up at a ding from one
of her many devices, and furrows her brow. She’s got a new message.
*****
A familiar place. Not identical; that would be another
betrayal. But close. A little black temple kitten is curled up at the foot of
her pyramid, soaking in the sun. She peeks through half-closed eyes as Bastet
approaches, bowing her head deferentially.
“Lord Scar, you’ve been invited to a meeting . . .”
******
“If you want my opinion-” the Heartkeeper starts.
“Your opinion couldn’t possibly matter less to me,”
The Good Death says. “You’re an extra pair of hands, a few useful tricks, and nothing
more.”
They’re in yet another place now. A small scene buried
deep in the conceptual sea of the Oneiros dedicated to secrecy and
forgetfulness. It’s so desolate that it’s devoid even of dream actors or
objects, and so narrow that their elbows and legs bump into each other when
they shift positions.
The Hearthkeeper cocks her head, trying to get a read,
but the Good Death has always been slippery ground to tread. “I understand that
you’re upset, but taking it out on us like this isn’t going to solve anything. You
called us here because you wanted our help with something, right? I do want to
help you.”
“Ha. Of course you do. I’d do just as well to stick a
puppet on my hand and have a conversation with that. It’d be functionally the
same thing.”
“I . . . have feelings. I care about people. I-”
“Who are you trying to fool? You’re just a hollow
shell, filled up by other people’s desires. Without that, you’re nothing. She
made you nothing.”
For the first time in her short life, the Hearthkeeper
is speechless.
The Avenging Son glowers, taking a step in front of
the smaller Masque as though to protect her from the Good Death’s words.
The Good Death turns and points with her kunai. “And
you, miss brood and doom. What are you getting out of this arrangement? Angrily
obsessing over someone else’s so-called loved ones, like - like some kind of
freaky vengeance-driven golem.”
The Avenging Son’s glower
doesn’t budge an inch.
“You creep me out, you know that? No ambition. No
personality. Just . . . rage. Isn’t there anything that you want for yourself?”
Silence.
“Right, fine. I don’t know what I expected.”
The Weaver of Whispers sniffs. “Incorrigible. Even assuming
that you have some sort of point with this, why should any of us listen to you?
You’re a depraved murderer, and worse, you’re messy.”
“Little sis-”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Little sis, you seem to be under the impression that
death and disorder are bad things. But when you hold someone’s life in your
hands, all the gods and plans in the world don’t matter. It’s just you, them,
and the edge of a knife. Freedom. What more could you ask for?”
“Love?” The Hearthkeeper suggests. Her voice sounds
raw, bruised.
The Good Death laughs. “Is that a joke? That’s the
route you think we’re going down? You really haven’t being paying attention.
Yeah, the boss making poison sludge and black tentacles her new motif is definitely a sign of the warmth in her
heart right now.”
“And you know, great for
her,” she continues. “Whatever. But that doesn’t mean we have to take this,
being cast as the parts she plays, on and off, as she pleases. Bit characters.”
“We play a role,” The
Hearthkeeper says, a little more firmly this time. “Every big picture is made
up of little pictures; people, decisions, relationships . . . they’re bigger
than what any one of us wants. We have a job to do, and we matter.”
The Good Death ignores
her completely. “The mind controls the body, and guys, we’re in the heart of
the place that controls the mind. Think about it.”
“Mm.” Lord Scar licks her
paw. “You’re proposing a mutiny.”
“Right, a mutiny. A coup.”
“Those two words are not quite synonymous,” The Weaver
of Whispers says peevishly.
“Mutiny: an open rebellion against the proper
authorities. Coup: a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from-”
The Good Death’s weapon hand twitches. The Weaver of
Whispers goes quiet.
“Alone, we don’t stand a chance. Together, we could
take more than the little scraps the boss and her daimon are willing to throw
us. So much more. I say, we put it to a vote. Yes or no, are we going to do
this? I’ll start. Yes.”
The four masques look at each other.
“No.”
“Not a chance.”
The Avenging Son shakes her head.
The Good Death looks to
the black kitten expectantly.
“Nah,” Lord Scar says.
“What . . . what the hell? You’re the only one of
these idiots I can actually tolerate! I thought you were all about betrayal.”
“Smart betrayal. Necessary betrayal. This isn’t
either. Bringing us all here like this, in one place? Not wise, my friend.”
“Four votes to one,” The Weaver of Whispers notes,
quite unnecessarily.
The room seems to shift, uneasy.
“Well. I’ve got half a mind to kill you all.” The Good
Death grins, and there’s a thick coil of tension behind it, an emotion halfway
between raw frustration and bloodlust – a skull’s smile. Her voice trembles,
and her hand grasps unsteadily at her kunai. “It’d be a mercy, even; empty, useless,
bleeding saps that you are. You really can’t see it? We’re slaves, all
of us!”
“Insane,” the Hearthkeeper breathes.
“I’m the only sane
one here!”
“ENOUGH!”
The. Room. Freezes.
And Grace enters.
Half the room is ripped away, and the daimon walks
through in an inferno of fire. Just a scrap of a girl in makeshift clothes, but
every one of them flinches back. The air smells like gasoline and burnt hair.
“How-” The Good Death stutters. “How did you find-”
Two monstrous creatures form out of the flames, long
legged and skittering, like enormous burning spiders. They lunge forward,
sinking their teeth into the Good Death and dragging her forward with a cry.
“You’ve made a mistake.” Grace smiles sweetly, baring
altogether too many teeth. “I think we need to have a chat. A very long chat. Ooo, this will be fun,
won’t it?” She chuckles to herself, twirling her hair with a finger.
The Good Death struggles violently, and gets a chunk
of her arm torn off for her trouble. “N-no!”
The Hearthkeeper steps forward, palms out. “You don’t
have to do this. She acted wrongly, but I’m sure we can-”
“Hearthkeeper.” Grace’s voice goes flat, losing all of
its light, girlish intonation in an instant. “You’re trying my patience. She
was talking about treason. With the stakes as they are, there’s a price. We’ve
all got our roles, and this is mine.”
The Hearthkeeper drops her hands and stares down at the
ground, her face a blank canvas.
The mask is back on in an instant. “The rest of you
just get home, ‘kay?” Grace perks up and departs with a giggle, her spiders
dragging the screaming Good Death behind them.
*******
The Good Death is returned a few days later, quieter,
flinching at even the small things. It’s a long time before she ventures beyond
the bounds of her own scene. A long time before any of them do.
Life goes on as before.
1. The Good Death:
The Good Death is an
assassin. He dispatches his targets as efficiently as possible and pretends to
have a detached attitude toward his victims. Mercy is not an option, unless it
tempts the one weakness in his character. The Good Death doesn’t really kill
for money or for a cause. He kills to pretend he has power over death. In a
moment of honesty, a religious Good Death might say he envies God. With every
kill, he reaffirms that he, and not some higher power, is the master of his fate.
Appearance: The Good Death looks like whomever he needs to in order to accomplish his
mission.
Token: The
Good Death carries something that belonged to his last victim: one risky
memento to remind him of his power. A kunai, from her mentor Witness.
The Killer Next Door: Chimera’s take on the Good Death Masque is that of the
serial killer whose eventual discovery shocks everyone. “He was so normal; I
never suspected.” “She always seemed like such a nice girl. A little quiet,
maybe.” “How could we have known?” The normal one. The nice, bland, inoffensive
neighbor or co-worker with bodies piled up in their basement. This take on the
Masque doesn’t send out any predatory vibes, despite their intent; if anything,
they tend to be regarded as harmless and relentlessly ordinary - a little dull
even, but pleasantly so. No signs of their obsession or damaged soul bubble up
to the surface; what lies beneath is a different story. They prefer a personal
touch when it comes to killing; when possible they perform their murders with
either bare hands or an intimate weapon, such as a knife.
2. The Hearthkeeper: Hearthkeeper Masques
stand for enduring love. Hope renews the Hearthkeeper’s passions, because even
in tough times, he believes things can only improve. Two Hearthkeepers can
delight in each other their entire lives, but a single Hearthkeeper is an easy
target for an abuser, who manipulates hopes that he’ll change or lets the
Hearthkeeper think she can “save” him.
Appearance:
Hearthkeepers don’t have any particular appearance, though most tend to be
older.
Token: A
Hearthkeeper carries or wears a token from a friend or family member. A deck of
Tarot Cards, gifted by Casstiel.
The Compassionate Spy: Chimera’s
version of this masque is the very manifestation of a benevolent lie. The
Compassionate Spy is whoever you want her to be; she cares so much about the
people around her that she is willing to lie to them, even stretch the
boundaries of her very identity in order to be exactly who they need. But the
empathy she exhibits is no fabrication – and it may be the only thing that
isn’t. Despite any deception, stretched morals, or ulterior motives, her core
motivation remains to make people feel happy, fulfilled, and at ease.
3. The Avenging Son: There are violent men and woman who use their strength to care for others. These
violent people are fiercely loyal to their companions. The archetypal Avenging
Son in mythology is Horus, who sought revenge on his father’s killer. The
Avenging Son is associated with violent roles, such as gang members, cops and
soldiers. They will give it all for those they call family. If anyone gets in
the way of their care, he’ll suffer.
Appearance:
The Avenging Son is strong and energetic. He wears a uniform as a symbol of
loyalty.
Token: A
keepsake from a member of his “family.” The combat gloves Jack helped imbue.
The Battered Shield: This Masque was not crafted with
intention and discipline like the others so much as spit out of Chimera’s
psyche in a moment of rage and protective instinct. While easily mistaken for a
bad-natured cop, broken soldier, or simple thug, she is none of these things –
instead she is a shield for Chimera’s friends, against both their enemies and
Chimera herself.
4. Lord Scar: Lord Scar is
the Masque of traitors. Scar is a double agent, backstabber and inside man.
Almost any profession suits him. It’s easy to hate Lord Scar, but he does what
he does for noble and base reasons. He confuses the latter with the former when
it suits him. Sometimes he has special knowledge of his situation. He knows his
friends are turning down an evil path or his cause is founded on a lie. Knowing
this, he has to bring the corruption down from the inside. But Lord Scar
betrays those he once cared for as a twisted way to possess them. If he cannot
walk with his comrades again, he must make do with destroying them.
Appearance:
Lord Scar’s treacherous nature leaves no mark on his appearance. In the
Oneiros, this particular version of Lord Scar looks like a black temple cat
kitten when not being worn.
Token:
Lord Scar can’t just pretend he’s going to betray others. He must act on his plans
on at least a weekly basis.
The Temple Cat: After this copy of
Olivia’s daimon fulfilled its original purpose, it was left with an identity crisis.
While technically only a newborn astral being, it still maintained many
original memories of existing as a more complex being with a daimon’s
responsibilities, despite never having lived that life itself. With some
assistance from Chimera’s daimon and her Masques, it eventually transitioned
into the role of a new Masque. Its penchant for betrayal is a consequence of
the nature of its departure from its host; it is aware that its testimony was
what ultimately signed Olivia’s death warrant, and there aren’t many betrayals
of self bigger than that. While it does not regret its actions, it does feel deep
sorrow over betraying someone it knew so intimately; in the end it regards
doing so as necessary. As an instrument of the Seers that was subverted against
its masters, the Temple Cat was a natural fit for the role of Lord Scar.
Olivia’s old work as a Seer operative also makes it a good choice for spycraft
and subterfuge. Personality-wise, it comes across as playful and slightly
naïve, but is much more clever and dangerous than it lets on.
5. The Weaver of Whispers: The Weaver of Whispers is the one to see when you need
help — but not from her. She wants to help, but won’t risk her own neck. To
compensate, she builds a formidable network of social contacts. She happily
helps people meet to succeed at a common goal, but won’t take any
responsibility for what transpires. Fences, socialites and administrators
gravitate toward this Masque.
Appearance: Weavers of Whispers don’t like
to stand out. They style themselves according to the conventions of their
subculture, with a distinct lack of originality because they follow others’
fashions instead of creating looks for themselves.
Token: The Weaver of Whispers carries a
notebook, cell phone or another object that contains her associates’ contact
information. Chimera’s plain journal containing calculations on Essence
allotment, necessary bribes, offerings due, and movement of spirits in
Jamestown.
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