[Mage: The Awakening] Dead Air (Part 1)

Out of Character (OOC):
Chronicle: Mage: The Horseman
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler 
Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum

This is part one of a retelling of the final plot of our LAST mage Chronicle, which concluded in December of 2012.  End of the world and all that, obviously they succeeded.  It is chock full of insanity...  Also I lifted the Denarians from the Dresden Files to use as antagonists. It was so much fun.

Part 1     Part 2     Part 3

Mage: The Horsemen
Death: Resumption after the events of Our Doom
By Casstiel, Lorekeeper of the Horsemen (Dec 2013)

((All posts done by Kairos is done in this color))

((Inserts by Jack Balance are in this color.))

((Indra’s part is in PURPLE!!  Because Kairos took blue :P)) 
((Same reason I'm in green.))

In memoriam of friends lost, 26 December 2013
Did you ever see the short original theatrical version of Dune?  The one where the only intro consisted of the Princess of the known universe saying “A Beginning is a very delicate thing?”  Then she proceeds to blast you with crazy concepts with no history or preamble, stuff that if you hadn’t read the book you would be pretty lost.  My father and I loved that movie and through dozens of viewings I managed to figure it all out.  I prefer the Alan Smithee version.  I always thought her first line was so stupid…. Beginnings are a delicate thing.  Bullshit.  Endings are hard.  A new beginning.

Ah, look at that.  I pulled the Death Tarot just now.  Contrary to popular belief, the Death card isn’t all that bad.  Much like it's dream interpretation it is also a symbol or rebirth, renewal, and resurrection.  It can be a symbol of birth or death as part of the natural order of things.  Everything in its fated time and season. 

It’s been nearly a year since we all lost a friend, two friends even, and maybe three if you count myself.  I haven’t been the best friend and cabalmate since then.  I have been distant, working on perfecting my brooding.  We saved the world but lost ourselves, and maybe that is the sacrifice.  We escaped The Doom of the Ten of Swords with our lives, most of us, but we may have lost a bit of our souls.  I explained why I have been distant, but it’s not an excuse.  When I set up a foothold in Pandemonium, the personal Hell, it changed reality in simple yet staggeringly fundamental ways.  Did I move to a parallel dimension or did everything well and truly change?  In my version of December 2012, The Prodigy was an avenging angel, wielding Holy Fire and a flaming sword of justice.  Here my best friend is a Scelestus and left the cabal.  John... this is all wrong.

So I have been relearning the subtle changes between the worlds.  An Archmaster of Mind can learn and re-engineer his brain quickly, adapting to new information and how I should act.  I now remember what really happened...here.  I remember as you remember those events.  And I am ready to talk about it.  So let me share my tale.  Feel free to chime in with anything I missed.

CHAPTER 1 – The Operators

CANTO I – Gabrielle’s House

You all remember this part I imagine.  Things had been ramping up for six months.  If we really had been paying attention we would have noticed things escalating up since we first stymied the Denarians at the Hellmouth over a year and a half prior.  We knew when they left us with only a marginal victory that they would be back and we had been doing everything in our power to prepare for it.  Some of us may have gone too far.

Baelhounds were raiding our central North Dakotan territories.  We determined they were henchmen of the Infernally possessed Scelesti looking in graveyards for very special ghosts.  Some of us with further sight were having deeper dreams, visions from our inner soul undirected by meditation.  Dreams of filthy Oil in underground caves.  Dreams of ghosts.  Nergal and Prodigy managed to trace strange radio signals on shortwave to a source but were unable to perceive one of these ghost entities by himself.  Death cults were making their activities known all over the world, earthquakes were shaking in the Underworld.  The Doom had finally come, the End of Days.  Maybe the Mayans were onto something…

People had been getting killed (seemingly by accident) in the major towns of North Dakota.  Bismarck, Fargo, Jamestown, others.  We found traces of Fate and resonance resembling at least two other mages.  But they were faking their true resonances, we didn’t recognize this until it was too late.  Quintus Cassius, aka “Snake Boy” took John’s sisters hostage to trade in exchange for his demon coin back.  In our last encounter with Nicodemus and his brood we managed to capture Snake Boy, erase his memory and hide his coin.  John, sorry, Prodigy managed to save his families lives and murder Cassius.  I think that is when he decided it was okay to fight fire with fire… 

 I had no idea any of this was going on. Prodigy didn't say much and when he did it was mostly of anger towards something that he refused to elaborate on. Prodigy had always felt to win fights you needed to be either on a level playing field or higher. To fight fire with fire was always his philosophy on everything regardless of scenario. He would do whatever it took to win at anything, a commendable outlook he had.

Things had been chugging along slowly, building, then our old mentor Gabrielle called us up our of the blue and says she is scared for her life at her home, her Sanctum.  We rally up and portal in in a matter of minutes and charge in but the damage was done in the night while she slept.  Both Blackened Roman Denarius, each containing an Infernal Archdemon were missing, the wards burned right through her basement floor with Hellfire.  Turns our Loudon had somehow managed to extract one coin prior and decided to hide the fact from us.  He had taken up the coin, Lashiel was now fully possessing him…

Some things I never understood was Hellfire and how Lashiel got past our defenses we had set up on Loudon. Though it's not surprising, we are working against something otherworldly.

What do you do when one of your best friends is possessed by a demon?  One that in the last nearly two years has never taken a single harmful action towards us?  We placed all kinds of spells on Loudon, and powerful items to make sure he could match his will against the shadow of the the Seducer, so that she could never get the drop on him.  We were idiots.

If he was always possessed then wouldn't the spells negate Loudon from retaking his body again? What if all we did was make Loudon a prisoner in his own body? These thoughts scare and infuriate me to think that we were that stupid.

I remember - I was torn between whether or not to trust Loudon and his demon.  I never liked the idea, was never comfortable with it.  But finally...Loudon and I had exchanged a subtle, unvoiced agreement back at Gabrielle's House - that although I had decided to trust him with his handling of Lashiel, that if things ever went south, I would be there to stop him. And he agreed.  Maybe it was some untouched remnant of his soul peeking through.

So there we were at Gabrielle’s house.  Jack Balance, Griffin’s Rookery, Loudon, Prodigy, Kairos, Nergal, Indra, and Myself.  We started talking about current events.  The nickleheads had broken our treaty hard-won via duel arcane last time we faced them.  They agreed never to return to our territory if we won, and we had. They had gone so much further now that the time was right. Not really surprising considering Nico claimed to be Judas Iscariot himself.  They were known for their back-stabbing and cheating like they invented the concept.  But what was more, they were back in town, and things were on the move.  It was time to get ahead of the situation before they tried to end the world again.

I did a tarot reading while STARK, our resident virtual intelligence crunched some current events across the web… crop circles, riots, strange sightings which may have been Denarians in demonic battle form. The cards told us it was deadly serious.

The Tarot Reading

The reading... lots of pentacles and swords… not good.

I begin to talk about each card and supply my inputs, after each card I looked to Rook for additional insight. Everyone provided their take.

The Querent – 10 of Swords – The focus of the reading was on the Doom itself. It's meaning is death, disaster, utter ruin, murder, violence, failure, destruction of all you hold dear. The card that keeps coming up for us and getting closer.  We've seen this card as the capstone to every reading since my first.  We always called it "our Doom" and it quickly works its way to far future, then immediate, now imminent.

Cover (Present state) – 7 of Wands –Individual courage and strength. Beset on all side by opponents, but with a significant advantage. Self-reliance. We are on our own in this… strangely this feels like it represents our number for this quest… but there are 8 of us going forward. So does that mean someone of our number is a traitor or will not be coming with us? Does one of us not support what needs to be done?

Forces in Opposition (sideways cover) – King of Pentacles – No surprise there. Slow to react but decisive when he does, the King of Pentacles is deliberate and thoughtful. A teacher, craftsman, devoted to his work and family. Never forgives a slight, but never jumps to conclusions and therefore hard to offend. The Card of Nicodemus Archelone and the Knights of the Blackened Denarius. Third time we have seen his card in the readings.

Crown (What the Future holds) – 9 of Swords – Utter Desolation. Misery, despair, the long dark night of the soul. Death or something worse. A place of death and darkness of the soul. This path will takes us to the worst of ourselves and others. So either this is all going to end very badly, a long horrible trial. It could also represent where Fate is going to take us regarding this situation. Could this mean the Underworld? Where souls go to suffer?

Beneath (Past) – 10 of Pentacles inverted – Family disputes, robbery, successful pilfering and used for another’s enjoyment. Usually associated with an inheritance. Identity theft, a deal throws things into disarray. This could mean many things. The death of Quintus Cassius, the theft of his coin from them, or the coin of Saluriel from Gabrielle today. It could mean inheriting Lashiel’s power to Loudon. But it is relevant to THIS situation now.  Later I realized it probably referred to Prodigy or Loudon's final betrayal.

Left (Immediately Behind us) – Queen of Pentacles – Generous, happy, intuitive and intelligent. She knows her family well and brooks no interference with their dealings. A good listening, practical, true, but stubborn. I think this referred to Gabe helping us right now.

Right (what lies before us) – Death inverted – Stagnation instead of rebirth. Instead of cycles ending and beginning anew the cycle stalls and sputters. Gears grind and build up pressure in the wheel of souls. Trying to subvert the natural order. This could mean the Denarians are trying to break the cycle, or we need to stop this fated cycle from happening if we want to save the world. But more than anything I think this card represents the Underworld. And I think our path is going to take us there. Twice the Underworld is seen in its metaphorical representation.  Later I realized it refers to the Hellmenth and how they would slowly consume the world over the years, replacing landscape with fecal ephemera.

Our Fears Regarding this situation, or a danger to us – Page of Cups Inverted – Flattering but deceptive, possibly with a bent towards seduction. I think we fear a deal offered by these devils. Or seduction by their coins. Maybe some of us have already been tempted or seduced… does this mean Loudon or the missing Wand to our 8 of Swords?  It was Lashiel.

Environment/Attitudes regarding this situation– Queen of Swords Inverted - The woman might be attractive, but beneath the skin she is rotted. Evil, corrupt, vicious, she lives to hurt others. I can say this, this isn’t Lashiel or anyone we have met so far. This card, this resonance is unfamiliar to me. But whoever she is, she is involved and we may meet her soon.  After the fact I am positive this was Nick's wife Tessa...

Our Hopes and Goals – Ace of Swords – The beginning of a fight or tense relationship. Great success attained at a heavy cost. Sometimes the Ace of Swords means death. So as we move forward we begin our struggle against the Denarians and some or all of us may die for success. At least there is this hope for us.”  It was the Cabal that died.

I paused and sighed before looking at the last card.

Capstone – The World Reversed – The World represents the a Cycle of life, we have also seen it on the wall in the Ruins. The Omen. The cycle is not random and the supernal cycle is unforgiving. Out of chaos comes harmony and out of darkness comes light. It represents both the Supernal and Fallen Worlds. These things we wish to protect. I wished with all my heart I was mistaken. I don’t want this to be inverted. Inverted World is the card of natural disaster, chaos, and destruction. Everything falls apart, the center cannot hold… nothing learned or gained. The world is, it may represent a man-made disaster. I don’t know if we can stop this. But both the Inverted and True aspects of the World card are here, I can feel it as I gaze upon the World XX on the Omen Wall.

I looked up at the wall as if I might cry, then back to those in the chamber and gave them a utterly stony and sincere look. There is both hope and hopelessness here in their faces.

“Any of you are free to walk away, I don’t know what will happen. But the Seven of Wands is now are Cabal, no longer five of Wands. I was mistaken about the swords. The 8 is the demon over this plot, the 10 our Doom. Maybe we face 10 Denarians this time. And we are headed for the Underworld most likely… for the sake of all existence. And it looks like there may be no way to win but hope still exists in the Ace of Swords. Which means we need to see these Operator ghosts, we need to fight the Denarians head on… and the ghosts are going to lead us to something in the Underworld. Maybe that something is what the Denarians need to raise the Hellmenth and destroy the world… but I will not think less of anyone who wants to back out now… its already in the cards that someone might do just that before this is all over. I just pray with all my soul that it isn’t a traitor or death in the Cabal.”

Of course nobody did.  The Horsemen that would save the world or destroy it, would ride.

It was time to re-double our search for the Operators.  If the Denarians wanted them, then we needed to see why and intercept them, or get rid of the Operators, foil things.  Stop this cycle.

CANTO II – The Grain Elevator

STARK came in very handy for this part.  We tied him into The Crucible and he could send out a subdued magical radar from our cellphones.  What was more, he could tie Nergal’s death understanding and Indra’s Forces understanding with my Space understanding to detect the shortwave radio transmissions and with some movement triangulate a location.  Took a lot of combined effort to set up.  Thankfully our cabal identity was that strong, to weave the spells together.

We didn’t know what all these ghosts were saying.  They were transmitting in code.  Ever heard of Number Stations?  Turns out they aren’t an old espionage tactic.  Google it… creepy. As it turns out, we discovered they were coded radio signals transmitted by the dead.  By mid-December 2012 there were over 140 of them all over the world.  This one we followed back to the top of a grain elevator in Hazen ND.  The Operator was a smooth white alien thing, the lower death dominions had worn away all its memory and features.  I remember it’s empty bullet-hole eyes and flat lipless line of a mouth.  Nergal extracted an ephemeral keysheet from it.  STARK determined the code being transmitted was unbreakable.  A simple one-time pad which, without the keysheet is unbreakable.  Then Nergal recognized the ghost as his dead grandfather… fucked up, and laid him to rest.  It was hard to watch. Most of us stayed on patrol in the frigid winter cold, looking for trouble.

CANTO III – Decode Me

We went back to the Beulah Sanctum.  STARK informed us that we had half the message, 8 digits of numbers.  With one more Operator we would have the other half of this code.  The other signals around the world were showing in pairs, each with part of the message.  A cluster of Operators would transmit half of a code.  We had two locations it looked like the Denarians had not been, one in Rapid City, which was in the heart of the Crone (another Denarian) and her Baelhounds territory, and a small airstrip in Bemidji, MN.

This is also when Seraph showed up.  Gabrielle had asked the orders for help against the Order of Judas, Knights of the Blackened Denarius some weeks prior.  Rook and I, also members of the Mysterium, petitioned.  Gabrielle was informed that the Denarians had never taken hostile action for which the Pentacle had proof and they were not willing to violate a quiet treaty.  "Not Scelesti" was the outrageous consensus, and we had lost all proof to the contrary that would say otherwise without criticism.   Nevertheless, the Arrow sent in a loner agent, specializing in finding Abyssal intrusions was sent to check it out under the radar.  Seraph was a one-man army and proved invaluable, in times not of war his emotionless continence can be disconcerting.

 I always found it difficult to bring in new people into our tight nit group. I suppose it is a trust thing. What am I suppose to think when other people suddenly show up saying they can help in a cause that has been going on for so long before they show up? Now suddenly they want to be friends and help with our cause? I didn't like any of this, for the most part still don't.

We prepared for battle.  A Fairy Glade gave us 6 hours to prepare and we used every second.  We carefully crafted our spells, we were the Nine of Swords taken from the Five of Wands, ready for battle.  Kairos set up a Save Point and we went to the airstrip.  It was a trap… we were careless.  When the bomb detonated most of us were instantly killed (Seraph survived)… and we zapped back to the Save Point with only Kairos’s memories to confirm the horror.  It was a fair assumption that both spots were guarded by traps.  The Denarians, now potentially up to 22 in number, (the other 8 silver pieces were in the hands of the Vatican) had many tongueless spies, thugs, and souleating hounds to do their work… and that is not even to speak of the Baelhounds and other Infernal allies we had yet to encounter.  And we couldn't set up another Save Point for 24 hours of normalized time.

The traps was a work of beauty from a strategy stand point. They knew they outnumbered us and forced the ball in our court. They forced us into making a bad decision and capitalized on the situation. The outcome plagued my thoughts.

I was quite rude, if I recall correctly. Honestly, I still believe what I said. Kairos was quite shaken by those memories, and I expect the effect was worse because of the shock, but I thought he should be happy. He saw all of us die, but not only were we still alive, we had new information that the Nickelheads had no way to know we possessed. I should have been far more kind. That kind of pain doesn't listen to reason.

Our Doom

It was my familiar Azazel who came up with a possible occult alternative.  We could summon an Operator, much like the Denarians had tried to do on the top of the Hellmouth.  The Operators were from a part of the Underworld so deep it was considered “outside.”  Technically in-between Abaddon and the Underworld.  Therefore the spell required a lot of resonance from the Operator we already encountered and an insanity which I provided using mind-spells to even attempt.

It required three Masters using Cabal symbolic casting at its finest to accomplish.  We kept the interaction very brief, got the sheet, let the thing fall back into whatever starry Sheol it resided in.  We could feel the eyeless maws of the Hellmenth on us as we did so.  Remember the Hellmenth?  The prophecy in the Temple of Bashinipal?  Turns out a lot of what we saw in that ancient Babylonian temple came into play in the next few nights.

Now 16 digits, STARK easily discovered that this was GPS coordinates.  Top of Turtle Butte, South Dakota.  We portaled to the base (I had driven by before so I had some sympathy to work with) and prayed we were not too late.

CANTO IV – The Final Seal

We reached the top of the Butte, there was power here.  A great Hallow reacting to Nergal and his keysheets, Stygian.  A red clay pyramid no taller than a man rose from the very apex of the hill.  It was marked with that strange writing, a combination of ancient Summerian and High Speech mixed together.  Then the Deanrians unveiled around us, man did they have good cloaking spells… of course they have been doing this for at least two thousand years (supposedly).  I try not to beat myself up for always being one-step behind, it doesn’t get any easier.  Maybe if we would have been smarter Loudon would still be alive.

There is an ache in my heart to know that I'll never see Loudon again. A space that will never be filled again. Casstiel wasn't the only one beating himself over it. Though I tend to do things alone. I sulked and suffered alone in the darkness for hours on end until I fell asleep.

Polonius Lartessa

Five Denarians, we outnumbered them and had grown stronger since the last time we faced them.  We didn't recognize this group.  They did not attack.  Their leader, a large mantis demon raised a claw in truce and then ripped off her own head.  In the neck-hole sprouted a pretty girl’s face.  She introduced herself as Tessa, Nicodemus’s wife, and a separate faction of the Knights but still a member of the Order of Judas.  Slightly different goals and outlook, same nilistic results.  The cabal had been keyed up for a fight for almost two years now, waiting for a stand-up fight, and it sure seemed that all Tessa and her freaks wanted was that red pyramid thingy.  So we synchronized telepathically and attacked.

The act of ripping one's own head off by herself was more than slightly disturbing to me. Even worse a head came out of the remains of the neck made me feel a type of sickness I had never felt before. I was disgusted at the sight and wanted to erase its existence from my memory.

In that instant, Lashiel showed how she had been fooling us all and Loudon most of all.  Loudon had met with Nico in secret a few months back and while he failed to recruit Loudon, that was never his goal.  Having his demon talk to the shadow in Loudon’s head was. Done without Loudon's notice.  Demons of her caliber, especially The Seducer, were infinitely patient.  She never took control, never pushed, only offered Loudon help and favors and always promising more if he would just take up the coin.  But all the power she gave she could take away, and when he took up the coin she granted him special vestments which seemed to circumvent supernal magic in fundamental ways.  And she always maintained backdoor control over her gifts to him.

She dropped a powerful Infernal Curse, using his body as a conduit.  He had referred to this Vestment beforehand as “Sour Grapes.”  He had been itching to use it against the Denarians.  It suppressed all magic and supernatural active abilities for 10 seconds or so in a fairly close radius around him… making him an anti-magic hand-grenade right in the middle of our group.  We were completely human facing battleform Denarians.  Most of us are pretty quick on our feet, Seraph and the 6 of us who used to be hunters.  But it took a few precious seconds to even realize what happened.  When you depend on the practices of Knowning and Unveiling to give perfect information you spent a stupid amount of time trying to get the sights to work before using your fucking head and your own senses.  The suppression also deactivate the magic rings and amulets which kept Loudon’s willpower strong enough to compete with an Archdemon.  She had never pushed but now she took him over easily, ran to the pyramid and poured his raw magic into it… his Gnosis.

Kinda like Tessa

I don't know if you realize what 10 seconds is like in battle. What am I saying? You were there. Its an eternity. However, we relied upon prior training and allowed ourselves to once again depend on each other for strength. Compensating individual weaknesses with teamwork and numbers. The sight of being betrayed by a creature who overtook one of our closest friends was almost ironic. We were dealing with someone who was portrayed as a Betrayer. It was something I hadn't considered at the time but looking back it fit that we were betrayed at some point.

I hadn't ever really realized how much potential I poured into my magic items before then. I've got defense, offence, and mobility, and more than just a few utility spells. I lost all of them when "Sour Grapes" went off. I'd been under three different shield spells at a time constantly for more than half a year at this point, and suddenly, they were gone. Everything feels different like that. That sensory shock was what hit the hardest, I think. I completely forgot my knife even existed. I guess I won't be yelling at movie protagonists to "just stab them" again for a while.

As soon as the Denarians appeared, I had my staff out and crackling, blue lightning just itching to ground itself into the nearest Denarian, the magic on the tip of my tongue to start unraveling anything they start throwing at us…and then everything I was sensing and seeing through Sight just blinked off, like someone pulled the plug on a computer and left you sitting there dumbly.  My staff powered down, the faint hum slowly dying, like someone had pulled the plug on a favorite toy.  It would have been comical.  Except…After several seconds, I sprinted away from Loudon to get outside the field of effect, but it’s almost like moving through molasses, it just took too long for shocked thoughts to turn into action, and then it was too late.

Before we could stop him, the pyramid cracked and then shattered, turning to rust colored dust.  A hole opened up into a seemingly bottomless sinkhole and the ground shook.  Tessa just laughed, they didn't even attack. Lashiel puppetted his body back to us, taking a bow at Tessa.  Tessa waited patiently for our spells to come back up, chuckling.  She told us there was no longer any reason to fight because her purpose there was fufilled.  Lashiel had served her one and only purpose, betraying the Cabal at the crucial moment and leaving us sundered.  What was more, that was the final seal, we really had not been as fast as we thought.  The recovery of Snakeboy’s coin had been a signal for us only when it was too late.

She proceeded to act like a Bond villain, we didn’t attack because she was leaking valuable information. 

I kind of wish I had stabbed her then, but she was just gushing information.

The Denaians long-standing world-ending plan had been to summon the Hellmenth from Sheol.  The ancient god versions of grow up Gate Worms would digest the world and turn it into ephemeral matter, literally converting the Earth slowly into the Shadow forever.  To summon them they had to follow the signals sent by the worms to these Operators, decode the signals, and break seven seals in seven days.  144 seals (remember the 144 worms and 144 spades in the Temple of Sin?).  Now it was too late, she was happy-dancing mantis style which was really creepy, the Hellmenth would rise, oh look 21 Dec, 2012, prophecy fulfilled…  Nicodemus and the majority of the Denarians were right now going “to the very bottom of the underworld and beyond” to entreat with the Hellmenth and open the way to the material realm.

We attacked, they teleported away but we were pretty firmly kicking their asses.  Five Denarians left on the surface, the rest that Nico had assembled heading down.  If we could go down and stop them maybe we could prevent the Hellmenth from ascending to Earth.  The cards said there was still a last chance hidden here somewhere…

I attacked, a scything wave of Force energy, dispell, and crackling electricity arcing into the assembled Denarians.  I did my best to disrupt any protections they may have had up, so that the rest of the cabal could tear into them more effectively.  I covered my blades in Holy Fire to more effectively attack the Denarians directly, and balanced attack with support.

We reassembled at the Sanctum to regroup.  Prodigy did not immediately come back, opting to fly.  Only through post-cogs later did we discover that he lingered at the battle site at the Butte for a time.  Then a strange thing addressed him from out of sight from time, calling him master, then time was erased.