[Mage: The Awakening 2e] The Outer Dark (Abyss part 2)

Out of Character (OOC):
Chronicle: Mage 3: The 6th Watchtower
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum

Eye of the Void: 

Travel in the Abyss & Abyssal Magic

Part 2

Other Chapters:

Chapter One - Travel in the Dark

Chapter Two - The Outer Dark

Chapter Three - The Inner Dark

Chapter Four - Denizens of the Abyss

Chapter Five - Abyssal Magic

Sources:

- H.P. Lovecraft Mythos

- Stephen King Mythos

- Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition

- The Left-Handed Path (sourcebook for MtA1.0)

- Intruders: Encounters with the Abyss (sourcebook for MtA1.0)

- The Imperial Mysteries (sourcebook for MtA1.0)

- Night Horrors: The Unbidden (sourcebook for MtA1.0)

- The Summoners (sourcebook for MtA1.0)

- Second Sight (sourcebook for nWoD)

- The Secret World and Secret World Legends video games by Funcom

- Kabbalah religious concepts

- Satanic religious concepts

Chapter Two - The Outer Dark

When someone actually enters into the Abyss bodily, things get much more interesting than Paradox Conditions and the occasional Manifestation.  Those that can tread into the ragged hole of nothingness in between the Phemorial world and "front-facing" Supernal Realms don't agree on much of what they witnessed inside.  The Abyss takes everything consumed and reflects it back using oily oceans of chaos and fun-house mirrors.  It takes every part of the truth inside these things and twists it.  It is anti-reality, anti-true, anti-life, anti-everything we know.  

Welcome to Mage: The Awakening (2nd Ed) on Nightmare Mode.  Even Archmages do not attempt a journey into the Abyss without dire cause, and overly complex preparation. If a goal can be achieved by any other means a Traveler will go that route instead. 

The Abyss is not some empty void, but contains a multitude of broken worlds. Twisted, broken mockeries of reality made of lies spawn whole ecologies of lesser Abyssal entities, each a lie of itself but contributing to the whole. Travelers suffer Manifestation Paradoxes and assume that the intruders
they allow access, terrible as they are, are the worst the Abyss has to offer. Seekers know better.

Greater Abyssal Entities 
The greatest Abyssal entities are entire worlds, made up of hundreds of lesser beings. Where lesser Abyssal intruders are individual aspects of reality gone wrong — languages that cause madness, corruptions of flesh, false laws of mathematics and twisted Hallows — a greater Abyssal is a conglomerate of untold numbers of its lesser cousins, perverted by all the lesser intruders contained within it. The collective entities are Rank 6-9 spirits, but are almost always dealt at the abstract level due to lacking anything resembling a human consciousness. Lesser intruders may only be parts of the whole, but at least a minority of them can hold a conversation, however insane.

The Shining Sea of Chaos

The Outer Dark is the undefined void in between "traditional" Abyssal Realms. It is called the No Place, the Outer Dark, the Sea of Chaos and simply the Void. It is composed of nothingness and the flotsam and jetsam of the things the Abyss has consumed or tried to imitate. These objects and entities drift forever in stasis or ambulating in search of prey. In many ways it is very similar to the hard vacuum of outer-space and Travelers must first deal with the physics-based issues before they shore up defenses against the metaphysical incompatibilities. The Outer Dark is defined by what it is not, not within the "body" of a greater abyssal entity. So lets talk about the Annunaki...

The Great Dreamers: Annunaki 
The Baalim sects call them the Annunaki: the original intelligences of the Abyss, universes unto themselves. Other Scelesti call them the Eldest, Innocents, Pure Ones and hundreds of other names.

The Annunaki sleep. This is their truce with one another and shield against all-consuming Supernal Law. The enemy defines reality, so they choose to be undefined, dreaming of the wonders they once made and will make again, once those who would be God stumble from their thrones—a moment that draws ever closer, as the Exarchs impose their too-human flaws on Creation.

There are myths that the Great Dreamers are kept from awakening by way of strange paramechanical seals, or by a tower.  Should these engines be turned off, the Annunaki with awaken.

Yet even the Eldest’s dreams flood the Abyss with alternate foundations for existence and negations of logic—endless possibilities that caress the cracked egg of the ordered universe. Sometimes the dreams drip in as Paradoxical Anomalies, Abyssal Verges and idea-beings that infect the Tellurian with their principles.

Greater intruders include the Prince of 100,000 Leaves, a sapient history of the world where humanity experiences love through torture, sustenance through cannibalism and faith through betrayal, and where endless volumes detail all the torment that was, is and ever shall be; and the Nemesis Continuum, a theoretical physics that exposes the flaws in all other models, describing and triggering their undoing. Not all these dreams are so grand, however. Naturalists encounter illogical diseases and unknown insects that overthrow the order of things. Psychologists uncover perfect reasons for madness and turn mad themselves. The Abyss infects both the smallest cell and the brightest rogue stars.

But these are just dreams. When the Annunaki discover how fragile reality is, how prepared for collapse, perhaps they’ll awaken, and devour the egg of the cosmos.

The Hungry Stars
Within the Void, a mage with cunning and foolishness can perceive the largest entities in the Abyss - the planet or star-sized Abyssal Gods and the Inner Realms within them, some of which are the Annunaki, the 10 Black Dragons of the Void. These abominable star whales sleep-patrol the endless nightscape, devouring and procreating with everything they notice. A man in a pressure suit is a speck of dust before their terrible splendor, beneath the notice of their cavernous sensory organs. Entering their bodies puts the unprepared in their microuniverse of chaos and madness, an Abyssal Realm. Woe to those who bring the Great Dreamers in their floating slumber, dreaming the realm within into existence, to stir. Those who fall under the half-lidded gaze of an Abyssal God are truly damned. 

Points of Ingress

The Outer Dark is usually where things end up if something enters the Abyss directly, through holes ripped in the Tapestry such as direct portals to the Abyss created by entities, Scelesti spells or dark rituals. This can also happen using a summoning circle where the channel to the Supernal is severed (see Summoners sourcebook) and the connection to the Abyss is all that remains.There are also direct pathways to be found in the Place Between that lead directly into the Darkness.

An entrance to the Outer Dark can also be found by diving into the Ocean Orouboros (and making yourself safe from being dissolved into your component identifiers) at the furthers reaches of the Anima Mundi (Astral Realm). Other places on the edge of known Astral space also brush up against the Abyss and are usually represented by an endless chasm or roiling dark storms.

Archmages and the Ascended create Irises into the Abyss requiring special conditions or Keys.

Lastly, extremely high paradox pooled into one area (LAPA 20+) and/or lots of Paradox releases (5+) may weaken the fabric of reality enough that the Place Between opens (Have the characters roll Gnosis as a teamwork action to open a pathway into the In-between. (roll paradox pool + released paradox to determine how long the hole remains open in rounds. Inside the In-Between, with so much pooled Paradox already present it is fairly easy to find a holes that leads into the No Space.

Thuraes and tears in reality that lead to the Outer Dark usually act as open maws, consuming everything they can suck in. They can pull strong enough to immediately suck nearby people and objects into them with the force of 1-2 Gs of acceleration.  Hang on to something.

The bill comes due...
Upon crossing the threshold into the Abyss, the mage is bombarded with hallucinatory visions which, as they go on, quickly seem familiar. The Abyss offers her lies. Every Paradox she has ever caused is revisited, the pain of every Backlash she has absorbed is re-inflicted, and she suffers every Havoc, Bedlam and Branding along the way. Anomalies and Manifestations she was responsible for are especially dangerous, as the creatures of the Abyss she inadvertently created confront her during the trial. If she has actually bargained with a native of that place, those debts are now called due.

The effect that crossing into the Abyss has on each mage is dependent upon the Storyteller and the story.  If a character releases a lot of paradox or contains a lot of backlash in the past, some measure of that pain or effect should hit them.  If they have spoken with Acamoth or other Abyssal entities then they may return to try to claim the mage's soul or strike a bargain.  If you can think of nothing else then just throw Abyssal Conditions at them.

Abyssal Verges: 
Perhaps it lives. Without exception, an Abyssal Verge is a tendril for one of the great anti-gods/realms called Annunaki, which sheds Acamoth like microbes falling from a great beast, sends Gulmoth to investigate whatever pulled it through, or conjures other unclassifiable intruders. Even in a Verge, ordered reality repels Annunaki, so they only send such entities occasionally. There’s no system for this, but the Storyteller shouldn’t overdo it.

The environment disconnects from nature; stones scream and water flows uphill. This applies a –2 penalty to Skill rolls that depend on a knowledge of natural laws. Abyssal Verges don’t supply the usual benefits but instead provide +2 dice to Gnosis rolls to invite Paradox into a spell the way Scelesti do. Scelesti with powers allowing them to summon Abyssal beings also enjoy a +2 bonus. An Abyssal Verge may be used to join a Scelestus Legacy, though details are left up to the Storyteller.

An Abyssal Demesne is the sort of risky idea even Scelesti might think twice about. Unlike other Demesnes, an Abyssal one is not insulated from visiting entities. All of the above benefits apply. Unfortunately, the soul stone now belongs to the Verge’s ruling Annunaki (associated with an Arcanum), which may destroy, move, or transform it as its inscrutable desires dictate.

New Common Elements

It is a place of nothing and everything.  Infinite possibilities and potential.  Its aspects and concepts are so alien or incompatible with reality that they are beyond all definition. Travelers see their worst nightmares and suffer from horrible madness.  However, there are some common aspects of the Outer Dark that seem to persist among those who have survived long enough to report them.  These environmental qualities are the most stable and mundane of the Abyss's tricks.

When traveling in the Abyss (Outer and Inner Dark), all the following conditions are placed either on the characters traveling in the Abyss or exist in the environments in which they traverse: 

Personal Condition: Shadowed Sights 

Even with Mage Sights to help senses inside the Abyss, the truths of locality and distance are amorphous. How can you scrutinize the absolute Truth uncovered by Mage Sight of something that has no Truth at all? You cannot trust your mundane senses either. The paradox (small p) in trying to deal with this problem creates a maddening feedback loop to a mage when they use the Sight. Mage Sights translate information that paints the Abyssal landscape as "dim" "murky," "foggy," "shadowed," indistinct, lacking detail, full of static or white noise, and overall dark. All of it is shadows on the wall and half-truths. What is seen or felt could be real or not, it is nearly impossible to tell. How much might be in a mind unable to resolve the resolvable? 

Mechanics: Mundane Perception, Mage Sights and Investigation rolls suffer a -5 Penalty.  Using Active or Focused Mage Sights longer than the Mage's Gnosis dots in rounds rolls Stamina to prevent a Personal Tilt (Blinded, Deafened, Insane, Insensate, Stunned or Sick).

Environmental Condition: Saturated Paradox

The Abyss noticed everything and it is hard to pull magic through the corruption and interference. Naturally the Abyss is universally a place of heightened Paradox as well... 

Obvious Magic Mechanic: Any new spells cast in the Abyss automatically risk Paradox based on the Gnosis of the mage. Starting paradox pools also starts at a +3, per canon rules in sourcebook Imperial Mysteries for a total of Gnosis Paradox + 3.  Nasty.

Personal Paradox Mechanic: The Personal Paradox does not reset until you leave the Abyss.  You are insulated, and forced to marinate in saturated Paradox. The ambient/localized (LAPA) Paradox doesn't decrease where it is used no matter how many scenes you wait. Paradox pools created by a spellcaster do not decrease to normal in the next scene.

Ambient Paradox Mechanic: LAPA also remains at the same level in an area of the Abyss no matter how long you wait. Leaving the area affected by high LAPA will bring ambient Paradox back down to the straight +3.

Environmental Condition: Empty Sustenance 

In the Outer Dark there is no food, no air, no water, nothing sustaining. The Inner Dark has food but it provides no succor and instead only infects the eater with sicknesses and Abyssal parasites. Starvation and dying of thirst becomes a worry now, and this is compounded by the fact that time distorts strangely, dragging a trip to the Abyss or compounding environmental effects by compressing them.

The Inner Realms almost always have something approximating "air" to breath though the air is full of pollution and dangers of its own. The Outer Dark is almost universally a vacuum, though pockets of gas might be found there. You have to bring your own food, water and air and do your best to prevent it from creeping corruption. 

Mechanics: What a Storyteller could do with this is endless. Without going into the designs of further Abyssal illnesses or parasites I will only say that nothing consumed in the Abyss provides sustenance. Abyssal air can contain noxious chemicals, gases, poisons, terrible smells and its own set of mystical infections. If you don't feel like using any of these ideas, you can just represent problems with the food and air using the Extreme Environment Tilt mentioned below. 

Personal Condition: No Reprieve
This condition is a representation of the combined psychological, spiritual and physical trials of Abyssal travel.  Trails,  Fatigue, bodily stresses, no respite, wounds seep pus and do not heal.

Mechanics: All damage in the Abyss is Resistant, regardless of it is caused by Backlash, attacks, or just extreme environments, and does not heal while in the Abyss. Characters must leave in order to resume healing this damage normally at the Resistant Damage/Mortal Rate and cannot be sped up with Time magic (as per all Resistant Damage).
I also don't recommend sleeping in the Abyss, even if you could manage.

Environmental Condition: Hard Navigation

Navigation in the murk is just as tricky as just trying to see what is around you. Survival checks to find one’s way to a destination in the Abyss suffer -5 penalties. If the traveler has a particular destination in mind they are further penalized based on sympathetic connection to the place, but at least your headed in the right direction instead of just stumbling around, trying to navigate yourself to a reprieve of some sort. If you fall asleep or lose consciousness (due to damage too) you simply get pulled deeper in and become lost. Your form loses cohesiveness and you vanish from the party... good luck getting back. It is a good way to fall from the Inner Dark into the Outer Dark and it makes it easy for the entities that live in both to quickly consume your soul. You gain the Condition: Lost and are separated from the group. 

Mechanics: Navigation rolls are required to get around the Abyss, even in the hard vacuum of the Outer Void's space analogue, and suffer -5 to the rolls.  This is penalized further by the strength of the Sympathy with the desired destination.

Tilt: Dark Entropy (Extreme Environment)

Being in the Abyss is generally not good for one's health. Travelers will encounter anti-truths that attenuate with things like radiation levels, extremes in heat or cold, pockets of void, incredible air pressure, acidic mist or rain, and the list goes on. Really it is a dark reflection of the Ecstatic Wind encountered in the Anima Mundi.  Regardless of the forms it takes (and it could be many), this wind is physically, mentally, and spiritually painful.  It isn't enough to cause wound penalties (until it does through accumulating damage), but it is ever present.

To represent this badness the characters receive one resistant bashing damage per minute while inside the Abyss. This damage does not heal while the character is in the Abyss. This puts a limit on how long someone can be inside the Abyss before they are disintegrated. 

If the character falls unconscious they are pulled deeper into the Abyss, gain the Condition: Lost, becoming separated from the group as damage accumulates. After this damage reaches full resistant Aggravated the character is subsumed into the Abyss as is no more. For Mages in the know, Scelesti mostly, one can delay or slow these effects with powerful use of the Time Arcana and perhaps other spells. Mages also tend to use moderate amounts of Life and Death to ensure they stay conscious without having to make a stamina check up to full Lethal damage. With mastery of Life and Death if may be possible to stay conscious until one reaches full Aggravated damage and is subsumed by the Abyss. It is also worth stating that nightmare realms closer to conventional reality such as in the Nightmare realm inside a Qlippoth or in the soul of a person with a heavily infected Onerios may not have these extreme conditions and may be exempted from this mechanic. They are deadly in their own ways.

Mechanics: 

Much like the Extreme Environment rules in the Fallen World, without protection a human in the Abyss takes one Resistant Bashing damage per minute.  This does not heal while they are in the Abyss but spells can be used to slow or mitigate the damage.  It cannot be resisted using an Amnion without additional spells weaved in. and those spells are subjected to the Perpetual Dissonance Condition.

Environmental Condition: Isolated Reality

This is why Paradox never decreases. No Twilight& No Shadow – Everything doesn’t exist and therefore exists, an isolation and separation from reality and its fractal states.  There is no ability to enter Twilight, Shadow, Underworld, Hedge, etc... If it appears that the mages enter a place in the Abyss more aligned with those places it is simply part of the illusion of being in the Abyss itself.

Mechanics: No alternate states of existence within the Abyss.

Environmental Condition: Subsumed Death

If you die in the Abyss your soul is hollowed out and you are lost to the corruption and oblivion of the void. A Moros might be good enough to quickly tether the lost soul of their dead friend with them but both lifeless body and soul will suffer greatly from the ambient exposure of the Abyss, unprotected by flesh. Most of the time, dead bodies recovered from the Abyss become infested with Abyssal Intruders. They possess it as a Flesh Intruder or Qlippoth. Souls without a body in the Abyss almost always become Twilight Manifested Abyssal Entities (Abyssal Ghosts),corrupted forms of the person who died.  If the character falls unconscious they are pulled deeper into the Abyss, gain the Condition: Lost, becoming separated from the group as damage accumulates. 

Mechanics: If you fall unconscious or die in the Abyss, horrible shit follows.  Sensing a trend?

Personal Condition: Mental Fracturing

Travelers/Seekers take a Breaking point when they exit the Abyss. This is always on a chance die regardless of the strength of the traveler's mind. This represents the generally madness and badness of the Abyss. Specific horrors seen in the Abyss may provoke their own breaking points but Storytellers are encouraged not to inflict another Breaking point unless it is from specific badness as part of the story such as facing an Abyssal god or the utter awfulness of encountering its unique minions for the first time. These extra Breaking points are not on chance die and generally take a penalty between -5-10 depending on how bad.

Mechanics: Roll one Chance Die Breaking point on each character upon leaving the Abyss as the mental damage takes its toll.

Environmental Condition: Perpetual Dissonance

Mechanics: All active magical spells risk Dissonance at the end of every scene. 10 dice are rolled as the Integrity pool for Dissonance rolls. Non-magical items and clothing also are subject to this roll and are highly prone to wear and corrosion. Abyssal entities and items already in the Abyss do not have these limitations. Scelesti commonly are granted blessings that allow them to mitigate many of the effects above. 

TOO MUCH? COME ON GUYS I WARNED YOU... THIS IS THE ABYSS...

Chaotic Topology

The Outer Dark is the chaotic ocean in between the more coherent Abyssal Realms or realms that constitute the psyche and body of the indefinable entities that dream there. If the mage goes into the Abyss without a destination or the influences of entities to drive them to arrive in one of the realms of the Inner Dark then they might end up here instead.

The Ocean of Chaos (as it is also called) is the space between the Abyssal gods that make up the realms of the Dreamers and consists of the lesser bleed off, foam, emanations, white static, between the Inner Dark realms.  The realms drift through this space, sometimes docking or moving apart.

Drifting in the nothing may be things that passed through the Abyss from the Supernal or from the rest of the Tellurian that didn't come out the other size.  Things may be found here that were cast into the Ocean Orouboros, lost when a pocket dimension collapsed, or even artifacts of beings that rose or fell between the shores of the Supernal or the Lie and got trapped in the middle instead.

The Outer Dark resembles actual outer space in many ways.  Things are very spread out and there isn't usually enough reality pushed together to interact with.  Instead travelers end up floating and slowly dying as if they were ejected from a spaceship's airlock.  Things that float in that space are far between and utterly random.  There are also lesser and greater entities (spirit rank 1-5) that hunt solitarily or in swarms swim through this ocean-space looking for these random elements to consume.  There is not usually anywhere to hide from these ravaging entities.  These are the most "awake" creatures in this place, the larger entities (Rank 5+) slumber and drift, creating infinite universes from their dreams.

There are huge slumbering abyssal gods (with the Inner Dark realms inside them) that may be perceived and traveled to.  These things range in "size" from lesser planetoid to galaxy sized depending on their spirit Rank.  Travelers trying to reach these are usually not noticed but the Abyssal Gods' propulsions and anatomy may destroy or absorb a traveler before they can enter.

On the whole, when two of these dream realms touch the lesser entities may exchange residences and start to absorb each other to create hybrids.  They may also act as immuoboddies to the greater beings, especially against attempts to harm them.   The god-entities with dream realms to access inside them have millions of lesser entities inside them that have already been discussed above.  If they have the means and something gets close enough they may swarm out of the entity like a cloud to subsume whatever they find.

Travel in the Ocean of Chaos

The following are common elements experienced by all explorers of the Outer Dark:

Tilt: Utter Darkness

      The majority of the Outer Abyss lacks all sources of light.  There are exceptions but usually those include incredibly bright searing lights that burn and also blind the traveler.  Either way, normal light-spectrum vision doesn't work.  Mages must use spells of Knowing and Unveiling in order to orient themselves (while dealing with the Shadowed Sights Condition) .  Other senses can't be trusted without Supernal assistance in the same way.  Any given place may inflict phantom touches or screeching noise... 

      

      Mechanics: Normal senses simply do not function beyond all the nasty distracting,fake and pseudo-illusionary input that breaks down a person's soul.  Total sensory deprivation.

Tilt: Hard Vacuum

Outside of an actual Abyssal Realm, in the Outer Dark, subjects experience conditions similar to outer space.  With no air pressure, bodies bloat, blood vessels break and fluids begin leaking out of every orifice, bubbles form in the blood. Consciousness is lost in about 7 seconds.  Permanent damage to the body occurs after about 90 seconds.  Even if someone is saved from this harsh environment, their bodies are subjected to cosmic rays and will suffer from some radiation sickness. Bodies are subjected to extreme cold and heat.  The surface of eyes will freeze, saliva boils and is sublimated into the void as gas, frost bite and first and second degree burns follow.  Lastly, there is no air... you are suffocating the whole time and you can't hold your breath without your lungs rupturing.  Because of the pressure  Spells are needed to insulate a mage from such harsh conditions or brain damage and death will follow.

Mechanics: 

- No Pressure/No Air: Every round a person must roll Stamina to stay conscious as if their Health boxes were full.  A person cannot hold their breath so Stamina rolls for that don't come into play.

- Weightlessness: Physical rolls to move around are required and suffer -2.  With an Skill Specialty in Athletics (Weightlessness) this penalty is removed.

- Extreme Environment: Every round they are exposed a person suffers one Resistant Bashing damage.  This can only be prevented if the person is protected from the lack of pressure, heat, cold, and radiation. 

Missing Something else...

Places in the Outer Void sometimes lack something else fundamental to existence.  Storytellers can have fun with a list of options:

- Lacking proximity, things cannot be brought together and are forever distanced

- Lacking distance, everything is adjacent with no way to get away from whatever resides there

- Time is locked into a frozen singular momment

- Time is compressed, everything happening simultaneouly

- Time runs backwards

- Time runs too fast

- Realm lacks some form of Force (kinetics, heat, electromagnetism, gravity, nuclear forces)

- Things lack tangibility or corporealness  

- Paradox Anomalies can provide more inspiration for these

Egress from the Nothing

To get back to the Tellurian proper, you are going to need to either immediately follow the method or portal that put you there before it diffuses within seconds or you must be swallowed by a greater entity and then navigate its realm to look for ways out...

The Collective (Part One) 

                                        As recalled by Frekki (subsoul of Archmaster Casstiel)

"I'm so sorry Noah, They're too powerful, Kill me I'm only a tool, He can't use my body then, Kill me, Kill me, Kill me."

That was on a handwritten note hidden amongst the AV equipment of Slenderman victim Noah Maxwell.  Milo, his brother, suspected that it matched the handwriting of Noah's friend, Kevin Haus.

Okay, some background...

It had nearly been a year since we killed a creature that had been some sort of Native American boogeyman we labeled as the Slenderman (during the events of Zero-X Apr-Jul 2014).  It wasn't just a boogeyman, sealed away by the local Werewolf packs hundreds of years ago.  It had been corrupted by infectious energies from the Acamoth known as the Darkness that Thirsts and released from its prisons when the Acamoth was destroyed (during the events of What Dreams may Come - May 2014).  

While most children recovered from the soul-rending nightmares brought on by Slendy's rain of terror, one was far too gone.  We didn't know at the time but Kevin Haus had become a Qlipoth... and those Proxies who were recovering on that side of North Dakota were sustained by his connection to the void.  Instead of serving the Slenderman, they now served the Observer as a collective of hijacked teenagers with creepy masks and sharp improved pointy things. The Observer referred to Slendy as the Administration... and he was now free of his control.

Noah Maxwell had been one of the victims of the Slenderman.  He was a high schooler in Bismarck, North Dakota.  He had been sniffed out by his Proxies in the city because he was an empathy, capable of reading auras and sensing emotions. Noah didn't really understand he was a Parahuman, but his organs would make the entity even stronger.  When strange killings, gang sightings and strange occult graffiti started happening around town Noah put on his hat as a budding film student and went out to prove that the Slenderman and his Proxies were real.  He started sneaking out at night with his camera, staying up late doing research on the urban legends.  

A year later, Milo Maxwell was not doing well.  Noah's younger brother had to deal with the death of his brother.  He was caught in the mental harm of being told by therapists that the supernatural wasn't real and knowing deep down that it was anyway.  He was a smart kid, but he wasn't doing well in his AP classes.  I think that, still being in Middle School, his parents were pushing him too hard as he grappled with the death of his best friend and older brother.  The Proxy that had initially ID'd Noah for death had been Milo's friend Jonah Eisenbraun... guilt tormented him even though he didn't fully understand what went down.

We thought we had done a good job with Milo back then.  We interviewed him and made sure he didn't know what we were and what the Slenderman was doing.  After we left him, he devoured Noah's library of video tapes and started heading down the same rabbit hole in our wake.  Against Casstiel and my wishes, Chimera had investigated in our wake too and had continued to observe Milo. Chimer decided that he should be part of her new improvised witness protection program.

Good thing too.  Milo called Chimera because the Proxies had re-emerged and were starting to follow him around.  Chimera, Jack and their college friends from UCLA (and the secret Pentacle Academy there), Overwatch and Caissa came to help.  In typical Jack Bismuth fashion, Jack took a strong liking to Milo, advising him to grieve, having lost many people himself.

That catches us back up with the note in Noah's room...

The Pentacle Academy cabal told Milo that the hidden world was in fact real and that he was in danger, only necessary secrets were provided with no talk about what we are or the Supernal.  Going through Noah's old disks we discovered some important clues about the nature of the Observer.  They had been uploaded to Noah's YouTube page:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-Vg7oCZvlA

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arOgzzWacbM

The Pentacle cabal resolved to protect Milo and repel any attack by the Observer and try to save the Observer from the residual Abyssal influence. He soon after sent his own message to Milo, his desire to recruit a new Proxy and tie up a loose end.  He was obviously trying to learn Milo to the forest path at the Victor Park Nature Trail. A good place to set up a counter-ambush...

Having identified Kevin Haus as the Observer, Chimera decided that rather than wait for an attack, she should go on the offensive and murder the young man, to hell with trying to save him.  Her growth as a Guardian of the Veil had been brutal, and she was immediately ready to do what was necessary to deal with this Abyssal incursion.  Her old master Magister Witness would have been proud.  Her master before that, Casstiel would be ashamed.  Overwatch went with her, to perform Overwatch, as was his primary function as a sniper for the Guardians as well.  They weren't just students, they were Suspectors and security for the Pentacle Academy.

Chimera confronted the Observer of the collective in his apartment.  He was in front of his home office computer, probably recording instructions of another threatening message.  Chimera rushed for the kill but the Observer was not surprised.  He.... IT... stood up and slimy black tentacles erupted from him, his face a death's head of screams and teeth.  So she cast a spell upon her self to enhance her fighting capabilities... and things went to hell.

I've seen Chimera kick and punch creatures and people apart, including a clockwork T-Rex.  She didn't know it was a Qlipoth.  Nobody did yet.  They did after that.  She cast her spell and was instantly sucked into its Abyssal Nightmare Realm (an Inner Dark realm, to be covered in a future post).

If you know anything about Qlipoth and their Nightmare Realms, you will note that Chimera was worse than dead.  It is said it would take the resources and power of an Archmage to rescue someone from a place like that.  Body and soul she was in the Abyss.  Damned.  Irrecoverable.

That answer satisfied no one.  If it would take an Archmage, then Jack would call one...

That is when I and my creator got involved.  They were wrong though.  It took three Archmasters to get her out...

(To be continued...)