Episode Three: Sea of Stars

Session One (9/25/2010)

Mage School: Legacies

• (Just prior to the these events, Autumn travels to the Consilium of the Mists in San Francisco to study at the Golden Gate Atheneum. He is absent during this episode. See Interlude Two: Autumn in San Francisco.)
• While at a Free Council memorial service for those lost in Seattle, Rasayana is confronted by a mage named Corvian, who claims that he saw Rasayana's mentor kill his friend. When Rasayana defends his mentor, Corvian challenges him to a Duel Arcane and threatens to declare nemesis against our cabal if Rasayana refuses.
• Rasayana gains the upper hand in the initial volley of the duel. He chooses Fate as his aegis (in the form of shifting sands) and Mind as his gladius (as shimmering glass shards). Corvian chooses Death as his aegis (spinning skulls) and Space as his gladius (a flickering scimitar-shaped distortion).
• Rasayana wipes the floor with Corvian. As the winner, Rasayana demands that Corvian and his cabal help us locate Magnum Opus and prove their innocence.
• Other mages at the memorial service disapproved of Corvian's challenge and are pleased to see him taken down a peg by someone he started a fight with.
• Meanwhile, Malachite gets a call from Mathers, who wants to hire him to escort a Sleeper named Carter to the outskirts of Portland. Mathers indicates that it should be a simple job, because the Yakuza who are after Carter are also Sleepers. Mathers tells Malachite where to meet Carter and his current bodyguard.
• When Malachite gets to the rendezvous, he is both delighted and terrified to see a face from his past--Samantha Albrecht is Carter's escort. She seems pleased to see Malachite too, but is a bit suspicious since the last time they met face-to-face, she was the bodyguard and he was the assassin. She offers to accompany him and Carter the rest of the way to Portland, and Malachite eagerly accepts.
• The Yakuza make an attempt to run Malachite and company off the road, but Malachite's souped-up SUV leaves them in the dust. Samantha and Malachite deliver Carter to Mathers unharmed, then return to Astoria. They stay awake late into the night, talking and drinking in Samantha's hotel room. Malachite leaves before things get too real, but makes a lunch date with Samantha the next day.
• Early the next morning, Ophelia calls us for help moving in to her new offices. Malachite, Rasayana, and Serafina ride over together, but Eos refuses to get in the car with Malachite driving. She seems inexplicably annoyed with him. She takes the bus and shows up at Ophelia's office with several Sleeper "volunteers" in tow.
• While we're at Ophelia's, Mitchell Flavel comes by with some last minute paperwork for transferring the Hotel Regina. He tells Eos that there are two more books like the Journal of Gamayun at the Flavel House Museum, in their archives rather than on display. He says that the museum might sell them to us.
• Malcolm and Hannah Bruide also show up at Ophelia's office, looking for Eos. They are the Sleepwalkers sent by Hera to help Eos set up a Cascade Signet office in Astoria.
• Malachite makes his lunch date with Samanatha. She tells him that the Seers of the Throne/Brotherhood of Scorpius are trying to flush him out by leaking information about him and his past kills to the authorities. They've also put a price on his head, with a bonus for the return of the Halifax torc. Samantha promises to keep in touch, for both business and personal reasons. Malachite feels absolutely giddy when he finally sees her off.
• Eos decides to scry on Wai Chi, discovering in the process that Wai Chi is not his true name. She sees him somewhere in Seattle, where he seems to be watching someone, but she can't see who. She watches him push against a spatial distortion that is not a Space effect. When he does so, everything around him becomes dark and ugly, blasted and vile. Wai Chi grows talons and begins to bleed from his eyes; then the scrying connection shatters, which is what would happen if Wai Chi traveled to another dimension. Eos texts a description of what she saw to her cabalmates and to Hera and the Infirmerer.

Session Two (10/2/10)

Mage School: Duel Arcane

• Malachite lets his cabalmates know what Samantha told him about the Brotherhood's movements against him. Rasayana decides to cast a Fate spell to help protect him. Malachite contacts Mathers to let him know what's going on and to ask for help in diverting suspicion from his new identity. Mathers says he will help, but Malachite will owe him a favor.
• While Rasayana casts his ritual Fate spell, Malachite copies the Book of Agony, one of the grimoires that Mathers loaned him.
• No one we've contacted seems to know what exactly Eos saw Wai Chi doing or what dimension he might have been travelling to.
• Serafina goes out to the Columbia River locus to fill up on mana using the new item Adder provided for her. Eos accompanies her. While they are there, Serafina spots another ley line diverted off the Columbia River one. It heads toward the hills and a large forested area called Shively Park. It's essence is raw, pure, and rare—water.
• Following this line, they come across a second one. Its resonance is of vision, wisdom, forethought. Where the two lines intersect, there's a small hill where one can see both the Columbia River and Young's River. The new line runs off into a very nice neighborhood one way and toward the Astoria column the other way.
• They decide to follow the line going into Shively Park. Its resonance slowly changes from water to forest as the woods grow rich and thick, a true rain forest. They eventually come to a clearing with a massive sycamore tree, centuries old. It makes them feel anxious, the kind of apprehension that comes from being alone in the deep, wild places. The sycamore is a locus, inhabited by a spirit calling itself Elder Father Platanus. He tells them he is the ruler of the forest, and the other spirits there owe fealty to him. He doesn't want to have anything to do with people, so Serafina and Eos agree to leave.
• The next morning, we head to the Flavel House Museum to case it for later larceny. Amanda Landers, a tour guide for the museum, comes up to us. Eos uses Mind magic to ensure that Amanda won't remember any of our questions. Amanda tells us that Astoria used to be called Babylon. We find that the locus here is Flavel's desk.
• Eos uses a Finder spell to locate one of the journals we're looking for. Malachite reroutes the cameras while she hunts it down. She finds both journals and swipes them. After having Malachite check them for traps, mundane or magical, she has him escort her out.
• Out in the car while waiting for their cabalmates, Eos and Malachite look over the two books. One is the second journal of Gamayun; the other is the Crossroads Codex.
• Back in the museum, Serafina peers past the Gauntlet and sees a spirit—the Riverboat Captain. He notices her, too, when she uses her item to pull mana from the museum's locus. He tells her it's rude, but he will let it slide since she is clearly new in town. He expects her to ask first next time.
• After the museum, we go to the Astoria column. It is a Hallow (3), and it's resonance is vision. Its base glows with writing where mages have made their way here as part of their Awakenings. Bits of paper around its base have become tass after being tossed from the top of the tower, but only those with proper names written on them. The hallow produces mana at 12 noon, and the oblation to collect it is to stand at the top of the tower talking about the history of Astoria.
• We then head back to Vigil House to study the journals we've acquired. The second journal of Gamayun tells us that the deed to the Hotel Regina is inside a painting called The Queen of Heaven. Eos scries for it and finds it in a church in Ocean Park, WA called Our Ladies of the Sea Methodist Church.
• We drive to the church. When Serafina looks at it through the Gauntlet, it is at the center of a storm.
• Malachite uses Matter to create a copy of the painting. Eos creates a distraction by playing havoc with the minds of the people inside. Serafina sneaks into the church with some Mind magic help from Eos and swaps the paintings. We immediately head back to Astoria.