Episode Four: Cast Open the Gates

Session One(10/16/10)

Mage School: Grimoires & Rotes

• While crossing the bridge leading out of Ocean Park, a portal opens up in front of Malachite's SUV. He stomps on the brakes and, with a magical skill boost from Eos, manages to stop the vehicle before it slides into the portal. He then uses Prime to suppress the spell and speeds past it.
• When the cabal arrives at the Hotel Regina, another portal begins to open in front of it. Malachite and Eos counterspell it tag-team style and snap it closed.
• Serafina, Rasayana, Autumn, Eos, and Malachite each take hold of The Queen of Heaven's frame. We get into the Hotel Regina!! It is a rating 5 Hallow with a celestial resonance. Its oblation is stargazing at midnight through the skylight on the third floor.
• Eos casts a spell to give us each an intimate connection to the deed so that we can come and go as we please.
• We explore the hotel. We find one wall that seems to block access to a number of rooms; we suspect the area used to belong to the hotel's ladies of the evening. On the third floor, we find the ruins of an alchemical lab and a room that used to be a library. Beneath the skylight, there are a number of still-living plants. The flowers that are in full bloom are all tass.
• Serafina finds several sets of hidden shelves. In one, she finds a mirror edged with iron. Eos studies its resonance and finds that it was probably once a path tool and is now a soul stone attuned to Pandemonium; it belonged to someone initiated into the legacy of the Bearers of the Eternal Voice.
• With help from the Bruides and Ophelia, the cabal begins moving into the hotel.
• That afternoon, we receive an odd, unwelcome visitor: Amenhotep, another member of the Seers pylon we've been fighting. He offers us a chance to join the Seers; he tells us that their visions show that the Seers will end up in possession of the hotel, but it could be that we are the Seers in question. We collectively but politely tell him to fuck off.
• When Amenhotep leaves, he tells us, “Remember: In the labyrinths of the mind is found the treasure of the gods.” This turns out to be a trigger phrase that wakes Eos from her sleeper agent trance.
• As we are turning to go back into the hotel, a portal unbelievably punches through the wards around it and a giant of a man and a huge hyena step through. We immediately go on the defensive, but the giant holds out his hands and announces that Eos is actually Auctorita, a Seer agent operating under a false persona.
• We aren't inclined to believe him, but "Eos" suddenly hits him with a combat spell we've never seen her use before. As events unfold, we begin to realize that he's telling the truth. We fight like hell to keep Auctorita from escaping with her intimate connection to the hotel intact, but she finally manages to teleport away.
• The giant finally introduces himself as Issa. He says he was sent by Stoughton to help us when the Guardians of the Veil realized that "Eos" was a sleeper agent. He was not supposed to arrive alone, but something went wrong. He then calls Stoughton to report on what happened.
• Stoughton asks us for permission to enter our territory so that he and his crew can help us destroy Auctorita's connection to the Regina before she can share it with her cohorts. We agree, too stunned, hurt, and angry to do anything else.
• Malachite contacts Ophelia, first to make sure she is okay, then to get her to bring us the Journal of Gamayun, as Stoughton needs to see the details of the original warding spell. Ophelia tells him that the Bruides want to come to the hotel also, that they have something important to deliver. Suspicious, Malachite agrees, but tells the Bruides to stay outside the hotel grounds. Their delivery is "Eos's" journal, where she's been keeping everything she collected to establish sympathies with people and places. It turns out that the Silver Ladder also had suspicions about "Eos", and they sent the Bruides to investigate without telling the rest of the cabal. Malachite hands the journal over to Autumn, who proceeds to destroy everything he considers dangerous. But he does not destroy the journal itself, because he finds something in it that may eventually prove our mentors' innocence.

Session Two (10/22/10)

Mage School: Astral Travel

• Stoughton and the remaining members of the Fivefold Vigil travel into the Astral in order to sever Auctorita's connection with the Hotel Regina. Rasayana casts a spell to give us all a jump start into our meditative trances.
• Astral travel is an individual thing, so we each have to find our own path to the Regina's reflection in the Temenos. Stoughton is already there when we arrive; he seems surprised we made it so quickly. He also tells us that the Regina here is more than just a reflection. It's been strengthened, walled off, and made into a Realm.
• We are shocked to find Eos there. Or at least the fading mental construct that Eos really was. Rasayana casts a spell to keep Eos from unraveling so quickly. She understands what has happened to her, and she got a glimpse into Auctorita's memories before finding herself in the Temenos. She tells us that Auctorita is not a member of the Babylon pylon (the Seers we've been butting heads with in Astoria), but of another more powerful pylon. Auctorita's presence in Astoria was pure coincidence; she was supposed to be in Portland getting ready for the attack on Seattle.
• While Eos tells her cabalmates everything she can about Auctorita, Malachite takes Stoughton aside. He asks if there's any way to preserve this remnant of Eos permanently. Stoughton says it can be done, but because of the difficulty, it will cost Malachite his boon. Malachite agrees. However, when the offer is made to Eos, she turns it down. She doesn't want to go on knowing that she isn't real. The only thing she asks of us is that we help Issa (who she still thinks of as her grandson) in his fight against Auctorita. We solemnly agree.
• A woman suddenly appears on the stairs that lead down to the Regina's lobby. She's not quite a spirit, but something more. Oddly, Eos can't see her. Autumn recognizes her as Madame Sirin, the Hierarch of the Columbia Consilium and one of the original owners of the Hotel Regina.
• Sirin welcomes us to the Regina and invites us to join her in the parlor on the third floor. Serafina chooses to stay and guard Stoughton while he's casting his spell; the rest of us accompany Sirin, though Eos finds that she can't follow us all the way there.
• Sirin says that because the Regina was so closely associated with the Columbia Consilium, it had a very strong reflection in the Temenos, which Sirin and her cabal deliberately transformed into a realm. She also tells us that she is not the original Sirin; the real Sirin imprinted her personality onto her Temenos reflection in order to create a guardian for this realm.
• We tell Sirin what happened with Auctorita and that we are here to sever her intimate connection with the Regina. Sirin says that she can feel Auctorita's connection. Strangely, Sirin senses that Auctorita is indifferent about the sympathy she's forged with the hotel and hasn't bothered to share it with any of her compatriots.
• Sirin tells us that we each have a past connection to the Hotel Regina and that is no accident. She also says we should look out in the garden of the Regina when we get back to the Fallen World.
• Autumn notices that there is something lurking behind the stars that can be seen through the Regina's skylight. Sirin warns him not to stare for too long. Autumn asks her if she's every heard the phrase, "The Black Gate." She says she doesn't know what it means, but for some reason it makes her think of another phrase: "The Eleventh Seal."
• When we get back to the lobby, Stoughton has finished his spell, and the Regina is safe from Auctorita once more. We tell him about our encounter with Sirin. He says that iron seals are sometimes used by Seers to represent the Exarchs, which may be what the "Eleventh Seal" refers to.
• Before we leave, Stoughton asks Eos if she wants a permanent existence, not having heard her earlier refusal. He tells her he can create a heaven of sorts for her in the Temenos, and that if she remains, she may have a chance to help her cabal again in the future. She decides to take the offer.
• The Fivefold Vigil says their goodbyes to Stoughton and to Eos and returns to the Fallen World, now in full possession of the Hotel Regina and its powerful Hallow.