Downtime: Spring to Summer

Malachite

• Help Ophelia in her efforts to get her ex out of jail, probably by electronically planting medical and toxicology reports saying that he was not in control of his actions due to ergot poisoning or something similar
• Let his cabalmates know that someone from Salem was also poking around the Astoria PD database, looking through the witness statements and case files about the cafe shooting
• Make Teleportation items for Ophelia, Mitchell, and Tanya, with Issa's help
• Make Blessing items for Samantha and Danny, with Rasayana's help
• Add mana to everyone's Teleportation items, to their maximum capacity if possible
• Set up expense accounts for everyone who "works" for Rainy Day Investigations, if Ophelia hasn't already done so
• Ask Rasayana to look at the Fate connection between him and Meredith to determine if it's real or artificial
• Check in on Meredith frequently
• Do internet research on the phrase "She is coming," focusing on its appearance in old texts and prophetic writings (and ignoring all the porn sites)
• Contact the various mages he knows outside his cabal and tell them of the "She is coming" warning that keeps cropping up (but without giving any specific details about Tanya, Ms. Blacklace, or Mitchell). Advise his cabalmates to do the same. Someone may have an idea of what it means, but if not, at least we'll be spreading the word that something potentially disastrous is on its way.
• Set up a mundane identity and background for Tanya, under the name "Tanya Flowers." Destroy any remaining records of "Tanya Clark."
• Gleefully accept Samantha's offer and ask if Tanya can tag along, for the first leg of the trip at least. Suggest starting in Georgia so he can take Tanya to Callaway Gardens and the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

Rasayana

• Continue training with Aquinas toward his Legacy
• Check in on Meredith constantly. Independently investigate the institution that Aquinas recommends.
• Work with Malachite to create imbued "Blessing" items ( Fate ••• ) for our un-awakened allies
• Can Malachite and Serafina create contingent healing items? You receive X points of damage, get back Y points. Maybe a Prime illusion or Life pattern change to retain the appearance of the original wounds?
• PR Campaign:
  • Establish himself as a resource in the Free Council, working to build status therein
  • Learn more about, and stay in contact with, Cabals in local Consilia. He will answer questions about the Vigil, try to make allies, and offer to share information and support.
  • He plans to formalize these bonds into an organized defense force against the Seers of the Throne. Seek Serafina's aid in terms of strategy, and in judging the abilities of potential allies. Involve Corvian to keep him busy, and to steer his anger toward constructive ends.
  • Use this as a channel to discreetly publicize the "She is Coming" prophecy and try to understand it.
• Safe House:
  • Rasayana feels that we should have both an escape plan for ourselves and a way out for our allies in case the shit hits the fan in the hotel itself. What does the cabal think about the following?
  • Ask Malachite to purchase/rent the land at one of the endpoints of the garden portals. (Or not, if sufficiently remote/abandoned).
  • Ask Ophelia to ensure that any purchase cannot be connected to the Hotel.
  • Ask Serafina and Autumn to help establish a safe house there. Physical security + ghost and spirit guardians, possibly.
  • Ask Issa to establish an intimacy there, assuming he hasn't already.
• Security:
  • Encourage the cabal to increase the magical security of the Hotel (as in the Merit)
  • He's interested in creating a Demesne in the Hotel. This will give the Vigil the edge in magical combat and make vulgar prep-work easier. Hasn't been an issue until recently, and I don't know who might be able to create a Soul Stone yet. Who is interested in trading Supernal Enlightenment (and sanity) for a little temporary safety? Mostly want to know where everybody stands on it.
• Talk to Tanya about what happened in the Diner. Yes, she's a tough kid and she'll probably be okay, but he would still make sure.
• Try to get in some normalcy with Ophelia and Tanya. Trying to stay grounded and not repeat past relationship mistakes. Possibly drive Ophelia nuts complaining about how movies do magic wrong :) -- and that's why Rasa hasn't seen any movies in about 15-20 years.

Autumn

• Following his secret nighttime visit to Ophelia's husband, Autumn informs Ophelia and Issa -- and anyone else that cares to overhear -- that he has research he needs to follow up on in Nevada.
• He gets together camping supplies, asks Issa to open a portal for him to a ghost town in Nevada, and takes Tina and Claudette with him, leaving Leon to watch over the Atheneum. He can be reached via Tina's anchors should it be necessary.
• Before he goes, he asks Issa to think if there might be a way to allow any Magi to safely enter inside the wards, so that the Atheneum might be moved back inside the perimeter of their protection.
• I seem to remember you saying that visiting Magi had to have full access for a collection to be considered an Atheneum, Joe. A reading room with texts brought at guests' requests would not suffice. If I'm remembering that wrong, then this part doesn't happen. Instead, Autumn brings the libraries back inside the wards himself.
• What happens from there, Joe, is up to you; but I'd like to gain his second attainment over the course of this downtime if possible.
• Autumn will attempt to peacefully approach the master Wraith in Nevada, to see if he knows anything of master Kang Lu or if he can help find him. If that doesn't pan out, he'll probably return and generally avoid everyone -- sunk in depression, but passing it off as sullenness -- and devote himself to researching the history of Astoria, the Regina, and the Columbia Consillium (with liberal use of Library of Time to maximize his efficiency) and post-cogging through the year of Kang Lu's death, looking for clues to his master's whereabouts, chronologically speaking.
• Autumn is fine with Danny working on the Atheneu... err.. "reading room," but will probably be gone before the topic comes up, so up to you here as well.

Issa

• establish permanent portal to Africa w/ key; Astoria side will be in the East gardens outside the ward but within the privacy fencing. The other end is at the small unused cairn (it's where Issa buried all the poachers he had killed in the past) about a quarter mile from Jelani's home (which is a few miles from the village; Jelani has a jeep). The portal key requires you to sound out the Zelda secret passage discovery sound effect & jump onto a mosaic of an African cairn that he constructed in the garden (or off the end of the cairn stone in Africa) with your hands over your eyes).
  • Note: Jelani, in addition to being the doctor for the village, is also a scientist studying plantlife, including the variable medical uses of some sort of rare African orchid thingie that only grows locally, which of course he'll show Tanya hearing of her love for flowers) - he also breeds, trains & raises heynas.
• if any cabalmates wish to establish other portals to frequently visited distant locations, please let me know & we'll see what we can do. Hearing Rasa's ideas about a safehouse, Issa would suggest instead of linking it to one of the hotel portals, to choose somewhere even more remote that he could build a portal to - that would prevent anyone who is familiar with or figured out the hotel portal keys to use it & it would be easier for Issa to tear it apart if necessary.
• fox tokens to Tanya, Dany, Rai & Jelani (Ophelia & Mitchell already have one).
• ritual alchemy to replace healing tablets/injections that were used in last session
• Mal & Issa coop craft emergency poof jewelry for Mitchell, Ophelia, Dany & Tanya.
• spends a week in Africa with Jelani & the villagers, including his umthakathi peers - he also starts teaching Valentina to meditate & attempts to set her on the basics of umthakathi if she's willing, hoping some focus & spirituality might do her some good - at first he was doing this for Sophie & to get Val out of the way, but now he's becoming more intent on her actually straightening her life out & making something of herself rather than crash & burn. If his occulation didn't make her forget the brief meeting they had months ago (which is what he's hoping), he'll explain to her that he is an agent of the gods who sent her here & visit her dreams to save her from her old life & that when she is ready, she can go home.
• take Tanya to Africa for a day to meet Jelani & the villagers (she may return with a hyena pup of her own if she likes)
• spends a weekend in New York visiting Rai
• Issa "just happens to be in Georgia at the time" to spend the Callaway Gardens visit with Mal, Sam & Tanya.
• finishes exploring & documenting all of the garden portals
• Issa gets a freelance job teaching boxing at a local gym
• starts a local spiritual drumming circle, teaching them umthakathi basics in the process (eventually wishing to actively start training those worthy who wish to continue beyond the basics).

Serafina

• X

NPCs

• Mitchell: Mitchell is taking a bit of a vacation down to San Francisco, returning there with Miss Blacklace, to spend some time in Geist Padawan training. He returns after three weeks or so, and begins training Malachite.
• Ophelia: Ophelia spends time and resources securing and ensuring the release of her husband so that he can return to their son. She also secures a restraining order against him, barring him from returning to Astoria, or within 300 yards of her outside of Astoria.
• Danny: Danny settles in, starting to do some work on both the Regina itself, tending to some repairs on the docks and doing some sprucing up in the Athenaeum (if Autumn wants him to do so).
• Aquinas: Continues to tend to his own researches, while seeing about helping Meredith. He extends his hospitality to her for a few weeks longer than originally planned, and she seems perfectly content to accept it. She seems to have no memory of her actions at the Regina that night. He and Rasayana continue to meet weekly, continuing his training as an Uncrowned King.
• Danu: Sticks around Astoria for a while, and then invites Serafina to come with her to find out where the Columbia is born. Along the trip, they do some of their Legacy training.
• Tanya: Begins training in controlling her magic with Aquinas, who forbids her to use magic in any capacity when he isn't around, at least for now. Despite this, the electricity in the house sometimes goes on the fritz. She consistently denies having anything to do with it, even when caught with her hair sticking up on end due to static electricity.
• Samantha: Invites Malachite on a two-week whirl-wind tour of the amusement parks of the East Coast.

Session Zero (9.24.11)

• Many imbued items were created. Many dice were rolled. Malachite slept for a week.