Episode Thirteen: The Passage of Shadow

Session One (12.3.11)

• We start discussing options and divvying up our remaining tass. Malachite tries to harvest fresh tass from the Regina, but it is no longer generating any.
• We decide to meet with Auctorita, since she's our only possible ally. But as a precaution, Rasayana casts a mental shield on us.
• On the way, we see several dogs in an alley simply become unmade. An Abyssal spirit appears in their place.
• Serafina and Malachite go to follow it while the others continue on to the meeting with Auctorita.
• Serafina traps the spirit, examines it, and questions it. It doesn't know anything useful.
• The spirit's Ban is that it must find an Awakened master. Once it does that, something else will become its Ban. Its nature is to be a familiar.
• It grovels and whimpers and tries to tempt Serafina or Malachite into becoming its master. Serafina destroys it, and they leave to catch up with their cabalmates.
• Auctorita is waiting for us at the Babylon Gardens cemetery. She tells us that the Babylon pylon has been taken into custody by the Tetrarchy. She thinks she can get ahold of their belongings, which will hopefully contain the Ishtar Codex.
• As we talk, the older portions of the cemetery are suddenly unmade. In their place, another Abyssal spirit appears, in the form of a black mist.
• Auctorita takes off. Bitch.
• The creature sets off Malachite's nictophobia, but he is able to suppress the fear. As a result, he gains a spontaneous knowledge of the Art of Befouling.
• After we manage to injure this Abyssal creature, it stops fighting us and offers us a chance to ask questions. It must truthfully answer any question, as long as the answer isn't being deliberately hidden from it.
• Autumn remembers that this entity extracts a “terrible price” for any questions it answers, but he doesn't warn anybody. The bastard.
• Only Malachite and Rasayana get to ask their questions before the spirit realizes that Serafina is trying to read it. It vanishes in a huff.
• Malachite asks how to keep Abphelia from destroying the world. The creature says that the answer is hidden, but it can tell us where to find the answer. It says for us to go the “archives of the angels” and search for “the heart of murder,” “ the tears of the river,” “the moment of unity,” “the joy of enunciation,” and “the birth of the sun.”
• Rasayana asks how to save Ophelia. It tells him to enact the “Banishment of the Queen of Heaven” before her chrysalis is complete.
• They both lose a point of Wisdom.
• Autumn does a divination and learns that the world will be destroyed within a year.
• Serafina suspects that the clues the Abyssal offered us may refer to various spirits she's met around Astoria. She goes to investigate the possiblity.
• The rest of us travel ahead to Mount Angel. Mitchell goes with us. We get a couple of hotel rooms and start doing various rituals to prepare for a marathon research session.
• Autumn summons the spirit of Rubedo, his mentor from Magnum Opus, confirming that she is dead. She tells him that Nigredo and Citrinas are dead also. Albedo was captured and tortured along with her. She doesn't know Albedo's fate.