Mage the Awakening - Astral Realms.pdf
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Astral Realms
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Alexander Freed, Peter Schaefer, Malcolm Sheppard, John Snead
Contents
Door
s
The Emperor had led across the desert, and so the
raven-haired mage and her fair, freckled companion
followed. They had no choice: the Emperor was in
her mind.
Every step kicked dust into the air, and it had already
coated the mages’ throats. A dispassionate sun hung
above the horizon ahead of them, promising eventual
relief and burning pain in the meantime.
“God, I wish I had a hat.” The fair mage, Aodh,
earned only a lungful of sand and a racking cough
for his wish. “Okay, I take it back,” he said through
his shirtsleeve, “I wish we’d never come here. Can’t
we walk through a different part of your mind, or
something?”
Nyx, the dark-haired beauty, was silent for a mo-
ment. “No,” she said, looking ahead at Aodh without
a hint of humor. “Only the Emperor knows where he’s
going here. We have to follow the same metaphorical
paths he does, otherwise we’ll never end up in the
same place. Thus, following his tracks through this
part of my mind.”
“Great, I just love metaphor,” Aodh threw back.
“This whole desert is a metaphor, so why can’t we
follow the empty, choking metaphor of a hideous,
burning desert and get on with it?”
“Because if we could, this part of dream space would
already be ending. There’s going to be something…
special… to…” Nyx trailed off and stopped. Aodh
stopped looking over his shoulder and faced front.
He sighed long and deep.
“And here I was, saying this desert wouldn’t be
complete without a sandstorm,” he said latly as wind
tugged at his shirt. Aodh linched as the irst of many
grains of sand stung his forehead. “Maybe we should
just get —” He stopped as he turned to see Nyx dig-
ging through the sand, shoving armfuls aside. “What
are you doing?”
“Finding shelter, Aodh! The Emperor came this way,
and he ran into the same obstacle we did here. Are you
going to… help?” She looked up in time to see Aodh
scan the surrounding dunes, protecting his eyes from
the rising storm and the sun the storm half-eclipsed,
then shove his hand into an unremarkable pile of sand
and pull up a trapdoor. “How’d you know?”
“Acanthus, remember?” Nyx rolled her eyes as he
mock-bowed and escorted her down the stairs.
The chamber at the bottom looked like a cross
between an Egyptian tomb in the cinema and a Las
Vegas casino. “What
is
this place?” Aodh wondered
aloud, and he took a few steps into its chaotic com-
motion.
Standing at the foot of the stairs, Nyx swallowed
and said, “Probably some representation of my imagi-
nation.”
“Come again?”
“My best guess is that the desert up there is boredom,
a state I endure far too often thanks to the company
I keep.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“My pleasure,” she said with a smile. “Usually,
boredom is just something I weather. But if it over-
whelms me — like the storm would in the desert
— I take refuge in my imagination.” She leaned into
the room and licked her eyes back and forth, then
twisted her mouth. “Unfortunately, I can’t say much
for my taste.”
“So, this place is connected to your daydreams,
then.” Aodh craned his neck over the one-armed
bandits. “I wonder where the sex fantasies are?”
“Aodh!” Nyx sounded exasperated, but she had
a small smile and looked a little relaxed for the irst
time since the two mages had igured out what spell
the Emperor had cast on her.
“Okay, I promise I won’t go traipsing through your
unconscious looking for your embarrassing secrets,”
Aodh said, looking over his shoulder just once as he
returned to the stairs and sat down. “So… um, what
do we do now that we’re down here? Just wait out
the storm?”
Nyx sat down next to him, her straight back con-
trasting Aodh’s slump against the stairs. “Well, it’s
hard to be sure. In fact, that’s part of the challenge.
We igure out how to defeat the obstacle, and then
Contents
we move on to the next part of my mind. Defeating
the obstacle
could
mean waiting it out,” her tone
made it clear how likely she thought that, “or there’s
something we need to do down here, in this gaudy
metaphor for my imagination.” She looked annoyed.
“Seriously, I do
not
think about gambling.”
Aodh laughed. “Boy, hearing you have a sense of
humor is a breath of fresh air in this place.” Then they
were both silent for several seconds. Aodh looked
around conspicuously, then said, “No idea what to do,
huh?” Nyx gave her head a tiny shake and Aodh an
uncertain look. “I know,” he said, “Let’s get your whatsit
involved, the dream guide. Um… daimon, right?” He
almost fell over when he saw the fear on Nyx’s face.
“Well, that’s just a, uh, suggestion, yeah?”
Nyx covered her mouth and looked apologetic.
“I… had a bad experience here a few months ago. My
daimon was involved, and,” she cast her eyes away
from Aodh, “I’m not ready to face it again.”
“That’s no problem, Nyx, it’s cool. We’ll just igure
this one out on our own, right?” Her grateful smile made
the trouble worth it. “It’s ine, we can handle it.”
• • •
“
Down!
” Aodh’s quick relexes pulled Nyx out of the
way and into the fetid sewage — if it could be called
water — as lightning seared just over their heads. Their
quarry, the Seer of the Throne known as Boghram,
disappeared down the next branch in his frantic search
for an escape. She came up sputtering.
“You know, I survived this encounter the
irst
time
without ever getting shit up my nose!”
“That’s only because you didn’t have a gallant like
me to protect you,” Aodh shot back, “Now let’s get
after the bastard!” He hauled her out of the ilth and
ran around the corner to see Boghram disappear into
another branching. Aodh and Nyx took up pursuit.
“I wish I had a gun.”
“I wish you had a spell that could hurt him,” Nyx
grumbled.
“Hey, any time now he’s going to start tripping over
his own feet, you wait and see!” Aodh took a deep
breath as they ran. “Are you telling me you came
down here after a Seer unarmed?”
“No mage is ever unarmed, Aodh, even one as
defenseless as you.”
“Low blow, Nyx, low blow.” They took the turn
into a long, empty stretch of sewer. Aromatic liquid
dribbled down the center of the corridor here in
contrast to the steady, deep low of the main tunnel.
“Great, where’d he go?”
“Careful, he’s an Obrimos —”
“Yeah, I’d igured
that
out.”
“— and an adept in Matter. He can make himself
invisible, throw up fake walls and change the very air
we breathe into deadly poison.”
“Thanks for the intro class, Nyx. D’you have some-
thing useful to say?”
They circled, back to back. “Well, when I captured
Boghram in real life, he pulled a trick like this on me.
I had no idea where he was until he shot me in the
back.” She paused. “This is a dream or a memory of
that event… so he’s probably going to come without
warning and surprise us. The challenge is to survive
and knock him out instead.”
Nyx tensed, as if saying it would bring Boghram
onto the offensive, but nothing happened. Minutes
passed.
“Maybe we need to drop our guard, or something,”
Aodh said. “Y’know, he can’t catch us by surprise if
we’re so well defended like this. So…”
“So?”
“So maybe we talk a little until he surprises us?”
“We could just split up to make ourselves vulner-
able,” Nyx said.
“Can’t split up, remember? I’ll get lost when you
follow the metapath to the next place.”
“Great. Talking until we lose our edge it is.”
“So,” Aodh said distractedly, “When’d you run into
Boghram in real life?”
“Aught-three. He was trying to spy on the Guard-
ians, setting up a listening post outside one of our
meeting places. I found him out and broke his ar-
rangement to pieces, then caught him when he ran
away through… this.”
“Capturing a Seer all by your lonesome as a newb?
That’s no small feat. Guardians gotta give you respect
for that.”
“Yes, they did,” Nyx answered, but she’d been quiet
too long. Aodh felt her tense up behind him.
“But something’s different now, something’s
changed, hasn’t it?” Aodh’s voice was level, empty of
judgment. No sound came from behind him but light
breathing and the slosh of feet through ilth.
“Yes, something’s changed,” Nyx said. “I’m… the
Guardians put me under censure.” Aodh caught and
crushed his gasp before it escaped. “Dargon disapproves
of how I handled the Emperor when he entered my
sphere of inluence, and he’s punishing me. The order
is blocking my further education under the excuse of
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