Mage the Awakening - Imperial Mysteries.pdf - Mage the Awakening - FatumTech

Imagine Awakening again.

Imagine walking in a universe of dust,

feeling it shape to your desire

and retreat from your wrath.

Imagine knowing that everyone

and everything you ever cared about

can be changed, forever,

by your actions,

the actions of your peers

and those of your rivals.

Imagine the fear,

the crushing responsibility

• Full Rules for archmasters, includ-

ing the Practices of the sixth to ninth

Arcana dots.

• Details of the Threshold, the trials that

await a mage attempting to become

an Archmage.

• Information on the World of Darkness

as seen by archmasters; the Ascen-

sion War between rival visions for the

Fallen World, the alliances Archmag-

es form to promote those visions, the

strange realms they explore and the

godlike entities they encounter.

• Exploration of the Supernal Realms

and the nature of Ascension.

• A minigame portraying Archmages in

the Supernal.

• Storyteller advice for chronicles of

cosmic scope.

and the intoxicating, addictive power.

Would you trust anyone with this?

Would you trust yourself, Heirarch?

- Aaliyah, Bodhissatva

WWW.WORLDOFDARKNESS.COM

Anamika pictured the hospital. She

remembered the squeak of shoes on

the hallway floors, the ever-present

smell of antiseptic and air freshener

struggling with the stench of sweat

and disease. She hadn’t been there

for thirty years, but she had a very

good memory—even for a Warlock.

She held the memory, made

it an Imago. Placed herself and

Verrill there in the ER waiting room.

She released the Imago—distance and

location sliding aside in response to

Pandemonium’s laws, following the thread

in her heart. In the blink of an eye, every place

they’d ever been in thirty years was gone. All

the distance she’d put between herself and this

town was gone, eradicated by a single spell.

“Shit, it’s cold.”

Verrill drew his coat tighter. The motion was

that of the boy three decades past. Armor, not

just against the cold.

Anamika looked around the deserted ER.

All of the equipment was gone, from heart

monitors to telephones. A patch of old graffiti

bruised one wall, while a stain like old urine

blossomed across the ripped-up seating. Opened

cans that once contained food or alcohol crouched

in the corners.

And, somewhere close by, the connection.

She realized that Verrill was watching her and raised an

eyebrow.

“It’s been abandoned since the 80s,” he said, breaking the silence.

“They film TV shows here every once in a while, clean up the parts

that’ll be on camera. Is it… Is this the place?”

She closed her eyes to better see, described the spell in High Speech

and cast the Unveiling. The lines of sympathy, strung all over the

room like frosted spiderwebs, appeared to her mind’s eye. A thick

tangle danced to and from Verrill. They swirled around her feet like

disturbed dust.

And the old line. The oldest line. Upstairs.

“This is the place.”

* * *

“…Could you repeat that, Councilor?”

Anamika felt the other Councilors shift uncomfortably.

Fortuna would be the first to recover, she thought, as

soon as she realized what this meant for her order.

Havelok would take it the hardest — she would miss the

old man.

The hardest except for the Heirarch.

“Anamika? What did you just say?” Verrill repeated,

betrayal and accusation showing through sudden cracks

in his official demeanor.

“I am resigning from this Council. Phidias has been

an excellent Provost, and he will be a credit to you in

my place.”

“Are you leaving us, master?” Havelok asked.

He used the proper title, not the one she had just

given up, and she silently thanked him for it.

She acknowledged the question and turned

to Verrill to reply on the record. After a second

of looking at him, she found her brother’s eyes

looking out from the Heirarch’s face.

“I have decided to seek the Imperial Mysteries.”

* * *

The filming crews had done a good job en-

suring the building was easy to move through,

clearing the hallways of abandoned furniture,

equipment and garbage. Any ghosts that had

survived the long years did not make them-

selves known. The pair only had to pause once

for Verrill to warn a spirit of abandonment

away.

After a few more minutes Anamika realized with

a small pang of guilt that it had been drawn to Ver-

rill.

At the entrance to what had been Maternity,

they paused.

“This is where you stop, Gareth.”

* * *

On the second night after Council, they fought.

Politely. Anamika sitting, Verrill standing a re-

spectful distance away, ready to leave the room

if things got too heated.

A magical family drama, laid out as though

blocked for the stage.

“But why? Why throw everything we’ve worked

together for—”

“Everything you have worked for.”

Verrill — Gareth here, in his home — flinched.

“We have responsibilities,” he mumbled, both

of them aware that he’d lost the fight already.

“Do you really want me to say it? You hide in

your responsibilities, Gareth. We came to this

Consilium temporarily, do you remember? But

Havelok offered to make you a Herald.”

“I am Heirarch.”

“And a second-degree adept. You should be a

master by now.”

He looked ashamed, like a child caught without

having done his homework.

“I’ve been—”

“Too busy? I know the feeling. I can’t do this

and be your deciding vote.”

He reached out for the door handle uncon-

sciously, then, but didn’t run.

“If you’re serious… If you want to throw your

career away for an impossibility, then help me

to understand. Why?”

She knew she had his support, then. She

made room on the couch, and — hesitating just

a fraction of a second — he joined her, taking

her hand.

“Because my name isn’t Helen.”

“I know that—”

“Let me finish. I was five when Mom adopted me.

I don’t know why she changed my name, but I was

too young. Years of being called Helen outweighed

a brief life I could barely remember.” A flicker of a

smile crossed her lips. “Haven’t you wondered why

I can’t take an Apprentice? Pass on my Legacy?”

“I just assumed…” he said, his voice trailing

into silence at her reaction.

She shook her head.

“To bond with a student, you have to exchange

names. Real, sympathetic names. And I don’t

know what mine is. You’ve never noticed because

we grew up together. We Awakened together in

the fire. You’re my brother and I love you, but

you don’t know who I am. Anamika. ‘One without

a name.’”

His voice, when he found it, was oddly hollow.

“And the archmasters know?”

“There’s so much about sympathy that we

don’t understand. Why isn’t my name Helen?

We leave threads everywhere we go, with every

interaction. We can sense, create, destroy and

follow those threads, but we don’t know what

they’re made of. We don’t know why our first,

oldest ones imprint so strongly. I want to know. I

need to know, and Mastery is not enough.”

“What do you need me to do?” He’d made up

his mind.

“Take a leave of absence. Come with me. I

need to sort through, well, everything. To find

the thread that named me.”

* * *

Outside Maternity, they said their goodbyes.

“I’ll be right here,” Verill said, “when you’re

done.”

Anamika took a deep breath, turned away from

her family and pushed the door open.

Her thread — her oldest sympathetic connec-

tion — led to a point three and a half feet above

the cracked floor tiles, a few yards into the room.

The cot was long gone.

Carefully, Anamika cast the spell she had designed.

The point of origin grew in her sight, unwinding like

the insides of a golf ball. The Knowing spell granted

her understanding of what she was seeing.

She felt the room darken around her, heard her

brother calling her name. Her name.

“I understand,” she said. And then she was

gone.

By David Brookshaw and Malcolm Sheppard

Mage the Awakening - Imperial Mysteries.pdf

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