Stone and Water

[Thirteen]

"So, how's this work again?" Jinx the crow asked, from where he perched on the table that Thirteen used as a makeshift workbench.

Thirteen made some final adjustments to the old polaroid camera, making sure the film was in place. "I'm goin' to be castin' a Postcognition techne. Specifically, to see the Starbucks backroom over in the Zinfandel Estates, on the night we were there."

"Right," the familiar tried to follow along, but a lot of this Time magic stuff was beyond him, "But won't they notice you're spying on them? Didn't you say someone else was spying on them? You noticed that."

The Acanthus raised the camera to her eye, peering at Jinx through the lens, "Nae. It's not the same. Scryin' happens in the present. Postcog is viewin' the past."

"What difference does that make?"

Thirteen lowered the camera and fiddled with it again. She's spent the past few days fixing the old Polaroid, after she'd found it at a yard sale. Finding film for it had been more time consuming. "Scryin' magic happens now, so it's affects the now. The present can be altered by current events. Postcognition is only viewin' the past, and the past is set in stone. Nothin' I do now, or in the future, will change what happened that night. It's like this..."

She raised the camera and snapped a quick picture of the crow. He squacked at the surprise flash photography. "Ahh! I'm blind!"

"You're fine. Give is a minute," the redhead smiled as a polaroid photo ejected from the slot on the front of the camera. She set it down on the table and waited for it to develop, while Jinx stumbled about blindly, blinking his little black eyes.

"You'll pay for your crimes, woman! Get me one of those walking canes, I'll... oh, I can see now..." After shaking his head, the familiar hopped over to gaze at the photo. Slowly an image of himself appeared, looking surprised. "Oh my gawd, I am so beautiful!"

Smirking, Thirteen gestured at the polaroid, "Now, this pic is like the postcognition. It's a way to view the past. But lookin' at it doesn't change anythin'. It's just there, a moment set in stone. Or photo paper, in this case." She picked up the camera again and aimed it at Jinx, "Next, if I were to take another picture, our current actions will affect the outcome. There's a myriad of poses you could take in the future. The future is like water, fluid and undetermined. Hasn't taken a shape yet, but it will solidify once I click the button, and the future becomes the past."

Jinx puffed his feathered chest and struck a noble avian pose. Grinning, the Libertine snapped the picture, and once more it slid out of the camera's slot.

"See? Now this moment is stone, too. Can't be changed, anymore, no matter what I do now or in the future."

The bird tilted his head curiously. "Shouldn't it be ice?"

"What?"

"Water doesn't turn into stone, it hardens into ice, silly."

Thirteen sighed, "You're takin' my metaphors too literally, Jinx."

The crow gave a human-style shrug of his wings, in a manner he'd seen the Highland girl do many, many times. "Whatever, just hang these masterpieces in a museum!"

[Thirteen]

The next day, Thirteen was ready. She'd had a breakthrough in her studies of the Space Arcanum, achieving what the Atlanteans would call Apprentice status. Now she could perform the postcognition from the privacy and safety of her Sanctum.

"And you just want me to sit here while you space out?" Jinx didn't sound eager, as he watched the redhead make her final preparations for the ritual, from where he perched on a shelf.

"Aye. My senses will be cast back to another time. That night at the Starbucks. I won't be able to see, hear or smell anything here and now. I'll leave touch and taste out of it. Not like I'm gonna lick the corpse or anythin'." She positioned some sheets of paper around the pentacle. It was spray-painted in black upon the cement floor, with some touches of green and purple. Her favorite colours. Most Diamond Mages would balk at the less-than-classic take on the ritual circle, but this was the heart of the Libertine's Sanctum and she was proud of it. The papers had drawings of runes, ones representing the Arcana she would be using. Time, Space and Prime.

"And you turn your nose up at the idea of me eating eyeballs from corpses," the crow retorted.

Runes positioned, the Acanthus removed a sandwich baggie from her pocket. It was zip-lock sealed, and written in marker upon it was a name: S. Cartwright. Inside, the hair sample she had taken from the man last year. Her sympathetic connection. It was much stronger a connection than having been to the time and location just once. Carefully, she removed the tress from the baggie, the hairs bound together with some thread.

"Just stay here and stand watch. I don't expect any interruptions, but if somethin' does need my immediate attention, wake me."

"How?"

"I don't know! Peck my heid!"

"Now that sounds fun!" the familiar chuckled.

"Emergency only!" she glared at him.

"Party pooper," he sighed. "Fine, fine. Do your voyeurism magic. I'll be here, my liege!" The bird made a mocking bow.

Since that was as good as it was going to get, Thirteen cleared her mind. Sitting in the center of the pentacle, holding the hair sample in one hand and touching her silver necklace with the other, she began the ritual.

First, the High Speech. She chanted for half of an hour before calling upon her Supernal Will, and with that (due to the sympathetic connection across time and space making the spell vulgar) came the risk of the Abyss preying upon her spell.

failure

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2026-06-01 15:04:44	Thirteen rolls 1 to Paradox? 2 -1 (tool) -1 (arcanum 3 or lower) = chance die (10 Again, Chance)	6	failure

This time, the Enchantress had escaped the assault of Paradox, and her rote proceeded uncorrupted.

7 successes

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2026-06-01 15:08:02	[03] Thirteen rolls 7 to Postcog ritual (rote + HS) 9 - 2 (intimate sympathy) (10 Again)	4, 3, 7, 7, 1, 3, 9	1 success
2026-06-01 15:08:02	[02] Thirteen rolls 7 to Postcog ritual (rote + HS) 9 - 2 (intimate sympathy) (10 Again)	8, 5, 10, 9, 8, 9, 5, 4	5 successes
2026-06-01 15:08:02	[01] Thirteen rolls 7 to Postcog ritual (rote + HS) 9 - 2 (intimate sympathy) (10 Again)	1, 2, 3, 2, 8, 4, 4	1 success

A perfected cyan glyph formed, with touches of gray and white. Despite her previous claims that this postcognition would go unnoticed by the past, she still cloaked the techne with Prime magic, just in case someone in the current time period might notice the long distance effect.

The night of the fight with Cartwright, in the Starbucks backroom in the Zinfandel Estates. It was to this time and place she cast her perceptions, to check on the supposed Seer and discover if he was well and truly dead. The potency of the spell would give her a full seven minutes to watch, but she knew the fight was over long before then. Thirteen saw what had happened while she'd been in the room, so she started at the point just after she and Skye had ran out, in order to witness the rest of the suicide by cop fight.

Postcognition rote, cast as ritual. 7 successes. No Paradox. Time 3 with Space 2 and Prime 2. Lock of hair gives Intimate Sympathy (-2), already subtracted from dice pool.
ReubanBrightwood

[ReubanBrightwood]

Very nearly perfect.

One note, a ritual (extended cast) has a target number based on the desired spell factors, this is important because if your total suxx are below or above that number you need to spend a wp to reconfigure the iamgo mid spell.

Spend the point of wp and I'll let this result stand as everything else is spot on and the result is entirely possible.

[Thirteen]

Doh! Okay, consider the WP spent!

[ReubanBrightwood]

With the mans name truly known and physical parts of his body in hand Thirteen casts her awareness back through the flow of time to the vents that transpired in the employee lounge of the zinfandel estate Starbucks that same evening she and Skye and been present for. Her focus is Cartwright not the room so it on his her view is centered and sharp. The meeting lasting all a handful of moments realistically the potency of her spell more then covers what she needs.

Able to replay, watch and stop events as she has need the things she recalls play out as she expected them to, as her own memory would confirm.

Once she hear more then sees herself and Skye leaving the room, Skye's call to the mousy haired mage acting as a useful timestamp if you will, things happen that she was of course not present for.

Athena stabs Cartwright while Leo rushes in green glyph adding bulk to his already muscular frame as he grabs Cartwright who rather then looking at the San Fran mage is looking over his shoulder and around roughly around where the cloaked glyph that thirteen spotted is.

He calls out. "You said you'd get me out." This times well with the sound of a raised voice she had heard from below. In the background the sound of high speech chanting stops briefly followed by a string of panicked curses from what sounds like the lady with the iron grey hair. This would indeed time up with the opening of a a spirit road to the shadow realm that she had witnessed down below in the customer area.

Cartwright struggles for now getting more desperate the cool acceptance draining from him but Leos powerful arms hold the man steady as Athena sinks her knife in again and he goes limp. Seconds later she finishes the job slashing his neck. She and Leo leave Thirteens field of view and she hears doors open and footsteps running as the San Fran mages presumably panic rush out to deal with the spirit that has been set loose and in Athena case try to kill the witnesses.

Thirteens view remains on Cartwright, his body limp and gushing blood from a slashed open neck, the potency of hr spell is just long enough to catch the San Fran mages returning a heated argument between Leo and Athena is audible and the far from calm tones o the iron haired lady trying to bring some kind of order but her screeching is not having much effect it seems.

The last thing she sees is the mage known as Anubis, the watch dog, come over to the body and take clippings and cuttings of his own before he he works his will and the body, clothes and anything mundane begins to decay, fraying and breaking a good sign it is clearly now a dead body rather then a living one.

[Thirteen]

"You said you'd get me out." Cartwright's words echo in her mind. He said them to the gray glyph. He knew who was scrying on him, and he was... expecting an exfiltration? This changed things. If Cartwright expected to be teleported out, what went wrong? Had Jaculus or whoever double-crossed Cartwright? Had they intended a rescue, but deemed it too risky with so many Pentacle Mages present? No way to know.

The old crone fucked up her spell. Figures. That's why the spirit road and Grabby McTumor appeared in the cafe.

The Acanthus watched Cartwright's body dissolve under the (she guessed) Death magic. That confirms the Seer was, in fact, dead and gone.

Thirteen rewound the scene and watched it again. And a third time. She wanted to be sure she missed no detail.

She rewound the 'tape' once more, to when Cartwright spoke to the glyph, and 'paused' it there. Then she tried to see if there was an angle where she could clearly see the Space glyph.

[ReubanBrightwood]

The words indeed haunting, had the double cross been accidental, or intentional, a spur of the moment or always planned? whatever the case it has caused the death of mage, a man. At one time a good one, who had cared about his community and the people in it.

As for the glyph Thirteen knows its here she of course saw it on the day, and as it was centered on Cartwright much like her own view she can indeed get a good angle on that space, but that doesn't change the fact it is cloaked.

[Reflexive wits + occult - 4

And because she knows it is there she can perform scrutiny on the rough area and if scrutiny suxx exceeded potency (4) she will see through the spell cloak [/mta]

[Thirteen]

Annoying, that the glyph was invisible to her again. Some part of her thought she'd still be able to see it from last time.

failure

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2026-06-01 17:20:12	Thirteen rolls 1 to Spot the Glyph? Wits 3 + Occult 2 -4 (10 Again)	4	failure

It had been practically a fluke when the Libertine had spotted it the first time. Now she struggled and failed.

Jinx, after hours of waiting, blinked when he heard Thirteen cursing under her breath, but he didn't disturb her.

The redhead was determined to scrutinize that glyph. She knows it is there. So, she tried again, and this time poured more effort into it.

failure

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2026-06-01 17:32:11	Thirteen rolls 3 to Spot the Glyph 2 Wits 3 + Occult 2 +3 WP -4 -1 retry (10 Again, WillPower)	1, 5, 1	failure

And still nothing.

"FECKIN' BULLSHITE!" she yelled, startling her familiar. The realization that her anger had just broken her concentration on the spell and caused it to end only brought more cursing!

"SUCK A DISEASED DOG COCK, YE MYSTERIOUS BAWBAG!" Her loud voice echoed off the walls of the radio station.

The crow quietly watched Thirteen seethe for a minute before he spoke, "So, I take it all went well?"

Burning brown eyes shot towards Jinx, glaring daggers for a moment, but he just stared back at her calmly. She took a long breath and forced some amount of calm on herself.

"Partly..." she grumbled. "Cartwright is dead, for certain, and I learned he expected a rescue that never came. But I wanted to scrutinise that glyph! Learn the caster's identity in case I encounter their magic again! But I couldn't get past the feckin' cloakin'!" The Enchantress scowled and rubbed her forehead. Hours of casting and the intense focus she'd expended had left her feeling exhausted.

"Sorry, Red. At least you accomplished Mission Alpha, right?" The crow was being unusually supportive, but he knew Thirteen well enough to tell when he could needle her for fun and when he should console her. "Nothing to report on this end. What do you want to do now?"

"Now?" the Acanthus had risen to her feet and stretched her numb legs and arms. "Now I want a drink and a nap..."

"Can't help much with those, but you go do some self-care. I'll clean up your mess."

"Thanks, Jinx," she gave the familiar a tired smile as she put the lock of hair back in the baggie.

The bird took wing and started picking up the rune papers in his talons, depositing them on a nearby table for later destruction. "It's why I'm here, right? All part of the delightful Crow Familiar Service!"