Crone Temple: Teachings Through Tribulation

[Chris Wooding]

Right now, before one of the less often used rooms of the Crone Temple stands Hierophant Wooding, beside him is his little servant the homunculus named Micky. Not a serious name, Chris knows, but you shouldn't always take the homunculus serious.

Not always. Although right now, Micky carries a seemingly heavy athame like it is something sacred.

'Are you ready now, Acolyte?' The door behind Chris is still closed, but he may soon open it. When Jim arrived the Hierophant smiled only short. This is an important night. There should be no jokes.

Changing one's soul is not pleasant.

He knows it from his own experiences, which is also one of the reasons he cannot smile too much or too happy. It brings back memories of his own torture, tribulation, teachings. Learning Crúac.

Teaching Crúac...

Man in black

[James Calloway]

So often, Chris Wooding and James Calloway's relationship was one of friends. Good friends, working together to improve their Covenant and their library and their station in the Domain through cooperation and common goals.

But tonight was different. As James arrived, one thing was flashing through his mind. One thing was clear above all else; tonight, Chris Wooding was the Master. He, the apprentice. And to learn what he was supposed to learn this evening, he would have to trust in Heirophant Wooding, and trust in the Goddess.

All other paths were death or failure. Only if he focused, believed, listened, and learned from the tribulations he was to go through would he make it through.

And even that might hurt.

But in that knowledge came readiness. Chris' question brooked only one response. "I am ready, Heirophant."
If he was wrong, he would sure as hell soon find out.

[Chris Wooding]

After James' reply Chris bows his head and opens the door, holding it open for the newest Acolyte to enter the room first. 'Take off your shoes and shirt, then step inside, and into the central bowl.'

The central bowl... there seem to be a lot of those. Would the bare-chested James step inside the small room, he would see himself a countless times. All of the four walls are covered with mirrors. In the middle of the room lays a large silver bowl filled with water. Smaller bowls stand in every corner, smoke comes out of them that very slowly fills the room.

'Before you touch the water I need you to active the Blush of Life. You must experience this to the fullest.' Experience the cold water. Experience the heavy smell of mixed herbs. Oh, and blood must run freely. 'Then relax, empty your mind.'

Chris steps inside as well, followed by Micky, and he closes the door.

'Close your eyes.'

Something like this

[James Calloway]

James' reflection was the usual blur, exactly as he had been used to for decades. Before he stepped inside, he removed his sandals and his shirt, placing them at the side and stepping in promptly. For some reason, he found himself snapping to, like a new martial arts student snapping to the orders of his sensei.

It should have been strange, snapping to when Chris gave commands. Usually, he would've made a joke about being topless or something. But that was a defence mechanism. And he knew he had to simply open himself up and let himself learn, let himself be, let himself grow in his Requiem. It was time to step forward, and he did, moving into the central bowl.

Nodding to the Heirophant at his command, he flushed his dead skin with the mockery of life that his Blood provided. He was warm again, at least for a time, breathing, smelling, taking it all in.

He stepped into the bowl and held back a gasp. The water was frigid. He grit his teeth together slightly in his mouth and continued to try to empty his mind as he stood there, regretting the choice to Blush but knowing that it was part of what must happen here.

He took a long, deep breath and let himself relax as best as he could, beginning the quiet mental chant that had always begun his meditations that had served him well since arriving here. It was how he emptied his mind, providing it with white noise before finding himself with the nothingness of the deeps of Lake Folsom...

-1V for Blush of Life.

[Chris Wooding]

With his eyes closed, James stands in a dark and cold world. In the nearly complete silence he can hear Chris slowly walking in circles around him. It takes a while before something else happens, or at least it would feel like a while. Just when James' feet could have gotten used to the cold water he now feels it on his chest. The Hierophant traced an ice cold wet finger along his new Acolyte's body.

'One of the Goddess' key powers is her hold over time. In her eternal wisdom, she made us immortal. Our long past can mean so little, while every second ahead of us can make the difference between life or death.' A few seconds the finger is gone, then it's replaced by the Hierophant's whole hand. Water should start dripping down James' body. 'We can only try to catch glimpses of few of the Crone's aspects.'

'The Moirai. Fate.' Chris suddenly stops moving and the hand is now replaced by the tip of something sharp. 'We can change the outcome of a war. Morrigan.' Something sharp is obviously a knife when it makes a gentle cut. 'So many aspects have a name. How many of them do you know? Tell me.'

The knife is shortly taken off James' body, only to then make a long circling cut as Chris again walks through the room. 'Tell me, because they are all the Crone. Crúac is knowledge, Crúac is a gift, Crúac is a power you can only control as soon as your body is ready. Only once your soul is ready. Tell me more names.' He stops speaking but the sharp knife still slides along James' abdomen.

[James Calloway]

Cold embraced him.

It flowed up his legs, into his body, into his mind, battering at the edges of his mental shielding and seeping through the cracks. Chris's finger running along his body and adding even more cold made Jim have to begin to fight to keep his focus.

The Heirophant's words rang through his mind even as his finger and then his hand traced Jim's body. He'd seen plenty of seconds that had made the difference between life and death on the road, with Harper. It had cost him part of his humanity. But that was part of being vampire. It was not all peaceful, not like it was here in Sacramento since he had arrived. Comparatively, the capital of California was a bloody paradise to long days of dirtnapping with the bikes hidden at the side of the road and --

The cut. His body was so cold that it amplified the sting. The Beast Within snarled at nothing, Chris Wooding's Mask of Tranquility confusing it even as it roared its challenge to the entire room. It demanded violence, that the knife-wielder be rended to bloody chunks on the mirrored walls. But the Man shoved it aside, remembering one of the lessons he had learned. All Gods and Goddesses were but aspects of the Crone, names for concepts. The Goddess, the Crone, was neither male, nor female. The Goddess was all. Wisdom -- "Athena."

Blood dripped down his chest in a slow trickle.

There was a moment's relief as the knife was taken away, only to be followed by the further rampage of the Beast Within as it returned, slashing its long circle. His Blood began to flow even faster as Chris moved, and his fangs were bared. The urge to heal was suppressed. It had to be. War - "Menhit." Creation. A beat. "Isis."The underworld. A beat. "Mara... Proserpina."

Every God. Every Goddess. All aspects of the Crone. He could stand there for weeks and only have scratched the surface. The sting of the knife made it hard to think, hard to rattle off the list, but the point was clear. James' knowledge of the occult, mankind's knowledge of the occult, was insufficient to name every part of her. She was the Goddess. "All deities conceived of by man are simply aspects of her greatness. All of them together do not describe her adequately."

Blood dripped into the water.

[Chris Wooding]

After every name comes a soft sound of approval. Mhmm. Mhmm. It should not be hard to name some Goddesses. Yet James shouldn't think too easy of this.

'All Aspects together are indeed something we describe as a Goddess, the Crone. But you have not quite seen what I mean,' the Hierophant apparently takes himself literally, as he suddenly sticks thin pins through James' eyelids. Top and bottom, without hesitation, to hold them open. The room is filled with more smoke than moments before when the Gangrel closed his eyes. Between all the smoke he still sees his own reflected blur a hundred times. 'Not every deity can be worshiped for every single aspect.'

He pauses a moment to look into James' eyes, to see his reaction. Now he would probably feel pain around his eyes, the pins are thin but not short. More would soon follow...

'Like I said earlier, power over time is most useful, and important to the Goddess. Looking into the past, but also looking into the future. Through reflections of this time you will be able to catch a glimpse of another time. A fitting personification of this aspect is Cerridwen. This Goddess uses a cauldron every year to prepare a brew. This cauldron,' he looks down at James' feet, as he stands in what symbolizes the cauldron, 'would yield three precious drops. These would bestow on the receiver the wisdom of the past, the knowledge of the present, and the secrets of the future.'

The next moment Chris holds the bloodied knife dangerously close to the eyes of his coterie mate. 'You still like me?' He grins, this is torture but it doesn't have to be cruel. 'Our stopping word is... stop?'

[James Calloway]

James grunted in pain as the pins went through his eyes. Almost as a reflex, his Blood stirred, strengthening his body for the punishment that he instinctively knew could follow. He believed Chris wouldn't kill him, at least so long as he succeeded... he had to stand in the bowl and see what the Heirophant was showing him.

And seeing sometimes hurt. It sure as hell did now. Pins in the eyelids hurt like hell and he grit his teeth, his fangs showing slightly as he replied to Chris's question and stared at the knife that was hovering so close to his eyes.

"Does the Goddess have a safe word?"

It wasn't a taunt. Simply a point; there was no turning back now. His blood had seeped down his legs into the bowl of water in which he stood, the bowl that froze him, the cold drawing his attention away from the pain but simultaneously enhancing it.

A flash of a thought: was this what Conner Greyson was talking about when he spoke on what goes on at the Asylum?

-1 Vitae for Resilience

[Chris Wooding]

Chris shrugs with a smile. 'I guess not.' And he sticks the knife in James' right eye, there he turns it around. If it didn't hurt so much, the Gangrel might notice that Chris is actually trying to see what the possibilities are. How easy does it move? Can he pull it out?

Plop.

Oh yes he can.

He shoves the eyeball off his knife, into the bowl of water, and then repeats the process with James' left eye. 'I have to reshape your body, reform your soul. They have to understand the power of Cruac.' The Hierophant begins to sound less self-assured. He is torturing his friend...

But I may not fail. Which is why he sticks his free hand in his pocket to take something out. His coterie mate might hear it now, but he would feel it soon. It is salt. Rubbed at the place where once his eyes were. 'Sorry.' Chris says quite dryly as he pokes his salty finger through the eye-socket.

'Now regrow them.'

[James Calloway]

The knife plunged, and Jim screamed.

He could barely hear Chris's words over the sounds of his own agony even as the first eye went, his sight cut in half. The second stab rending out his second eye caused a scream so loud that he thought he was looking around, seeking the source of the screaming man, the man who must've been flailing in a frozen pool of water, cut and blind and bleeding.

Only seconds later did he realize that the cries of agony were his own.

The salt rubbed by a finger into the wound, James' consciousness couldn't block out. The pain was too great. Had he been a mortal, he surely would have passed out.

But he was Gangrel. He would endure the wounds. He would endure the salt poured into a wound. To reshape his body, to reform his soul. Chris was creating something new out of something old. And while James did not know if he himself would find enlightenment as a result of all this, he knew that what had just happened had to happen. It could not have happened any other way.

"I understand..." he whispered through clenched fangs and teeth as he forced blood to his salted sockets to regenerate his eyes.

Per ST, James Calloway suffers 2L damage and expends a vitae to heal the first. If Chris allows him a few more seconds to heal the second, then he'll do that.