Practical Fact-Checking

[Knot]

Ever since he came across the Circle of Creation, he had been curious about the fact that it seemed to be a replica of a real place. He'd never been to England, but plenty of other people had, and a lot of them had written books about Westminster Abbey. Knot, he thought to himself, why not just go to the library and check out a book about the real place and compare it to the replica?

He was quite proud of the idea. Then half-way there, he realized that if the Seers or even Banishers knew about the Circle (and why wouldn't they? the wards he knew of only kept away Sleepers), then... it would be wise to keep tabs on any books about Westminster Abby. So instead he bit back his distaste and went online and ordered a copy of Westminster Abbey (Wonders of the World) by Richard Jenkyns from Amazon.

Then he had a good wash afterwards.

Eventually it came, and he spend a good amount of time comparing the differences of their replica to what Jenkyns talks about in his book, or at least the public portions of it. He's compared the Mysterium wing to it as well, but he's kept those safely tucked away inside the Athenaeum for obvious security reasons. That only left the wings set aside for the other orders. He wasn't going to barge into any of them without permission and while he figured the Silver Ladder and the Free Council would have the least objection to him poking around like a Mystagogue, he didn't actually think the city had any thearchs in residence, and he wasn't interested in barging with Libertines for access. He didn't even bother with considering the Guardian wing. The Arrows though? Worth a try.

So he knocks on the door to the Arrow's section of the Circle. There weren't many Arrows around so he might have to leave a note. And maybe they'd just tell him to fuck off. Never know until you try.

[Hamia]

Hamia's curiosity, more than anything else, drove her to visit the Arrows' Tower. It probably hadn't seen use in a while, with all the dust accumulating. Stone has a way of hiding dust, to a point, but brushing up against almost anything there left the Enchantress' hand with a grey streak. After her initial rounds, she decided she immediately needed to do some cleaning. So she set off to find a foxtail and broom.

There are a few closest scattered here and there, but mush to her dismay they aren't for storing cleaning gear. And she really hasn't spent enough time in her Order's end of the Circle to know where else to look. With a sigh, she sets back off towards the commons. Her steps ring out in hard clacks against the stone steps as she descends from the tower proper.

But off in the distance, the sound of knocking can be heard. Hamia pauses mid-step. Who the hell? As best as she can remember, she's the only Arrow in Sacramento. Plus she can't imagine a reason the others would bother knocking. She's never in here! So curiosity, again, grips the brunette and she hurries down the stairs towards the door.

"Coming!" she calls out. For some reason, she feels excited. Her pulse picks up as she approaches the door. So does her pace. Could it be?? Was she back? Her hand closes around the handle and she pulls it free, her face a hopeful mask of -

"Oh..." she says, deflating instantly. She swallows hard and tries to smooth over her obvious social blunder. "Sorry. I... thought you might be someone else." She quickly sizes up the man standing before her. She hadn't seen him before, that much is certain. But he's here. And he'd knocked on the door. Would someone seeking Sacramento's Awakened be this deep in the Circle, knocking politely? She hopes not.

"Um... Hamia." she offers, pointing at herself in lieu of offering her hand for a handshake. "And you are?"

[Knot]

"Oh! Hello. I'm Knot. Obviously we haven't met yet," he hikes his thumb over his shoulder and gestures across the building in the direction of the Mysterium's wing. "Been here a monthish. You might have seen me poking around the public areas..." He trails off.

"So yeah, Knot, Acanthus, Mystagogue." But he also holds up his book about the real Westminster Abbey. "I've been working a little personal project, it's not compulsory or vital to the safety of the Consilium or nothin, I want to be clear on that. And I don't want to barge into anything that's anything like an Order secret or something, buuut I was taking some notes on the building and seeing just how well our physical replica matches up to the real thing? I was hoping that someone would consent to allowing me to poke around their wing, maybe take some measurements." He shifts his grip on the book, sliding out a spiral notebook covered by it, and there's a tape measure on his belt.

"You can totally say no though, I doubt Campanella would let someone into our wing to take notes unsupervised if at all." Knot shrugs, silently asking 'what can you do?' with the gesture. "Honestly, I wanted to start with the Arrow so that if the chance ever came up to poke around the other spaces, I'd be able to fall back on 'well the Arrow was okay with it', not that I expect it to get me very far."

[Hamia]

"A month? Really?" She shifts uncomfortably, grabbing one arm in the other and turning slightly. "I've been kinda busy. She doesn't elaborate.

She nods her head to his full introduction. And relaxes slightly. Very slightly. His 'project' seems harmless enough, and if he's really been around that long, the others must be OK with him. Her eyes follow his hands as they switch the book and notebook around.

With his request finished, she offers an awkward smile. "Yeah, sure. I guess. Come on in. I hardly spend any time in this place so... I can't really act all protective over it." Though she has no idea how someone else would react. Maybe she'll have to bounce this off someone un-intimidating after. Aurora... or Sand. Even Campanella. As if agreeing to her inner monologue, she gives a firm nod. "I really won't be the best guide, but I probably should stick with you on your tour. What's this project all about?" She attempts to be more welcoming with a friendly lilt in her voice, though the concerned furrowing of her brow doesn't really go away.

[Knot]

"Ish?" Knot says with maybe about a thread of apology in his tone. "Sorry for interrupting." He doesn't offer to come back another time because, well, he's already got a foot in the door, idiomatically speaking. "But yeah no, totally follow me around while I'm here. I get that you should. We don't let people into our wing un-escorted either. So what's the Arrow think of there being no Sentinels here?"

"Personal curiosity mostly," he says, stepping into Arrow territory. Ohhhh this was exciting, he thought, feeling like he was getting away with something sneaky. "I mean, most Mysterium projects start that way. This place is kind of a Mystery. As far as I can tell, no one knows who made the Circle, or set up the wards, or really even when it all happened. At some point I want to Look back and see what there is to see, but honestly I'm a long way off from being able to do that right now. I'm... well basically looking for stuff like secret rooms? Or missing spaces, or something that doesn't match up with the original building. And that's assuming that there's not something esoteric like folded space or time loops or some other way of hiding something in a building. Maybe if I uncover something I can rope more people into investigating. It might be worth publishing, putting a book out about a magical mystery abbey would really impress some people in the Order."

[Hamia]

"Oh, I don't mean now..." she corrects."You're not really interrupting anything. I just mean before. Like when you showed up, apparently." Hamia: with the power to manipulate Time and Fate. Blindsided by the arrival of another Acanthus. What are the odds? And how didn't she see it coming?

But back on subject. With the new Acanthus looking for a tour. "I haven't thought much of it. But, I guess, I could always volunteer." It would make sense. Defense is as much a part of war as offense. Hamia, especially understands this.

"Huh. Guess I really never asked myself where it came from. I just sort of stumbled in one day." With backup. "Then asked if I could stay." Totally unconventional. Jeez, this guy would probably think her a total ditz if he knew the whole, unimpressive story.

"As far as... secrets go? I don't know what to expect. Though I guess I'm obligated to point out that some secrets need to remain that way." Not that she knows what they would find. But on the off chance they'd find something meant only for Arrow eyes...

"This way. Lots of stairs to climb to get to the top." She starts back towards the steps, but pauses midstep. "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't even tell you yet: I'm Acanthus too. And a former Marine." And, obviously, an Arrow. "Almost every use for our studies leads me back to combat. Tactics. I haven't met another Acanthus in the city yet... how do you use them? Time and Fate?" It sounds lame leaving her lips. Simplifying the arcane to practical applications.

[Knot]

"Oh. Well. Thaaaaaank you? For your... service?" That's what you said when people talked about Sleeper military service right? Regardless of what you thought about it? "I was a nurse."

"But thank god I'm not the only Acanthus in town." Knot swaps over to a more preferred topic, easy to do since any topic was a more preferred topic than the last one. "Though I don't know what the point would be of trying to be a Sentinel. The city largely seems very... indifferent to being organized. We have, as far as I can tell, two councilors who are councilors simply because they've been here the longest, but as far as I can tell the title is basically an empty one. You could call yourself a Sentinel if you want and it would mean about as much as if I took a Burger King crown and named myself Hierarch." He rolls his eyes at the idea. As far as he could tell, even if no one wanted a newcomer around there wasn't anything they could or would be able to do to keep them out of the city, as long as they didn't just show up at the circle, or avoided it when there were others around.

"Hm!" Knot responds neutrally to the topic of spell use, mostly to buy a little bit of time. "Well on a practical level I use them to keep out of fights. I probably don't need to tell you how nice it is to know if I can walk down a street without someone trying to beat the shit out of me because I'm brown. White dudes must feel like this all the time." He smirks at his own joke. "Can't hold down a job either, but I don't really need to anymore. I can see how useful they'd be if you were looking for a fight, and how they'd help you in one. But I'm sure you'd know about that better than me."

He shrugs, and takes measurements of the room with his tape measure, noting them down as he does so. "I'm actually more interested in the butterfly effect, to tell you the truth. The ability to reach out into the pattern of the world and arrange for something to happen? If I sit in the park watching kids play Frisbee, and I spin out a spell to have the Frisbee come to me, what's being altered? I'm not casting anything with forces to make the Frisbee fly my way. I'm not manipulating them with Mind. And often the string of events that lead to the Frisbee landing at my feet were set in motion before I even thought to cast the spell. I know the spell caused it, but it's an interesting puzzle to see how far back you can measure the effect of the cause. And then there's the question of how far you can push it, right? I don't think even a master of Fate can just cast a spell that has some butterfly flap it's wings somewhere to cause a hurricane to hit a city, you need actual skill in Forces for that."

"Understood about secrets. If you don't want the details about something included, let me know." Knot gives a mock salute as he says this. "I don't mind stairs, we're not allowed to get winded because of stairs until we're at least Adepts in the Mysterium. And really, you're asking for trouble if you let yourself go before you've set yourself up at the top end of a Master-Apprentice relationship."

As they start up the stairs, he measures the stairs and the space between floors in case there were crawlspaces. "So you don't spend a lot of time here?"

[Hamia]

All she can do is shrug to the everyman's response to military service. But then she cracks what verges on a genuine, playful smile. "Male nurse, huh? Takes all kinds, doesn't it?" She of course doesn't really care, but it is a fun stereotype to mess with. It's more of an icebreaker for her own sake than for his.

"Well when you put it that way... it doesn't seem like the job for me. I'm not saying I'm lazy when it comes to the Circle, but that just sounds like politics. Posturing and whatnot."

"I wouldn't know." she counters. "I've never been a dude." This isn't going so bad. She can totally handle this. "I sorta get where you're coming from though. The application part, anyway. Not everyone is a fighter. I've... obviously had a little of that ingrained into my personality. When fighting is your job, you try to get good at it."

"Hmm..." she muses. "I've never thought about it like that. Usually trying to make sense of Fate gives me a headache. I like to control things in my life. Oh! But don't get me wrong... I know manipulating Fate isn't the same as leaving things to chance. It just feels weird. If I want something to happen, I like to be direct about it. No butterflies for me."

"Right, riiight." she intones playfully. It feels good to have someone to relate to - at least on the subjects of the Arcane. The jokes help, too. "Plus I wouldn't let you live it down. Male nurse who can't handle a few hundred stairs? You'd have to turn in your man-card."

Hamia does her best to match his strides, eventually falling into a synchronized rhythm. She'd blame months of marching drills for that one. "Nope. A friend and I spent some time looking for our own little base of operations. Outside of the typical Order politics." She doesn't use the word 'cabal', but assumes he could figure it out. "One of the few times I couldn't knock Fate for its intervention. We found this abandoned fire house out in 'Old Sac'. I've been spending most of my time there."

[Knot]

"I can sure understand the need to focus on your own shit instead of group stuff." Knot nods understandingly. "Especially when there's not really a group. Does your Cabal have a name? Did you have any trouble securing your property?"

Knot shrugs off some the things Hamia says and takes note of them while he works. "Well, I think it's all how you look at things, isn't it? Everyone can see the future and read Fate, even a child knows that if you drop an egg, it's fated to fall and make a mess. I am being direct, I'm just being direct in a way most people can't perceive."

"Hamia," Knot asks. "Forgive me if this is rude, but talking to people is a skill I've had to learn, not something I'm talented at. Am I making you uncomfortable?"

[Hamia]

The sigh she lets out is long and drawn out. She smiles self-deprecatingly. "It was called the Hounds of Artemis. A little bit of a Greek motif, I guess. I don't know a whole lot about Greek mythology, but from what I understand... Artemis was pretty damn good at hunting. And her hounds would have been top notch at taking down whatever she was after." She chews her lip, averting her gaze for a moment as a memory hits her.

"Finding and keeping the place was a little work of Fate. I just don't think I was behind the wheel." She shrugs. "So no: no trouble."

"I'm not disagreeing with you, I just... have a hard time seeing it that way." But she doesn't drive the point home any further.

Mid-step, Hamia stops. His question catches her off-guard. "You? No. Um... I'm always like this." Another smile, in attempt to smooth things over. There's a long pause as she considers something, then shakes her head. A decided dismissal on her unspoken words. "I don't do well around strangers. That's all. If anything, you've been alright. Really." She resumes her steps.

Finally at the top of the stairs, she glances back and forth. "Little confession? I've never really, really explored this place. I have no idea what we'll find. Or even which way to take you. Sorry if I seem like a bad host..."

OOC

Truth be told, I have no ides what the Arrow's Tower looks like. I was hoping to do some research to find out, but it was delaying my post a bit. So, hopefully, I'll know more by the next post.