(PRP Fire Heart) Ignition

[Yumyumcrow]

The Sanctuary is quiet: a place of comfort and a literal fortress for the Awakened of Sacramento - the heart of a Consilium that has beaten off attempts of subversion, both within and without; and survived the multitudinous schemes of the Seer's Time War. Three Free Council mages from San Francisco are learning just how comforting that certainty can be.

A meeting space has been prepared in what would have been a side chapel in the Sanctuary's sleeper reflection. Sunlight, pure and tinged with stained glass, burns through the dimness. There is a table and enough chairs for everyone, though Icarus has moved to stand leaning on the wall, hands in his pockets. Gloria still fuses over the mage Corbin; even after Kaze's healing, the man's face has never fully recovered.

On the table is the bulky old PC box that the Libertines used to download as much as they could from their defunct Lore House.

So is their curious artefact of wood and crystal - a device that transforms mana into electricity.

There are also some notebooks, taken from the Libertines car, that show their working on the ritual that summoned the entity from the Aether.

This scene is for Puck Xander Kaze Ruach Phoenyx Xadun and Guru Shane should you wish to continue the story of FIRE HEART

[Phoenyx]

Phoenyx has not left the guests alone as much as she could - not so hard, considering she lived right upstairs. Tea has been brewed and offered, the Arrow sipping her cup demurely. She has changed out of her running shorts and added the loose combat outfit, weapons and coat of her usual acoutrimonts.

She looks around at their guests.

"Now that you have had time to recover, I was hoping you could answer some questions for me," she looks between the three of them. "There are several parts we probably should address, but you mentioned something happening to the Adamantine Arrow in Golden Concillium? And you mentuioned some kind of Ritual they were trying to enact?"

Her voice is level, but she moves with a quiet tension - like an animal waiting to strike.

Just to confirm, Yumyumcrow - the spirtit did return to somewhere.... right? We didn't just leave it there bnurning merrily away.

[Kaze]

Kaze stays quiet, smiling encouragingly but not participating in the interrogation to come, now that Phoenyx's attention isn't divided between a threat and the perpetrators.

He stands in a loose, easy position looking relaxed but alert and ready to move if necessary.

[Puck]

Puck... is around.

he changed on his way so he wouldn't be walking around covered in soot and grime. Which also conveniently left the other Libertines time to recover a bit. He listened as Phoenyx began asking questions, admittedly curious about many of the same points. He doesn't interrupt, picking up the artefact and looking it over. He didn't have Prime to dig much deeper and, really, it was more something to fidget with then any actual investigation.

"So how does this work? Can we turn the computer on?"

Okay, maybe he had some questions of his own after all.

[Yumyumcrow]

Icarus bobs his head to the other Libertine in the room.

"Yeah. Should do. Just plug the board into the PC like you would any other accessory, wait a few minutes, then power it up. The board draws ambient mana from the air and turns it into electricity. Its enough - just - to do what we need."

To underscore his point, he crosses over to the table and sets the computer up.

Gloria answers Phoenyx:

"Yeah. The Arrows made a stand against Hierarch Venois and lost. Its all over the Hierarch's support of a rite focussed on the Golden Gate Bridge. Venois, her associates in the Guardians and her cronies in the Ladder all believe the rites keep a powerful node quiescent. They all claim its been tainted by the Abyss. Some of us in the Libertines and the Mysterium disagree. The Arrows took our side and got squashed. Venois made an example of them. That happened some time ago now and everyone remembers how it went down. The Arrow is effectively gone from the city... There are a few Arrow mage's still around but they keep their heads down."

She sighed.

"Thats kind of what happened to us - we are whats left of Corbin's following..."

Corbin stirs:

"Those rites are a separate issue. We were testing a ritual to contact the Supernal. I don't know what went wrong. It wasn't supposed to summon an entity aspected toward Forces. All of our research indicated that the rite bought forth a spirit of Prime and we prepared for that. I... We... lost a lot of good people to get that information out. We had to try it... To make it worth their loss. That ritual was the most significant thing we lifted from the server."

@Xadun the spirit has gone

[Phoenyx]

The computer was of little interest. Well, that wasn't completely true. The power source was fascinating, of course, but there was a bigger picture at work - a potential thread to the Concillium.

Phoenyx took the information in. She didn't know the Arrows in the Golden Bay Concilium, but it sounded like they needed help. "You suspected that they sought to keep control of the node for themselves, and the Ladder and Guardians silenced disagreement." The question was left unsaid, but disagreeing could come in many ways. From the description that was the implication. She looked to Corbin. "They follow you. Why?" Was he a leader? A Ranking Libertine? In sheltering them, they could be making themselves a target for this Venois.

She sipped her tea. "So, the ritual did not work as planned. You are fortunate we were nearby. That is now a small part of what you are telling us. Puck said there were ties to both himself - that much is simple, as you share an Order - and myself. The latter is less clear. Were there any Arrows still with you when the runes were made?" Dark eyes move intently across the guests. "Also, there has been a Concillium here for years. You said that you kept a lorehouse in Sacramento. If you were unable to reach Pixel, why did you not reach out to us? We may be able to protect it." Odds were they would not tell her, but it was in their city. Hiding something under another's protection was cunning, but now they knew about it tensions could flare. The fact that she was the only Arrow didn't factor into it. It was the right thing to do.

[Guru]

Guru had entered somewhere near the middle as the conversation started buzzing, he was exhausted, his body ached, and still shaken up from just the brush with disaster. He’d stopped home and changed, he was dressed more casually now, khaki shorts and a white t-shirt, Birkenstocks to match. He wanted comfort, he wanted to keep his shit together for long enough to handle this so he could go home, smoke, and pass out in an attempt to scrape this feeling and memory from his mind. Never worked all that well, but it at least numbed him in the intermediary.

Puck was asking the questions he wanted to know, Icarus’ words were heard, absorbed. “What do you use to make the conversion?” He was biased of course, his thoughts turning to Alchemy and wondering what other applications just the purified metals might have let alone thaumium. Gloria’s words were what cut through his thought process, a frown on his lips as he’d pace around in the back still too much left over adrenaline to sit. “That’s fucked, got enemies enough for days as it stands.” He shuddered feeling the abyss’ like an oil on his skin that he couldn’t wash off.

The fear he felt only intensified at the mention of Pixels name, feeling his heart begin thundering in his chest as it ran away from him. Why couldn’t he shake the feeling he was being hunted? Was it because of this Venois? There was so much meat on this bone he didn’t know where to start, he had a thousand questions to ask and Phoenyx checked a few off his list before he looked over at the rescued Libertines. “What’s your plan now?”

[Kaze]

Kaze listens as the others all ask questions. Something the mages from San Francisco said rang a bell with him though, and he is thinking about it, trying to remember details from the road trip he took with Shodan looking for a grimoire up there...in a record shop....actually, Pixel was there too.

"So...I visited there once. Are you guys part of the 'Lotus Eaters'? Does this have to do with a hunt for a Scelesti?" Kaze asks suddenly as his memory finally kicks in.

[Puck]

Puck listens as the others speak, though he watches the other Libertine as he assembles the apparatus and powers up the PC. It didn't sound to Puck like they were followed. They had time to throw up graffiti and do a summoning ritual, which to Puck implied time. Time to find a safe house. Time to mark it. Time to get comfortable enough to try something potentially dangerous. Any followers were probably on a cold trail or nonexistent, at least to the Acanthus.

"Seems pretty idiotic to me?" Puck just blurted his thoughts out to the group. "I mean, what are the Seers doing? Or the Banishers? Or the other Scelesti? Two whole orders butchered by two other orders and they aren't making a move? There's no Talons or Minutemen in the city and nobody picked up on this?"

Puck didn't like the Diamond orders much, but he liked them more then the alternative. What was being described? Puck would worry about paradox his disbelief is so strong. Not the incredulous I-don't-believe-you disbelief but the how-could-anyone-be-this-stupid disbelief. Side note? Pixel bothered Guru. Or scared him? Not entirely clear there. Also not the point of the conversation. Though the fact they seemed to acknowledge the same point was... unexpected.

"so mind if I give this a once over?"

He's returning his full attention to the PC.

[Yumyumcrow]

"You are a Libertine, right? Feel free."

Corbin gestures to Puck. Gloria continued talking.

"Not like that. The node is powerful - too powerful for any one cabal, association or Order to control alone. Its a question of how to manage it - Venois and her supporters are quite happy for people to die to keep the node quiet. The Arrows were completely against that and things came to a head. We Libertine's took a look at how that went down and preferred survival. We made a partnership with the Mysterium and tried to change minds quietly... But thats taking too long and isn't about... Us."

Gloria gestured to Corbin and Icarus.

"We lost a key Lore House in San Francisco, not Sacramento. Corbin (who, yes, does have a following in our Order) figured out where there was a back up server holding information from the Lore House. And we went to get it. We were not going to sit back while Venois' Guardians and Ladder lackey's take our stuff. Somehow Venois got wind of this and jumped on us. Corbin's friends and allies ran interference and we fled."

Icarus chimes in:

"Lotus Eaters? Striga Mortis' cabal? She is Libertine but not linked to Corbin. Not much, anyway; she helped locate the back up server. Corbin got his information about this... Pixel guy... from her."

"I tried to contact Pixel. When I couldn't I went ahead anyway. I knew there was a Consilium out here... Just not where. When none of my friends turned up, I decided to try the ritual. Its the biggest rite on the server and the main thing we can offer now - so we needed to see if it worked. It does! Just... Not the way it is supposed to. I don't know why. Yet."

Corbin adds.

Gloria picks up the thread:

"The Seers don't hold much of a presence in San Francisco. At least, you know, they don't move openly. My guess is they don't want the problem of that tainted node and they're happy to watch us fuck ourselves over it. Scelesti? Scelesti are always a problem. The Snakes did roust out a Scelesti group a year ago, yes. Don't know if its connected.... Everything is connected. My guess is our Lorehouse in San Francsco started to get a reputation for exchanging ideas - Guardian's can't have that, can they? They pressured our People - and yes we did scheme with the Mystogogues to bait and switch the place - but Corbin here wasn't going to give it up without a fight and started agitating. We lots the Lorehouse. Found a back up server hidden away for just this kind fo emergency... And yeah. Crossed the Hierarch, got physical with her bullies. Escaped with a PC filled with our information - information useful to all mages."

Corbin looks at Guru:

"Rest. Reach out to my friends and allies. Find out who is left. Find a safe place to go. We can trade for our safety but I won't put you in Venois cross hairs."