Tvivel Glimpses

What do you see when you walk down a busy street?

Well it depends doesn't it? If you just have had your heart broken you will see happy couples everywhere, if you are thirsty you will notice every store that sell something drinkable and if you just seen “The Birds” you will glance at the doves once or twice.

A young women was making her way along the busy afternoon street. She wasn't looking at the happy couple strolling past or even the doves. She was watching people, but not all of them, some were mostly ignored. She didn't glance at the muttering hobos or the laughing children on their way home from school. Her gaze seemed to be reserved any grown person that could be classified as normal. Her green eyes never really met anyone's gaze, but she searched their face, how they moved and what they wore.

And might seem strange that s women who seemed as well adapted as anyone in the street. She vass tall and lean, wore a nice but-oh-so-last-season coat, jeans, sneaker and she had a red laptop bag strapped over one of her shoulder. Her hair was dyed a coppery red, and kept in a neat ponytail and she wore just a light touch of make up. In good day someone might describe her as cute in a cute but not in the sort of way that that made people look twice. She look to be about 25, a normal nice middle class girl. Well as normal as anyone got if you didn't watch out for the sparkling aura. At the moment it was a suspicions lime green together with an mot intellectual calm sky blue.


Our mage seemed to be heading toward at the city library at the far end at the street but doing so with only someone who wasn't familiar with the city did. The ebb and flow of the streets wasn't familiar to her yet. A small polite smile sat on her lips as she made her way, when an old man almost walk in to her she froze for a second, an imago beginning to form in her mind before looked at his face, forced herself to relax, she shook her head and steeped aside.

“I'm sorry.” Tvivel said. She had a soft voice but the two words spoken was enough to hear hat she had some kind of melodic accent. German maybe. She smiled once more softly, avoided the old mans gaze and made her way towards the library.

Some music you listed to not because in your opinion was the best music in the world, but because once you had been of the opinion that was the best music that ever would be. That thirteen year old fangirl or fanboy lived on inside you. Occupationally the inner fangirl would demand that you play something by that artist.

A few hours before she went to the museum, Tvivel had just finish a round of online poker ending up cashing in a nice pot. Her few possessions were lying open display in the suitcases dumped on the floor. Clothes, a few note book, a camera, drawing material and long bull whip given to her as a joke by her former cabal members. That's was it. That was her life.

It wasn't sad. It was wonderful. Life. Freedom. No ties. And silly music in the background. She couldn't help joining in.

“I count down to zero, pull the trigger, no parole
No mercy - no mercy on your soul”

The are two types of people. The ones that dance and sings when people are looking and the once that dance and sang when people wasn't around. The mastigos belonged to the former.

Might be good that was a good thing. The childish joy she jumped around with, banging her read head, jumping around barefoot, miming a pistol one moment, playing air guitar the next moment, and holding an air mike a second later might be charming but...

“I am born to kill, judge and condemn
I am born to win, slay and maim 'em
I am born to live, fight for glory
I am born to die, memento moooooooooooriiiiiii!”

She felt thirteen; wild, invincible and stupid again, and once she finished the last guitar riff and the music died away, there was sudden knock on her window. A blond eight year old boy press his nose against her window, making a face with his nostrils flaring.

Tvivel stared at him, instantly for ruining her moment of personal awesomeness and stuck him wave of mind magic, wrapping his little mind in a deep yellow embarrassment that in a second or two sent him running blushing deep red. Maybe the most extreme could argue that that was a small act of hubris. Tvivel thought of it as a small act of decency.

By any meansnecessary. The words echoed in her head, when she went to the laptop to look up the museums address and phone number.

Tvivel had wanted to do it perfect if she was going to go through with it. That meant finding the perfect place with a symbolic connection to Pandemonium. She found it. The call center had it all.
Suffering, bringing out the dark sides of humanity, scorning, trials, opposition, the union between minds and connections. The kind of place that sent shivers down your spine.

Getting into the call center had been easy, just sign a job application, the turnover rate of employees on the company was higher then the turnover rates of slaves on a slave ship. Getting in the curved ritual knife, the brass scrying bowl, vellum permanent, a old style calligraphy pen, and five black candles had been as easy as stuffing it into her shoulder bag and walking in with it. Staying an hour after closing time hadn't been hard that either, hiding in a storeroom.

It was setting up the shit in the middle of the open office landscape that scared the shit out of her. For the third time she double checked that there was no one left. There where no cameras here and she was fairly certain the security wouldn't be here for an hour, but she didn't trust that knowledge.

Tvivel worked in silence in the dark, clearing away some chairs, setting down the black candles in a pentagram, placing the tools inside the circle and lightening the candles.

She took a deep breath an begun by walking in a circle around to candles trying to find her focus, opening up her mage sight for the mind and space arcana. Feeling like a movie cultist. At least Tvivel was dressed in a nice white blouse and short black skirt, rather then in a dark robe. Before stepping in to the circle she spent half an second begging for a security guard to not show up. The mastigos sat down cross legged in the middle. Taking a deep breath she spoke, in a focused and formal tone

“Jag svär; jag svär att sträva att uttala endast den skoningslösa sanningen.” It was melodic and for most people probably impossible to understand. If you had the gift if tongues grated by the Mind arcana you would have heard this.

“I vow; I vow to strive to speak only the merciless truth.” Tvivel gripped the knife and drew the blade across her left arm, flinching in pain but continuing to speak as the blood dripped into the bowel.

“Each word should be clear. Uncertainty erased.” She put down the knife and gripped the calligraphy pen an caught a drop of the falling blood on the tip. Then she gently inscribed her the words she just spoken into the permanent.

“I speak truth as truth and call anything else by its right name. Calling a guess a guess, an opinion an opinion and stay silent when truth can not be spoken.” Stoke by stoke were her words were inscribed with her own blood into the paper. The blue eyes were distant, lost in a trance.

“This I will strive and face what pains and trials it brings me.” Tvivel spoke, bit and pieces of memories from her awakening flickering eerie in the back of of her mind.

“ By the Path of Scourging, by the Watchtower of the Iron Gauntlet, by Realm of Pandemonium, I will strive for the truth. Deem me worthy, or punish me for my failure.” Her normally gentle voice, was no longer not at all gentle. She put down the pen and lifted the bowl.

“This is my vow.” Tvivel said, and lifted the bowl to her lips forcing down the small but sickening amount of her own blood to seal the her promise.

The first note is a university schedule for end of spring term 2005.
The schedule is carefully color coded. Every minute of the day divided into lectures, homework, training, working extra and non profit work for the student body in a neat handwriting. Leaving 3-4 hours at sleep at night. Exams is marked with a dangerous red at the end or term.

The second is from the doctor.
All test results fine. You fatigue probably result of stress and to little sleep. I recommend you take a few day off.

The third note is from her diary
"---Things are a nightmare, but people rely on me and I can't fail the exams. I'm nicking off as soon I don't focus. I better begin taking Ephedrine to keep my focus. Will take few day off after exams."

The forth note is scribbles in the margins in her notebooks.
It is written in almost unreadable hand: “This isn't real”, “Need to read Dantes inferno”, “Suffering, trapped like animals.” I need to go deeper.” “Why the tower?” “Why does it hurt” “No no no no no,...” “I don't want to.”...

The fifth note is from her patient journal
Patient taken in by police, alerted by university personnel. Found on on the university cellars, in an highly agitated state. Delusional and terrified. The patients had manage to acquire deep cuts and burns on her back when found. When arriving to psych ward the patient was given...

The apartment was too neat. Tvivel was beginning to scare herself. Every surface was shining, every pen carefully lined in straight lines, every flower watered...

She had gone out to get a newspaper just to have is lying on the table, and written 'call mum' on the remeber-me list on the fridge. The artificial lies didn't make her feel better sitting at the table, listing to the ticking of the grandfather clock. It just would look a bit less insane.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Was that a tiny fraction to slow? Where do you have an arcantus when you needed one?

And what kind of hell was this place? Chaos and disorder, lack of respect for their own office, informality... No. People were just being people.

She tapped her nails against table the sound of the clock, one nail at the time.

Tack, tack, tack...

The problem was the cold vacuum.

You didn't become a Guardian to get an encouraging clap on the shoulder, a hug when you needed it and to get Christmas party and make out on the copy machine. That might be Arrow business, or a Free Council thingy, and she did suspected the Mysterium as well. Lucky bastards.

She had a bunch of phone numbers in her cellphone. Ruby, Eclipse, Spade... Calling people up before a major concilium meting would... could be seen as suspicions behaviour. To much like an hidden agenda.

Tick. Tick...

She put down the cell.

She wasn't independent. She didn't manage on her own. She wasn't strong. On the other hand she would surgically attach herself with a nail gun to any kind of social context given the chance. Just days away now.

It was still a neat freaks apartment. But something had change since that afternoon walk to the Circle. The grandfather vlocks ticking could not be heard over the music anymore. Crumbled pieces of news paper was lying all around the floor, and so where an old t-shirt, a litter box, socks and most importantly two kittens. Mewing and exploring.

Kittens!

“Your going to have boring names. Boooring. Muhammad and Mary. The two most common names on the planet. Boooring.” she said and playfully tickle the would be Mohammed. Tvivel was sitting on the floor. Wet stains on the knees from the not yet litter trained kittens.

“ Need to get a job too, and a hallow. Are we gonna go hallow hunting, hm, Mary? Ao. I take that as an yes.” She said as the kitten chew on her knuckle with more painfully than you might expect.

“Honest job. That's the hard part. “ Combining a truthfulness dedication with internet poker... Not a smart move. It worked but not as smoothly as it should. Telemarketing, working at at some burger joint or anything else that required the ability to lie was out of the question.

“Hoooooonest-est-est-est.” She hissed with an happy smiled as she wrestled the little cat with gentle fingertips. It just didn't seem as a problem at the moment.

Hallow hunting isn't exiting. It just means really sore feet and dwindling hope. Endless hours spent tracing lay lines, blister growing blisters of their own and once you found something the hope that flared up was usually crushed. She found two might-be-hallows that she just couldn't access since someone decided to locate an office building on top of them.

After three and a half week she was searching the area between the two lay lines heading north west from the centre of the city toward Natomas Creek and Sacramento airport. Something aught to be found between two lay lines in close vicinity to each other.

This night she was heading trough a small industrial park. The abandoned place gleamed of weak residue energies under her supernatural vision. Turning round a corner she found it. A extra star on the night sky, hanging low wrapped around the top of a metal skeleton. A cellphone mast. Damn it. It was at he other side of the park and yet even from here it look suicidal to climb, but the eerie glimmer of the hallow called for her.

She walked closer, until she stood at its base. Getting under the fence surrounding it would be easy. Tvivel looked up at the imposing structure, trying to measure it height. After making an educated guess she spent the minutes trowing up, and when there was nothing more to trow up just kept on retching in fear for good measure. It almost made her feel better. Way to high.

The memories of climbing the mast ladder is hazy, lost in the ripples terror. Her hands shook, her body trembled and more then once she just stopped climbing, clinging to the ladder like a scared baby monkey, eyes shut closed, shivering just begging it to be over.

Somehow she made it up to the top into the glow of the hallow. Energies rushed in, filling her, driving the fear and the ache of her muscles away. She sagged, resting her forehead against the cool metal. Like sailor surviving a terrible storm once more sighting land, she exhaled. Feeling safe even up her way to many feet above her own death. Tvivel looked out of the glowing night city surrounding her. It was beautiful. The path of scourging had its rewards.

She didn't think about the climb down just yet, savoring the moment of peace on top of the metal mast.

Having a hallow was nice. If it was ”sort of just explored an hallow I found” rather then being able to make some claim on it. It would been nicer if said hallow hadn't been located on a Deathtrap of Doom.

A girl got needs and a girl got to do what a girl got to do. Tvivel had bought a jacket and a cap in the right blue and then screen printed the right phone company logo onto them. She had gotten some climbing gear. That stuff would reduce the risk of being disrupted by sleepers and falling but thinks like other mages, sniper rifles and stupidity still worried her. Rereading a bunch of climber manuals don't stop you from being a fool.

Dress up for the night Tvivel made it up the swindling heights of the cellphone tower. This time methodically and slowly, moving her safety lines up step by step. Sure. Her shaking hands and cramping guts didn't really trust those lines, but the wasn't the same terror as the first time and she was not as exhausted either. To bad.

The night wind was warm and the hallow was feeling almost awake with the messengers passing trough the mast. Tvivel reached out with her foot to one of the beams sit down astride with her back leaned against a pole. The skylines was beautiful, and after a while she dared to look down in the darkness dangling her feet feeling good about herself.

But on the path of the Watchtower of the Iron Gauntlet things don't come easy. She couldn't just sit here thinking nice thoughts or something and get the mana she came for. Everything worth having is worth a struggle or to be paid for in pain.

Digging out her mp3-player from underneath the jacket she put the earphones into her ears. After she pressed play heavy metal beats flooded her and put on a rare smile on her lips. She lit the lighter and for a few second she moved it from side to side in personal single person imitation of a rock concert high above the ground.

Then she folded up her sleeves, reminded herself not to flinch, falling would be bad safety ropes or not and put the flame to her flesh. She snarled and the tick smell of burnt hair rose as she let the flame scourge her flesh. She whimpered when the pain slowly traced patterns up and down her arm. The pain and fire clenched her mind in this savage ritual of control, acting the role of both victim and perpetrator nether of them folding giving in to the pain or mercy.

One arm done. But more skin would feel the flamed touch before she got what she came for.