Adhesion

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Adhesion
Chapter of Hypolethia
Chapter 1 of Secondary Intent
Chronology
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Eversion -

In which four solitaries have become a cabal, and must deal with both mystery and consequence.

What Happened

  • Time has passed since Dr Ponder was stopped from her butchery. The four have been "requested" by the Concilium to act as keepers of the enigmatic site where the Poison Jar sits as it is not able to be safely moved. The room it occupies has been sealed and warded, but the site remains mysterious and unsafe for others to spend time there. Over the next month or so, things have started to stabilise into a new normal.
  • Kassandra took the embalming tools that she had acquired to Die Welt with intention of fencing them to its owner Marius Steinfaust; though they are not occult items, she believed they had value as antique and unusual items for sale to the sort of people that frequent the shop. This didn't work. Something about the tools seems unreal and strange and Marius did not wish to touch them. He was also unsettled by a recent interaction with four people who were seeking answers about weird dreams they had been sharing; successive tarot readings for them had come up with the exact same spread every time – The Tower reversed, The Moon, and 2 of Swords.
    • Kassandra did a quick reading for Marius while she was there and yet again the 2 of Swords appeared.
    • When Kassandra decided to return the tools to the Offices, she encountered Wotann carrying out his own investigations into the Corridor. It was noticed that the embalming room seemed unreal and incomplete, as it seen with a low resolution. This effect ended as soon as the tools were returned to the room.
  • Wotann had also been cataloguing and studying the greenhouse with intention of developing it into a laboratory and font of all manner of useful life to aid his research. The cultivar of lotus flowers growing there islike none he had ever seen, save for during his visions of the Primal Wild during his Awakening. There also appears to be more life in the greenhouse, including a rodent slumbering in small, blissful ratty dreams after eating some of one of the lotus petals. The atmosphere feels clearer since the room containing the Poison Jar has been sealed, and Dr Ponder taken away.
  • Titania has tried to focus on work but found herself lost in her secret concern about sundered destinies. She has studiously avoided telling anyone else about what she has discovered but finds herself drawn to noticing people who seem to have suffered that fate. With a little magical serendipity, she got close to someone who seemed to have no fate or destiny at all but found that they had no connection to Dr Ponder. So she "accidentally" borrowed the woman's pen, enchanted it with a minor boon of luck and then "luckily" managed to return it to her.
  • Vánagandr had been trying to understand the strange strong sympathetic connection between the four of them. She spent hours deep in the vaults of memory and shadowed thought within the neon-noir Contract Archive deep within her soul. She dug through her memories and found nothing deep enough to forge such connections, and through it all the Wolf in Chains watched with a sharp-toothed smirk. For a moment, while lost in thought, she saw another shape in the reflective metal facing her – the unbound hungry wolf-shape outsider that had stalked her dreams before her Awakening – and she was struck with a sense that it and the Offices felt similar somehow. Intrusions. Something from Outside pressing in.
  • The four eventually started to connect and talk. There was discussion of going to see a baseball game using tickets that Titania acquired, which felt a little too corporate retreat for some. But they also spoke of their Awakenings and found more echoes of connection. They all awakened on the same date and perhaps around the same time. The waking world dreams they each experienced on the path to Awakening echoed in themes and motifs – pursuit, will, survival, and choice. Always choice. And choice has been haunting Kassandra's dreams recently.
  • With all that in mind, Vánagandr suggested an investigation within, into their Oneiroi, to see it there are echoes of intrusion or Other lurking there.

Plot Developments & Facts Discovered

  • Kassandra, Titania, Vánagandr and Wotann have been "requested" by the Concilium to act as keepers of the mysterious site currently simply referred to as the Office. They are still to formalise and name the nascent cabal that they have found themselves to be.
    • Some things in the Offices appear to be out of place, lacking on reality, or associated with the Supernal rather than the Fallen world.
  • Kassandra is enough of a regular at Die Welt that its owner Marius knows her by name (Tara).
  • Kassandra's tarot spread for Marius Steinfaust – The Devil, The Star (reversed), 2 of Swords.
  • Dr Ponder has been handed over to the Guardians of the Veil for containment.
  • More connections between the four have been established.
    • All four of them Awakened on the same day and possibly at a similar time.
    • They are the only mages who can spend time in the Offices or near the Poison Jar without negative effects.
    • There are thematic similarities between the beats of their Awakenings.

People Appearing (in order of appearance)

Locations

Notes

  • Kassandra's visit to Die Welt took place just after the events of chapter 5 of Under A Killing Moon.
  • Titania cast a long-duration spell to grant a nudge of good fortune and serendipity to the woman she encountered who had no destiny or fate. She wove this spell onto the woman's pen and tied off the spell by spending 1 Willpower point. The spell should last for 1 month, and she trusts in fate that it will not go awry...
  • The group has gained Safe Space 3 as a site merit tied to the Offices.
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