#CodeZeta liveblogs

[codezeta-liveblog-blog]

Damages 2.1 - Council of Future Plotpoints

Damages huh. To what or to who? Probably to everyone, to the balance itself. If Blake is to continue being the protagonist, he has to get some yet to be seen advantage over everyone else. Which no one expects. Which will probably fuck everyone up. Cant wait, lets go.

> The pen scribbled across the paper. > > Weapons.  A knife, a larger weapon if I could manage it.  A gun would be ideal but hard to find.  Different Others had different drawbacks and weaknesses.  Ideally I’d be able to pick up an assortment of weapons in a variety of materials.  The problem was, I wasn’t sure where I could get those things. > > That raised several more questions.  I needed a better way to get information.  Internet.  I needed a way to buy supplies, if my cash reserve ran out.  Money. > > I switched to another piece of paper, this one headed with the word ‘Needs’.  Beneath clothes and a brief shopping list of food staples that would last me a while, I added the two new points about internet access and needing to contact the lawyers.  I hesitated, then added other points.  Joel’s car and keys, which I had borrowed, needed to be returned, if they weren’t already.  Rose needed assistance.  I needed allies. > > The council meeting was this afternoon.  Three hours before sunset and three hours after, I would be free from interference.  I needed a way to get some control over this situation.  Enemies at the gates, I’d phrased it.

Man, its freaking today. Here I thought he still had more time. Yeah he cant be harmed, but this has been building up and itll probably be an opportunity for everyone to throw around their threats. Very smart to think of buying the mundane stuff in the meantime. Makes me think, how does a practitioner meeting in the market generally goes? 

> I tried to write down everything I could possibly need or need to do.  Stumped, stalled, I put the pen down and stood from the couch, stretching my back where I’d been hunched over the coffee table. > > The mirror beside me was empty.  My reflection was absent, as was Rose’s.  I saw only a living room where the books weren’t quite so scattered, where the shelves were full and no cardboard boxes sat beneath.  There wasn’t a pile of dishes in the corner where I’d left them on my side of things.  Oatmeal, again.  If I didn’t manage a good shopping run, I’d be moving on to wild rice and cans of black beans.

Quick question. Do americans and canadians get black beans that arent canned? Like the ones you actually boil and make the beans yourself? I never hear of it. Me and over half the brazillian population eat rice and beans that way everyday in every major meal, but I have yet to see in any american or english media any of you ever actually boiling bean seeds and preparing them to, you know, actually add flavor and stuff with your own condiments and spices.

> The house felt a little more claustrophobic than it had, before.  As large as the house was, it was old fashioned with a very closed concept, every room separated from other rooms by walls and doors.  Were it the furniture and furniture alone, I wouldn’t have a problem.  But Molly had made a long series of messes in packing up grandmother’s things, leaving the job half done, and her things were still here, untouched.  Navigating between furniture and over the boxes and piles of books made me constantly aware of the space around me.

I can definitely see how that doesnt exactly make you paranoid, but rather self conscious about how paranoid you must look.

> When I had some time, I could do some tidying up.  For the time being, though, I had too much to do.  I settled for a breather. > > I stood in the window, my back against the windowframe, helping to hold the curtains and sheers out of the way. > > With my newly acquired second sight, I could make out the spirits that infused everything.  Just as I might focus my eyes, I could focus this sight.  I could train it.  According to Essentials, some practitioners would train their sight to focus on things better suited to their talents.  Imagery would take hold. > > Spirits were the most basic and oldest option when it came to manipulating the physical world through the esoteric.  One object as simple as a pencil could have a host of spirits inside it, representations of the purposes the object had, its nature, its elemental makeup, ownership, and many, many other qualities. > > Shamans, then, were practitioners who worked more or less exclusively with spirits.  They would be able to find and interact with more powerful spirits.  Not simply the spirit of one particular stone, but the spirit of all stones for an area. > > I was thinking along those lines because I couldn’t help but wonder if what I saw was one of those shamans at work.

So shamans are more of controllers of the elements in a way. But also of their surroundings as in the objects around them.

> A boiling cloud of what might have been vapor, a haze, sat over the city.  It was as though stormclouds were rolling in, and they were doing it at ground level.  At times there was a fluidity to it, as though the nearby lake had swelled and swamped the area, waves rising and falling, only periodically allowing buildings to be seen, where they dipped low enough. > > This wasn’t water or water vapor.  It was spirits. > > I shut off the sight. > > The scene I saw without magical aid was an ordinary one, a simple snowfall, with clouds in the proper places.  My view of the buildings was still limited, periodically obscured, but only by snow. > > There were things outside, as there had been last night.  Daylight wasn’t safety.  It only meant that the Others without human forms had to stay out of the public eye. > > I sighed.  I wasn’t big on plans.  I wasn’t the type to use lists or keep to them.  It helped to frame what I was doing in my head, but it wasn’t me. > > Better if I figured out the high points I needed to hit and then winged it.  I’d figure out what I needed to shop for when the time came. > > I sat down with what I saw as the little black book.  I filled myself in on the local practitioners. > > When I got to the Others, however, I found the entries got a little more complicated and short form.  Latin classifications, short form that necessitated I look it up, measures and linking to reference material instead of explaining them outright. > > Grandmother, it seemed, was more interested in Others than people.

After the diary we now know how she hated having to read to whole books to get to the point, how it was hard to look for information for her at a younger age, so sit makes sense that she would just hyperlink everything, make it as simple and to the point as possible, organize things alphabetically and just... easy to get into all of this, or at least as easy as it gets with no one to teach you.

> “Rose!”  I called out. > > There was no reply. > > I made my way through the house, searching each of the mirrors.  I found her in the library. > > “Rose,” I said. > > She sat on the floor.  Her hair had pulled free of the brooch, and she was surrounded by books.  Damn, she looked worn out.  Not tired, per se, but like she’d been through the wringer. > > “What do you want, Blake?” > > “First of all, I want to make sure you’re okay.” > > “Let’s say I’m not,” she said.  She carefully set books aside and climbed to her feet.  She didn’t seem willing to meet my eyes, biting her lip, thoughts clearly elsewhere. > > “What can I do?” > > It wasn’t a hard question, but it seemed to bother her.  “Survive the meeting?  We survive, there’s always room for things to get better.” > > “I’m on board with that,” I said. > > Why did it look like I was upsetting her more? > > “Listen,” I said.  “I’ve done the reading.  The sections on the Others in the little black book are kind of dense, but I got the gist of it, and I think I can put names to most of the important faces.  I know the practitioners I’m up against.” > > “That’s good,” she said.  “I read through all of that too.” > > “I’ve also memorized a few of the basic sigils.  Driving people away, like Laird Behaim did in the coffee shop, moving things like I did with the mug, and protecting objects.  I’ve got salt and chalk if I need it.” > > “I wouldn’t rely on that, if I was in your shoes,” she said. > > I frowned, “Why?” > > “The books say that generally, spirits aren’t that smart.  They’re more like small animals, in terms of their capacity to understand things.  Like animals, you can train or bait them.  In an area trafficked by people who use spirits a great deal, you can trust they’re going to listen.” > > “This is that type of area.” > > “But who are they listening to?  Remember how Laird said the spirits of community listen to him because of his role?  Out there, they aren’t just listening to you.  Their loyalties are divided.”

Ironic that I kept wishing for Rose to get attention and get better and she just kinda... broke after the ritual. She is looking and acting like she is quite done.

> “I think I follow,” I said.  “What’s the end result?  What happens if they aren’t all in the same camp?” > > “I think it’ll be slower, or fuzzier.  You might get nothing, or it might backfire.” > > That took some of the wind out of my sails.  “I’m still powerless?” > > “Powerless until you get enough clout to bully them or convince them to play along.  It might be that grandmother’s name gives you some of the oomph you need.  But if you reach for their help in a bind,” Rose said, “It’s going to be-” > > “-a crapshoot,” I said, in the same instant Rose did. > > I smiled a bit, but Rose didn’t.  Her eyes dropped to the ground. > > I sighed.  I could hardly blame her for not being in a smiling mood.  Rose had her own concerns.  Ones I couldn’t even wrap my head around.  We didn’t have enough information on what she was or why grandmother had gone to the trouble of creating her. > > Problem was, I didn’t know how to fix this.  When in doubt, the strategy was to empathize.  As a rule, people wanted their feelings recognized more than they wanted fixes. > > “I can’t imagine how you feel,” I said.  It was the truth.  “You’ve been put in a horrible situation, with-” > > “Don’t do that,” she said.  “Not if you’re using it like they taught it to you.” > > “Huh?” > > “Dad taught us that.  How to get on people’s good side.  Which may be something he picked up from grandmother.” > > “Grandfather,” I said.  “It fits what we know of him.” > > “Don’t manipulate me, Blake.  Don’t use strategies to deal with me.  I was raised the same way you were, up to a point, I know the tricks.” > > “I do care, Rose.  I want to help you.  If I’m drawing from what I know to try-” > > “Blake,” Rose said.  “It’s fine.  It’s done, you’re in charge, I’m the backup.  You want me to keep the criticisms to the most vital points?  Fine.  You want me to do the research and supplement what you’re doing, fine.  You win.”

Nooo Rose dont you do the you win thing. Its more frustrating than anything.

t. abusive relationships involving me or people around me. The “you win” phrase still strikes some chords inside me when it comes up in a conversation or discussion or anything really.

> “I don’t want to win.  I want us to be on the same page.” > > “The same page?  You got the power, I got… this.  How do you have a partnership if things are this unequal?  Let’s face it.  Look at what happened to Molly.  Grandmother is willing to use us as expendable assets.  I’m nothing more than a piece in a greater puzzle.  I’ll serve my role, and the road ends there.  I’m the most expendable one of us.” > > “I don’t think she made you as some expendable asset,” I said. > > “I’ve been reading.  Everything referencing diabolists says they’re dangerous lunatics, except for the stuff that was written by grandmother and other diabolists.  The temptation to offer pieces of yourself for obvious gains sucks all of them in eventually.  The guys who unleash some of the worst stuff out there?  The guys who meet the worst ends?  They’re in the same category as her.  Our grandmother.  Over and over, they become monsters.  Literally, or generally monstrous people that might use their kids or grandkids as sacrificial pawns to get what they need.”

I dont exactly see what Grandmother would have to gain from creating an entirely new person as Rose. Only if the plan was to in some way reincarnate in the mirror body. It would make sense with what we know of Grandma, but we dont exactly know of magics and spells to dismiss this point as impossible.

> “I don’t deny that they’re fucked up.  But grandmother lived.  She hit the ripe old age of eighty-five, and I doubt you do that while messing with stuff like this if you’re dumb.  Besides, dumb people aren’t the type to spend the kind of power it takes to make a sapient being, only to throw it away like you’re talking about.” > > That actually seemed to help.  Not that she looked happy, but maybe the way didn’t look so dark. > > “There isn’t a book we can read to figure out why I was created,” Rose said.  Her eyes were still downcast.  “I looked at the earliest diary entries, and the most recent.”

Ah, so maybe the pages we read were some that Rose perused.

> “Anything useful in the most recent?”  I asked. > > She shook her head.  “No.  Nothing.  The early ones… I sort of skipped past the earliest diaries, because a child’s writing is hard to read in big doses.  Some stuff on the relationships between the different groups here.  But if you’re looking for tips on where to focus our studies, we may have to look a bit further.” > > “Relationships,” I said. > > “It wasn’t all friendly or peaceful, though it sounds like there was more of an equilibrium a while back.” > > “Like Laird said,” I thought aloud, “It’s starting to change.  If the house sells, Jacob’s Bell grows past a threshold.  It’s thrown things a bit out of balance.” > > “You’ve got the two big circles joining in marriage, maybe rebuilding that balance.” > > “Status quo for the Duchamp family, it sounds like,” I said.  Which was a reminder of the matter at hand.  “Listen, The council meeting starts in three and a half hours.  I wanted to check you were up for it.” > > “I’m up for it,” she said.  She met my eyes, but that only made it clearer how worn out she was. > > “Be careful,” I said.  “If you lie-” > > “I know,” she said.  Nervously, she started fiddling with her hair, trying to get it sorted out.  “I might lose my powers, or be forsworn.  And I don’t want to lose any protections I might have, if things like Padraic can reach in here to get me.  Not that I have much else to lose.” > > I nodded. > > “Don’t worry about me if you’re not going to worry about yourself,” Rose said.  “You look as tired as I feel, and since you’re the one making the big decisions, like when to go out and-” > > “Woah,” I said.  “Woah, woah.  You’re talking about this?” > > “About going out with Laird.” > > “I thought we weren’t fighting.” > > I could see her expression change.  Barely restrained frustration, slowly but surely being covered up, hidden behind a mask.  “We’re not.  Nevermind.  I got carried away.  I’ll meet you downstairs in a bit, and then we’ll go?” > > A big part of me wanted to argue.  To press the issue.  To air grievances and get things on a more even keel.  To convince her that I didn’t want her as a slave or a servant.

But if you press the issue you will be yet agains forcing her to do something, in this case, discuss the issue.

> Except we had more pressing matters.  Better to find a way to show it to her rather than tell her. > > “Sure,” I said. > > ■ > > The spirits parted.  I knew when it was time, because of the way the surroundings changed.  A moment of rest, where the snow wasn’t so hard, the spirits were settled, and an entire area was almost clear, in magical terms.  In regular terms, the snowstorm let up a touch.  It was dark, but that was more to do with cloud cover than time of day. > > I was on the move the moment the coast was clear, but I didn’t go to the meeting. > > I headed for the downtown area, backpack empty, pockets full.  Everything I could think I might need on hand. > > Fireplaces and stoves.  No.  Dollar store?  No.  An old-school ice-cream shop complete with the benches and the tall glasses for fondues and ice cream floats. > > I settled on a general mens store. > > Knives were on sale, but I didn’t like the idea of using them.  Too short a reach, against the sorts of things I would be fighting. > > I did like the look of the ice picks and hatchets.  Prices on the picks hit the hundreds, while I could manage a hatchet for as little as forty. > > Wooden baseball bat, a touch less expensive. > > I added the weight of a loop of chain to the cart as well. > > Then I stepped into the corner of the shop where they handled bicycle stuff. > > Cheap side-mirrors were about four dollars for a pair, round mirrors about six inches across.  I checked that I could see Rose inside and grabbed twenty. > > I think she might have actually smiled, when I glimpsed her. > > I did another circuit of the store.  There were rifles and guns, but those started at a hundred and fifty dollars, and I had little doubt they’d stop working in a pinch.  Many Others would be immune or too hard to kill with a regular gun.  In terms of cost benefit, I’d rather have more mirrors. > > If I couldn’t get a gun at this point, the bow and arrow set stood out as a tempting alternative.  It helped that there were Others who were vulnerable to wood and not metal.  There were problems in terms of cost, though.  At ninety dollars minimum, it was just outside of the range I was willing to pay. > > And, when I thought about it, it would be hell to practice if my movements were limited to the interior of Hillsglade House.  It would take too long to learn. > > I had basic weapons for self defense, plus a few tools, which would have to tide me over until I got further in my studies over the magic stuff. > > When I approached the counter to pay, I got stares.  It made me wonder if the process of awakening had changed anything about me.  Or if they were enemies.

I dont doubt Blake's enemies would be slightly amused about him making an attempt to protect himself.

> I made my way to the next store.  A general catch-all bargain shop, a little better than the dollar store I had passed.  Expanding beyond the one pair of jeans would go a long way for my sanity.  So would having decent soap and shampoo.  Even different laundry detergent would help.  I grabbed all of the toiletries, a few spare t-shirts, a sweatshirt and added a thirty dollar pair of jeans, just so I had something besides underwear to wear in a pinch. > > It made me feel better, knowing I had the stuff, feeling the weight of it in the shopping basket.  It left me roughly twenty bucks to get food, but I could stretch a little money a long way on that front.  I was happier having permanent things, new things.  Even if they were cheap shirts for 75% off.  If I had more money in general, I would be a shopaholic or a hoarder.

Makes sense, him having a homeless background and all that

> When I headed to the front of the store, a young boy got in my way.  Just past the brink of entering adolescence, pale and brown haired. > > My first thought was Other.  The memories of the things that had attacked the fake delivery man were fresh in my mind.  It wasn’t.  Very much human. > > “You’re Blake, aren’t you?” > > I nodded. > > “Do you recognize me?” > > I nodded again.  Molly’s younger brother.

Oh-oh? What are you doing in town?

> When he didn’t say anything, giving me a death glare, I said, “Christoff.  Hey, listen.  I’m sorry about your sister.” > > “Why are you sorry?” he asked.  “Did you do it?” > > God damn, the way he could say it as if I had…  with a hardness in his voice?  That had to have been something that the family had imbued in him over the years of fighting.  Something he would have picked up.  It was the kind of accusation that had enough weight to it that even an innocent target could be put off balance and made to consider the question. > > “No, Christoff.  The police already cleared me.” > > “That doesn’t mean anything.  Did you kill my sister?” > > “No,” I said.  Not unless murder by omission is possible.  “I didn’t.” > > I could see Callan approaching, giving me a bit of a wary look.  His mother wasn’t far behind.

Shut up Callan.

> Callan was almost thirty.  His mother was forty and looked ten years older, by the condition of her skin and hair, her arms full with a bundle of shirts with superheroes on them.  I couldn’t help but see Aunt Irene as the type of person who had faced hardships every day and had emerged just a fraction weaker from each crisis.  Worrying about money and work and all of that tended to eat you up inside.  I knew, even if I had lived it for only a short time, what that was like. > > All that said, it didn’t mean I was a fan of her as a person. > > Callan frowned as stopped behind Christoff, putting his hands on his little brother’s shoulders. > > “I was just saying to Christoff,” I said, “I’m sorry about Molly.  You have my condolences.” > > “But you still didn’t waste any time in taking the house,” Callan said.  His glare matched those of Christoff and my aunt. > > “Ah, someone told you?” > > “It’s in the papers,” he said.  “Every day, talking about Molly, talking about you.  Who’s the new heir, that sort of thing.” > > “I didn’t have much of a choice in any of it,” I said.  “I don’t want the house or the baggage that comes with it.  At this point, I’d be pretty happy give up all the money and walk away from all of this… without anyone getting hurt.” > > “But you’re living there,” Callan said.  “So you must want some part of it.” > > “It’s complicated,” I said. > > “Your parents said you were homeless.  I bet you fucked up, and this is the only place you have to live.  Squatting in my sister’s house before her body’s even cold.”

Oh SHUT the fuck up Callan.

> I expected his mother to rebuke him, to respond to the callous comment about Molly. > > She was cold before she died, I thought. > > What I said was, “She was one of the very few family members I ever liked, honestly.  She was a friend to me.  I meant it when I said I’m sorry.” > > “She wasn’t your friend,” Aunt Irene said, and her voice had that accusatory hardness that Christoff had picked  up.  Her eyes narrowed, an expression to match her tone, “Every other second I look at you, I wonder how you’re responsible.” > > How, not if. > > “You keep saying you’re sorry, and I believe it a little less each time,” Callan said.  “Tell you what.  Go.  Don’t ever fucking talk about my sister again, just go, and we won’t have a problem.” > > I didn’t say anything, out of concern it would be taken as binding.  Instead, I circled around to walk past him. > > He took a step to the side, getting in my way.  “I didn’t say pay and leave.  I said leave.” > > “You said go,” I said.  “I’m going.” > > “Not this way,” he said.  “Not with this shit you need to keep squatting in my sister’s house.” > > Heads were turning.  We had the attention of every shopper and employee in the store, now. > > I thought of Rose’s recent surrender.  I didn’t agree with it.  It wasn’t what I wanted… but I didn’t want an issue here, either. > > “Fine,” I said.  “Let me give the basket to the cashier-” > > “Don’t be an asshole,” Callan said.  “Go put it all back on the shelves and racks.” > > I dropped the basket.  “No.  But I’ll leave, without buying, without incident.  You win, Callan.” > > He smirked, but when I turned to go around him, he reached out and put his hand on my shoulder, maybe to slow me down so he could get in my way again. > > I shoved him, hard enough he stumbled three steps back. > > Before anything further could happen, I headed for the doors.  More for his sake than mine. I wasn’t forgetting the consequences of missing the council meeting, as I thought that.  I was- > > The sound of running footsteps made me stop.  The expressions of the cashiers to my right clued me in. > > I reacted, half-turning, bringing my arm up.  The arm wasn’t in position to deflect the worst of the hit, but I was more or less ready as Callan did his damndest to sucker-punch me.  It hurt, but it was only pain.  No disorientation, no loss of consciousness. > > My retaliation was automatic.  I hit him, fist to face.  He reeled, bending over to the point that I thought he was going to do a somersault.  But I was already swinging the follow-up strike, waist-level. > > He hit the ground, rolled onto his back, and he didn’t get up.  His mouth was open, lip split, and he stared, blinking hard, looking in a different direction each time he opened his eyes. > > Fuck, my hands hurt like a bitch. > > Employees came running, as well as one or two male customers.  I backed away, hands raised. > > But when they reached us, two employees dropped to their knees beside Callan, and the rest of the intervening bystanders put themselves between us, forming a protective half-circle around Callan.  Six of them, and another fourteen or so bystanders. > > “He hit me first,” I said. > > “You shoved him,” a man said.  He looked fifty or so, but had a walker, oddly out of tune with his age. > > “That’s not how it happened and you know it,” I said. > > The man said, “I know you’re that guy in the Hillsglade place right now.  You selling it anytime soon?” > > “No, the contract-” > > “Then I think I know what we’re telling the police,” he said.  He looked around, and slowly, each other member of the small crowd started nodding in agreement.

I do not have words to how angry this is making me. And it is reflecting in the liveblog.

> Too coincidental.  Too much fuckery, for this to happen now.  I switched to my other way of seeing. > > Nothing stood out, no strange glows or images that weren’t supposed to be here.  No Others were in the area. > > When I turned to more basic elements, I could see how active the spirits were.  Nothing too unusual, though this was my first opportunity seeing how the spirits traveled back and forth between people, maintaining relationships.  If I unfocused a bit, they almost looked like ribbons or cords, connecting people throughout the area. > > Three of the ribbons stood out from the rest.  Too straight, too narrow.  They were like spears that had penetrated Callan, Aunt Irene and Christoff and plunged into me. > > Forced connections between us.  Too direct to be natural.  Someone had aimed them at me. > > Fuckery. > > There were rules, though.  No interfering with or attacking anyone else in the time leading up to, during, or after the meeting. > > Had this been done beforehand?  Had things been set up so that they’d get in my way at the first available opportunity? > > Or had someone found a loophole? > > I wasn’t sure I had a chance to debate it.  A cashier was dialing on the phone, her eyes on me. > > In that moment, I saw Laird enter the store, not in uniform, but wearing a long coat, cheeks red from the cold.  He surveyed the situation. > > “Mr. Thorburn,” he said. > > “Officer,” I said.  “Pretty prompt response to a call that hasn’t been made yet.” > > “Are you getting smart with me?” he asked. > > I shook my head.  “Only stating the truth.” > > He gave me an appraising look.  “Yes.  I imagine you are.  Katie, you can put the phone down.  He’s right, there isn’t a point.” > > “He had a few harsh words for the fellow there,” the guy with the walker said, “Then shoved him, they exchanged blows.” > > “That so?” Laird asked.  He surveyed the room very slowly.  His eyes settled on Katie.  “I’m asking.  Is it, Katie?” > > She looked at the crowd. > > “Katie?” > > “No, sir.” > > “No.  I didn’t think so.  I’ll tell you what.  You guys go on about your business, and I’ll see that Mr. Thorburn gets to his destination.  Deal?” > > “Yes sir,” a few nearby people mumbled. > > “Mr. Thorburn?” he asked, giving me a sharp look. > > “Sounds good,” I said. > > “I don’t think I heard that clearly enough,” he said.  His stare was a level one. > > Right.  He wanted to play this game. > > I wouldn’t be buying clothes, toiletries or groceries, it seemed.

Wait, weren't the things from different stores? Nice touch on the possibility of loopholes already in the safety guaranteed thing, but then that is fishy as fuck. How can you meddle with someone in such a way and it not count as... ah well, w/e. I’m not going to lie and pretend I remember the exact wording that goes for the Meeting Truce.

> “I’ll go with you,” I said. > > “Good,” he responded, smiling. > > We went on our way.  I hadn’t turned off my second sight, and I saw how the spirits were shifting.  People were milling around the area, which was more like an extended strip mall than a true downtown, but the spirits diverted them from taking one side street. > > We turned down that street, and were soon joined by Andy and Eva.  The witch hunters. > > “I assume they aren’t bound by any neutrality rules,” I said. > > “No,” Laird said.  “But if they wanted to kill you, they could enter your home and murder you in their sleep.” > > The girl smiled, giving me a look.  Confident, brash, if I remembered right from the vision.  Her brother kept his eyes straight forward, watching the ground for slick patches and lumps of snow he might stumble on.  He was burdened down with bags of stuff, while she strutted. > > I’d read up on the locals.  What had the little black book said?  They were witch hunters in service to Jacob’s Bell.  Killing or punishing any Other or practitioner who strayed too far from the rules and made life inconvenient.  Half of their payment came in the form of hard cash.  Half was in either trinkets they could use on their job or knowledge. > > We approached a church.  The area was desolate. > > I saw the woman with a blur for a face pause outside, waiting for a man to hold the door open.  She was the one who’d molded the other who’d pretended to be a delivery driver.  I saw her deliberately put the little ever-lit cigarette out before entering. > > A church wasn’t my first guess for a meeting place. > > Inside, Laird walked me to the front, where his family sat in the front row of pews.  He paused, bending down to talk to his wife, and I walked on, my eyes taking it in. > > All eyes were on me, in turn.  It made for a kind of pressure.  Like all of the bad parts of public speaking without the ability to say something and give off a better impression.

Finally time for the meeting with everyone. Finding out our enemies, the who's who of the town.

> Behaim Circle, chronomancers.  Demesnes situated in scattered residences across the city.  I was familiar enough with them. > > Sitting in the aisles opposite the Behaims was the Duchamp Coven.  According to the little black book, their line was purely female, and their craft was taught to women only.  Easy enough, when any Duchamp woman would give birth girls only.  A large family with strong ties to many of the surrounding areas, the family had earned a measure of prestige and power by marrying off their daughters and cousins to others in Ontario, Quebec, and the Northeastern States.  Enchantresses. > > What were enchantresses?  Essentials had filled me in on the basics.  They would be focused on altering relationships.  Influencing people, influencing things.  An object could have its owner reassigned, so it might find its way into someone else’s hands, or be tethered to a location, so it would continually end up there.  On the higher end of things, people could be altered, with an enchantress literally stealing someone’s love.  On the veryhigh end of things, familiars could be claimed by an enchantress that didn’t already have one, among other general bends and twists in more fundamental rules. > > In short, they were the most likely culprits for sending Aunt Irene’s family my way.

Or maybe sending a group of girls, their own daughters mayhaps, to beat up Rose when she was small, even before they were turned practitioners. 

> A middle-aged aboriginal woman sat alone, and nobody sat near her.  Mara Angnakak.  She straddled the line between practitioner and Other.  When Jacob’s Bell was first settled by colonists, she was already here.  The notes had marked that she was very reserved, but she harbored a horrendous amount of hatred for the rest of us.  Grandmother had written out suspicions that she was illiterate; arguing it would explain why her talents seem to be limited to what she could teach herself.  Centuries of such teaching and experimentation, but limited nonetheless. > > Being a practitioner inevitably meant losing a bit of your humanity and becoming a bit more Other.  My new eyesight was a part of that, one step along what could be a long journey.  Mara Angnakak had nearly finished that journey before stopping.  Or she had to have, if she was that old. > > She was here before Europeans came to Canada and chances were good that she intended to be here well after we were gone.

Protecting her land in a way probably. Taking care of old beings that dont even hold an identity any more. I'd put money on her having access to things like Barba-whatsis, as in, unknown beings that have lost meaning to most.

> A girl slouched in a seat.  Her familiar wasn’t in its mortal form, but was ethereal, with all of the mass of a grizzly on the front end, and a tail end that looked like that of a fish, the features an incoherent blend of different animals and plants, different features being emphasized as I looked longer.  Her stick tapped the floor with no rhythm at all.  She’d seated herself nearer the Others at the back than the two big families.  I recognized her as the one who’d been shouting at the rabbit. > > She would be the Briar Girl.  No other name.  A recent addition to the local population, as of six years ago.  She apparently lived full-time in the woods and marshes behind Hillsglade House.  Grandmother’s suspicion?  She had contracted with a familiar too powerful for her to handle, creating something that was less a partnership than a practitioner dominated by the spirit.  The bear-thing would be the familiar, the stick her implement.

I'm going to bet it is something like that, but missing some keypoint. Like maybe she took the spirit as a familiar willing to be controlled. A stick for implement, so maybe guidance, strenght in many? Balance, equilibrium, reach, stability. Safety? Halted Growth? I really think something mutual is going on with them both.

> Johannes, the sorcerer from the north end, was already sitting, but he’d chosen to sit among the Others, near the back, rather than anywhere near the two families.  His dog sat beside him, a breed that could easily look silly, given the chance, but it managed to look noble. > > It helped that the lights behind the dog seemed somehow brighter, the rest of the room darker by contrast. > > Others continued to appear, and it seemed as though they had been arriving for a while.  They avoided the pews and stood around the edges.  Where they clustered, their bodies blocked the wall-mounted lights behind them, and the room darkened. > > I found an empty row and sat.  I put the backpack down on the pew beside me and fished out a pair of bike mirrors.  I adjusted the zipper, and zipped up around the prong where the mirror was supposed to fit into the bike handle.  It stuck up, facing forward. > > Easily an hour passed before the influx of Others started to taper off.  My mouth was dry, my heart pounding, my face hurt where I’d been hit, and my hands hurt more. > > Above all else, I was realizing what I was up against.  These weren’t pages in the little black book.  They were enemies of mine.  Virtually all of them. > > A lot of them would kill me. > > A good few would probably do worse things than kill me.

Like press their hands against your skin and tie pieces of you together in a nice little bow.

> This wasn’t quite what I had expected.  I’d expected a few practitioners.  Not everyone. > > “Blake,” Rose whispered. > > “What?” I asked, leaning closer. > > “Don’t tell anyone that I did the ritual,” she said. > > I nodded. > > Keep cards up our sleeves.  That was how we needed to think.

I still dont understand if her doing the ritual put them in a disadvantage or no. We'll have to wait and see.

> But we couldn’t be wilting flowers, bowing over if someone so much as looked at us the wrong way.  I could do that for Callan, but not here. > > A woman from the Duchamp family was talking to Laird, off to the side.  She might have been the one who was talking in the vision I’d had.  Not the oldest Duchamp woman here, but she had a kind of presence.  They both cast glances my way as they talked, making me the obvious topic of conversation. > > I went out of my way to look like I wasn’t terrified. > > All of these people were my enemies. > > “Beautiful Rose,” Padraic purred.  “Both of them, here.  A good night, I’m sure.” > > He’d entered alongside his two regular companions, two other companions of similar attractiveness, and Maggie Holt, the girl with the checkered scarf.  She was a teenager, making her slightly younger than the Briar Girl, and her eyebrows made her look perpetually angry, helped by a swift, graceless manner of walking. > > She sat to my right, across the aisle.  Padraic and his group sat around her, instantly and automatically settling into comfortable seating positions that could have doubled for poses. > > “Padraic, as usual, is the last to enter,” Laird said.  “We can begin a little early tonight.  Please, Mr. Thorburn.  You’re at the center of attention.  Would you please step up to the front and introduce yourself?” > > Every set of eyes in the room > > “Say no,” Rose said. > > “I said I’d run impulsive plans by you, right?” I asked. > > “Blake?” > > “Mr. Thorburn?” Laird asked, his voice ringing down the length of the church. > > “If I had a way to divert our enemies from us and to each other?” I asked.  “Yes or no?” > > “Blake, you can’t expect me to-”

What the fuck is the plan. I'm expecting it to be in the cliffhanger.

> “Blake Thorburn, grandson of Mrs. Rose D. Thorburn, Diabolist of Hillsglade House,” Laird said.  “I would like a response.” > > Making someone repeat themselves, in some cases, would make them look weaker.  Laird was getting more intimidating each time he spoke. > > “Yes,” she said. > > I stood. > > There was no murmur of conversation as I walked down the aisle.  There were hundredshere, but most were Others, and they were all exceptionally good at being quiet.  Goblins, disgusting to look at, as though they were distilled versions of human ugliness, squat and all of them armed with weapons forged together from scrap.  Ghosts, etheral and exaggerated in appearance, forever marked with their causes of death, twisted by an imperfect recollection of what they looked like and who they were, before.  Faerie, in myriad shapes and forms, and spirits.  The other half of the Others were impossible to identify. > > Funny, how many others with the appearances of children were around Johannes. > > Andy and Eva sat on the stairs to the right of the stage, facing down everyone.  Like bailiffs or guards, a reminder to keep the peace.  The other set of stairs was blocked by the crowd.  I stood at the very end of the aisle, and gripped the railing. > > In the midst of the faces, of the twenty or so members of the Duchamp coven and thirty-ish members of Laird’s family, all of the Others, I had to search to find the tiny round mirror that Rose would be peering out of. > > “I’m Blake Thorburn,” I said.  “I doubt you really care about that, or about who I am.  I imagine Molly Walker did her own speech here.  I can’t even guess how she handled it, or what she said.  I’m an obstacle for you to remove, to get power.  I know this.  I know you might see me as one number on a countdown clock, with prosperity waiting when there’s nothing left.  When there are no successors.  But you need to know, that thing so many of you are terrified of?  That I might learn enough to summon something problematic?  It’s already summoned.” > > I could see Laird react to that.  A shift in the crowd.  Some of the kids went pale, in the Duchamp family. > > Johannes smiled.  Mara the immortal, for her part, didn’t say or do anything.  Most Others didn’t seem to care one way or another.

Johannes probably already knows what is up, and I somehow doubt he is expecting more power. He strikes me as someone who already has what he wants. But I also barely know anything about him.

> “Not my choice.  I also didn’t choose the arrangements my grandmother put in place,” I said. > > I was thinking of Rose, but I didn’t need to elaborate on that. > > “Some of you have been baiting me, trying to get me to retaliate.  I don’t know why, but I imagine there’s something at play.  I’m not going to do what they want.  I’m going to make you guys a deal.  I’ll make three deals.  If you approach me and offer a ceasefire, an agreement you won’t attack me or help anyone who might, if you make a good offer, I’ll take the demon off the table for you and yours.” > > I could see people exchanging glances. > > That was a maxim, right?  A rule of war? > > Divide and conquer.

I didnt get the feeling Barbatholomeus was the sole reason peole were worried, but if that is enough to get people to get paranoid, then I'm happy. I'm binging a lot of chapters right now, so I'll dive right into the next one. With this in the ending, I'm heavily leaning towards someone bringing a major point against Blake. Let's a go.

2019 Addendum: Next liveblog on Friday!

[krixwell-liveblogs]

UNfortuantely Quow's liveblog of Pact and and CodeZeta's liveblog, the only other liveblog of pact that I'm aware of, both stopped without much warning.

That’s a shame. Though I did take a superficial look at Quow’s blog before adding them to the Other Blogs page, and judging by a post made less than a week ago, they do want to get back into it.

...and looking at the blog now, it seems they did! They did a session two days ago!

[journeysintowebcomics]

Love re-reading to see those little touches, like WB making sure you remember that minor capes like Circus, just so he can bring them back later when and if he needs to, knowing the reader has enough background to draw lines. A fun little exercise, trying to come up with powers based on name and descriptions of capes you have yet to see in action! WB as a writer with a degree likes his wordplay a LOT. Arc names are a big one for him, as he likes to fit every chapter in it to the Arc-name theme

I do like to imagine what an arc may be about based on the arc title. Usually it’s a swing and miss, yep. Trying to guess a cape’s power from their name is a bit easier, and the last time I tried to do that was with the Slaughterhouse Nine since most of them didn’t have a power associated to them, so...yeah, time will tell how accurate I was with them!

I doubt I got more than two or three right, hah.

codezeta-liveblog also said: You've also already picked up on something you might have not even have realized: The first chapter of the Arc is the pillar that holds the entire arc together, unless its one of the "I'm going to come back here and do some cleaning" arcs, like 10 was for the unnecessary-ness of the invasion with all members, in retrospect it was such a dumb plan and the same situations could have been made without it, and only a couple others much later on

Now that you mention it...yes, you’re right. So far, in most of the arcs the first chapter does shape the rest to some extent. It’s not a guarantee, but it’d indeed give an idea of what’s there to come.

[codezeta-liveblog-blog]

Interlude 1 - The good ol’ Wildbow shitty-character/nice-bacsktory switcheroo

> Gathered Pages: 1

First interlude-ish. Seems to be an excerpt from Grandma Rose. All of my yes. See, I think I've mentioned it before. I dont know to what extent more famous books like GoT and LotR do this, but when I was young I had a medieval themed story I used to read, "Chronicles of the Emerse World" or something like that, A italian book that never had an english translation for some reason, in between a couple chapters there would be parts of hystory books talking about a new location or something, basically serving as free exposition. What I'm getting at is that when I was a kid it didn't bother me, but looking back it seems like a really cheap way for a less-than-avarage book to explain stuff it could have used its characters for. I dont know what to expect of this, but that it will not be blind exposition, but a deeper look into a character we have already got to know but keeps being surrounded in mystery. Only question is if its just us reading it or are our characters seeing this as well.

> February 6th, 1931 > > These words are my own for me alone and nothing I write here is meant to be binding. > > Dear Diary > > I am supposed to start with dear diary but daddy is very strict about what I say and how.  Daddy said writing this diary would teach me to write better and that is very important but I have to write that at the top of every new part.  Daddy said he would never read my diary but if I did not write that part at the top for every new part then he would whup me.  I asked how he would know if he never read it and he said he would just know. I believe him.

I... dont remember the year this story is set in. I'm going to say it is set in 2013/2014. Except I also dont remember how old she was when she died. Is she already awoken, I doubt it, this is most probably a test for her to hone her speech, it would be a bit dangerous to awaken her and have the risk of her losing her powers because of writing something or forgetting to write something. Unless it os really that easy, you only need to write a paragraph and you are free to go.

> I was very very very careful when I asked daddy if it would be a bad whupping or a regular whupping and he asked me if I remembered when I got whupped and peed pink.  I said yes I did and daddy got a really mean and angry look on his face and said the whupping I got this time would be worse if I did not remember to write that every time.  Then he said he was not sure if it would work and I should tell no lies even when I write things down.

Yay to heavy parental abuse.

> I should explain what happened the other time because you are my diary and you do not know anything except what I wrote here.  It was when I was playing with Pearl even though I was ixplicitly told I mustnt.  She kept telling me she knew a fun game and she gave me one of her toys to hold, then she took my hand and pulled me along.  Part of the game she said was that we had to go into her familys shed.  Her sisters and older cousins were there and they all had sticks and things.  They started hitting me over and over and kept knocking me down and would not let me leave. > > I was lucky that everyone in Pearls family that isn’t a daddy is a girl and they were not very strong.  I bunched up into a ball and I shouted what daddy told me to shout if anyone every hurts me and I do not think I can get away.  WITH THIS BLOOD SHED I PAY YOU FURFUR.  EXACT MY REVENGE.  Daddy said it sounded convincing and if it came to that and Furfur listend I would not be much worse off.  I rememberd it because Furfur always sounded like an awfuly silly name.

I'm going to guess this is the girl-only family and that Pearl is probably one of the eldest ones there right now. Are they all pale and platinum blonde or is that just in my mind?

> Pearl and her sisters and her cousin ran when I said that and I went home.  I cryed and cryed the entire way and I fell down a lot because my leg hurt where I got hit.  I even scuffed my bottom lip and chin on the road when I fell on the path up to the house because its a hill and its steep in places. > > When I got home I told daddy what happened and he got really really really angry.  I was scared he would whup me but he cleaned me up and wiped up the blood instead.  He asked me lots of questions about what happened like had I played with Pearl before and how did I get away.  Then he asked me about Pearl and where we would play and if I ever saw Pearl playing after sunday school.  Then he put me to bed and told me I did not have to go to Sunday school the next day.

He is trying to figure out if any magic was involved I see. 2019 re-read thoughts: Now I know its more like he is trying to better locate the, most probably, Duchamp girl for his... later endeavor lets call it that.

> I forgot I wasn’t going to sunday school and I woke up and daddy was sitting in the living room with a drink looking out the window.  He looked scary because he had that mean and angry look he has sometimes when he whups me and he was wearing the clothes from yesterday and he hadn’t shaved his face.  He left without saying anything except to tell me I had to stay home. > > Then he came back and he changed and shaved and we ate and daddy told me that whatever came next I was forbidden to cry. > > There was a knock on the door and then Pearl’s Mama came inside dressed in her sunday best.  Daddy made tea and gave Pearl’s mama a cup and gave me a cup and made a cup for himself and they talked about everything except me and Pearl.  He looked and sounded danjerous and so did she but in a diferent way.  Then Pearl’s mama asked about hair and he reached into his pocket and he pulled out all this blond hair tied into a knot in the middle and he put it over his knee. > > She asked for it and he asked for her to promise he wouldn’t get in trouble and that I would be safe from her daughter.  They shook hands and then he gave her the hair.  She asked if it was all there and he said yes.  Then she asked if she could trust him and he smiled and said no but she had no choice. > > I didn’t know where the hair came from until I went to school the next day and I saw Pearl with her hair cut shorter than most of the boys.  Mrs. Packman said it was because of bugs and we shouldn’t laugh but I knew the truth.  Even though Pearl and her family hit me with sticks I felt really bad because Pearl always loved her long hair.  Even when braided it was long enough to touch her bottom.  She won’t even look at me now and she acts scared.

I wonder if this has to do with furfur, a spirit that cuts and collects hair, or if its just something that her father did on the side. Wasn't their family focused on females? Maybe Furfur is a barba-whatsis “safety-name” of sorts. 2019 re-read thought: This would however conflict with my earlier interpretation of the father himself going out to get the hair. BUT, maybe he wanted location informations to pass on to the demon. Then ONCE AGAIN, wasn’t Barbatorem ‘acquired’ by Rose, or was it in the family?

> It was only after that was over that daddy whupped me.  It was almost as bad as being hit with the sticks because I was already sore.  I peed pink after.  The peeing hurt and I would stamp and drum my feet on the stepstool in front of the loo to distract myself until daddy belowed for me to stop. > > He asked me if I learned the lesson and I said yes.  He asked me what the lesson was and I said it was I needed to listen.  He asked me why I needed to listen and I said if I was disobedient and did not listen then everyone would hurt me.  He said that was close enough.

It seems the disgusting methods of teaching were common. I didnt respect her before, but fuck me if it doesnt make sense that she came out the way she did. If her children didnt receive beatings, they probably had to hear a million times how worse she had it when she was their age, which is just as bad in a different way, psychological pressure to never complain.

> If I have to be truthful then I need to say my feelings hurt almost as bad as any of it.  I wish someone would explain this better.  Daddy said it was a trick but I said I did not think it made sense that someone my age could plan a trick like that and plan ahead to have people waiting in the shed like Pearl did. > > Daddy said the members of the Duchamp family could and they would do worse because they were scared of me so I could never ever never ever be friends with them.  I asked him not even when I was an adult and he said when I am an adult I will know better or I deserve what I get.

Ooh, they feared her since BEFORE she was a practictioner. Interesting.

> I think I started having the bad dreams around then.  Every night for a long time.  Then one night daddy came and picked me up and he carried me to his bed.  He told me the deal was I was allowed to cry but only so long as it was night and my head was on the pillow.  In daylight I cannot cry or show weakness.  He held me and he stroked my hair until I started to fall asleep and I felt safer.  I cryed myself to sleep and I felt better. > > After the bad dreams went away, I went back to sleeping in my own bed.  Daddy had me pick a special object to me and sit naked in a circle while I read from a book.  He said it would be better if mommy was here but I need to learn to defend myself sooner than later. > > I don’t know how to defend myself yet.  I do know that I was really worried about being lonly forever.  My mommy is away buying a book and she has been gone since winter and she should have come back by now.  I am not allowed to make friends if they belong to certain families and I am not allowed to make friends if they are already friends with someone from one of those families.  Because most people here are like that I cannot make any friends my age. > > But there are things that aren’t my age or my daddy’s age or even the age of the house that want to be my friend now.  Tricky things and scary things and things that offer me gifts like Pearl offered me the toy before she took me to the shed.  I have to be very very careful but I do not feel as lonly anymore.

So she has already awakened by the time of writing this. A lot of politics going on as expected, which are sure to fuck up one's childhood. Which makes me wonder if there really isn't one of her children who doesn't already know about all this stuff and the how and why she did what she did and seemingly didnt involve them in all this. Also seemed like she was temporarily cursed on top of everything. 2019 re-read thoughts: I’m more and more conviced as time goes on that she was just having bad dreams because of intense trauma.

> This took me a real long time to write.  I am still learning and I have to stop and think before each thing I write to make sure I am not lying.  It made me feel better and I think it was a good idea. > > I am going to go give my dad a hug now for letting me write this diary and then I am going to go talk to tricky things. > > Yours, > > Rose Thorburn > > ■ > > March 9th, 1932 > > These words are my own for me alone and nothing I write here is meant to be binding. > > Dear Diary > > Arsepint lives up to his name.  The dirty rotten bastard. > > I played a game with Arsepint and his followers today and he cheated!  He wanted a lot of things and the only thing I was willing to give him was a kiss.  I am still tasting bad eggs and garbage from the peck I gave him on the cheek.  He said a lot of very rude things to me after. > > I asked daddy for advice and he told me I had to earn a victory or none of the goblins around here would respect me.  I asked him how to win a victory and he took me to the library and helped me pick out books. > > Some of these books are so thick I can put my hand down flat on the spine and have room on either side.  I asked and daddy said that being good at books is not always about reading a lot but its sometimes about knowing where to start looking. > > He also said I needed to stop asking so many questions.  He said I have answers and I need to look for them on my own. > > Wish me luck Mr. Diary.  I will let you know how I am doing. > > Rose Thorburn > > ■ > > June 18th, 1932 > > These words are my own for me alone and nothing I write here is meant to be binding. > > Dear Diary, > > I did it! > > Winning was easy.  Now I have a Arsepint in a cage.  I have to bring him food and water once every day or he is allowed to let himself free. > > The hard part is punishing him.  How do you punish a Arsepint? > > How long would I have to lock him up before he agreed to do a song and dance about how mangy and pathetic he is in compirison to me?  I could make him do it every time he met another person for a whole year! > > He wont like it but I didnt like having to read all those books.  I was so bored I nearly cried. > > I told daddy, but he didn’t seem to understand.  He gave me a pat on the head and told me to go read some more, so I would know good ways to use Arsepint. > > Victoriasly yours, > > Rose Thorburn

Oh I see where this is going. Its exactly showing how it all became this descending spiral. It has to be here you to make us think. This is at the end of an arc where the final point is our duo awakening. I believe this is showing us what could happen to our dear characters in the future, and what has to become of them as they enter in this new world. From innocence to vengeance in everything around you.

> September 15th, 1939

> > These words are my own, for my eyes alone, and nothing I write here is binding.  You know the routine. > > Dear Diary, > > I am in a bind.  I am so sorry I ignored you these past two weeks, dear diary, but much has been going on. > > I am in Montreal now, in a different school.  They put me in a private school so I could learn more useful languages.  It is a very religious school.  There’s something witty I’m supposed to say about that but I’m too upset. > > Daddy let me bring some books, giving me a special suitcase that could hide them.  It has been so dull, and the school is so strict, I don’t have much to occupy myself with.  I would explore the school and meet the goblins and ghosts in the darkest corners, but they watch us like hawks watch mice. > > I’ve only been here a week and something happened. I could see the other girls spending time together, girls who have known each other from kindergarten.  I couldn’t thrust myself into the middle of them, so I took a book outdoors.  I told myself I would enjoy the crisp weather before the cold shuts us inside for months on end, walking away from the school to make sure I could read in peace.  I was approached and told a teacher wanted me, and I had to stow the book away inside a hollow tree, because I certainly wasn’t about to take it into the school proper.  I made sure there wasn’t anyone around to see, but someone figured it out. > > Of course it was a ruse.  I’ve been so on guard against trickster spirits and goblins, I’ve forgotten to keep my guard up around other humans.  The book was taken, then turned over to the head office in quick order when the taker found out what it was. > > I thought I had it settled when I threatened and spelled the girls who took and handed over the book, ensured that nobody knew it was them or me.  Things are only getting worse, now, with the faculty on a warpath, hunting for the real owner of the book. They are threatening to take away privileges, to punish the entire school, and it’s only a matter of time before one of them bends to the pressure and points her finger at me.  I’ve hidden my books with one working, and I can play innocent, but I fret. > > I need the book back, but I have only a few tricks at my disposal, and no creatures of any worth that I might bargain with.  Ancient ghosts with little power left, and lesser spirits. > > We have been given time for self study.  I’m using the chance to write and collect my thoughts.  I need a strategy but I’m not sure what doors are open to me.  Some religious grounds are benign but others are dangerous.  What if someone asks along specific channels and an inquisitor is alerted?

Cool to know that more common religious methods also have power over the world of magic.

> The school, as well.  There is so much talk of the war, and so much emphasis placed on making the school proud.  The faculty keeps saying they want goodness and success to come out of this dark time, and they will see the subject of this book as a dark thing. > > If they trace this back to me and come to see me as the source of this great disappointment and a stain on their pride, the hate might be even greater than what the inquisitors might direct at me. > > Above all else, I fret about my mother.  She spends so much time and effort collecting her books, I worry about what might happen if I lose one.

So its not only Rose, I imagine, that gathered the books of the library. Her mother seems to be almost a collector of sorts. The absent sort of mother as well, leaving her more and more exposed to her father’s methods of teaching.

> I must find a way in.  If the ghosts are almost useless, I will simply have to use a great many of them.  There are other lesser spirits, as well.  They will have to do, as allies go. > > I must say I thought being at a new school with no reputation would help.  Its worse.  Now, just a week in, I feel more pressure than I ever have, but I have nobody to turn to, not even to argue with or vent on.  I wonder if being hated may well be better than being a nobody. > > Rose D. Thorburn

And there it is. The turning point for her character maybe. A focal point of stress, family pressure and societal reprimand and behaviour she has to adhere. Changing her completely to what we've grown to lovehate. 2019 re-read thoughts: It also must be said that this is the first point, at least that we see, of her having to use resources outside of merely the books themselves. She has to apply her knowledge to obtain current, and low, resources to achieve her goal in a stressful situation. Cool to know that this is after the Great War, if anyone is knowledgeable, how was Canada's involvement in the war? Interesting to note that it’s her first addition of the ‘D.’ in her signing her name. Why would that be? Recognizing her father in some way? But why here and now? We see her later chaning this again IIRC.

> September 20th, 1939 > > These words are my own, for my eyes alone, and nothing I write here is binding. > > Dear Diary, > > Disaster, but not disaster of the kind I expected. > > In their quizzing of the students and their gentle and not so gentle probing, the interest of the faculty spurred the interest of the students.  Word got around about the book, and I ended up being one of no less than three groups aiming to get into the headmaster’s office and get a better look at the book. > > I bid the ghosts to scare the others, but a braver group pressed on.  Minnie from the year above me, her friends, and her cousin Herb.  I think they were almost thrilled by what I sent their way.  Herb might be the one who kept talking about joining the fight and being a hero.  Maybe that drove him to fight past fear.  Maybe he’s a moron. > > With a measure of help, I slipped into a cat’s body to spy on the new owners of the book.  With learned tricks, I joined the shadows in slipping beneath the door.  I thought I could snatch up the book and run. > > I did not expect what I saw.  They were doing things that proper boys and girls shouldn’t do until marriage.  Herb with one of Minnie’s friends and Minnie with one of Herb’s friends, and another two friends pairing up nearby. > > Dear diary, I don’t know how to name or explain the feelings that found me then. There was a kind of anxiety, warm, low in my belly, very real disgust.  Surprising, when I’ve dealt with the most vulgar of goblins. > > My father has an eye for justice, or an eye for a lack of it.  In a way, I might have viewed the world through his eyes when I saw that scene.  I saw something unjust that outraged me and wounded my pride, compelling me to act.

Jeez, I thought the feeling was of simple disgust, but theres some ingrained envy in this isnt there? Of not being ‘normal’, of not being ‘in the know’, of thinking of something so seemingly enjoyable as disgusting places her from her pedestal where she thought she was from being into the magical world and down a peg below the commoners, actually enjoying their lives. No 24/7 stress, no traumas, no gods and ghosts and monsters. Just friends, love and sex.

> I feel wretched when I think that the action I was compelled to was fleeing. > > The Lord of Montreal reached out to me last night, communicating through my dreams.  He has heard whisperings, as Lords do, and now I have a greater merchant spirit turned mortal turned god breathing down my neck.  He would like for the book to be found, and will forgive me my error if I retrieve the book and ensure the ones who took it don’t pursue such things in the future. > > I have to confront the mundane humans, and I must do it while feeling as if they are somehow more distorted and unfamiliar than many of the beings I read about in my books. > > I have been born into a world that one in a thousand people have the slightest idea on.  I know of goblins and boggarts, ghosts and elementals, demons and draiodhe.  Yet I feel as though I’m the ignorant one, here.  They are the ones who have been inducted into alluring, forbidden wrongs. > > This writing was meant to help me clarify my thoughts, but I don’t feel clarified. > > Rose D. Thorburn.

Quick rethorical question: was Grandma Rose asexual? Or simply misinformed? I find all of this from this entry very nice character traits.

> September 25th, 1939 > > These words are my own for me alone and nothing I write here is meant to be binding. > > Dear Diary, > > I don’t know what to do. > > I had no chance to write, for I was watched closely, and I had no privacy until now.  I tried, but I couldn’t secure the book before they had a chance to use it.  They called a goblin to them, and the ritual gave it power to attack.  Minnie suffered the brunt of it, and the rest of us were caught. > > The police seem to think Herb and his friends as responsible.  I was confused at first, but now I think it makes a kind of sense.  Boys, a fraction too young to go to war.  They intruded on a girl’s school, and they make for ready suspects when Minnie is hollowed out, left with only a vacant stare, unresponsive and unmoving but for the monotonous rocking of her body.  Her body was untouched, but that doesn’t count for enough. > > When the books do tell of evil things being loosed, they often make it exciting.  The mission is a rescue, a race against time.  Here, three or four lives were utterly ruined, and they may never find out why.   They were given no chance, except to leave dangerous things be.  A practitioner could have done more to help, but I am more a novice than a full fledged wielder of power.  I caught the goblin, I kept the scene clear.  I was there when police arrived to answer the screams, and now I am a witness. > > I still I don’t understand it, and I don’t know what my place in this is supposed to be. > > The books say the ignorant may rewrite their own memories.  Perhaps they will blame themselves.  Perhaps Herb and his friends will convince themselves they were responsible. That strikes me as being nearly as horrifying as anything that happened to Minnie.

These feelings are all very complex and seem to run deep into her character. Not much to comment on, just well done, gotta see more of where this all leads, but I'd say that Rose is generally scared of some of the world, maybe of the way consequences can be twisted. All these entries thus far HAVE been having something to do with consequences of her actions.

> They may instead choose to let their recollection of what happened to Minnie fade from their minds, a curious incident they don’t let themselves dwell on. > > I just sat with my pen poised over paper for long enough I needed to dip my pen again.  It’s more horrifying still, but it’s horror I feel on Minnie’s behalf.  I think it’s the scariest thing I can imagine.  Dying and having your existence erased from the world.  To be painted over and forgotten. > > It’s my first time facing the aftermath of a situation like this.  Removed from the books.  It gnawed at me every day the girls and I were confined to the rooms on the top floor of the dormitory, while I waited to talk to police, and the entire way home.  It eats at me still.

Oh no, its much different. She is scared of erasure. Of death. She will want to prolong her time as alive, maybe? But that wouldn’t fit would it? Because she died of a pretty regular age. So maybe what this points out is ust that she wants to go out with a bang. A particularly silent bang as we have been seeing.

> A small blessing that it was a goblin of no particular status or power.  It could have been far worse. > > I expected the usual sort of punishment from my father. > > I did not expect my mother, returned from a year-long trip, to meet me in front of the house. > > Her first question was after my welfare.  I told her I was well, but that the police might reach out to ask more questions, and that I might be asked to Montreal to attend court. > > Her second question was about the Lord of Montreal.  I assured her I left things on good terms. > > Her third question, of course, was about her books. > > I assured her the books were well, showing her each of the texts I’d taken with me. > > With that, she left to return to her study, leaving me with her detestable snake and with Father.  Even now, as I write this, the house has a smell, very like the aroma in that scene I stumbled on with Minnie and the rest, that had unsettled me so much. > > Ampelos was staring at me, and even though that snake face doesn’t show a damned hint of an expression, I could tell he knew, as though he read my mind.  His every movement mocked me. > > It feels like there’s always the group, and then there’s me, standing apart.

I didnt comment on before, but Rose did transform into a cat, and I see no signs of a familiar. A snake can imply so many things. Seeking the truth, coersing others, greed, toxin but also medicine and treatment.

> Ampelos is my mother’s familiar, so he is her ally.  My father is, of course, my mother’s partner. > > And then there is me. > > I think, writing this, I have settled on how I feel.  Mortified.  It’s a good word. > > I cannot make another mistake like I did, but I can’t cover every avenue by myself.  I’m too young to take a familiar for life, and I have no friends here. > > I was home, and I felt more homesick than ever.  I still do, writing this. > > Ampelos knew all this, and he silently mocked me.  My father was in a good mood, but I didn’t hear his words and I think my silence annoyed him. > > He was upset over the girl that the goblin attacked, that I’d let the book out of my sight.  He said it was my responsibility. > > I was angry, and I think both of us were a little surprised at how much emotion came out.  I said a lot of things, and I was careful to keep my word, but I don’t remember much of it. > > I blamed him, because making friends was hard before, but impossible once I became a practitioner. > > I told him the truth.  That I was given the responsibility too soon.  Other families don’t let children have powers.  I’m sixteen, but I’ve had powers for almost half of my life. > > And then I swore.  I swore I wouldn’t ever make my children go through this.  I would let them lead lives untouched by all of this. > > Never have I seen him react like he did.  As if he’d heard me and he actually listened.

> Ampelos was still there, smug.

> > I don’t know why I did it, but I took hold of Ampelos’ tail, seized a letter opener from the nearest shelf, and I stabbed him, fixing the tail to the arm of the loveseat.  I ran, before my father or mother could catch me.

Ooooooohhh fuuuuucccck! Well, we know the weight of making oaths. But what is the weight of hurting a familiar? I still don't quite understand how the snake could be taunting her either when it can only look hiss and move. Maybe its her imagination, maybe its something only she would understand, what it represented in her day-to-day life with her absent, albeit seemingly respectable but also willfully ignorant mother.

> As I said, mortified.  I know I have responsibilities.  I’ve done irreperable damage by swearing an emotional oath.  One I’ll have to keep or be forsworn. > > I know I’ll have to go back and bow my head, accept my due punishment.  It’s well after dark, and writing is getting harder as even moonlight is harder to come by.  I’m sitting out of sight, using my bookpack as a seat, but trouble is sure to find me.  I almost hope it will. > > I don’t know what to do, > > Rose D. Thorburn.

:( She just did the same homeless thing Blake did, didn’t she? She totally did. 

> September 25th, 1939 > > Dear Diary, > > I’m not going to write the bit at the beginning.  I know there is no use in it.  It doesn’t protect me or do anything.  I’ve known for a good while, and right now feels like a good time to make a change.  I’m fairly certain I never made a promise, more because my father wouldn’t have exacted one from me than because I remember anything that well.

Another answer. You cant just make protections in written letter for your lies. It was just practice.

> I’m not sure if I should write this down, but when I sit here, muddy and bleeding in spots, scuffed and bruised, I think of Minnie, and I think I want to preserve as much of myself as I can.  Even the gory bits. > > I found trouble.  Aimon Behaim.  Years older than me, visiting home while an injury heals.  An enemy. > > He mocked me, following me, and it took me minutes to realize why he wasn’t doing more.  My mother was back, and he was scared. > > I called him on it, and I offended his pride.  He teased me, a working of spirits to bring raindrops down from leaves overhead, and I retaliated by throwing down the clay doll I keep Arsepint inside, giving an order to attack.  Something of an overreaction. > > I didn’t think that a soldier might be carrying a firearm.

That sounds like trouble.

> I had to order Arsepint away before he could kill my oldest servant, and Aimon closed the distance, and pressed the gun to my head.  I spat in his face, he grabbed me by the hair, and we fought.  I dug my fingernails into his bandages, he tried to throw me over the edge of grass so I might fall in the lake, and I pulled him after me. > > Like my argument with my father, I can’t say everything that happened.  It was stupid, ignoble, and animal. > > I look at him now, lying still beside me, and I think maybe Aimon was just as scared and frustrated as I was.  A different kind of fear and frustration, but it was there. > > Somewhere along the line, he decided to let me win.  I ended up above him, pinning him. > > He didn’t expect me to call Arsepint back, and have the lesser goblin bring me the dropped firearm. > > With a gun to his head, he refused to say uncle.  To relent in the simplest, smallest way.  I think that was when I realized we were the same.  There was only us.

The first time she didnt feel alone maybe. The only time she ever had a group.

> And Arsepint.  But allowances must be made. > > He kissed me, and I kissed him back. > > Things went to natural places from there. > > I’m enjoying sitting here, watching Aimon’s bare chest rising and falling.  He has a bloody nose and it’s making him snore, and I like that. > > When I’m writing, dear Diary, I sometimes like to think that you’re communicating with me, when my thoughts clarify and I can jump to new ideas.  It’s sad, that I give you an identity, when you’re only one of a long series of notebooks, but I’ll hold to the idea because it makes it easier to put pen to paper. > > If you were communicating with me, I’d think you just pointed out how Aimon and I were connected in the heat of the moment.  You might be telling me I could have an ally in this.  A way to make up for the damage I’ve done to my family with a careless oath. > > But Minnie is still fresh in my mind.  Trusting the wrong person is a telling mistake, with consequences and damage. > > And I think of my first diary, your predecessor.  Of Pearl, who offered me an enticement before dragging me off to where I could be beaten. > > I don’t know what to do, but it’s a more comfortable sort of doubt.  At worst, I have an enemy I know and that’s better than having and knowing nothing at all.  My predecessors will have to bear with me. > > R.D.T.

And thus she would forever go into a life of doubt. I now trust that she was the author of most books rather than her mom contributing to most of them as I thought before. She was reclusive, we don’t know anything about a grandfather. Ok. Thats the end of Bonds and we end it by seeing how the family bonds that began this arc and this story started, what are they built on. Things make a lot more sense and I'm very satisfied with what we've got thus far. Everyone just seems... unhappy, never satisfied. Those are dangerous feelings for people with power in their hands.

I'm currently in a shed in the middle of the woods, I'll maybe do an after arc thoughts. Something more in-depth. But that is a big maybe, becuase right now, I'm diving right into Arc 2!!

2019 clarification: Reminder that this was all written January 2018. That trip seems so long ago!

[codezeta-liveblog-blog]

Damages 2.2 - Voting, walking, reading and planning

Diving right back in after the last chapter. Going to see precisely how people react to Blake's announcement.

> I could see the looks on their faces.  The adults had damn good poker masks, but even they were showing that my words had had an effect.  A woman in the Behaim circle reached for her husband’s hand, without taking her eyes off me, as though she thought she were the only one reaching for a measure of security.  Except almost everyone had a little clue like that.  The kids most of all. > > I’d give three groups safe passage.  Somehow, with the how of it to be negotiated when I’d done more research. > > It was interesting, to see how they all reacted to that tidbit.  I tried to take it in, taking note of who’d reacted the most.  Who was most insecure?  Who was more secure?  The responses they offered and the scale of those responses told me a lot. > > The Duchamps were good at hiding their emotions.  Even down to the eight or ten year old girls sitting beside their mothers, they showed less of a reaction than many of the Behaim adults did on the other side of the aisle. > > Johannes was still smiling, and the girl Maggie was leaning forward now, clearly interested. > > The girl Laird had referred to as a terrorist and the guy I wasn’t supposed to interact with under any circumstances. > > “Hey, that sort of sounds like a threat,” a girl said. > > I turned my head to see the witch hunter.  She held a gun. > > “No, Eva,” the boy said.  “It wasn’t.” > > She pointed the gun at me.  I was so focused on the forces arrayed on the benches and around the edges of the room that it took me a moment to process what that meant.  A slight pull on the trigger, and I was gone. > > Fuck, she had her finger on the trigger. > > “Someone say the word,” Eva said.  “Threatening people, could be out of control.  Say the word, tell me he’s too dangerous to leave alive.”

A bit of a trigger-happy person isnt her? I dont see much of a future partnership coming from the witch hunters. They seem almost eager to just end everyone if they could get away with it.

> “No,” Laird cut in.  “Not with the things Rose might have put in place.  If there are special measures at work, we can’t act.” > > Eva dropped the gun to point it at the floor.  She smiled at me when I looked up at her face. > > “Are you assuming he’s telling us the truth,” the Duchamp family’s leader said.  The blonde woman I’d seen talking to Laird.  She looked like the sort of person who would be the queen bitch at PTA meetings. > > “I can’t lie,” I said. > > “That doesn’t mean you’re telling us the truth,” she said. > > “I’m pretty sure that’s what it means,” I said. > > “What you’re saying and what you’re telling us are very different things,” she said.  “Why are you focused on your seat?  You left something behind.” > > Right.  Enchantress.  She could see the connections between things. > > “I have help,” I said.  “Help my grandmother left me.” > > I could see her eyes studying me.  Roving over my body, my clothes, and very pointed locations around me. > > “Yes.  A companion.” > > “A vestige,” Laird said. > > Vestige? > > “Of Rose?” the North End Sorcerer asked, his eyebrows raised. > > “Yes,” Padraic spoke out loud, at the same Laird said, “I don’t think so.” > > I could see a few glances being exchanged at that discrepancy. > > “There is something else out there,” she said.  “Back in the house.  It’s not cooperating with him at this point in time.” > > Damn.

Good that she cant see exactly what. Its just open enough that it doesnt exactly muck with the entire plan.

> “That’s not reassuring,” Johannes said.  “Just the opposite.  A mad dog running rampant is often scarier than a dog on a leash being set on targets.” > > “It depends on who’s holding the leash, doesn’t it?” I asked. > > The Sorcerer dipped his head in a single nod, “It does.  Which is why I said often.  At this point, from the sense I have of you, I would be more concerned about an unleashed dog than an attack dog at your control.” > > I was very, very aware of all the eyes on me.  Many of which were inhuman.  One small disparaging remark, but there were a lot of ears to hear it. > > “I’ve said most of what I needed to say…” I told them, trailing off as I tried to collect my thoughts.  I thought of what I’d seen in the visions.  The way Laird had talked about sitting back, there being no need to act.  In the end, it had been someone else that had set those bird-skull things on me. > > They were cooperating.  Taking turns, negotiating with each other. > > I needed to put a stop to that.  Or throw a wrench into it.  And I had to think of Molly. > > “…I’m making one more offer.  An altered version of the deal I just gave you.  I’m willing to do what I can to protect you against any of my grandmother’s demons that happen to run rampant, and I’d still give you free reign to come after me.  I’ll protect an enemy, if my condition is met.  Identify the person responsible for my cousin’s death.  This deal, obviously, is off the table if you did it.” > > Cops in cop shows liked to do the whole thing where they’d put two perps in different rooms and let them sweat over whether the other guy would turn them in.

Difference is, this time you can be the cop that takes and offers bribes with no repercussion.

> Maybe I was disarming myself, on a level, but I still didn’t want to use the devils.  If I could ratchet up the paranoia or turn them against one another, it was worth it. > > I took in the crowd.  Now that the alarm was fading, my chance to see any more tells was gone.  I could only lose out by standing up there any longer. > > I walked down the aisle, and I took my seat on the pew. > > Laird took his position at the front.  He was still wearing the longer coat, hands in his pocket as he half-sat on the stage or chancel or altar or whatever it was supposed to be called.

I'm hoping to see some outside interactions. If this doesnt throw a wrench into the plans, something has to. And I would very much like to know how eveyone stands with one another as of right now since Laird's views were proba ly majorly biased.

> “Well,” he said.  “Let’s get this out of the way.  Who’s interested in taking the deal?” > > Wait.  What? > > “Not seeing any raised hands,” Laird said.  “It’ll be good if we get this out of the way, before it gets messy.” > > Negotiating here?  Now?  I’d hoped for more backstabbing, a little more chaos. > > “Maggie, was it?  You perked up when he made the offer.” > > “I sort of am,” she called out, from beside me.  She glanced at me, but she looked a little concerned.  “I’ve seen how things go bad, if you let them.  And that was only goblins, I think.  So how bad are these things?” > > “They’re very bad,” Laird said.  “There have been cases where small towns disappeared after one got loose.  Outsiders were called in, the offending Others were dealt with, and the areas were written off.  One big symbol was drawn out in each area, to drive away the surviving locals and any visitors.  They made some efforts to erase the areas from the books, and they became the towns you pass by on road trips, but never visit.  Presentable when seen from a distance.  When this happens in bigger cities, well, you can erase a great deal of evidence with a large enough fire or a natural disaster.” > > That was a little more serious than anything I’d read about.

Natural disasters confirmed as possible spells. No wonder, with the exposition of spirtis we got earlier.

> “I’ve seen something like that happen before,” Maggie said.  “But it wasn’t… whatever you’re talking about.  Small spot, bit of a disaster, everything cleared out.  Now there’s an entire area of town people avoid.” > > “I believe many of us know what you’re referring to.” > > “Well, why is this so much worse?  That’s a rhetorical question.  I get that it’s a big deal, from the way you’re acting, and because I can sense that much.  But I’m curious about the why and how.” > > “Let me help you understand.  Many of us here have discussed options, with the Thorburn family in mind.  We’ve grown up with this danger in mind.  I’ve talked about it with my wife,” Laird said.  He paused for a second, glancing at his wife.  I could see her move, her arm going around her children or relatives.  Two boys, two girls. > > Laird drew in a deep breath, then told Maggie, “If it came down to it and Blake Thorburn sent something like that after my family, if I didn’t have measures in place, or if I didn’t feel my measures would hold, then I would use gun, knife, bludgeon, or whatever I had at my disposal to kill my family before that thing could reach them.  Because I love my family too much to do otherwise.” > > There was near-silence, punctuated only by some sniggering from some of the things I took to be goblins. > > “It’s a big deal then,” Maggie said.  “Why aren’t you taking the offer?” > > “Because I do have measures that should be effective.  I told Mr. Thorburn as much.  Successfully managing this situation and ensuring that things progress smoothly means safeguarding the bit players.  I have the means to protect myself, I can give some to the Duchamp family as a pre-wedding gift, if they’re willing.  If Crone Mara, you and the woods girl take the deal, most of us are protected.  Blake Thorburn is rendered impotent, or he makes a mistake and removes himself as a threat.”

I wonder what measures are enough for freaking demons if holding them in one place requires a mound of boar carcasses. Everyone seems rather confident, which looks like something that can get them into trouble if Blake goes nuts after this meeting. I mean, I wouldnt be calling Rose a demonologist if she only had a single demon.

> “And destroys us all?” Mrs. Duchamp asked. > > “That is something we can work on, but it’s a risk nonetheless.” > > Maggie sat back, propping one of her winter boots up against the book-holder on the back of the pew in front, where the bibles and hymn sheets or whatevers were held.  “This sounds an awful lot like a trap.” > > “It is,” Laird said.  “Primarily for Mr. Thorburn, removing all possible leverage he might hold.  I feel the risk to you if you take the deal is far smaller than if you don’t.” > > “But it’s still a little trap for me.  For us,” Maggie said.  “And I’m betting that when all’s said and done, you come out ahead.” > > “Yes.  Alongside the Duchamps, in keeping with our alliance.  But we’re all better off, Mr. Thorburn excepted, and he would be largely removed as a threat.” > > “No.  Drat that,” Maggie said.  “Drat you.  I’ll do what I want.”

Blake, we have a Maggie, she’s ours. Also drat is a very lame slur. Any promises to never swear in her past? Maybe just growing up with a strict family?

> Her way of swearing seemed odd.  It had in the vision where I’d first seen her, too.  I felt a measure of relief and concern.  She wasn’t an ally, per se, but at least she wasn’t playing Laird’s game. > > Laird said, “I thought I was being polite, including you.  Johannes, Crone Mara, and the girl from the glades, then?” > > “I seem to be your last pick among the local practitioners,” Johannes said.  When I craned my head to look, he was smirking.  “I’m mildly offended.”

I'm still glad that people seem to be super not into whatever Laird is focusing on, mostly.

> “Offended or not, are you interested?  We might as well settle this now.” > > “I’ll hear what the Briar Girl and Mara have to say, before I make any decision.” > > The Briar Girl shifted position.  She was plain, her hair a mess, with a twig stuck in the back somewhere.  Her winter clothes were layered, a little scuffed at the edges of the sleeves and pant leg.  She was wearing pyjamas beneath the jeans. > > The spirit walked along the back of the pew with a coyote’s legs, until it stood directly behind her, leaning in to whisper in her ear with a beaked mouth. > > “When the house’s occupants are gone, the woods and marshes there are mine,” she said. > > “In what sense?” Laird asked. > > “In every sense.  I want it like Johannes has the north end.” > > “You want it uncontested as your demesnes, you mean.” > > “Yes.” > > “A bit too steep of a price, I suspect.  You’re not paying attention to the context of this situation.  We need to drain the marshes to let the city expand, which is something we require to further all of our interests, yours included.” > > “I am paying attention.  I don’t care,” the Briar Girl said.  The spirit’s beak was partially open still by her ear, serrated with sawlike teeth.  One of its large yellow eyes were fixated on Laird.  “The city will expand all the same, but it will expand slower.  More expensive for you.  It’ll still get where you want it to get.  When it does, I’ll have all those woods and marshes.  One way or another.” > > “I see.  Then there’s no use in asking the others,” Laird said. > > “I doubt I would have accepted, in any case,” Johannes said.  “Just saying.”

I still like you Johannes. Your way of speaking and your dog all appease my interests.

> I glanced at Mara.  She sat alone, eyes fixed in front of her, hands in her lap, very still. > > Nobody had really talked to her yet.  Did she say or do anything? > > Laird was nodding, frowning. > > “My rose has done what she aimed to,” Padraic said.  “You’ve offended two of us, Aimon Behaim.  Johannes and me both.” > > “I’m not Aimon, my name is Laird,” Laird said. > > Padraic looked a touch annoyed at being corrected.  “Aimon, Laird, Lame Airhard, no matter.  You’ve wounded me, ignoring me in this critical moment.  I have far more to lose than you, don’t I?  An immortal lifespan, against, what, thirty more of your years?  Twenty of your wife’s?  Sixty two of one daughter’s, fifty one of another, one of a son’s life?  Add them together for your family as they are now and you have, what?”

Laird not read up on this little quirk in Others? Where they dont recognize lineage and call you by the name of your ancestors? First hint in the story where we know something someone else doesnt if thats the case and that counts as something for me.

> One of his companions I hadn’t yet met said something under his breath.  The numbers Padraic had given were eerily specific.  Laird didn’t even flinch, hearing them, didn’t glance at his children.

Probably maximum possible natural lifespan. That "one year" one though is eerie.

> “Eight hundred and seven years, for your extended family?  Paltry,” Padraic said.  He made a face, “In terms of the years I’m expected to live, I’m much more important.  Yet you dismiss me.” > > “I’d planned to make offers to you and many of the remaining Others, to ensure everyone was on stable footing before proceeding,” Laird said. > > “Well,” Padraic said, leaning back, “What would you offer?  I’m going to be insulted if you don’t make a good suggestion, now.” > > “Despite the fact that we’re no longer negotiating?” > > “Exactly so.  It’s a question of my pride.  How do you value my remaining lifespan, Behaim?” > > “I’d thought I might offer to talk to the Queen that exiled you, and see if I could offer to make you a familiar to one of my grandchildren.  I could fund him or her, so they could travel, freeing you from your imprisonment here for a time.” > > “She wouldn’t accept, and the offer is weak at best,” Padraic said.  “Putting the rest of my life at risk for a mere forty or so years of mild adventure?  Try again.” > > I clenched my hands in my lap.  Had I set Laird back, here?  A small success? > > “Your kind aren’t in my realm of expertise.  Sandra?  I apologize for asking, but-” > > The Duchamp’s leader nodded, all the way in the frontmost pew.  The blonde PTA-bitch woman stood as Laird sat down beside his wife.  She composed herself, then said, “What would you ask for, Patrick?” > > “That’s cheating.” > > “I’m still asking.  I’ll try to make you a counteroffer.” > > “One of Laird’s generations.  Grandchildren, grand-nieces and nephews, and the children of his cousins.”

Are this the people that follow him, i wonder what he gets from it. They look constantly enebriated from what I remember, they talked about partying too. Maybe he somehow needs company, or just demands it. Maybe it extends his lifespan in turn in some way. Very curious this group's tendency to seek taking people for themselves.

> “That has the unfortunate consequence of ending his line.” > > Padraic smiled.  “I could return them, more or less in one piece.  Let them age up to twenty or so, educate them.  It would be novel, and if we kept some in reserve and staggered out when and how we returned them, we could amuse ourselves for hundreds of years.” > > “I see,” Sandra Duchamp said.  “Here’s my counteroffer: what if I offered a messenger?” > > “The Queen won’t listen,” Padraic said, sighing. > > “To other banished Faerie, in other cities and towns.  Until our family line ends or the Queen is replaced and the court dynamic changes up once again.” > > “Springtime,” Padraic said.  “Mm.  That would have been a good offer.  Paved the way for an insurrection of sorts.” > > “Perhaps,” Sandra Duchamp said.  “That would be dangerous for my family.  I was thinking of maintaining some connection to the courts, in a peripheral manner.” > > “Nonetheless, I’m pacified.  I no longer feel slighted.” > > “Then,” Sandra Duchamp said, “Thorburn’s offer remains open, I will know who accepts it, if anyone does.  Let’s set that matter aside so we’re free to move on.   The murder of Molly Walker?” > > Laird responded without standing, “It’s largely under wraps.  The investigation will hit a dead end on its own.” > > “Any assistance needed?” > > “No.  I’ll keep an eye on things.” > > “Good,” Sandra said.  It seemed like she was leading things, now.  Was leadership exchanged so easily?  “In terms of more mundane business… Toronto is currently in the dark.  Provided there aren’t any further interruptions, my family should be able to divert attention for the time being.  I’ve had a short discussion with the Lord of Ottawa, and she is on board, keeping her subservients at bay.” > > “The smaller towns in the GTA?”  The Briar Girl asked.

All this talk of Lords and Queens, ever since Grandma's chapter actually, I'm wondering what that implies and if Jacob's Bell has one. I'm thinking they dont hold the influence yet and are trying to figure that out. Probably trying to be one of the two main families, but things like Johannes sets that back.

> “Stable, expressing no interest and exerting no pressure.  I see only three or four individuals or groups that might make an active play, and they are doing no such thing.  The remainder would sell us out to Toronto’s Lord or try to sell us out to Ottawa and inform us.  For the time being, we’re the only individuals in play, here.” > > There were nods all around.  I saw some of the Others leaving.  Apparently those were the only major points they were interested in hearing. > > “Next order of business.  I’m obligated to call it to a vote.  Flagrant use of one’s practice in public, acting against the local powers.  Maggie Holt.” > > The witch hunter girl at the front perked up at that.  So did Maggie. > > “Excusable use,” Maggie said.  “Nobody even thought it was anything suspicious.” > > “To sanction the use of the Jacob’s Bell witch hunters to execute Maggie Holt, please vote,” Sandra Duchamp declared. > > The Briar Girl raised her staff.  One member of Laird’s family, a teenage boy with brown hair, raised a golden disc, held between crossed index and middle fingers.  He looked back at Maggie, and she rolled her eyes. > > Nobody else in the room raised their implements.  Not even the woman who called the vote.  What was the proper course of action if we didn’t have implements to raise?  Raising our hands?  Or were we not allowed to vote? > > “Two yeas, the remainder of the votes are nay.  The execution is not passed,” Sandra Duchamp said.  “Be careful.  You have very few friends here.  When we’re not following so soon after one execution, we may prove more willing to vote against you.”

Oh? Who was executed? Molly? I'm still thinking btw that not everyone who was interested in Blake's offer would voice themselves. And I'm highly suspicious of all this interest of outaide parties and how they dont know or shouldnt know about how the city is going in and trying to establish itself. Good to know we seem to be between Ottawa and the GTA in Ontario.

> I saw Maggie sit back a little.  She was a little relieved, or she’d hidden the tension well. > > The discussion continued, along the same lines.  Outside players, minor internal disputes over who was doing what, and all of the other details that went into maintaining the balance of power. > > ■ > > “…And with that, the meeting is called to order,” Laird Behaim said.  He’d taken over again when Sandra’s voice had started to give out.  He opened his pocket watch.  “Seven forty-four.” > > That seemed to be the end of it.  The remaining crowd picked up and got ready to leave, pulling on winter clothes, gathering implements and tools.  I was among them, getting my jacket on before pulling on the backpack of weapons and tools. > > Many of the Others were gone.  Most of the ones who remained were still human in appearance. > > Nobody seemed interested in talking to me, so I made my way outside. > > “Not exactly the result you wanted,” Rose murmured, as we passed outside.  The mirror was still sticking out of the top of my backpack. > > “Not a bad result either,” I said.  “Do you object?  Bad plan?” > > “No.  I would have liked more time to consider it, but there are worse ideas.  What was with that bit at the end?  You won’t use devils to attack someone, but they can attack you?” > > I nodded.  “I needed some incentive.  I didn’t have time to stand there thinking about it, so I went with the most obvious thing.” > > “Right.  Well.  Thoughts?” > > “Getting home, seeing if anyone expresses interest, get more reading done.” > > “Shopping?  Food?” > > “Stores close in twelve minutes, and I don’t want to dally.  If it comes down to it, I can live off what’s in the house now, at least until next month.” > > “Grim,” Rose said. > > “Tell me about it,” I said.  “Remind me of this idiotic call, a little while from now.” > > “Will do.” > > “Something else we need to talk about,” I said, “Is this vestige thing.  It’s the… second or third time I’ve heard it, and I’m pretty sure you referenced it, one of those times.” > > “Talking to yourself, Mr. Thorburn?” > > I wheeled around.  Rather than stop, I kept walking backwards. > > Johannes and Maggie.  North End Sorcerer and the girl with the checkered scarf.

Together eh? She seems to be getting around as you can get for practitioners and others in Jacob's Bell

> And, I had to note, a small contingent of goblins.  The dog walked alongside Johannes, through slush and snow, the long hair not getting wet or dirty.  Johannes wore a white coat, and it was pristine. > > Maggie, by contrast, had specks and spots of gray-brown grime on her leggings, with circles of wet spreading around them.  Her skirt and hair blew around in the wind, and she hunched over, hands jammed in her pockets, as she trudged on. > > Most of the goblins were children, paying very little attention to us as they hopped onto nearby cars or walls.  Two were large.  Gorilla-like things, ugly as hell, stark naked, their faces bent in permanent scowls.  A child-like goblin jumped on the shoulders of one of the larger ones.  A moment later, it was seized and smashed against the nearest lightpost. > > “I’m talking to my companion,” I said.  Might as well admit it. > > “Yes.  You are,” Johnannes said.  “I’m liking how quickly you’re picking this up.  The language, turns of phrase used to redirect, to mislead.  You’re talking to your companion, yes, but you’re not denying that you’re talking to yourself.” > > He knew?  Even Laird hadn’t made any obvious connections. > > “You’ve been watching?” I asked. > > “Yes.  Everyone has, to some degree.”

That was to be expected. All those Others were probably serving under someone when not by themselves.

> “You up for the deal?”  I asked. > > “Didn’t you hear?” Johannes asked.  “Behaim wants us to take the deal.  It leaves everything in the hands of the two more powerful circles in Jacob’s Bell.  Chaos is minimized, and they can take whatever action they need to in order to remove you.” > > “Why not call an execution against me?” I asked.  “Seems easy enough.” > > “Laird promised you safety.  He’s walking a fine line, trying to keep you in a position to threaten others while ensuring you’re manageable and that the situation stays stable,” Johannes said.  “It’s most advantageous to him, because it lets him present traps to Maggie, the Briar Girl, Mara and me like he did tonight.  He’s secure enough that any trouble you cause will set others back more than it sets him back.  If you fail in that role, he kills you and finds an equilibrium with the next heir.” > > Maggie said, “It’s like he lives his life by the ticking of that clock of his, orderly, tidy, neat, but he thrives on controlled chaos.”

I forgot about that! I Thought he only needed to protect Blake in his presence during that one walk out for coffee! And the controlled chaos thing makes sense. If I didnt imagine it, his clock did look overcomplicated didnt it?

> “If-” a voice started behind me.  It cut off when I turned.  Rose.  “If the execution was only stayed today because of the promise he made, what’s stopping him from doing it next month?” > > “A very good question, miss…?” Johannes let the question hang. > > “I don’t know if I should answer that.” > > “Miss Mirror.  A good question,” Johannes said.  “The obvious answer is that he won’t call for an execution if you’re useful to him.  He can use the threat you pose as a distraction or a tool, apparently.  He’s not worried, because he seems to think he has an answer to whatever you might send his way.  How is that?  How would he know what you have at your disposal and how to respond?” > > “Aimon,” Rose said.  “She was close to Aimon, once?”

Very close. Might even be some Behaim blood in our character's veins.

> “Well, that’s one idea,” Johannes said.  “You can then give some thought to a way around it.  If you were to get your hands on a dark Other of horrendous power, is it possible that Laird might not have an answer to it?” > > “Depends on what the answer is,” I said.  “Could be some contract she made with every Other in her books.  Could be a tool, or some excerpts from the books.” > > “Very true,” Johannes said.  “So?” > > “So,” Rose said.  “I’m wondering why you’re ‘helping’ us.” > > “Are you wondering?” Johannes replied.  “Mr. Blake Thorburn, why do you think I’m helping?”

I'm supposing Aimon was some kind of practitioner specialized in defense spells. And the only theory I currently have for Johannes being here is that he is a cool guy who is probably going to turn out bad and then I will be sad. In all seriousness,he only has to gain from making the two other bigger factions of the town not compete with him as the city expands.

> “Maybe because it’s a danger to Laird, and you lose nothing if I fail.” > > “If you fail badly enough, I could lose everything.  In order of severity, there’s failure where you’re ineffectual, failure where you get yourself killed, and greater failure still where you might get everyone here killed.  But yes.  I lose nothing of substance by helping, and I could see Laird Behaim unseated, removed or disconcerted.  I like that,” Johannes said.

I also like that

> “Which brings us back to what we were talking about before,” Maggie said.  “How do you mess with Laird?  I’m thinking, if he’s got his protections, he either has them on his person, which is unlikely since he’s protecting his whole family.  They could be more abstract sorts of protections, or he’s set them up somewhere.” > > I nodded slowly.  “Abstract meaning something like my grandmother made a promise to Aimon that the Behaims would all be safe, then signed deals to put it into motion.” > > No.  It didn’t make sense that she’d leave me something like that if there was no way to use it against Laird.  I didn’t say that out loud. > > “And?”  Johannes asked, cutting into the silence that had followed my statement. > > “The prepared protections,” Rose said, “Are protections that are arranged already.  Safe ground?” > > Johannes nodded.  “It could be barriers, weapons, wards, or other safeguards.  He prepares them in advance, then pulls his family back to safety if he expects you’re going to attack.  It’s likely it would be somewhere accessible.” > > I said, “That means I’d have to find his place.  If I disposed of the safeguards and prevented him from erecting any more, he loses his bargaining chip.” > > “That would be the natural conclusion,” Johannes said.  “Getting into his place to do anything would be the real difficulty.  His home is his demesnes, and any protections he has against demons, devils and infernal things might be supplemented with protection against the practitioner that might command them.” > > Over and over again, there were these dead ends.  Couldn’t get a familiar, implement, or demesnes without other assets.  Couldn’t attack Laird. > > “You’re not really thinking about doing this, are you?” Rose asked.  Asked me. > > “No,” I said.  “I don’t think it’s doable.”

You cant do those things without outside help. Much like this one visit. Fuck please dont be baiting the two of them to waste time and run out of safeground.

> “I don’t either,” Johannes said.  “Returning us to the question of how you protect yourself.  From a vote of execution or otherwise.  You most likely can’t scare him into submission, you won’t be able to maintain the balance he wants indefinitely.  Which would only be delaying the inevitable, by the by.  That leaves you two options, as I see it.” > > He had a tone to his voice.  As though he was waiting for me to ask what those options were. > > Why? > > I’d ask and he would… > > “You want payment, in exchange for you sharing what those options are?”  I asked. > > “Or you can name them yourself.  I’m not picky,” he said. > > We walked on in silence, boots squeaking and crunching in the snow. > > “When we first saw you, you offered help.  For a price,” Rose said. > > “That’s one of the two options,” Johannes said.  “I’m suspicious that any price I ask would be minor at best, compared to what you’d have to pay one of Rose Thorburn’s Otheracquaintances.  If you know what I mean.” > > There was a moment of silence as we considered.  Johannes seemed content to enjoy the silence.  Maggie was quiet in general.

Why is she here anyways? Grandma and or her family seem to have done expensive things during their time since everyone seems to know about their debts.

> I asked, “They’re both allied against me?  The Behaim Circle and Duchamp coven?” > > “Most likely.  They’re united by the marriage that is coming to pass.  It makes them powerful.  Not as powerful as me, but powerful.” > > I nodded.  “And I can’t stop the marriage?  Split them apart?”

I doubt you can do much to bonds relating to enchantresses.

> “I don’t imagine you could.  The idea I had was a simpler one.  Think.  What’s the issue you face?” > > The issue?  Me being in Maggie’s shoes, seeing those hands go up, and the witch hunter with awful trigger etiquette. > > “If the danger is a vote of execution,” I said, “We could theoretically win over enough people that they couldn’t get the majority.” > > “Do all members of the family count?” Rose asked.  “There’s no way, if they do.” > > “The senior member of each family unit gets one vote,” Johannes said.  “All put together, that is three from the Duchamps, and four from the Behaims.” > > “Seven,” I said. > > “Myself, Maggie, The Briar Girl, Mara, Padraic, two Others, at a minimum,” Johannes said.  “You might want more, in case any Others decide to vote against you.  A slim chance, but you have one month.” > > “Except I can’t step outside for that one month,” I said.  “I do, I have to face down whatever spells or traps they’ve laid for me.” > > “I’m hated,” Johannes said.  “Why am I free to roam?” > > “You’re powerful,” I said.  I glanced back at the goblins.  “And you’ve got help.” > > Another catch-twenty-two.  Get powerful so I could go outside, but I needed to go outside so I could get more powerful. > > It all came down to power. > > “If it’s not a vote of execution you face, having any or all of the named individuals helping you would still protect you against the family.  Win each of us over, use us.” > > “Be used in turn,” Rose said. > > “Naturally,” Johannes said.

Something I think Blake isn't exactly quite ready to do is compromise. But I cant blame him. He physically cant compromise in his situation, enough problems, things to worry about and debts.

> “Speaking of.  You have the one measure that was put in place,” Rose said. > > Measure?  I turned my head. > > Oh.  She was talking about what I’d brought up at the meeting.  I’d been talking about Rose, but I’d let them think I was talking about something else.  Something that could release the barber if I was hurt or killed. > > Would fear work? > > “I do,” I said.  “I’m not really a fan of any option that works only after I get brutally murdered.” > > Leading Johannes and Maggie to believe that there was a safeguard in place.  But the truth was, I wasn’t a fan of that sort of option.  Generally speaking. > > “Food for thought,” Johannes said.  He pointed at a busier road, though ‘busy’ was a misleading term, when one referred to sleepy Jacob’s Bell.  A car every minute or two.  “I’m going this way.” > > “You’re not taking the deal?” I asked, again. > > “We’ll see.  There’s no rush,” he said.  “We really should talk again.  You know where to find me.  Ask politely before you come, and there should be no issue.  Miss Mirror?” > > “Yes?” Rose asked. > > “You would find yourself in good company, should you visit.” > > With that, he walked off, his familiar beside him, goblins following, darting into shadows as cars passed down the road. > > Leaving me with Maggie and the two largest goblins. > > “Good company?” Rose asked. > > “You’re an Other,” Maggie said.  “That place is like an Other’s amusement park.  There, it’s like the old days, before the Seal of Solomon.  Before humans were really able to fend for themselves.” > > “This is sanctioned?” I asked.  Hard to imagine there hadn’t been a vote against Johannes. > > “No,” Maggie said.  “What does it matter?  The area is his.  Purely his.  The only person who gets a say is him.”

Does he just respect Others that much? I like his style a lot either way.

> “That doesn’t sound like my kind of company,” Rose said.  “Killing people, picking them off…” > > “Maybe he meant something else?” Maggie asked.  She shrugged in answer to her own question.

I really doubt there is just a corner of town where people get picked off to get killed by Others. Laird would give a shit about that.

> “We’re walking this way,” I pointed.  “You?” > > “Same.  Straight all the way down to the lake.” > > “Same direction for a bit, then turning off to one side,” I said. > > Maggie looked back at her giant goblins, said, “Come on.” > > We walked together. > > “You’re friends with Johannes?” I asked. > > “Not really.  I mean, some common ground.  Acquaintances, but not friends.  Neither of us are big fans of the old guard.  But, you know, you can’t really interact fairly with someone when there’s this big an imbalance in power.” > > “No,” Rose said. > > I didn’t have anything to say to that. > > “Blake is a member of the old guard,” Rose said.  “Just so it’s clear.  Old family, old knowledge.” > > “But you two are clueless,” Maggie said.  “You don’t know jack.  You just got awakened, you just got introduced to this whole shebang.”

Just how did you begin with then? You are a girl, in the woods maybe or at least thats where we saw you if my memory isnt failing me, who taught you the ropes, the ins and outs?

> “Give us time,” I said.  “We’re working on it.” > > “The rest of those guys out there?  They don’t want you to have time.  They’re going to use you, get you killed, then do the same for all the rest of them.” > > “And you?” I asked. > > “And me.  I might be happier if you stay alive.  That way there are more chances to use you.  I don’t get much from offing you.  Bit of a boost in raw power, but that only puts the grand kibosh on all of this.  The guys in charge stay in charge, and us runts stay on the bottom.  What’s the point of moving everyone up five rungs on the ladder, if you’re still going to be three rungs below the next pleb?” > > “I think that depends on your motivations,” I said.  “If you’re trying to achieve something, then it’s good.  If you want power for power’s sake, then no, it doesn’t help.” > > We had reached the street I turned off at.  I stopped, and Maggie stopped too. > > “What do you want?” she asked. > > I thought back to the oath I’d made while awakening.  “Freedom, safety, I want to help my family, past, present and future.  I want to help my… companion here.” > > “Yeah?” Maggie asked.  “Huh.” > > “What do you want?” Rose asked. > > “I can’t put it to words.  I feel dumb if I say it out loud.  But power helps everything.  Knowledge is power.  I want knowledge and power.” > > “Where’d you get knowledge in the first place?”  I asked.

Hey Maggie did you know we have a FAT ASS THICC STASH of sum o' dat good ol' "knowdge" at the house?? Also good to see she has a deeper motivation. I'm imagining she has some real sentimental aspirations. For some reason "revitalizing a place taken over by someone else in power" came to mind. But I dont know if she has enough history in this town for that, we will see.

> She reached for her bag, rifled inside, and retrieved a small binder. > > “All here,” she said.  She hugged it against her stomach with both hands. > > The way pages stuck out, how some of them seemed like newspaper, some like printer paper, and some clearly lined, it seemed more like a scrapbook than what it really was.  A tome, a spellbook.

Well that anwsers that doesnt it?

> “Where’d you get that?” I asked.  “Or… how did you make it?” > > “Started off with a bit.  Long story.  Gathered the rest myself, piece by piece.  Dealing, trading, competing for it.” > > “Want more?” I asked. > > She raised an eyebrow. > > “I’ve got a whole library of books,” I said.  “But I need help.” > > “You want to deal?” she asked. > > “Maybe,” I said.  “If my companion doesn’t object and-” > > “I don’t object,” Rose said. > > “-and if you can clarify what Laird was talking about, when he referred to you as a terrorist.” > > “I hate that word,” Maggie said.  “It’s so overused.” > > “Is it inaccurate?” I asked. > > “No, but that’s because it’s vague.  Using fear to achieve political aims?  Define ‘using fear’.  Define ‘political’.  That Behaim guy is a terrorist.  So is Sandra Duchamp.  So is Johannes.  So are you.” > > “I’m using fear so I can survive,” I said. > > “You’re raising your status in people’s estimation.  That’s political.” > > “That’s pushing the definition,” I said. > > “So is Laird!  You want my answer, on why he’d call me that?  There you go.” > > I frowned. > > “What?” Maggie asked.  “It’s the only real answer I can think of.” > > “I need more information before I can make a call,” I said.  “But I’m going to get back.” > > “There are still hours of safety,” Maggie said. > > “There are.  But my bag is getting pretty heavy, and I’m not sure I trust the general definition of hours, with Laird around, or the definition of safety, with, well, just about anyone I’ve met here.” > > “You’re leaving me hanging?”  Maggie asked.  “If I could say anything crude, I’d say it now.  I… can’t even allude to it.  Blue.  You’re leaving me blue.”

Aha. She cant be rude for some reason. That is both cuteand frustrating. Imagine if Blake couldnt swear.

> “Sad?” Rose asked. > > Maggie groaned in frustration. > > “We’re going to meet again,” I said.  “For now, though, you’ll have to forgive me if I’m overly cautious.  I seem to recall you saying something about the noobs being easy marks.” > > “You heard that,” Maggie said. > > “We can meet sometime this week, maybe negotiate a deal.  After… my partner and I have slept on it.  My info for your backup,” I said.  “If I can find a way to safely leave Hillsglade House, and if I can feel a bit more confident about working alongside you.” > > “How bad could I be?” Maggie asked. > > I looked at her, framed by the two monstrous brutes that were following her. > > “I don’t know,” I said.  “Let’s not find out.  I’ll talk to you later?” > > She shrugged.  “Maybe.” > > I turned to go.

Seems like I will like maggie too. Not many likeable characters around. To be expected, first arc establishes our protagonists first, so we only got dealt with the worst people for the setup it was due. While I'm sad that Blake's plan didnt seem to work straight up, I am happy that Maggie and Johannes seem at least approachable after so much animosity.

> From the main road, it was only a little ways to get to the Hillsglade property.  The only hassle was the uphill nature of the walk. > > “Watch my back?” I asked. > > “Sure,” Rose said. > > I trudged along until the house came into view. > > “We okay?” I asked. > > “I’m not sure how to answer that,” she said.  “Generally?  No.  I don’t think we’re okay at all.  We’re probably going to die.” > > “You know what I mean.” > > “Are you okay?  No.  Am I okay?  No.” > > “Now you’re intentionally misunderstanding me,” I said.  I added a quick, “I think.” > > “I am.  Are we okay as a pair?  No.  We aren’t.” > > “Okay,” I said.  “I get that.” > > “The mirrors are nice.  I appreciate the mirrors.” > > “Good,” I said. > > “But we’re still not in a good place.  Could a black slave be friends with his master, back in the day?  Sure.  I imagine there were some slaveowners who were pretty cool, didn’t beat or punish their slaves, were generous and kind…” > > “That analogy is pretty damn unfair,” I said.  “I didn’t choose for you to be like this.” > > “Child of the slaveowner, then?” > > I would have reminded her that she was supposedly playing ball.  At the same time, I was glad she was arguing with me.  It beat the utter defeat she’d showed me earlier.

God damn yeah. Props for the analogy, but an angry and argumentative partner beats a defeated one every day of the week. Both for emotional AND writing purposes.

> “I want to do what I can to free you from your prison, my metaphorical slave,” I said.  “I swore it when I did the ritual, just like I told Maggie, back there.” > > Rose was quiet, now.  I didn’t hear a response from the mirror. > > “What was that bit, before, about vestiges?”  I asked. > > “We were interrupted,” she said, quiet. Yes, please, shed more light onto this matter. > “What was it?” I asked her, again.  I didn’t want to get distracted from the topic. > > “Vestiges.  They’re… like shadows.  A simulacrum is an effective double of another individual, a near-perfect simulation.  You’ve got dopplegangers, Others that copy a person’s appearance, hiding inside a simulacrum.  A reflection of a person, but with something different and frequently malevolent at the core.  Erasing a person so they can take over their lives.  Usually ending in disaster and murder.” > > “Sure,” I said. > > “There are glamours and illusions.  Images, but little more than that.  Living, alive, pretendings.  Ghosts, which are usually emotional or mental impressions made on the world.  Trauma, powerful ideas, they leave something behind, that you see out of the corner of your eye.  Tied to some glimmer of the person that was, at the time of death, twisted by time and a degrading memory of their self.”

Yeah but you are a person that never existed though. We are talking about ghosts of living people. Doppels that impersonate others. You are almost like an alternate timeline being. I dunno,this vestige thing seems too much like a gotcha twist we will see later. It was information that came in for way too free. No foreshadowing, just labeled as so and bam. Issue solved. Doesnt't convince me as much.

> “And vestiges?”  I asked. > > “Fit somewhere in the middle.  A flawed simulacrum, or a ghost that left a deep enough impression in reality that you can use that impression as a mold.  Memories, complex thought, they’re flexible.  There’s a book on vestiges in the library.  They’re interesting to work with because they can be altered.  Strong enough that you can mold them, without them being too rigid.” > > “Molded?” I asked.  “As in… changing a gender?  Memories?” > > “Exactly,” Rose said. > > “You know what you are, then.” > > “Not even a copy.  You want to know the reason for my big turnaround?  Why I’m accepting my fate as a tool?  That’s it.  I know what I am now.  I know the built-in limitations.” > > “Limitations?” > > “Read the book,” she said, from the mirror, “I don’t want to talk about it.” > > I had an ugly idea of what she was referring to. > > “Rose,” I said. > > “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.  “Later, Blake.”

I need to read that book right now. F she is a flawed simulacrum I want to know if its of Rose. Really. Because it doesnt match that she is a fem!Blake.

Oh but then again, the house needed to be passed to a female... and she was there with the lawyer, not Blake. Grandma Rose molded a flawed clone of Blake. I think the pieces are put together now. I'm suspicious. But it fits.

> “I wanted to ask about-” I said. > > But something told me she wasn’t there.  Except for the crunching of my boots, there was only silence.  She was gone.

The Riku Replica thing comes back again to haunt me (Kingdom Hearts can be cringy, but when they have a good scene, its amazing). Is there a worse existence than being sapient and know that you, as a supposed-to-be human being, has not only been made to just serve as a copy, but also has severe limitations that degrade that concept out of you? Riku Replica in the video for example discovers that everything about him is not only just replicated, but is also limited to what his original self was at the time of his creation. The real Riku however can still get stronger, can still develop, but whatever his Replica achieves, its capped. He can’t change, can’t develop, he can only do what his original could. That you will forever be just "someone's shadow". And it isnt an evil clone sorta thing. It just leaves you empty, angry and sad.

> I made my way up the driveway.  Once safely inside, I locked the door, checked the windows, and then headed for the library.  I didn’t see Rose in any of the mirrors. > > I searched the shelves until I found the book she’d been talking about. > > Vestige:  Glimmers and Gasps > > The title only reaffirmed the ugly feeling I had in my gut. > > I scanned the table of contents.  The title of one chapter pretty much gave it away. > > Duration.

Awn man, I fucking liked her. This being mentioned does make me raise the question of why it would be set up like this. It doesnt seem like something Wildbow would do, looks more like one of his bait-and-switch to me. WHICH IN TURN, happens even more as I question what or who exactly is the bird Blake has in his hands in the parahumans subreddit. And I'm thinking its Rose and she becomes his familiar. The abstract meanings of her becomming a bird too are very fitting, poetic and endearing. I know, I cant fake that I never saw that header.

> I read the entire chapter, first leaning against the railing, book in hand.  Then I read some sitting cross-legged on the floor. > > Vestiges were flexible, like Rose had said.  They could be molded. > > But Vestiges were impermanent.  Sand castles.  Given time, given external pressures, they started to degrade.  Over time, the degradation got worse, to the point that it took more and more effort and energy to keep them intact. > > What was the power source that was driving her? > > How much time did she have? > > I finished the chapter, then closed the book.  The cover had a silver image of half a mask, pressed into the leather.  The other half of the mask was black, without any eye, nose or mouth.  Half real, half shadow. > > When I looked up, my eyes roving over the room, I saw Rose in the mirror, sitting in the chair at the desk. > > I joined her on the lower floor, book still in hand.  Next on my reading list. > > “Before we left for the meeting, I thought you said there wasn’t a book to explain you,” I said. > > “I said there wasn’t a book to explain why Grandmother summoned me.” > > “Ah.  Why didn’t you say any of this before?” > > “Because you were focused on the meeting?  Because there were two ways this could really go?  You’d either get upset or distracted, and that would throw you off your game, or you wouldn’t, and that would throw me off mine?” > > “If it helps,” I said, “I’m feeling pretty off my game.  I feel pretty horrible.” > > “Yeah?  Well now we’re more on the same page,” she said.  “Question is, what do we do about it?” > > “Can I just spend a minute or ten feeling like a shitheel?” I asked. > > “You can, but we’ll need to figure something out after that.” > > “We will,” I said.  “Fuck.”

Sometimes you need to just stop and let aaaaalllll that shit sink in. Side note and the 68th time i say this out loud,but god damn do I appreciate how Wildbow characters are really REALLY emotionally cognitive and realistic.

> I stood there for a minute, in the middle of the room, so I could see where Rose sat at the desk.  I felt the weight of the book in my hand. > > “I’m here for a purpose, Blake,” Rose said.  “And I’m only here for a little while.  We need to figure out what that purpose is.” > > “Fuck that,” I said.  “I made a promise I’d help you.  That doesn’t mean using you and throwing you away to fall apart.” > > Again, looking at her, I could see her withdrawing, a trace of anger in her expression.  As if me speaking out on her behalf was somehow worse than me being a jerk. > > I didn’t get it. > > “What, then?” she asked.  She was managing to hide the expression, now.  “What do you do, if you’re so bent on helping me?” > > “Like Maggie said, knowledge and power.  They’re one and the same, and they go a long way.  Let’s figure something out.” > > “I don’t need rescue, Blake.” > > You do, I thought.  But I said, entirely honest, “I need help.  I meant it, and I need your help above all else.  I’m going to do what I can to keep you around.” > > “That’s just selfish enough I can believe it,” she said. > > “Good,” I said.  “So, let’s talk strategies.” > > “Strategy?” > > “Tell me how this sounds.  If you like the idea, we’re going to hit the books, and we’re going to make sure it won’t come back to bite us in the ass.  Dear Mr. RCMP Officer, you should know that Laird Behaim was at a function at the church last night.  He has admitted in earshot of several people that he knows something about who murdered Molly Walker and how.” > > “There are a hundred ways that could bite us in the ass.” > > “We’ll double check each one,” I said.  “What are they going to do?  Try to kill us more?  He wants to use us as leverage?  We throw something other than horrifying hell-beasts his way.  Question is, what do you think?” > > “I think it’s something.  Provided we double check the rules, make sure we’re not getting ourselves executed.  You want to attack his position?” > > “Throw him for a bit of a loop,” I said.  “We can build on it.  Get some people pulled in for questioning.  Put them on the spot, see how they do when they’re interrogated and can’t lie.”

Problem being the whole thing of their family having ties with people manipulators. But then again,thats more deals to make, more debts to the pile.

> “Kids,” Rose said.  “Get the kids in that interrogation room somehow.  They won’t be as savvy.  They’ll let something slip.” > > I thought of how the Behaim kids had done a poor job of concealing their fear and surprise. > > “It’s dirty,” I said.  I smiled some.  “Dirty is good.”

And thus the damages begin. They need to think better on how they will gain the police over. Anonimously? Cant Blake just lie to the people of the city and say the house is going to be sold in x amount of time, just to buy him some time of peace with the people, they hate him anyways, not like they'll hate him less any time soon, might as well make them hate more but on a later date. It would be my first instict at least,from before the awakening thing. Guess they would have to do pretty good omissions and loopholes now that they cant straight up lie anymore huh. The buildup of the arc that was set up in the first chapter didnt actually deliver, yet at least, which was a weird choice. I really wanted to get a full disclosure of the meeting, instead of the mere brief summary we had after the beggining, but at least we got to see more of other practitioners non aggressively interacting with our main cast. I'm camping and will be going to sleep soon. This liveblog was written accross many hours of a day actually, that I had some tree to lean on with a cool breeze passing through, while I also accompany my girlfriend as she reads Arc 26 of Worm! Tomorrow I will dive back into 2.3!

2019 Addendum: She is now reading Pact and quickly catching up!! So in editing this in the present and will be readong 2.3 today! Aiming for a post on Wednesday the 27th!!

[codezeta-liveblog-blog]

Coming Back!!!!!!!! (at least for a while)

I have a commitment with you guys! Expect news after February 2nd, the last day of the thing. 

Looks like I conviniently left out the year I’d be coming back huh? Lucky me, seems like I made a loophole myself. But, no, seriously, sorry it happened, but it really had to. I had my first year in a Junior Enterprise during 2018 working ov marketing and sales. Overall, pretty miserable, boring and not at all what I want as a career in my field, but, it did pay well to my curriculum since I’m now working as an Intern in an oil&gas plant that is paying me pretty fucken well if I do say so myself. Which is great because we were deep in debt at our house since my single mom was unemployed for like 5 years starting in 2011. We are now paying that, I got a new computer to replace my forever-dying 2006 one, that was shitty by that year’s standards already. 

I’m overall in the best place in my life right now, at least until classes are back on March 13th. Then I’ll be back to fucking myself over because of waking up at 6am to go to work from 8 to 15, then classes from 16 to 20 or 22 depending on the day. Pretty unsustainable huh? Gotta do it, or else I’m not getting my degree. 

So what changed? Well, Deep in Pact came along! I wanted to dive back into Pact. BUT, I also forgot details of the story. And we all know the devil is in the details. But this podcast, much like WGW allows me to revisit and pinpoint exact parts I have to re-read to catch up. Those being, thus far: 

>The family reunion, do a list of names for a family tree sort of thing.  >The loophole exploit from Laird. What Blake demanded, what Laird managed to ignore and manipulate. >The uncomfortable conversation between Blake and the Fairies Last point. Don’t think I didn’t forget that, yes, I STILL DO have chapter liveblogs ready-ish to post from my trip I did. It’s sitting there, safe and sound on my gmail account, where you can safely read un-sent messages even without internet and it will save them on your phone and cloud service for you automatically as soon as you get signal. So I’m already technically up to 2.3. THOSE ones, I’ll probably give a re-read and add in addendum of my second-time opinions on there. Mostly because I reread a lot of my past liveblogs in here and for some reason I sound really frustrated, aggressive and cringy to a lot of stuff? Must have been because of the stressful times.

Anyways, I’m back for a while, I’ll be catching up on the podcasts these following days. Catching up on my reading. And will be back to posting and cataloguing this mess by the weekend! See ya guys!

[codezeta-liveblog-blog]

Damages 2.3- A Ghost of Ice and Fire

Lets see if anyone is secretly interested in Blakes offer, if his letter to the cops work and any and all plans of going further, finding a familiar and or an an implement.

2019 Addendum: I started reading this chapter on my bus trip back from the woods in Sao Paulo back to Rio. I remember quickly falling asleep due to nausea medications I take on bus trips around the Sea of ​​Mounds (current geographical term for the horizon to horizon cover of forests spanning multiple mounds and mountains) of the Southeastern Brazil region. So lots of going up and down and circling around in spinning spirally roads. So I actually remember 0 of this chapter! This is like being fully back in action. Diving in!

> "Two more books for our reading list," Rose said. >> I groaned a little, grabbing one of the fancy fountain pens from my grandmother's desk. It was still dark outside. "It's too early for this." > > "You wanted to go on the offensive while he was otherwise occupied." > > While Laird was sleeping. "Right. Titles? " > >" Title is Standards, subtitle is 'The history of dealings between practices for the gifted.' " > >" Which shelf? " > >" Ummm ... Bookshelf seven, five shelf. " > > I looked at the sheet. I'd drawn two octagons, with numbers at each side, excepting the sides that opened out into the second and third floor hallways. I identified bookshelf seven, looked, and was pretty sure I could see the book she'd mentioned. I wrote it down. "Standards. Sounds like a thrilling read. "

So like behavioral standards?

> "The second book, bookshelf six, bottom shelf, right at the bottom, we've got 'Deaths in the Eastern Realm of the White Tailed Deer.'"

> > "Not sure I follow," I said, even as I wrote the name and location of the second book down. I put the paper and pen down beside the folded letter Rose and I had written the previous night. >> "It's not about deer. It's about the general area. A straight list of practitioner deaths, times of death, and causes of death since we settled in the new world. It's only the twenty-eleven, but I think it covers the list of executions and reasons for execution. You can skim it for the executions and see if there are any trends. " > >" Me? "I asked. >> "What?" > > I glanced at Rose. "Me? You said 'you can skim'. You usually say "we" instead of "you" unless we're arguing. You're assuming I'm reading this list of deaths? " > >" I'm going to get started on Standards, since you're already looking through ... what was it? " > > I double checked the cover of the book that now lay across my lap "... Prominent Feuds." > > "Right. You're reading that. I'll start on Standards, you get started on the deer book When You're done reading what you're reading. " > >" I'm already pretty fed up with all this. How long is this death-ledger? " > >" Long. But I said, you can skim down the one column. Will you go over it? " > > I craned my neck, but I could not see the bottom shelf on the floor above us. "Can you show me?" > > There was a pause. "I could." > I turned to look at Rose in the mirror. "Please?" > > She sighed. "It's too heavy to lift." > > "You were trying to con me," I said. "Trying to get me to commit to reading over some ridiculously huge take." > > "I was. Just a little. " >> She managed to look suitably guilty, all things considered. >> "Damn it, Rose," I said, but I could not help smiling, but I was not exactly amused, either. She'd almost gotten me. >> "I really do not want to read all that stuff," she said. "And I thought it would be a little funny."

For a second I thought this would start an argument and Rose was playing dumb, but if it's just her pulling a prank I'm hugely satisfied.

> "There is not anything here I want to read," I said. I tossed Prominent Feuds to the floor. "This plan is not working." > > "We'll find something," Rose said. >> "We have not found anything that gives us an exact answer," I said. "We probably will not. Nothing modern. All research does not eliminate possibilities. We get through all of these books, read them backwards and forwards, and we'll be able to say that we're probably breaking the rules and getting ourselves executed if we mess with Laird's job and family. Not definitely. Just probably. " > " Local powers probably like leaving people a little uncertain, "Rose said. > "Well, it works." > > "We could ask someone. Which is probably how everyone else figures it out. They attend meetings and sit back and figure They October What They can do and what can They do not. " > >" Unless the entire town wants to murder you, "I said. "Kind of throws a wrench in the whole 'ask a friend' option." > > "Yeah." > > "Which raises the question. Who do we ask? " >> Rose dragged the chair on her side over the side of the mirror, so we could see each other. "Maggie?" > > "I do not trust Maggie. I'm not sure I wholly distrust either, but I get the feeling that she could profit from misleading us, she would. " > "If you're being selective about our allies, we're going to be very lonely," Rose said. > > I sighed. "Maybe." > "The lawyers?" > I nodded slowly, doing my utmost to avoid rejecting the idea out of hand. "Maybe. I do not like it. " > >" I do not either. But they're there, and we do not need to talk to them sooner than later. You need the allowance if you are going to pay for what we need, and we have questions they could answer. "

I was vey soon starting to question the money thing and I almost forgot an old lady died so there is some money to be earned Unless its more debts. I mean, did she even work?

"Yeah," I said. "Which brings me to my next set of questions. First off, how do we get in touch with them? How do we mail this letter without cluing anyone in to collegues we did it? " > >" The Legal documents give a phone number for the lawyers. The little black book says we just need to say the firm's name three times. Same idea, I think. " > >" Which is not ominous at all. "

So telephone magic is a thing

"Not in the slightest," Rose said, solemnly. >> "Should we get it over with, then?" >> "We need to do it," she said. "Downstairs? Feels strange, inviting anyone else here. Even if we know They were here to set things up after Molly died. " > >" No, "I said. "I get what you mean. It feels wrong. Downstairs? Living room? " > " Sure, "Rose said. Then she cut in, "Wait. One thing, first. Can you grab a book on your way down? " > >" Which? " > >" Bookshelf two, third shelf from the bottom. It's by the same author who wrote the book on Vestiges. Valkyries. " > > Meaning I had to climb the ladder up to the next floor, then walk around to the third floor hallway and make my way to the ground floor. The pain. >> I bit my tongue before I said as much. >> "Sure," I said. I gathered up the books I needed to have on hand, then made my way to the shelf in question. > > The book was easy enough to find. The image on the front was similar to that of the Vestiges book. A woman's face in profile, complete with a winged helmet, pressed into the leather cover. >> "I-" Rose started. She stopped when I jumped a little at hearing her voice. >> Right. I had a bicycle side-mirror hanging from a cord around my neck. > > "Keep going," I said, I made my way downstairs, arms full of books. >> "I read it because I thought maybe it was related to vestiges like me. And it is. But this one focuses on ghosts too, on historical elements, and some more practical applications. You've got practitioners who specialize in one hundred percent on ghosts and vestiges. A kind of necromancy. "

I imagined. If ghosts just count as different Others of course tgere are specialists. What do you mean by historical elements? Something like spirits of concepts as mentioned at the start of the Arc? And what does this have to do with valkyries? Maybe its the allusionof afterlife that Valkyries bring to the table.

> "Death magic." > > "Right. In this case, you've got practitioners convincing warriors, usually dying soldiers, that there's an amazing afterlife of parties and respect for their deeds waiting for them, so the warriors agree to give up their spirits after death. Use that agreement to help make up or create a ghost, the representation of their skills or their knowledge, their strength, whatever else, and imbue all of that into a vessel. "

Where the fuck would we find a dying soldier in Jacob's Bell , Canada.

> "Do you want to be imbued into a vessel?" >> No. That would be worse than being inside these mirrors. Not moving ever. " > >" Right, "I said. "But?" > "But I like the concept. I like the author. The book talks about working with ghosts being an option for a practitioner without many resources, in an area where practitioners have already taken hold of everything worth holding, or where the Lord forbids certain practices. You take a ghost, you imbue an object, and you've got ... " > >" A magical item? "I asked. > > "A tool, yes. I do not think every Other in Jacob's Bell is beholden to one practitioner or another, and we do not really have a Lord Dictating rules here, but in our situation, we do not have a lot of options. " > >" So we use ghosts? " > "We can. They can be violent, but that is only a small subsection of the categories they fail into. We know how to protect ourselves. " > >" And what makes ghosts easier to contact than any of the other Others? " > >" Those woods behind this house? The marshes? All grandmother's property. Ghosts, like any vestige, do not hold up that much to poking and prodding. They are remnants of horrible or inspiring events. Psychic impressions, right? " > > "So you said, last night," I told her. >> "They function best in enclosed spaces, especially any enclosed spaces they have connections to. Houses, houses with bodies still in them, lurking near their murder weapons, and so on. But that's not the key bit. They also function in places with very few humans to mess with them. The wilderness. "

Oh fuck are we going to have a talk with Molly? Otherwise I do not know what to do.

> "The woods and marshes," I said. >> Exactly. There are not many places where you find intact ghosts, and They are not really sought after, because they're unreliable to work with And They tend to burn out if you draw on Them for power. " > > Like a vestige does . >> "Too much expenditure for minimal gains." > "So we're supposed to go looking for them in the woods, a good distance from this sanctuary? Put life and limb at risk, for a minimal gain? " > >" We Could. Or maybe grandmother has a book where she wrote down notable ghosts and their locations. We call them to us, instead of going their way. " > I stopped midway down the staircase. I had to shift the books to one arm before I could pick up and move the makeshift mirror-pendant I wore. I could see Rose standing a short distance up the stairs. When I had her in my sights, and vice versa, I gave her a disapproving look. "You mean I've got to trek back to the library and go look for some hypothetical book of ghost names?" > > "Nope," Rose said. She lifted a book so it was visible to me. "See? I've already found it, and I've got it. Nothing needed here that I can not recite aloud for you. "

Rose is being a top tier laddie this chapter. What kind of ghosts can we call upon? Recent ones? Old ones?

"Alright," I said. I started making my way downstairs. I found Rose waiting for me in the living room. "Sounds like a plan. Sounds like we've got some disturbing, soulless freaks of nature to summon. When we're done that, we can take a break and summon some ghosts. " > >" What right do-able. Har har. "

Hey I liked that joke. I really like how Wildbow has good directions and cinematography in his written scenes. This part of Blake walking down through the house and stumbling on Rose continuing the conversation through the reflections is all very coreographic and dynamic.

"Seriously though, lawyers or ghosts first?" >> Lawyers. We can not keep putting it off. " > > I found grandmother's phone. When I picked up, however, there was no dial tone. >> "Fuck!" I swore. > "Nothing?" Rose asked. >> I shook my head. "Someone must have cut the line recently. Or the service was disconnected. " > >" Repeat the firm's name, Then? Everything seems to Indicate it gets the same result. " > >" I have trouble buying que, "I said. "I can not help but feel the ominous repetition has a little more weight than a phone call." > > "You said it yourself, we can not keep putting it off. > I nodded, looking for and finding the little black book in the pile of books I'd collected. >> "Mann, Levinn, and Lewis." >> My words seemed hollow and small in the crowded living room with its books and the lingering mess. >> "Mann, Levinn, and Lewis." >> My eyes roved around the room, looking for some sign that something was happening. > > "Mann, Levinn, and Lewis." > > The third utterance. >> We were there, quiet, waiting for a response. I could not shake the notion that the moment I relaxed and heaved to sigh of relief, there would be a knock on the door to startle me, a ring of the phone. > > But I did relax, after a few minutes, and there was no knock. > "Nothing?" Rose asked. >> I shook my head. "Maybe I have to be outside." > > "They came in from outside once already. The lawyers are the only ones this house does not protect against. Them and the witch hunters. " > > I frowned. >> "There's no rush, Blake. We find another way to contact them, or we keep researching, and we figure out if it's safe to send this letter. " > > "There is a rush," I answered. "If we do not do this soon, they're going to figure out a trick to throw us. A way to get us out of the house, like they got Molly, or the witch hunters, or something else. What if they come after us and there is no opportunity to do anything like this for days or weeks? The whole idea is that we are taking the offensive, to put them on the defensive and distract them to buy ourselves some breathing room. "

Counterpoint: trying to upscale yourself until your threatening in the face of people more prepared and with more resources than you are already costing you your breathing room.

> "Okay, no, I do not disagree. I'm fine with going on the offense, so long the we're smart about it. " > > I nodded. I placed my hand down on the Valkyrie tome. "Since lawyers are off the table, and I'm done with the research for now ... You're thinking ghosts, then? Equipping ourselves, experimenting. This is smart? " > >" I hope so. We're going to have to go outside if we're going to call her and trap her. Grab salt on the way? " > > I nodded. "Okay. Okay on the ghosts, and okay on the salt. I'm open to this. " > > She nodded. I saw a glimmer of that doubt and anger in her expression, but she said, "Thank you." > > I grabbed my winter stuff, the hatchet and bat, then picked up a box of salt from the kitchen. I passed under the stairs to the back of the house, pulling on the coat and gloves as I went, and stepped outside. >> It was still in the early hours of dawn. The sun had just started rising, and it was dark. I'd slept, then woken up early in the hopes of catching Laird off guard, while he was deep in sleep. If anyone was watching for connections while they were awake, then this was the hour to act. >> Hillsglade House was situated on a hill, naturally, but the hill was not a single hump round. There was a tail, and the tail disappeared into the sparse tree cover that gradually got thicker as it got further away from the house. > > It put me in mind of my fight to escape the bird-skull things. Disappearing into the trees, getting turned around, not being sure of where to go. > > The back porch was covered in snow, grit, and piles of leaves Been That had not quite cleared. Snow had piled up around a short wall that enclosed the area. Stairs led down the snow-covered 'tail' of hills that gently sloped down into the trees.

>> Not that gently, when I thought about it. With the snow and ice, the path would be treacherous. >> "Since we're outside ... Mann, Levinn, and Lewis," I said. "Mann, Levinn, and Lewis. Mann, Levinn, and Lewis. " >> There was only the sound of the wind whistling through the trees. Eerily quiet. > > We looked around, but there was no sign of anyone being nearby. >> "Worth a try," I said. "We need a phone, which is another catch-twenty-two. We need to get the phone to get hold of the lawyers to figure out when and where we might be safe enough to go get a phone. "

What if there is a time between a lawyer shows up and now he's just called two lawyers or something . That would be funny but what is probably not going on.

> "Well, having ghost help could make a difference, in terms of being able to defend ourselves if we're making a run for it. If you're ready? "Rose asked. >> "Unbroken circle, I'm assuming," I said. > > "In salt, yes. You'll want to clear the snow. " > > I looked around, I was half-convinced, I was poised. But it was approaching daylight, and the back of the house was in view of some of the town. If there were others near, they were of a sneaky sort. I grabbed a shovel from the back door and began clearing the yard, revealing frost-crusted brick tile beneath. I had to scrape the shovel against the brick to chip off the ice where it was more stubborn. Touching the metal handle, I could feel the chill seeping through my gloves. >> I caught a glimpse of something at the periphery of the property. >> Which would get me first? A clever Other or the cold? >> "I'm feeling less confident," I said. "Being outside." > "We're a few paces from safety," she said. > > I frowned. "Let's make it fast." > > "Give me a second. Trying to wrangle two different books. " > > I quiter her turning pages. I fidgeted, partially to keep warm. >> "Salt," she said. "It is a pure substance, and any ghosts that actively want to hurt us are going to be naturally impure. Tainted by anger and hatred. " > >" I'm following. "

Just remembered the first episode of Mob Psycho where an exorcism fails because the character used common salt from the brand super market instead of pure mineral one without iodine treatment.

"Easiest way is to bleed," Rose said. "If you're okay with cutting yourself again?" 

> > I looked at my hand. I still had not healed from the cut that I'd made in my finger so I could draw the sigil on the mug, after getting my power. Blood did not bother me, but I did not want my fingertips buried under calluses either. >> "We chant the spirit's name. This should establish a tenuous connection. You put power into que connection. " > >" How? "I asked. > > "Blood. Draw a symbol, like you see in the book, the median line running parallel to any line of connection you see between yourself and the ghost. Blood is power, basically the most distilled and direct form you can offer. The caveat being that when you deal with some others, you give an inch, they take a mile. And you do not want Them taking a mile of your blood or personal power. " > > I shook my head. "No danger of que with ghosts?" > > "There should not be." > > "Okay," I said. "Anything else?" > "We chant, you draw the line, feed just enough blood into things to bring the ghost into earshot. After que, we can try communicating with it. " > >" Communicating with the ghost.

> "They are not real beings, they are echoes of major events that happened. Typically painful, sad, or angry events. Sometimes moments of sheer brilliance. Sometimes other things. Chances are pretty good that the ghost is going to have a limited script to work with. They'll be single minded. But you should be able to negotiate something. Remember that every second you're using your blood to keep it here, you're making yourself just a bit weaker. There is no time to hit your head against a brick wall. Do not argue with them if they are not listening. But if you find leverage, then use it. Roll with whatever happens. "

> I nodded.

They are like the NPC. Embodiments or figments of yore. Of people or moments those people lived that left to mark of somekind. Why arent there happier ones? Is the Other-world so enamored with violence and bad stuff in general? If so why? Why is there no balance, or humanity when left alone play the part of the balance, and the rest was all fault of the occult.

> "Another thing? Misery likes company, and ghosts tend to try to bring others down to their level. Whatever grips them, they spread it. Anger, pain, sadness, madness ... " > >" Fuck, "I said. >> "It should not be so strong that it overwhelms you. Especially not with the salt circle. But just in case, I want you to keep listening to me, "Rose said. "Even if you're so angry you can not see straight, even if you want to hurt yourself." > > "Right." Listen to Rose. "Roll with it, except for the big part of this where I should not roll with it." > > Rose ignored my quip. "Let's start with a ghost that is not too new and not too old. The new ones are stronger, and the old ones have generally held on because they are connected to other spirits or power sources, which is complicated and dangerous. June Burlison. She died in the forties, somewhere in the glades back there. " > > June Burlison. > > I drew out the salt. Slowly, with care, I layered it in a circle around me. By the time I finished closing the circle, the ice beneath the first bit of salt was melting. >> I could see more shadows in the fringes of the area. I was fairly sure I could make a break for it if it came down to it. The door was only two paces away, I had the ax. > > "Watch my back?" I asked. I moved the bike around until it hung between my shoulders. > > "Will do." > > And the wind, though blocked by the short brick wall, had blown a few stray grains in my direction. > > We had to be quick. >> I set my bag, hatchet and bat aside. >> "Hi there, June," I said. "June Burlison." > > I switched to my other sight. "June Burlison." > > I Could see the connection. Frail, spirits reacting between me and the book, me and Rose, and between me and something out there in the woods. Too general, indirect and fleeting to point the way to anything. > "June Burlison," Rose said. I could see the same connections forming. The connection passed to me, then out to the woods, like the aftermath of lighting that darted between conductive targets. >> Would this strategy work for finding people? Objects? If I wanted to find Laird, could I call out his name until I could make out the connection?

My two cents is probably not easy if they are in their denials and have self protections against that. Pact with spirits or others that mess with spirits that facilitate such connections.

"June Burlison," I said. I was having an easier time making out the connection. Was she drawing closer, even without the blood being offered? > > Of course. The connection was not a one-way street. There was an exchange. If I tried to find Laird by establishing some kind of tenuous relationship, he'd know. He could probably use it against me. >> This was the same thing as the lawyers. Calling their names until they took notice. >> "June Burlison," I said. > > The line was clear enough, now. I used the hatchet's blade and sliced ​​the fingertip that did not have any cuts on it. I reached past the border of salt and drew out the symbol, copying what was on the open page in the book. > As I lured in by the blood, I could see the others drawing closer. Slipping in through my blind spot, popping their heads up around terrain features. Every time my back was turned, they closed the distance. Since they were surrounding me, there was some approaching with every second. >> "Might have to make a break for it," Rose said. >> "Might," I said, but I started on the diagram. >> "Blake," Rose said. A little more urgent. > > I glanced back. "Is it something que the salt circle will stop?" > > "Can not make promises," she said. > > I clenched my teeth, then set to drawing out the rest of the diagram. When I drew the line of blood against the edge of the salt line, I got salt on the cut. >> "Fuck, ow," I said, swearing under my breath. >> I could feel the connection momentarily flare, with that. >> June appeared, down at the tail end of the hill, near the treeline. > It was not a fluid appearance. She is stuttered, like a film with missing frames. Her movements were jerky, following the same repeated pattern, as she crawled toward me, clawing in the snow for purchase as she flung herself forward with one hand and pushed herself another foot or two with one foot. She was half dressed, her clothing old-fashioned. The one hand she was not wearing to crawl was clutching at her collar, the fingers black. >> The cold cut deep into me. She was moving slowly, and I was not dressed warmly. Much less standing still in the cold. >> Except there was more to it. The onset of cold seemed to match her approach to touch too evenly.

Someone died in the cold did not they Cpt. Obvious brain of mine. Salt in the wound usually does not bother me so much. I do not know why. It usually just flares up my nerves so much so fast that after a while it just fades and stops altogether with the pain that happened before it.

> Where June did not have the 'program' for how she was supposed to look or act while climbing the steeper portion of the hill, she simply disappeared. A second or two later, she was back, as if she had not left at all, and she'd managed to close the ten or so feet in the meantime. >> For all that the image was imperfect, it was remarkably clear. She was not translucent, the ghosts tended to be in film. >> And, mercifully, the shadows of Others were dropping away from this ghost drew nearer. >> "June Burlison," I said. >> She stuttered again, then closed half the distance in a single leap. The remaining Others disappeared in that same moment, ducking away. > The warmth I felt caught off guard. That warmth proved short-lived. It became a prickling heat, with a burning sensation in my extremities. She had covered half the distance, but the intensity of what I was experiencing had increased ten times over. >> "She's ... affecting me," I said. >> "On two levels," Rose said, her voice quiet. "She's drawing power from the blood you're using to forge the connection, and she's giving off a kind of radiation, related to whatever impression she made on the world." > > "Cumulative," I murmured. Louder, I said, "June Burlison, I want to talk." > > The burning was getting worse. It was getting to be too much, to the point that I could not stand still. > > June spoke in a voice that was barely above a wheeze, oddly childlike, given her apparent age. "I fell asleep too close to the fire. I've burned myself. " >> What was I even supposed to say to that? >> June spoke in an alarmed voice, her voice feeble considering the intensity of what she was saying. "I was cold, and I curled up near the fireplace. I'm burning. Oh god, it's so hot. I'm burning. " >> Fingers are frostbitten that they could barely be called fingers ineffectually clawed at her clothing. >> She stuttered, disappearing for a moment, then reappeared. A small whimper escaped her lips as she fumbled at the ruined, muddy, and damp clothes with fingers that were ruined they could not cooperate. > I could feel the heat. Worse with every passing second. >> "It-" I stopped myself. I'd almost said 'it's hot'. But that could have been a lie. I was not sure if it was really hot or if I was just feeling an illusion of heat. "It does feel hot, yes." > As if my words were a kind of fuel, the heat increased a fraction. >> "Make it stop. I'm done with this. Make it stop, "she said. >> Her words did the same, ratcheting up the heat. >> "Rose," I murmured. My voice was a touch hoarse. "I do not know if I'm up for this." > "If it gets to be too much," Rose said, "Break the line of blood. You can also dash salt on her. It ends the moment you do. > June Burlison screamed, sudden, disappearing in one moment and reappearing in the next. I could have called her movements thrashing, but they were too feeble. She was playing a different image for me, one of her in the throes of helpless agony. >> I realized I was screaming, too, at the wave of heat that rushed past me. The screaming seemed to make it worse.

Well fuck me Cpt. Obvious was wrong and she died for the reverse reason. For a moment I thought 'what could this ghost possibly be useful for' and then I thought that setting heat waves is one of my favorite power ideas. They are invisible, very controlled heat waves. It is also a bending type I wished was used in Avatar by some fire benders. Just a heat to catch someone to assassinate, or knock them out,

When she started flickering and disappearing again, I had a moment's relief. The pain did not linger in the slightest, though the pounding of my heart did. I was left cold, instead. > > "Blake?" > > I shook my head a little. It was Rose talking to me, I reminded myself. >> "Get answers. Open a dialogue, "Rose said. >> "June," I managed, panting for breath after the screaming. I tried to stay calm, even if speaking her name seemed to fan the fires. But June was not responding. > > Rose tried, instead. "June Burlison. Do you remember what happened before you went to sleep by the fire? " > > Abruptly, she was standing. Hugging her body with her arms. Her injuries had taken leap backwards in severity, and her clothes were more intact.

See? Cinematography in writing. This is an instantaneous beautiful transition scene in my mind.

> I experienced a wave of cold emanating from her instead. It did not make the memory of the fire any better. >> Rose spoke. "Do you remember? What happened before you went to sleep? " > >" I've been left outside in the woods. I fought with my husband, and I demanded to let him out by the side of the road. I could not be in the car with him any longer. Now I have to walk home. " > " It's cold, is not it? "Rose asked. >> "It's so very cold," June agreed. >> "Do you fight often?" > > "Yes. Nobody agreed with the idea, but I married him. They were right, I was wrong. Soon, I'm sure I'll pick up the courage and admit it to my mother and father. It is shameful, but I do not want to fight all the team. " > >" Did he hurt you? "Rose asked. >> No. But we fight so much. We're so different. It's so cold. " > >" It is, "Rose said. > > She wobbled, Then fell to her hands and knees. There was a stutter, and the injuries were worse. Fingers devoured by frostbite. "I'm almost home. I can not walk anymore, but I can crawl. " > > The cold was starting to get to me. Enough that I wondered if I risked frostbite myself. > > How much was she taking through this blood connection? Was Rose wrong? Was this a ghost capable of taking this much from me? >> Did you have something to do with getting salt in the wound? Was the circle compromised? >> Or, the idea dawned on me, am I already being drained by another source? >> When I thought of what other sources might be out there, the only thing that sprung to mind was Rose. >> "Stay focused, Blake," Rose said. >> Momentarily, I wondered if she was reading my mind, answering the thought. But it did not fit. >> "It's cold, you're almost home," I said. >> Nothing. > > "Are you?" Rose asked. "Almost home?" > > "I'm so cold. But my husband will be waiting. I'll apologize, and he'll have a fire going in the fireplace, our little electric heater running. The house will be warm, and I'll be able to rest easy. " > >" But That Is not the way it happens, is it? "Rose asked. > > I could see the look of sheer bewilderment on June's face. The dawning look of betrayal.

Is it because Blake was saying she was close to getting home? Or just out of the entire situation.

> Over long seconds, I watched her expression twist in slow motion, beyond the bounds that people are normally capable of, to show a monstrous kind of despair and betrayal, so deep it altered her very being. For many of those seconds, I thought the emotion was directed at me. >> I was seeing her as she had been in the moment she had opened the door and found her home empty and cold. An imperfect replay.

Oh. Her husband left first.

> The wind picked up around me. My fingers were throbbing now, almost numb. >> "June," Rose said, her voice gentle. "Was that it? Did you start a fire in the fireplace and went to sleep? " > A disconnect, a jerk, and June Burlison was writhing in pain again, crippled and bent low by it. I staggered, nearly stepping outside the circle. >> Heat and cold. But why the disconnect? Why was not the narrative more complete? >> Did it only include the moments she was awake? > > I flexed my numbed fingers. >> Or was it something else? >> "Was the fireplace on?" I asked. > > There was no response. I clenched my hands into numb fists. > > "The fireplace was on," Rose said, "You were asleep ..." > > "Rose," I said. "The fireplace was not on. I think maybe she does not want to talk to a guy, because of the issue with her husband. You will need to ask her. Did she get the fireplace going before she fell asleep? " > >" June, "Rose said. "Did you start the fire before you fell asleep?" > > "No," June said. "I dozed off. The house was cold, but I Could Not focus, and my heart was beating funny. " > >" And, "I said," All the blood que your body Withdrew from your extremities went rushing back, trying to rescue Them. A sudden, painful warmth. " > > But she did not hear me. Not really. >> "What are you talking about?" Rose asked. >> "I read about it, after hearing a joke once. About some idiot sitting naked in a snowbank. Dying by cold, you experience an intense rush of warmth in the end. June was never burned, exactly. She was in the last stages of freezing to death. " > >" It was not the heat, June, "Rose echoed me. "It was not your fault. What you were feeling, what you're feeling now ... it was only the cold. " > >" I'm burning. " > > I Could feel the heat again, but it was somehow diminished. > "You're freezing, not burning," Rose said. "You're listening to me, right? You're hearing me on some level, I think. Listen, it's only the cold. " > >" It's so very cold, "June said. But she was in a state of dress matching the scene where she'd been burning before. >> "It's not your fault," Rose said. "It's only the cold. Will you make a deal with us? " > >" It's so very cold, "June said. > > "If you agree, I guarantee you my partner in the circle right there will keep warm you the best of he can." > > June flickered, writhing in agony is mere heartbeats, limbs flailing, cold-blackened fingers clutching for relief from somewhere, anywhere. > > Then she was standing again. "I do not want to fight all the time." > "I have no reason to fight with you," I said, uselessly. >> "He's not a bad guy," Rose said. "His heart is in the right place." > "I do not want to fight all the time," June echoed herself. Not taking it in. >> Rose said other things, trying to convince June, but she got the same replies over and over again. While I listened, my mind ran through the conversation. The unhappy wife, walking home. The cold, her body failing her ... > > What would stick with her? With everything but this one scene stripped away? > > "Ask her if she daydreamed about other men, while she was walking home," I said. "Other husbands she might find, after she left the current one. Refer to it in the present tense. " > > Rose Considered, Then said. "Listen, June. Are you fantasizing about the men you might marry? " > >" Yes. I can imagine being held. Being warm. But then I feel the cold again. " > " When you're imagining being with those men, "Rose said. "Do you imagine you're fighting all the team?" > > "No. I can imagine being held. Being warm. " > " If you agree to help, my friend can hold you. Keep you warm. And you do not have to fight all the time. " > > There was no reply. June was only standing there, flickering.

I hope these ghost necessities are very open and do not need to be constantly met. By the practitioner's own capacities I hope the ghost of a commoner to be quite easy to manipulate in a legal manner. A thought rushed me as to why other practitioners dont do this to gather more ghosts. At first my own response was that they probably did not have a book of names of the dead sitting right in their house (thanks grandma). Then another thing hit me: most practitioners probably dont own a vestige that has awakened to talk it put with the ghost as you squirm on the floor like Blake has been. I'm imagining if Blake will be up for this after or right after this one here, because I dont imagine he will be up to cut up some more fingers each time after that internal monologue earlier.

> I was not feeling any cold except the ordinary cold of winter. >> My heart was pounding, my hands throbbing. >> I stepped beyond the bounds of the circle. >> Still, I did not feel the cold. > > I Reached Out, arms extended. >> "Blake," Rose said. "No." > > I stopped. >> "If you do that, you might solve the dilemma, cancel out the impression. She is not aware enough to fight against que and keep her end of the bargain by helping us. " > >" What's the alternative? "I asked. > > "The alternative is giving her a vessel to reside in. You can fulfill the bargain. Keep que vessel warm, and she helps us. " > >" So ... she keeps suffering? "I asked. >> "She is suffering," Rose said. "As in, that thing you're looking at is an embodiment of a moment of suffering. What you see there is all there is. The real June went on to the afterlife. This is an emotional event that hit the world hard enough to make a dent shaped like 'dying of hypothermia'. If you take away the suffering, there's going to be nothing there. And maybe the balance of the world is a little better off, things are a little nicer without this memory of one bad moment wandering around the woods, but wearen't any better off. " > > I looked at June. Despondent, shivering. >> "It feels wrong," I said. >> "Yeah," Rose said. "But it's necessary, and whatever else it might look like, you're not hurting it. It's not even a person. Just ... an impression. " > >" I'm having trouble buying that. " > >" Why? Because it looks like a damsel in distress? " > " Because it's a ghost, only one step removed from being a vestige, remember? " My tone of voice might have been a little too harsh. >> In the silence that followed, I shivered violently, my teeth chattering together briefly. > > When Rose replied, her tone of voice had changed. "I think it's nicer, accepting this deal, instead of just canceling her out. You can hold her and her warm keep, and except for the moments we need her to be the specter of hypothermia, she can exist the que one fragment of a memory where she daydreamed about the man holding her. " > >" Okay, " I said "I can buy that."

I didnt take Blake 'Gotta kill two families asap' Thonburn (or I dont remember exactly) to be a romantic.

> I searched my person, but there was not anything I could really use. I did not want to imbue the keys I'd chosen before, rescued from the bowl I'd used for awakening ritual. I did not have much else, besides spare chain and the mirror around my neck. >> Looking down, I saw the hatchet beside the bag. I picked it up. >> "I hope he's chopped enough wood for the fire," June murmured behind me, barely audible. >> I turned around, she disappeared, and something hit the hatchet. >> My already numb fingers froze the cold creeped up the handle. In the span of one or two seconds, they became so stiff I could not open them to drop the hatchet. >> "Done," I said. "Inside, now. "It's a little more complex," Rose said. "If we-" > "I'm going to be a ghost soon if we do not get inside," I said. I grabbed the bat, stuffed book and salt into the bag, and looped it over one shoulder. > > "If she gets loose inside the house, sanctuary will not help us." > > "We wrangled her once," I said, heading for the door. "We only need to keep her content, right?" > > "We need to bind the ax with something." > > "Hatchet, and we will. Inside, "I said. I unzipped my jacket and slid the hatchet underneath, so it sat between my coat and my sweatshirt. I held it there, stiff fingers still gripping the wooden handle. "Better, June?" > > The cold did not feel as intense as it had. >> "Good," I said. To Rose, I said, "Inside." > > I made my way indoors. >> The cold in the hatchet was noticeable, but growing less intense by the second. >> "We'll need to write the handle, or she can leave any time she feels like it, and she's liable to go out in one big cold shot of the moment you hit something," Rose said, as I made my way into the hallway.

Oh did we just fucking get a Fire Hypothermia Axe? I think we did. I hope it is not one use only. (Btw I'm referencing how you can put any element type the game has on most Dark Souls weapons, so in DS2 there is a VERY tryhard OP weapon called the Ice Rapier, and you can make it even more powerful, depending on your build , by imbuing it with fire, getting yourself the Fire Ice Rapier. Note how on this same page of the wiki they mention how you can get INFINITE STUNLOCKS with it, meaning a lot of enemies or even PvPers)

> "That could be useful," I said. >> "It would almost certainly kill you," Rose said. > "Less useful," I replied. >> "You could have chosen a better tool. That handle looks like some kind of textured rubber, and I do not know how we're going to engrave anything into the steel, either. " > >" She chose it, not me, "I said. I pried my hand away from the hatchet's handle. >> "Well, this works as a kind of stopgap measure as a half-implement and half-familiar," Rose said. "Not sure how you're going to conceal that hatchet all the time, but it works."

A backpack with blanket works. Also rubber is not harder to work with than wood. You can almost exclusively work with straight lines in wood unless you have the right carving tools, which I genuinely do not see working on rubber just as well.

> "It does. A step forward, "I said. My hand was throbbing now. I could feel the cold in the core of my bones. "We need to do it a few more times, in a few different ways, and we'll have a passable power base." > > "There are not that many good options," Rose said. >> "We can try the less-good options," I said. "And hopefully I do not lose any hands doing it. Ow. " > " Hopefully, "Rose said. "Let me go over the inscriptions, and I'll walk you through it." > "I'm going to keep our new friend nice and warm like we promised, and see if I can not warm myself up too," I said "Anything that involves the stove and kettle." > I stepped into the kitchen to dig through the cabinets. I'd overlooked the hot chocolate before, dismissing the unpalatable mix of chocolate powder and water, but it suddenly seemed like the best idea I'd had in a long time. > > In terms of hot food ... > > I grimaced and put the oatmeal aside as well. The only thing I could do in a reasonable span of time. >> "Damned oatmeal," I muttered. Louder, I said, "Remember that bit I said last night? About how you got to get on my case and remind me that I could have gone shopping but did not? Now's the time. I feel like I'm going to cry. " > >" Blake? "Rose called out. >> Something in her voice caught my attention. > > I turned around and came face to face with a scene. > > Gray haired man, the twenty-something man, and a thirty-something woman sat on the couches and chairs in the living room. All wearing suits, all with nice, utilitarian hair styles. > > Rose, for her part, was visible in the mirror. I could not even process her expression. Even for this sudden appearance, the level of dawning horror on her face that I saw seemed like it was too much. >> Was she seeing something I could not? Or had she glimpsed something before I turned around? >> "The lawyers of Mann, Levinn, and Lewis, I presume?" I asked. > "More specifically, we are Mann, Levinn and Lewis," the young woman said. Blonde, with a tidy ponytail and a lock of hair strategically draped over the corner of one eyebrow. One of her pantyhose-covered legs was crossed over the other, her hands folded over her knee. "Please, do not cry while we're here. I can not speak for my partners, but I should be embarrassed on your behalf. "

Looks like I was partially right about multiple lawyers coming. I was just one short. Curious if Rose is seing demons or others of sorts or just the one lawyers that received her as she started existing. How can I break these rules? Special permission by Rose? I doubt it. But it would be useful for Blake's interests.

Going to add my addendum to this chapter end of how absolutely mind numbly retarded it is toedit texts on Tumblr for posting. I feel like only Boldening the text isn’t very good for visualization. But I can only do the thing where it quotes the text on a paragraph like it is on Tumblr, as different edits don’t work from Word to here. It doesnt translate. So I have to go over this asinine U.I. selecting entire sections of the text than scrolling back and forward up and down as I tryand find the damn button to bolden and highlight the paragraph only to CONSTANTLY add paragraphs above and below the text I selected and even HIGHLIGHTING OR EMBOLDENING MORE STUFF THAN I SELECTED, putting my liveblog notes together with the actual text. And it ain’t easy to remove, its seemingly random when I can just select the ONE paragraph of notes and de-highlight it without tumblr deciding that “no what you REALLY WANT is de-highlight the ENTIRE wallof text you selected previously. WHY DOES IT WORK THAT WAY. You have to purposedfuly program something to work so wrong. I selected ONE paragraph, why do you go over, select dozensof paragraphs of text above and ON TOP OF THAT add two paragraphs above and under what I selected. AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!! 

Anyways, sometimes I get lazy of posting just because of that and because it is fucking stressing just because its such a measure of distate and addition of WORK to put stuff out it makes me a bit angry.

[codezeta-liveblog-blog]

Bonds 1.7 - Your eyes have yet to open

My 3DS ran out of battery after playing a little too much Ace Attorney on the bus on my way to Sao Paulo, so I'll start reading 1.7 right now! Let us see what Blake decides to end up doing now that the attic demon is nowhere to be seen, his house is surrounded and no pizza is ever to be had again. Sorry for formatting weirdness, but be prepared for a bunch of “>”. I don’t even have my computer right now or else I’d use Notepad++ to edit them all out in a single click. Post edit note: I spotted some weird formatting here and there after I posted this due to the posting tool on tumblr being just awful. I hope I have removed all of them, sorry for any awkwardness!

> Damn it. > > Very slowly, with exaggerated care, I closed the door.  My eyes were fixed on the outermost edge of the circle, my peripheral vision covering the shears and the interior, up until the closing door blocked my field of view. > > I couldn’t say why the closed door made me feel more secure.  Whatever was supposed to be in that circle probably wouldn’t be stopped by a door.  But the fear I’d felt before opening the door had broken up into a general sense of disquiet.  My heart wasn’t racing, but was pounding, with very slow, heavy beats.  Absently, I grabbed my sweatshirt on the way down the stairs. > > Rose was waiting for me on the third floor.  “Blake!  You idiot!”

> > I didn’t want to hear it.  “I can barely hear you.  Meet you in the study.” > > I passed into the secret room, circled around to the far end and climbed down the ladder to reach the area with the mirror. > > “What the hell were you doing?” > > “I take it you read the letter,” I said.  I was almost relieved to have the distraction of a conversation with Rose.  I wanted to think on the circle, the possibilities there, but what the hell was I even supposed to do?  I couldn’t even think straight, let alone read. > > “Upside-down, but yes.  You don’t go talking to demons or whatever elses without preparation.” > > “It was prepared,” I said.  I turned the letter around, then tapped it.  “This was an emergency measure.  A ‘you’re-fucked-and-you-need-the-big-guns-now’ measure.  Grandmother outlined the key instructions.” > > “You don’t go running off to check if you haven’t read about it in depth.  There’s material on this guy.”  Her voice was rising as she talked.

I have to be honest that Blake did something very dangerous that I think he really shouldn't. Given that there wasn't any rush in time, he could have stopped to check the pages the letter refered to when talking about this specific being, those would have been very precise and able to give them a better way to weight on the should or should we not visit the attic demon.

> “I had to check,” I said, feeling more grounded.  Feeling a little more sure of myself, I said, “I was thinking it might have killed Molly.” > > “What?” > > “What Laird said… I had the impression this thing might have killed Molly, and that Laird was misleading us when he said he knew what killed her.  By saying that, he leads us to think the threat is from out there, and that way we have our backs turned when the threat from within comes after us.” > > “So?  You read up on it, so you know what to say to it-” > > “I wasn’t going to say a thing, if it was there.  No need to track the conversation if we don’t interact.  I only needed a glance, and that glance showed me that there wasn’t anything in the circle.” > > “I- huh?  What do you mean?” > > “A pair of scissors apparently penetrated a circle drawn on the floor.” > > “It’s free?”

Another thing I might have just not gotten right is that this being doesnt INHABIT the reflected plane of the object it reflects itself on, but rather uses it as a gateway to get completely free. "and if his image is cast in a surface, he will exist in that surface, allowing him to step free of that surface and the confines of the circle." Yup, there it is. Hm. But maybe he can only escape if said reflective surface is outside of the circle? That would make sense for me at least. So maybe he is just waiting for someone to pick that thing up. More inportantly is, how did those shears end up there? Who in their right mind would leave shears around in a table when something like this guy is sitting right next to it. Maybe he can "turn off" in a way to make people think he is gone. Maybe Molly just made a big ol' mistake.

> “I don’t know,” I said.  “The door was locked, Molly didn’t use that key, unless the lawyer resealed it in wax when they reshelved the books.  It doesn’t fit.  Maybe grandmother betrayed her own rules and brought something reflective into that room and then positioned it to where it might interfere with the circle, before locking everything up, but it’d be crazy to do that.  If the thing can jump into our eyes, it can jump into the metal on scissors.” > > “You’re right.  That doesn’t make sense.” > > “It doesn’t,” I said.  “Which puts me in the funny spot of feeling more sure that it’s in that room, than I was before.” > > “I don’t know how you can jump to that conclusion,” Rose said.  “It’s better, now that it looks like it’s gone?” > > “I don’t know.  Which is why we’re going to do a little bit of reading, now,” I said.  I felt more centered.  Somewhere between ‘explaining is the best way to learn’ and ‘misery loves company’, explaining to Rose had helped me to find my mental and emotional footing, clarifying my thoughts so I could argue them.  “Let’s meet Barba-whatsit.”

So Molly couldn't have done it? I have my doubts about that. It had been some weeks! The wax doesn't make me as unsure as the seal that makes it hard to not have the letter flying about.

> I found and picked up Dark Names. > > “This is the sort of thing we need to read before you go to places like that.” > > “Rose,” I said.  So much for that bit on emotional and mental footing. > > “I don’t want to let this opportunity go by, because it needs saying.  First you go off with Laird, and I have to pull your ass out of the fire, and now you go-” > > “Rose!”  I said, louder. > > She shut up. > > “We can’t do this,” I said.  “You second guessing me at every turn.  This arguing.  I’ve been through some shit-” > > “So have I, in case you haven’t noticed,” she said, bitter. > > “Nearly getting killed?”  I asked. > > “I was there!  We’re connected, Blake.  You die, I probably die.” > > “Before,” I said.  “Before any of this.  I’m talking about when I was seventeen and newly homeless and picking the wrong spot to settle down for the night, only to find out that a local gang thinks you’re staking out their stash or drop point or something, and you get beat down by a group of six or seven people?  Or having a group of teenagers with BB guns come after you because they want a live target and you’re pretty much subhuman to them?  The pellets don’t go very far beneath the skin, but one of them hit something, because my arm bruised purple from the bicep to my hand.” > > “You never said anything about that,” Rose said. > > “There were worse days.  Days I’m probably never going to talk to you about.  Or tell anyone about, even if some people close to me maybe put some of the puzzle pieces together.  I’m not aiming for pity here, I don’t want it.  I don’t want to use this for leverage to win an argument.  What I was going to say was that I’ve been through stuff, before any of this, and I made it this far with my instincts.  I can’t and won’t abandon them.” > > “I’m going to be a bit of a bitch here,” Rose said.  “I don’t think your instincts are that good.”

I love that these two characters have been put together in this magically-bound way. They are both the same-ish people. But Rose is more prim and Blake more of a brute guy because of his life experiences. Both of them have been wrong in this very first arc alone, yet they both have also been right and are very flawed when communicating to one another, they know this and its frustrating to them just like it should be, they didn't ever actually gotten the chance to BOND. Since they've met they have been in this crazy rush of "something more important to do".

> “They weren’t good when I was first on the streets, either.  But I honed them, I stayed alive and mostly whole, I refined those instincts, found people I could trust, and with their help I got to a point where I was surviving on my own.  Which is something I’m proud of.  I can do the same here, but I need time to get a handle on it all.” > > “We don’t have time,” she said.  “At this rate, you’re going to make a mistake, and we can’t afford mistakes.” > > “Then help.  Continue helping, please.  We’re the same, the only difference being that I walked a different path.” > > “And you’re still walking it,” Rose said.  “It’s a lot to ask, for me to trust you as an extension of me, when I’m not sure I trust myself.” > > “I’m going to ask it anyways,” I said.  “That you trust me, and that you trust yourself.  I’ll talk to you about this stuff more, but I need it to be a talk.  Don’t second guess everything I do, or it’s just going to become noise, and the doubts are going to fuck me up as much as anything.  I need cooperation, collaboration.” > > “You want me to cater to your unique needs, but is there any consideration to mine?  I’ve been dealing… I’ve got the memories of dealing with our family for years.  It doesn’t exactly build up a team player mentality.” > > “My experiences didn’t either,” I said.  Barring the last year or two.  “But I’ll try if you do.  Please.” > > She was glaring at me, practically bristling with frustration.  I probably didn’t look happy either, now that I thought on it. > > Without saying anything more, I turned my attention to the book, until I found the page. > > No image.  Only text. > > I looked up at Rose, and she was gone from the frame.  She reappeared, holding her own copy.  I could hear the thud as it hit the desk on her side. > > “Page thirty-eight,” I said. > > “Thank you,” she responded.

I will say that he has to do some consessions to her pretty soon though, or else this is going to blow up and I dont feel like Blake is seeing it. He has been pretty dismissive, for many different reasons all the time, of the fact that Rose feels bound with the way her existance works. A fight between these two would be baaaad.

> The being I have named Barbatorem is an entity falling under the classification Insolitus Nex.  This author does not believe in stricter classifications, and leaves it to others to label him a devil or goblin as they see fit.  It is difficult to impossible to guess as to his origins, but one can speculate that it came about after the dawn of human civilization, given the common elements and the trend in appearances.

[Reminder to look up the latin meaning of those two words. I know Nox means night, but dont know Nex. Insolitus reminds me of solitude but the in-prefix could mean solitude-less or something else entirely that I'm not seeing.] So Insolitus is actually unaccostumed. As in, not used to something or not exactly adapted to a certain type of experience. This is an afternote btw, but I do not see what that could imply, even more so knowing that he actually accepts a symbol of someone that made sort of rules between Others and humans. Nex seems to mean things like death, perish, disappear. Maybe a sort of Other that doesn’t die, or that dosn’t simply cease to exist. Maybe an Other that doesn’t perceive death as something worth noting, as we’ve read from Grandma’s letter.

> The entity was first bound by this author on April 23rd, 1953.  The binding was a difficult one to tackle, with a little more than a share of guesswork going into the execution.  In the end, this author used an Ut Vires approach pointing to Contrariummethodology.  An abstract entity bound in a rule-defining diagram of geometric lines and Byzantine notation.  Twenty years after the fact, this author stands by her reasoning at the time. > > Should another practitioner need to bait him again, know that this author used: a pile of festering boar carcasses, six feet high, each carved with his name when well into their state of decay, the decay timed using refrigeration to be roughly parallel; seven jars of burning hair, resupplied keep the flames perpetually alight; and the crest of this offering was an innocent and a virgin in the form of a one year old innocent, placed at the height of the pile.  For more on the reasoning behind this methodology, please see my other work, Dark Contracts, chapter four. > > This author cannot say whether he was attracted to the virgin aspect or the innocent, but this author was nonetheless happy to have an option at hand to serve both purposes.  The child was unharmed and largely unaware of what occurred.

What a sight to see. Just a baby sitting atop the carcasses. What the fuck.

> Given Barbatorem’s nature, this author would recommend another means of baiting him in the future, as he will remember, anticipate and adapt with each means used.  He agreed to be bound by the seal of Suleiman bin Daoud four months after the initial capture.  See the Others volumes, book one, chapter one, if unfamiliar with the seal.  The diagram this author used for entrapment, necessitating only one line to open or close, can be found on page five of this entry, followed by the means of summoning and the recommended diagram for imprisonment. > > Signing Barbatorem to the Standard remains the proudest accomplishment for this author, at that particular date and time, marking her first feat in this particular field. > > Those looking to interact with Barbatorem at any length should see about precautions against abstract entities in Classifying Others: Fiends and Darker Beings, chapter four, and the texts on means of attack and defense against Others, in Infernal Wrath, chapter two. > > Rose was already looking up at me when I finished.  A bit faster than me when it came to reading. > > “A baby?” she asked. > > “Option at hand,” I said, as I turned the page to get a look at what came next, “I guess Uncle Charles or Aunt Irene get offhand mentions in the books.” > > “I still hate them, but I’m maybe getting a sense of why they’re a little fucked up,” Rose said.

Oh man these were all family members living in the house weren't they? How often did they get used as magical experiments and how DID this actually affect them in some psychologic way or maybe in a more abstract magic sode-effect way?

> “This is the second mention of the Suleiman dude I’ve seen.” > > “Suleiman bin Daoud,” she said. > > “Want to do some side research while I get caught up on Barbatorem, here?  Look up the chapters in those other books, and maybe get some info on the seal?” > > “Okay,” Rose said.  “Working together?” > > I nodded, then I looked up at the second floor, where the bookshelves line the walls.  I tried to remember, voicing my thoughts aloud as I pointed to each in turn.  “Types of magic, shelf one, shelf two.  I think it then focuses on Others, two or three shelves.  Can I turn the mirror?” > > “Sure.” > > I turned the mirror, so Rose had access to the ladder and the bookshelves in question. > > I resumed reading. > > Barbers were once surgeons, in addition to their other roles.  The red on a barber’s pole is a reference to bloodletting.

HEY, I actually knew this! You could go to a barber to have your teeth removed through barbaric surgery of just punching it the fuck out with some tool or another.

Barbatorem is both, a warrior of sorts, acting with surgical precision on whatever target he is directed at.  A recurring theme in earlier stories suggests that he was sent against the summoner’s enemies, almost always powerful figures, and he brought them to ruin in the worst ways.  He does not seek out mischief with those who summon him, but he takes advantage if one is offered.  For this reason, he is a reasonably safe entity to summon if one takes care to follow instructions.  He serves as a better deleterious sending against an enemy than he does as a boon-giver.  This author and three acquaintances have summoned and used him without issue. > > Barbatorem, before being sealed, tended to visit small settlements and sites of war, either during or after the altercation.  Given his nature, it is hard to get eyewitness reports that corroborate his involvement in events.  The unawakened tend to note a stench of rot, blood or burning hair, or a crude but exceptionally sharp and sturdy cutting instrument found in the aftermath of a grisly event, invariably lost a day or two later. > > Physically, he rends his victims, and the surgeon aspect becomes evident in how he inflicts the maximum damage possible without ever killing them, though the methods change as his form does.  He will mend the damage with an expert level of care that exceeds typical modern standards, if it means keeping the victim alive.  Despite the blood shed in this process, his victims typically die by other means like starvation or dehydration, unable to move under their own power or communicate a request for aid, due to a lack of limbs, missing tongue and teeth or a lack of working sensory organs, and the isolation that follows an attack.

I did not expect from the first things I read on this for some summonings to be mostly free lile this. But maybe it is balanced. One fuck-up and you are done for. Can summonings be fought off? Can summoned beings refuse a task?

> On a more abstract level, Barbatorem deals a deeper form of damage that is hard to encapsulate in this text.  Rather than state the myriad ways he might harm his victims, this author would suggest a few key points to note, suggesting the wider variety of feats he can accomplish: It is believed that he can sever his target’s ability to access any higher plane, forever and irrevocably denying them whatever good things might await them after death, and he can remove any ability a practitioner has.  He can pass into a demesne without needing permission, though he cannot enter an ordinary home owned by a non-practitioner (see Classifying Others, chapter four).  He can evade barriers and typical practitioner’s defenses.  This in mind, he obviously serves as a suitable weapon if directed at a practitioner. > > Barbatorem takes no one shape, but tends to favor a particular form for several years at a time before unknown events prompt a change.  Previous forms include: a bipedal sheep, largely bald but for sparse patches; a bloated man disfigured to a monstrous point by lash-wounds; a pair of children hand-in-hand; and a legless man on a horse.  In every form, however, he carries a bladed instrument of some kind.  He has been known to carry scissors, clippers or shears in more than half of the recorded cases.  Death, mutilation and a lack of hair figure into each form in one way or another (see descriptions in individual entries for notes on these fronts).  Ergo, the barber reference.

This is all really cool and a neat way to tie back to how whoever sealed him figured out what attracted it. I'm almost thinking the baby served as an attraction mostly because it had no hair now. And hey, shears. Has he taken an invisible form then? Or is he miniscule maybe? Or wait! Fuck! Maybe you need to be awakened to see him?

> “The shears are a part of him,” I said, more to myself.  A glance in the mirror showed me that Rose was on the floor above, a book resting on the railing as she turned a page.  Did he leave them behind?  Would he? > > Barbatorem is mute, making dealings hard.  He will see a contract up to seven times before refusing all further contracts.  In this event, one can dismiss him and summon him again, but it must be to offer something else.  In a dealing, he will offer expert skill in medicine, in exchange for enough blood to make the practitioner pass out – take care to avoid spilling any on the circle.  He will offer to extend a practitioner’s natural lifespan by half-again or by twenty-five years, whichever is less, at the cost of the practitioner forever smelling blood, rot, and/or burning hair.  He can offer to ensure that one’s blades never dull, in exchange for enough of the practitioner’s flayed skin to fill two cupped hands.

Ah here are some answers. Sounds pretty easy to deal with. But yikes to all those costs in offerings.

> There were two diagrams drawn out in black, with measurements along each face, and a ritual for summoning him.  The rest of the pages had stories.  Mutilated men driven to madness, without a thing left.  Limbless, suckling fruitlessly on the teats of livestock.  Blind men frantically scratching out endless letters to loved ones lost to this ‘barber’, using stones on cobblestone, using their fingernails when no tool was at reach, then their blood, and then the uncovered bones of their fingers.  That last one was a practitioner that tried to bind him and failed. > > I reached the last page.  Lines were drawn out, with words, followed by a shorthand cipher.  ‘I have changed the contract.’  ctuvag  ‘I have changed the contract.’ cvtuaa. > > “So?” Rose asked, behind me. > > “He has to be in the circle, still,” I said.  “Or I wouldn’t still be here.  Apparently we can’t sense him until we’re awakened, which might explain why I couldn’t see him.  This guy’s spooky.” > > Rose nodded, solemn.  “The bit on abstract entities is basically elaboration on what’s in the note.  The bit on attack and defense only matters if he’s loose.  There are a lot of charts.  Describing what aspects to pay attention to, what elements and objects are most effective.” > > “Blood, burning hair, rot,” I said. > > “Not like that.  Like in Essentials, malignant Others are going to react to purifying substances and patterns, like salt and running water.  Fresh wood against dead things.” > > “Iron against things that are born from nature,” I said. > > “Right.  But he’s not entirely physical, so you need something prepared in advance, meeting a few prerequisites at once.  Like, this isn’t the right answer, but drawing out a pattern on a baseball bat and hitting him with it.” > > “So you’re working past the abstract bit,” I said.  “No, I get it.” > > She lifted another book, turning it around so I could see a painting of a brown-skinned man with a funny little golden hat and a magnificent beard. > > Rose explained, “Suleiman.  Sorcerer king.  He was the first practitioner who really worked for the betterment of mankind and actually made headway.  He established rules and contracts, and he systematically worked to challenge the biggest, baddest Others out there that he could, then used them to help get others.  It brought about an age where humans could stop being the playthings of Others and start developing as a civilization.” > > “Okay,” I said.  “And the seal?” > > “A formal acknowledgement on the part of an Other, that they won’t interfere with mankind without excuse, they’ll obey certain rules, and the practitioners will leave them be.  Typically an Other bears some symbol or token of this bargain.  Over time it’s gained a power of its own.  Being sealed physically alters the Other, but it also affords them certain protections against us.” > > “Essentials alluded to that same deal,” I said.  “It was pretty vague.” > > “It was because it is,” Rose said.

Vague symbolism for being that work on abstracts. Seems logical. Cool that some respect is due to the practitioners and its all thanks to people being smart about their actions rather than fear and power.

> I glanced at her, waiting for elaboration, but she only shrugged. > > “We know what Grandma was dealing with now,” I said.  I didn’t add ‘which I wanted to do in the first place, before you stopped me from reading that book.’ > > Instead, I said, “We can’t know if he’s inside that circle or not without awakening.  Which we need to do anyways.” > > “On to the next part of the game plan?” > > I nodded. > > “My circle is drawn out,” she said.  “Want help?” > > I didn’t, but I was happier if she was on my side. “Please.” > > Together, we walked through the steps of drawing out the chalk circle.  Circle first, then measuring it out so that there were five circles at set distances around that circle, the line running through the middle of each before I carefully erased each with a damp cloth.  One symbol in each little circle. > > Another circle, larger than the last, around the entire thing, with six circles at set intervals.  I carefully set out each one. > > And then a third, bounding the others.  Seven circles.

I SUCK at precision when drawing anything. Even a straight line when underlining something just runs outside what I expected it to go. I would be fucked in this situation for many reason, but this is a main one.

> “You’re a lot quicker at this than I was,” Rose said. > > I shrugged.  “You’re faster at reading.  Next?” > > “Cabinet,” Rose said.  “Bottom shelf, far left.” > > I opened the cabinet.  Bottom shelf, far left… the space as empty. > > I looked back at the mirror, shaking my head. > > “They were on my end.”  Rose lifted a bowl with crystals in it. > > Once she showed me, I was able to find it.  Bowl, crystals… ah, and a bag with other components, middle shelf, off to one side.  It was all clustered together.

Maybe because Molly used them on this side of the mirror? This mystery is killing me god damn. I think I will avoid trying to speculate on the mirror world thing until we get more clues on it.

> Each circle on the innermost and outermost ring got a little gold-rimmed bowl.  I spoke aloud as I got each set up.  “Crystal… myrrh… oil… spice…” > > “Holly and holly berries,” Rose said, at the same time I said, “raw iron.” > > We exchanged glances.  I stood up and checked my book. > > “Why?” Rose asked.  “Mine says holly.” > > I approached the mirror, book held out.  We each held our books out so her book was almost a reflection of mine.  Sure enough, the text, the symbol for the inside of the little circle in question and the art for the token were all different. > > “Grandmother?” Rose asked. > > “I don’t know,” I said.  “I get that Molly would have moved the components, but… I don’t think Molly altered the book.” > > “The question is, what do we do about it?” Rose asked.  “Do we each do a different ritual?  Do I do your ritual, assuming it’s right?  Or vice versa?” > > “If it’s sabotage,” I said, thinking aloud, “Which of us was sabotaged?” > > We sat there for a good minute, thinking.  Rose flipped through her book as I flipped through mine, as we searched for more discrepancies. > > It was the only one we could find.

It would make more sense that the ones from Blake are the easiest to mess with. Too many possibilities really.

> I hated doing nothing, being stalled like this.  It was in the quiet moments that I felt like trouble would start breathing down my neck. > > I turned to the bags, searching them.  Not the contents, but the bags themselves.  Holly… Iron… > > The Holly bag had a different knot.  Tied tighter, more neatly.  Full. > > “Let me see your ingredients?” I asked.  “Show me the ones you haven’t touched?” > > Rose did. > > Her iron ore nuggets were tied the same way my holly was. > > “Molly used the iron,” I said.  “I think I will too.” > > “Blind faith?” Rose asked me. > > “Grandmother…” I said, trailing off as I struggled to find a way of putting it, “I didn’t get the feeling she’s actively trying to fuck us over.  It’s more… collateral fuckery.” > > “Collateral fuckery,” Rose echoed me. > > “She’s not going to sabotage us, and I can’t think of anyone else who could or would.” > > “You want to trust the woman who summoned a demon that’ll jump into our eyes, and left it in the attic for us to use if we needed?” > > “I don’t want to.  I think I have to.  I won’t force you to do anything,” I said.  I got the lamps around the edges of the room and brought them closer to the circle, before using them to light tall candles. > > “I’ll do the holly, then,” Rose said. > > I could hear the faint sounds as she dropped individual berries in her bowl.  My nuggets made a clatter.

Oh! Maybe it is tied to gender? Maybe the book corrects itself for the reader? My assumption would be for each to do as their own books tell them to do it either way.

> “More abstract things for the middle ring,” I said.  Rose gave me directions to find each object she’d already set up on her side. > > A dagger.  An hourglass.  A dreamcatcher.  A small silver skull.  A coin. > > “Which catches you up to where I was,”  Rose said.  “I got stumped.  A rose, and something personal.” > > “Kitchen for the former,” I said.  “I can’t help with the latter.” > > “We need the token offerings for the Others.  I’ll need a mirror in the kitchen to get that stuff, with the rose.” > > It wasn’t a fast process.  Molasses, milk, vegetable matter burned into a clean ash, honey, meat, and alcohol.  I plucked a rose from where it sat in water.  A touch limp, but it didn’t matter too much. > > “My food is looking pretty sad,” she said.  “Am I going to offend them if this milk isn’t any good?” > > “Did it go bad?” I asked. > > “No, but I’m not even sure it’s milk.  It could be an illusion.” > > “It’s the thought that counts, right?” I asked. > > “I’m not so sure,” she said.  “Not here, with something like this.” > > I put the wine aside for later before going upstairs, my arms full.  Everything went into a bowl, except the rose. > > The basic stuff in the inner ring.  The dagger, hourglass and all the rest in the middle ring… leaving me with one empty circle.  The personal touch. > > I hadn’t brought much with me.  I could probably dig a paintbrush or something out of a cabinet, but… it didn’t feel like that was exactly it. > > I checked my pockets, and I retrieved my keys.  Joel’s keys were still on them. > > I felt the weight of them in my hand.  They weren’t my motorcycle keys, which would have been my first choice, but… they sort of fit.  Keys opened doors.  There was a freedom.  They represented ownership, protecting things, and the fact that my friend’s keys were on there… > > I didn’t like to owe people things.  It was why I tended to insist on some reciprocation, paying back the woman who’d given me a drive here.  Giving Joel my bike keys for his.  I felt it was important to acknowledge those debts. > > It would do.  The keys found their place in the empty circle. > > I set out the food as well.  One offering to each bowl, for the outer ring. > > “Oh, this next part is fun,” Rose said.

Love the detail of these keys thing.Hope it works. Also, "fun"? I think this is a first for this story. Go on.

> I checked the book to see. > > Clothes off. > > “One at a time, or both of us at once?”  Rose asked. > > I didn’t know.  But when I opened my mouth to say so, I felt myself leaning one way, and pushed myself the rest of the way.  “Both.”

Hahahahaha

> We stripped down, then sat in the center of the circles, backs turned to each other, with the mirror between us.  I had to get up again a moment later, to get the book and lay it across my crossed legs. > > Then the ritual itself.  Looking around, I was aware of how dark the room was, with the oil lamps closer.  I’d heated the wax on the bottom of each candle before fixing it to the floor around the circle, and reached for one now, along with a pair of tongs. > > Incense, lit.  Metal ore, heated. > > Metal ore, heated some more. > > Okay, it took a while to get to the point where I could see the heat in it.  I quickly set it down, quiet, and moved the candle out of the circle. > > This was it.  I glanced over my shoulder, and I saw Rose, the edges of her shoulder, hair and face lit by the candles and lamps.  Our positioning made it hard to see anything else, which was sort of the point. > > I nodded a little. > > We began in unison, reading the text.  There were three translations for each line, one in a foreign language I couldn’t place, one spelled out phonetically, and another with the English translation. > > Our voices faltered some as we stumbled here and there.  For the first four or five lines, one of us would reach the end before the other, pausing a fraction to let the other catch up. > > We finished one line, almost chanting now as we sounded out the syllables with a kind of rhythm. > > The circle moved, the bowls sliding across the floor, the diagram moving beneath them.  Putting another bowl in front of me. > > Another line. > > Again, the circle moved before me.  I didn’t even dare look back at Rose.  We’d found a stride, now, and the words were flowing more easily.  The space outside the circle seemed to darken, as my focus on the inside of the circle deepened. > > I was in the ‘zone’, so to speak.  My eyes passed over the phonetic guide, but my peripheral vision caught the English words transcribed below, and the meaning became clearer.  Not the entire meaning, but the big words, the emphasis. > > These were the little things, the fundamental things. > > The bowl of incense slid from its position in front of me, but it slid down and to the right, as if it were sinking into the floor.  I didn’t look, convinced that I’d lose my stride and break the illusion if I did. > > The dagger slid into place. > > There were no words in the book to recite.  I could have sworn they’d been there before.  The silence rang, heavy. > > “War,” I said, if only to keep the momentum going. > > I could hear Rose behind me, taking my cue.  “War.” > > The circle moved, giving me a sense of relief, and a view of the hourglass. > > “Time,” I said, in unison with Rose.  Something we didn’t have enough of, something dangerous, foremost in our thoughts, with its association to Laird. > > The dreamcatcher, a hoop with a network of threads within. > > “Dream,” I said. > > But Rose was speaking at the same time, and she said, “Fate.” > > The circle moved.  The little silver skull.  Deceptively small, no doubt valuable.  It glittered in the light. > > “Doom,” I said. > > “Death,” Rose said. > > The coin, an old one, from an era before coins had been pressed with exact images. > > “Fortune,” I said. > > “Ruin,” Rose said. > > The lifeless rose. > > “Family,” I said. > > “Myself,” Rose said. > > Then the personal token. > > Somehow, this seemed more meaningful.  Weightier. > > I wasn’t being presented with a surprise, something to associate an idea to.  This was something else entirely. > > “To everyone and everything that’s listening,” I said.  I heard Rose start speaking behind me, but my words drowned hers out.  “To me, and to nobody in particular, I’ve gotta say, I didn’t choose this.  I’m doing this for family, to respect them as they were in the past, when my cousins were also my friends, so the others don’t face what Molly did.  I’m doing it to respect stuff in the present, because even if I dislike my cousins, I don’t want them to have to face this situation and get killed off.  I’m doing this for the family that comes in the future, so my kids and all our descendants don’t have this debt hanging over our heads.  Above all, I think I’m doing this for my real family.  For the friends I made who gave me support when I needed it most, so I can demonstrate what they taught me.  Past, present, future, and… more abstract.” > > I thought for a second, and then I said, “And I’m doing it for me and Rose.  Because I won’t be trapped like this, and she shouldn’t be either.” > > The circle passed on, carrying the keys forward, more like it was going down a spiral staircase I sat in the middle of, than around in a loop.  I couldn’t even see the floorboards, now.  Only the lines and bowls. > > I could hear Rose behind me, still talking, as if she were very distant.  “-than a vestige.”

Whenever it happens I'm going to point it out. Sorry for the silence, didnt want to interrupt this moment. This deep meaning sections in whatever media I see? Makes my eyes water everytime. Just loved it.

> The circle stood before me.  Honey. > > I looked down at the book, and I started into the phonetic pronunciations again. > > Each of the dishes passed by me as I recited the lines.  More than ritual, I was getting the sense that this was a means of breaking bread.  Leaving gift baskets for the neighbors to let them know you were in town. > > The circle carried the dish onward.  There was only the line. > > I kept reading.  More words.  I could pick up the English more easily, now. > > My word is bound and binding.  I ask you respect it as such. > > My actions are my own, but have an equal amount of weight. > > So I pledge. > > The line shifted, until the white line was no longer encircling me, but crept towards me, like the divider in the middle of the highway, with my bike veering off course. > > The ‘divider’ hit me, passing under my knee, then my legs.  It was a matter of seconds before it was passing directly beneath me.  A quick glance behind me showed me that it wasn’t carrying on. > > Darkness, one straight white line, and me. > > More lines appeared.  From the other circles that had disappeared, from other directions. > > My legs shaky, I stood. > > I nearly fell as a line coursed forth from high above and caught me in the shoulder. > > I was glad I hadn’t fallen.  I wasn’t sure if there was a ground beneath me to catch me.  My feet weren’t on solid earth. > > The lines were larger, more meaningful, and I could see further.  I could see the circles attached to each line, like planets in orbit around things I couldn’t make out.  A system all around me, that I was now a part of. > > I felt like Rose must feel all the time.  Being there, but not quite alive.  My body was only there because my sense of self required it. > > I opened my eyes, and I came back into my body. > > Chalk lines crossed the floor, the circles still evenly spaced around them, but they had expanded, decentralized from around me.  The lines now intersected at points, and the spaces between bowls were five to ten times as far as they had been before. > > The bowls, as a result, were scattered around the room, each upright.  The incense still smoked, but the bowls that had held food were empty. > > I was standing, the book on the floor in front of me.  I reached down to see if there were any other instructions, and stopped. > > I could see birds, flapping their wings, against my skin.  They moved, and the branches they were on bobbed lightly.  The watercolor background shifted.

Oh? Is this from the tattoo? Can you not have a marked skin or it gives off some extra meaning or feeling to something.

> “You okay?” Rose asked. > > I started to speak, and then stopped myself.  I had to be careful. > > “I… may be seeing things,” I said.  I glanced her way, and saw her sitting in front of the mirror.  Her legs were bent, knees almost up to her chin, arms around them, protecting her modesty.  I turned and stepped around the desk, where the furniture would protect mine.  I grabbed my boxers and jeans and pulled them on. > > I heard a page turn. > > “The book says you need to learn to manage your extra senses.  If you don’t, they can swallow you up, and you won’t find your way back to reality.” > > “I think I remember.” > > “It suggests techniques, but you have to find what works for you.  Closing your eyes, but not moving your eyelids.  Or try refocusing them, and find that point you reach to where you’re trying to refocus your eyes but you’re doing something else.  It becomes as natural as anything else about your body.  Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s easy.”

Not happy to make people do naked mission impossible scenes, dodging lines in the nothingness, they can also completely go nuts if they awaken wrong. Nice.

> The bowls were still moving, I noted.  The lines still drifting.  One bowl made a ‘clink’ as it reached the wall, tapping the foot of one cabinet. > > “How did you do it?” I asked, as I buttoned my jeans. > > But Rose wasn’t in the mirror. > > I looked around me.  There were other things that were catching my eye, now.  The lettering on books glittered a bit too much here and there, where the light caught it.  The script on the letter I’d torn stood out in bright blue where I’d torn it, while the other half remained nearly invisible. > > I closed my eyes, exhaling, and then opened them. > > But for the chalk lines and bowls in strange places, the room was normal. > > I reversed the process.  Eyes closed, inhaling, eyes open. > > Again, there were the hints of life.  I could see something faint, like dust motes, spraying lightly where the room ended and the hallway began.  As though the space warping effect was creating a kind of friction between spaces. > > When I focused on the motes, they stood out in my vision, and I could see more of them in the room. > > I cupped my hand to catch one. > > It turned, doing a small somersault before darting between the fingers that tried to close around it. > > I did what I’d done before, but I didn’t close my eyes. > > The effect faded. > > I turned it on again, but without doing anything with my breath or eyes. > > Natural. > > I checked to see if Rose had appeared, verified she hadn’t, and picked up the book.  I finished the chapter, rereading the bit on being awakened and the sight.  Now, as agreed on by men and Others, long ago, I’d see what was normally hidden from people.

You are now effectively and truly a wizard, Harry.

> Practitioners fell into categories, depending on their focus.  Some carried on this route, learning ways to influence the world that were naturally in tune with their bodies and will.  Some practitioners manipulated spirits, getting them to obey or infusing them into objects.  There were some who dealt with Others.  Many cultures, a long, long history of arts being invented and refined, it made for a wealth of possibilities. > > I felt more equipped, now.  I couldn’t do anything but see, but I felt calmer, without as great a weight on my shoulders. > > That would inevitably end when I got to the council meeting. > > “Rose?” I asked.  “Are you getting changed?” > > I approached the mirror. > > Her diagram was still on the floor.  It hadn’t scattered like mine had.  It was still in place. > > I realized I hadn’t checked what her personal object was.

Oh fuck dont tell me she put nothing down. That she didnt pledge when she should have. Blake said he drawned her out, did she fumble and assumed she had nothing to give? Your clothes, your hair?

> I searched the outer rim.  Coin, skull, dreamcatcher… > > “I don’t think it worked right,” Rose said, stepping into my field of view before I could spot it.  She was dressed, now. > > “What?” I asked.  “You didn’t?  Why not?” > > “It did something.  I…” > > “What?” I asked. > > She looked upset, met my eyes briefly, and then looked down.  “I… felt something, when I pledged my word.  I can see things.  But I don’t think it worked for me like it worked for you.  I may have fucked up.  Pledging something in exchange for nothing.  Losing the ability to lie, and getting nothing in exchange.” > > “How can you be sure?” I asked. > > “I’m not.  But… nothing ate my offerings like they did yours.  Nothing moved, as far as I can tell.  I… don’t think I can see anything on this side, because there’s nothing really to see.” > > “Let’s check,” I said.  I walked over to the desk to put the book down, stepping over the dagger.  I flipped through it.  One page with an image dominating half of it.  A symbol was outlined, with arrows suggesting directions for drawing it.  A spiral, drawn from the outside in, then a triangle, with one point at the center, all as one motion. > > “First workings?” > > I heard her flipping through pages as well.  “Yeah.” > > “Shamanism, movement,” I said. > > “You have to spill blood,” she said. > > I bent down to get the dagger, hesitated, and then cut the tip of my middle finger. > > “Jesus,  Blake.” > > I drew out the sign on a cup that was being used to hold pens and pencils. > > When I looked, I could see the motes floating around and through it. > > I gestured, a flick of my hand, and they reacted.  The cup jerked about two inches and crashed to the floor. > > When I walked back to the mirror, I saw Rose there. > > She gestured, and the book she’d chosen didn’t budge. > > “Try something smaller?” > > “It doesn’t matter,” she said, quiet, “because it’s not blood.  I’m not offering anything worth taking, and there aren’t any spirits here to listen and obey, are there?” > > “There are other options, maybe?” > > “It doesn’t matter,” she said, again.  “I don’t care anymore.” > > “Careful what you say,” I said.  “Our word is binding.” > > Her voice sounded like it was on the brink of breaking with emotion.  “Good night if I don’t run into you before you go to bed.  I’m going to take a bit to myself.” > > I wanted to say something to console her, but I wasn’t sure what. > > “Rose,” I said, but she was already gone.  I turned the mirror, following her, and she startled a little, almost stumbling as she nearly walked into a wall. > > “What?”  She asked, clearly annoyed. > > “I’m going to check on the barber again, if that’s okay?  I won’t say or do anything.  I just think it’s good to check.” > > She nodded, mute. > > “Sorry,” I said. > > “I know you are,” she responded.  She smiled back, a tight, joyless expression.  “You can’t exactly lie now, can you?”

This is exactly the last thing she needed right now. Unless she is already considered an Other, and posseses some skill we aren't aware of yet, this is pretty game breaking. She would now be bound to just... being support, and carried around, giving advice to someone that, for her, doesnt really want to hear it. Her world is her own, no people, no spirits, no blood, just a mirror image.

> With that, she stepped out of my field of view. > > I shucked off everything, as I’d done before, and opened the door to the tower.  This time, I looked, using the sight, keeping my eyes trained on the floor, using only peripheral vision to take in the circle. > > It was still empty. > > I felt a quavering in my stomach, a kind of fear.  He’d seemed so vague, in the books, but now that vague thing, capable of inflicting unspecified horrors on me, it was free? > > I stood there, eyes on the floor, thinking. > > When he appeared, it was so sudden I very nearly looked out of instinct. > > He was crawling out of the shears.  Out of the reflective surface, and into the middle of the circle. > > A brown-skinned man, his pale hair scraggly and long, inconsistent here and there, more baldness than hair.  He was old, wizened, with a potbelly, and spots all over his skin. > > I couldn’t get more specific details without looking at him, and I wasn’t about to look. > > An old Middle-Eastern or Indian man, malnourished to the point that his stomach was swelling. > > He bent down, hauling the shears out of the ground.  I could see the painted circle the shears had penetrated disappear, as if it were only a coincidental light effect the shears had cast. > > He sat down, his back to me, bony rear end on the hard floor, and then plunged the shears into his leg, like a gardener might stick a shovel in the dirt so it would stay upright for when he needed it. > > Barbatorem leaned over, resting one narrow arm in the space between the two arms of the shears, forcing them open and gouging his leg open wider.  A foul stench filled the room. > > He wasn’t acknowledging me. > > Which I was fine with.  I eased the door shut, eyes still fixed on the floor. > > There was a council meeting to prepare for.

Getting awakened was pretty awesome. My favorite chapter thus far I must say, mainly because I got a little emotional for the symbolism, the pledge and Rose, who currently must be suffering a lot and I'm a huge sucker for suffering "maidens". I wouldn't be such a sucker for dark souls otherwise (even though I always make buff female characters to be their knights in shining armor). If my eyes dont fool me, the next chapter might be an interlude, or at least some different type of chapter, just like I was hoping! It was silly of me to think that an act called "Bonds" would have the meeting in it. I'll leave the last chapter for some final thoughts, but the meaning behind it seems pretty clear to me as is. Glad that I was able to give you guys this extra liveblog, to recuperate from my lateness from last week! Have a nice new year!

NEXT LIVEBLOG: Expect updates on the second week on january, past the 8th

[codezeta-liveblog-blog]

Bonds 1.6 - After coffee, want to grab some pizza?

Just a FYI, my cellphone flipped the fuck out when selecting the text, so it decided to show right in my face one thing I didnt want to see: I know now that by the ending of this chapter there will be nothing within something. I'm hoping it isnt something that is going to be built through the entire thing, and just a last time development. Sorry for that.

I paced.  The Demesnes text in hand, I walked from one end of the living room to the other, then walked back.

Another trip back and forth, and I stopped by the window, using the edge of the book to push the curtain back.  It was dusk outside, just past sunset, day two, and some of the locals had emerged.

If I didn’t know better, I might have thought the locals were trying to put pressure on me.  Men and women, some children, simply staking out the perimeter of the fence.  Some of them paced like I was doing, like tigers in their cell, while others were patient, smoking or holding phones to their ears.  A number of the ‘children’ were standing on the short stone wall, hands wrapped around the metal curls and spikes of the railing, eyes on the house.  Some talked, others were silent.

Most were normal enough I wouldn’t have looked twice.  A handful weren’t.  One little boy, separate from the others, kept scratching at his head, face, neck and arms, his fingers coming away black with his own blood, or so it appeared in the gloom.  I could see the gouge marks, dark lines cut into his skin, he would turn away, and they would be gone the next time I got a chance to see.  There was a woman with hair, hat and coat covering much of her face, but when I did get a glimpse, I saw only vague, black smudges where her eyes and mouth should be.  She held a cigarette up near her face, but never inhaled from it.  The others seemed rather intent on avoiding her, giving her a wide berth as she paced.

Gore doesn't do anything for me, put scratching/itchyness is somehow more creepy. Maybe it has to do with the feeling of helplessness. Wounds, blood, missing limbs, its somehow fine, maybe manageable or expected depending on the setting. But self inflicted madness-inducing itchyness? Something you can't get OUT of you? Thats what does it for me in the creepyness scale.

A car passed down the length of the road.  I tried to use the headlights to get a better look at the things, but the headlights revealed a mostly empty sidewalk, no Others but a small group of the ‘children’ that had hopped down from the fence and were simply walking as a group, heads covered by hats and hoods, hardly worthy of a glance.

My eyes had to adjust from focusing on the headlights.  The Others appeared from dark spots, and stepped out from behind the pillars that framed the gate.

I let the curtain drop, then resumed the pacing.  I’d read the same page five or six times.

“You’re making me nervous,” Rose said, startling me.  “You’ve been pacing the entire time I’ve been gone?”

Her hair was wet.  She’d left to go shower, but she still wore the same clothes as before.  Apparently she had running water, on her side.  That was interesting, considering there wasn’t necessarily anything for the pipes to connect to.

“I’m nervous,” I said.  “I ordered pizza, but I didn’t think they’d come crawling out of the woodwork like this.  There’s a good ten or so out there.”

“Why did you order pizza?” she asked.

“Because I’m hungry?”  I responded.  “There’s nothing more than the most basic stuff in the kitchen, I’m going to go crazy or get sick living off flour tortillas, canned beans and tuna, and since I’ve got to figure out a way to keep myself supplied, I might as well start sooner than later.”

“Pizza isn’t supplies.”

“Pizza is a way of testing the waters,” I said.  “Will anyone in this town do business with me?  If I can’t order a pizza, I might have trouble getting groceries delivered.  If I can’t get groceries delivered, then I need to find a reliable, safe way of going outside.”

“So you put a pizza guy in the line of fire?”

“There wasn’t a line of fire when I called,” I said.  I looked outside again.  “It’s hard to keep track of time.  My sleep schedule’s all over the place, my eating schedule’s off track, and the days are short.  It’s dangerous, and it’s going to fuck me up.  Need to get back in the habit of sleeping at night and eating on time.  As is, I didn’t figure it would get dark so soon, and I didn’t figure they’d appear like this.”

“I know,” she said.  “Except I don’t even have the physical needs to gauge by, and it’s awfully dark in here.”

I peeked outside.

Two Others had joined the group.  One was very talkative, engaging with the eyeless, mouthless woman who had the cigarette, even venturing into the four or five foot bubble of personal space around her that the rest seemed to be respecting.

I reached for the phone.  Mind changed.

“Bell Pizza.  What can I do you for?”

“I’d like to cancel my order,” I said.

“You’ve already paid for your order.  The food is made and is on its way.  We can’t provide a refund.”

“It’s fine.  Keep the money.  Just call back the delivery guy so he doesn’t waste his time.”

There was a pause.

“I’m sorry.  We can’t refund your pizza, because we already prepared it.  It should be there in ten minutes or less.”

He was feigning ignorance, with a touch of a bad accent, but he couldn’t hide the smugness.

“You’re being intentionally dense,” I said.

The guy on the other end hung up.

“Fuck,” I said.

# I'm having weird flashbacks of RE4. But every villager is out to get you psychologically and the bosses are staring at you from the window and you cant do shit about it. Really like the alien-ness (?) Of the situation here. Never read something like thia.

“So… now what?” Rose asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I doubt he’ll give me a fair hearing if I call back.  I don’t really know what to expect, here.  Even reading up on the basics, it doesn’t get into much depth about this.”

Rose nodded, “Essentials and Famulus were more focused on Other-practitioner relationships than general Other-human relationships.”

I could see her fidgeting.  I leaned forward.  “Earlier, you said you were nervous.  How does that work?  You don’t breathe any harder, since you don’t breathe.  Does your heartbeat pick up?  Does your body flood with the stress hormones, making you fidget?”

“That’s a no on every count,” she said.  I turned away from the window to look at her.  She elaborated, “My body’s always the same.  Stable, steady, there, but not doing anything except… I dunno.  Maintaining appearances?”

“But you get nervous.”

“My brain gets nervous,” she said.

“I’m not sure that makes sense, but okay,” I replied.  I looked down at the page I’d been rereading for the past twenty minutes, then tossed the book down onto the coffee table.

“You’re onto Demesnes,” she observed, craning her head to peer down.  “Me too.”

“It’s a fitting thing to read up on, here,” I said.  “Making your own sanctuary, while we have enemies gathering at the gates.  It seems like a pretty simple ritual.”

“Deceptively simple,” Rose said.

“Yeah, deceptively simple,” I agreed.  “You stake out the area, the magical equivalent of drawing out your borders and planting a flag, you say a few words, and you invite anyone, everyone and everything that objects to come and challenge you.  Trial by combat, riddles, placating them with deals, whatever you agree on.  The bigger the area you try to claim, the bigger the invitation you broadcast.  They each get to confront you the once, and the ritual ends when there are no challengers left, or when a set amount of time passes.  Claim a space the size of a closet, maybe get five to ten objections.  Claim a house, get fifty.”

Man did I have this backwards from the reddit. I thought it was a safe spot and that wad it. I'm glad i didn't know the full details though!

“I’m thinking that’s one of the last things we want to do,” Rose said.  “When we have a familiar, and when we have an implement, so we have some ability to fight.”

“Except,” I said, “It’s a bit of a catch-22, isn’t it?  The demesne gives us a steady supply of power, with bigger spaces giving us more power.  It’s a sanctuary, and a place where we can bend the rules in our favor.  Right?  So we need a tool or a familiar to lay claim to as big a space as we can pull off.”

“Yes.”

“But we can’t infuse our tool until we have some power to infuse it with,” I said.  “Except…”

“That power would ideally come from the demesne,” Rose said.

I nodded, “Or the familiar, in terms of strength and shaping how the tool functions.  And we can’t start talking with Others about bringing them on board as a familiar until we have some established power already.”

“Necessitating a tool and a claim to some land,” Rose finished for me.  “Each of the three things requires the two others.”

I nodded.  “Or it necessitates a compromise.  We pick one front, we make it easy, like you suggested, go with the bare minimum.  Do one thing badly, use the leverage we gain to do the next thing in a mediocre way, and then use the two things to do really well with the last ritual.”

My pacing resumed, though I had my hands free, and I could stick them in the pockets of my wool hoodie.

Seems like the sort of thing I would never start at any point. I'm too undecisive when it comes to these things haha. I wonder if theres really no way to turn this situation over. Maybe something at the reunion will happen to make people side with him? Althought that wouldnt fir what we know on how many enemies grandma Rose has accumulated over the years. What to do what to do...

“How do the others do it?” Rose asked.  “The Behaims and the Duchamps?”

“They have backup, I imagine,” I said.  “A mom and dad who are willing to sit in on a meeting with a familiar and vouch for them, or maybe even have a familiar arranged from early on or before the kid is born, things ready-made, a space set aside.”

“Magical trust fund kids,” Rose said.

“Basically,” I said.

“What about the North End Sorcerer?”

“What about him?”

“I take it you didn’t read the little black book from cover to cover?  Look him up.”

I shuffled through the tomes to find where I’d put the book. “I was going to read it later, after the major four were done, before the council meeting.”

“You don’t need to make excuses to me,” Rose said.  She had her own copy.  “Um.  Page thirty-two.”

I opened the tiny book.

Johannes Lillegard, believed to be an adopted name.  Practitioner.  The newest arrival in Jacob’s Bell as of August thirteenth, ‘ought-nine, he arrived at the council meeting of said date.  Johannes appears no older than twenty-five, but all facts suggest he claimed his demesne six or more years ago, a region spanning all of Jacob’s Bell, west and north of the hospital as well as the entire expansion north of the bridge.

I paused in my reading there, to ask, “The bridge?”

“The highway,” Rose said.  “It becomes a bridge where it passes over the marshland here.”

I pictured it, then stopped short.  “Wait, the commercial area north of the highway?  With the train station, the shops-”

“-The condos, the mall, the prefab houses, yes.”

“As his demesne?  The book talks about it in the context of rooms, of houses at the most.”

Rose didn’t reply.  When I glanced her way, she was nodding, a serious look joining the general exhaustion on her face.

“There’s a catch there,” I said.  “A drawback.”

“Oh, right, you’re only partway through,” Rose said.  “Demesnes are like trademarks.  Periodically, people are going to test them.  You need to respond, but you have the home court advantage.  The law’s on your side.  But if you claim something that broad, and if you can’t or don’t defend it when someone else puts one foot over the line, that weakens your stance.  But he’s defending it.”

Look at this guy! How many dozens do you call to attention when you try to claim something that big? I imagined the constant contest for desmenes would be a thing, like a pokemon go gym sort of competition. But good to know you have the advantage at first. Must be scary to get called out for that, the person surely must think they have the upper hand to begin with then. Meaning that they must have information that you are not aware that they have.

“How?”

She pointed back at the little black book.

I read.

In conversation with Aimon Behaim and Sandra Duchamp, we mutually agreed that Johannes must have claimed the territory prior to the expansion appearing, though we’re unsure of when this might have been, for none of us to hear the claim or be able to respond to it, nor how he was able to do this at what might have been the age of thirteen or fourteen.  Mara has declined to answer any questions, being more taciturn than her usual,

Johannes seems to bear harsh wounds, no doubt tying back to his ambitious claim, with no use of one eye, one hand and one leg, though the tissues appear undamaged.  He bears a set of antique pipes as his implement, and has a Gatekeeper of the Seventh Ring (ref Astral Bodies: vol 3, and Prime Movers) as his familiar, named Faysal Anwar, which takes the form of a rather large Afghan Hound.

Note: Johannes has made his second appearance at council meetings, February sixth, year two thousand and ten.  Occasion to expand my notes.  Arrogant, and justified in it.  Enigmatic.  He spends almost all of his time within his demesne, stepping outside only to defend his claim and attend occasional meetings.  This makes gathering information hard.  Favors manipulation of space.

Note: Touching up all of my notes, for my soon-to-be heiress.  He is a manipulator, content to bait people and lure them to their doom.  Fitting, given the implement of choice.  He safeguards his demesne by making it a fiefdom, with neighborhoods held by Others and a handful of lesser practitioners.  Stay clear, this is a threat you do not need to face down.

I looked up at Rose.  “He’s powerful, then.”

She said, “He doesn’t have a family.  He had nothing given to him in advance, as far as we know.  But he managed something.”

“Okay,” I said.  “So there are obviously other options.  Approached directly, the situation is filled with contradictions and obstacles, but maybe there’s an oblique answer, like Johannes found?”

So there was NO response. Even more intriguing than him just being powerful. He exploited something, found his loophole and only then became powerful. He is the king from the visions right? I’m pretty sure he is. Wasn’t the city twisted in his "kingdom" though? Hm. He was the one that seemed the most nice towards Blake in those visions. What are his motives then? Helping Blake, befriending him or just taking over enough so that he himself has access to the ‘literal’ nukes?

“Like what I was talking about with the witch hunters,” Rose said.

That again.  I shook my head.

“You’re refusing my ideas too fast,” she said, and the emotion in her voice caught me off guard.  She was irritated, upset.  “Have you even read up on witch hunting, Blake?”

“No,” I said.  “Have you?”

“I can’t.  I need you to rotate the mirror in the study.  Damn it, listen, there are things we can learn to do that don’t rely on familiar, implement or demesne.  Like Laird’s shamanism.”

“Okay,” I said.  “I’m very on board with that.”

“But you aren’t on board with getting the protections witch hunters have?  If anything’s going to get us killed, it’s a knee-jerk reactions and making stupid assumptions.”

“It’s not that I don’t like the idea of protection,” I said.  “But when someone says ‘witch hunter’, it makes me think of hunting things.  Fighting, instead of defense.  And I think that any of those protections we might use as practitioners are going to be found in books for practitioners.  It’s hard enough without overcomplicating it, sifting through all the stuff we can’t use for some tidbits we could find elsewhere.  Can we compromise?  Maybe focus on getting this wizardry crap down, and we’ll look at the witch huntery stuff later, as the side project it is?”

Thats the problem right there isnt it? You cant go on the defensive in this situation, Blake is still holding out to some hope. He is the outside element being thrown into a volatile situation. I already see the escalation coming from miles away.

When I looked at Rose, she was frowning, eyebrows knit.  tapping her hand on some surface in front of her.

We were similar in other ways.  Prone to anger.  But something told me that Rose wasn’t one to actually show or exercise that anger.

Something to watch for, if she was bottling up her stress.  What outlets did she have to vent it, and how would she react if she couldn’t?

“Fine,” she said, in that way that girls were so very good at.  She took a deep breath, then sighed.  Purely for effect, I imagined.  Calmer, she said, “We shelve that idea.  We can use trickery, deception, manipulation, to get our foot in the door, get one of the three major things we need.”

“Agreed,” I said.  “Harder than it sounds, because Others are naturally deceptive and are probably looking out for those tricks.”

“What else?  We could try marshaling forces, like he is.  We need a good rapport with Others to figure out who we might pick for a familiar, right?”

“There’s a problem with that,” I said.  I reached for the mirror, then stopped.  “May I?”

“Yes.”

I lifted the mirror from where I’d hooked it onto the bookcase, then carried it to the window, pushing the curtains apart.  I set the bottom end of the mirror on the windowsill.

There were five more Others than before.  All clustered around the fence.  The rest were still there.  Waiting.

Rose was turned away from me, so I couldn’t see her, and she was silent, leaving me to stand there, presenting our situation.

“That’s the issue, right now.  That’s the biggest complication we’re facing with the rituals, with life in general.  Someone’s done the equivalent of putting a price out on our head, or they said that the usual rules for going after someone in an inhabited area are on hold, for me, or for us,” I said, my voice low.  “We can’t conduct any rituals, because those guys are waiting to fuck us up.”

“That-” Rose started.

Nooo dont get interrupted. I need that knowledge. She recognized someone or something didnt she? I love how her psychology and just how she works in general is being this build-up mystery that is probably going to blow up in my face when she suddenly vanishes forever out of nowhere in a critical momment or something.

She stopped short as a car appeared, parking at the far end of the street, a sign perched on top.

This time, seeing the vehicle approach, I could see how the Others moved out of the way of the headlights.  Stepping literally into shadows, or stepping to a position where they were out of sight.  In the latter case, it looked like they were stepping out of my field of view, to where the fence or columns on either side of the gate were blocking my view, but I felt like they were doing it for everyone that might be looking.  Finding a universal blind spot.

A guy stepped out of the car, holding the insulated bag with the pizza inside.  He crossed the street, and approached the gate.

“Stop him, Blake,” Rose said.

“I want to, but how?”

“I don’t know.  Shout?”

I strode to the front door, hauled it open, and bellowed, “Hey!”

Others appeared from the shadows by the gate, a ‘child’ with his back to the stone column, glancing my way.  Further down the street, I could see the faceless woman with the cigarette appear behind the delivery guy.

He didn’t stop walking.  When he shouted back, I couldn’t make out the words.

“Stop!  I don’t want it!  Go back to the car!”  I hollered.

Again, I couldn’t make out his reply.

I watched as the Others closed in.

I never thought I'd read a scary pizza delivery before.

The ‘little boy’ who’d been scratching himself walked down the street, so short I could barely make him out over the stone wall which bordered the property.

He approached the delivery man head on, not moving out of the way.  When it looked like they might collide, the ‘boy’ hopped up onto the short stone wall.  His hand around the man’s wrist.

A moment later, so fast I couldn’t see it, the boy slammed the delivery guy’s hand down on the railing.  The man screamed, dropping the pizza, hand impaled on the spiked railing that ran along the top of the short wall.  He tried to pull it free, but the ‘boy’ still had a grip on his wrist.

“Hey!”  I shouted.  I stepped out onto the porch.

NO DONT

A girl hopped up, using the man’s knee as a foothold, grabbing the delivery man by the jaw.  She was more monkey than child as she swung up onto the wall.  The momentum of the swing brought his head down and forward, driving it into the top of the railing.

I could hear the sound it made on impact, which said a lot, considering how I hadn’t been able to hear his words.  There was no saying how much was the upper row of teeth breaking on impact with the railing, or the sound of the jaw breaking as it was wrenched down with a sudden weight of the not-little-girl.

The girl let go, walking along the top of the railing, her arms extended to either side, pigtails swinging, the grin the only part of her I could make out beneath the winter clothes, too wide, filled with very white teeth that didn’t match each other.

I could hear his continued screams, now more strangled than they’d been.

I felt cold, paralyzed.  Had I just killed a man, simply by inviting him here?

The faceless woman caught up to him.  Her free hand reached into the back of his head, and I could make out the fingers reaching out the front, moving just beneath the skin, closing together into a fist over one of his eyes.  She moved her hand, leaving the skin bound shut in a knot of flesh, and she closed the other eye in the same manner.

Another movement, nearer the mouth and throat, and the screams were cut off.

Knitting, molding his flesh, almost casually.

My concern was no longer that I’d killed the man.  My concern was that he might live.

“Blake!”  Rose’s voice, from the living room.  “You have to help him!”

No he absolutely does not. Ge the fuck back inside. Dont be a hero. Call the police????(actually maybe don’t???). I mean, Timecop cant be happy his turf is being messed with by people he has not assingned.

I took a step forward, then stopped as the faceless woman continued her work.  Her fingers wriggled and crawled across the man’s scalp, just beneath his skin, burying his hair, reaching down to cover his ears.  Trapping him in his own skin, so his own flesh was a hood over his face.

“Blake!”

I thought back to one idle thought I’d had in the past hours.

The house was a sanctuary against Other and practitioner both.

I glanced around me, then very carefully took a step back through the door, past the threshold and into the house.

Laird had come to the front door.

“He’s dying!”

There were rules.  I couldn’t know which ones still held, here, which ones the locals had called off, while I was a problem.  But there were rules.

I remained where I was, watching.

She held the cigarette aloft, poised as if she might take a puff at any moment, while her other hand pulled free, then plunged into his chest cavity.

The muffled grunts and violent jerks he made in response were worse than the screams.

The talkative one kept chattering, nonstop, the ‘children’ making little sounds of amusement, laughing and cooing.  The others who’d joined in seemed content to watch, standing silently on the fringes.

I watched a car appear, traveling down the street from the opposite direction the delivery guy had come.  The talkative one practically leaped, taking hold of the faceless woman.  His momentum turned her around, and he leaned forward, simultaneously leaning her back, so they were pressed together, their bodies covering their victim.  I could see the talkative one’s face stop an inch from the smudged blur of hers.

The car passed, the headlights illuminating what the people in the car would see as two embraced lovers, kissing at the side of the street.  The remainder were hidden.  I watched as the car reached the end of the road, stopping at a stop sign.

“Blake, salt is a purifying material, cleansing.  It can work against certain Others,” Rose said.  “There’s a ton in the study, if you can’t find any in the kitchen.  Go and throw it at them!”

I didn’t move.

“Blake!  Please!”  She sounded desperate, now.

Make a salt gun. Slingshot the salt. Do not get close. Please Rose stop being so emotional. I do want to know of Blake has a plan, its looking increasingly like he has a plan. Is this deceitful? Not actually happening? The pizza guy over the phone seemed amused by the possibility of this happebing. Maybe its just to fuck with his head and its all going to be reversed soon, memories of the pain and all for the poor delivery guy. That would make much more contextual sense.

The car turned and disappeared out of sight.  The two Others broke apart, and the faceless woman clawed at the talkative one.  Vicious, angry, almost feral.  He gave her only laughs in response, as he ducked out of the way.

The faceless woman gave up and turned back to her victim.  I could see where she’d reached through his chest to grip the railing, fixing him to the metal.

Rose was screaming, now.  “Damn you, Blake!  Damn you!  God!  Fuck!”

She hit the mirror.

The noise Rose was making seemed to get attention.  The talkative one looked up at me.

I slowly shook my head.  I felt physically ill, all expression and utterances choked from me by the feeling of my heart in my throat.

But there was no fucking way I was going out there.

The talkative one said something to the others.

I saw the delivery guy lurch, tearing free in a mess of blood and ripped skin.  His dislocated jaw hung down his teeth a bloody ruin.

He laughed, and it wasn’t a human sound.

When he joined the ‘children’ in cavorting about, I allowed myself to believe it.  He wasn’t human.  He had never been.

An Other, joining the faceless woman in some psychological warfare.

I could hear them laughing, in the two or so seconds it took me to slam the door.

“It was a trick?” Rose asked, as I crossed the room to where I’d left the mirror in the window.  “They-”

I saw a movement immediately before Rose shrieked.  I grabbed the mirror, pulling it away from the window.

The little ‘girl’ with the toothy mouth and the pigtails peeking out from a hat that hid her eyes, hair and ears had appeared just outside the window.  She now scratched at the glass with long fingernails.

“They wanted me outside,” I said.  “The house is a sanctuary, the property isn’t.  Staying behind the railing like they were, it was meant to mislead us.  I might have fallen for it, if Laird hadn’t come all the way to the front door.”

“They’re clever.”

“The book warned us they were.”

“How sure were you?” she asked.  “That he wasn’t human?”

I didn’t answer.  Rose was staring at me, and I avoided her gaze.

Others were scratching and tapping on windows, now.  I heard a scrabbling, as if something was on the porch overhang.

“God,” Rose said.

“This is what Molly was dealing with,” I said, quiet.  My heart was still pounding, my mouth so dry I needed to try three times before I could speak again, but the fear and helplessness were disappearing.  I clenched my fist.  “All on her lonesome.  Hearing things just outside the house, all night.  Nowhere good to go for help.”

“We’re not in a great place either,” Rose said.

“No.  But we have each other,” I said.  “You had my back last night, with Padraic.  I might not have made it home in one piece without that.  Thank you, by the way, if I haven’t already said.”

“You have, twice, but it’s okay.  We’re figuring this out.”

I nodded.  My thoughts were going a mile a minute, but I had trouble saying just what the destinations were.

“What are you thinking?” Rose asked.

“I’m thinking…” I said, trying to sum it up.  “I think we’re almost ready.”

“Ready?”

“We’ve seen what kind of games the practitioners will play.  We’ve seen how the Others function, in part.  We have a sense of what we need to accomplish, and an abstract sense of how.  And maybe it helps a little that I’m a bit scared and a lot angry.”

“You want to awaken,” she said.

I nodded.  “Before the council meeting tomorrow.  Getting a familiar, the tool, and the demesne is something that can wait.”

“Yeah,” she agreed.  “I think we should.  You want to do it now, or do you need to eat first?”

“Two things, first,” I said.  “Eating isn’t one of them.”

I dialed the pizza place again.

“Bell Pizza, what can I do you for?”

“Hi-”

“No,” he said.  “Not doing business with you.”

“It’s about the pizza guy.”

“We never sent anyone.  I asked a driver if he wanted to go, he said he wasn’t delivering to a haunted house.”

The irony being this house was maybe the least haunted locale in Jacob’s Bell.

“I say it isn’t haunted, but it’s owned by you fucks, isn’t it?”

“One of us,” I replied.

“You’re Assholes, all of you, holding all the rest of us back.  You know my brother bought a place here, because this place was supposed to grow?  Except you’re not selling, and it’s losing value every year, needing more repairs.  You-”

These townies are both assholes and fucking stupid. You dont invest in something that is not 100% sure and then blame other people on it. Seriously, goddamn. You were a shit investor, get over it. "How could that rich fanily not sell their mansion, that money was MINE! :(" fuck off. The way these many people are interested in it, it would just end up being communism and everyone getting just a crumb of the pie.

“I just wanted to check the pizza guy wasn’t going to show,” I said, but he was talking over me.

“-off on the power, I think, bullies.  Knowing you’re driving the rest of us into ruin.  You want a fucking pizza?”

“I changed my mind a while ago, remember?”

“Fuck you.  Fuck yourself!  I already talked to the other pizza place.  Don’t expect a thing, until you’ve sold that place.  Fuck you.”

“Fine,” I said.  “It’s just pizza.”

But he’d already hung up.

It’s just pizza, I told myself.

“Fuck,” I said, as my annoyance bubbled to the surface.

“You can’t be surprised.  I mean, you knew people hated you here.”

“The woman at the coffee place was surprisingly respectful of the idea that I might be in mourning,” I said.

“Being a decent person and hating our guts isn’t mutually exclusive,” Rose said.

“Fuck,” I said again, still annoyed.

“It can’t be that big a deal, compared to what just happened outside.”

“You took a shower just a bit ago,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“Sorry to ask, but do you even get dirty, on that side?”

“No,” she said.  “Pretty sure I don’t.  Some dust, but I don’t sweat.”

“I’m guessing you needed to shower to enjoy a mundane comfort,” I said.  “Feel a bit more human.”

“Alright,” Rose said.  “Point taken.  Sorry about your pizza.”

I shrugged.

“I could do with more human comforts myself,” she said.

I nodded, “Something to figure out.  I’ll help any way I can.  But first-”

“Awakening,” Rose said.

I nodded.  “Meet you in the study.”

I took the stairs two at a time.

I’d opened the second secret door on the second floor, which made for a quicker arrival at the lower floor.  The room was far darker without the sunlight from above.

I twisted the knobs of the two lamps that sat on and beside the desk, respectively.  When the room was still too dark around the edges, I lit the oil lamps at the edges.  Each lamp illuminated a slice of the bookcases, cabinets or shelves to either side of them.  Where the lettering on books had been done in foil or a reflective material, the lamplight caught it, highlighting the scripts in a soft orange-yellow, while the books themselves remained dark.

By the time I’d finished, Rose had lit up the room on her side.  The light from behind her made the edges of her clothes and hair glow.

She held a wrought-iron compass, with a spike in one end and chalk embedded in the other.  I watched as she stabbed the floor, then walked in a circle, using the other arm to draw the wide circle in chalk.

She had the curved ruler that she used to measure the distance, then erased a spot.  She was reaching for the compass again when she looked at me.

As the ins and outs of her existance remain a mystery, I didnt think of the possivility of her doing the ritual too. Or needing to do it in any way. Maybe we can get twice the magic power in one person, but I somehow doubt it. I think what counts for Blake counts for Rose.

“Blake?”

“You’re doing the ritual too?”

“If I can,” she said.  “Aren’t you starting?”

“I said there were two things I needed to do first,” I said.

“Phoning the pizza place and…”

I crossed the room, lifting a book free of a shelf, then walked back into Rose’s field of view.

“No, Blake.”

I hefted the book.  Diabolatry, R.D.T.  The black cover was surprisingly flexible and soft, the lettering on the spine and cover were done in gold, catching the lamplight.

“No,” she said again, as if saying it over and over again with increasing intensity might drive it into my head.

“What was it you said?” I asked.  “Stupid knee-jerk assumptions are going to get us killed?”

“I’m all for stupid knee-jerk assumptions when we’re dealing with that.  Laird said they were the mystical equivalent of nuclear missiles.”

“I’m not proposing we use them.  But I want to know what we’re dealing with.”

“Blake.  You know that moment in the horror movies, where you’re screaming at the actors?  ‘Don’t go up the stairs’, ‘don’t touch the glowing skull’?  Don’t read the book.”

Would reading it be that destructive? Or does it only hold such implications of power that it draws you too much into it. Have you already read the book Rose?

I frowned.

“What are you even thinking?”

“That the things outside were horrifying, the faceless woman, the pseudo-faerie we ran into.  So… why are these things so much worse?  What makes them ‘nuclear’?  We’re walking into that meeting, and I can’t help but think that everyone there is going to know exactly what’s going on here, and we’re going to be in the dark.  We can’t afford to look weak or stupid.”

“We are weak and stupid,” Rose said.  “We’re untrained, ignorant, out of the loop, and we don’t have any of the good stuff that practitioners bring to the table.  No tools, no familiars, no demesnes, no tricks or any of that.

“We can’t afford to let on how badly off we are.  Having one tidbit of info we can allude to, to scare the pants off them if we need it-”

“-Is liable to get us killed,” Rose finished for me.  “I get it, wanting to know just what we’re sitting on, but handling the dangerous goods is not the way to find out.”

I hefted the book, feeling its weight.

“Come on,” she said, lowering her voice to be gentler, “I compromised earlier.  Can you do the same?”

“Damn it,” I said.

“Is that a ‘yes’ damn it or a ‘no’ damn it?”

“Yes,” I said.

I moved to put the book on the bookshelf.  A flap of paper caught on the shelf, keeping me from sliding it into place.

When I pulled the book back, the paper dropped.  Fragments of dry wax and a small key danced across the floor.

Folded into thirds, it had been sealed into an envelope of sorts by wax.  The key had apparently been melted into the wax, only to be freed by the impact.

“Leave it,” Rose said.  “Nothing good comes of that.  Sweep it under the desk, ignore it.  Please?”

“I would,” I said, “But wax makes a seal, and that seal just broke.”

“That’s reaching,” Rose said.

“Okay, maybe,” I said.  “But tell me you can’t imagine a drawing of something coming to life and crawling free of that page.”

“Now you’re being manipulative,” Rose said, “Playing to my paranoia.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

With the way things work in figurative ways and meanings, yes, that is very plausible, but also what a nice little fuck-up we have stumbled on.

“Yes, I can imagine it.  Yes, are you happy?”

I wasn’t.  I picked up the page.  On the backside, there were only two words.

My heiress.

I turned it around.

My heiress,

If you’ve come this far, there must be a pressing need.  You’ve been driven into a corner, or the situation is otherwise dire.  I imagine time may well be paramount.  Remember that haste makes waste, and you must step with utmost care from this point on.

I’ve left you something, or perhaps it is more correct to say I’ve left you someone.  I refer to him as Barbatorem, making a small joke, as I tend to do, but he is an older one, bearing some status and a few stories from years past, with no name of any meaning that has survived the passage of time.  You should be able to find those stories and notes on that status in Dark Names, p. 38.

You’ll find him waiting in the tower room, which you will need the key to enter.  Staying outside the circle is first in your list of things to keep in mind, which I list here because there are no better places to put the warning.  I should hope such obvious things don’t need to be stated.

Do we have a demon in the attic? I think we have a demon in th attic.

Cast aside all notion of manners.  Do not greet him, do not ever say please or thank him.  Do not ask him if he would or could do something.  Give him no food or succor.  There are older meanings in these things and they will either free him or give him power over you.  Sometimes it is very little power, and sometimes it is all the power he needs to achieve his ends.

Put aside all metal and reflective things before entering the tower room, and ensure the space remains dark.  He exists in a more abstract capacity, whatever physical forms he takes, and if his image is cast in a surface, he will exist in that surface, allowing him to step free of that surface and the confines of the circle.  For these same reasons, do not ever look directly at him, even for a moment, lest he be reflected in your eyes.  Rest assured, he will not ever step free once he dwells there.

So, no Rose. Cool. But also very cool concept. Having a demon in your eyes doesn't sound pleasing. Was Grandma so rude because she got too used to interacting to being like this? I think thats far-fetched, but a possible theory

He perceives the passage of time differently than we do.  He’ll be content to sit in the circle I drew out until the sun grows cold.  For him, the conversation is ongoing, and you’ll need to see the notes on his page in Dark Names so you can continue from where I, and each member of our line, left off.  Failure to do so may confuse or irritate him.  In any case, you can come and go, and he’ll see no difference in it.  He does not speak, which led me to use the shorthand for gestures you’ll find on the final page of his entry.  Please maintain those notes consistently, for those who come after you.

So, wait, he cant speak, so you use gestures, but you also cant look at him? I'm thinking that I'm missing something.

If you intend to deal with him, use one of the templates outlined in Dark Contracts, which I left to the right of the desk.  Page 15, 17, 29 and 77 are good places to look, if you find yourself in a hurry.  Do not improvise, for words must be chosen with utmost care.  The final third of the book has recommended terminology with examples, which you can insert into the templates as needed.  Do not trust Mr. Beasley or his firm for assistance.  They are, quite naturally, unreliable on this front.

Failing all else, keep your eyes on the painted circle, stay silent, and keep to the contracts found in my books.  You can consult my texts if you have any further questions.  I regret that I am unable to assist you here,

R.D.T.

“What is it?” Rose asked.  “The look on your face scares me.”

The look on my face?  I touched my face.

“You look like someone just died.”

“No,” I said.  “No.”

I moved to put the letter down on the desk, and it slid off.  I picked it up again, tried to put it on the desk, and the corner of the paper caught, bouncing it out of my hand and back onto the floor.

On the third attempt, I turned it over, examining it under the light.  Sky blue ink on white, barely visible, outlining a script that was reminiscent of the rune that Laird had drawn in sugar.

Holding it firmly in both hands, I set it down on the table, pressing it down in place.  It stayed.

A moment later, as I turned to make sure I’d put the book away properly, I generated a brush of air that sent the letter to the floor again.

Once disturbed, apparently, it was insistent on staying disturbed.

Experimentally, I tore it, a little tear to cross the sky blue symbols.  When I put it down this time, it stayed down.

“You’re scaring me, Blake.”

“She left something behind,” I said.

“Something?”

“Something Other.  Fitting to her particular specialty.  It’s upstairs.”

“No.”  Seeing Rose, I had a sense of how I probably looked.

“I need to check,” I said.

There was no argument this time.  Chances were good she was too stunned to say anything.

The black-painted key in hand, I made my way up the ladder, out the door to the top floor, and then up the staircase to the tower room.

I checked everything, then pulled off my sweatshirt, in case the tab on the zipper counted as reflective.  I swept my hands over my entire body to double-check.

The key clicked in the lock.  I let the door swing open.  When I moved my eyes, I did so with care, keeping to the periphery of the room, then inching closer.

The round window jutted out to my right, with a cushioned bench beneath for sitting on.  Once upon a time, it would have been a good spot for reading.  Now, it was shuttered and locked, with old books stacked on the bench like bricks.  A table sat to my left, stacked with papers that were securely weighed down.

The floor… I saw the circle, painted in white.  ‘Circle’ was perhaps an understatement, given the concentric circles and lines that sprawled across the floor, burdened with embellishment, scripts and geometric shapes, as well as other smaller circles hosting more of the same.

It didn’t take long for my eyes to see it.

A pair of shears, no doubt fallen from the table, impaled a line in the innermost circle of the diagram on the floor.

Nothing stood within.

You could have asked me to theorize, but I would NOT have guessed that the empty thing by the end was to be a summoning circle. Are the shears the problem? Interrupting the symbol? Doesnt it count as reflective? Do we have a demon locked in a useless household object, that would be pretty hilarious. 

I’m thankful that this wasn’t build up then, it really was a last time sort of deal. I’m starting to doubt that the meeting will be had in this Arc, unless this is one of the long ones. Maybe two, three more chapters? I just don’t expect it to be resolved in a single chapter and it would be good to end the Arc with it. I still have yet to discover if this story has Interludes, since I don’t know much about Twig in no way whatsoever and how it tells its story. Maybe the Interlude will be happening in the meeting? Getting one more of those famous “alien” perspectives Wildbow is so good at doing, from an Other, seeing everything from its eyes would be really good to have this early on, for perspective. Seeing how they think. But maybe confusing if overdone. Someone who is FRIENDS with Others or who already knows how they work might be best. Maybe the girl with the Other friend with the big smile. My speculation is that the people in the meeting will all gang up on Blake and it’ll be overwhelming, but one of two characters will show no interest in it, or feign it very well. Someone will start a conflict that will overwhelm the rest of the conversation and just unbalance everything, for our character’s luck. 

NEXT TIME: I intended to post this last week, but sleep schedules, finishing up some university day-job before christmas plus getting further on an  Internship selection process I REALLY didn’t expect to get further on got in the way. Then came festivities and you know the rest. I’ll be going on a trip tomorrow, but I felt that I HAD to squeeze this in somewhere. I’ll be back around the 8th, since the process will be back by then. I have NO IDEA what they’ll have me do and how I’ll manage my time then. But I’ll leave this note here for you and for myself to remind all of you: When I figure out whatever battery of tasks these maniacs will have me do in the middle of my vacation, I will schedule my next liveblog. I’ll be doing as always and bringing with me the next chapter (Bonds 1.7) with me on my cellphone, doing notes as I read it, which will be posted as soon as I either finish it or have internet (I’ll be in the middle of the woods, if everything goes right, from the 29th to the 5th). I hope you all had a VERY demon-free Christmas or any other religious or comercial festivities you partake in, and that you have the gayest new year. See you all in 2018!!!

[codezeta-liveblog-blog]

Is there any chance you would consider doing what krixwell does with the #next posts? That is, after finishing a chapter post an estimated date for the next chapter. There's no obligation to actually do the next chapter then, as long as you just post a new estimate once you realize you can't do the chapter that day (no shame in having to do that). That way we know you're just busy, and you haven't been eaten by demons.

(I ask because the last post on the *other* Pact liveblog I was following was “Sorry about late update… I’m moving this weekend and stuff has been busy. Update will be today probably but if not Sunday.” And that was six months ago. It would be nice to have some reassurance that the same thing won’t happen with your liveblog.)

If something’s come up and prevented you from liveblogging last week, that’s perfectly fine. There’s no shame in that. Just please say *something* to let us know you haven’t given up on the blog entirely. Even if its just “I’m going to be too busy to liveblog for the next week/month/decade” with no explanation. Or on the other hand, if you have given up on this blog, please at least let us know so we can stop checking.

These are all anonymous asks and I don’t know if I can see the date they were posted, so I’m assuming they are a three-part message from the same person.

First lets clear up some points: One that I’ve cleared on an earlier post even, I WILL NOT ABANDON THIS LIVEBLOG WITHOUT GIVING YOU GUYS SOME CONSIDERATION OR A GOODBYE MESSAGE. THIS IS STAYING.

Second: This is also not a priority on my list, a little sad to say it out loud like this, and it sounds worse than it actually is, but yeah, I do other stuff, sometimes I just get lazy. Sometimes I just feel like reading something without commenting on it, but since I take it to heart that i have to comment on Pact chapters, I just read something else until I’m up to liveblogging. But when I do, I’ll be liveblogging Pact. This is a project and I want to see it from beginning to end unless circumstances prevent me from doing so.

Addendum to these two points: The reason why I guarantee you these things is because I’ve followed far too many liveblogs that got abandoned that just drive me fucking nuts. So I promise to you and to myself not to do the same, because some are very dear to me and all the people reading it and just vanish without a trace or explanation, you don’t even know if the person doing it died. When its probably because they got a bit bored and wanted to read on their own, which could be explained in a simple paragraph post. Instead they are just GONE.

Third: If I didn’t mention in the post before, I’ll mention in this one. I don’t actually feel like doing lots of posts. I think I’ve mention my distaste not for Krixwell as a person, but for the WAY he liveblogs before. Hell, I’ve been the author of some criticism asks before. It is a personal thing and it has nothing to do with nothing, but I’ll be posting everything on a single post from now on. From start of the chapter to reactions, to speculations to when is the next post. I like things tidy, organized and easy. It frankly discourages me to post if I have to do multiple posts for a single piece of chapter, forcing myself to write something in the before and after is one of the thing I realized I didn’t want to do as I did this because I was trying to emulate exactly what I don’t like, but other people do. I’ll do me from now on, and this is my note on how that goes, just hope everyone is happy with it and doesn’t forget to read the entire posts I make. Sometimes thing happen, and I just don’t feel like explaining why on a separate post, because frankly, I probably already have the explanation setup on my soon-to-be next liveblog on my phone, and you’ll just have to trust me that it IS going to be posted. Please remember that this is a secondary account, because Tumblr has some stupid limitations to secondary usernames on the same accounts that I couldn’t deal with, so I had to create a new one for this to be the best experience possible. That however comes with the obstacle of it being just out of the way enough to change in-between accounts all the time that I don’t feel like making constant updates on situational events, and rather just do it all at once.

Sorry that this got long, but I felt like explaining everything to you guys. Also, sorry if it came out rude. Not my intention at all, I just get a little too blunt when I’m writing sometimes, and I hope it didn’t end up that way in this! I think it might have to do with language barriers, but I don’t intend to blame that on something other than myself for not having the patience to reread everything before posting! :PThanks for the patience. See y’all next time!

[codezeta-liveblog-blog]

Bonds 1.5 - Malicious Coffee Break

I’d expected a homey ‘small town’ coffee shop for Jacob’s Bell, but Laird guided me to a franchise instead.  A small crowd had gathered within, teenagers done with the day of classes and adults done with work.  Taking shelter from the cold.

Not gonna lie, I kinda expected to skip the coffee gathering for some reason, glad to be directly back into it again.

I didn’t miss the sheer number of eyes that fell on me when I entered with the local chief of police.

I'm thinking, since this also happened way back in 1.1 that people know of Rose and her family. Maybe they know of the same types of rumors that Blake spread around with his two favorite cousins.

“Hi Laird,” one of the twenty-somethings behind the over-lacquered wood counter said.  A narrow guy with an apron and a flannel shirt rolled up to the elbows.

“Hi James.”

A middle aged woman, lines in her face worn deep, otherwise fairly well dressed, asked, “Who’s this?  Bringing someone in for the wedding?”

One of two blonde teenagers at a table by the line said, “He’s not one of ours, and there aren’t any Behaim sorts with that hair.”

I'm wondering if this one talking is one of the family of blondes that were sitting in that table with Laird back in the visions. I do remember them talking about a wedding. Reinforcing their families strength and hold through marital bonds, most likely. Blake's hair would be different enough to pin him down as one of Rose's maybe, and this teen seem to be maybe pressing to publicly confirm that for everyone around.

I touched my hair.  Wavy and dirty blond, in contrast to the straight blond hair these girls sported.

I could connect the dots.  Blonde girls… they might have been among the ones I saw while tossing and turning in bed, before waking up to all this.

“Wedding is a few months away,” Laird said.  “As for who he is…”

He turned to me.  Letting me make my own introductions.

“I’m Blake Thorburn.  One of Rose’s grandkids.”

There wasn’t any shock or surprise, no outcry nor any particular reaction.  I could see people shifting their weight.  The middle aged woman folded her arms, legs set apart.  A few people who’d been idly looking my way were staring now.

“Something’s happened to his cousin, Molly Walker,” Laird said.  “The RCMP are looking into it.”

“The Walker girl is dead?” James asked.

“Murder?” one of the blondes asked.

“She was savaged by something in the glade behind the box store.  There were bites, claw marks, as well as evidence of tools being used.  We’ll know more when the coroner gets back to us tonight.”

Tools?

How will bites with clawing and biting be so easily discarded by police? Maybe the case wont be dropped as promptly, unless Laird pushes for it being a murder followed by some animal coming around and eating the body. That depends a lot on the state of the body though which:

“Oh my gosh,” a heavyset man at the far end of the counter said, going white.

“It was murder then?” the older of the blonde girls asked.

I wasn’t sure what color I was going, but I could feel a sick feeling in my chest.  The smells of the coffee were getting more intense.  Too intense.

I’d known she’d been mauled.  I’d known she’d been attacked, and that she’d been scared, but this was the worst bit of all.  Tools?  How did one use tools?

“Do you need to step into the washroom?”  Laird asked.

“No,” I said.  “But give me a second.”

“Someone was murdered?  In Jacob’s Bell?” the heavy man asked.

Man is it even okay for a policeman to just openly talk about cases like this, just "Hey guys, how's afternoon coffee going? Did you know this girl got super killed in the woods yesterday?? It look super brutal you guys wouldn't believe, I almost barfed right on the evidence, anyways this is Blake, he is the victim's cousin, how's family buddy?"

“We don’t know if it was intended as a murder” Laird said.  “At the very least, she was attacked, and she did die that same night, possibly from the cold or blood loss.  For the time being, it’s a good idea to stay safe, don’t stay out too late, and tune into tonight’s news.  I’ll be giving an announcement to fill everyone in.”

“And him?” the blonde girl asked.

“I don’t think there’s a lot of doubt about why someone might have gone after Ms. Walker,” Laird said.  “Others might come after him.  We were having a discussion regarding his safety, and we might talk about the house as well.”

“Are you selling it?” the employee behind the counter asked.

“Good Christ, James,” the middle aged woman said.  “His cousin just died, and you’re asking about that?”

“Everyone’s going to ask,” James said.  “People are in debt, and once that house sells, property values-”

Well people being in debt is their own goddamned fault isnt it James? Shut up and go play your... what year is it? 2013? Go play your PS3 (maybe PS4 depending on the month) and ask your mother how to be polite, since you seem to have forgotten all about it.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” she said.  “I’m saying it isn’t the time.”

James frowned.  “Can I get you something, Laird?”

“Coffee, black.”

James had it ready in seconds.  “Blake, was it?  You want anything?”

“No, thank you,” I said.  I still felt a little ill.  Tools had been used?  What did that even mean?  Knives, scalpels?  Or hammers and saws?

Or magical Tools maybe?

Laird reached for his wallet, to pay, and James refused him.  The ease with which Laird accepted that suggested it was a regular thing.

“Corner booth?” Laird asked me.  I nodded.

The booth in the corner situated us away from any people.  Laird was in the lead, and he took the seat that placed his back to the corner, which meant I had my back to the rest of the room.  I sat down, hands clasped together in front of me for warmth, breaking the grip only long enough to turn around the napkin dispenser, so the reflective surface wasn’t facing the wall.

Rose wasn’t there.

Oh no. Is it this place? Because I cant really remember her being able to just leave.

Laird opened and closed his pocket watch.  I could see the interior, a backing that had enough openings to reveal the complicated inner workings.  The entire thing looked like it was made of gold and ivory.

He’d grabbed three little paper packets of sugar, and tore two open.  I watched as he tore them open, then emptied them.  They missed his drink entirely, forming a little dune onto the table, with grains dancing across the slick, not-quite washed surface.

He moved his cup, placing it onto the pile, and sliding it across the table.  When he lifted it, the sugar was left in a crescent shape where it had been dragged by the underside of the cup.  He emptied the remaining packet, a smaller pile in the center of the crescent, and then three lines, fanning outward, on the other side.  The edge of the paper packet helped give the three lines form.

Almost half of a typical ‘sun’, as a child might draw it, with the rays fanning outward, and a dot in the middle.

I could see the blonde girls turning in unison, glancing at Laird.

“A signal?” I asked.  My heart was pounding.  I had no idea what this meant.

“Just the opposite.  Keep an eye on the people.”

Man, magical rituals out in the open is not something I was expecting to be honest haha. Just like how open on the subject the guy has been, I was just theorizing things would be rarer to see and just generally done in secrecy. Not that I didnt notice that this probably is either freezing time for everyone around or casting some "ignore-me" spell on them, but more the fact that they doing it in a coffee table out in the open in the middle of day is not a scene I would have pictured in this setting!

I did.  Twenty or thirty seconds passed, enough time that I almost spoke up.  Then people stood up.  The occupied booth nearest us emptied.  A group of people entered the shop, and situated themselves at the far end.

“That should provide a bit of privacy,” Laird said.  He sipped his coffee.  “We tend to learn a few tricks, because it’s expedient.  This one is a bit of shamanism.  Many of the circles here and there will look down on someone for dabbling.  It’s dangerous, and it leads to more mistakes.  It’s better, many say, to specialize, do one thing well.  The Duchamp family there seems to hold to this idea.  The Behaim family doesn’t.””

“And my grandmother?  I know she had an area of expertise, but the library is pretty comprehensive.”

“I think your observations are apt.  She may well have been a rare talent, helped by a generous heaping of time.  I chose to work, to have this be a definitive part of my life.  There were periods I was more serious about it, points where it faded into the background, and I raised a family.  I suspect your grandmother made it her life.  I find it impressive, if I leave the particulars aside.”

“Hard to imagine her like that.”

“I imagine you have questions.  About her, about all of this.”

“Lots.  Very few I’m comfortable asking.”

“You don’t want to show how little you know, perhaps.  I wouldn’t worry.  Most of us were novices in the beginning.”

“Most?” I asked.

“Most.  We have a local exception, even.  Others almost assuredly exist.  It is generally a bad habit to use absolutes, even outside of certain circles.  None, all, every, always, and so on.”

“Right,” I said.

Specifically shamanism huh? So there is different TYPES of supernatural abilities one can dab on I presume. I wonder what specifies which. Shamanism are rituals more targetted to animals but mainly humans arent they? Imma go research when I can.

“You’re in a dangerous situation, Blake.  The natural inclination is to be the cornered rat, to lash out, biting, in a frenzy.  One would understand if you wanted to throw caution to the wind and fight us.”

“Hypothetically speaking,” I said, “Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

He raised his heavy eyebrows.  “Besides the obvious?”

“Besides the obvious.”

“Do you know the reason we discourage people from owning guns?”

“Guns are dangerous,” I said.  A glance to the side indicated that some more people had come in.  A group of kids started to drift towards the empty tables near us, then changed their minds and headed for the door.  Taking their coffee and snacks to go instead of sitting in.

“Well, we’re talking about dangerous things.  Guns are more dangerous when in the hands of someone who doesn’t know how to use them.  Not to whoever poses a threat to them, but to themselves and to their loved ones.  It’s much the same here.”

“If I’m going to die anyways,” I said, “What’s the harm in self defense?”

“An attacker can take your gun from you.  The idea is the same here.  When we work, we’re dealing with outside parties.  If they don’t succeed in their tasks, your opposition can make a better offer, or simply frustrate them to the point that whatever you sent comes back at you, angry and blaming you for the failure.”

I nodded slowly.

He gestured down at the diagram in sugar.  “This idea recurs in any dealing with Others.  Always, there is a risk.  Here, I make a meager food offering, create a sign to indicate what I want, and draw from the reputation I maintain with local community spirits.  A bonus of my position.  The spirits play along, because they know it keeps people safer and helps to keep the community safe, and because they know I’ll make a better offering later, a habit I’ve established.  The end result?  They turn people away before they sit nearby, and we can talk without fear of eavesdroppers.”

Very interesting. When status is so important as it seems to have a say in the occurances of the Other community, I wonder how does one start off and if we will be seeing Blake climb the rungs in any sort of way or if he'll receive something powerful thrust upon him that he can use, at an obvious or not so obvious cost.

“And these benign spirits can turn on you.”

“Always a concern, with any Other.  If something goes wrong, if I allow too many people to go out into the cold instead of sitting here and someone gets hurt, or if the business starts to suffer here due to a lack of customers, my credit with these same spirits might become strained, and they might take issue.  At the very least, I’d get less free coffees.  At worst, I might find events conspiring to take my position from me, or I might even get drawn and quartered in the streets.”

Is this implying that Others own the coffee shop, that they interfere for him to get freebies or do the Others just for some reason care about the maintained status and equilibrium in the town? I hope we meet other Others soon in this arc. Hehe silly sentence.

More grotesque imagery.  It made me think of Molly’s fate.

I leaned back.  “Wouldn’t practitioners be making those sorts of mistakes more often?”

“It happens from time to time.  A handful of occurrences a year, for a given area.  But these things are rarely sudden, and they can take a variety of forms.  As it’s rarely a single monumental mistake, errors like this tend to cause a long series of events that can be tied together, telling very plausible stories.  Building racism or intolerance in a sub-community, peaking in a mob assault.  A high-risk investor’s accounts bottom out all at once, causing financial ruin.  You’d be surprised at what’s believable, when looked at from outside, or how easy it is to let this happen.  One can unknowingly offend one subset of Others while trying to please another, or spend too much credit and overdraw their accounts.”

I nodded.  “And the… bigger events?  We were just talking about the equivalent of nukes.”

“Most areas are stable.  A lord or lords sit in power, well situated, unlikely to change more than once every fifty to a hundred years, if that.  In smaller areas, things are typically enforced within the community, and it’s too much effort for too little gain, to cross too many lines and take such risks.  The only places where you’re liable to see anything dramatic are places that are on the brink of great change, or places undergoing that change… places where people see an opportunity to seize greater status or better positions.  That change helps to hide things.”

So just like in Worm, everything is stable and working as intended, until it just isn't and everything is chaos from there. I doubt we'll be seeing things in this stable picture Laird is portraying for much longer, power gaps and all that, just like the one we are in right now, since grandma's death.

“Like a girl being beaten and tortured in the woods might be explained away as a side effect of the Hillsglade House dispute,” I said.  My tone was a bit harder than I’d intended.  Though we were out of earshot, I could see the blonde girls glance my way.

“Yes,” Laird said, just as calm as he’d been before.  “Getting around to your question, things that are hard to explain away tend to end in people disappearing, rather than bodies being found.  The locals will then clean up, and they will be upset with the culprit for the inconvenience and the risk.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” I asked.

“I want you to trust me, Blake.  We may be enemies, but that doesn’t preclude trust and respect, much less an open dialogue.”

I glanced again at the metal side of the napkin dispenser.  Rose was still absent.

Oh, it might be something either Laird or the two girls did, to prohibit whatever type of Other Rose is to manifest? Hm... seems a bit off. If he wanted Blake to trust him like it feels he is trying to do, then he has no reason to do something like this. The girls... I feel like they are respecting some boundaries here, not intervening.

Laird finished off his coffee, then set it down on the table.  He opened his pocket watch, then closed it.

“I take it that’s your implement,” I said.

“And my familiar,” he said.  “After a fashion.”

He opened the pocketwatch to show me.  As before, I saw the openings that revealed the inner workings.

After two seconds, however, other hands slipped out from beneath the hour, minute and second hands.  One went backwards, while the other went slow.  He rested the end of the pocketwatch on the table, and I could feel the steady tick of it being transmitted across the surface, akin to the beating of a heart.

“Implements can be familiars?” I asked.

“Unconventional, but a police dog was off the table, and I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my life dealing with any Other that would need to take such a large and inconvenient mortal form.  Not that this one is so weak.”

“So… it’s talking to you?”

“It can, but just now it was doing me the service of telling me the time.  I can’t take too long, I’m expecting a call from the coroner and a meeting with Macguin,” he said.  “We might have some room for conversation before I go, but first I’m going to need to top up my coffee.  Can I get you anything?”

I shook my head.

“I was thinking we could talk about a deal.  Something to keep things safe and calm for everyone involved.  If we went that route, I could protect you and buy you time to find a way out, if one exists.  Maybe ruminate on that, so we can jump straight into the conversation at the first opportunity.”

“Sure,” I said.

He stood from his chair, empty cup in hand.

I turned in my seat to watch Laird join the line.  With the crude little diagram in sugar, there was a bit of a crowd at the other end of the coffee shop, with people gathering and waiting for their coffees at the one end of the counter, the general line, people finding seats and people coming and going.  Twenty or so people in all, but still a good number.

Still have to get on with those books to truly get what is up, what are the limitations, how can they be both and how does that work.

“I don’t trust him,” Rose said, the words distorted.

I glanced at the dispenser.  Sure enough, I could see her blurry reflection.  I murmured my reply, “I don’t either.”

Word had apparently gotten around.  People were glancing my way, gathering around Laird.  I withdrew my cell phone from my pocket and raised it to my ear.  I’d get enough stares without talking to myself.

Rose said, “I went to go get the little black book.  Dramatis Personae.  I’ve got others in a grocery bag.  I didn’t like how incomplete our knowledge was, so I did more digging.  Behaim’s Circle, a gender-neutral term for covens, specializes in chronomancy, with a secondary focus in augury.”

I could recall reading that, but I’d been skimming, to see where the real threats were, and my focus had been on Essentials.  “Chrono… time?”

“And omens.”

“Explains the pocketwatch,” I replied.

Yes it does. Also, nice to have confirmatoon that Rose can jump around her mirrors. Maybe only the ones she's been to before. Or did she have to physically walk in her version of the world up to the mirror in the library? The lawyer could see Rose, but will Laird be able to? Does Blake even have a reflection when Rose isn't there. I'm going to go with no on that one.

“The little black book says that grandmother thought the watch was a zeitgeist.  Not in the pop culture term, either.  A literal zeitgeist, a spirit of time.  Those are his tools, the means he uses, so if he’s going to try something, it’s going to work in a way related to them.  Both concretely and abstractly.”

“Keep going,” I said.

“With implements, the shape it takes is an indicator in how the practitioner works.  A wand is very direct, pointing to things, aimed at specifics.  A staff is more dramatic, cumbersome.  A fan might be more personal, an accessory, directing things inward.  Pens are focused on labels and premeditation.”

“It’s symbolic,” I said.  I watched Laird order his coffee.  “Abstract.  I can work with that.  I’ve spent enough time around artists, I think I can do ass-pull interpretations.”

Wildbow doing word play and playing with meanings behind representations, then tying that back together to the characters it is all related to, and all of this playing an actual important role in the story? YES. D-licious.

“A watch.  It’s less direct than the objects Essentials gave as examples.  It doesn’t suggest anything particular.”

“It’s a… way of seeing how the world works on a fundamental level.  For someone who does the omen thing, I can sort of understand that.”

“Right.  But what’s he pulling here, if he’s pulling anything?”

“He might be getting more information out of us than we’re getting.  Which I wouldn’t mind.”

“I’ve got an ugly feeling,” Rose said.  “Like he’s playing us.  You know?”

“Yeah,” I said.  I didn’t take my eyes off Laird.  “It doesn’t feel like it’s just a little bit of information gathering.”

“No,” Rose said, very much on the same page with me.  “No, it doesn’t.”

“Something else, then,” I said.  “Time… I’m thinking about what he could pull on that front, but I’m not coming up with anything time related.  We don’t have any major appointments… no.”

I saw the blonde girls get up, and I tensed.  I couldn’t say what I was tensing up to do, but I wanted to be ready for anything.

Maybe the watch just "tells him" things. Maybe he is spying on the conversarion right now. Blake doesnt have much knowledge to share, but I dont doubt there is something deeper going on. This setting reminds me a lot of Hunter x Hunter's Greed Island arc, where the characters, despite being strong, are completely outmatched at the beggining for simply not knowing how the videogame they are transported to mechanicaly works, so they just get tagged by an in-game spell right at the start thinking its some deadly threat when it was just an in-game tracker someone put on them to steal their shit later.

They glanced my way, unsmiling, before stopping to talk to Laird for a second and then leaving.  Not long enough to plot something.

“He has other tricks up his sleeve,” Rose said.  “Having a focus doesn’t mean you can’t do something else.”

“He said he dabbled in a variety of things,” I said.  “But there’s too much we don’t know on that front, I’d go crazy trying to figure it out.”

“There aren’t many options,” Rose said.  “We don’t know much.”

Pocketwatch, familiar, implement.  Who was he, how did he operate?

A keeper of the peace, a police officer, a family man invested in community.  He was a figure, a pillar in the community.

I looked down at the pattern in sugar.

“What are you thinking?” Rose asked.

“I was thinking he could use those spirits from before to make these people lynch me.”

“Could he?”

He assured his protection. Right here, right now? No. Later? Maybe possible for the list of things he told us can be done by Others.

“I don’t know,” I said.  “But… it doesn’t fit.  I mean, yes, he sort of lured me here.  But… he seems too orderly.”

“It could be a mask,” she said.  “A deception.”

“It could be,” I said.  “Except the watch is orderly.  Overcomplicated, maybe, but it’s orderly.  For a personal icon of who he is, for a badge, it doesn’t fit that the guy holding that item in particular would turn around and incite a riot.”

“True,” Rose said.

I could see Laird at the station at the far end of the counter, getting sugar packets, no doubt.  People had mobbed him, with questions about the murder, the house, and me, no doubt.

I spoke my thoughts aloud.  “A badge.  It’s a really nice watch.  Maybe there’s more to it?  Nuances?  It’s old fashioned, which ties into the whole ‘mucking with time’ idea.  It’s beautiful, attention getting, a status symbol.”

“Okay,” Rose said.  “How does that affect how he applies his magic?”

I glanced down at the diagram in sugar.

“Influencing crowds, people, and perceptions,” I said.  I stood from my seat.  “With time at the heart of it, as his primary focus?”

“If I read something like that in one of the books,” Rose said, “I’d buy it.”

Hm, I still don't see how that all ties back with time itself as a concept. Time implies change, maybe movement, so maybe it is more linked with time in that venue.

I crossed the room to reunite with Laird.  I had to make my way through the local flavor.  Girls in ugg boots with vests and backpacks, no doubt commuters from Toronto colleges; too many flannel shirts; a couple of truckers in baseball caps who were blithely ignorant to the fact that the headwear was ill suited to the season; and some middle-aged women who looked like they’d smoked far too much.

“Hey!” Barista James called out.

I turned.

“Do me a favor?” he asked.  He jerked a thumb towards the door.  “Maybe clear out?”

Ah, the hostility that Molly had alluded to.  “Clear out?”

“Get going.  I’m going to kick everyone else out soonish, but those guys are actually buying stuff.”

I still felt lost, and it didn’t help that I was splitting my attention between James and my search for Laird in the crowd.  “Kick everyone out?”

“Closing,” he said.

I was no longer searching for Laird.  With that one word, he had my attention.  Very carefully, I said, “Early to close.”

“Small town,” he answered.  “Eight’s late enough.”

Eight.

My eyes searched the crowd.  The college girls, the truckers.  An entirely different group from before.

I’d just lost four or five hours.

Laird was nowhere to be seen.

He’d stranded me.

Nope, okay, its literal time, yeah. Nice power though, in a strategic setting like this, being able to make people waste time is really good.

I pulled my hat and scarf from my pockets and had them on before I was out the door, taking long strides.

The light outside the window was a streetlight, not daylight.  As I glanced up at it, it seemed to decrease in intensity.  Almost as if it were apologizing for the deception, or as if the light was one of the last things to catch up with the new status quo.  It was night.

It wasn’t a jump.  It was a blurring.  Me, the other people, environment and all other things sort of sliding along to a new time at their own paces.  No comment was made that I’d been at the coffee shop for four or five hours.

The snow crunched under my feet.

I had questions.  He’d promised this wasn’t a trap, but… what had his wording been?

Could I even worry about that right now?  If he’d lied, it was on his head.  Either way, this was my situation to deal with.

People here and there were on the street.  A man, smoking, staring at me the entire time I walked down the length of one block.  A woman sitting on the porch, doing the same.

Cold looks.

Were any of them Others?  Practitioners?

I felt the hollowness of an empty stomach, despite the anxiety.  My mouth was dry.  Was my body belatedly catching up with me, in terms of the lost hours?

A man, bundled up in winter clothes with hat, scarf, jacket, slacks and boots all in black stood in the middle of the sidewalk, at the end of the block.  His eyes were fixed on the snowbank in front of him, his breath fogging with the slow, steady breathing.

He didn’t move at my approach.  Unnerved, I crossed the street, triple checking for cars.

“It smells like a rose,” a man announced, “It’s as beautiful as a rose.  I dare say it’s as fragile as a rose, once you get past the thorns.  But is it really our Rose?”

I turned.

Three twenty-somethings, if I went by appearances, were approaching me from behind.  I might have been off.  Each had alcohol in brown bags.

I recognized one of them from the vision.  He was the one speaking, his arms thrown out to either side, for the drama of it.

“Padraic,” I said.  The one who had been with the girl in the checkered scarf.

An Other.

“I prefer Patrick in polite company,” Padraic said.  “Good grief, little rose, where are your thorns?  You’re defenseless.”

They kept walking, not slowing as they drew closer to me.  I backed away a step, then another.

Behind Padraic was a beautiful, willowy young woman in a long black coat and a man with a very fine bone structure on his face, his fine brown hair expertly styled, shining with the snowflakes that had gently alighted on it.

I might not have given them a second glance, except their faces weren’t flushed with the cold.

“This rose has no eyes, which is only natural, but it’s usually sharper,” Padraic said.  I had to back away a step.  “It has been cast away.  Denuded.”

My instincts were screaming at me to act.  The problem was that they were telling me to do things that would make this go very, very badly.

The vision people seem to be really converging on his, just like how Laird said they would now that there is a power gap. As much as I dont think these people will physically assault him, nothing stops them from pulling another trick like Laird did. Sad to say but the only thing to do is sit and listen until you are back home.

When the woman spoke, her voice was almost more musical for her drunkenness, rapt in her fascination, “There’s a vulnerability, isn’t there?  Like seeing a king without his clothes.  A movie actress howls in fear, nothing held back.  A chieftain begs like a craven coward.”

“The beauty of a thing with all the protections stripped away,” Patrick said.  He pulled off his hat, holding it to his chest, as if in mourning.  His bright red hair was cut to a length just above a buzz-cut, carefully cultivated ringlets framing his face.

“Except the skin,” the other man whispered.

“Beautiful, beautiful,” the woman said.  “So fragile.  Won’t you dance with us?”

She reached out, and her smile was a timid one.  All the scarier because of how obviously calculated it was.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” I said.  I slapped her hand away.

The realization of just how bad that one kneejerk reaction was settled in so quickly I suspected I’d seen it coming.

But I didn’t like being touched.

Oh we got this beat again. I’m expecting a disheartening moment of reveal when this is explained right after or in-between Blake doing questionable things. No? Too Taylor? The focus here doesn’t seem to be that, so maybe a moment of extreme, what, weakness or inability to defend himself right when he is angriest or scariest.

“I’ve been rebuked,” she said.  The back of her hand found her forehead, face turning skyward.  Her playfulness belied the glitter of anger in her eyes, when she glanced down at me to gauge my reaction.

“The rose is usually better at the verbal jousting,” Patrick said.  He swayed a little, then caught himself with a hand on the woman’s shoulder.  She reached up to lay her hand across his, as if it were all choreographed, an act.  “It’s brutish to fall back on physical violence.”

“It’s almost insulting, to see a creature that so resembles us, acting so basely,” the woman said.

“It is, isn’t it, Ev?  An affront.”

His male companion stepped around me, alighting briefly on a snowbank that my foot would have plunged into, before coming to a stop just behind my left shoulder.

When I looked, Patrick was to my right, back to the wall.

“But moods do shift so dramatically from generation to generation,” Patrick finished.  “It adds a liveliness to the proceedings, breaks the patterns we so easily fall into.  It’s why we love you, my rose.”

I wanted to cut in, to speak, but I wasn’t sure what to say.  The confusion of being cast five hours into the future wasn’t helping, nor was being surrounded.  It was all I could do to avoid a repeat performance that would get them really offended.

“I’m sorry for that,” I said, looking the woman in the eyes.  “It was crude.  I regret it.”

“Then will you let me touch you?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

She pouted a little.  “You’re afraid.  That’s okay.  You’re so small, so fragile.  A petal adrift in the wind, that will soon dry up and do nothing more than feed the bugs and return to the earth.  I can fix that.  Give you life, like you’ve never imagined it.  All of the best things you could ever experience, in tastes, touches, music and song.”

“It’s like cheating,” Patrick said.  “We both know there’s nothing good waiting for you at the end, my rose, not while your bloodline has this weight pulling it down.  You and your children and your children’s children, all down the line, there’s only one place you can go.  But we can give you the paradise you and yours are denied.  Two, three centuries.  Sublime things, everything you thought you might enjoy, and everything you never even considered.  There’ll be so little left of you when it’s all done that it won’t even matter where you’re going.”

“I can flense your skin,” the other man said.  “But without pain.  The movement of air as someone enters the room will have you arching your back, whimpering in anticipation.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to decline,” I said.  I couldn’t hide the tremor in my voice.  I felt more than a little backed against a wall, here.  It wasn’t just being surrounded.

# At first I thought Paedric/patrick was inhabitting multiple people, but these all seem quite different. Maybe they are ones that have accepted this same offer, or just the same type of Other. Favoring the latter.

Patrick wasted no time in seizing on that weakness.  “Are you sure?  No more fear, no concerns.  If you’re worried about the bloodline, I’m sure we could round up someone to make it happen, allowing you to do your duty.  You can be as specific as you like, whatever your preferences in body, hair, personality.  Keller here might even enjoy hunting them down.”

Keller.  The male companion, almost avian in features, with the bone structure, the gaze.

Somehow, it was easy to imagine him as a hunter.

“We can even make the birth painless.  An exercise in joy, rather than pain, without blood or sweat or tears,” Ev said.  “Something beautiful that could be the centerpiece for a party.  Architecture and dances and music, all around one singular event, with a moment of crescendo-”

“This rose is male,” Keller said.  “Men don’t give birth.”

“Male?” Ev asked.  She gave me a closer look.

Oh, haha, I thought she was offering something weirder.

I was pretty sure no humans had made that mistake since I was five or so.

Patrick, for his part, mused, “I forgot that detail.  I’m sure we could make it happen.  Do you want to try, my rose?”

I took advantage of the momentary confusion to cut in, “I have other obligations.”

“Well,” Patrick said.  He shifted position, coming damn close to brushing up against me.  “That leaves us with a problem.  You’ve offended Ev, and decorum demands that things be made right.  If you won’t accept our invitation, then how will this be resolved?”

“It’s all right,” Ev said.  She wobbled a bit, and then stepped to one side to lean against the wall.  She took another drink from the bottle.  “I’ll settle for him giving me his apologies.  Perhaps a kiss on the cheek?”

My heart thudded in my chest.

A kiss?  Was there a trap here?

“No.”

It wasn’t my voice.

Rose.

All three of the strangers backed away from the wall, until they could see the window where Rose was reflected.  With the curtains drawn, the streetlights reflected her well in the glass of the window.

“Ah,” Patrick said.  He glanced between us.  “I like this.”

“We can’t take your deal, Essylt.  I hope we can arrange something else,” Rose said.

“We can, we can.  But first, I must insist…” Patrick hopped up onto the four-inch window sill, taking a knee, somehow without falling or touching the glass.  He reached through the glass and put a hand on the back of Rose’s neck, then drew her forward, his head passing into the window to plant the lightest of kisses on her forehead.

He hopped down, giving me a plain view of a very startled Rose.

Rose to the rescue, and yeah, that happened. Established now, at least Others and maybe practitioners too can see her. But WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT ABOUT.

Ev, or Essylt as Rose had called her, looked between Rose and I with a somewhat drunken amusement, her movements languid.

“Whatever happened?” Patrick asked.  “Now we have two roses, but they’re so vulnerable.  Thornless.”

“It makes you just want to break them,” Ev said.  “So you can have those last beautiful moments all to yourself.”

“And a mess,” Rose said.

“Messes can be cleaned up,” Ev said.  “Memories are forever, and forever is a very long time.”

“Hear hear,” Patrick said.  He, Ev and Keller each tipped their bottles back to drink.  Patrick licked the corner of his mouth.

“The breaking will have to wait,” Rose said.  “Until we’ve resolved this issue of Blake’s manners.  I’m afraid he can’t give you his apologies.  It’s too high a price.  If he needed to make amends to someone else in the future, what would he do?”

“But that’s half the fun,” Ev said.  “Watching the dance that follows the exchange.”

“We’re in an awkward spot,” Rose said.  “We didn’t intend to be out after dark, but Laird Behaim pulled a trick on us.  He promised us his protection while we were in his presence, and then he disappeared on us, and turned the hands on the clock forward.”

“A rose is safe in the company of other mortals, and a rose is safe in daylight, but a rose with both is safest, and a rose without bereft,” Patrick said.  He drank a bit more.

“I don’t think we’re safe even in crowds and daylight combined,” Rose said.  “It’s  a bad time.”

“An eventful time,” Patrick said.  “A shame.  We’ll have to leave.”

“Will you?”  Rose asked.  “There’s still a topic of us needing to make amends.  What if we promised something?  Not a deal, but to consider a deal, at some point in the future?  It leaves the door open to your staying.”

Patrick seemed to be oblivious to the question, as if he hadn’t heard, but I couldn’t help but notice how still the other two were.

“The problem with that,” Patrick said, “Is my merry little band here is forbidden to make deals.”

Oh?

“You were dealing with Maggie Holt,” I said.  “Weren’t you?”

“That,” he said, raising a finger.  He let his arm drop, “Wasn’t one of the things you saw.  I’m positive.”

“But?” I asked.

“But yes,  Little Maggie and I, we were breaking rules, my lovely rose.”

“You could break rules with us, too,” my counterpart said.  “If you took our offer, and if we considered your offer and found it sensible.  We’ll even throw in a promise to keep your secret.”

“That is a deal I’ll take, then,” he said.  “You aren’t awake, so I’ll take you at your word.  Disappoint, and I’m sure we’ll find a suitable punishment.”

“We’ll endeavor not to give you a reason,” Rose said.

“Then I’ll take the debt this Blake owes my Ev, and make it my own.”

“I can think of ways to make you pay that,” Ev said.  “Fox hunting?”

Patrick made a face, but he didn’t respond.  Ev smiled again, a shy smile that rang false.

YES. Rose using that sweet knowledge, clearly showing the advantage one can have with the knowledge on these groups and how this system sort of works.

“Carry on, then, little roses,” Patrick said, as Ev brushed her hand over his short red hair  “We’ll be in touch.”

I turned to go, feet crunching in the snow.  Rose was to my left, reflected in the windows where the lights weren’t on.

It took me five or ten minutes to get my heartbeat under control.

“Thank you,” I said.

“I’m glad to do something,” Rose replied.

“Damn it, just how much reading have you done?”

“None, for them.  I had a minute to read their entries in the little black book, but I was winging it.”

“Good winging.”

“I hope so,” Rose said.

We rounded the corner, and the house was in sight.

Another person’s footsteps fell alongside my own, as I approached the crosswalk.  He stopped when I stopped.

I looked and I saw Laird.

“You bastard,” I said.

“Oh, I’m a little bit of a bastard,” Laird admitted.

I clenched my fist.

“I’m also a cop.  I did agree to escort you home, though I didn’t say from where.  It’s your choice, whether you want me to escort you back and leave you alone, or escort you back and then haul you to the police station.  It’s not, for your information, a safe haven.”

I stuck my hands in my pockets.

“Then why didn’t you arrest me?” I asked, my voice still hard with anger.  “If you wanted to leave me hanging out to dry, for Others to pick off?”

“Because I was telling the truth.  I was interested in learning more about who you were.  Whether you were someone who could become dangerous or if you were someone I could trust to be passive for as long as we needed you to.  It may come down to picking you off until we get one of the young ones.  Roxanne, I believe?  Twelve?  Or even your little sister Ivy, if Roxanne is uncooperative.”

I had an entire mental picture of Laird from when he first showed up, that was changing a bit in a good way, got a little smudge when he timeswapped Blake, aaaaand that just went poof with that last quote. I have a really bad history, and thanks to that, a really REALLY small tolerance to people being used. "Oh I was just testing how much I overpower you, so that I can overpower you later, since theres nothing you can do about it"

“And the talk of a peace treaty?”

“I never promised anything concrete, I only expressed an interest.”

“Saying you’d trust your daughters to someone like you, if positions were reversed?”

“To someone as strong as me.  If positions were reversed, I wouldn’t know any better than you did, by definition.  I double checked beforehand.”

“And the promise about there being no tricks?”

“I said it wasn’t a trick.  Which it wasn’t, at the time.  I came up with the one while we were talking.”

Why wasn’t Paige in this position?  She’d love this quibbling over semantics, if nothing else.

What if I attacked him right here?  What if I denied him the chance to escort me back & fulfill his oath?  Would he be forsworn?  Would he lose his power?

He opened his watch, then closed it.  His breath fogged heavy around him as he sighed.

“You have protectors,” he cut in.  “The exiled prince, Padraic.”

“I didn’t ask for protection.”

“It would be fleeting, whatever the case,” Laird said.  “They’re distractible.”

I didn’t want to engage him in conversation, but curiosity niggled at me.

“Faerie?” I guessed, eyes straight forward.

“Once upon a time, they would have fallen under that label.  I think they’ve dallied in the very courts that have exiled them now, as a matter of fact.  They even have some of the same tricks.  But classifying Others is a dangerous thing.  Better to call them what they are.”

“Which is?”

“Men and women who are desperate to entertain themselves over the course of a very long, long time,” he said.  “They get bored as easily as you or me.”

Probably wouldn't lose his power. I guess for the sake of not repeating myself I'll just state that I'll probably love every single synthax loopholes the characters, and thus the author himself, uses throughout this story. And I guess I didnt comment on it, but I die notice that they all were drunk, and that probably is almost their default state if thats how they go "do business" or whatever they were even there to do.

We reached the gates, and started treading up the driveway to the house.  We were silent up until I reached the door.

“If it helps,” Laird said, “The reason I decided to have you walk most of the way back alone was because I suspect you could be dangerous.”

“Yet you make yourself my enemy by tricking me.”

“I would say that I am, along with my circle, the least of your worries.  I’m sworn to do no direct harm to others, and I won’t.  My family is interested in securing our position, and we’re thus interested in having you, or one of you, secure in this house, until the North End Sorcerer is unseated.  You can’t afford to have your back turned to the others while you deal with me.  I’m also best equipped to deal with the sorts of things you might send after me, if you deign to go that route.  I’ve been preparing against Rose for my entire life.”

“And now you walk away, after this?  We’re supposed to be civil?”

“In your position, knowing what I know, I would,” he said.  “I would also make haste and awaken sooner than later.”

I managed to hide my shock.

He tapped his eye.  “We can see things at work, once we awaken.  Tell your companion I said hi.  There’s no need to hide.  Council meeting is in two days.  For three hours prior and three hours after, there is a ceasefire.  I hope to see you then.”

Oh man I love the "meet all the villains early on" moments like these. Why are they so good?? I mean, they dont simply satisfy a need the story has to establish stuff, for me they are just pleasing to watch, sometimes more than once on my alone time. The start of, if I’m remembering correctly, Arc 5 of Worm (aka the point where I started taking fucking notes). The opening sequence for Dark Soul 1 and 3 (fuck DS 2), the gathering council of any villains in every fiction ever. So good that we are getting this early. I suspect Blake is going to get some threats, BUT I am most interested in what each villain has to say about each other more than anything. Oh and maybe a friendly face of two? Because I doubt our entire cast of supporting characters are just going to be Blake and not-so-Blake for more than maybe two Arcs, tops.

I stepped into the house, then slammed the door.

Rose was waiting in the living room.  “Hey.  We came out of it okay.”

“Not okay enough,” I said.  “That could have gone far worse.”

I kicked the footstool over.  It crashed against the grill that protected the fireplace, making a very dramatic sound.

“You can’t get so angry,” she said.  “Be calm, we approach this with strategy and a level head.”

Oh man does this book seem to need a silly counter for how many times this one thing happens in it. And this one thing being Blake gettING ANGRY.

“No,” I said.  I grabbed one of the books from the coffee table.  “Anger is good.”

“Good?”

“It keeps us moving.  You read the book on implements, I’ll read up on familiars when I’m done Essentials.”

“Okay,” she said.

The quiet outrage kept me reading through the night.

Angry. Gets. Shit. Done. Guys go watch American Gods. Neil Gaiman knows how to write a serious comedy with a bunch of innuendos in it that hint to a bunch of stuff, if that makes sense to you. Also I need to use more memes of it in here like: “Anubis: "In life you believed in nothing. So you will go to nothing. There will be darkness." A real piece of human garbage: "And peace?" Anubis: *stares for just a bit* "There will be darkness." *walks away*”

[codezeta-liveblog-blog]

End of Bonds 1.4

I’m going to be honest, I’m thankful to know of that first ask I answered this session. Knowing that the first three chapters were more like pitches to a story made a lot of sense and the sort-of-hook Wildbow is known for at the end of this chapter proved a bit of that too, because, yes, I am pumped to read more into the intricacies that make up this magi-political situation (why isn’t this term used more often? Its awesome.) especially now that we are getting answers! The time is near that I stop making questions every other section that I quote haha. 

Rose is cute and I’m worried about her emotional and psychological state, the poor girl seems to be too self-conscious for her type of existence. I didn’t comment much on it, but Laird’s clock is suspicious as fuuuuck and I can’t wait to find out about that, just all in all information about other practitioners. Hm... now that I think about it, maybe the woods where Mollie died is the one where there was a warning about? It belonged to someone in particular in the visions and either she didn’t see the warning, which I doubt, or she was somehow coerced to go there. Looking forward to know more about that. Next update: Next weekend, because I have a test this Thursday. Bye! 

[codezeta-liveblog-blog]

Bonds 1.4 - Living in a Chaotic Metaphor

I finished toweling myself dry and wrapped the towel around my waist before I opened the shower curtain.  I used my fingers to comb my damp hair away from my face before approaching the mirror.

I could see Rose’s reflection, her hair pressed flat where the back of her head pressed against the other side of the mirror, looking the other way.  The mirror in the upstairs bathroom was a part of the pedestal sink, surrounded by florets.

It was an uncomfortable setting, with unfamiliar things in unfamiliar places.  Having someone, something like Rose nearby.  Strange smells and tastes, with even the water having a taste to it.  It was drawn from a local well, according to Rose. I had been forced to use the only shampoo available, and the smell of it was thick and cloying in the humid air of the bathroom.

Ahh, the good ol’ smell of dead grandma shampoo. I’ve never tried water from a well before, I did have an opportunity once to drink some from a water spring as the water came out from multiple little holes in the ground, at the top of a hill, deliciously fresh. I’d later find out that it was one of the springs that originated the Tietê River, which becomes one of the dirtiest rivers in the world as it exits the city of São Paulo.

All of this was helping me to get a sense of why Molly had been so driven to empty shelves and remove pictures from the walls.  My grandmother had a presence here, and it was a presence that felt like it could override my own.

Especially when my own presence seemed somewhat limited. When I looked in the mirror, I saw only the bathroom, and I saw Rose, her back turned.

Shout-out to the poeticness of this last paragraph. I wonder what is the psychological effect if someone nowadays being stopped from seeing their reflections forever. I'm going to keep my eyes open to see if that is even a possibility for Blake anymore.

No reflection, using different soaps and shampoo that made me smell different, no longer having the little trinkets and touches I’d surrounded myself with over the past year or two, it all made me feel less like me.

Each of those things had a flip side, seeing a reminder of our grandmother’s work in the mirror, smelling our grandmother’s lavender-scented shampoo and soap, seeing hertrinkets and small touches wherever I looked, I felt like she hadn’t quite left.  Her presence was still here.

Which it was, kind of.  We had stumbled onto one lingering threat.  The books my grandmother had written, left untouched, still waited in that study.

How deep did that particular danger run?

“Hey,” I said.  “Did you ever share scary stories with Molly and Paige?”

“A little,” Rose answered, without turning around.

“You remember the stories we told about the house?  Some made up, some real?”

“Kind of,” she said.  “We weren’t all that close.  I mean, we were the same ages, give or take a year, but we weren’t friends.”

“Really?” I asked, and there was a note of surprise in my voice that seemed to startle her.  She half-turned, caught a glimpse of me, naked but for a towel around my waist, and turned away just as quickly.

I hiked up the towel to be sure I was safe, made sure it was secure, and then said, “It’s fine.  I’m decent, and it’s not like we’re not related, right?”

“Right,” she said, but she took her time.  I caught her giving me a glance, bottom to top and back again, before she frowned a little.

Things were a lot different in her version of the family huh. Wonder if the parents have anything to do with it. Pitched the cousins against one another maybe?

“Was it that you weren’t friends after grandmother announced the whole ‘granddaughter only’ thing, or-”

“Before,” Rose said.

“Before,” I said, considering the idea.  “I considered them good friends.  We exchanged emails, we looked forward to seeing each other…”

I trailed off.  Rose was already shaking her head.  A strand of blond hair had come loose of the pin behind her head.

Sidenote: I feel like wildbow REALLY overuses blonds sometimes. I dont know if its just a local thing and I dont see enough of them, but like looking back even to the cast of Worm, a third of the characters seem to be blond.

Rose said, “I know Molly about as well as I knew Callan or Roxanne, which isn’t much at all.  Then the ‘granddaughter only’ thing came up, and that was that.  We were rivals.”

“It doesn’t upset you that she’s dead?”

“It does!” she said, “Really, it does.  But… if you told me Mrs. Niles died, I’d be about as upset. Someone who was a small, peripheral part my life is now gone.  It’s sad, it’s a reminder that we’re all very mortal, and there’s obviously a lot more going on besides that, with you as the heir for the property and me as… this.”

“But Molly doesn’t rate much higher than an elderly neighbor who you say hi to if you happen to see her,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” Rose said.  “There are nice memories, but there are bad memories too.  Over and over, stuff would come up.  If we weren’t dealing with a situation, we were reeling from the last one.  Ways to weaken me, to take me out of the running, mom and dad sort of keeping it going. It kind of soured all the rest of it.”

“Soured it?,” I said.

She gave me a funny look.  “Aunt Irene pulled strings to screw up Paige’s chances of getting into University, and she almost succeeded.  Uncle Paul went crazy, Paige went crazy, and we had four straight months where I was genuinely afraid.  My car got vandalized, and they emptied a can of orange juice concentrate under a seat. The frozen pulp you mix with two cans of water.  By the time I realized what was going on, the smell was so bad I couldn’t drive the car, and no amount of cleaning would make it any better.”

“Doesn’t sound like Paige.”

“That one was Ellie, I’m pretty sure.  She made a comment, then alluded to my brake lines, and I basically stopped driving after that.  When I think of family, that’s the first thing that comes to mind.”

Oh man, soiled citric fruits smell like vomit don’t they? And straight up implied death threats up in the family. Noice.

I couldn’t imagine giving up that independence.  We were supposed to connect as we interacted, but I could only feel the differences between us getting more pronounced.

She continued, oblivious, “Those are the memories I have, which didn’t really happen, apparently.  But they’re part of what make me me, whatever I am, and so I don’t have any lingering fondness for the extended family, real memories or fake.”

I nodded.  “I remember sharing the stories about the house, even seeking them out, so I had tidbits to share on future visits.  We’d laugh, be suitably horrified, and whatever else.  Paige and Molly had it easier, because they had siblings to tap for stories.  But it’s like… I could tell them how our great grandfather was a robber baron, kind of?”

There was no recognition on Rose’s face.

“He ruthlessly cut out the competition, scared people, beat them, stole from them, up until the day he hired a few goons to go beat someone up and they got caught.  He ran and came to Canada, where was approached by a widow, our great grandmother. Grandmother Rose’s parents.”

“I didn’t hear that one.”

“The letter she wrote us told us that bastards tend to do better as husbands in this family than the gentlemen do.  So I can’t help but think… how far back does this business with the demons and devils go?  There’s a bit of bloody history tied to this family and this house.  Was grandmother the first to go down that road, or has it been at play from the beginning?”

“I don’t know,” Rose said.  “I don’t want it to be a big thing, because our bloodline is apparently in a kind of debt, and I don’t want to be in debt to anything like that.”

Thats a good question that I think I didn't put in the right words before. How far does the debt go is kinda related to the amount of past generation that have participated in it. I'm going to assume it has been a long long time. A dozen maybe more, bur that is just based on the availability of desmenes on the house. Which is none and which I'm assuming is maybe limited by the amount of rooms? Or something like that

No longer comfortable with the topic, I bent down and rummaged in the cabinet beneath the sink for basic toiletries.  One drawer revealed a narrow can of shaving cream with a woman’s silhouette on it.  It had been there for so long it refused to budge when I tried to lift it.  Further back was a plastic packet of the cheapest disposable razors around, pink.

I opted to shave anyways, tearing the can off the bottom of the drawer.  Sure enough, the razor nicked me no less than five times.  They had been there for so long that temperature had bent the blades.

I preferred to bleed and be clean-shaven over the alternative.

Oh man I'd so rather stay a mess than be left scratching at my neck until it gets all red.

Without a reflection to go by, I had to be meticulous.

It was disconcerting to see Rose standing there, studying me, when I tried to look to see if I’d missed a spot.  I ran my hand over my face, searching for the roughness of scruff, then washed my face to get rid of the remainder.

“Bit of shaving cream at the back there,” Rose said, pointing to the nape of her neck.

I fixed it.

“Putting the more dangerous stuff aside, we should get to studying,” she said.

“Know what we’re up against,” I said, while drying my face. I tended to the small cuts, but it didn’t make much of a difference, with the cut already on my cheekbone.

“Exactly.  Having information can’t do any harm, can it?  How were you as a student?”

“Horrible,” I said.  I could see her face fall.

“But I can do this.  I have a good memory.  I struggled at school because I don’t have a lot of patience.”

“How far did you get in Essentials?”

“The introduction,” I said, preparing my toothbrush.  I’d managed some before fatigue caught up with me, and I’d napped.  I’d woken, mid-afternoon, and decided to shower to clear my head.  I didn’t function that well when I was grimy and unshaven.

“Only?  I’m nearly done,” she replied.

I looked up at her in surprise.

“Apparently I don’t sleep,” she said, and she sounded somewhat distant, even disconnected.  “I don’t get hungry.  I don’t really breathe.  I barely have a heartbeat.”

To be fair, must have been tiring to wake up in the middle of the night then run in the icy woods plus the whole stress of it all. I'm going to make a prediction that Rose is going to suffer some psychological backlash sometime because of not feeling real or connected. Pretty basic, but yeah, decided I should voice it anyways. Maybe it never happens though.

“You were up all night reading?”

“More or less.  My focus sucks right now, because I still feel drained from earlier, but I read where I could, then wandered, looked over the library, trying to get a sense of what books are there.  Or at least the books the mirror’s facing.”

I nodded, toothbrush in my mouth.  On a level, I was glad I had an excuse to stay silent.  I was bothered, that she was ahead of me, that she would likely stay ahead of me, without a need for sleep.

How could I even articulate that?  On a level, I wanted us to be on the same page, so we could cooperate, play ideas off each other.

On another level, well… All of the most foolish and brutish Others have been captured, slain, consumed, driven off, or tricked away. Recognize all Others for what they are, and know that they, by a process of elimination two thousand and six hundred years in the making, are cunning by nature, they are slave to those who are, or they were made to be cunning to better serve in their duties.  Wit is the greatest defense and the sharpest weapon, on battlefields such as these.

Essentials, chapter one, the introduction, on Others.  Laying down the ground rules, the most basic stuff we needed to know.  Others were liars.

Gotta keep that date in mind. What happened around 600 B.C? Were the Others fabricated in some way? Are they all creations? Or were they just "brought" in some way around that time?

What was Rose, if not an Other?  New enough she wasn’t bound by the old rules that forbade lying and mandated oaths, but still an Other.  Not of mortals or the mortal’s world.

“I’m glad you’re up,” she said.  “Three hours alone in this house was too much.  I don’t know how I’m going to get through a whole night. Dealing with being what I am.”

For all that time had done to heal her weariness, it had made her emotions more pronounced.

In my case… well, it would have been easier to say if any emotion was showing if I could see myself.

“I really like your tattoos,” she said.  She fumbled for words for a second, which caught me off guard. “I’m… actually envious.  I couldn’t pull that off, but it’s the sort of thing I’d get if I could.”

I looked down.  Small birds perched on tree branches, in pale grays, whites and yellows, against a backdrop of reds, in watercolor hues.  “Thank you.”

Were we similar in some respects?  In tastes?

Or was this a manipulation from a cunning  Other?  What was there to guarantee that she was really me, with one not-so-small change?

I hope that Blake finds something to trust on her more, because I'm actually really fond of her. Reminds me a lot of the couple actually good story/character arcs in the whole main Kingdom Hearts series which are Roxas', Xion's and Riku-Replica. Three VERY different tragic cases of identity crisis of """clones""". The first two being literally consumed out of existence for the main character to come back alive, since they were parts pulled of him anyways to be brainwashed into siding with The Bad Guys™, albeit believing and fighting to become their own selves all throughout, eventually pitched against one another, Xion is completely erased from people’s memories thanks to some different aspects that make her up. The latter is more of a short case of a clone being used just as a test-drive by their creator, a clone that was eventually not needed anymore. He tries to kill his original self in hopes of being able to call himself worth something, since he feels like even when he gets stronger, he is just “borrowing” the original’s capacity to get stronger, instead of being himself. Defeating him awards the player with one of my favorite bittersweet villain deaths. Enough about other franchises =P

 I left the bathroom, making my way down to the living room.

“I take it you didn’t get to chapter eight,” she said, reflected in one of the glass picture frames along the stairwell.

“No.”

“Take a look,” she said.  Or it was all she could say, before there weren’t any surfaces for her to communicate through.  I made my way into the living room, and saw her there, waiting for me, in the mirror I’d taken from the bathroom.  The book lay on the coffee table.

Essentials, chapter eight.  Dangers a practitioner faces.

I pulled on pants under the towel as I leaned over the book, reading the headings aloud.  “Being forsworn, betrayal within the coven, betrayal by familiars, covens, crusades, death, demesnes, execution, exquirere…”

“Skip ahead.”

I did, picking up the book to better flip through it.  “Lords, loss of implements, loss of sight, loss of soul…”

 First, the obvious, what the fuck are all these things.

Second, really hoping to see some cooperation and summarization by Rose here. It would really help a whole lot more than she coming up and talking about stuff in the middle of situations like I feel in my bones is going to happen at LEAST once.

“Towards the end.”

“I’m not patient enough for that.  Give me a letter?  Or, better yet, point me to the section you want to talk about?”

“W.  Witch hunters.”

I flipped through until I found it.  “‘Witch hunters are markedly different from inquisitors. Where an inquisitor is organized by an outside party, the witch hunter is in the employ of practitioners or Others. Oft used to guard a Lord’s power, maintain a balance or hunt down rogue parties.  Witch Hunters do not use faith or innocence as tools, but use gifts provided by those they serve, alongside the protections the uninitiated enjoy, as well as the ability to circumvent defenses that would ward off practitioners and Others.'”

Rose was looking at me, expectantly.

“I’m not sure I follow your line of thought.”

“I want to see if you reach the same conclusion I do,” she said.

“You’re thinking of that pair of siblings we saw.  The ones who were getting all geared up to come after us.”

“I’m less focused on them than on the path.” she said.

I thought for a minute.  “Yeah, I’m not reaching the same conclusion as you, I don’t think.”

She looked a little agitated, nervous.  “I think we can go this route.  Avoid getting into the ugliest stuff, the books on demons and whatever else.  If witch hunters and inquisitors can survive this sort of thing, maybe we can too.”

“Borrowing power instead of using it?”

She nodded, too much, too quickly.  She was talking faster.  “Kind of.  Not getting in the thick of this.  We learn what we need to learn in order to survive.  We circumvent this whole situation.”

See, I have to reread those visions already. I will do it later, no problem. I'm thinking Blake is a practitioner? But I don’t know yet if that and Others could be considered the same thing. (Here marks the end of the cellphone reading I did days before I actually posted this and finished the not-so-liveblog).

“While meeting her demands?  Getting a familiar, getting a tool, carving out a little world for ourselves? Rose, I get what you’re going for, I almost get why, but that’s not going to work.”

With that, I seemed to have upset her.

Rose leaned closer to the mirror, “Why not?  We can do it, while avoiding everything else.  We need workarounds.”

“I get that, but the most basic, number one step?  The one I’m supposed to use to awaken myself… there’s a cost associated with it.  I give up the ability to lie.  What that one guy said in the vision?  There’s always a price.  Become a Witch Hunter, and you face obligations.”

Rose was getting more into it as she argued.  “We can minimize the effect.  Follow the letter of the law, instead of the spirit.  We get a familiar, but we go with the smallest, weakest spirit possible, something small, that won’t demand anything of consequence or challenge us.  We pick an inoffensive tool.  Carve out the smallest possible piece of land for our demesnes.  That only leaves us the problem of some reading, which is a good idea anyways, and getting married.”

“And the debt?  We’re supposed to clear the debt.  How do we do that if we handicap ourselves?”

“If that’s the one problem we have, I think we can find a way around it with some research.”

No, I wouldn’t convince her that way.  Better to get to the root of this problem, first.  “Where does the witch hunting factor in?”

“We figure out how they protect themselves, and we do the same things.  They have sponsors, sources of energy and tools.  So do we.  Kind of. It’s what we inherited.”

Sounds like a real good way to get yourselves even more killed. Didn’t grandma say how many enemies you guys have around, how they won’t care if you are in or not? I say this is a bad idea, that you are already, sadly, in too deep.

 “I don’t want to shoot you down…” I started.

“You don’t need to.”

“I know what you’re feeling.  I felt a bit of it, when I saw the escape clause in the contract, if we wanted to back out of this.  That there was a way out.  Except I think this is a trap too, in a different way.”

“No, Blake.  We can do this, we just need to do it safely.”

“I don’t think this is a situation where we can do things in half measures.  We can’t be half-heir and half-witch hunter.”

“What’s the alternative?  You really want to do this?  Follow the path grandmother set before us, making infernal bargains to deal with our enemies, while somehow trying to get out of debt with whoever our ancestors got in debt with?” 

Wanting is a STRONG word. 

I stood, making my way to the kitchen.  “I’m not saying I want to deal with devils or any of that. I’m saying I don’t want to pay a price like the one we pay for ‘awakening’, if we’re not going to use what we paid for.”

She spoke to me from the toaster.  “I get a say in this, you know.”

Hahahaha. I can totally picture this being fun through the entire book.

I moved through the kitchen, looking for something easy to make foodwise.  Bonus points if it didn’t leave me feeling like crap afterward.  In the heat of the conversation, I was making more noise than necessary with the cupboards and drawers.  “You get a say, but it’s ultimately me making the decision and paying the consequences, isn’t it?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of attached to you, metaphysically.  You die, I’m going to be a goner too.”

“You think.  Either way, I’m the one who got injured,” I said.  “I’m the one who has stitches in my hand and a cut on my face.”

“At least you’re alive,” she retorted.

We were interrupted by a pounding series of knocks on the door. Rose turned her head so quickly that the loose strands of hair flew out to either side.

I remained where I was, staring at the door.

The knocking repeated.

“Whatever this is,” I said, “I might need help.”

She took her time responding.

A third set of knocks, harder than last two others.

“Like I said,” Rose told me, “We’re attached to each other. I’ll back you up.  Go.”

I nodded.

I grabbed a t-shirt from the backpack and pulled it on as I approached the door, stopping to peek out through the glass at the side.

Relief hit me in a wave, even in the moment my heart sank.

As the door opened, I saw two men in uniform.

One of them was very familiar.  I’d glimpsed him in the odd dream I’d seen, just before meeting Rose.

Police. 

Hm, I don’t remember seeing police there, and I just re-read those scenes. What is up here? 

The other man spoke first.  “I’m RCMP officer Pat Macguin.  This is Chief of Police Laird Behaim.”

“Hi,” I said, guarded.

“Would you give me your name, please?” Laird Behaim asked me. He had an intense gaze.  Pale blue eyes to go with very dark, straight hair, just starting to gray at the sideburns.

I’d seen him in the vision.  The man with the pocketwatch at the table with all of the blonde women. I needed a moment to get my mental footing.  I searched for a response  “Um.” 

Oh… that guy. Now question, were they all enemies or only some of them? The king with the dog seemed… reasonable-ish? But all the others seemed to be more akin to something like enemies, since most intentionally dismissed the visions. 

“It’s not a hard answer to give,” the RCMP officer said.

“I just woke up from a nap, a little bit ago,” I said. “Sorry.  I’m a little muddled.”

“Your name?” he asked.

There was no dodging the question.  “Blake Thorburn.”

Laird Demill raised his eyebrows.  “Paul’s son?  No, wait, that would be…”

“Peter.  He’s my cousin.  My dad is-”

“Bradley Thorburn, by process of elimination.  Yes.”

The RCMP gave Laird a look.

“I’m fairly familiar with his family,” Laird said.

“You’re alone, Mr. Thorburn?”

“Only person in the house,” I said.

“You’re injured,” the RCMP officer said, to me,  “A cut on your cheek?  Can I ask what happened?”

The sudden change of direction caught me off guard.  It didn’t help that this Laird guy was staring at me, studying me while the officer quizzed me.  He would be weighing my answers.

There was a danger here.  I felt a chill, and it wasn’t just the cold air from outside.

I couldn’t get arrested, or I’d get dragged out of the house, far from any protection it afforded.

But this man, here, Laird Behaim, was an enemy.  Would I be worse off if he realized I wasn’t yet ‘awakened’?

I couldn’t get caught in a lie, and I wasn’t too sure I wanted to look like I was trying to word things too carefully.

“Car broke down by the side of the highway.  I tried to take a shortcut through the woods, because I could have been hit in the highway.  Something cut me.”

“Where were you at four o’clock this morning?”

“Sleeping, I think.  I kind of woke up early, so I’m not sure.  Can I ask what this is about?”

“In a minute.  Can anyone or anything confirm your location?”

“Joel Monte, my landlord and friend.  I woke him up to borrow his car, maybe around five.  He’s going to be upset, the car broke down and I had to leave it behind.  I haven’t even had time to think about getting a tow, if it hasn’t been towed already.”

“You said.  His number?”

I gave it.  The RCMP officer glanced at the chief of police, who walked down the stairs, phone up to his ear.

“That’s a different area code than the one in Jacob’s Bell.  You woke up early, borrowed a car from your landlord at an unholy hour, and decided to drive to another town to visit…”

Laird was nearby, in earshot.  I wasn’t sure the RCMP officer was safe, either.  “My cousin Molly inherited this place.  She isn’t here.  I’m not sure where she is.”

“You can understand where I’m a little confused about this sequence of events,” he said.  He sounded unimpressed.  “Why?”

There was no good answer to give.  “Can I ask what this is about?”

“Answer my question, first.”  He wasn’t playing ball. 

Real question: Can a cop force you to answer questions without filling you in on the why? Where do yours and their rights being and end? I think that if you refuse you have to go get a lawyer, but I don’t know if they have to get you to the station for that. 

Damn it.  What was I supposed to say?  I didn’t have time to think.

When in doubt… honesty.

“The car broke down, and coming here seemed like it was less hassle overall.  Molly wasn’t here.  I thought I should stick around.”

All true.

“Which doesn’t explain why you were driving in the first place.”

“It sounds stupid.  I had a bad dream.  I decided to go for a drive, get away.”

He gave me a look that conveyed a whole idea.  ‘That does sound stupid‘.   But he was too polite to say it out loud.  The inconsistency of my actions, he must have thought I was on drugs. 

Idk, I’ve seen people who go out for driving instead of out for a walk when they need to think about stuff, which for me is definitely weirder since that means you are PAYING for it in a way that walking is 100% free. 

Laird returned to the porch.  The look he gave me, too calm, too casual, made me shiver.

“Landlord confirms the time,” he said.  “And a car was found on the side of the highway.”

I jammed my hands in the pockets, where the cold was starting to numb my fingers.  “If you visit the sandwich shop at the rest stop, just a little up the road from where the car was picked up, the manager and a middle aged blonde woman can confirm. She gave me a ride here.”

“We’ll check,” the RCMP officer said.

“What’s this about?” I asked.  I knew, but I wasn’t supposed to know.

“Can we step inside?” Laird asked.  “You look cold.”

“Not without a warrant,” I said.  Better to seem unfriendly and overly emotional than risk letting an enemy inside safe territory.  “What’s this about?”

The RCMP officer answered, “Molly Walker, the owner of this house, was found mauled in the woods.”

If I’d harbored any concerns about seeming too blasé, they were gone in the instant I heard those words.  “M-mauled?” 

Oh and in the woods too. Damn, so they kinda have an alibi (is that the correct term?) depending on which woods.

“Brutally attacked by a human, if the tracks are any indication,” the officer said.  “We’re not offering any particular details at this point.”

“I- uh,” I said.  I stopped, then tried to start again, but the words didn’t escape my mouth.  It didn’t help that I didn’t know what to say.

I’d known, but to hear it like this, from very human sources, minus all of the mystic crap?

“You what?” the RCMP officer asked me.

“She has family in town.  They moved to be closer to our grandmother.”

“We know.  We’ve spoken with them,” the officer said.  “They pointed us here.  We’d like to come inside and see if there’s anything that could explain the attack.”

I shook my head.  “No.”

“Irene Walker gave us permission to investigate the premises.”

Which meant letting this Laird Behaim person into the house.

“It- no.  It’s not her call,” I said.  “I’m sorry. I can give you the number of the lawyer. The way I understand it, the house would pass on to me, if Molly was dead.  It’s my property, it’s my say.  Not without a warrant.”

“This isn’t reflecting well on you, Mr. Thorburn,” the RCMP officer said.

“I know,” I said.  My mouth was dry, and my eyes were tearing up from the cold and the recent announcement.  “Yeah. I- I’m sorry.  I need time to process the news, and I’m not going to make good calls, as tired and confused as I am.  It’s better if you talk to the lawyer.”

“Mr. Beasley?” Laird asked.

“Mr. Beasley, right,” I said.

“I’m familiar with him,” he said.  When the RCMP officer looked in his direction, he said, “There’s a great deal of concern over this house, in local circles.  The town is booming with the addition of the train station and the proximity to Toronto, property prices are soaring, and the amount of good land that can be bought is somewhat limited, due to certain geographical concerns rooted in this property.  The last time I paid any attention to the money, this property was worth twenty million dollars.”

“It’s worth more now,” I said.

“I imagine.  A great many locals are very interested,” Laird said, his eyes fixed on me.  “Mr. Beasley has been handling the bulk of the disputes for the family.  I know him. With your permission, I’ll talk to him and see what we can’t figure out.”

“Please do” the RCMP officer said. 

I kinda have this type of territory around where I live, a old woman’s house that has a huge expanse that is worth millions. The lawyer isn’t getting more trustworthy as time goes on.

“I’d like to have a moment to talk to Mr. Thorburn here, if that’s alright.  If he’s telling the truth and he has inherited the property, I wouldn’t mind the chance to talk this through with him.”

The RCMP officer didn’t seem happy with that.  “You’re aware of the time constraints?”

“Of course.  I’ll talk to Mr. Thorburn, then the lawyer, and we can meet for dinner?  I’ll fill you in.”

The RCMP officer took that in.  “Alright.  I need to make some calls.  Call me when you’re done.”

Laird nodded.

Together, we watched the RCMP officer trudge away through the snow, his boots squeaking.  When he was gone, Laird withdrew a pocketwatch from his coat.  He popped it open, looked, and then closed it, holding it in one hand.

His implement? 

I’m thinking the same thing. Is the clock his tool? Where his familiar is or something? 

“I admit, thought it was a girl, here.”

“No,” I responded.  “I’m just as surprised to be here as you are to see me here.”

“Well, if it helps, I think you’re innocent,” he said.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Here’s the honest truth; I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted to discuss things with you.”

“You’re a pretty honest guy, huh?” I asked.

Stupid.  Stupid question.

“I suspect you and I both know why,” he said.  “Can we do away with pretense?”

I sighed.  “Sure.”

“I believe you’re innocent because I know who killed Molly Walker.”

“Who?” I asked.  I was getting colder, now.

He only shook his head.  “I can’t say.  It will probably go unsolved, the media will report it, but it won’t be sensationalized. Good officers will most likely put in a genuine, honest effort and find nothing.”

“Doesn’t this kind of conflict with the oath you swore, when entering office?  Or are you faking the police thing?”

He smiled.  “Rest assured, I studied for my position, I earned it, and I’ve maintained it in good conscience.  I’d rather talk about you.  Would you be up for a walk?”

“A walk?” I asked.

“If you’re worried, I can promise you my protection for as long as you’re in my company, I’ll take you somewhere where we can talk, then bring you back, as safe as I can manage it.”

“Which is how safe?”  I asked.  “I don’t know what your protection is worth.”

“You’re thinking I’ve limited myself somehow?” he asked, clearly amused.

“I’m thinking anything is possible.” 

Good to cut the bullshit straight away, but also good that Blake is being smart about this, playing around the omissions and trying to force them to say the truth. I do wonder if some of grandma’s enemies don’t want the family killed or something, maybe they just want the terrain, for money and influence? 

“If positions were reversed, I would trust my own daughters, who I care about deeply, to the care of someone of equivalent power.”

“This isn’t a trick?” I asked.

His smile faltered a little.  “This line of questioning is getting a touch grating.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“This is not a trick,” he said.  “My primary aim here is to find out who you are.  You’re an unknown quantity in a very delicate ecosystem. But we can talk about that more after. I suspect you’ll gain more information than you give up.”

“Right this minute, with everything that’s happening, I’d rather be safe and warm than have information,” I said.  “A bit of time to grieve might be nice.”

“What if I offered to help streamline matters on the legal front? You’ll be safer and warmer here than in a prison cell, awaiting a trial,” he said.

I considered the idea.

“I’d find that a little more tempting,” I admitted.

“If you’re interested, I’ll wait while you get your coat and whatever else you deem necessary.”

“Give me a minute,” I said.  I shut the door.

I made my way to the living room.

“Don’t,” Rose said.

“It’s answers,” I said.

“It’s dangerous,” she responded.  “We can go the safe route.  Like I was saying before.  There’s too much we don’t know.”

I found my jacket.  “We’ve skimmed the little black book.  Behaim… they’re one of the covens.”

“There’s a better word than coven, but sure.  They’re a local institution, maybe the oldest here. All the more reason to stay.”

“He’ll fix the legal situation, which is maybe the biggest concern right now.  I don’t know if we can do anything against ordinary people, if the cops decide to kick down the door.”

“Blake!  I don’t get a say?” 

This is helpful as much as it is suspicious. Position in real life seems to influence a lot seems to play a big part on what you get to do in this circle and that is really good. I wonder what will Blake be able to pull off when the story gets going, knowing that while he does have friends and a job that allows him to meet many people, he doesn’t particularly hold influence in things like law or enforcement like Beasley and Laird. Also, shutting down someone repeatedly can leave them like this, unsure if their opinion even matter at points, like they are left out. If in a larger group this can lead to them feeling like the entire group is against them. It is a really nice study on psychology. I think Hunter x Hunter does this in their VERY unique “tournament arc” right at the beginning, where every single generic trial has its cool unique twist, one of them being a majority opinion sequence of tests that serve to constantly pitch people against one another. 

“You do,” I said.  “But… you were saying how you were going kind of crazy, alone?  I’m going to lose it if I’m cooped up.  I have to keep moving.  I had to before I left home, and it only got reinforced after.  If there’s an opportunity to stretch my legs and get answers, while preserving my sanity, I’m going to take it.”

“Blake, no.”

“Yes,” I said.  “Come with, as much as you can.  I wouldn’t mind the backup.”

I pulled on my coat, then rummaged in the closet to get a new scarf and hat.  There were two that were plain enough to wear.  The nurse’s?

I stepped across the threshold, half-convinced I’d get shot or something equivalent.  When I didn’t, I carefully locked the door.  I stood there, hand still on the handle.

“You promise to smooth over the legal issues?”

“I’ll make this as stress free for you as I can.  Nobody will enter the house, if I can help it, which I can.  I promise you this.”

“The house is safe?” I asked.

He sighed.  “You don’t know very much, do you?”

“I’m a fast learner, but not as much as I’d like to know.”

“I assure you, the house is safe.  I don’t know of anyone who could or would damage the house or property.  If it was that easy, we would have removed it already.”

I turned, joining him in walking down the long, snow-covered driveway.

“Let me cut to the chase.  I’d like to talk about a hypothetical scenario with you,” he said.

 Oh boy here we go with a quote on quote hypothetical. Another thing I learned with Hunter x Hunter, don’t reveal how much you know and don’t know, how much you can do and can’t. Seriously, give that 2011 anime a watch if you haven’t already. They make really good use of the same logic that was used in Worm in which, if you have a power, you don’t want to explain it to someone, and if you can, use it in a way that it seems to be something else.

 “Sure,” I said.

“Global politics, if you don’t mind?”

“I don’t really mind.”

“In this scenario, we’ve got a situation involving a number of countries. If you will, there’s America.  I’m rather interested in America for the purpose of this discussion, but that’s just me.  Powerful, perhaps overly proud, large, keepers of the peace.”

I glanced at his uniform.  “Sure.”

“Then a European country.  I would say they are very traditional, seductive, beautiful, very prone to holding grudges.  More history, more set in their ways.”

I thought of the blonde women I’d seen at the table with him. “I can picture it.”

“There are others.  Imagine a small, very old, and somewhat backwards nation.  We’d then have a broad swathe of nature with very few settlements, as well as a very vibrant country that has just come into an inexplicable amount of wealth, which is liable to burn out quickly on its excess. As well as other bit players who shouldn’t be ignored, but who aren’t of import in our discussion, here.”

I tried to put faces to the descriptions, but it wasn’t easy. Perhaps the man in the twisted tower, with the talking dog, for the latter?  The girl with the checkered scarf…  If I went by process of elimination…

“I’m picturing an aboriginal woman,” I said.

“I can imagine such a woman leading this very old nation, yes.”

“A young woman, in heavy clothing, with a rabbit, in the middle of the uninhabited, natural setting?”

“Mm.  Quite right.”

“And… a long haired young man, for the wealthy country.”

“Yes.”

“If I were to add to this scenario, where would you fit a teenaged girl with a checkered scarf?”

He frowned, “I’m at a loss.”

“So am I,” I said.  The girl who had been talking to the Other, with the face that stretched.

He thought for a second, nodding and smiling a greeting at someone who apparently recognized him in passing.  When we were clear, he said, “Ah.  Someone who intruded on important meetings, perhaps.  A new arrival to the scene.” 

I’m still surprised with how direct they are being, but, does Laird know of the visions, or just of the people, and Blake happened to be gifted, somehow, with the visions to the main characters of the big play? 

“Is that so?”

“Too new and too small to be a serious threat.  Self deluding, even, dealing in things she doesn’t fully understand.  A complicated situation.  I’d call her a terrorist before I called her a local power.”

“Fair enough.  Can we call her Maggie, or is that mucking up the metaphor?”

“We could call her that.  Maggie Holt, I believe.”

I nodded.

He took in a deep breath, opened his watch, then closed it, without looking at it.  “In this imagined scenario, we have a country in, say, our equivalent of South America. This hypothetical country is unpredictable, has a history of being aggressive, and it just so happens they are the only one in this imagined scenario who have nuclear weapons at their disposal.”

Nuclear weapons.  It seemed an apt descriptor for the books I’d seen.  Dangerous to handle, dangerous to use.  Once they were brought to the table, everyone would lose. 

Knowledge is everything, and it seems that Grandma Rose accumulated a hell of a lot of it. I guess we’ll find out if that is what their family is in debt for, how much do you have to experience yourself and how much do you acquire through mysterious means to have so much at your disposal, just in your head? 

“In this little story, the dictator died, and a successor was assassinated in short order, let’s say.  Now another one has taken the helm, and nobody is entirely sure what type of person the young man is… which is very concerning, considering the weapons he has at his fingertips.  He could be reckless, he could be mild mannered, he could be a merchant, a politician, or a student, but he’s an unknown quality, and appearances can be deceiving.”

“I can picture that,” I said.

“Should this small southern nation cease to be a concern, everyone else profits, and the nukes being removed from the picture is only a small part of that.  The other countries would be elevated to a new age… and the country who is most powerful will take the helm, quite possibly forever.”

If Hillsglade House was the small country…  Jacob’s Bell the region…

“Is it so important?” I asked.  “The… resources or whatever you’d gain?  A few acres?”

I’m guessing these few acres can become a lot of desmesnes? Maybe? 

“When things develop to a certain point, it takes on a different tone.  Population, wealth, whatever else, they attract attention from everyone.  With the current status quo, our little world here is small enough to be left alone.  Understand, our little metaphor here falls apart when we cease talking about the area that falls within, say, a thousand kilometers around us.  I could start talking about other planets with their own drama and politics, if I really wanted to maintain the narrative, but those thing really aren’t our focus.”

“I understand,” I said.  I also understood that the ‘metaphor’ was making it very easy for him to outright lie, but that was a given. 

Damn, I did not notice that. They were talking so directly about stuff that it didn’t cross my mind that as long as they are considering all of this a metaphor, he can lie about anything in it. Man would I NOT be smart enough to write or survive in this setting.

“When our little world here grows, everyone with an established power base can ride the cresting wave.  Prestige, fortune, status, with others visiting, or attempting to get in while the going is good, and paying a good price to do so.”

“Alright,” I said.  “I’m starting to get a sense of this.”

“The trouble is, when the road block,” he half-turned to gesture back at the house, “Is removed, and when things start developing, there will be a very small window of opportunity in which one of the local powers I just described might take the helm.  If one doesn’t, it’s liable to be a more distant entity, and it’s likely to be someone we couldn’t hope to stand up to.”

Halfway across the world… in this analogy… someone from outside Jacob’s Bell?  Another, greater power.

The families here were small in the grand scheme of it all, and before the city grew and drew attention, they wanted to solidify their positions.

He opened his pocketwatch, then closed it without looking down, like a nervous tic, then continued.  “America rather likes the status quo, and if we were to see this small hypothetical country fall right now, it would be bad for America. America wouldn’t take power, nor would the European country.  It would be left to the newcomer, with all of his wealth, excess, and arrogance.”

I thought of what I’d read.  The warning to stay out of the north end.  “This hypothetical wealthy country wouldn’t happen to be to the north?”

“Yes, to the north, Mr. Thorburn.  I would like to see the small southern entity with the proverbial nukes be a very stable, calm, country for the time being.  America would protect it, and things would be very calm and very peaceful for long enough that the wealthy newcomer might fade in his glory.”

“So it isn’t really friendship, is it?  It’s… buying time.  Then there’s nothing to stop America from crushing the little country.”

“It would be a temporary alliance, I’m afraid.  I don’t believe there’s a way around it.”

“What if the nukes were… given up to greater authorities?”

“Who would you trust to handle such things?  The southern country and any country that received these goods would, in this scenario, become immediate targets, because nukes that are changing hands are far, far more dangerous than nukes that are sitting idle in one place.”

“What if the nukes were destroyed?  In exchange for certain concessions, to protect the southern country?”

“Impossible.  In this scenario, I’d describe it as radiation.  Ugly elements would be let loose.  Elements that are contained so long as the nukes are intact, you understand. If it’s even possible to destroy those things.  The person who put the things together was very, very conscientious.”

“They can’t be given away, because they’re too dangerous. They can’t be destroyed, because they’re too dangerous,” I said.

“In the best case scenario for our hypothetical little world,” he said, “our little southern country remains dormant for some time, and is cleanly, quickly wiped out of existence, in a matter of weeks, months or years.  I’m sorry.”

Analogy aside, he wasn’t sugarcoating it.  Somehow that made me feel better.  I had my hands jammed in my coat pockets, and I kept them there, but I pressed my arms tighter against my body.  “The nukes?”

“The nukes are left where they are and everything is paved over, with numerous measures taken to ensure it remains that way.” 

Really no option but to participate then it would seem, because I doubt Blake would like to be “wiped out”. Because as much as that can have no fatal connotations at all, I DOUBT they don’t. 

I felt cold, and I wasn’t sure how much of it was the fact that I’d stood in the open doorway for long enough to let it soak into me, and how much was emotion and physical reaction.

We walked on for a bit.  People greeted ‘Chief Behaim’ as they passed him on the sidewalk.  He greeted them warmly in turn.

“No consideration to the poor bastard who didn’t even want to take over?”  I asked.

“I suspect the poor bastard is as good as dead already,” Laird Behaim said.  “I am sorry. If it helps, I don’t think I’ll enjoy the part I play in it.”

He sounded sorry.

Doesn’t mean that he is. Is the part you play ignoring that you are talking with a walking dead-man or that you’ll maybe be coerced to do it yourself?

“Would you like a coffee, Mr. Thorburn?” Chief Behaim offered.

I looked for a mirror and found one, meeting Rose’s gaze.  I still felt numb, cold, a little less like a complete person than before.  Slowly, surely, this situation was chipping away at me.  A little warmth in the form of good coffee would go a long way.

“Sure.  Please,” I said. 

Ah man, that is it? But I wanted more! =( I think this chapter was smaller than the last too.

[codezeta-liveblog-blog]

Bonds 1.3 - Hey guys, I’m 90% alive or so

Sorry for the disappearing, Got super busy (three weeks straight of tests), then got lazy, rinse repeat. Just RL problems really, expect me disappearing again by the late half of November, when I’ll get another sequential battery of tests. I intend to get things together and compensate while I can though!! Just got myself a free week and intend to read at least two chapters in it. One today, RIGHT NOW, another one when I manage. Lets get down to business. Last time we’ve been running through the road and woods with Blake and Rose, running from god-knows-what and ended up bumping into a rest stop where he could already see who-know-what looking and lurking around. Lets just get right into it because I’m anxious, excited and just really want to get immersed in this once again! Gotta figure out the mystery, gotta get to the house, Gotta ruminate on the arc being named Bond meaning how will the family theme keep being the reasoning behind everything we see. Or something like that. Lets GO BOYS, INTO THE SP00K ZONE

[codezeta-liveblog-blog]

Bonds 1.5 - Want some coffee?

I definitely do, gotta study after this, finals coming. Expect a second disappearing sooner than later btw, worth remembering you guys! Have I told you guys? This blog now has as ask-screener, shoutouts to @sanataronew for the help. Send every and all your asks anytime you want if you were holding back before for any reason. No spoilers though, we decided to delete any and all asks with spoilers, so that I can properly look at my screen while I answer the other people who were more sensible. Laird was apparently nice and informed that, yes, Blake is seemingly doomed from the start, so, wanna go out for a drink? Rose doesn’t, but sadly she as the, yet to be proven otherwise, more sensible one, isn’t in control of the situation. Letzza go!

[codezeta-liveblog-blog]

Bonds 1.3

It was hard to sum up my feelings as the van drove up the long driveway to Hillsglade House.  It was supposed to be sanctuary, but it felt like the opposite.  Layered in snow, branches of the overlarge trees bent with snow and ice, the house was pale against a dark gray background.  The light siding only accented the effect.  If I closed my eyes enough to let my eyelashes blur the view, it looked almost like the windows were floating there.

It was ominous, and it was a symbol of everything messed-up that had just happened to me.  Maybe all the bad things that had happened to me from the start.

Sometimes things don’t have to be grim or properly scary out-front. I personally like the unsettling-ness of things that are supposed to be graceful, or in this case, maybe... noble? Just checked out the anime “Land of the Lustrous”, for example, where the “monsters” are these goddess-like figures that float around pinkish clouds in the sky with their beautiful instruments and song playing as they pop up into reality from these blooming, black, Rorschach test blotches in the sky. Pretty good. Check it out if anime is your thing, first 3D one I see that gets the job properly done.

And as Blake states “from the start” I have to question myself how far back can Blake pinpoint fucked-upness in his life. And I hope we get to see more of that. 

“You going to be alright?” the woman in the driver’s seat asked me.  She had a weariness to her that made me suspect she’d been getting up too early for the majority of her life, but she had been kind and exceedingly gentle, and her idle questions and conversation had helped ground me, distracting me from the possibility that the bird things could catch up and stop this car like they had mine.  With the snow, it looked to be a slow day at the rest stop, and she’d asked her boss if she could give me a ride.

“I don’t know.  Probably not,” I said, honestly.  I felt indescribably weary, and it had little to do with the exhausting run or the fact that I’d woken up four hours after I’d turned in.  Rose, in the rear-view mirror, didn’t look any better than I felt.  I fished for my wallet.  “But that doesn’t have much to do with my getting lost in the woods, or a few scratches.”

“No money, it’s not necessary,” she said, as I pulled a twenty out of the wallet.

“For the cost of gas,” I said.

“I did it to get out of the prep work, that’s enough for me.”

“Then buy yourself and your boss a few beers after you’re done for the day, tell him thank you for letting you drive me,” I said.  I tucked the bill into the cluttered space in the dash, by receipts, crackers and kleenex packages.  Before she could give it back or argue, I opened the door and grabbed my bag.

I’m sure I said it before, and I’ll say it again as long as it surprises me in a good way and doesn’t get overused. Seeing people doing acts of kindness just for doing it is a refresher and warms my heart. Thanks van lady. And good on you Blake. Oh and did the creatures really just die out? Or maybe they received some order to stop pursuing, but if so, why? Hm. Maybe its just that now there were people around.

I was closing the door when she said something.  I had to open it and poke my head down.  “Sorry?”

“Do you want me to wait, make sure you make it inside okay?”

Could I make it inside?  I didn’t have a key, and there was the possibility that something could happen to me in the distance between here and the house.

“Yes please,” I said.

I closed the car door, making my way up to the front of the house.  There was something like a bike lock attached, with a container built into it.  Four digit combination.

I kicked at the doormat until I found a plastic bag with a thick manilla envelope attached, a pad of paper within.

The first sheet had only a simple message, penned in a curling script I almost envied.  ‘Birth date’.

I tried the year I’d been born.  It didn’t work.

Day, month?  One-eight-oh-one.

The container opened.  Two keys rattled within.  One was older, the other a standard door key.

I opened the door with the usual key, then waved at the good Samaritan.

I stood inside the house, watching her pull down the long driveway.  When she was gone, I closed and locked the door.

It didn’t feel like enough of a barrier.

I wonder if the lock thing is new or is something Blake was expecting, something that maybe the lawyer left behind? Because I’m thinking that birth date is his from the way the text is written.

“Molly!” I hollered, loud enough I should have been audible throughout the house.  “Anyone!?”

No response.  Somewhere, in my general confusion and the mess of stuff I didn’t know or understand, I’d hoped that Molly being alive would be one of those things that caught me off guard.

When I had first visited, the house had been my grandmother’s.  She’d marked every surface with some token of her particular tastes and personality.  Molly, it seemed, had been systematically dismantling those touches.  Boxes sat by bookshelves, filled with books, paper-wrapped knick-knacks stowed away in the spaces between the books.  Pictures were gone from the walls, neatly packed into more boxes, some stacked and shoved into the spaces beneath the few bookshelves that weren’t built into the house.

It wasn’t yet done, and it wasn’t an organized process, either.  Some books here, some books there.  A few shelves on one bookcase, another shelf across the room.  Most seemed to be centered around the living room.

Near the center of the living room, Molly had set up blankets and pillows on one couch.

“Blake,” I heard, so quiet it was barely even a whisper.

I looked up.  In this quiet, mundane setting, free of the delirium of sleep, I was a little unnerved to see Rose’s vague shape reflected in the black screen, instead of my own.

“There’s a mirror in the bathroom at the end of the hall,” she said.

I let my bag drop to the floor, then tossed the pad of papers and envelope onto the coffee table.  I pulled off the hat I’d been lent, running my fingers through sweat-soaked, unwashed hair.  A rub of my chin suggested a light scruff.

Maybe Molly died because she displaced something that was meant to be protective. After I’m done here I’ll re-read some past posts to see if she died because of something that has already been established, I’m remembering something about her going outside? But I might be imagining that. Doesn’t invalidate my point though. And I think the papers and envelope prove that, yes, the lock and the rest are the lawyer’s.

I hated being unshaven and unwashed.

I hated the feeling of being overwhelmed.  Of feeling like I was out of the loop.  There was too much to take in, here.  I felt more than a little confused as I made my way back to the hallway and figured out the direction I needed to go.  I moved slowly, taking everything in.  The things of my grandmother’s that Molly hadn’t put away, the things that Molly had left behind.  There were clues here, stories, and I didn’t want to miss any details.

The layout of the books made me think of a ruin.  The layout of the books that remained were like the weathered remains of a brick wall that only partially stood.  Patches.  There were only traces of the personality that had once infused the place, like any ruin might hint at the people, culture and purpose that it once held.

I found the bathroom, but I left the mirror where it was, above the sink.  I could see Rose there as I dug through the medicine cabinet and found a few things I needed to take care of the cuts.

“Is it bad?” she asked.

“Been hurt worse,” I said.

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

I slowly opened and closed my hand.  The cut throbbed in the wake of the movement.  “I can move my fingers.  It’s not the injury that’s spooking me, here.  Those things were dirty, their fingernails especially, and they got me a few times.”

“What can I do?” she asked.

I began unbinding the setup that was supposed to keep the bandages in place.  I got the needle and thread out of the kit and set them aside.  “I don’t know.  You helped, didn’t you?  With the ice?”

“I tried.  I’m not sure it mattered.  I wish I could help more.”

“Do me a favor, then.  Keep an eye on me.  If I get a fever, or if I start to look ill, let me know.  Make me go to a hospital.”

 Aside from more comments from me of noticing how Blake HATES or GETS ANGRY at something, I’m seeing a lot of the characteristic Wildbow characterization on small stuff in here. And even the character itself pointing it out on the things around him.

I DID NOT consider at all that infections from the floating ghost-men was a thing. I don’t usually think about those things much at all in real life either, probably because ever since I was young I was taught to just pour H2O2, wait for it to stop bubbling, rinse, clean, iodine, rinse and clean after a while. Since it’s a thing I do every time on auto, I don’t actually register the WHY behind it, so infection ends up being the afterthought, as ironic as it is.

 “It didn’t hit me until I saw you back there,” Rose said.  “How different we are.  I wasn’t even in any direct danger, and I couldn’t think of what to do.”

“If I learned to deal with bad situations, you will too.”

She didn’t respond right away.  I opened the packages.

“You know how to do sutures?”  She asked.

“I’ve done it once.”

“When did you need stitches?”

I didn’t feel like answering that one.  “They weren’t for me.  It was for a friend.  This’ll be the first time stitching myself up.”

My good hand shook so much I couldn’t get the thread through the hole.  I swore under my breath on the fifth failure.

“Blake-”

“Shh.  One second,” I said, and my frustration made my response more curt than I’d intended.

I ended up having to rest the sides of both hands against the edge of the sink to have something concrete to rest against, minimizing how much the thread and needle shook.

Once I had it threaded, I took my time disinfecting the area and the needle both.  I was rough with myself, all things considered, searching the wound for any fragments.  I didn’t want any trace of those things in or on my body.  When my hand throbbed and involuntarily jumped at the pain, I grimly assured myself I was at least getting the infection out.

I had told Rose ‘one second’, but she remained silent while I worked, and I didn’t break the silence, except to swear.  I used pretty much every curse word I knew, almost every step of the way.  It helped.

I raised my hand.  “How’s that look?”

“Better than I could ever do.”

“That doesn’t answer the question,” I said.

“Ha ha,” she said, humorless.  “It looks good.”

 Rose didn’t “exist” prior to this event, correct? But she already has a lot of personality traits that differ from Blake. The insecurity is one that doesn’t seem to be there, for one. Also, I’d never suture myself. REALLY don’t have it in me to hurt myself, even if its for my own good.

I slowly patrolled the house.  The ground floor consisted of an expansive living room, a generous dining room, a smaller kitchen with only the basics, the hallway and a half-bathroom the size of my regular bathroom.

One floor up, I found my grandmother’s bedroom, the same as I’d seen it, though the bed was stripped bare, a small bathroom, a little tea room that might have been a bedroom at one point, and a narrow guest bedroom.  Molly had barely touched anything on the second floor, by the looks of it.  She’d used this bathroom, with a handful of items littering the counter, but that would be because it was the only bath and shower.

She’d been cooped up in this house, and she’d barely touched anything?  The living room, kitchen and this bathroom suggested she’d spent some time here, but how had she managed without losing it?  It had been four months.

Wow wow wow, hold on, its been all this time? I had the impression it’d been like, A DAY. Things are suddenly a lot weirder

The third floor had only three smallish rooms, though ‘small’ was something of a misnomer, with a house of this scale.  Two bedrooms on the right side, with little more than beds and a dresser each, and a small sewing room that was apparently assigned to storage.

A staircase took up the rest of the space, curving up and around to the fourth floor, but the door was locked.

I fished in my pocket, found the old key, and weighed it in my hand.  I hadn’t found a single locked door in the house.  The key was of the old ‘skeleton key’ variety, a round bar as thick around as any of my fingers, with an ornate head and a tab on the end with the teeth.

I knew just by looking at it that it didn’t fit the keyhole.  I tried anyways.

No such luck.  I hadn’t seen anything that needed opening, which raised one big question.  Why was it important for me to get the key, without any lock to go with it?

I made my way back to the ground floor, stopping by the bathroom to lift the mirror free of the wall, then carried it back to the living room, for Rose.

 Skeleton keys always interest me. Its funny that the key designed to open many locks doesn’t open the one that is closed. Maybe it locks all the others though?

I fiddled until I found I could use the mounts to hang it off the bookcase.  It was just tall enough that it fell between eye level when I was standing and eye level when I sat.  I pulled a cushion from the armchair and placed it beneath, in case it fell.

When I’d finished, I did another look around the ground floor, peering out the windows to see if there was any sign of trouble.  The town was starting to come to life, with cars and a few kids with backpacks on the road, heading to school.

Though a sidewalk ran alongside the outer wall below the house, it seemed to be habit for people to walk on the other side of the street.

No bird masks, no crooked men.  I moved back to the living room to look out a different window for a different angle.

“Well?” Rose asked.

“It’s too ordinary,” I replied.  I rubbed at my face.  “God damn, I’m tired.”

“Ordinary?”

“It’s a house.  A boring, ordinary house that my grandmother lived in for her entire life.”

“Our grandmother,” she replied.

“It’s soulless, sorta.  Our dad and aunt Irene and Uncle Paul were raised here, but there are no toys or mementos left around for the memories.  Even my mother and father left some of my stuff around.”

“I really don’t want to be pedantic,” Rose said, “But they’re our mother and father.”

“Are they?” I asked.  I leaned back, propping one foot up on the corner of the coffee table, looking over at the mirror.  “Because I think the dad you got was very different from the dad I got.”

 Gotta remember how frustrating it is that they are both stuck with each other and none of them have the answers. Also, it IS pedantic Rose, that you that only has memories but knows wasn’t alive until half a day ago, demanding that Blake considers that the both different versions of your parents should be considered the same. Maybe a disguised plea from her to be considered quote-on-quote real. I say quote-on-quote instead of actually quoting because she clearly IS real, but, you know… all that stuff that would take too long to explain that you already know about.

 “Same person, different circumstance,” Rose said, her voice firm.

“Sure.  Fine, let’s go with that,” I said.  I dropped my foot and abruptly leaned forward, grabbing the envelope with the pad of paper.  I took a look.

“What is it?” Rose asked.  “I don’t have a copy, here.”

“Legal documents.  Let’s see… forty-one pages.  The transfer of Rosalyn D. Thorburn’s estate from custodian Molly Walker, grandchild, to custodian Blake Thorburn, grandchild.  The first page outlines the terms of the contract.  The property is mine in a general sense only.  The lawyer manages it until I’m twenty-five, at which point the custodian label is removed and the heir is appointed.”

“Rosalyn D. Thorburn senior,” Rose said.  “I remember him saying something like that at the gathering.”

“I do too.  The second page… is going out of its way to outline that the notes accompanying the text ‘aren’t binding nor are they intended to be read as such’…  looks like the rest is about a fifty fifty split between legalese and explanations for the legalese, for us plebs.”

“No answers?  About the monsters?”

“Not on the surface,” I said.  I paged through the papers, noting the headings  “Times of effect, terms, stipulations…”

 Hm, how is the senior thing important? I’m not much familiar with its usage given the language breach. I’m thinking it has to be a “minor” if there is a “senior”. Is it meant to point out that Rose is named after the grandmother?

 “Stipulations?”

I went back a page.

“Taking care of the house, paying upkeep from the account accorded to the custodian of the property to ensure the driveway, lawn and gardens are looked after, attending meetings with the firm, ummm,” I paused to look over the next bit.  “Right at the end, a note saying possession of the property can be revoked if the custodian doesn’t meet the requirements noted by the client, Mrs. Thorburn.”

“What requirements?”

I shook my head.  “No clue.  Something to keep in mind.  After stipulations, there’s a section on stipend, with a regular allowance, notes on how often the lawyers can be called without incurring a debt.  Oh, right here.  A mention of the bird-skull monsters.”

“What?”  I could see Rose move, standing from her seat.

“I’m joking,” I said, with zero humor in my voice.  “There’s nothing.  A few pages with pictures of the property and the boundaries, some stuff on the adjacent woodland and marsh, a blurb on council meetings, nonsense on contacting the lawyers, and-”  I stopped.

“What?”

“A means of opting out.  Not joking this time.”

“Somehow I don’t imagine it would be that easy,” Rose said.

 Honestly seems like more work than its worth, even if no magical demonic curse was involved. Imagine you fuck up once and the firm gets to take the house out from your hands? Sounds kinda bullshit and probably something that Grandma Rose arranged to piss off the person who is currently owner of the property.

How actually easy would it be to just get out of this? Sounds like a win-win for Blake who just wants to cut… wait for it… his BONDS with his family.

 “It’s pretty easy.  Phone or email the lawyer, and custodianship transfers to the next available candidate.”  I reread the legalese and the plain-text to be sure.

“That’s not what I meant,” Rose said.  “This whole situation is a trap, right?  She’s got some goal in mind, she basically, what, let the world know that she picked Molly as her heir, so all of her enemies come crawling out of the woodwork… and then she does the same for you, even going so far as to set up me for some kind of loophole.  She used the situation to force us into this.”

“Right,” I said.

“Does it make more sense that we’re really truly free to walk away, or that there’s a trap waiting for us if we try?”

“A trap,” I said, sighing a little.  If I’d let myself hope just a little, that hope was dashed.

“Just off the top of my head, maybe she announced that she picked her heir, but she doesn’t let everyone know that the heir has stepped down.  Meaning we’d lose all of the protections and resources we’d have, but we’d still be in just as much trouble.”

“It’s a way to weed out anyone too stupid to consider the ramifications.”

“Or anyone too weak to face the situation,” Rose said.  “Knowing her, it fits.”

“You do know her, huh?” I asked.  “All this while, you were immersed in this.”

“All this while,” Rose said.  “Except I didn’t know this part.  Um.  Give me a minute.  I’m wearing pyjamas, and I feel grungy.  I’m going to change, if I can figure out how.”

 Yeah, that’s what I thought. I ALSO want to know how to change clothes in the Mirror Dimension.

 With that said, she disappeared from the frame.

I remained where I was.  Big key, legal pad…

I rifled through Molly’s things.  She had kept a duffel bag with her things in it, but it was only clothes and a few cables and a set of headphones for a smartphone.

I felt guilty and more than a little creepy going through her clothes, so I stopped there.

Was I damning myself, with fingerprints and the like?  Would the police find her dead and then find that I’d moved myself in, already aware that she was dead?

It was a daunting thought.  Another trap?  Was grandmother testing me?

It raised another question.  Why?  Why had she pit us against one another, picking through us for some candidate that could meet some specific, crazy standard?  Why was she testing us by putting us through this gauntlet, where we were unprepared and ignorant when these monsters came after us?

“You look pensive,” Rose said.

I looked up.  I saw her in the mirror.  Wearing a decidedly old fashioned women’s blouse with pearly buttons up the front and a bit of lace on the collar, and a pleated skirt.  Her hair was mostly straight, with two lengths from the sides drawn back and pinned with something.

I raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t say a word.  There are only so many places with mirrors in the house.  What were you thinking about?”

“Traps.  Tests.  Somehow, I imagine this is about more than looking after a house.  You don’t get enemies from property alone.  Well, you do, but not really in this era.”

Where IS Molly’s body? Also, how much can Rose interfere with the outside of the mirror? It still seems inconsistent; did she just pick clothes from looking at something? Did she physically grab them or something else entirely? Guess I won’t ask =P

 “No, you don’t, but this is a world we don’t fully understand.”

I nodded.  “We’re left in the dark.  Let’s assume this is a test… you said the lawyers were picking up books?”

“I only glimpsed it, because the light was hitting the windows at the right angles.  There were books piled on the table.”

“Describe them?”

“Old books.  Like those on the bottom shelf, below me.”

I got up and picked up the book.  It had a hard cloth cover, and the spine had been abused by wear and age, cracking and fraying.

“The ones I saw looked like they were in better shape,” Rose said.  “I think.  It was hard to make out, but he saw me looking, and he approached, and I did get a look at one.  There’s a lot of books in the house.  We’d be talking about needles in a haystack, here.”

“Why would he clean them up if he was going to put them on the shelves?” I asked.  “They deserved his time and attention.  Let’s go back to the idea that this is a test.  Grandmother’s not holding our hands here.  She never did, I don’t think.  I mean, mother and father never really got that whole ‘support your kids’ thing either.”

When Rose replied, her voice was quiet.  “I have to disagree with you there.  They support me.  Supported me, past tense, I guess.”

“Okay, fine,” I said, pushing that idea out of my head.  “Point is, she’s not coddling us.  There are books, they’re important, and the only two options are that the lawyers have them, and the test is as simple as ‘figuring out how to get in contact, or they’re hidden.”

Blake’s mom and dad keep being garbage, if the mirror version of them aren’t any different like Rose would like to think, they truly, for some reason, HATED having a son. WAIT, Grandma Rose did say that she’d have only picked the girls as possible inheritors didn’t she? I almost forgot that, but Blake is kinda supposed to be a surprise for him to be only second in line right? Maybe that’s why, so to top it off, parents don’t treat Blake well, Blake doesn’t treat them with respect in return and it becomes this hate cycle that so distinctively sets his and Rose’s version of the parents apart so much. I don’t much faith in this “test is as simple as getting books” thing. I actually don’t much buy into this whole “this is a test” thing either.

“Hidden?”

I held up the big key.  “Took a look around, no idea where it goes.  Except I’m not even sure where to begin looking.”

“She’s harsh, cold, but I wouldn’t say she’s unfair,” Rose said.  “If she expects us to figure it out, then we have the information we need.  Information Molly would have available to her too.”

I looked up at the mirror, but Rose was looking down.

“The documents,” I said, as I realized what she was looking at.  “You think Molly got a copy too, along with the key?  Or a key?”

“It’s possible,” Rose said.

I picked up the document.  This time I flipped through to the image of the property boundaries.  Square footage, notes on utilities, restrictions on renovations…

In the midst of the briefs and warnings regarding renovations, I saw a floor plan.  Room layout.

I hopped out of my seat, the map in hand.  “One second.  Can’t take the map and the mirror with my hand like it is.”

“Okay,” she said, but she didn’t look happy.

I got to the third floor and stopped.  I held the map up.

Map: Three rooms on the left, one room and the stairwell on the right.

What I saw: Two rooms on the left, one room and the stairwell on the right.

Have we got some non-euclidean geometry going on? Also, I’m fully expecting something to be hidden amongst Molly’s clothing that Blake just neglected looking at. Maybe there is something important there and we will never even know of haha. That would be pretty hilarious, Wildbow comes out and says: “oh yeah, that very simple thing that Blake never did? It would have cut the story in half or so”.

 I looked at the floor plan, then made several very deliberate paces down the length of the hall. I stopped.  About twenty-one. My friends were artists and artistic types.  I had the unfortunate distinction of being a less than stellar artist.  But I’d owed them for the help and support they’d given me, and in helping them with their jobs, I’d stumbled onto a bit of work.  Setting up their work, installations, as well as all the other grunt jobs.  Sure, they could go to a carpenter to get something put together in the way of a display stand, but that carpenter wouldn’t necessarily know what was at play with the art. Along the way, I’d settled into being a go-to handyman and delivery guy in the local art community.  I knew the gallery owners, I knew who was who, and if I couldn’t do a job myself, I knew who to call. Not so glamorous or fancy, not exactly stellar pay, but I had stupid little skills that I could use here.  In a pinch, I could use my stride or my arm length to help me figure out measurements, thirty three and a half and thirty-two and a half inches, respectively. Mostly, I tended to eyeball things, and maybe that was a factor in what had kicked my instincts into motion in the first place, when the rooms had felt small, despite all evidence to the contrary. From one outer wall to the next, the map said the house measured thirty-seven feet in length.  My estimate put it at twenty-one feet in length. I tried again, going in the other direction, and I got the same estimate.  Houses were supposed to expand and contract with temperature and the like, but not that much. To experiment, I crossed the hallway and tried once more.

More info on Blake’s job. Always fun how autonomous work always seems to allow you to meet the biggest variety of people.

 I’m studying chemical engineering, which means I’m no engineer at all and much less a chemist, but I had some classes where it definitely helped knowing to eyeball respective parts of my body, like spaces between certain positions with my fingers and such. Yes it is easy to just use a ruler, but who said I remembered to always carry one with me?

So, entire SECTIONS and chunks of the house seem to be missing, invisible or something of the sort. That is more interesting still. Maybe Molly didn’t touch much of the rest of the house because she was preoccupied with THESE rooms?

 One hallway, with right angles at each corner, twenty-one feet in length down the north side, thirty-seven down the south side.  The ends were each an equal six feet across.

I narrowed my eyes, looking down the length of the hallway.  There was no distortion in the floorboards, and every bookshelf on one side somehow had a bookshelf opposite, of matching dimensions.

I began moving books aside on the shelves down the ‘short’ hallway.

It took me two tries to find the keyhole.  Tucked in the corner just beneath one shelf, at bellybutton level.

The key required a fair bit of effort to turn, and rewarded me with an audible, heavy click.

The bookcase swung inward.  Oversized hinges managed the heavy burden as it swung all the way around and sat flush against the wall.

“Fuck me,” I muttered.

The room was a study.  A library.  There were two parts to the room, suggesting it took up two floors in the house.  The upper half was a ring, looking down through an opening, bordered with bookcases on the four exterior walls, with a wrought iron railing keeping people from falling through the hole in the middle.  Soft, mottled light shone down from a dust-caked window in the ceiling, lighting both halves of the library better than lightbulbs lit the rest of the house.

I slowly circled around, taking it in.  Each wall had ornate stepladders on wheels, which could coast along rails that had been inset in floor and ceiling.  Another stepladder led from a gap in the railing on the far end to the floor below.

I looked at the books, noting the differences from the ones in the rest of the house.  They were better taken care of, for one thing, and they tended to be narrow.

 Aha! Are these taken care of in the way the lawyer, maybe purposefully, led some books with him while he talked to Rose? Are these demonic tomes maybe?

 Cassandra’s Gaze.

Deleterious Craftings

Draoidh.  The book had a little ivory mask inset in the spine, with round staring eyes and a very curly beard.

Glamour.

Poppets.

Shamanism: ‘Animus’, volumes one through six, and Shamanism: ‘Umbra’, volumes seven through ten.

Vestige: Glimmers and Gasps.

Wū zhěn: Eastern Vodun Practices.

I finished reading spines along the one wall.  I traced spines with my fingertips as I passed on to the next wall.

Blessed Wrongs.

Dryads, Varieties.

Jokes from the Faerie Folk.

Lilith’s Children.

Maddening Things.

Observations on Bacchae interacting in Modern Society.

On Others.  Editions from 1964 through 2012 were lined up on the shelf.  Thicker texts.

Pitiable: Transcriptions from informal dialogues with Vampir.

Seems like it. Also, may I suggest “On Others”? Seems like the proper read, just a guess.

 The next shelf seemed to be a continuation from O to Z, in the same theme.  The bookshelf adjacent to that one seemed to be in a variety of different languages.  French, German, and a language with characters formed out of triangles.

The barrier to understanding was a reason to stop, where I might have kept walking and reading indefinitely.

Here, in this library, were the explanations and the rules.  It was, theoretically, a way to make it all make sense.  Except there was so much here, I couldn’t begin to take it in.  Where did I even start, when it came to trying to look up bird-skull undead things?  I’d gone from having no answers to having too many.

Its like when I’m trying to explain the lengthy confusing and twisting story of Drakengard+NieR’s to someone. Its always daunting to have something like “no but you have to understand, that the beginning of NieR states that its summer, but its snowing, to indicate that it is NOT snow, its actually salt because of the White Chlorination Syndrome, a disease that turns people into salt because it is trying to make a magical pact with the dead god from another dimension that is the final boss of Ending ‘E’ of Drakengard, which falls into 21st century Tokyo after you and your dragon plunge into its pregnant belly as it produces giant baby monsters that were killing off everyone on the main world of the game, and after you defeat it, the military bombard you both, dragon and giant bald statue lady, spreading your alien particles that end up bringing the world into an apocalyptic state. Not kidding, that’s the ending, congratz. The rest aren’t much better either. And that is not even GETTING into why this is just the intro of NieR in 2000 something, when the game is actually clearly mostly set like 12 thousand years later in a medieval setting but with the same characters you see in the intro”. Play or at least read about Yoko Taro’s games guys, they are super good, insane, bizarre but always just outright beautiful . Stylistically but ESPECIALLY musically. Give NieR’s OST a listen Trailed off a bit huh? Gotta shill what’s good, that’s how I got to know Worm and Wildbow in the first place =) 

I felt a little cold, despite the general warmth of the room.  I rubbed my hands against my sleeves.

Feeling restless, I reached the ladder that led down to the first floor and climbed down.

A desk and chair, a cozy armchair, a leather psychiatrist’s couch, a book stand with a book on it, and cabinets.  There were more bookshelves, but many were smaller, squat, set on top or beneath the cabinets.  More private, with personal books.  A blackboard on wheels that could be flipped over to write on either side.

A blanket was thrown over one piece of furniture.  I had any number of reasons not to touch it, but there was a shape to it, tall, narrow, and flatter than the blackboard.  I could see the metal feet…

I walked around to the side, then lifted up a corner of the blanket, where it wasn’t facing me.

Because in this fucked up situation, with all this, I wasn’t going to trust anything.

“Rose?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Sense anything funny?”

“No.  Except for light appearing from nowhere.”

“Covered mirror,” I said, as I threw off the blanket.

I sat back while I watched her take it all in.  In the frame of the mirror, she turned and walked over to a bookcase, picking up a book.

No effect on my end, I noted.

 This answers something I said earlier, yeah, I totally forgot that Rose’s mirror dimension has the same stuff Blake’s side does. Obviously. Its just that last chapter it seemed a lot  was set in the dark. I had thought how odd would it be that Rose hadn’t noticed the existence of this place, the likelihood of there being absolutely nothing reflective kinda threw me off, but of course there is, BUT, the fact that it is a mirror, thoughtfully covered, tells me even more. A lot of this is pre-planned, and makes me feel like maybe Molly didn’t get the same mirror buddy that Blake has, which was something I was building up. Unless Molly truly has been limiting herself to three or four rooms this entire time. I’ll hold on to my doubts.

 I turned my attention to the desk.  The wood had brown leather inlaid into it with big brass buttons.  I saw pens and inkwells, regular pens, pencils, a calculator, a brush and scalpel and other tools in jars and cases in the corners.  A mug held what might have been tea or coffee, though it had sat for long enough that the milk had congealed into a cloud of white on the surface.  There were books and papers, too.

The papers included one pile of legal documents, virtually identical to the ones I’d left downstairs, only they were addressed to Molly, with some changes in wording here and there.

What caught my eye, however, was the letter.

“Rose,” I said.

“What?”

I grabbed the pages of the letter, then walked around until we could see each other.  I stood by the mirror, holding it up so we could both read it.

 !!! But wait!! There are CERTAIN THINGS that Rose doesn’t have on her side! She said before, she didn’t have the law papers. Either they are imbued with something, which I don’t have much hopes for, or the mirror dimension has some sort of temporal limitation, like it locked in some place in time and has no people in it except Rose? Maybe I’m close, maybe I’m way too far, maybe it doesn’t matter at all.

 Molly et al,

Please accept my graceless apology.  At this juncture, you’ll likely be frightened and confused.  Chances are good you’ll see outside parties at work, if you haven’t already, helping you to conclude that this isn’t nonsense.  That helps us move on to business.  If you find yourself here and are already injured in body, mind, heart, spirit or other more esoteric departments, you may need to jump straight to instruction number one in the list below, sacrifice sleep to see it through, and then move on to a great deal of research.  The Index is a catalogue of all things found in my library, which I penned myself, and will help direct you to solutions to whatever ails you.

I could explain, justify, and make excuses, but that is very much not my manner or style.  You have a library of explanations sitting around you.  With study, perhaps, you’ll see how I justified what I did.  We can do without the excuses entirely.

I’ll be succinct.  The family line is a long one, and we have had some involvement in more anagogic sciences since the early 1800’s.  We have resources touching on the craft, the arcane, or whatever you wish to call it.  Magic.  However, all things have a price, and it is impossible to become rich, powerful, wise or strong without paying in some form.  For this reason, among others, practitioners rarely ascend to any great status and remain there.  But our predecessors tried, they accrued a karmic debt, and they have passed it on to their children, and their children’s children, and so on down the line.

“You caught up?”

“Yeah,” Rose said.

I turned the page.

Perhaps this seems unfair, but modern standards of fair and unfair are just that: modern.  In this world I’ve imposed on you, there are very old things, and there are very old traditions.  Here, the sins of the father are visited upon the son.  Or mother and daughter, rather.  Beings as long-lived as powerful Others have trouble telling us apart, when we live and die so quickly and when we often look the same, and it helps to establish a pedigree or pattern.  Some have ornaments of office, others carry on with seventh sons.  We use daughters, and we keep to a smaller community.  If they call you Rose, Elizabet, Frances, Esther, Ruth, I recommend you take it in stride.  You are, as of now, simply one piece of a long thread.

 Is everything here truly Rose’s making? Impressive, but for what reason? This whole system and the way she acted and was described doesn’t seem to imply that she cared much about her offspring’s wellbeing, and unless something was at play there doesn’t seem to be any reason to instruct them each into this entire thing beforehand. So why write it down for people you don’t care about? Or does she care on the same page that she wants things like “the name of the family” to keep going? They used daughters then, I like how this is all described, and then there’s Blake. Whelp.

 My diaries can be found on the shelf behind the desk.  I welcome you to read them if they might shed light on matters.  Perhaps my own realizations will help you find a way to your own.

Now, I charge you with tasks.  To demonstrate the gravity of this, know that you may lose custody of the property if you do not address these tasks.  On a graver level, you may well doom yourselves and the bloodline with your failure, depending on how it plays out.

1.  Read Essentials.  It sits on the book stand.  A novice’s guide to the most basic things, it outlines the steps to awakening yourself.  Be warned, these steps open the door to becoming Other, in a respect.  The oldest of them made agreements in times well beyond us, to guarantee safety and maintain a kind of peace.  Foremost among these agreements is truth.  Should you lie, you may well forfeit your power for a time.  Break a promise or an oath, and you will be forsworn, and you will be stripped of every protection afforded to even the common, ignorant people that decorate this Earth.  On finishing Essentials, awaken yourself.

 Yup, seems like “keeping the bloodline” is the thing here. So if you read a book and manage to do, what I imagine is a process, you ‘awaken’ and become Other. Cool. I thought the title was reserved to the folklore folk. The implications of a system that requires you not to lie are VERY interesting too. Everything must be omitted and filtrated through layers upon layers of disguises.

 “Oh fuck me,” I said.

“Oh hell,” Rose echoed me.

Conduct the remainder of these steps in any order.  Monumental as these steps are, you must be suitably armed against your enemies.  You will be asked about your progress with some frequency, and failure to make sufficient progress in the next five years will see your rights and access to this house terminated.

2.  Study and enact the ritual noted in Famulus.  The familiar is your greatest ally, and will serve as a tool, a wellspring of power, an ambassador to dealing with more abstract things, and will be a lifelong companion.  Make this choice with the same respect you would with undertaking marriage, only know there is no form of divorce.  The Familiar is to be a part of you for life.  You gain their services, and they gain a chance to be mortal, even if it is a small mortalhood, in addition to whatever other terms you negotiate.  Do not allow your familiar to take the form of a rat or dog.

That cute SCP territory where stipulations are made on the do’s and don’t’s and the don’t’s are super bizarre and random and you can’t help but ask yourself “why” and it just makes butterflies in my stomach because I KNOW the writer knows why haha.

Also, familiar seems to be different from whatever Rose is. It requires a ritual and Blake already “has” Rose, in a sense. Grandma’s Rose must’ve been the cat. “A chance to be mortal” sounds foreboding. Are we talking about previously non-living things or about immortals things that want to die? I wonder who makes the contacts, the lawyers? Molly’s things were here so did she receive all this and left it here or did she not receive them at all? Will I ever stop asking questions? Yes? No? Maybe? Its good to frame stuff in my head as I read though, easier to catalogue it all back if I ever need to backtrack through my past readthroughts

 3.  Study and enact the ritual noted in Implementum.  Your choice of tool will shape how you interact with this world, your craft, and will be your badge in the eyes of many.  The book is dreary, page on page of examples, but study it thoroughly, for there are many meanings, and a poor choice of tool may well cripple you.

I won’t do the obvious Homestuck joke with this one.

 4.  Study and enact the ritual found in Demesnes.  Baba Yaga had her hut, I have my room.  Unfortunately, the rest of the house has been claimed by our predecessors, and while it is a haven, you will need to find your own place to make your own, where the rules bend as you need them to, and where your power is greatest.  The three rituals noted here are fundamental in determining how you access, hoard and focus power.  Note, however, that your real power will be in how you act with others and Others.

5.  Find a good man to marry.  By this, I don’t mean that he should be decent and kind.  Such may be a detriment.  You will need an ally in this, and a man who can support you in more mundane matters will give you strength in this world.  I reckon many of the best partnerships in the recent past came about when our family married bastards rather than gentlemen.

6.  Attend the council meetings.  Second Saturday of every month, at the park, in the twilight hours.  In a five year term, there will be sixty such meetings.  Miss six in total, and your rights to the property will be forfeit.

Demesnes is a term that I’ve read before in reddit posts, also Labyrinth, but mainly something I expected to be covering whole houses and just a general protection zone. I’m glad there is more to it! I wonder if its okay to talk about Others with commoners that are not from a certain Bloodline. The meetings remind me of Nightvale’s Dog Park.

 “I think I’m faced with an issue, here,” I said.

“You can’t sit through meetings?” Rose asked.

I shot her a look.

Hahaahahaha. Okay, Rose has the same sass Blake has though.

 She giggled a little, and it was an uncharacteristic, unfitting, nervous sound.  “I… I don’t know how to react to this.  I tried to make a joke.  It’s laugh or cry, right?  And I was awfully close to crying before I read any of this.”

“I’m supposed to marry a guy.  I’m getting the impression this isn’t the first obstacle I’m going to run into.”

“Gay marriage is legal,” she said.

“I’m not gay.” I said.  “I wonder if the lawyers will allow me any leeway, here.”

“The lawyers?” she asked.  She gave me a look, eyebrow arched.  “Think about it.”

I sighed, and then I did.

“They’re involved in this,” I thought aloud.  “Cleaning up after Molly, they know enough to move the books… they’re setting all this up, so things are prepared for each heir-to-be.”

My voice took a more serious tone as I finished “…and the legal documents made less than specific references to debts.”

“They’re not friends, Blake.  Resources, maybe, but not friends.  We should think long and hard about when and why we contact them.”

I fidgeted, biting my lip as I thought.  Unwilling to dwell on it, I turned the page.

 Oh yeah, THAT. Huh. I wonder if any of these rules apply correctly at all since Blake breaks the first one of, well, not being a woman, which is this bloodline’s symbol of being “the next one”.

 7.  Finish three out of four of the books in this library.  You will need some assistance with foreign languages.  Making a bargain with an Other to learn Sumerian may be novel, I know, but it is easier to ask for it to be translated aloud by a servant or summoning.

8.  See our bloodline to the end of the fifth year with less of a debt than we had at the start of your custodianship.  I’m hoping you can see this through until the end of your lifetime, but I can only focus on these next five years and hope you are on the right road.

Remain out of the north end of Jacob’s Bell until you have completed two rituals and developed a foundation.  Stay out, perhaps, even if you have.  Some individuals are not to be trifled with.

Make no major deals or bargains.  Until the end of the custodianship, you’ll need to run any major deals past Mr. Beasley (including the three major rituals.  He will protect you from other decisions, or lend his aid if he can’t, but he will exact a price.

Mr. Beasley, as well as individuals you’ll find in Jacob’s Bell and the surrounding area, is described in a little black book I playfully dubbed Dramatis Personae, when I was younger.

Our family has made enemies, and I confess that I have turned allies into more enemies.  I will not compel you to read this book, but I impel you to.  It may well be a deciding factor in your survival.  Use all tools I’ve bestowed on you.  We are powerful, we hold a noteworthy position, and this is much of the reason we have the enemies we do.  Chances are good you will need to use everything at your disposal to survive them.

As the sins of the mother pass to the daughter, I’ve passed my enemies and the debt on to you.  I won’t ask forgiveness or understanding.  I suspect you may find those things when the time comes for you to bear an heir and visit these wrongs on them.

Yours, R.D.T.

Well, fuck everyone I guess. It is a bold move from Wildbow to limit so much knowledge of the setting to books in a library the MC has access to. I’m hoping this is translated well into the story.

 I was never good at sitting still when stressed.  Now that there were no more pages to go through, I found myself pacing.

“We have answers,” Rose said, as if reassuring me.

“I don’t like these answers,” I said, raising my voice a little.  “That old bitch.”

“It doesn’t sound like she had a lot of choice,” Rose said.

I spun around to stare at her.  “You’re awfully sympathetic to the old woman who has your name,” I said.  “Can we verify, again, that you’re really a female me?”

Her face settled into a serious expression, as cold as mine was heated.  I was breathing hard, and my sutures were hurting where I clenched my hand.

“Ask me anything,” she said.  “Anything about growing up with mother and father.”

I didn’t respond, scowling and looking away instead.  I was fidgeting with my good hand.  She was right.

“We’re allies, Blake.  Allies, understand?  Look, the letter said a magic user can’t lie, right?  I’m a unicorn from outer space, and I can’t speak English.  See?”

I broke from my pace, crossing the room to the bookstand, where I snatched up the book that was open on it.  I tossed it down on the desk.  Essentials.

Another series of books, in a stack in the corner, where the lawyers had left them.  Famulus, Implementum, Demesnes.  Orange, purple and green cloth covers, respectively, they all matched otherwise, in size and the script on the spines.  I glanced each one over, then tossed them onto the desk, where they rewarded me with a series of satisfying impacts.

I found Dramatis Personae.  I flipped through it.  There were tabs.  One for ‘allies’, which was virtually empty, with only the lawyer’s number.

Enemies…  they took up almost all of the remainder.

It didn’t make a sound, much less a satisfying thud, when I added it to the pile.  I was left without anything more to throw.  Nothing I wanted to risk, in any event.

I’m most interested in Demesnes to be fair, how exactly do you find out the place for you? How will Blake do it, if I gathered it correctly, knowing that the house is already fully taken by other people?

 “Are you mad at me?” Rose asked.  “We’re supposed to be allies, Blake.”

“I’m not… no, I’m mad at this,” I said.  “Look at this.  How many books do we need to read, here?  How many books do we need to read a day, just to keep up?”

“Maybe that’s the cheat?  If we’re both the same person, technically, can we argue that the eldest child of Brad and Christina Thorburn has read half the books?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“There are answers.  See?  Look…”

She turned away from the mirror, heading to the nearest bookshelf.

I saw her stop.  She remained where she was.

“Rose?” I asked.

She didn’t move.

I felt a bit of anxiety, and turned away, walking over to that same shelf, on my side of the mirror.

The Worst of the Others.

Devils and Details.

Dark Contracts

Classifying Others: Fiends and Darker Beings.

Hellfire: Bindings

Infernal Wrath

Pacts and Prices

I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry.  I didn’t know much, but I knew this was a bad idea of the worst kind.

These were the books that held a place of prominence on grandmother’s bookshelf.  These were the tools she expected us to employ.

No small wonder she’d made the enemies she had.

These books?  They each had the same set of initials on the spine.  R.D.T.

She’d written them.

The plan for them to both read the books and share the details each is good, if it is all dealt in a legal way, they could 100% argue that the individual has read the books if each read half of them. Sounds like something paranormally plausible in my eyes. I WAS going to ask if Blake was a reading person, because he doesn’t seem to be and this confirms it for me.

So, THESE are the books the lawyer cleaned up, am I correct? How does she expect to lower the accumulated, what did she call? Karmic debt? I feel like she used another name as well, anyways. How does she expect to lower that when one of the main things is “Pacts and Prices”?

Kinda surprised the chapter ended there!