Session 21 Downtime

Beyond the Labyrinth

After the events of the last game, my first priority is to retrieve the Cutting Stone. When I pass beyond the Labyrinth, I find a universe which consists of a single gigantic world. This universe is connected to an unknown number of other worlds, of which The Actuality is one. This world is quiet, and completely uninhabited, although there are signs (buildings on a grand scale, libraries, bones) of the scholars who have previously entered this universe from wherever they came from. None of the writings these scholars left behind provide any information about true nature of this place, or provide any true knowledge about its origin, only baseless imaginings intended to anchor it in the creation myths of their own original worlds.
 
It does not appear that any of these ancient scholars ever returned to their own worlds; they stayed, and studied, and got so caught up in the puzzle of the place that they never really turned their full efforts into finding a way back.
 
In this world, the Cutting Stone does not exist. However, there is a note from the Hidden Prince, "I have what you're looking for. Come find me when you're ready." (+1 despair for failing to successfully cache and recover the most important item in my universe.)
 

New Character Arc: Explore (Just Over the Next Hill)

• Cost: The Undertaking (-2 acumen) -- I will go to and through the Labyrinth, and explore whatever lies beyond.


• Opening: Make a Plan (+1 acumen) -- I set things up to take care of themselves in my absence, with Simone prepared to convene the team and search for me if I am not back within a year.


• Step(s): Gather Resources (+1 acumen) -- I acquire permission from the Magisterium to try the Labyrinth. This turns out to be easier than I thought it would be, because they're all beholden to the Deathless Triumvirate.


• Step(s): Travel (+1 acumen) -- I pass through the Labyrinth.


• Step(s)Exploration -- Entering this new world, I am stunned by what I've found. The greatest mystery of my world is just... literally just a gateway into another world. I spend more than a little time exploring and examining the things I find, learning whatever I can of this unbelievable place.


• Climax: Conquest (+2 acumen, +1 joy) -- I stand at the center of what I believe to be this world's greatest repository of knowledge, a library collected and left by one of the ancient scholars who came before me.


• Resolution (+1 acumen)

 

Enlarging the Observable Universe

While within this world-- which has no name that I can discover, but which I have chosen to call Agora, for now-- I finally have the perspective I have been seeking my whole life, the opportunity to study my world from an external spot. My studies provide me with insight into the nature and shape of the different components of known reality... I now have data to support the the following statements:
 

• The Actuality is one reality among what appears to be many realities, which may or may not be similar to it at all.


• The Kaleidoscopic Void is made up of the jumbled light of the Suns, and appears to be a boundary layer of the Actuality which has been rendered incoherent by by the effect of entropy.


• The Outer Dark truly surrounds all things, including not only the Actuality but these other worlds as well. There is a contradiction here, because the Outer Dark doesn't truly exist, and is rather an actual lack of existence.

 

New Character Arc: Uncover a Secret (The True Shape of the World)

• Cost: Seeker (-2 acumen) -- I cannot conceivably pass up this opportunity to observe reality from such a truly unique vantage point.


• Opening: Naming the Secret (+1 acumen) -- What is the relationship of this world to my own? What does its existence mean? What is the greater context?


• Step(s): Research (+1 acumen) -- I sort through the records left by ancient scholars of this world, studying everything I can that they left behind on cosmology and ontology, not just of their own worlds, but of this unique one.


• Step(s): Investigation (+1 acumen) -- I place myself in a trance at the highest point I can find in this world, and use my only really good tool to examine the Actuality from this vantage. That is, I carefully measure everything I encounter/observe/consume with Gnaw the Universal Mind, even knowledge I have already consumed in the past, to determine what transformations or interference affect knowledge passing between that place/state and this place/state. I learn everything that can be learned with such a tool, and while it is not insubstantial, it is not enough.


• Step(s): Tracking (+1 acumen) -- I try to find some other angle for observing/measuring/understanding reality from here, but there really isn't any.


• Climax: Revelation (+2 acumen, +1 despair) -- I have learned a lot, but not enough. I cannot answer my questions without better sources of information. I need something more like the tools which are available to me in the observatory.


• Resolution (+1 acumen)

 

I Encompass The World Within My Self

 
Frustrated with the limitations of my research/exploration in this place, desperately missing Simone and reluctant to abandon my universe to somebody else's will, I decide to go home one day while sitting among the remains of the ancient failed scholars who spent their entire lives investigating this place and came up empty.
 
I was thus left in the interesting position of trying to work out a way back into my own universe, which apparently none of the ancient scholars ever did, but possibly the Hidden Prince did. As is my habit, I did not jump directly into this, but simply thought about it first.
 
When it came down to it, my strategy was not to overcome an external barrier, but to look within. I started work on a spell I've intended to put together for a long, long time, but was not confident enough to move it to the start of my project list.
 
But I have no such concerns anymore. I cast the spell, act within the spacetime before I entered the Labyrinth, use magic to communicate to Simone that I will return in 'x' (however many that is, based on how long I was in that other world) days and not to worry, then am back in the current time, right outside of the Labyrinth.
 

New Character Arc: New Discovery (True Perdurance)

• Cost: The Thrill of Discovery (-2 acumen)


• Opening: The Idea (+1 acumen) -- When I consider my temporal parts, I am already where I want to be, to say nothing of when.


• Step: Research (+1 acumen) -- I review magical theory that already exists in my memory.


• Step(s): Trial and Error (+1 acumen) -- There is something to basic about this... I'm basically just putting a massive amount of energy into breaking down temporal limitations and bringing my true self into manifestation. There's not a lot of trial and error necessary for this... it just works.


• Climax: Eureka! (+3 acumen, +1 joy)


• Resolution (+1 acumen)

 

Back Into The Actual World

 
Gonna do some stuff. Maybe learn some stuff.
 

• Writhing Soul - level 9 secret - https://satyrine.com/main.php?resource=database&type=character_secrets&list=131


• 2 points of stealth


• Daylight Caster - level 7 secret - https://satyrine.com/main.php?resource=database&type=character_secrets&list=12


• Night Caster - level 6 secret- https://satyrine.com/main.php?resource=database&type=character_secrets&list=46


• True Defense - level 7 forte power - https://satyrine.com/main.php?resource=database&type=fortes&list=301

 
I need someone that I can rely on, so I use the invocation Tulpa Creation to build a tulpa named Keye of level 13 (5 base, +5 sorcery, +2 from magical heterodyne, +1 from wending path, +1 from rhyming magic, +1 from silver thumb, +1 from casting while the silver sun is active, -3 from effects of the invocation), then set it on a path of self-improvement, ordering it to perform research and experimentation to perfect itself (increase its level, eventually to level 17).
 

New Character Arc: Creation (Key)

• Cost: The Idea (-2 acumen)


• Opening: Make a Plan (+1 acumen)


• Step(s): Gather Materials (+1 acumen) -- I have to acquire a level 17 ollari rod, which I doubt is easy to find. I use my contact Taiyo to help me with this.


• Step(s): Progress (+1 acumen) -- I cast the invocation Tulpa Creation and create Keye at level 13


• Step(s): Progress (+1 acumen) -- Keye increases its level to 14

 
The world is no longer safe for anything or anybody in my world, now that I am secretly in rebellion against the powers that be. I need to ensure that those which look to me are safe. I think that the best way to do this is to make sure that they can be with me, in me, when necessary. Thus, I think I need to be able to take my Observatory and its contents with me; I need to be able to let my house live inside me.
 

New Character Arc: New Discovery (A Very Very Very Nice House)

• Cost: the Thrill of Discovery (-2 acumen)


• Opening: the Idea (+1 acumen]


• Step: Research (+1 acumen) -- I research house secrets which have to do with the transformation of the house, and with the relationship between the house and the vislae)


• Step(s): Trial and Error (+1 acumen) -- I make a Sefiroth of my house, and another one of myself. Instead of experimenting directly upon myself and my house, I experiment upon the symbols within those Sefiroths, essentially modeling this praxis within my ideosyncratic magic rather than within the Actuality.