From owner-wod-l@netcom.com Wed Jul 31 01:43:59 1996 Received: from mail5.netcom.com (root@mail5.netcom.com [192.100.81.141]) by mail.nada.kth.se (8.6.10/8.6.10) with ESMTP id BAA24747 for ; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 01:43:54 +0200 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by mail5.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom) id EAA03712; Tue, 30 Jul 1996 04:01:41 -0700 Received: from lendal.york.ac.uk (lendal.york.ac.uk [144.32.128.21]) by mail5.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom) id EAA03573; Tue, 30 Jul 1996 04:01:04 -0700 Received: from tower.york.ac.uk by lendal.york.ac.uk with SMTP (PP); Tue, 30 Jul 1996 11:58:21 +0100 Received: by tower.york.ac.uk (950511.SGI.8.6.12.PATCH526/940406.SGI) id MAA26946; Tue, 30 Jul 1996 12:00:01 +0100 Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 12:00:01 +0100 (BST) From: Little Man From Another Place To: wod-l@netcom.com cc: mage-l@oracle.wizards.com, gm-l@netcom.com Subject: A conversation In-Reply-To: <199607281849.NAA01324@thymaster.interaccess.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-wod-l@netcom.com Precedence: list Reply-To: wod-l@netcom.com Status: RO X-Status: The Setting: " A Red Room of the Black Lodge " This is the plan of the room where the mages meet, in front of the Sleeper. ________________________________________? | ? | * Neph Mar ? | () ? | --------------------- ? | | | ? | | | ? | Sle | Table | ? | | | () ? | | | ? | --------------------| ? | ? | Tech Trad ? | () () ? | ? ----------------------------------------? Where: () are big halogen lamps, |- are cutrains of red silk, which seem to go forever (top of the room is lost in darkness), ?? is a unseen (ie dark) area. The Table is a green marble in color and has a glass of red wine in front of all persent. There is no food. * Is Something different for every mage present. Neph = Nothing. Mar = Everchanging colors. Trad = A large ring, of gold in the form of a braided snake with rubies for eyes and pearls for fangs. In it's mouth is a triangle of jade, with three black stones surrounding a diamond infinity loop. Tech = The mathematical description of None Euclidian Space. ============== "I remember the day they came to me. It was in 5 years. Paradox "dumped" them in my care, in my place. I think they were in a magickal fight of some kind, when something turned wrong. Whose fault was it? Who does what? Why will they be here? Why them? I don't know all the answers, but the game started when the first one woke up" 23 KNS was in his late 20's wearing a black X-files teeshirt -- the one with the Trust No One on the back, inside the letters you could see a host of "dusters" in the sunset--. His black leather trousers were over big biker's boots. White, as if the sun rarly cast her rays on him with a definitly traces of asian ansestors. Two colored iris, gave him an air of mystery that his companions loved. He had a silver ring on his right hand index finger. His voice sounds a bit too hight pitched to be natural, and one could wonder if he is he, or a she... " What the Hell are we doing here???" are the first word that break the silence of the room. The Sleeper smiles, and with an unearthly voice utter: " You are traped my freinds... Your magick was too powerful, and Paradox dumped you into my care. However, It might allow one of you to return to the reality you are familiar with. That one will have to show me why I should let him go back, and why should I choose him instead of the others. Let us talk and share the secrets of True Magick ... " David sweeps back his dishwater blonde hair with a clump of fingers acting as a comb. It sits for all of two seconds before gravity -- or sheer perversity -- tugs it back over his glistening ice blue eyes. He smiles despite himself, and straightens his scarlet bow tie. His left hand, encased in a black leather glove, moves stiffly and unnaturally. He wears the Richard Tyler tuxedo like a fencing gauntlet, signifying his preparation to strike at any moment. En garde. Looking about the room, he sniffs at the lighting. "My kind of place. Could use a bit more candles, though. Why do these realms always have to be so fucking depressing?" Then, for a moment, his eyes linger on the tile scheme that covers the floor. His nigh Aryan features gleam for a moment, and he laughs, as if suddenly understanding the punchline to a rather vulgar joke told to him two years before, that had he realized it then, would have made his evening. As it is, it just amuses him. "I see that we have found ourselves in an old place. I always preferred the classics, myself." Bernard suddenly looks up from the table, fixing David with an intense gaze that is both filled with fear and surprise, as if the remark had revealed a horrible truth to him. After a moment he relaxes back into his chair, almost vanishing in his smelly grey coat, his face hidden in the shadows again. With one hand he gently touches a pocket to check that its contents -- something flat and thick, not unlike a big pocket book -- are still there. After a moment he moves forward again, this time calm and reassured. Raising his glass he almost smiles, as if he knew something the others did not understand. The red wine seems to reflect like blood in his burning eyes. "Cheers, everyone. Let's see who will first spill the wine from the prison and think the stains are God? The saint, the rope-dancer, the academic or the disciple?" Aaron looked to be in his forties, or his sixties- his face smooth, but with deep lines in it- worry lines, pain lines, too deep to be relaxed in sleep. His fine greying hair lay in disarrayed strands. He stirred sightly,twitching and muttering as if from a nightmare. Abrutly his eyesflew open and he stared about wildly, crystal blue eyes unfocused, as if he was seeing a completely different scene. Gradually his sight cleared, and he relaxed back into his chair, not bothering to look around. He sighed deeply, and smoothed his hair back, eyeing the ring in the corner. So." His voice was deep and smooth, like a musical instrument. "Oddly enough, I'm completly usuprised. I thought I would be." He spends a moment lighting a pipe produced from somewhere in his tweed suit, and stares at the curling smoke. "I know this place. For quite some time I've knew that I would end up here. I suppose I should feel accomplished at that. But then is this a punishment, or prevention? A cure, or a" He shrugs. "Not that it matters. I have allready lived too long for comfort. Well then, please begin." 23 KNS : "I am of the Technocartie..." The words echoed on invisible wall, as if sound itself was laughing. "or to be more exact I am of the Void Engineers, a tradition among the Technocratie. We search space for answers to our questions, but for everyone with found, there are a million more to ask." -- 23 KNS voice went too hight for a man, making all think that he might well be a she. -- " We joined the Technocartie after Newton, and his law provided a way for us to travel thru the deep Umbra, and exploring it. How foolish are those who think that Quintessence can only be found on Earth, we found that it was everywhere, in a multitude of forms, and shapes. We found several new life forms. Again, humans are fools to think that they are the only ones around. Some of them even used Magick -- his bi-colored eyes looked to the left, to meet those of Bernard, and he smiled -- and Paradox was still there, even if they didn't believ in sleepers. We tried to use more and more power to go faster and further deep. Then Newtons law were shattered... What a joke that was. -- 23 KNS voice went for a moment above human hearing, then resumed in a more masculine way -- Einstein, Planck, and all the others were ours, not of the Technocratie. You see it all comes down to Static and Dynamic. The Technocratie was SO static: refusing even to do a new thing. -- Truning to the Bernard -- All they used against you was made before this century. The Technocratie is out of ideas, and they still live in victorian times. The technocratie is frozen in time, a few more years and it will shatter as a man cooled in liquide Nitrogen. We were the only Dynamic in all those years. Looking and thinking. Einstien wanted to Unify all the "laws of physics", we wanted to unify all the law of magick." -- stillness in the room, as 23 KNS was siping from the wine glass in front of her -- " ... And we did unify some of them. Mind and Spirit first, then with matter (remember e=mc^2 ?). The Time and Correspondance... and so on. We are now teaching our children 3 laws, not 9. That's how we survived in the deep Umbra: 3 things to worry about, not 9 (or 10 as some of you think). Actully, we are still working on those 3, we want to find the ONE sphere: Magick. We are even teaching the "seepers" to think for themselves. But here we are in war witht he Technocratie big time." -- Again her voice went above human hearing for a few seconds, then she turned her eyes toward the Sleeper -- " Is my cloak falling here? -- the Sleeper nods -- Oh jolly good; I do prefer fins to arms. -- before the whole assembley, the human coat of 23 KNS felt onto the floor and a porpoise was "floating" in his place -- That's better. You seem surprised? well, you thought only mankind could use magick? You were still in your trees that we were already making rituals in the deep of the sea. Shows you how close minded you all are... Never mind, back to the main thing. Yes, ever heard of Schroninger's cat? Well, you put a cat in a box with a radioactive element, you seal the whole thing. the element decays, the cat should die. But all our mathematical equations, show that the cat is half dead, half alive! only when YOU open the box, do you kill the cat. YOU are the one that matters, not the whole Univers. You are "The Most Beautiful One", Kallisty. The more we go into physics the more you will find that. It is OUR view that matters... And those fools of the Technocratie still consider us their best allies. Yes, we are slowly Illuminating all the Sleepers of earth. Sooner or later, more and more of them will see themselves as the fitter to have the golden appel of Eris. All good so far....Well, not realy. Actully, the whole sleeper myth is just that: a myth. We discovered clues in the Deep Umbra: No sleepers, No paradox, right? well, tell that to some of us. We discovered that Paradox was still there, and boy was it hard when it hit us. When the first of us went to Arcadia, after it was sealed, we talked to the Feys there.. And tried magick there are well: BANG Paradox BIG time. We were blind as well. A bit less than the Technocratie, but not much... Schroninger's cat was the key: WE are setting OUR limitation on magick. paradox is created by US. That's Ascension. Everyone is capable of creating his own world, free of all the others, yet linked to all the others. The Fey call it the Dreaming, we ascension, does a name matter? A Buddha told one of his monk: "If you find a river, and built a boat to cross it. Do you take the boat with you, or leave it behind for others to use?". Our boat is mathematical, and we are leaving it behind for all who wants to use, but your boats are no better or worst. Let us bring the dreaming back, and all of us from Marauders to New World Order, via Traditions, and Nephandi will reach Ascention." -- turning her head towards the Sleeper, the Porpoise known to her poeple as Dance Crystal Glass spoke for the last time -- " Let any of the others go. I will stay. Hopefully they will tell thier fellow mages about me, and what I told them... Then the dreaming will have even more chances of coming back, and all will reach Ascention..." A hint of fear was present in her sweet voice, as she spoke those words... So one of them finished her talk, so another one started his. Bernard : Bernard looked up owlishly, mumbled something unheard to himself, patted the book in his pocket as if for reassurance, and then straightened and began to speak. If he had previously given the impression of a smelly hobo, he now had the presence of an untidy but brilliant academic. "Actually, this room has no walls." He pointed towards the red drapes in the darkness. "We could walk out from here at any moment. But that would be counterproductive, since we are here to witness the birth or death of somebody or something." He leaned back, and watched the others intently. When nobody seemed to understand he began to nod to himself, and raised his glass. "This doesn't exist. Nothing exists. Or perhaps everything. They are all the same - unformed, raw Ding an sich. Then we filter them, like spaghetti through a sieve, where we... but the sieve doesn't exist. The spaghetti of God..." he smiled to himself and was just about to drink the wine when he stopped and looked at it, then at the Void Engineer who had returned to his (or her?) usual state. He put down the glass and turned to one of the others. "Your kind has never understood what His death meant. Some took it literally, and laughed because they either though it was a lie or just a bit of rebellion. Others understood what it meant, and believed they had known it all along - falling into the third trap, the trap of the Technocracy." "But most of you fall into the first trap, that of the priests. You do not *dare* to be totally free, so you pay lip service to His death, and then celebrate *your own mysteries* on His grave! Blasphemers! And the worst thing is that you have nothing to blaspheme against, since you decide who is God and what He thinks. If you want, God could be vengeful and demand sacrifices, ordering the rape of millions - or He could be the letter Aleph, signifying itself. Both are barriers against the greatness beyond." "And you!" Bernard turned to the next person. "You have at least seen the greatness, and you have proclaimed it yours! You think you own it, or that it owns you, or both in an endless dance of unalienable rights to abomination! You let yourself be enslaved by whatever sights or things you see, or your freedom, just to escape from the responsibility of choosing what is right or wrong. Actually, you are worse off than the priests, since they at least think they have walls around themselves. You know there are no walls, so you think you will not need any shelter. But the storm will blow away your shell, since you have denied it too for your vaunted 'freedom'". "Finally, there is the risk of thinking one has avoided the potholes." Bernard seemed to calm down, becoming almost reasonable. But the fire in his eyes burned. "One thinks one understands the general scheme of things, can handle the great open spaces and still build a good house at the foothills of Etna. Then death comes as a surprise!" Bernard laughed until his tears ran. "All of us are wrong. Otherwise we would not be here. I'm just aware of how wrong I am, and I don't care. I. I. What a wonderful word - it almost implies that somebody is here. That there is a shell for the formless." He raised his glass for the third time, now looking solemn, like a rosicrucian priest in a hieratic robe raising the Grail towards the sky. "What am I holding? Anybody?" "A glass of wine?" somebody ventured. "*A* *glass* *of* *wine*?! 'A': there are no material things, doesn't *you* teach that?" He stabbed with his hand in the air. "Glass: doesn't that imply form? But there is no form, just the idea of form. And the idea of form is not form. 'of': so you think the glass belongs to the wine, like *you* belong to the Greatnesses Beyond? Or perhaps the wine belongs to the glass, since it cannot survive on its own in this harsh world where ghosts and goblins eat your flesh and drink your blood, and need a hard casing to stand time and force. Wouldn't that be what *you* once would have said? Wine: that is the secret. Do you see how it dances, how it just *is*? It is the meaning of all this, the universal solvent, the drapes that hide the Beyond and the formless form of das Ding an Sich. And this is what you others seek to kill, to shape, to give meaning. But I don't care. I do not need meaning, consistency, logic or death. They are yours, you can keep them." Bernard drank messily, almost enraptured, from the glass, wine running down his cheeks and staining his clothes. He dropped it on the table, where it shattered into glittering shards and running droplets. "See! We have sacrificed God - and he is still dead and alive!" David : "I would have preferred to wait," he began, "because that's what we do. That's what we're always doing. Those of us you see are indeed the truly mad. They cannot wait for the inevitable dissolution of all that is, so they lash out with impetuous vigor. It's enough to make a sadist such as myself cry. "Why do the Nephandi seek to only corrupt, destroy, rend, tear, smash, dissolve? No two Nephandi follow the same path, so each will give a different answer. Many are unaware of the road they travel, or the ultimate destination. They can perhaps sense an inkling of the eternal, and have knocked it, and found it hollow. Eternity is a farce, and we intend to prove it. To understand us, you need to look at our humble beginnings. We are Chaos. No, not the chaos advocated by my dear colleague. That chaos is the smallest essense of what we represent, the aspect which dwells long in the light of life and creation. It derives purpose, and pays a hideous price for that purpose: enslavement. Even the most addled-brained Marauder will have a method to his Madness. Indeed, it is my experience that the most insane Maurauders possess a clarity of thought that is frightening to behold. You are our poor cousins at best, playing at rebels without truly understanding what you rebel against. "For those who have not suckled at the teat of Darkness, it is difficult to explain what it is we do, and why we do it. It has to do with the blasphemy of Creation, and the return to the ancient order of things. The closest a Sleeper came to Dark Enlightenment without coming to our side was John Milton, an English poet. It only cost him his sight, which he gladly threw away, rather than seeing again the truths we would reveal. "In his poem, Paradise Lost, the protagonist, Satan, decides to investigate a place called Eden. He travels to the lip of Hell, and steps off in order to take wing. Much to his astonishment, he falls further. Hell itself is a respite from the Abyss that lies beneath his feet. Before he can catch himself, he encounters the AllMother, Chaos. It was this primordial chaos that the Creator imposed order upon to fashion not only Earth, but also Heaven and Hell. "How like Quintessence. How like the visions of the Technocracy, whose agents filled the poor poet's mind with lies about the indominability of order. Eden, you see, was run like clockwork. It had internal plumbing. It made sense like any good Machine, and humanity turned from that Machine, and that turning was a sinful thing. "So they wallowed in darkness for a time, but that darkness had form, meaning. Its strugglings were ultimately futile, but they were ever present. Mankind learned to use evil as a stepping stone to keep out of the primordial chaos that lay at the foundation of all things. As long as they stayed above that evil, they felt they were safe. In truth, the presence of this evil just kept them from having to deal with what awaited beyond feeble human morality. "I awakened a long, long time ago. I was helped, as are so many widderslainte Nephandi, to understand what it was that grew within me. We believe that the Avatar is a crutch, and that it is only when we let go of that Avatar, that we truly comprehend what we were, are, and shall be. As long as we dwell in this world, the Avatar is a useful tool. Why not fight fire with fire? "You seem shocked. The Avatar, useless? Look at all the Sleepers who get by without one. The Avatar limits the will worker into performing Magick along very limited channels. There are those who perform miracles without upsetting the paradigm, without being concerned about the varaties of Paradox. One can certainly "get by" without an Avatar. The Nephandic process of replacing a defective Avatar with superior Infernal Endowments is a perfect example of our ability to diagnose and give our "client" precisely what they require. "Of course, there are those who claim that we take advantage of the gullible, by doing half a job, removing a perfectly good Avatar, sending it to Hell or some such place, and torturing it for all eternity. This is an interesting interpretation on the truth, which is that we take the Avatar, and rather than releasing it to find some other sap, as occurs with death and gilgul, we instead destroy it outright. Avatars are not an eternal thing, and it is these shards of the Pure Ones that prevent us all from returning home to the bosom of the AllMother. By systematically destroying every Avatar, we smash the powers of the Pure Ones, who created this hell, a vast pool of gasoline where any fool with two neurons is handed a pack of matches, and told, keep warm, kid.' "We also do take advantage of the gullible, as is only right. Even the Technocracy could not undermine this basic rule of the universe. "Survival of the Fittest. Selfish Genes." They're different names for the same phenomena. Those things that have the most advantage will survive in a given environment. The universe has no place for weakness, and neither do the Nephandi. One becomes a true Nephandi the moment one understands that simple rule. I will exist as long as I hold an advantage. The moment I do not, I will perish.' We do not fear death and dissolution. Those who prolong their existence do so because they can, because they possess certain advantages that allow them to last. If they had no purpose, certainly another Nephandi, with a purpose, would take the life of his useless brother, which would be surrendered gladly. "That is the nature of all Nephandi. However, not all Nephandi are alike. Some serve Intelligences as old or perhaps older than the Pure Ones. They remember the time of Primal Chaos, and they long to return to it. They cannot, so long as the sin of the Pure Ones seperates Order from Chaos. So these entities reach out into Order and corrupt aspects of it. They cannot move directly within it, for to do so would taint them as well. Instead, they employ agents who are often told only one part of the overall plan. Despite the fact that they move in darkness, their tasks are often far from complex, and far reaching in their implications. Most are not chosen for their subtlety. "The Triatic Wyrm is a tragic example of an Intelligence who went too deep into the world that the Pure Ones created. She had a goal, and she tried to follow it, and soon she found herself an integral part of the Cosmos. To step away would have been too dangerous for all involved. Is is any wonder that she went insane? In truth, she does do a useful job, attacking certain lynchpins of reality. However, as the truly Enlightened know, she is caught, and her usefullness is coming to an end. If she cannot free herself, she will cease to be an advantage, and others will come for her. My greatest wish is to be there when the Garou find themselves fighting side-by-side with Nephandi. "Those Nephandi who believe in balance, as represented by the Triatic Wyrm, are usually those who can only deal with black and white morality. They need to believe in the righteousness of their cause, and we who know give them everything they require. Even if they are deluded, they do often possess certain advantages, usually amongst those simple minded creatures like the Garou who believe that all reality can be summed up in a single universal model. "At last, there are those Nephandi who believe that there is no evil outside of man himself. This is a variation on tiresome cartesean doubt. All that exists are those things that come from within, so it makes sense, in a world of subjectivity, that all things are a reflection of the inner self. This, of course, implies that the human race are masochists at heart, and does not adequately reflect the numerous experiences we have had with agents of those intelligences who possess information well beyond the scope of human experience. Those who possess this belief are rightly regarded as madmen at best, and there are thankful few of them around. Rather, this belief is held by certain members of the Traditions. The Technocracy have no doubts that these creatures of the id do indeed exist. They've been battling them for the past two millenium. "At the core of all Nephadic belief is the utter objectivity of the universe. We prefer to think of ourselves at one corner of a vast tapestry which each sect tugs upon." "He stared at his finger for a moment, and nothing came. Shaking his head, he popped the tip of the finger in his mouth and chewed. "The price I pay for good media." He then sketched the following diagram on the table: INDIVIDUAL ___________________________________ [ ] [Nephandi Maurauder ] [ ] O [ ] S B [ ] U J [ ] B E [ ] J C [ Sleepers ] E T [ ] C I [ ] T V [ ] I E [ ] V [ ] E [Technocracy Traditions] [__________________________________] COLLECTIVE "There. Of course, this is only a rough sketch. For me to formally present this, I would have to rely upon fourth dimentional matrixes, and a cup of demon's blood at least. What it says is that both the Nephandi and Technocracy believe in an Objective universe, a truth that lies behind the veneer. Where we differ is in how this belief can be known. They believe that only through the joining of many minds can the complex universe be made clear, just as a thousand singing voices form a mighty chorus. We, on the other hand, feel the exact opposite. We do not manufacture the objective universe. It's there. We can only come to know it -- truly know it -- on a case-by-case basis. What works for one will not work for another. Thus the demon's belief in individual, rather than collective, corruption. "Glossing over the rest of this, it's easy to see that the Maurauders believe in a subjective universe, which can be understood on in individual basis. The Tradition's need to cluster into various groups to define what ought to be personal belief lands them in the final corner, where they spend most of their time, sulking. I'm sure they'd love to believe in an objective universe, but to do that would be to lean too close to the Technocracy, as so many of the Order of Hermes do. "This diagram also explains who so many Technocrats come over to our side. When they feel that the party line of the Conventions is too stifling, they don't run to the bickering war of the Traditions. No, rather they fly unto us, and we're only too glad to accept them. They see things with their eyes that they cannot doubt, objective mysteries too terrible to deny. When the Technocracy tells them that they're delusional, where else can they go? "The odd thing about my diagram is that it creates a place for everyone, or nearly everyone. Ideally, we should be able to all get along, but there are those in each group who would use cries of immorality against us. Imagine, someone believing in the subjectivity of the universe, spitting and fussing about morality! I solemnly assure you, there are Euthanatos far more barbarous than any Nephandi, and it is not through our agency that they fall. Instead, tehey get so tied up in their own personal paradigm that they, in essence, ignore all others. The poor fools become objective, ignoring the very real needs of others. We are exceptionally cruel to these recruits, as the wind that blows them can rebound at any moment. "And so it goes. We have our place in this universe. We are an intrinsic part of the so-called natural order.' All things fall apart, as the Maurauders are fond of saying, but do they break down into garbage heaps, relics of dead civilizations, or do they further crack and stress, ultimately dissolving into nothing, nothing at all? We, unlike our insane friends, do not immediately assume that a jump from A to Z is a good thing. Instead, we work carefully, tearing away, making sure that no lump too large seperates, and manages to seed more Chaos. That's how this world came into being, or so we are told. We are willing to stomach order, just as long as it makes the world large enough to fall down very hard. We are willing to play its games. Because ultimately, we know that we will win. "How is it that we possess this secret knowledge? That's where we of the Nephandi step away from the lesser groups. We know for a fact that the Technocracy was built on the learning of those who came before them. Likewise, most of the Traditions have either based their mysteries on information granted by spirits or left by some older group. The Marauders claim close kinship with mythic beasts, who tell them all they need to know. All receive information from revealed sources, and yet few if any will admit it. "The Nephandi freely admit our indebtedness to those intelligences who came before us. They are the souce of our information, and ultimately of _your_ information. Without their cthonic crusade, they would have not sent agents to tempt and corrupt, to give tools that would one day become weapons. Why is it that the mere KNOWLEDGE of Good and Evil was so terrible? And what _was_ the nature of that serpent in the Garden? "We are not long for the world, in any event. Those who survive the coming cataclysm will move on to another world. So it will be, until the last of the Avatars are extinuished. Only then can we truly be pure. Only then can want and desire, have and have not, ultimately be resolved. You may not care for our methods, but they are the only ones that work. For every sick bastard we bring to our side, ten take up arms against the darkness. Of those ten, five eventually roll up into a ball, rather than face the truth. Two of those who remain turn against the remaining three. One spends his entire life, searching for our nature, the second searches for another earth to flee to. The last -- the last of the ten is, of course, a spy. "I care not for your decision. Even if you fail to choose me, then I will dissolve, and my essence will pour through the cracks of reality, and undermine it further. There is no escape, there is no chance for truces. There is only a half-death of eternal torture, where sweet Chaos laps at your essence for a small eternity, and then swallows you in your sorrow. Accept your fate now, choose me, and prepare yourself. Defy me, ignore my words, and the future will be very hard for you indeed, especially knowing what you know now. Even now this knowledge eats at your resolve. You will not break today, not tomorrow, but one day. One day, the doubt you carry within you will blossom, and as the weed cracks the rock above it, we will tear at your Avatar, asleep or awake. In the end, it doesn't matter what you choose. "I've already won." Aaron: Aaron almost appeared to have been asleep through all this, silently sitting, his chin between his clasped hands, smoke from the pipe on the table wreathing his head. After the echoes from the last speaker faded away, there was a moment of silence before his eyes flickered open and he began to speak. "I apologize, I am not as fancy or as eloquent as the younger ones, just an old man who who has been running on borrowed time for far too long. Forgive me if I ramble." There was a pause as he studied his pipe, then he sighed and looked back at the sleeper. "True Magic then. One might as well talk about True Life, or True existance. It's the same thing, really. First you perceive, then you act. You can not do one without the other- or even separate the two." He smiled slightly. "You could, I suppose, think of the entire universe as a single quanta, ready to be frozen into a single state by an observer's glance." He looks over at the Technomancer. "Suprised I can talk the talk? I'm not blind to other possibilites; 'Know thy enemy, understand thy enemy.'" He hesitated and his eyes gazed into the distance. "Because sooner or later you _will_become thy enemy. Sooner or later...." He stirred and shook himself. "Typical isn't it? A bunch of men sitting around talking philosophy. Pity my wife isn't here- She'd have put paid to 'all this nonsense...'. "But" he said abruptly, "Since I'm near my end, let's talk about my beginning. Hold off on the why WE fight and magick, in favor of why _I_ work magick and fight. Get to the large from the small, as above, so below." He paused, considering. When he began again his voice was reflective, darker. "I would not have chosen magick. It chose me. First the dreams, then the impulse to action, then the awakening. Perception and then action. The training, the knowledge, all secondary, all compelled and only partially under my control." "Remember this, our quietest secret: Magi don't do magic themselves. It is done by the part of their souls called the Avatar- or the Holy Guardian Angel, the Ka,, the voice of Gaia, the One, or any of a hundred other names. Remember also this: the Avatar, whether part of the soul, or parasite- is _sentient_. It has it's own agenda. There is no way of escaping, if one does not want to follow it's path to Ascension. If you choose not to, or (gods forbid) can't physicaly manage it- then it will push and push and push. It knows all the right ways to hurt you, it knows all the things you hide from yourself, and this perfect critic never, ever goes away, whether drunk, asleep, or sick or dying..." "Because it _is_ you: the purest innermost part of yourself. And if you are NOT following it's path, you are betraying yourself." He sighed and spoke barely above a whisper. "I know... Gods I know that truth." When he started again, his voice was rougher- "So that is why I was comepelled to magick. Why did I fight? Mostly due to anger. I saw all the damage from the various games we Awakened play. I saw bystander's memories of families and friends ripped away by the Technocracy, seen children lose their souls to appease demonic masters. I've tracked the blood spilt by a madman who never saw the innocents destroyed by his path. And I coulden't say whether the world would be worse off if none of us existed. I kept fighting because I thought I saw the future they would force on humanity; the paranoid, sterility, lonely iconoclastic madness, or nihilistic destruction. That is why I fought- not for Ascension but for the people left bloody and destroyed in our wake. " "At least that is what I _thought_ it was all about. I know better now of course." "And so we come to the greater from the lessor. Why do the Traditions fight, why do They work magick together? They don't agree with one another, they have no common goal or way of viewing the world. In fact, without our mutual enemies, we would be at each others throats. And so I started wondering..." "When I was young I said it was all for the goal of Ascension; later on I thought it to survive, or to protect the sleepers. Still later in cycnisicm I thought it was out of habit, or by a shared sense of futility. But none of these ideas fits gentlemen. None explains why the Traditions banded together, or why they have stayed together in spite of centuries of bickering and failure after failure." "So, I have a new theory." He stared gravely at each of the others for a long moment before continuing. When he began again, it was in the level tones of a lecturer. "All things in existance are defined by position, form, and tension. In other words, _contrast_. Consider one of the factions- the Nephandi for example. Alone they are undefined- Like a point they are a singular universewith no boundries. They cannot oppose. for there is nothing to oppose. They cannot have goals, direction, success, for there is nothing to give them form. Now, given two groups- we do have opposition, and comparasion with each other. But we have no stability- merely two dots on a line. Lines being endless, they only have partial boundries, and void on either side pulls them apart, to separate and be lost. Given three points we have a plane and the three sides form a triangle- the first eclosed, stable finite object. The opposition on two sides produces tension and definition." "you can see here the three factions; Maruaders, Technocracy, Nephandi. So then, where do the Traditions fit in? We are opposed on all sides of the triangle: the rigidity of the Conventions, dynamicism of the Marauders, destructiveness of the Nephand. We also partake of characteristics of all these groups we oppose. Thus we cannot be a side, but must be surrounded by them-in the center." " We then, are the tension point; the ones in the middle, defining and being defined. Indeed as all things are defined by what they are not- we are the terminally derived form- the formless form." "I've had to conclude that we do not exist to conquer the others, or impose ascension. We exist to balance the others- maintain the equilibrum of definition. For if _any_ of the groups succeeds- including the traditions- all will perish. Indeed, it is _impossible_ for the Traditions to succeed." He looked again at all present, and managed a smile at once sad, resigned, and proud. "That is what I have deduced. That Ascencion for us is the denial of ascension for the others." "And that of course, is why I have to die. If not here, then soon. This self-knowledge is not for one man to contain- or the factions to accept. Point of fact... my avatar itself cannott contain or accept this revelation; it rebels at the idea. I feel it even now beating at the walls of my physical and spiritual form, denying, rejecting, telling me that I am wrong, evil, betraying myself..." His voice faltered. He sat there for a while, rubbing his temples, looking smaller then before, tired, shrivelled, old. He finally straightened and looked levelly at the sleeper. "_THAT_ is why I am here. Whether it is my hubris, or true revelation, _that_ gentlemen, is why I am here." "But of course you don't believe my ramblings. Of course not. But thank you for your indulgence gentlemen- for listening to an old foolish man. Forget what I have told you, please." He smiled and half raised his hand, almost in benediction, then let it drop as he gazed at the symbol in the corner. The Sleeper filled all the glasses with an imaginary bottle. Taking his glass, he looked at the four more powerfull beeings in the world, and bid adieu to one of them. There was the sounds of hopelessness in the room. The End . . . by Yann Golanski (aka: Little man from another place), Timothy Toner (aka: Thantos), Anders Sandberg, and Eric Tolle. /\ .sigs 1 to 3 where sabotaged during editing. .sig4 disappeared \/ shortly after completion. .sig5 is our last best hope for wasting \/\/ bandwidth ...