23:03 <Crion> Which nights does Stewart take off from gaming? Sorry, work. 23:05 <VoxPVoxD> Usually early-week weeknights. By default he streams every night but Tuesday, but Monday is his second-most-frequent night off. 23:06 <Crion> Well then. It was a Monday night that the motley was made, so it will be the next night, Tuesday, that the hex box chat app will light up with a message from...a new sender. 23:06 <Crion> Username: "QUOTH|THE|BITTER|WIND" 23:07 <Crion> The message is: 23:10 <Crion> <'STEWART READER,' KNOWN OTHERWISE AS 'CRITICALMASS:'> 23:10 <Crion> <YOUR ATTENDANCE IS REQUESTED AT THE LAW OFFICES OF KINGSLEY, SANTANDER & RAVENS> 23:10 <Crion> <NOW> 23:10 <Crion> <OR AS PRACTICABLE> 23:10 <Crion> <THUS ENDS THE INTERDICTUM> 23:10 <Crion> <NEVERMORE> 23:11 <VoxPVoxD> "Badass," Stewart breathes. 23:11 <Crion> Well? 23:13 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart was just googling the words from Lauren's song. Apparently "the Mountain Goats" have a shitload of albums. He can dig deeper later. 23:13 <VoxPVoxD> Inner Harbor, right? Attached parking garage? 23:14 <Crion> Indeed. 23:14 <Crion> No one seems to be sending a car this time, though. 23:15 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart can drive himself. 23:17 <Crion> When he arrives at the parking garage, the shutter will be closed...and open on its own as soon as he pulls up to see if there's a buzzer. The garage itself is dark; emergency lights only at night, it seems. If that. 23:19 <VoxPVoxD> The dim, shadowy parking lot is very atmosphere. This is both a mood and goals, thinks Stewart. 23:19 <VoxPVoxD> *parking garage 23:19 <Crion> As soon as he drives in, the shutter closes behind him. Better keep the headlights on. 23:20 <VoxPVoxD> This owns!! Stewart will drive carefully, letting his eyes adjust to the comparative dark. 23:21 <Crion> The garage is completely empty. The lights are gone entirely...except a pool of yellow light from a single bulb near the elevator, hung over the doorman's chair. 23:21 <Crion> He's nowhere to be seen. 23:21 <Crion> The elevator door stands open. 23:22 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart feels like someone's rolling the red carpet out for him. 23:23 <VoxPVoxD> He doesn't touch any buttons on the elevator immediately, waiting to see if it moves on its own. 23:24 <Crion> It does not...but after a moment, as if in irritation, the button for Floor 27 lights up. 23:24 <Crion> Perhaps this elevator does not suffer passengers gladly, at least not afterhours. 23:25 <Crion> After all, it should be off. 23:31 <VoxPVoxD> Somewhere between Floor 12 and Floor 14 Stewart's anticipation starts wilting into nervousness. The last time he was here it was because he'd just watched three men get shot to death. 23:33 <Crion> The elevator moves up with smooth alacrity; whether because it loves a job well done, because it's afraid of fucking up, or just because it's an impersonal machine and everything is normal -- ha ha ha -- is hard to say. The doors slide open on Floor 27. Everything is stillness and dark. 23:34 <Crion> All of Lauren's computers are off; she's home for the night, clearly. The rest of the office is the same. No noise -- except for the elevator doors closing immediately behind Stewart and the elevator descending as quickly as it possibly can. 23:34 <Crion> Wait...not no light. 23:35 <Crion> There's three thin lines of gold all the way down the hall, coming out of the double doors to Kingsley's office -- the top and bottom jambs, and where the doors separate. 23:35 <Crion> This is interesting. 23:35 <Crion> Kingsley's office doesn't have double doors. 23:36 <Crion> Well, it didn't last time, at any rate. 23:36 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart approaches. He'll knock if he reaches the door before anything happens. 23:37 <Crion> As he gets within swinging distance of the doors, they explode outward as if thrown open by a great wind, and a burning golden-orange light overwhelms him. A voice beyond booms: "COME INNNNNNN, STEWART READER, KNOWN IN OTHER PARTS AS QUOTE, CRITICALMASS!" 23:37 <Crion> "ENTER MY REALM" 23:39 <VoxPVoxD> Eyes wide, Stewart fights hesitation and crosses the threshold. 23:39 <Crion> The office is...much longer. 23:41 <Crion> The floor and the ceiling and the walls are all completely clear; you appear to be floating in the sky, and why not? Why would there be buildings this tall in the Hedge? Except looming behind you there is one, a great pillar of basalt some quarter-mile away towards city hall, backlit only by a gigantic moon that takes up almost a fourth of the night sky. 23:42 <Crion> The rest of the sky is stars, more than there should be and in strange patterns that change when you're not looking; below you, you can just make out the ever-twisting, ever-twisted rows of the Hedge seething as they rearrange themselves like a nest of vipers. The ocean stretches away to the horizon vaguely in the place it should be, but it seems too far. 23:42 <Crion> All of this is less important, perhaps, than the office itself. 23:47 <Crion> A great hall of knicks and knacks: towering shelves of books; a row of six different globes, none of which appear to quite be Earth; four safes stacked two on two, and all of them chained up; the statue of a beautiful woman; the statue of Christ on the cross, but wearing a leering grin; a great mirror covered by a silk sheet, and a bolted-down wooden chair sitting in front of it; and finally, 23:47 <Crion> at the end of the room, a massive desk and the man behind it, all the light in the room behind drawn in towards him to die but his hideous eyes still gleaming in it. He appears to be fiddling with...a Game Boy Advance. 23:48 <Crion> "BAH!" He tosses it irritably into a drawer. 23:48 <Crion> Then he turns to Stewart and--smiles? 23:49 <Crion> "Thank you, Stewart Reader. Like what you hear?" 23:50 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart is just kind of dumbstruck. Finally he manages a "Holy shit." 23:51 <Crion> The smile widens. 23:53 <Crion> "Sit." He snaps his fingers, and the bolted down chair in front of the mirror grumbles, unbolts itself from the floor, trundles over to his desk, and sprouts cushions on its seat and backrest. 23:53 <VoxPVoxD> Despite how flatly awesome this is, the display of power and the vertigo of the magician's sanctum leave him almost scrambling for a seat. 23:55 <Crion> The chair seems to have sympathy; it adjusts to fit him precisely. Presumably this isn't the first time this entire sequence of events has happened. 23:55 <Crion> "I," says the man behind the desk, steepling his fingers, "am W. Marcus Santander." 23:55 <Crion> "I prepare your taxes, and other official documents." 23:56 <Crion> "Yet -- I do other things, besides." 23:57 <Crion> He seems older than his age, severe, and always in shadow -- even though three great lamps, two behind him and one of the desk, illuminate this section of the room. A long beard and gnarled fingers, but great, stern, accusing eyes -- and yes, that is a wizard's hat, hanging on a coat rack in the far corner. 23:58 <Crion> Santander seems both mighty and stooped, and while his very visage inspires fear, it is not without humor. Though whether that humor lands, well. 23:58 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart finally manages: "How can I help?" 23:58 <Crion> Loudly and immediately: "MANY WAYS!" 23:59 <Crion> "First: Are vampires real?" 23:59 <Crion> His eyes probe Stewart's. 00:00 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart shrinks a bit. "As far as I know. I saw someone explode into a cloud of bats." 00:01 <Crion> "Adequate. The correct answer is 'yes.' 'As far as I know,' to a sage of the Autumn Court, means 'yes.' SECOND! Were the bats actual bats?" 00:01 <Crion> After a brief pause: "You may speculate." 00:04 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "They were definitely physical, and not, like, illusions - they disturbed the air, broke a window. But they must've been part of the vampire in some sense. So they weren't actual bats, if we define 'actual bats' to mean like the kind you'd find in an attic or, or a belfry." 00:06 <Crion> Santander nods with satisfaction. "Better than adequate: correct. Third: why did the vampire wear an opera cape and a tuxedo to meet with corrupt police officers in the year 2019?" 00:08 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Because he wanted to give the impression that he was very old, or he's so old it didn't occur to him not to." 00:09 <VoxPVoxD> "Coming off like that is a philosophical point as much as an aesthetic one." 00:09 <Crion> Santander nods and leans forward with satisfaction. "And given the available evidence, what is it clear that vampires can do in one very important way, and cannot do in another?" 00:10 <VoxPVoxD> "Pass for human?" 00:10 <Crion> He narrows his eyes. "Almost." 00:10 <Crion> "Again." 00:11 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart thinks. "Feel human?" 00:12 <Crion> "Forget about humanity, narrowly defined," Santander says. "Think in principles." 00:16 <VoxPVoxD> "Grow? No, that's too narrow again. Is it change?" 00:20 <Crion> He nods. "There it is. We, after all, pass for human, and we feel human. The fundamental difference between us and the vampires is not the fangs or the feeding or the magic or even the fact of death. We can or do have all those things. Even, in very strange hours, the death. But we are still alive, and we are still part of the world." Santander waves his hand around the Hollow. "Which is not 00:20 <Crion> the impression this 'sanctum sanctorum' gives! You see these things and you think, yes! I shall strive to steal the secrets of the gods, and become one with the outer worlds. And, in time, with the proper cunning and the proper learning, you shall." 00:21 <Crion> "But you will never be a vampire." 00:21 <Crion> "You will never be a werewolf." 00:21 <Crion> "You will never be a mage." 00:21 <Crion> "And this--" He raises a finger. "This, I posit, is a blessing unto you." 00:22 <VoxPVoxD> "Why?" 00:24 <Crion> "Because the vampire is empty, the werewolf is too full, and the mage always yearns to be something else. You have to live inside yourself, even as you explore this great new universe. And you must not view those wants -- the plain facts of life, the plain desires of your nature -- as impediments, not even to something so majestic as learning." 00:24 <Crion> He leans back in his chair. "This, of course, is why I do the taxes." 00:25 <Crion> "I find helping people enjoyable. I find cheating the government enjoyable. So I indulge these things." 00:27 <Crion> "That said, I do have a task for you." 00:28 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart perks up. 00:31 <Crion> "Discover enough about vampires to --" He snaps his fingers again, and a computer monitor shoots out of his desk. Presumably he's got a hex box stuck down in there somewhere, because Stewart is shown the empty Autumn Court wiki page for Vampires (Homo Nosferatu Vampiris). "Fill this page...after scrolling once!" 00:32 <Crion> After the proclamation he looks regretfully at the monitor. "Lauren continues to tell me we need this updated, and I suppose I agree. With proper security!" 00:34 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart looks at the screen and then back at Santander. "Okay. Any suggestions where to start?" 00:35 <Crion> "I HAVE NONE!!!" 00:35 <Crion> "This is your task." 00:35 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart leans back a bit, but nods. 00:35 <Crion> "However." 00:37 <Crion> "You have accepted a task of knowledge from a Lord Sage. This entitles you to reciprocation of knowledge upon completion of your task. However, I am lenient, and I am clearly testing you instead of truly asking for new knowledge! SO." 00:37 <Crion> "You may ask me any questions three. And if I do not answer, that question I return to thee." 00:41 <VoxPVoxD> Seems to be a pastime of the Autumn Court. Stewart leads with: "Who was the opera cape bat cloud vampire?" 00:42 <Crion> "The Count of St. Sebastian. Seneschal to the Court of Baltimore. ...The vampire court." 00:43 <Crion> "His title is Seneschal. The rest is, well. Names are power." 00:48 <VoxPVoxD> Question two: "What kind of work does becoming a great changeling magician entail?" 00:50 <Crion> "There is a short answer to that question, and a long answer. So: I SHALL GIVE BOTH!" 00:51 <Crion> "The short answer is that you must become intimate with foolishness, failure, and death, and not become a fool, fail, or die." 00:56 <Crion> "The long answer is that it will be a long process, with many setbacks. It will be dangerous. It will require consortation with strange oddities of the Wyrd, monstrosities of the world entirely out of your holistic conception of a unified theory of magic from dealing with the True Fae, and spending time with those from as far away as Philadelphia. Perhaps even...Pittsburgh. It will not be 00:56 <Crion> easy and at times -- most times! -- it will not be particularly fun, and it may lead you not into unpleasant truths, for the truth is never in and of itself unpleasant, but unpleasant ways of thinking. You will need support, and support is not an old tax attorney summoning you to his skylab at 8 PM on a Tuesday. You will require a robustness you do not yet have. And then, in the end, if 00:56 <Crion> you are skilled, and lucky, and availed of many smaller, more interior splendors, you will be the one with the grumpy chair. And I will have..." 00:56 <Crion> "...retired to the country." 00:59 <Crion> <@Crion> "The long answer is that it will be a long process, with many setbacks. It will be dangerous. It will require consortation with strange oddities of the Wyrd, monstrosities of the world entirely out of your holistic conception of a unified theory of magic from dealing with the True Fae, and spending time with those from as far away as Philadelphia. Perhaps even...Pittsburgh. It 00:59 <Crion> will not be 00:59 <Crion> <@Crion> easy and at times -- most times! -- it will not be particularly fun, and it may lead you not into unpleasant truths, for the truth is never in and of itself unpleasant, but unpleasant ways of thinking. You will need support, and support is not an old tax attorney summoning you to his skylab at 8 PM on a Tuesday. You will require a robustness you do not yet have. And then, in the 00:59 <Crion> end, if 00:59 <Crion> <@Crion> you are skilled, and lucky, and availed of many smaller, more interior splendors, you will be the one with the grumpy chair. And I will have..." 00:59 <Crion> <@Crion> "...retired to the country." 00:59 <Crion> Beneath Stewart, the chair grumbles, but doesn't change how comfortable it is. 01:04 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart is silent for a time, thinking about this. 01:05 <VoxPVoxD> His last question is, "Knowing everything you know now, if you could choose never to have been taken, would you?" 01:07 <Crion> Santander leans back and steeples his fingers. "I find myself unqualified to answer that question now, at the end of too many things. And so the question is returned." His voice is unusually subdued. 01:09 <Crion> Then he laces his fingers together and rests them on his chest. 01:16 <VoxPVoxD> It takes Stewart a long moment to formulate the fourth question. "Why do they take us?" 01:17 <Crion> "Because they're broken." 01:17 <Crion> He pauses. 01:17 <Crion> "Do you need a longer answer?" 01:18 <Crion> "There is one. It's arguable whether it's more illuminating, or even true." 01:19 <VoxPVoxD> "I guess... what way are they broken that makes them do that?" 01:20 <Crion> He closes his eyes. "There is a place called Arcadia. Are you familiar? It is the name we give the place we go, when we are taken. A thousand shining, solipsistic duchies. Or ten thousand. Or a million. But that's not really Arcadia. They call it that, because, like the mages, they are creatures that yearn to be somewhere else. There is a true Arcadia, they say. It's a big club." 01:20 <Crion> "And the Gentry aren't in it." 01:21 <Crion> "So. How to get back to heaven? For it is their heaven. The mages have their answer, and it seems stupid and insane, so we will not bother ourselves further with it. But the Keepers -- they've thought about this." 01:21 <Crion> "They've thought about this, so much." 01:23 <Crion> "And their answer, I believe, is that they believe they are wholly incomplete. That there is something missing. Not a permanent thing -- a transitory thing. A spark. Something to ignite them and return them to the way they used to be. They yearn to reach their heaven through love or hate or music or popcorn or violence. And they need, therefore, a lover, a hater, a violinist, a movie theater 01:23 <Crion> teen, or an opponent. But always a victim." 01:24 <Crion> "Arcadia is a land of tumult and conflict. Change." He glances at Stewart and smiles. "You had to know I'd bring it back eventually. And they...don't...change." 01:25 <Crion> "And it kills them." 01:25 <Crion> "Figuratively, but also literally, because in their world figuratively is literally." 01:26 <Crion> "They take us because they're broken, and they're afraid they can never be whole again." 01:26 <Crion> He pauses. "But make the mistake of pity at your own peril." 01:26 <Crion> "That is the long answer." 01:27 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart nods, after another pause. "Thank you." 01:27 <Crion> Eyes still closed. "You owe me a wiki." 01:27 <VoxPVoxD> "I'll get it done." 01:29 <Crion> He opens his eyes and nods. "See that you do. The chair and the elevator will see you back. Goodnight, Stewart Reader, Apprentice of the Unknown Reaches." 01:32 <Crion> The chair literally goes "hup," walks him back to the door to the Hollow and stands up to put Stewart himself in a standing position, pushing him through the portal. The door to Kingsley's office slams -- it's just the single door again. The whole floor is once more cold and dark...but then the elevator opens, warm and bright. When Stewart steps in, it plays soothing music and immediately 01:32 <Crion> ferries him back down to the garage. When the doors open on the garage it's dark, but then the fire alarm on the elevator BLORTS, and the lights snap on, and the shutter to the garage opens. 01:33 <Crion> Once Stewart has pulled out of the parking garage, the shutter closes again. Every light in the building switches off. Every machine goes silent. It's like no one had been there at all. 01:33 <Crion> --Fin. 06:21 <banana> running aroudn waving my hands in the air and screaming 06:22 <banana> (RAWHTAS) 06:22 <banana> oh wrong channel 13:57 <banana> https://i.imgur.com/pRFI7qg.jpg