23:43 <Crion> The raven arrives at midnight. On Stewart's hexbox desktop. As a chirping, five-frame chibi bird icon. 23:44 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's up editing when he gets the signal. But nothing can possibly be more important than this lil' raven. 23:47 <Crion> It's the night before prom; Lauren is still up in the other room, grousing with Angelfire over secure voice-chat -- they're discussing the handover back to her. QUOTH: <'STEWART READER,' KNOWN OTHERWISE AS 'CRITICALMASS:'> 23:47 <Crion> <YOU ARE REQUESTED IN A PLACE OF HONOR, AND A TIME OF HONOR. THREE HOURS FROM THIS MINUTE, IN THE OFFICE OF THE LORD SAGE OF THE UNKNOWN REACHES.> 23:48 <VoxPVoxD> ... 23:50 <VoxPVoxD> There's not a lot of jobs where getting a call from your boss to come down to the office at 3 in the morning are good, so despite the solemn-verging-on-congratulatory tone of the message, Stewart's first reaction is worry. It shows, a bit, in his careful punctuation. <Is there a dress code? Should I be armed?> 23:52 <Crion> <QUOTH THE LORD SAGE: "BRRIIIIING YOUR WIIITS! DRESS DOWN! CAPES PERMITTED!" END MESSAGE. REPLY?> 23:52 <VoxPVoxD> No reply is necessary. Or possible. 23:53 <VoxPVoxD> If Lauren's got a headset on, Stewart doesn't say anything to her, instead going straight to the closet to figure out what he's going to wear to whatever this is. 23:54 <Crion> Then after an appropriate amount of time, the little animated raven will, in similar frames of animation, launch and fly up off the top of the screen (if he's got a dual monitor set up, it flies across it first). 23:54 <Crion> Lauren does; she's engaged enough in her argument with Angelfire that she doesn't seem to notice. Chup perks up though, with a narrow-eyed, dire look. "Muow." 23:55 <Crion> He's flopped out on the bed. 23:55 <VoxPVoxD> There are three monitors in Stewart's setup. Two on his desk, attached to his primary rig, while the Autumn box gets the wall mounted display in addition to its own input peripherals. "That's exactly right," he says to the cat. 23:58 <Crion> "One sec." Lauren catches Chup's movement out of the corner of her eye and turns, pulling off the headset. "What's up?" 23:58 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart looks over from the closet. "Oh, sorry. Was I being loud? Santander wants me downtown. At 3AM exactly." 23:59 <Crion> Lauren blinks. "Shit." 23:59 <Crion> "Is that...good?" 00:00 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I don't know!! I'm thinking, like, what could it possibly be? Have you ever gotten a 3AM work call that was good news?" 00:01 <Crion> "...Yeah, actually, but it was Kingsley telling me to stop working on Winter's system down and he was going to yell at them for bothering me." 00:01 <Crion> "I guess that was more like, fixing bad news." 00:02 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart smiles weakly, the story just funny enough to push through the haze of anxiety. "It sounded really official. Like, this is a time of honor and a place or honor, or whatever." 00:03 <Crion> Lauren: "Like the opposite of nuclear waste dumping." 00:04 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah, exactly. So like... it could be good, I guess? But I dunno. There was no advance warning." 00:05 <VoxPVoxD> "I was expressly permitted to wear a cape." 00:05 <Crion> Lauren: "If Santander says you can wear cape, I think that's good news." 00:06 <Crion> "...Do you own a cape?" 00:08 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "No. I would look like the dude in Sailor Moon." 00:10 <Crion> Lauren makes a contemplative face. "Tuxedo Mask could get it. What about a robe? I guess I've got a snuggie around here..." 00:11 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I have kind of a long coat, I guess..." 00:12 <Crion> Lauren: "That might work. It sounds like he's going for a specific mood, though." 00:13 <VoxPVoxD> "You're right, the whole vibe is 'be at your most wizardly'." 00:14 <Crion> Lauren: "Again, sounds like good news!" 00:14 <Crion> Chup: "Muowww." 00:14 <Crion> Lauren: "You've been fed." 00:14 <Crion> Chup: "Muow..." 00:14 <VoxPVoxD> "Now Chup. Chup would rock a cape." 00:14 <Crion> In response, he somehow slumps even more. 00:15 <Crion> Lauren: "He doesn't like clothes, and I've never been mad enough at him to terrorize him with them." 00:16 <VoxPVoxD> "Yeah it's not a suggestion, just a compliment." If Chup could talk, he would sound like late-stage Orson Welles. Stewart's never been more certain of anything in his life. 00:16 <Crion> Perhaps so. Pray you never find out. 00:18 <Crion> Anyway...Stewart does have friends, possibly, in the Freehold who might have capes. Up to him if he wants to see if they're awake. 00:21 <VoxPVoxD> Tempting... but, ultimately, Stewart doesn't believe in his ability to sell the Full Wizard, which is the one thing you absolutely have to do in order to sell the Full Wizard. So he lets Lauren get back to her call and fusses around in the closet until he comes up with his dark thigh-length coat and some of those heavy almost handmade-feeling shirts and clothes that look sort of agelessly 00:21 <VoxPVoxD> old in the way all expensive men's clothing kind of does when it's not self-consciously trendy. 00:22 <VoxPVoxD> *shirts and slacks 00:22 <Crion> So it goes. He'll have time to kill either way. 00:23 <Crion> Lauren's call, thankfully for her, will be done before her leaves. She won't fuss over him, though, unless he wants her to. 00:25 <VoxPVoxD> The three hour lagtime is really fucking with him. He's showered and dressed and had a drink with an hour to spare. An hour's enough time to walk to Inner Harbor, so that's what he does. 00:25 <VoxPVoxD> That lets him have another couple drinks before he goes. 00:25 <Crion> Gaunt Rose is smoking outside the parking garage when he arrives. 00:26 <Crion> She's wearing a cape. 00:26 <VoxPVoxD> She can pull it off. "You too, huh?" 00:26 <Crion> "Yep. Kinda figured. I'd have texted but..." She shrugs. "Maybe it's better like this." 00:27 <Crion> "There can be only one Lord Sage." 00:29 <VoxPVoxD> "I don't believe that. There's precedent, there's, there's workarounds. The law is just the story power tells itself, and the Wyrd is the same." If that's what this is about, Stewart is fully prepared to go up there and argue. 00:30 <Crion> "Yeah. Okay." She stubs her cigarette and doesn't sound all that convinced. It's five minutes to; time to head up. 00:31 <Crion> The elevator chimes pleasantly; thanks to the plague, it's happy to see just about anyone, let alone familiar faces. 00:32 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart takes a deep breath before crossing the threshold of the garage. The elevator gets a casual "Evening," of the kind you'd give to the night watchman as you pass his station. He's silent otherwise. 00:32 <Crion> When the doors roll open on the dark law offices, once again there's a brilliant crack of light from the door to what is usually Kingsley's suite. Just like the first time. 00:33 <VoxPVoxD> Another deep breath. 00:33 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart is very conscious of his heartbeat as he and Rose enter. 00:35 <Crion> "COME INNNNNNNNNNNNN!!! HELLO. STEWART READER AND GAUNT ROSE! WELCOME." The Lord Sage of the Unknown Reaches...does not sit at his desk. 00:37 <Crion> He sits cross-legged on the floor of his great office, which is wider than Stewart remembers it being previously; the furniture is all still there, but pushed back, save for the grumpy chair that clacks about the room most times Stewart has been in here, ostensibly for a guest to sit in but never cooperating. Now it lies on the floor next to W. Marcus Santander, improbably curled up like a 00:37 <Crion> dog, snoozing. The Lord Sage absently pets it. 00:37 <Crion> Scattered in front of him, each standing upright on the floor, are at least a hundred stamps. 00:38 <VoxPVoxD> Like... letter stamps? 00:38 <VoxPVoxD> Philately? 00:39 <Crion> No, the great mechanical stamping presses from passports and notaries public and the phrase "rubber stamped." The sort that go ka-chunk. 00:39 <VoxPVoxD> Huh. Okay. Are they being invited to sit? 00:41 <Crion> Santander just looks from Stewart to Rose and back for a moment, a strange, healthy, aggressive smile on his face. "YES. YES!!!!" 00:41 <Crion> "I Think This Will Do." 00:41 <Crion> "SIT! WHEREVER YOU LIKE." 00:42 <Crion> "EXCEPT UPON THE CHAIR." 00:42 <Crion> "HE IS RESTING." 00:45 <Crion> Gaunt Rose will glide over to a place on Santander's left, across the field of stamps from him, and sit. 00:45 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart sits at the opposite corner of the stamp formation, such that he, Rose, and Santander form a roughly equilateral triangle. 00:46 <Crion> "SO!" 00:46 <Crion> The Lord Sage sighs and leans forward, and steeples his fingers. "We find ourselves at an end, and a beginning." 00:47 <Crion> "Before we begin anything, you have BOTH! succeeded at all tasks I have assigned or consigned to you, and made myself, the Steward, and the Court proud." 00:48 <VoxPVoxD> *Very* conscious of his heartbeat. 00:50 <Crion> "BUT! Tradition and entitlement holds there is only one Lord Sage of the Unknown Reaches, in a Freehold." 00:52 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart takes in a breath fully intending to speak, but holds it in his throat when he realizes Santander's still talking. 00:55 <Crion> "I am guessing that neither of you willingly relinquishes the claim." Without giving either of you a chance to respond: "GOOD! SO! I have seen the movies; I have NOT brought a handgun with a single bullet for roulette, or a pool cue to snap in half. A FAILURE OF PLANNING AND INFRASTRUCTURE!" 00:56 <Crion> "Which means we will have to settle this without a fight to the death." 00:56 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart realizes that at this point he would feel some relief if Rose just shot him and ended this that way. 00:57 <Crion> Gaunt Rose: "Oh my god you can't be serious." 00:57 <Crion> She looks at Stewart: "He can't be serious." 00:58 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Iiii think he is." 00:58 <Crion> Santander grins. 01:01 <VoxPVoxD> "Are we being Last Crusaded?" 01:01 <Crion> There are all sorts of stamps here: large, small, mostly metal, mostly wooden, some plastic even, every sort of grip you could imagine. 01:01 <Crion> Santander's grin widens. 01:01 <Crion> Gaunt Rose: "We're being Last Crusaded." 01:02 <Crion> There is...Glamour, about the tableau. An implicit sealing of a decision, should you take hold of one of these. An agreement. 01:02 <Crion> "The good news," Santander says, "is failure is not fatal. THIS TIME!" 01:03 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Listen, there's got to be a way to reconcile tradition and fact here. Contradictions, exceptions, loopholes, paradoxes - these are the things that distinguish the Wyrd from like a computer program." 01:04 <Crion> Santander: "PERHAPS THERE IS!!!" 01:04 <Crion> "And perhaps there is not." 01:06 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart glances at Rose. Is she going for one? 01:06 <Crion> "The way this will work is thus: Hidden among this range is your token of office as Lord Sage of the Unknown Reaches. You two will, independently, locate said token to the best of your ability. Having decided, you will, at the same time as I invoke the Final Passage, take hold of your chosen stamp. And then the entitlement will out." 01:11 <Crion> Santander: "Find your grail. Take the time you need. Be certain, and trust yourselves." 01:15 <Crion> Rose's eyes widen almost imperceptibly, then she'll meet Stewart's gaze and nod. She's picking between the large thunkers, the things that look like big library circulation desk stamps from the fifties. 01:17 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart drags his gaze over the stamps, over wooden ones with the symbol they stamp drawn on the back, sleek-looking plastic ones that rest on their slim inkpads. Hoary old polished wooden stamps that look like they were used to certify draft exemptions in the Civil War... these all feel like *somebody's* stamp. 01:19 <VoxPVoxD> He can imagine, and does, the kind of person who might take each one. He imagines himself as them. He imagines coming to know them. Which stamp would Lauren take? Would Melanie? Would Stu or Maura? 01:19 <VoxPVoxD> It doesn't matter. None of them are here. None of them would want to be. 01:23 <VoxPVoxD> When he takes one, the movement is sudden. He's almost not looking at it, his attention is over on some big cylindical affair that looks like it could make coffee without too much modification. But the flash of color sits in his peripheral vision like a boss telegraph and he acts, and when he looks down at the thing in his hand, then he knows. 01:24 <VoxPVoxD> It's small and light and honestly kind of cheap-looking. Bright orange plastic and some nonsensical brand stencil. You'd find this on some random office desk, if people still went into offices. You'd find this at the post office. https://i.imgur.com/Zl6lRWn.jpg 01:27 <Crion> "WHEN YOU HAVE MADE YOUR CHOICE! Place your hand over your stamp, but do not touch! The ritual -- the mystery -- must be revealed all at once. I will count down from five to one. On the beat after one -- zero, nothing, the whisper beat -- touch your stamp, and learn your destiny." 01:28 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's hand is hovering over the stamp like it's his own shoulder in a photo. 01:28 <Crion> Rose's as well. 01:28 <Crion> "FIVE!" 01:28 <Crion> "FOUR!" 01:28 <Crion> "THREE!" 01:28 <Crion> "TWO!" 01:28 <Crion> "ONE!" 01:28 <Crion> And in the silence, the zero beat, as both their hands touch down-- 01:29 <Crion> Santander whips a stamp from up his sleeve and slams it into his palm. 01:30 <Crion> "LO, I RELEASE MY GRASP!" 01:30 <Crion> As both Stewart and Rose's hands touch their chosen stamps, a purple heraldic sigil blooms on the back of their hands -- the stylized icon of a stamp emblazoned over an open book. The heraldry of the Lord Sages of the Unknown Reaches. 01:31 <VoxPVoxD> !!! 01:32 <Crion> The room darkens around them; everything falls away until it is just the three of them. "THE LORD SAGE SO CONSECRATED WILL REPEAT AFTER ME: I REACH FOR THE UNKNOWN, AND I GRASP IT WITH RESPECT IN MY RIGHT, AND FEAR IN MY LEFT!" 01:32 <Crion> Rose opens her mouth-- 01:33 <VoxPVoxD> As does Stewart-- 01:33 <Crion> Rose: "I REACH FOR THE UNKNOWN, AND I GRASP IT WITH RESPECT IN MY RIGHT, AND FEAR IN MY LEFT!" 01:33 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I REACH FOR THE UNKNOWN, AND I GRASP IT WITH RESPECT IN MY RIGHT, AND FEAR IN MY LEFT!" 01:34 <Crion> The darkness around them turns to a wheeling field of stars, and a rushing buzz that overwhelms the senses-- 01:34 <Crion> Until suddenly they're back in the office, and Santander is cackling. 01:34 <Crion> He throws aside his stamp; it bounces off the translucent wall and rolls off somewhere. 01:35 <Crion> "And that is how you change the deal," he says. He sounds older. Subdued. 01:36 <Crion> Meanwhile, power rushes through both Stewart and Rose. Memory overload, scattered impulses and feelings not their own and -- this is strange -- crossover between them. Stewart definitely sees himself a few times, through Rose's eyes. 01:36 <VoxPVoxD> And vice versa, one assumes, since looking at Rose is the first thing Stewart does when he comes back to earth. 01:37 <Crion> Yep. 01:38 <VoxPVoxD> In that moment, in that night alive with signs and stars, suffused with the hearts and minds of others, Stewart can't hear his own thoughts. Maybe he's not even thinking them. 01:52 <Crion> They gain everything in that moment, the whole of the prowess and the profession. They learn more than they thought they could from a laughing man and the stars; they learn perhaps more than they wanted to know. 01:53 <Crion> Rose Gaunt and Stewart Reader are now Lord Sages of the Unknown Reaches in the Freehold of Baltimore. Which means they have sworn the following oath: "I will keep the Doctor of Science’s secret, but assist the Hierophant and Prince of Baltimore in his containment." 01:53 <VoxPVoxD> ... 01:53 <Crion> And they've heard his song. 01:54 <Crion> The Doctor of Sciences -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4Bf8Qhe59U Don't want to scare you off; don't want to know your name. / You'll never know a single thing about me, until it's far too late.