By Theslin Wanders-through-Bramble (theslin@mail.utexas.edu)
Under their fingers, the planchette slowly began to glide. It always did, when the circle's spirit guide got the Black Bird three minute long invocation right. The heart-shaped bit of plastic drifted, touching the "G."
"It's doing it again, Kase. You're pushing."
"I'm not pushing. If I was, we'd be talking to my father. G...R...K... S..." The pointer touched "Z" and wandered aimlessly, as if it had lost its train of thought. Kase looked at Margaret, who wanted to be called Raven now. She was mumbling a prayer, her eyes tightly closed. Coryn was watching the ouiji board intently, chewing on her quartz necklace.
"'I', It touched 'I'. Just like last time. Look, it's doing 'L' again." With unusual precision, the planchette spelled out the rest of the enigmatic name.
Coryn tried the word silently before speaking it. "'Grkszilrd' isn't a name."
Raven opened her eyes. "Maybe it's Welsh? Grkszild could be in the Night Bird book of angels." She picked herself up from the floor and walked around stacks of paper and clothing to the bookshelf. "This book has everything."
She shook dust off the cover, and thumbed through the G's. "The name's here, but they left the entry blank."
Kase and Coryn left their posts to look. "Check Toben's Spirit Guide."
Raven reached for the slick, double-sized paperback on the top shelf. So far, every spirit they'd contacted was described in the Night Bird encyclopedia. The Grkszilrd problem was unusual. She paged the Spirit Guide. "No Grkszilrd."
A sound of shattering glass crashed through the little apartment. By the noise, Raven's shelves of crystals in the kitchen had finally collapsed. With the scream of a tortured violin, the planchette scraped itself to a single word:
"Goodbye."
The atmosphere of the cluttered apartment shifted from warm and messy to cold and menacing. A voice from her rabbit hindbrain began to scream, and Coryn knew, from that part of her mind she had trained like the books said, that something was going horribly, perversely wrong.
A heavy footfall sounded from the kitchen, from the shattered glass shelves. A footfall, then a dry scraping noise, and the clatter of something somehow arachnid. The kitchen door shown a sickening blood-red.
It pushed its head around the door. Its face was crusted in brown and ichor-green plates of chitin. It brought a leg through the door, a black dragon's claw. With a scrape it pulled its other limb into the room -- a muscled, scaled member ending not in talons, but in a human spine. Where its claw and vertebrata touched the floor, the carpet rippled and changed into oily slicks of blood. In the voice of a choir of electrocuted murderers, the thing spoke: I am Grkszilrd. You called.
Kase was screaming hysterically, pulling her hair, curled with her chin between her knees. The creatures chelicera worked greedily, and a string of black saliva trailed to the floor. Coryn kept her head -- Illysen's Liber Astare had a ritual of protection. The horrid entity didn't seem to be in a hurry...
"Raven! Get me the blue book!"
No call, no answer, and the entity chuckled. Coryn glanced at her friend -- seated beside the bookcase, a life-sized, cloth and china doll, a perfect likeness of Raven, held her place. The creature raised its claw, and the doll slumped forward, shattering. Coryn clenched her teeth, straining not to run. Illysen's Chant of Holy Light in the Liber Astare would protect from all baleful influences. The book said so. She should have memorized it, but the Chant just went on, and on...
The fetal Kase moved an inch toward the creature. It made a pulling motion with an arm stuck grotesquely to its back, and she slid forward another inch. The monster called Grkszilrd laughed again, taking its time. It knew about Coryn's books -- other young mystics had conjured it, and had tried again to dismiss it. The Pentex ritual for summoning a Nexus Crawler was the only functional spell in her New Age library. The rest were so many useless rhymes and word-games. It gestured with its arm again, and the screaming Kase moved another inch towards it. All the clocks in the house began to run backwards, and in the refrigerator a gallon of milk turned to bile.
Coryn ran her hand along the shelves of books, trying to watch both the monster and find the Liber Astare. The creature sat on what might be its haunches, or its thorax, and cocked its head to one side. Its tongue lolled out, over a foot long. Grkszilrd pulled Kase another three inches closer. The Liber was sitting on a pile of books on the bottom shelf, gathering dust. The Chant of Holy Light was the last spell, in the appendix, easy to find in a hurry. She began to read:
"Hadraniel, Israfel, enfold us in your wings.
Michael, Guardian, protect us.
Raphael, Gabriel, wrap us in your mantel.
Duma, angel of silence, defend us."
This was wrong. The creature reared back. The "Chant of Holy Light" was a meaningless agglomeration of angel's names. It had no power, but the monster could see pure, white fire, a wall of flame and wings, surround the two surviving girls. It stood on its twenty-seven legs, focused its ragged knot of Wyrm-stuff on the book, disintergrating it -- and its strike disippated against the wall of light.
"Orphaniel, guard us. Uriel, hide us.
Ataphiel, interceed for us.
Ithuriel, shield us from the Enemy."
The creature was backing into the kitchen. There were only a few more lines to the Chant, and it was retreating. Coryn saw the monster ignite the carpet around her, change the ceiling above her into poison asps, but all baleful influences were held back by the Chant and her faith. She decided to press her limited advantage. The Rite of Binding was in chapter three...She called upon the final angels, Anaphaxeton and Zebuleon, great judges of the Apocolypse, to complete the Chant. The Rite was mostly visualization, a vortex of energy to draw in malefic powers. She closed her eyes, and saw the whirlpool of pure white force. Feeling nauseated she visualized the beast in as full detail as she could imagine, pulling it into the vortex, closer to her, into the field created by the Chant. She crossed herself, calling upon saints and stars, and spat the jagged Latin of the Rite.
Coryn opened her eyes. Kase was still on the floor, sobbing. Raven was broken in shards of china and ripped silks. The monster --
She reached behind her neck, unclasping the chain which held her quartz pendant. She held the crystal to the light--its pristine lines held a dark, smokey flaw. The chain felt tarnished.
Quartz. Good for dealings with the spirit world. Promotes clear thinking. Coryn silently thanked Illysen Press for its work.
As quickly as the trade in New Age merchandise began, it was caught by the Syndicate. The Technocrats stripped from the markets any trace of functional occultism, leaving only a veneer of spiritualism around what largely became fiction and optimism.
The Seventies gradually phased into the Eighties, and the economic recession of that decade produced a strange combination of financial want and conspicuous materialism. Members of both the leisure class and the working class saw in the watered-down New Age some scrap of hope: "if we cannot improve our lot alone, we can better ourselves with help from the outside."
Numerous publishers attempted to enter the occult market, including printing houses influenced by the Verbena and Order of Hermes. These companies were bought out or destroyed by Technocracy; the current New Age market of the World of Darkness is dominated by two publishers. The larger of the pair, Illysen Press, releases relatively "tame" works devoid of true Magick - -not surprising, as Illysen is directly owned by the Syndicate. The smaller publishing house, Night Bird Books, produces books of a darker streak -- many of their books could generously be called grimoires. Because of Technocratic pressure Night Bird has removed the core of Spirit in their writings, though their work still contains some real occult lore. Night Bird Books holds a disproportionate share of the New Age market due to persistant rumor that some of their incantations actually work. Night Bird is a eighth- or ninth-generation puppet of Pentex, Incorporated.
With an economy that has tentatively left its state of recession and heightened awareness of sociology and the environment, the need for outside sources of hope has diminished. Yet the New Age has not lost ground. Largely this is due to the approach of the Millenium; the threat of the unknown has brought many initiates into the occult. Another factor drawing members into the New Age movement is the presence of Awakened leaders within the movement. These orphan Mages have met and are working towards order within their chaotic Paradigm. They tentatively call themselves the Third Star, and they wield real power.
The Magi of the Third Star draw power from great faith in their tools. Unfortunately, these tools -- their foci -- are controlled by the Technocracy. While the Third Star are Mystical mages, the directions of their Craft are controlled by the Technocrats. As the Millennium approaches the power of the Third Star grows. As do the Virtual Adepts, the Third Star possesses a Paradigm that gains strength as the cumulative unconscious of the world hopes for a bright new future. The pivotal question for the Third Star -- a question completely out of its hands -- is which side of the Ascension War they will band with when the Millennium comes 'round.
Akashic Brotherhood: The East has untold stores of wisdom. The Brotherhood posesses so much lore. Sometimes they'll drop hints.
Clinging infants. They have no understanding of their own power.
Celestial Chorus: The Church shot itself in the foot. The Chorus's search for the One is quaint -- we can all be the One, but there's bigger things to hope for. Maybe they should sit in our circles. They've got some good ideas, though.
Insolence! They embrace heresy, and call it wisdom!
Cult of Ecstasy: They're obviously in love with the world, which is half the battle. But that's as far as they've gotten.
Okay, we tried. The Technocracy got the better of us on this one. But there's something happening here. What it is, ain't exactly clear, to quote the Bard.
Dreamspeakers: They know so much! Amazing people, a Tradition after our own hearts.
The Third Star is shallow. We sometimes win loyal converts from their order, and they're always eager to learn from us, but they're tiring.
Euthanatos: Oh, yuk. Death instead of life? No sense of hope.
Take away their toys and the Star falls. These people are so far beyond pitiful...at least they keep their distance.
Order of Hermes: The Hermetics keep their secrets well. Their methods are powerful, but they defeat the betterment of the world by their reluctance to share.
We've planted a few seeds in the incredibly rich fertilizer the Star feeds from. Let's see what happens.
Sons of Ether: They're going the wrong way, but fast! Still, we can see kindred spirits behind their goggles.
They're running both toward and away from the Technocracy. Strange.
Verbena: The Hermetics have the new wisdom, and the Verbena keep the old. Both are necessary. The blood, however, is not.
The orphans of the Third Star are, in a sense, our children. They do not see the swords over their heads in their Technocratic masters. Perhaps they will Awaken entirely, and come home.
Hollow Ones: Our dark shadows.
Our deluded, wimpy third cousins.
Iteration X: Anathema to the true light of the World. To combine Man with Machine would kill the Man.
Cut them loose, gun them down. These characters are a threat.
New World Order: They kill the spirit! Awful! And they're so big!
The Syndicate keeps these creatures around for profit and entertainment. We've tried to strip their power from them, but it regenerates every time. If they develop further, we will have great allies or terrible foes. Perhaps we should kill them now, while there's time, but the Ivory Tower forbids...
The Progenitors: They take all the wrong methods to save the human race. Terrible.
We've got a wonderful poison ready that'll solve the problem in no time at all. Please?
The Syndicate: We'll have nothing to do with these materialists. They are so far removed from our light.
The best customers are the repeat customers. What harm can these bugs do? They bring us money, and it's fun to see what new straw they grasp at. Did you see the time we showed them Rolfing?
Void Engineers: Good plan, poor intentions. They go out into the Great Unknown with too many preconceptions. Some of them are coming around, though.
They're good for a laugh, and they're as eager as we are to touch the unknown. Their optimism is a little disturbing, though.
The foci of the Third Star are mercurial. The mage may swear by the power of Yoga, until she reads a book on herbology. However, the mage will be adamant in the importance of herbology in magick for as long as the phase lasts. A Storyteller must be sympathetic to this, and should not force her players to fill in their character sheet with permanent ink.
Books: Assorted tomes and paperbacks are the most common of Third Star foci. Frequently the mages will take Books as foci for all their spheres, in addition to other choices. Using books in magick adds +1 to +3 to the initiative difficulty of an effect.
Aromatherapy: A common focus for Life, Mind and Spirit magicks. The mage uses scented oils and incense to aid her concentration. Most magi pick out a few favorite scents, or use a different scent for each effect. Unlike the incense used by the Cult of Ecstasy, it takes only seconds to prepare this focus.