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If they have learned nothing else from dealing with more experienced Mages, Margot Travers and Ned Gaites can at least say they now know the law of relativity to apply not only to time but to the quantity of fucks reality deviants give about anything other than their own agendas.
Over a month has passed since they've seen or heard from their wayward mentor. Last they heard he was getting evicted. Last anyone heard, he was going to go Fuck With Time. The man is capricious, explained once that his is a Dynamic Avatar, and Dynamic Avatars push their people towards change above all else.
Both of them are Primordial. They seek truth in ancient places, in the dark and the dirt and the death from which mortals avert their eyes.
In the midst of everything, he called them. Summoned them, is more like it.
--
Most of his shit is out of the basement by the time they get there. Whatever was in the laboratory itself has been boxed up and sent elsewhere, as have the majority of the books. He has made a Christmas tree out of a pile of books, light strings and all, a testament to the fact that he got drunk and decided to amuse himself but no real indication as to when this happened. The majority of the books and the shelves are gone.
So: two chairs. An IV pole between them. His antiquated chemistry set. That pile of books lit from no discernible power source. And Dr. Sepúlveda, wearing black slacks and a button-down shirt and his glasses and a pair of purple nitrile gloves.
"We have thirty-two hours before they come to kick my ass out," is the first thing out of his mouth once the two have entered the basement. He's prepping two syringes with Lord only knows what, addressing the needles instead of his students. "Don't dilly dally, you're about to make an important contribution to Science."
Ned
"....I think we need an adult."
Is Ned's first interaction. He is dressed pragmatically. A pair of loose jeans, with a few rips at the knees (nothing so big as to constitute fashionable, but genuine wear and tear), a dark black hoodie that conforms to him rather than envelops him and a simple pair of gray converse. A small knapsack is settled over one shoulder, while the gel-tamed hair is slicked back comfortably. He's looking worriedly, (par for the course) at the IV and the chairs. The small bag slings down from his shoulder to settle at his feet.
"32 hours is pretty damned short on limits for enlightenment, Doc. Don't you think maybe we should try to find some place a little more...I dunno...isolated? And not under threat of Policeman arriving? Or is that all part of the process? A sense of immediacy and lingering jail time?"
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Tap tap, goes his fingernail against the needle.
"Nope."
Margot
Margot appeared in the basement standing beside Ned, looking just as worried at the bare bones set-up as he did.
Shouldn't they set up somewhere else if they were on a time crunch? The witchling glanced between the two, then shrugged at Ned and offered helpfully: "Time's relative anyways, right?"
The sweater that she'd been carrying over her shoulder, doffed once they'd come through the door, was let to fall on the floor where it didn't look especially dusty or tracked with dirt from packing and moving. Without the sweater she was in a dark gray tank top and a pair of jeans. Her shoulder-length brown hair was parted heavy to the right, twisted and pinned back out of her face. She looked tired, but didn't they all? What lives they led, anyways.
Margot approached the Doc and the set up he'd made for them. Investigated the IV pole and whatever liquids he may have hung upon it already.
"Uh, how you been, Doc?"
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"I put an ad up on Craigslist to see if anyone wanted to adopt two noisy twenty-something motormouths, but I didn't get so much as a nibble, so it appears I'm stuck having to tell you I don't have time to answer that question."
Two syringes. One for each of them, it appears, but one is clear while the other one has a slight blue tinge to it. Hung from the IV pole are twin liter bags of saline. Now that the syringes are prepped he's doing his level best to keep his gloved hands off his face and hair.
"I have a hypothesis," he says as he turns from the table and faces the two. "You're impatient, and your impatiences have formed a symbiotic relationship, and they're breeding little baby impatiences, and you've got yourselves convinced you can't 'do magick'--" Air quotes, here. "--like the grownups can 'do magick' until you're able to manipulate the Spheres you can, at this moment, 'only' sense. So! I'm going to see if injecting a mild sedative into your systems will be enough to shut your brains up long enough for your Avatars to take you on a Seeking." A beat. "Or you two can go back to whatever it was you're doing and I'll have a party, it's really up to you."
Ned
"Ebay is for human trafficking. Craigslist is for friends with benefits."
Ned says it off-hand, moving in alongside Margot to inspect the IVs, though it only takes him a few moments to recognize the setup as standard. The syringes receive the briefest glance, before Ned is sucking in a quick breath and shrugging his way through the Doc's last chunk of conversation. He's in the chair and settling in somewhere around 'yourselves convinced', yes flipping up toward Margot and then bouncing down at the chair.
"We had this conversation already. We're ready for this." He glances at Margot. "...Nothing else matters until we're on the other side."
Ned turns his forearm over, rolling up the sleeve until it sits high on a mildly impressive bicep. Then he's slapping the pale skin to summon a vein to the surface.
Margot
"Well, it's good to hear you've been busy at least," Margot answered Doc dryly, and crossed her arms over her chest. Meanwhile, Ned sat himself down in one of the two chairs and started getting himself ready for whatever syrum the Doc had whipped up to block the doubt signals in their brain and let their Avatars actually get a say in. Ideally. That's what was supposed to happen at least.
The always-worried cast that Margot'd been carrying around since she arrived in Denver took the tiny particle of doubt she carried and stuck it under a magnifying glass; her mouth was pursed to a side while she watched Ned slapping away at his arm. With a shake of her head, Margot sat down in the chair that must be hers as well, settling her forearms with the wrists and thin skin turned up toward the ceiling. Scooted herself back so that she was flush with the armchair's back, which of course meant that her feet weren't touching the floor anymore.
She looked down at her arm and rubbed the thin skin at the crook of her elbow. "It's true," she agreed, eyes hopping up to find Ned's face first, then going to Doc.
"We're on board. Let's do this."
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[life 3/prime 2: doo de doo, doing science stuff]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 4, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
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As his apprentices settle in, Sepúlveda removes his trusty flask from the back pocket of his jeans and takes a loud swallow from it. Farewell, sterile field. Flask goes back into his pocket.
"Cool it, Trainspotting," he says when Ned awakens a vein. "I'm a forensic pathologist, not a phlebotomist. We're going IM with these bad boys. You won't know what hit you."
Which, like roughly fifty percent of what comes out of the Mad Scientist's mouth, is bullshit. They can see the injection coming. But he stands behind their chairs so they can't see whether they receive the clear needle or the one clouded with blue.
They feel the sting of the needle's tip. The burn of the fluid. Ned first, then Margot.
"Word of advice," he says as he withdraws the needle from Margot's arm. The light is starting to go out of the room. The chairs are starting to dissolve beneath them. Sepúlveda's already deep voice seems to drop deeper. "Don't believe a word anyone tells you."
With that they're left in a darkness lit only by multicolored bulbs wrapped around a Christmas book-tree.
Ned
"Oh by the way....Hey Margot....Did you mention that thing...about....Luke to the Doc...?"
It was Ned's last words, head lolling to one side to regard his fellow apprentice with a serious sort of glance and then a shit-eating smirk.
Problem solved?
Before darkness finally collapsed in on them both.
Margot
While not necessarily afraid of needles, or familiar with the medical field as a whole, Margot was still bright enough to figure out what IM stood for and to know that it would probably hurt. When the sting and burn of the injection struck she flinched, of course, but took a controlled breath (she's had plenty of practice with that lately) and relaxed her arms. Her head was starting to feel heavy already, so she let it rest back in the chair.
Hey Margot.
Ned caught her attention, and the question he posed as the lights began to fall away had her looking stunned. Her brow started to knit into what promised to be a very serious scowl, but the dark came up and ate away everything besides the weird makeshift Christmas tree of books and her own vague sense of being. Which itself tumbled as though toppling backward down a hill in slow motion before stilling again.
She was silent to begin with while trying to hone her focus back down into one place. Her hands, they were a good place to start. She squeezed them, tested her control and what they had underneath them. Still in the chair? Still in the room? That was the same Christmas tree right?
"...Ned?" Uncertainly she called into the darkness.
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Everything comes from darkness. It's the first entity a person knows and the last embrace before the inevitability of Death. It's what greets them when the two of them lay their heads back against the chair, when the warm heaviness of whatever the Doc just shot into their arms takes effect.
No small amount of trust inherent in this. They both said they were ready, but the person to whom they said this is insane.
--
... Ned?
An answer ought to come from arm's length away, if a little further. It ought to be masculine and certain. It ought to Be, period. But no answer comes.
A warm breeze stirs. Drifts through her hair the way her mother's fingers used to, like the lover she hasn't met yet. Her Avatar is not her mother. It is not a lover.
Andraste is a goddess. Her hair is blood and her teeth are swords. She has certain expectations.
Water drips, echoes, tells her this much: she's in a confined space, and there's an exit.
Margot
Somewhere in the mix she lost certainty as to whether the chair was even beneath her any longer. She was standing-- maybe she just discovered consciousness this way, because she remembered feeling like tumbling but didn't remember actually falling or rising once more. There was no answer when she called out, but she was familiar with the drip-drip sound of water (there was a leak in her bedroom for two years before she finally figured out how to patch a roof and stop the sound herself). She was familiar with the sense of walls and proximity and distance, and with that she was also familiar with the sense of an exit in that space.
Her eyes closed, though it didn't matter because everything was dark. At some point the pins had vanished from her hair and it had fallen loose for the wind to comb through. It felt comforting. Ned wasn't answering her to help, he'd gone down his own path, but they knew that would come.
"Alright," she said quietly to the Goddess she was pretty sure was listening, and she began to take slow exploratory steps through the dark, feeling for the way out.
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[gonna go ahead and roll correspondence 1 for you]
Dice: 1 d10 TN4 (1) ( botch x 1 )
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And her bravery is the only tool available to her at that moment. Passive reliance on her Awakened senses does nothing more than lay a weight on her. Paradox backlash not yet discharged.
Alright bumps up against the cavern walls behind her, travels in and up, but does not form a blanket. The breeze ebbs from her hair, which feels damp against her shoulders, but it gives her another way to orientate herself.
She can go forward, or she can turn around and climb.
Margot
A few steps forward and Margot paused to orient herself. She heard her voice bounce and echo behind her, felt the breeze coming from before her. She was in some kind of a cavern, it seemed-- wet with stone under her feet. It would make sense that a breeze would mean an exit, but Margot was a girl whose very soul belonged to the deepest parts of the Oceans. She knew what caverns were, and knew even some of the smaller ones could be vast enough to mislead in such ways.
Upward, though, upward was often promising.
So Margot turned around and began feeling with each step-- reaching out her toe before putting weight down on her foot, then repeating. She felt with her fingertips ahead of her as well, hunting for a wall, a surface, something to feel at and try to evaluate her chances of scaling up.
All the while, squinting and hunting for any bit of light. If it wasn't a good gradual slope that'd be easy to clambor she'd definitely need her sight, otherwise risk stranding herself on some surface with no further footholds to move herself up or sideways.
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Moving away from the light, Margot has to use her hands. She cannot enhance the nerve endings yet, but she can see using different spectrums of light, and she can sense the crevices and cracks in the stone once she gropes her way to the wall that seems to be offering her an option more than it is offering her resistance.
If she has ever been climbing indoors, she knows that professional climbers use special shoes, have someone spotting them. This is not an indoor wall.
Her palms are slick. She cannot tell yet if it is sweat or condensation or blood. The air in here smells fresh, either from a spring she cannot see or from the breeze circulating from the outside world.
It is a difficult climb, and she almost slips once. Towards the top of the wall, the darkness begins to thin. Here there is light. A sliver of it, door-like, carved into the far wall of the cavern.
Between the ledge and the light are two daises. Platforms made of rock, natural but maintained. On one of the daises rests a bow and arrow. On the other rests a large bundle secured with twine.
Margot
The climb felt treacherous, but only because Margot had to use senses in a way she wasn't entirely familiar with. What light she could find had to be perceived and understood a little differently, but at least she had a familiarity with the mechanics of light and knew how to adjust that accordingly. Here, it seemed, things were just a little more Different. A little Loose around the edges of mechanics and rules?
Certainly, because she somehow made it up that wall in just sneakers and bare hands and at long last hitched a knee up over the leg to roll the rest of the way up. She lay on her back for a moment before sitting up and scooting away from the sheer drop. From there, to her feet and turning around to where the light was casting from now.
There, thrown into relief in shades of shadow and granite-dark-black rock, were the daises almost like alters rising from the ground. Apparently having been there forever, burst up from the ground when Earth was made itself. Certainly not carved by the hands of man.
Two choices, no doubt symbolic, she figured. One was the bow and the arrow, a clear sign of war and attack. The other, a bundle-- something wrapped and tied up with twine, a mystery, what could it be? She glanced back and forth between the two, slow and thoughtful, frowning while considering. Certainly she was supposed to choose War, wasn't she? Wouldn't that be the right answer? But her eyes kept falling back to the bundle. Would she regret never knowing what lay beneath? What the other choice could have been?
More than that, though, would she regret making her decision because it was what she was expected to do, or because it was what she wanted to do?
A glance was cast over her shoulder toward the ledge from which she'd come. When she looked back forward she set her mouth with determination. Walked forward with the kind of comittment that came from jumping off the high dive. You've just got to take a breath, run, and jump.
Or, in this case, reach out and pull the twine of the bundle to find out what it held.
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And the bundle is tied so tightly that she will have to do more than tug at the twine in order to lay bare the contents of the canvas. The twine remains secured, and the contents lie inert despite her jostling of them.
The ground shakes, once and then again. A shadow begins to fall across the ledge just outside the door.
Margot
The twine wouldn't just fall away, it turned out, and Margot considered the density of the knot, considering where to pull and how to most easily loosen it. That was when she felt the ground rumble. A vibration in her ankles and bones, felt on an even deeper level connected to her Magickal being in some echoing ghost of a manner. She'd paused and glanced up. Then a second rumble, and a shadow cut across the sliver of light that appeared to be a way out.
Shit. She didn't vocalize the word, but cursed it silently upon a breath instead. She was reminded instantly of Jurassic Park, though she could see no pool of water to ripple. It wasn't a stretch to imagine that whatever lurked on the other side of that passageway was just as terrible as the Terrible Lizard, too.
Her eyes darted to the bow and arrow, and without much hesitation she pushed away from the first dais and darted over-- fast, so fast-- to the second one. The bow was pulled up onto one shoulder for the moment, the arrow seized in hand, and she darted back to the initial dais and its bundle once more.
If the twine wouldn't yield to her fingers, then she would make it submit to the blade of the arrowhead.
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The bow is sturdy yet flexible, crafted by a being who valued utility above all else. It would need to be useful in a number of situations. The quiver of arrows fits easy across his shoulder though it was doubtless made with a different adult in mind.
Margot is still on the cusp of adulthood. In the triptych lauded by the people who gave Andraste her name and visage, she is still a maiden. Maidens are called upon to fight in times of dire need.
Without Ned here to consult with or Sepúlveda to mock her indecision, she makes one on her own. She chooses the bow and the arrow, but she does not go forth in search of the creature responsible for moving the earth.
If she tests it with her finger before setting it to the twine, the arrowhead feels like obsidian. Something tempered and strong. It slices through the twine as it would slice through the air, and the canvas falls away now that its binds are cut.
Inside is a war horn, broken in two halves. The metal inlay around the horn's edges looks like lapping flames.
The shadow now darkens the doorway.
Margot
A blade of obsidian and a bow supple and clean, and even Margot could admire the quality craftsmanship at play. Maybe there'd be time to dwell on that later, though. For now she was pleased with the strength and sharpness of the small bade and even moreso when it cut so easily through the twine. The bundle fell open, and what it contained gave the witch pause.
A war horn, beautiful even in the minimal light provided, but broken clean in half. As she was considering options for putting it back together the light cut away entirely, blocked out by a shadow filling the exit.
If the horn were intact she likely would have chosen it, continuing to favor the less obvious option. Maybe the horn would call a reinforcement. Maybe it would summon the spirit of whatever darkened the doorway to her side, rallying it to a battle along with her. Maybe it meant her no harm?
But... For now the horn was left on the dais in its pieces, and the bow was brought down from her shoulder instead. She'd shot archery once before in her life and recalled the basics of how to hold it, could work through the rest with a base understanding of mechanics and design well enough to notch and pull the arrow back within the bow. Took aim toward the doorway and held steady with her elbow back and trembling but holding all the same.
It may mean her no harm, but it may be here to consume her entirely as well. She'd just hold steady and wait to see.
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Groaning breath. Thickening shadow. Stooping creature.
It brings with it the scent of silt and loam. Fertile misty scents though its respirations are as rocky as the structure in which Margot has temporary refuge. The stomping lessens in intensity as the creature slows and stoops to peer in through the entryway.
A yellow eye the size of a basketball blots out the sun and blinks at the sight of her. Its exhalation fills the cave with the smell of grave dirt.
Margot
Perhaps the comparison to Jurassic Park wasn't so far off. Something massive was through that doorway, and with it came the smell of freshly turned earth and rich clay in the rain. Margot found that curious, noted how it seemed one with the very cavern she stood in-- in smell and essence alike. She held steady.
A huge eye appeared then, yellow and blinking and focused in on her. A breeze swept past her ankles and up around her waist, bringing with it whatever dust or debris may have been lingering on the floor. It smelled like the grave, and Margot's chest swelled and chin lifted as she breathed in deep like she was greeting, challenging, or maybe even seeking still to understand what huffed the breath in the first place.
For a hanging couple of moments she was still, that breath held and the arrow held still, pulled back tight with the string held just so with her finger. She stared at the eye that stared right back at her. Then she breathed the breath out slowly, and the arrowhead lowered so that it didn't appear to line up directly with the big black pupil any longer. It's worth noting that the arrow and string still stay in place in her fingers, it's just that her pull and aim had relaxed.
"Hello," she said quietly, for she felt in a place like this her voice would reach that creature even if she just thought loudly enough. "Will you let me through?"
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Hello.
Its inhalation draws the temperature inside the cave down a few degrees.
Will you let me through?
Its exhalation reeks but she can see an alien sort of intelligence in its one yellow eye. A consideration in the timbre of the breath. It has nothing to gain from harming her. Nothing to lose in letting her pass.
With a low grumble of assent, the creature steps back from the ledge and begins to lumber away.
Margot
Intelligence, recognized in the shared moments of eye contact and greeting. Consideration, then assent rumbled into the cavern. The giant creature backed away, and Margot smiled with relief and satisfaction alike. The arrow was returned to the quiver, the bow shouldered once again. The horn was wrapped up secure in the fabric that originally bundled it and cradled in her arms almost like a child, or a precious book (the latter more likely, knowing Margot).
She approached the doorway then, and presuming that nothing crashed down upon her right away she stepped through as well, peering out and up for the creature that had allowed her to pass. Seeking to satiate curiosity in what the rest of it looked like, and to nod her thanks to as well.
Also, of course, she would want to see what lay beyond that door.
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With the daises now emptied behind her, the way cleared by the lumbering yet ultimately harmless giant, Margot steps out onto the ledge of the foothill into which the chamber was carved. She is still some distance from the ground, which is lush with grass so far as she can see, even when a ravine runs like a scar through it.
That ravine was once passable by way of a footbridge. The footbridge long since fell into disrepair, and a figure on the opposite side of the ravine is in the process of fashioning a tightrope from one side to the other with a bow and arrow of his own.
A quick look around reveals steps ether carved with tools or simply worn into the side of the foothill by so many trips by so many heavy feet. It will be no great difficulty for Margot to make the climb.
Meanwhile, Ned's arrow flies fast and true, buries itself deep in the abandoned post on the other side of the ravine. The rope sags a bit with his weight, but it will hold true as he scales his way across.
Ned
Scale he does, hand over hand, feet cinched tight at the ankle as a dragging device to keep him afloat. Careful movements, hanging upside down, the bow and arrows slung carefully into place as they had been before. He doesn't look down (giant gaping maw of gnashing teeth and tongues, wearing clown make-up-shuuttttt upppppp brain).
He'll come to the other side and swing his feet down before his hands touch the arrow. Heels clap on the surface before he twists, turns and stumbles slightly to get his bearings and his balance once more. He puffs, that lingering sense of pressurizied doom swatted at with a spare and rope scuffed hand like he could physically remove it.
"They call me, Ned the Mighty, slayer of bridges, assailer of ropes. Bow before me, mortals..." Margot will assail the hill and find Ned at the edge of the ravine, hands on his hips, laughing in a mocking tone.
Margot
Out from a dark that felt wet and cavernous all at once stepped little Margot Travers, hair wild and damp and loosened from its prior bindings. She had a quiver of arrows on her back, a simple bow on one shoulder, and was carrying a large something wrapped up in fabric cradled in her arms against her chest. She squinted hard into the bright sunshine but couldn't free up a hand to block her eyes without setting the horn down entirely, so she just stood blinking and looking down at the scenery until they adjusted.
When they did, it was to see a small but familiar figure down below, making its way across a rope-and-arrow fashioned line to replace a bridge gone out.
She almost called out, but remembering what she'd passed in the cave behind her (complete with a glance of wonder over her shoulder), she instead opted to follow the path of steps worn into the mountain. Light and deft-footed down the hill she scaled until she found Ned posed and boasting victory at the ravine. Pink-cheeked from the descent but not too out of breath to talk, Margot came into sight and called to him in enthused but measured tones.
"Ned! I didn't think I'd get to see you on this side! Where were you? I saw a giant."
Ned
"I saw a Bridge. No trolls though."
He offered, though his sounded far less fantastic. Ned regards the other apprentice with careful scrutiny her disheveled appearance far more indicative of a trial then his own. He looped the bow back over his shoulder and cinched it tight with a few adjustments before moving over to stand near Margot, gaze already traveling the length of the surrounding landscape with a careful sort of scrutiny.
"I'm half expecting some Uruk Hai to leap out and begin 'For the Horde'ing at us..." Ned may well have pissed off Geeks and confused Normals with that one line were this reality. Luckily, enough, it isn't.
"You see Andraste yet?"
Margot
"That bridge?" Margot asked, nodding her head to the remains of what was before that Ned crossed the same path as.
As for Andraste, Margot shook her head and glanced back over her shoulder, toward the way she'd come from. "Not unless she was manifesting as that giant, but I don't think so... It smelled like earth, and she's been more copper before..." Her brow furrowed a little, but relaxed when a thought occurred to her.
"We both found a bow and arrow, that can't be coincidence. Though I also took...," and she adjusted the bundle in her arms to move the fabric away, revealing within a grand war horn that was split in two, inlaid with metal around the edges to look like flame lapping and eating away.
"I thought about trying to fasten it together but I don't know how to get it tight enough to still work."
Ned
"Hah...."
Ned holds out his hand to take the Horn from her "So that's what was in the bundle. I left mine behind. Didn't trust it." Figures.
Ned fits the two halves together as best he can, then folds both hands around the narrowest end, one infront of the other. He glances down at the length of it eyeballing the effort, before sucking in a large breath and turning to look out at the God-mountains in the distance.
"...Hold onto to your hat."
Then Ned blows into the horn's narrow end, as hard as he can.
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Nestled in Margot's arms, no longer a bundle but a broken thing in need of repair, is the war horn she had not known whether to tend to for the uncertainty come along with its presence and purpose.
It takes two people to hold the horn's halves together enough that it will make a seal. In this, they have to work together. Ned takes on the broken thing, symbolic for her but practical for him, and introduces it to breath.
Out of it comes a bellow of calm. An answer to a question not yet asked.
Will you come?
I'm on my way.
The mist comes down from the mountains, rises up out of the ravine. This time, the waters of Lethe do not wipe clean their memories. It wasn't a hallucinogenic their mentor jabbed into their bodies. It may not have even been a sedative.
He was saving that shit for himself.
Today is the day Mexicans celebrate their unlikely victory at la Batalla de Puebla and may not have meant dick to either of them, but it ought to have. Their mentor is a Mexican-American alcoholic, and when they open their eyes to find themselves in the chairs in the emptied basement he is sitting on the table draining his flask.
A fresh bottle of tequila sits next to him. He blinks, then tosses aside the flask.
"Don't let it go to your heads," he says. "I've know guys with the IQs of hamsters who haven't died on their first Seeking."
Their resonances, at first temperamental and gruesome, are stabilizing. Their magick has a sense of integrity about it, now. They are no longer apprentices. They may still be initiates of the Art, but they are the masters of their own souls.
--
Later, Sepúlveda will start laughing at absolutely nothing and confess, quite drunk, "It was just water, in the syringes. I added food coloring to yours--" Ned's. "--just to see what would happen."
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