The Message

Kalen Holliday
[Nightmares!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace Evans
[[Already rolled nightmares! It was this:
Noel
[Nightmares!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 4, 4, 6, 7) ( success x 1 )]]

gatekeeper
Sunday is normally a day for getting out and about for many people.  And today is a good day for going out; it's a relatively warm sixty-eight degrees and even though the sun is hiding behind the clouds, it's a nice day to get out and get some fresh air.  It's still a couple of weeks before the equinox makes it official, but it feels like spring, especially here in Washington Park, a public park in the south-central area of the city.  The park is located just south of a country club; it is the place you would expect there to be droves of people playing with their dogs or picnicking, or playing frisbee or whatnot.
However, today that does not happen to be the case.  There is a distinct lack of people wandering their way around the historic buildings, or walking the paths around the lakes, or sitting on the green lawn.  No one is working out on the tennis courts or wandering the flower gardens.  The bright sun, here, doesn't seem to be warding off a bit of a chill that still hangs in the air like a desperate man grasping at the edge of an ice hole before a current swipes him under.  Maybe it's the chill that wards people off today, or maybe it's something else.
Like, perhaps, the pole that is stuck in the ground near the edge of the lake, complete with a cross-pole and what looks to be a scarecrow hung on it.  That might do it.

Kalen Holliday
Oh, Kalen.  One day you will learn that your attempts to take Grace out to cheer her up end badly.
But your lives will be so much less interesting when you resort to cheering Grace up by buying more locks and picking up dinner so she can stay inside.  Especially if you build a nice underground clubhouse.
Today, he has still not yet learned that lesson.  His lips press together for a second as he takes in the lack of people and eventually the scarecrow.
"Well, fuck.  Kit...let it never be said I don't take you to all the most interesting places."  And then he starts toward the scarecrow.  Purposeful, despite the limp that keeps his pace slow and uneven.
[Perception/Awareness: Sp. Sensing Danger]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1

Grace Evans
It was hard to get up this morning. Morning? Okay, so it was after noon, and thanks for that, because without sleeping in there probably would have been no sleep at all. Grace had to spend a few tense minutes trying to reassure herself that dreams are only dreams. She had to go look at herself in the mirror and prod her tired eyes to make sure they weren't actually bleeding.
No, just dried tears from whatever thrashing nightmare she dredged up.
She had to go get some (fucking) coffee just to deal with the nagging memory of blood in her mouth. Coffee tastes nothing like that. Washes away the mess. Makes her feel a little bit more human, doesn't it?
Still, Kalen noticed. Of course he did. And of course, he decided to take her outside.
Granted, after nearly two weeks of solitude and self-confinement, who would say no?
Should have stayed in bed. Fucking scarecrow.
"Kalen, be careful," she says, as though that's going to do much or get through to him.
[Perception/Awareness too!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )

Serafi­ne
The sun may not be out just now but it is up there, someplace, hiding behind the clouds and Sera knows that the sun is up there and on raw Sunday mornings (it is barely 2 p.m.  That, to a Sera, is not merely morning but is early morning, crack-of-dawn, crack-of-doom style) the sun is like to be her enemy.  So: sunglasses shield her eyes, and her hair is a bit flyaway, though still damp in the center from her morning shower.  She spent this night last at the chantry, drowsing in the warmth of the hot spring, and then curled up some fucking place, sleeping the way she does: like the dead.  Neither nightmares nor sufferers-of-nightmares are like to disturb her.  Possibly, the apocalypse would not disturb her.
--
Sera picked up macchiatos at this little coffee shop near the park's entrance.  Sera was waiting for Alexander, sitting on a piling, sunglasses over her eyes, dressed for the warmth in cut off denim shorts, battered combat boots, and torn fishnets.  A leather... strap trimmed in rivets and zippers that sort-of kind-of covers her breasts, beneath a rather warm, oversized button-down flannel that she leaves untucked.
Sera is smoking a clove cigarette.  And yes, she smells a little bit like marijuana.
She tips the coffee upward to Alexander as he rolls up, in offering.  Picks up the second from the retaining wall against which she was lounging.  Flicks her dark blue eyes over the setting and yeah, she notes the missing people, because she misses the missing people.
"Feel that?"  She means the chill in the air.  Then she nods toward the man limping across the green.  "That's Kalen.  C'mon.  You and me, kid."
As they start to walk, Sera bites her tongue; the sharp welt of pain, that, that illuminating point -

Serafi­ne
Perception + Awareness (spec. resonance)
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1

Serafi­ne
Watch the Weaving.  Prime 1: Difficulty 4  -1 focus.
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )

Alexander Brandt
The world still seems strange to Alexander, after recent events in the middle of nowhere. Maybe it’s a feeling that things just aren’t quite real any more.  Or maybe things feel are more real than they used to be – sharper edges, clearer colours.  Like that first look round after putting glasses on for the first time.
And so he walks into view.  As usual, he’s ridden his bike out here to meet Sera.  He kicks out the stand for the (kinda battered) bike and pulls off his (very battered) helmet.  The smile of greeting may not be full of happiness and light, but at least it’s there.  Gloves go into the helmet, the jacket of his leathers get loosened, and he accepts the coffee.
“Yeah.  It’s nice out.  I like it.”  He looks to where she’s gesturing, to the man he’s yet to meet.

Alexander Brandt
[And per+aware too]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

gatekeeper
[[Grace and Alexander get a sense of something otherworldly coming from the scarecrow.  It has a shimmering, ethereal feel.]]

Grace Evans
Grace turns her head around, peeling her gaze off of Kalen, because she definitely can that gut-wrenching, enchanting, in-between thing that is almost certainly a Sera.
She waves. Which might be the only reason why anybody notices her -- so easy to miss, this one.
Grace is wearing jeans with a red suede coat, all sharply cut. Looks like it would go well with a poet's ruffly shirt, except that she has no such thing. Instead, there's some sort of gray turtleneck underneath it (because Grace and fashion do not mix at all. Be thankful that the coat is beautiful).
One thing that Sera might notice (since Grace always travels with this thing, would never leave home without it) is the lack of a laptop bag slung over her shoulder.

gatekeeper
The cross (because let's be honest and call it like it is; it's a cross) is tall, but perhaps not so much for what you might consider for a scarecrow post.  It stands about eight feet high, and the creature's feet nearly touch the ground, making it perhaps seven and a half feet.  It is dressed not in old clothes with a sack face and hay stuck out where its hands and feet would be, though it is also clearly not a human being.  It's too thin for any sort of living creature and getting close enough to see its downturned face reveals a blank, vaguely mishappenly-carved block of wood.  It's hands are melded directly into the crosspost and held up by spikes under the elbows; it is dressed in a dark trenchcoat and a black stovetop hat, with velvety dark pants and a dress shirt under the coat.  Heavy-soled boots cover its feet.
It stands motionless as the mages look its way.  Just your average, everyday, public park scarecrow, right?

Grace Evans
[she definitely can feel*]
Alexander Brandt
Alexander follows Sera, quietly, a little cautiously.  He’s starting to feel new, strange things around him.  The feeling you get from a storm circling, of pressure and static and potential.   Something else shifting.  And the more familiar, resonance coming from Sera.  Two new people, now that the angles changed a little on the walk towards them.  Hopefully they’re ok.  He only had Sera’s word to go on.  He’s a step of two behind, slowing.
And that scarecrow...  “Should that look... feel..  That thing isn’t right.”  He gestures towards it with the hand carrying his helmet.

Kalen Holliday
A Cultist who was so exhausted the day before she looked about to dissolve while she offered him tamales, a soon-to-be Virtual Adept without access to technology, what he can only guess is the newly Awakened Mage he heard about yesterday, and a crippled Flambeau.  Exactly the group that he'd choose for today's adventures.
No.  It really isn't.  Look.  There is a God.  Kalen knows that.  And he really wishes God had seen fit to fucking send Pan.
"Sera," he murmurs to Grace.  He waves a hand in Sera's direction, not to greet Sera but to indicate that Grace should head in her direction.  He clearly intends to continue up to the scarecrow.  And then he starts murmuring in another language all together.
[Prime: Watch the Weaving - WP - D=3 (wFocus)]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (6, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Serafi­ne
There's blood on her tongue.  In her mouth, sluicing around in her saliva.  It isn't the blood that brings her here though, that spikes open the crown of her skull and gives her access to the lines-of-things, the magic beneath the skin of the world.  It's the pain.  Here's Sera, fucking macchiato in one hand, and a kretek in the other, inhaling a lungful of smoke, exhaling again, spicy-sweet, mostly through her nostrils.  She is not wearing heels today so Alexander, in his leathers, towers over her diminutive form.  That hardly matters, as she walks as if she requires more space in the world than almost anyone.
Right now, she's walking toward a scarecrow in a deserted park, flanked by a newly awakened mage.
"The girl with him is Grace," Sera remarks, companionably.  Her sunglasses just flash as she gives Alexander a look.  Or possible a Look.  There he is, swimming over the reflective surface of her lenses.  "She's an apprentice too.  Woke up last summer.
"Likes computers."  Affection in her voice.  Sera's blond head tips backwards, pulls from Alex to the scarecrow and back again.
"That thing came from elsewhere."  They are rocking up behind Kalen and Grace now, aren't they.  Sera's voice, rough with morning and cigarettes, but not with nightmares.  Oh Grace, come see Serafíne, and she will see that you sleep and sleep and sleep.  Sera is speaking to all three of the others, glancing at their faces, light flashing off her sunglasses.  "The way a luna moth emerges from its coccoon, pieces of the otherplace still flaking off it.  Don't you think?
"Quintessence all around it; but whatever it is wasn't Willed.  Maybe it just Is.
"Grace, Kalen.  This is Alexander.  He's new."  A brief flash of a look toward Grace.  This brief, brimming, heartbreaking sort of smile.  "Last Thursday new."

gatekeeper
[[Oogly boogly.]]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )

gatekeeper
Grace hangs back as Sera and Alexander approach her, and Kalen moves forward to get a closer loook.  As the mages exchange words and Sera expounds about the scarecrow's nature, there is a slow creaking sound that comes from the figure as its neck straightens, its head lifts up.  There is no face with which to look, but it seems to have turned its attention to regard the trio of mages behind, then the approaching Hermetic.
"You are of the Traditions?"  The voice that asks is completely neutral in terms of gender, and where it comes from specifically in its face can't be discerned.  "I request...assistance.  You can help me, perhaps.   Will you...help?"
There is no motion in its body other than the movement of its neck.  It is directed primarily at the closest mage, but at all of the others as well.  It's addressing them as a group.

Alexander Brandt
Alexander follows Sera to the other two, doing a creditable impression of a rabbit caught in headlights.  The way she introduces them, fondly, helps a little.  His shoulders sink a little as he relaxes – maybe it’s a cycle heading towards him, rather than a truck.  The half smile returns as he meets Grace’s gaze.  Kalen is already heading away.
“Nice to meet you, Grace.”  He would hold out a hand in greeting but, well, they’re both rather full at the moment.  So there’s a moment of wondering how to free one, followed by a nod instead.  “And you, Kal...”  His voice drifts off as the man walks away, towards the wrong scarecrow.
Then the fucking scarecrow turns and speaks.  Nope, that’s definitely another 18-wheeler heading towards the scared little rabbit.  Alexander starts taking steps back, away from the strange object.  Quietly, he asks Grace, “What are the Traditions?”  Yes, he really is that new.  Maybe Grace starts to feel a little more seasoned now that she’s no longer the new kid on the block.  Regardless of what the answer is, or who answers, or even if he gets an answer, he’s staying well back and just watching.

Kalen Holliday
The scarecrow starts to move.  Speaks.  The hand that isn't on his cane twitches once, about to reach reflexively for something before Kalen forces himself to take a breath and go still.  He is between the thing and the people he needs to protect.  The thing is asking for help.
He meets the thing's eyes.  Or perhaps he meets the place where the thing's eyes would be.
He breathes out softly.
"That answer may depend on what you need.  Elaborate...?"  His eyes stay on the scarecrow, but he pulls out a cigarette, puts it in his mouth, tucks the cigarettes back into his pocket to grab a lighter.  That deliberate eye contact continues as he lights the cigarette.  He does not wave the fire about, does not try to light up a torch, nothing like that.  He just wants fire ready to answer if he calls to it.
If the thing knows...well...he'd prefer the thing knows.  He wants it to focus on him if it's coming after them, after all.

Grace Evans
Grace, her eyes widen a bit at Sera's proclamation of "Thursday". Just as the Cultist once introduced Grace to people as "Wednesday".
"Nice to meet you," she says to Alexander, but she is quite distracted, and her eyes jolt back to Kalen and the scarecrow.
"It feels... almost like it's not even there, doesn't it? Otherplace, yeah... What is it?" she asks, though likely none can really answer.
And then it speaks. And Grace steps back a few with Alex, yep. What?
He wants to know about Traditions? And they're facing a talking crucified scarecrow? "It's uh... We are, kind of, the Traditions," she whispers. "Like a club for the cool people."
So, it's more complicated than that, of course. But there are times and places, no?
[Perception 3 + Subterfuge 2 = Really, Scarecrow? You hiding something?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

gatekeeper
[[It's difficult to be certain; what are the signs of deception in a largely motionless, faceless creature?  But as near as she can tell, the scarecrow is not being deceitful.]]

Serafi­ne
Sera can feel everything.  Assuredly, she can feel the lick of resonance from Kalen, as he begins to Watch.  She inhales.  She exhales.  She takes another drag off that cigarette.  The last drag.  Nicotine constricts her blood vessels.  She's only a little bit high.  She's already a little bit high.
Everything is right and everything is wrong with the world.
--
A slow blink, not precisely lazy, towards Alexander and Grace.  Then she slips around them, her blond curls moving all sinuous-over her shoulders and spine.  Sera wets her lip and she is not thinking like Kalen, see.  She puts out her cigarette, because it is spent.  Pinches off the remaining bit of tobacco and boot-stomps the flame and flicks the butt toward a perfectly convenient recepticle as she slips up behind Kalen.  He can feel her there, too.  He can see her shadow.  He can feel her magic, the way it licks the air.
For now, she lets Kalen speak.  Sera just studies the thing, her chin lifted, the cloudcast sky moving over the surface of her glasses.  She might give it a little peace sign, but you know.  She does that alot.
Time 2: How Did You Get Here, Mr. Scarecrow.  (Difficulty: 5.  -2 difficulty, merit.)
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )

gatekeeper
Alexander backs up, and understandably so.  After all, he's still new to this world.  He hasn't encountered things like ghuls or Hydra viruses, no Nephandi or Technocrats or Umbrood that feed off of fear and madness.  These are all new things to him.  It falls upon Grace to do explanations for him as Kalen, ever the cavalier, steps forward and tries to put the creature's focus on him.  And Serafine comes up behind him, working her magic to see what she can sense about when and how it showed up.
"I need to deliver a message," it intones in that voice, pitched between tenor and alto.  It's a rich sound, almost metallic.  You could imagine it as robotic if it was metal in any way.  Perhaps its the voice that mannequins use when they come to life after hours in department stores and dance and play and do dark things in dark corners.  "Indeed, I have been charged with a most important message, if you will allow me to deliver it unto you."

Serafi­ne
"He showed up sometime between midnight and 1 a.m.," remarks Sera.  She says this quietly, says it with surety, says it assuredly.   Says it loud enough for every single one of them to hear.   She is still tired, Serafíne, so she takes another sip of macchiato.  This does little for her exhaustion, which is metaphysical rather than physical, but better than it was this night last.
"No one put him there; he just appeared.  Haven't been any visitors really at all this morning, either."  As she speaks, she is looking at the frame of Kalen's shoulder, the curve of his ear.  She cheats her head a bit so that Grace and Alexander can hear her.  So that they can see her awareness of them.
Sera, god, she doesn't know what she's doing.
That never stops her.
"We'll help you if we can."  She says, and, " - Who sent you?   what's your name?"

Kalen Holliday
Kalen takes a drag off the cigarette while Sera speaks, breathes out smoke.  He reaches back and sideways to put his hand lightly against the front curve of Sera's ribs to prevent her getting between him and the scarecrow.  Grace and Alexander are staying back.  Excellent.  Unless the scarecrow has a friend.  He glances back at them and returns his attention to the scarecrow.
"And who is the message for?"
Alexander Brandt
Times and places for everything, indeed.  But if Alexander is going to be bundled in with these “Traditions” he should at least know if he is one or not.  Alexander, here, has been in some stressful situations –arguments, arrests, brawls, firefights.  But they always involved people.  People he knew, understood to an extent.  And there were always more people with bigger guns to lend their support.  Today?  He’s effectively unarmed, and these people  - who he barely knows – are his backup.
He can feel reality being pulled and tugged by the two Mages in front, even if he has no idea what it is they’re actually doing.  But nothing dramatic seems to be happening so far.  No rifts into who-knows-where, no funky arcing visions, no freezing of trucks before...  Yeah, nothing like that.   Just a conversation between these people and a scarecrow.
Yeah, a scarecrow.  Nothing weird there, right?  Without anything of his own to add, he stands and watches.  That rabbit’s ready to run, though.  The coffee cools in his hand.

Grace Evans
Oh shit. First, it's 'Are you of the Traditions? help me'? And then it's 'delivering a message'? Messages can be delivered via bullets, can't they? Yeah, no, you lying sack of straw.
Maybe it heard her explaining things to Alexander, maybe it's decided Traddies aren't cool. In any case, she grabs Alexander and tries to drag him away he will be dragged. If not, she's going to find some cover at least. She's careful, this one, and been through way too much to bother with stupid talking robot scarecrows from somewhere else.
"Shit, let's get out of here, man, that thing is scaring me."

gatekeeper
[[Oogly boogly the other thing, diff is the Gauntlet.]]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace Evans
[Dex 3 + Stealth 2 + Whatever bonuses 2 Arcane give you]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Grace Evans
[tries to drag him away IF he will be dragged == what the hell is it with me and skipping words today?]

gatekeeper
We'll help you if we can.  At those words, the figure bobs its head slightly with a creak of its neck.  It is assent, in its mind(?) and it tilts its head slightly when Sera asks who sent it and what it's name is, when Kalen asks who the message is for.
"Your answers will be easier for me to answer on the other side."
Oh dear.  That doesn't sound good.  For the four gathered mages, they feel their perceptions ripple a little.  They feel a sense like a thickness surrounding them...its like moving through pudding at first, the membrane on the top parting ways to make way for them.  Their vision goes blurry, and then
The pain hits.
It's not so bad for Alexander and Grace...more like an ache that takes hold deep inside their persons.  It's like the pounding of a bad headache, only it is not centered on their cranium but around the whole of their being.  Kalen has it worse, like a thousand little pinpicks on his soul, tingling and biting shallowly.  For Sera, the most enlightened of them all, it's the worst.  She feels a heat bursting through her being; it's active pain shooting through her nerve endings as synapses flare.  They all hear sounds in their ears; indistinct voices, screams, gibbering as they pass through the Avatar Storm and feel their own souls make connections with the shards of countless others, razed into fragments of consciousness by the Reckoning.  This is the danger of passing through the Gauntlet, though through some matter of luck (or protection, perhaps?) they are not actually injured.  The Gauntlet is particularly weak here; it is a Shallowing, and their guide manages to keep them safe from too much harm.
When their senses come back into focus, they are...elsewhere.  Mountain peaks loom high over them, further almost than they can see.  They are standing on a wide and deep ledge looking over a valley of jagged rocks and primal wilderness.  The path continues up the mountain as well, toward what looks like a honeycomb of caves.  The sky is covered with a blanket of clouds, behind which a deep crimson light pokes out.  And behind them...
Oh yeah.  Him.
The scarecrow is no longer a scarecrow.  It wears the same clothes, but it stands on the ledge towering behind them.  In this world, it looks almost angelic, glowing with a faint white light.  Gender is still impossible to tell, but the features are human and a pair of owl wings extend from its back.  It looks faintly apologetic, smiling in a sad way.
"Thank you for coming," it says in that same strange voice.

Grace Evans
"Oh my fucking... what..." Grace says, once her sight returns. She's not where she was. No, this is like nowhere she's ever seen. Otherplace? Like they've all been copy-pasted into a new reality?
(Is that what it feels like to have your bits shifted? Bodyaching?)
"Kalen, what is this?" she asks, breathless, because this is one question that she won't be able to answer herself.
"And, and who are you!?" she asks the 'scarecrow' which is not. Owl-angel-dude-lady.

Kalen Holliday
Avatars like marble sculptures shattered.  He can feel the shards flying in the howling wind that is less wind and more the force of their last screams.  Echoing.  Endless.  The fragments of stone tell him nothing of what shapes they once knew.  He knows that they must have all been as beautiful once as they are lost now.
Kalen does not scream.  He sways, makes no attempt to keep his balance, and drops to crouched on the ground.  He can't really spring anymore, but he is positioned as though he can, less posturing and more muscle memory.  Grace finds her voice first.  Of course she does.  She doesn't feel it as keenly.  She does not know how terrible the truth is.
"Welcome to the Umbra," Kalen says, and he is breathless too.  Quiet.  "Spirit lands.  Are you all alright?"
He doesn't look at them though, he turns his attention back to the owl-thing.  Wariness wars with sheer wonder in his eyes.  He doesn't say anything to it just yet.

Alexander Brandt
Alexander hears Grace’s fright, but doesn’t look round as she grabs his arm.  He is draggable, although maybe a little reluctant as his sense to curiosity battles the sense of whatthefuckrunaway!  So he’s moving away as they step... No, are dragged through the looking glass.  Maybe there’s that familiar sound of rain, and a muttering of voices as they pass through.  Is this what would have happened if he’d managed to jump down that rabbit hole?  Well, he’ll never know.
All he does know for those moments is that it hurts!  Maybe he screams, it’s hard to tell.  But he sees Sera on her knees.  Maybe she’s screaming, maybe she’s too lost in her agony to make a sound.  Kalen may well be in a similar state but, well, he knows Sera a little better.  There may not be anywhere to run to here, but he can certainly try to drag here away from that thing.  His eyes are wide, his breathing’s fast and shallow, and he is completely out of his depth.  But maybe he'll get between that thing and Sera.
She pulled him from the bring, now it's his turn.

Alexander Brandt
[[Brink, even]]

Serafi­ne
Sera is stopped up short by that hand on her ribs; her sunglasses a reflective brace as she shoots Kalen a look, which lasts longer than her earlier moment of regard, and takes in his profile at close range, outlined by the receding vista of the empty park.  Well, Kalen's bar is enough; Sera does not try to get in front of him and her survey of his expression is cut short by the creaking sound of movement from the scarecrow looming over them and now her breath comes more sharply because Sera can feel the way the world is moving around them;  the thickness, the rippling perception, the way her vision starts to pull -
There are no words for what comes next.  Nothing to encompass the many ways in which Sera is shattered and stitched together once again; nothing  encompass the searing pain, the unheralded loss, the fucking wreckage of the storm through which their are pulled, and they are pulled through from Here to Elsewhere and they are pulled through cleanly, right?  intact.  Sheltered, even, and ushered from here to there and wrecked, and wracked, and wretched, and somehow they come through, and Sera has dropped to her knees from the pain and the loss, and she's breathing heavily, shoulders curving in on themselves, the sharp cut of her collarbones a delicate frame beneath her skin.
It is all she can do to breathe.

gatekeeper
The good thing for Kalen and Sera (and Grace and Alexander too, of course) is that the pain fades away quickly.  The memory of it is still there and it tingles in their mind and their limbs, leaving a bit of ache in their bones that is the closest approximation their minds can have for razors finding purchase in their own Avatars.
That winged being with seraphic features waits for them to come into themselves and acclimate to their surroundings.  There's a rumbling in the sky and the redness brightens like rolling lightning, trying to burst through the clouds.  It casts illumination on the land below them, puts the caves above into an ominous scarlet relief.
"You have questions," it says calmly.  "And I have some answers.  I am a message from the Archmagi Anastasius Spyridon, bani Celestial Chorus.  The archmagus has been trapped in this realm since the worlds were sundered from each other by the Reckoning, and has managed to survive for eons.  But his time draws to a close and he created me in order to bring others here, so that he could impart his knowledge unto them.  He welcomes you to the realm he has named Purgatory and asks that you come to speak with him."
There is a pause there, and a distinctly human-looking knitting of his brows as if it is confused by something.  But it shakes it off and folds its hands, waiting patiently for the others to respond.

Grace Evans
She nods to Kalen when she's asked if she's alright, because well, it's better than her explaining exactly how not alright she is. Less pain-wracked, more confused and scared than anything. Is anyone alright when the world gets pulled out from under them?
"Sera," Grace says, once she figures out that perhaps this owl-thing has done something somewhat worse to her friend. Grace goes to her, kneels on the ground with her, reaches out and gives her one of those so Grace-like, mechanical, stilted hugs. Because she knows Sera, and Sera likes these things. "Are you okay?"
She looks up at the owl-angel again, confusion writ on her face. She knows Celestial Chorus, she knows the name of Purgatory. She doesn't know about the Reckoning, or worlds sundering, or Kalen's name from this place.

Grace Evans
[name from this place = name for this place]

Alexander Brandt
So Kalen welcomes them to the spirit lands.  Crouching between Sera and the owl-winged-scarecrow-thing (why is it always owls?), he takes his first proper look around.  At the ledge, the path, the distant caves.  There is somewhere to run to, but would there be much point?  For all he knows, there could be a whole family of owl-winged-scarecrow-things just waiting up there for them.
The fancy names mean nothing to Alexander.  Is Anastasius is a name or another title?   Bani something-or-other, fancy sounding but essentially meaningless words.  Purgatory rings a bell, but his knowledge of religion is slim – the subject never really seemed to be relevant.  But isn’t that something to do with endless pain and torment before going to hell?  Or was it heaven?  Either way, it’s probably not a great place to be.  Especially when it isn't by choice, and they have no control over whether they can get out of here or not.
They are offered answers.  Perhaps the most pressing one to him at the moment is, “What happens if we say no?”  The rabbit finds its voice.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen looks to Alexander and Grace with Sera and smiles faintly.  "It's alright, Alexander.  It's alright.  Just help her."
He looks back to the creature and nods.
He rises, slowly and perhaps a bit unsteadily.  "Very well.  I suppose it is time we meet the Archmagi Anastasius Spyridon, then.  I assume that you will take us to him?"

Serafi­ne
And yet, she can breathe.  Sera comes to rather more slowly than the rest.  Perhaps it is the lick of time around her; the way she plays with it, the way it plays with her.  She's fine; she's fine, she will be fine, and what the fuck happened to her macchiato?  Maybe it fell to the ground in the park; maybe it was torn apart by the rending, rended souls beyond the skin of the world, maybe -
- she can breathe.  She's fine.
Alexander gets in front of her; is already thinking about dragging her off to safety, whatever Safety might be, and that makes Sera breathe out a sharp, hard breath when she finally begins to master herself, to acclimate, to find the space in the center of her body where she Is, and remember that she Is, and perhaps in some way that she always will Be.
And here is Grace beside her; Grace's arms stiff around her shoulders, Grace's strange warmth and voice in her ear.  Sera reaches up to wrap her fingers around Grace's wrist, the point of contact where Grace's arms come together around Sera's shoulders; the point of sundering and transition.
Her breath comes more steadily now.  The pain is gone; the echo remains.  The lingering verdure of ruin is metallic on her tongue.
Sera's fingers remain wrapped around Grace's arm, and Sera is climbing rather slowly to her feet and naturally pulling Grace with her, and it feels heron-like, like a heron-awakening, the way Sera climbs upright as if coming into herself again, as if waking, if not Waking.  This small, residual shiver down her spine from the memory of the storm.
Sera reaches out then, unlacing her fingers from Grace's, and gives Alexander a brief, grateful squeeze on the meat of his right shoulder.  The contact does not linger.  She remembers how far apart from her he stood, the night he Woke.
"I'm going too.  But I want your pledge, no matter what happens, that you'll see our Apprentices safely back to where you found us, through the storm."

gatekeeper
The creature cocks its head in response to Alexander's question, as if not understanding why someone might say no.  It's not pretense, either...everything in this oddly angelic being dressed in a top hat, a cheap suit and a trenchcoat indicates that it never comprehended the possibility that someone might.  "I don't understand," it says in response to the newest of the Awakened among them, and means it.
Its head then pivots toward Kalen and Sera; the former says they will go, and the latter asks for a pledge.  The creature smiles a bit, without most of the sadness that it carried when it first greeted them in this Umbral realm.  It folds its hands and dips its upper body in a subserviant bow.  "Your safety is my primary concern, magus.  Each of you...whether Master, Disciple, Initiate or Apprentice...I promise that my very existence from this point forward is in order to ferry you safely home."
The concord struck, he begins to walk ahead of them, moving to head up the mountain path that winds its way around the mountain path.  "Do be careful.  The fall would be most dangerous."

Serafi­ne
"Come on," says Sera, with a bit of residual ache in her voice, in her body, in her bones.  She is not unused to strange hallucinations; she has climbed mountains before, even in her dreams.  She says that to Grace and Alexander, and perhaps even to Kalen, and holds out her hand for whomever will take it.
The pain in her chest like a cracked sternum.
Remember, this is where your heart lies.
A flicker of her gaze up the hill; the rising path.
Back to Kalen. His cane, the lame leg.  This shadow of concern over her features.  "If your leg hurts, I could try to take the pain away.  Somehow make it easier to climb."

Kalen Holliday
Kalen glances at the drop off the edge of the mountain path.  It would be dangerous.  He looks back to Sera but she is standing now.  And if she does look unsteady...well.  He knows Grace.  If Sera needs help, she'll have it.
He takes a deep breath and starts up the path after the creature.  Slowly.  Deliberately.
Perhaps they should not have discussed taking Alexander hiking.  Perhaps he should have caught the delightful new Mage who could command the Ars Vitae and and kissed him until they were both dizzy and then discussed the possibility of fixing this.  And there is Sera, offering to help.
Oh, Denver.  Drawing Magi and martyrs like moths to flame.
He pauses and unclenches his jaw and smiles for her.  "I'm fine, Sera.  It's alright."

Grace Evans
At least the thing didn't attack them. At least it wasn't a robot sent to kill them all. It could have been, Grace thinks. But instead, it drops them in the 'Umbra' and says its concern is for their safety. Riiight.
This place, it is strange, so alien and rather unkind to get to. The only thing she believes about the angel's pronouncements is that the fall from the path would be dangerous.
But she grabs Kalen's hand (for mutual stability on the path up the mountain) and prepares to follow it anyway. There doesn't seem to be much of a choice. It's their guide back to home. The only other option is to stay here.

Alexander Brandt
Alexander is watching this strange creature, so flinches ever so slightly at the unexpected touch from behind.  Then the touch is gone and he looks round to watch Sera offer her deal.  Safe passage back for... he guesses him and Grace.  Before he can question it, and agreement is made.  Safe passage for all of them:  Does he trust it?  About as far as he can throw this realm.
Regardless, the deal has been made.  Sera and Kalen are obviously going to follow, and the prospect of being abandoned here doesn’t appeal in any way whatsoever.  There may be hell to face, but at least he can face it with these people.  At least two of them seem to know what they’re doing, or are doing a good enough job at bluffing to keep him convinced.  With no idea how else to get home, he follows.

Serafi­ne
Dex + Athletics
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Alexander Brandt
[Sta+Ath]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 2

Grace Evans
[Sta 3+ Ath 1, diff 7 = This path is sooo long! Spending WP because do not want to botch and fall off]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 5, 5, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Kalen Holliday
[Stamina/Athletics D=8]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

gatekeeper
The walk is not a short one.  Not in the slightest.  They feel like they are walking for hours, and maybe they are.  And the grade of the slope isn't consistent; it rises sometimes, then evens out.  Sometimes they have to descend for a short while.  But it's not literal mountain climbing, which is a bonus; it isn't like they have a lot of mountaineering equipment.
One thing that they do not have to worry about is the fall, however.  They have no reason to trust the message given life, but it remains true to its work.  When the path narrows less than six feet wide, it takes off into the air with its powerful wings and circles underneath them, just in case one of them might or lose their footing.  The speed with which it ascends suggests that should they fall at any moment, it would be capable of dive bombing quickly enough to catch them before they crashed against the jagged rock below.
Occasionally rumbling and cracking sounds come from the valley below them as they travel.  If they are brave enough to look over the edge, they may be lucky enough to see the coil of something vast serpentine entity rise above the wilderness canopy before disappearing below.  Occasionally bird-like creatures can be seen ascending, and far, far off in the distance they spy an avian creature that can't possibly be the size they suspect it to be...
Can it?
Eventually though, they come to the mouth of the first cave.  The Sending steps back and bows once more to the four.
"The archmagus awaits you within."
Deep within the care, a light can be seen flickering.

gatekeeper
[[Deep within the CAVE]]

Grace Evans
None of them fall, and the angel is at least wearing the edge of of Grace's suspicions with its aerial antics.
Still. Aerial antics? Shouldn't be possible. Humans can't fly with wings, they're too heavy. Or maybe this thing has hollow bones, maybe that's why it's so thin. But Grace hadn't seen an actual angel before today. This is heavy-style weirdness. And the knot in her stomach has her hand sweating a bit in Kalen's. Maybe she holds on a bit too tight.
But she concentrates anyway on that not falling bit. Doesn't let go.
Well, Kalen, you did want to go somewhere else for Spring Break, right? Although they certainly won't be able to talk about this in a restaurant in public. Too sad.

Alexander Brandt
The road is long, as the song goes.  Long, hilly, but certainly bearable.  If anyone had told Alexander that he’d be hiking through the spirit realms, that would have been somewhere down the list of likely activities for today.  Somewhere below thinking the person doing the telling was nuts and moving away swiftly.
For the climb, things seem ok.  There’s no obvious and immediate risk of death, and he starts to relax.  Maybe not enjoy it, but at least this is something he can deal with.  Curiosity itching away, especially with the sounds coming from below, Alexander does indeed peer over the edge.  He watches the creatures for a few minutes, while the four of them rest.  Watching one of the serpents surface and disappear , he asks Sera, “Is that what would have been on the other side before?”  Then, another thought...  I thought you couldn’t see any of this stuff before?”
At the end of the hike, by the flickering cave, he fades into the back of the group again.  Let the others lead, and hope they know what they’re doing.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen looks over the edge.  He looks at the massive distant avian creature.  He watches, with no lack of longing, the way their guide can fly.  His teeth are clenched and his breathing is a bit labored, but his eyes are all wonder.  Not even peering over the edge into a long fall and a serpentine monster at the end of it does he show any sign of fear.
He has to pause to breathe before he can answer their guide.  "Thank you."  It is another few breaths before his expression smooths over and some of the evident tension eases from his posture.
And then he is ambling in to meet an Archmagus.  Relaxed and calm as though being dragged into the Umbra to meet a Mage so much more powerful than he is happens to him on most Sundays between church and his fourth round of coffee.
He lets Grace keep his hand.

Serafi­ne
Sera does brave the edges; Sera looks everywhere.  The sunglasses are perhaps necessary, and she does not think to wonder how they are made.  Are they thought made matter, word made flesh, the lingering memory from the most superficial cells of her skin, given voice and shadow and weight and shape.  She is wearing sunglasses.  She is god knows where.  She is climbing.  There are others with her, and a winged creature flanking her, as she crosses the most dangerous scrabbles.
Slight as she is, Sera does have some staying power.  She'd have to, considering the manners in which she abuses the body the world gave her.  The drugs she takes, the hours she keeps, the strangers who are not strangers with whom she sleeps.  The way she throws herself into the each and every moment she inhabits, as if it were the only one in the world.
They climb.  They climb, and she falls into the rhythm of the toil of it and the truth is she is a lazy little monster, and not much given to toiling, but her body remembers it and she remembers her body; finds the echo of her heartbeat in her ears, opens and closes with the bellows of her lungs.
Watches the sky and the creatures rising against it; glances up and up; wonders if that constriction or the lessened oxygen or is there even oxygen or does Sera know what oxygen actually is, except: necessary.
At the crest of the hill, at the mouth of the cave, Sera finally stops.  Stretches, stretches deliciously.  God she's languid, tired.  She thinks, briefly, fondly, of Natalee, then glances at Alexander as he asks his question.  His questions.  Shakes her head quietly, glancing off over the verge of the mountains.
"I doubt this is where you would've gone.  Could've been anywhere.  Probably more places out here that anyone has ever been able to name or know or imagine."  A brief, lancing look at their nameless companion, with the owl wings, and the tophat.  "Anyone human, anyway.
"And no, I couldn't see it, then.  Someone here though, someone here wants me to."
Echoing Kalen, Sera thanks the guide.  Her eyes linger on its face.  "You never told me your name."  And she waits for a moment to give it time to do so; then she ducks into the mouth of the cave, giving Alexander this little head-tip by way of invitation to come after.

gatekeeper
The creature opens its mouth as if to speak when Sera asks its name, then pauses.  It seems perplexed again, as if it should know the answer but cannot seem to conjure it forth.  There's a moment when it seems suddenly, supremely, heartbreakingly sad without even being sure why.  And then, with a blink of its eyes, its coutenence smooths and it smiles to the Cultist.
"I am simply The Message.  No more, no less."
Kalen is first in the cave, because of course he is.  That is the Hermetic's nature; should anything in there be a threat, it is the Flambeau who must face it down.  Particularly with two new magi there who may not be able to defend themselves.  Then Sera, and then Alexander and Grace.  As they venture their way in, they realize two things.
The first is that the light is deep, deep in the back.  The cave extends in easily 100 feet, and there are fissures in the rock which provide narrow passageways into the other caves up this far.  It is just light enough that they can make out their surroundings and not walk into the walls, but not so bright that they have a clear idea of what's around them, except for above.  The stone floor is unsurprisingly uneven in spots and it's a good thing Sera left those nine inch heels at home or she'd be getting carried out of here.
The other thing that is realized is that there is, to be frank, something wrong in here.  The air is bone-dry and stale; no water gets this far in, if it even rains here at all.  (Sure, you might think that it rains considering the vegetation below, but what are the rules for vegetation in a realm with a red sky?)  The flame, as they draw closer, appears to illuminate a makeshift living space of some sort, cobbled together from the flotsam and jetsam scavenged from whatever realms the archmagus may have been able to travel to.  There is no immediate sign of an individual without drawing close enough to investigate, and certainly no archmagus, although ancient protective magics tingle on their senses, weak but still resonanting to their senses.

Grace Evans
[Perception+Alertness = Is anyone here?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Alexander Brandt
[Per+Alert too - what's in those fissures?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 7, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )

Serafi­ne
Kalen enters first; Sera is just behind him.  Speaking with the angel at the mouth of the cave, asking the most simply of truths.  She's sweaty, breathing hard, her chin lifted with a certain expectancy as she asks the creature its name.
Which it does not remember.
Or perhaps, which it never knew.
Sera makes a noiseless noise, just this sound in the back of her throat, and rises to her tiptoes and reaches for the angellic being's chin.  Which she cups,  with a certain care.  Her eyes close, and she kisses The Message, a reverence that feels like benediction embedded in the very matrix of her skin.
"The Message."  That is a perfectly reasonable name, too.  "Thank you."
---
Inside the cave, Sera catches her breath.  Bites her tongue and begins to hum, really, this low sound vibrant in her throat, the melody of song she does not remember singing, but always recalls in her bones.
[Mind/Prime/Life scan.  Difficulty: 4  -1 for specialty focii.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (5, 5, 6) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday
Kalen continues deeper into the cave.  It is not that he has no understanding of the meaning of caution, just that the time and place for caution is generally not when you've been dragged into the Umbra to meet an Archmage.  There may be some schools of thought that would cling to caution and wariness, but at a certain point you are so far out of your depth their is no longer any point to focusing on your survival.  You just have to own your mortality.  Your fear.
And then you transcend it.
You transcend everything.
It is their fucking birthright, this transcendence.  Beautiful and holy and so pure it is breath-taking.
He has to remember to breathe.  Or does he?  Is there even oxygen here?
God, Kalen.  Focus.
"Archmagus Anastasius Spyridon," he says, his voice clear and not at all hesitant.  "We are honored at this invitation to make your acquaintance."

Alexander Brandt
As Sera replies to his question about where he could have ended up would have ended up if he had managed to step into oblivion, he shivers noticeably.  The thought of ending up somewhere in here, alive, stranded, at the mercy of who knows what?  It’s not a happy thought.  He takes a breath, looks into the mirrors masking her eyes and says quietly, “thank you.”
And then they arrive outside the cave.  The intense sadness catches him unexpectedly, and he wonders if the thing is... well, lonely.  Can a construction feel that?  Well, he guesses, why not.  It seems like more and more is possible each passing day.  “How long have you been here?  How long have you been alone?”  You: The Message?  You: The pair of them.  Either.  Both.  Thought that it’s losing itself resonates with him.  He had the same thoughts not too long ago, and is only just starting to work on finding an answer to the question: who am I?
Into the cave they head, leaving the creature behind.  The fissures, dim and dark as they are, snag his attention.  Wary again, from the dim light and the claustrophobic space, that something might be creeping up on them.  The feeling of wrong grates at him again, so he stays back a way.  Trying to stick to the shadows.

Grace Evans
Sera, the Serafine, she kisses angels. It would make sense to her. Grace is a bit awed, don't you know, by the Cultist she likes, or maybe loves in her way. "Thanks, The Message," she says, and offers him (her? it?) a slight smile before ducking into the cave.
The very wrong cave, dry and ancient and so empty of anything but the most ancient-seeming remnants of a life. Like someone lived here, once upon a time. Someone Worked here, once upon a time, the bones of the place remembering it.
Kalen speaks to the air, and Grace looks for clues as to where the Archmagus may have gone. Maybe The Message was too long in arriving.

gatekeeper
The Message smiles warmly when it is kissed by Sera, and bows its head in appreciation.  When Alexander questions it, it spreads its hands.
"I was created by the Archmagus to specifically to retrieve those who would meet with him, and left immediately after.  I was..."  He frowns some.  "...delayed slightly in finding you.  The wall between worlds was stronger than the Archmagus imagined.  It took some number of hours to find a spot in which the barrier was shallow enough to pass through, and when I did so..."
It shakes its head.  "It was not easy.  But no matter.  You are here now."
Grace and Alexander go different ways; Grace doing a general sweep to figure out whether there's actually anyone in here, and Alex moving to poke around the fissures.  The newly-Awake police officer finds that the spaces cut through in the wall lead into other tunnels, but there is no immediate evidence that there is anything on the other side.  Most of them are too narrow to pass through; the ones that are not would take some great amount of time to properly explore.
Kalen's greeting bounces off the cavern walls and echoes.  Sera senses about for the building blocks of life, any sign of the consciousness and Prime, the very building blocks of the universe.  She senses none of the former two, although she does pick up on the latter.  There is a shell placed around this cavern, protecting those within from spirits via a powerful (if slowly fading) Ban.  There are also several Charms of various kinds littered through the small living area; over the makeshift workbench and on the cot.  On the ground as well.  Most of them are long-since expended and yet still carry slight sparks of Resonance, perhaps because of their presence on this side of the Gauntlet.  Some few of them are still active.  The flame that flickers is magically sustained as well, and probably will not last much longer.
It is Grace, searching, who comes across it.  She searches while Kalen speaks and Sera scans, and she finds the collection of bones long-since gone.  It was once a man and it is dressed in crumbled rags, having fallen out of the bed toward the back and out of immediate in what were probably its final moments.  There's no way that it hasn't been dead for centuries, if not longer, as clean as the bones are.  It is clutching to a book, bound in leather, which bears the name of Archmagus Anastasius Spyridon, bani Celestial Chorus, on the front amidst some Latin.

Grace Evans
"I... I found him," Grace says, sadness touching her words. The bones of an archmage lie here, not an actual archmage. But he did find a way to pass on his knowledge, in a way, didn't he?
"There's a book. I think he meant us to find it."
Of course he did, right? Must have. This is how messages are sent across time: you write them. The magic in the room is fading, but the book won't. Unless...
"Don't touch it, it might crumble if we're not careful."

Alexander Brandt
The fissures apparently safe enough – for the moment, at least – Alexander joins the others further inside.  He starts to say that there’s nothing back there, but the words fall away as he sees what Grace uncovers.  The Message too late in arriving – its sender already long dead.  The thought saddens him – there are no words.
He squats down by Grace and runs his eye over what little is left of the man.  It’s doubtful whether there’s much in the way of evidence left, but he can at least try to figure out if foul play was involved.  Breaks or marks in the bones where there should be any.  Not exactly his specialty, but you pick up bits and pieces.  Other than moral support, he doesn’t feel like there’s a lot else he can offer.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen comes to kneel beside the pile of bones.  His attention catches only briefly on the book.  He doesn't doubt the book's importance.  But in this moment....
Kalen reaches out and rests two fingers, very gently, on the skull at the point where a third eye would be and starts to murmur.  Not in English.  Not even in Enochian.  But in Spanish, low and soft and quiet.  Regardless of how well they understand the language, it is easily apparent that he is praying.  For a dead man he's centuries late to meet that dragged them through the Avatar Storm.
"We could Look," he says quietly after a moment.  He does not look up at Sera, but there is really no one else he is likely to be speaking to.

Serafi­ne
"No one's here," Sera's saying, and her voice echoes in the space.  Echoes and opens up and closes again.  It comes back to here.  There is nothing static in the world, but her voice tastes like regret, or loss or -
"There's magic, but its fading.  The ban that keeps out the spirits outside will not remain in place for long.
"Soon, the fire will go out. Then it will be darkness."
Her eyes darken, and her brows draw together.  Sera strips off her flannel when Grace announces that she found the magus, and Sera walks over quietly and hands the garment to whomever will take it.
"We should gather his bones.  Take him home.  Find a place where he can genuinely be laid to rest.  Pan could bury him.  You can use this to hold them."
It leaves her nearly-naked and shivering in the chill, but that's fine, just fine,  fine as anything else.
Kalen suggests that they Look.  Sera considers it; head cocked as if she were listening to an unknown song, then she sinks to a crouch beside Kalen,  settles a hand on his shoulder.  Something in her is strangely steady beneath the superficial shivers from the cold. Her hand slides down his arm and, if Kalen allows it, Sera threads her fingers through his.
Time is an illusion, the same as anything else.  It is the easiest of lies to accept, when you know nothing else.  Sera inhales; see.  Sharply.  Her hand tightens around his; fingers splayed beneath the ridges of his knuckles, the dark ink on her skin a smear in the flickering light.  Everywhere is everywhere is everything is now.
She wants to see.  So,
they look.  Back.

Serafi­ne
Time 2.  Difficulty 5:   -2 (merit!)
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 3, 10) ( success x 2 )

Kalen Holliday
"Provided we can get them across with us," Kalen says softly.  "That was my plan."
Kalen lets Sera run a hand down his arm, lets her fingers entwine with his.  He squeezes her hand lightly, But he doesn't lean into her the way he did when she ruffled his hair by way of a goodbye.  He takes his other hand off of the skull, catches up a bit of the dust nearby, and blows it gently off of his palm.
[Arete.  Time 2  D=3 (5-2)  WP]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (7, 9) ( success x 2 )

Serafíne
Extending.  Difficulty +1.
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (2, 2, 9) ( success x 1 )

Kalen Holliday
[Extend.  D= 4 (6-2) - WP]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (7, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Alexander Brandt
[Per+Inv]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

Grace Evans
[Per 3 + Crafts 2 Diff 6 = How crumbly a book?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )

gatekeeper
Grace gives the book a good looking-over.  Admittedly, bookbinding and tomes aren't her specialty, but maybe her time with Kalen and in the library has done her some good in that respect.  The book is certainly very old, but it is in remarkably good shape.  Perhaps it was magically fortified in some way to last through the many years, or perhaps the dry air has preserved it well.  Either way, she is reasonably sure that, as frail as the skeletal hands holding it are, she can take the book and it will not suffer any damage.
Alexander begins poking around, and he comes across a small cache of scrolls and various personal effects located in a sort of homemade catch on the cobbled-together workstation.  Most of the scrolls are written in Latin, but some are in German or English and from a quick scan of those he can gather these are historical documents, telling the history of a Chantry (whatever the hell that is) that was located in the south of Germany.  The trinkets are mostly small gem settings and the like, and are in poor repair from centuries of neglect here.  One of them, however, is a small faberge egg.  When he picks it up, it seems to thrum a bit and he feels warmth in his palm.  There's a renewed sense of vitality to his body, sloughing off the weariness from the long hike.
And of course, Kalen and Sera work their Arts.  Their paradigms happen to be rather compatible, all things considered, and his storm takes on her visceral, liminal enthrallment as they push Time back, to see what they can.  Everything seems to slow for a moment, and then they burst back to the past.  It's like watching the history of this little cave rewind in extreme fast forward, which frankly is dull for the first three hundred years or so.  But they can push back as much as they like with their skill in Working together, and that takes them back to the final moments of the great Archmagus.
When the time comes and they hit "Play" (or the metaphysical equivalent of it), they see the Archmagus, impossibly old as he lies on his bed.  He must be in the triple digits of age, and we mean physically, not chronologically.  God knows how old he actually is, being in a realm where he doesn't have to worry about Paradox as much.  He gets up off his bed with extreme effort...it takes him several tries until he's sitting up.  Weezing, he pulls himself up to sit on his knees and begins to pray in a mix of German and Latin.
It is a final act he commits.  Alex can get the gist of some of what he's saying; he appears to be summoning his very life force, using it to power one last Effect to bring someone to take his story and the story of his Chantry back to the world.  He sits there praying for what seems like forever, and then his body slowly crumples and falls to the ground, clutching the very book that Grace likely holds now.
For a few moments, it is still.  One might be forgiven for suspecting that, tragically, his last dying effort was for nothing.  But then a light coalesces from his body and the Message--a Sending, is what it is called--coalesces out of the body.  It bears a face that is remarkably similar (though young and idealized) to the Archmagus itself.  It doesn't pause to take stock of its situation; it was summoned for a reason.  It carries a distinctly less emotional visage, however, from the spirit that waits outside.  It stands up and strides out of the cave, presumably heading to where it will find them.  Didn't it say it only took hours?
And then, all is still.  With nothing else to see, they are back in the present.

Kalen Holliday
Kalen squeezes Sera's hand again.  "Can you reach him at all through the vision?"  He asks, his voice no more than a whisper.  "Let him know that we came?"  He glances outside toward where The Message waits.  "Or perhaps, in all the ways that matter, he knows.  Still...."
When the vision fades he reaches out to touch the skull again, very, very gently.  And then carefully he begins moving the bones onto the shirt Sera offered up for that purpose.  "We came, you know.  We'll take you to someone who can at least metaphorically take you home.  We're...not leaving you here."  Why he is talking to a pile of bones that can't hear him is anyone's guess.

Alexander Brandt
While the two experienced mages sift their way back through time, Alex finishes sifting through the drawers.  Scrolls of history – some of the language is slow to get through – phrasing and dialects naturally mutate over time – but he gets the idea.  Although without more background, the meaning of them is a little vague.  The scrolls are laid quietly on what passed for a desk.  Along with the trinkets and the strange egg – something to ask about later on.
And so the vision surrounds him.  A different type magic to that he’s experienced before, and one he has no control over.  He’s simply a passenger, as the vision runs back along the stream of time.  Back to when the man comes up to his last breaths.  Again, the age of the language makes it difficult to follow in places, but the meaning.  Oh, he gets the meaning.  He drops to his knees as he watches the Message form and  head out on its last duty.  The tragedy that it’s taken so long to find someone, anyone, to come and witness these final moment.  He cries.  For the man, dying along.  For the Message, for its centuries of effort with no idea of its identity.
Quietly, in the silence, he tells the man image of the man, “Wir kamen für Sie. Wir sind für Sie da. Wir werden Sie mit nach Hause nehmen.”
We came for you.  We are here for you.  We will take you home.

Serafi­ne
The Work takes time and that time remains uncounted and Grace and Alexander can feel the tangle of resonance in the air.  Sera's tongue is against the roof of her mouth, it always seems to her that she can taste these movements, these moments, on the roof of her mouth.  Within the intense frame of the trance, she hardly moves.  She is still but somehow active beneath her skin, the tension in her body framing and electric and Kalen asks her if she can let him know through the framework of their vision and Sera can feel and hear this; the longing note of it in the Hermetic's voice, maybe.   The sense of loss lingering in the air.  The Last Great Work that makes her heart seize in her chest.
"Mmm."  Sera makes a noise and the noise sounds like assent.  She finds somewhere inside her the golden thread, the way it skims her skin together, the way it holds her all whip-stitched in.  To Grace and Alexander what can they see of her Work; it is so internal.  The drugged sway of her senses; the way she inhabits sensation, seeking.
Here is the thread that binds her and she finds it and - oh!  she pulls.
[Within the vision: Time 3/Mind 2/Prime 1.  Trying to brush the archmagus' consciousness so he knows that someone came.  Difficulty 6.  -1 for specialty focii,  hoping for a -1 for liminal resonance but not assuming.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Serafi­ne
Extending:  Difficulty +1
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Serafi­ne
Extending.  Spending quint this time, damnit.
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Serafi­ne
Oh god, extending again please work. Quint is being spent once more.
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Grace Evans
She sees, along with the rest (and Grace is no stranger to Sera's grasp of Time is she?) the rewinding of events, Kalen and Sera treating this world like a video played in reverse. She watches as Anastasius performs his own last rite, and the very sadness of it all! Oh, to die alone like this, locked away like this. It's no wonder the last thing he did was to reach out -- to find them.
A couple of Apprentices, an underdressed Cultist, and Kalen -- Kalen who cares for the dead priest's bones. Maybe he did find the right people after all?
When they come back to the present, Grace ascertains that the book isn't going to be damaged by the handling, and she slowly slides it out of the grasp of the bones. She's not nearly as reverent as Kalen with his prayers, or Sera with her promise of burial. She's sad for the dead, sure, but bones are bones. They're not the person. And there's nothing left behind in them to worry about their good or ill treatment.
The book though, the scrolls that Alexander finds, they can tell stories, they can live on where bones cannot. Grace can make them live in the 'net, free as electricity and shared such that everyone will know them. That's Grace's kind of prayer. A promise that she won't hoard this.
"I'll share your story with everyone I can, Anastasius," she says, since everyone else is talking to bones, and when in Rome...

gatekeeper
Promises are made and pledges are given.  And Kalen asks something of Sera, to let the Archmagus know, in the moments of his passing, that he will find someone.  Sera is tired.  She has spent so much of herself, and yet she agrees.  Because it's the right thing to do, perhaps.  Or because it's Sera and she doesn't know how not to give everything she has to give.
Whatever the reason, she reaches out, and she reaches back in time.  And she senses it, that moment when she brushes her mind against his.  This isn't likely to work on the other side of the Gauntlet; Paradox would come crashing down and say NO or something else would get in the way.  It would certainly be difficult as hell, at the very least, and frought with danger.  But here, now, this moment?  It can be done.
And indeed, she feels his mind--already fading away, slipping into that ocean of unconsciousness as it fuels itself into the essence that will be the Sending--and she brushes against it, letting him know.  Her Resonance brushes his, and oh--well, here's a thought for you.
Anyone wonder exactly why the Sending found them?  Perhaps it was just coming home to find the Resonance that was in the mix when it was created.
She's spent, and she's teetering (more than usual) when she comes back to the present.  But she was successful.  And somehow, she even closed a potentially Paradoxical loop.

Grace Evans
Grace has the book, and while everyone is caring about the dead, Grace cares more about the weary, living Sera. She walks over and offers a shoulder to lean on if necessary.
"Hey hey, don't wear yourself out. We still have to get out of this cave, and I can't carry you!"
Perhaps Alex could, if it came to that. But not Grace.

Alexander Brandt
No wonder he called it Purgatory – it’s been his for so many centuries.  But at what point does salvation come?  When does he get taken to his version of heaven to spend the last of his days.
The dying man knows.  And... while his body died alone, does that mean his spirit is still hanging on in the Message?  Is that how this works?  If so, then it doesn’t need to end, to die, alone.  There’s little more they can do for the physical remains of the man, who spent lifetimes stranded alone, than they have already promised – each in their own way.  Maybe they can at least give the spirit its reward.
Alexander sniffs,stands, looking at the pile of bones that used to be the Archmagus Anastasius Spyridon before his final act of Will.  “The Message needs to be released from his own Purgatory.  Will completing his task do that?  Set him free?”
A hand it held out to Sera, if she needs it to stand.  An arm to lean on.

Serafi­ne
Sera was already tired when they started this journey with the scarecrow in a strangely empty Washington Park.  Throughout the journey, she has been careful with herself, conserving her will and her energy.  Now though - now she spends herself, again and again and again, spends herself furiously and profligately.  Spends herself until her body is shaking and then past the point of shaking, when there is so little left that she has not got the energy to shiver in the cold dry air.  She's on her knees, then.  Scree digs into her skin, and the pain is as welcome to her as pleasure in the transcendence of her work.  Her body is not a temple so much as an altar, and she lays herself open upon it and -
there.
When Sera comes to again, she leans heavily forward.  Just - takes a long moment to remember how to stitch herself in again.  She's aching and there are tears in her eyes and soon they will start to fall, heedless, and there is Grace, counseling her to be prudent, thoughtful, measured, and Sera gives Grace a slight, winsome curve of her mouth as Grace sort-of-scolds.  She accepts Alexander's proferred hand and uses it to haul herself up.  To his questions, the half-dressed, weary thing just shakes her head.  She doesn't know.
She doesn't know.She doesn't know.

Alexander Brandt
Before offering a hand, helping Sera to her feet, he takes off his jacket and slips it over her shoulders.

Kalen Holliday
He stops collecting bones to embrace Sera.  Briefly, but for those few seconds he lets her be the only thing he cares about in the world.  "Thank you," he whispers into her ear.
"It may be.  It may be that a proper burial will do so.  It may be that in letting him know we came, we already have."  Even fished collecting the bones, he does not rise yet.  He is not as spent as Sera, but he was tired when this began and this new kind of weariness is no real help.  "There are others who can help us, if there is more that must be done."
As before, he rises on his own.  Exhaustion and pain and weariness be damned.  "Don't worry.  I promise you that we will see that it is done."

gatekeeper
Sera gets all the support she could want out of the three mages her with her.  And they've accomplished no small thing this day, bringing peace to one of the forgotten heroes of the Nine Traditions.  However much it taxed them, that must be remembers.
Alexander asks how the Message can be freed, and they don't know.  Kalen has some hypotheses that will need to be tested if any truth to those matters will be revealed.  But this moment there are the remains to gather.  There are a few items here that can be used to wrap them up so that they're just just carrying a skeleton in their arms.  That will raise some questions, after all, if they appear in the "real" world carrying hundreds-years old remains.
Then, when everything is gathered, it just remains to go back to the Message.  With Sera being supported, they make their way outside to where the angelic creature waits with its hands together in front of its chest.
"The knowledge has been delivered."  It's less of a question than it is a statement.  If they went in, after all, the information must surely have been passed on.  "It is my duty and honor now to take you back to your home."

Alexander Brandt
Alexander steps up to the Message, looks it in the face – what face there is left after so long searching through the darkness, for the visceralenthrallingliminal light.  He offers what he can, what little he picked up from the scan through the scrolls.  Searching for the eyes.
“Your name is Archmagi Anastasius Spyridon.  Your body survived centuries alone here.  You last act was to send your spirit, in this construct, out to find someone to bring you home.  Your history is in these items.  We will see that you are not forgotten.”
It’s the truth.  It’s what he has to offer: Identitiy.
"You aren't alone any more."  He offers a hand to the Message.

Serafi­ne
Alexander's jacket hangs loose off Sera's rather narrow shoulders, but she can feel the remnant heat of his body soaked into the leather and she curves herself into it, pulling it around her small frame as Grace and Alexander shoulder the burden of helping her remember how to move.  How to put one foot in front of the other.
When the Message speaks, Sera gives him a quiet, half-humming, ridiculously spent sort of smile.  Inhales heavily, exhales heavily.
God, this place.  That vista.  The sense of fire in the distance, of great-forged-things.  Oh, it twists right through her, and the tears brimming in her eyes start to fall over an aching, rendered smile.  Sera breaks away from Alex and Grace and stumbles a bit as she walks forward to wrap her arms around the Message.  As you do.  Just wraps them, leaning into it, her temple against its shoulder.  Sera sort of turns back to listen to Alexander as he speaks to the construct; offers it what he has to offer: a name.
Sera just keeps hugging the thing.  It may take them a little while to realize that she has actually fallen asleep standing up.

Kalen Holliday
Alexander's declaration to the Message gets him a weary, but real smile.  Alexander won't realize what a feat that is until later.
Kalen does not kiss the Message.  He does reach out to clasp the angelic creature's shoulder.  This time when he murmurs a blessing, he does so in Enochian.  The tongue of the angels for the angelic creature.  It isn't a proper Angel, he knows that.  But it is the last echo of the dying wish of a man who held close the Divine.  It is close enough that Kalen will bless it as would suit something Holy.  Angelic.  A creature of Grace.
He has not said, but he expects the exertion of getting them back across the Gauntlet will snuff out the Sending.  He hopes that he is wrong, but he doesn't expect there will be any proper farewells later.
He does not let himself collapse into the Message.  It is tempting.  He is rather sure it could carry him and Sera both.  But he is a Hermetic Knight and there are certain things one must do.  There are two young Mages here, older than he is in a chronological sense perhaps but not experienced.  Sera deserves her rest.  He has things yet to finish first.  He is the only one conscious who understands what is happening.
Besides, they will cross the Gauntlet again, and he doubts Alexander can carry them both.  Grace isn't carrying either of them.  Well.  Grace may carry the archmage.  Who is, in a sense, one of them now.

Grace Evans
Grace looks over at Alex, a little quizzical brow-raise at that one. She saw what happened, but Grace doesn't believe in the soul, doesn't know of spirits except as programs within the world machine, chugging along without physical form really.
Perhaps, in his final minutes, that archmage prayed himself into a program, one that wouldn't rot away and die, one that could pass through the copy-paste routine. But what had he sacrificed for that?
Sera hugs the owl-angel-lady-dude, and it's a story she'll likely tell. About how she kissed an angel and fell asleep in its arms. But right now, Grace worries like she does. "She's so worn out..."

gatekeeper
There is power, they say, in a name.  Hermetics whisper about the power of a name; they hide their true names behind walls of other names and protection.  There is Egyptian lore which claims that a name has the power, if utilized right, to outright erase someone from existance; as if they'd never been.  There is so much that a name can do, and Alexander--this freshly-Awakened mage who has only just begun to understand the world in which he now exists--understands that.  At least enough to grant the Message--this Sending somehow empowered with a soul--his identity.
Sera comes up and hugs the Message, until she's asleep and leaning against it.  Kalen puts his hand on its shoulder, and Grace keeps an eye on the unconscious Cultist.  Amidst it all, the Message...
It smiles.  And it nods, gratefully, to the four of them as a piece of its identity returns.
"Thank you," it says.  "I do not believe that it is all of me.  I think...something changed in me, when I crossed to the other side.  But I know part of who I am.  And I know that you will tell my story.  Thank you."
If they do research on it later, they might learn that there are theories that some Sendings, when they pass through the Avatar Storm, gain a certain level of sentience.  Encountering those infinite fragments of shredded Avatars imbues a Sending with a sense of life sometimes, and they exist long beyond their message deliverance.  Perhaps the Message (or Anastasius if you prefer, though he will prefer just "The Message" even though he knows who he is now) was destined to find this sentience, powered by the life force of a powerful mage itself.
They will also find that the book, and the scrolls, tell the tale of a man born in the 1800s, who lived in a small chantry south of Germany.  More a monastary than anything else, where a few like-minded Mages--Anastasius, an Akashic, an ascetic Cultist (if you can believe it) and a Euthanatos--lived together.  A cabal, who tended over those in the area.  At the time of the Reckoning in 1999, the cabal was caught on a trip to Horizon.  Only Anastasius survived the initial ravages of the Avatar Storm, and he holed up in this Realm where he lived for centuries.  Time sometimes passes differently in other realms, and in the span of just fifteen years to the rest of the world the Archmagus lived almost five hundred.
All of that is for later, however.  For now, The Message smiles, as those four are around him.  And this time he reaches out, touches Grace and Alex (with Sera and Kalen already in contact with him).  And there is no pain this time as they cross back, ending up in Washington Park mere instants after they left.
The scarecrow is gone and the chill is as well.  Perhaps they will see The Message again down the road.