"Years, decades, centuries... repairing the Tapestry in full and maintaining it will require a long term effort. Establishing the towers and completing the Observatory lay the ground work. Shifting Consensus of Reality and 'depressurizing' the Abyss are more long term goals."

Argentus nodded.  "That being the case, I'll commit to running one of the towers as well."  If the old towers were being destroyed, there was no way to avoid needing new ones to replace them, regardless of who established them.

He offered, half-questioningly: "Unless we've got time to attempt making my attendant, once we've got water I'm ready to go."

Mistral inclined her head to Talion in acknowledgment of his thanks for volunteering to do her part in this project.  She listened to his brief explanation of how he intended to tear down and reconstruct the entire structure of Arcanum itself.  She stated evenly, “This plan is rather extraordinaire.  Without the towers, what will happen to the paths and Arcanums bound to them?  No Moros will have awakened after the destruction of the Tower of the Leaden Coin, par exemple, for it is the tower that calls to their souls.”

Mistral shifted the position in which she reclined upon Noah’s draconic form, crossing her legs and draping a hand over his claw about her waist.  Far from seeming diminutive by being cradled by a large dragon, she was poised and self-possessed as ever.  Mistral then asked Talion, “What form will the new towers take, then?  Are they but symboles et métaphore of their purpose in the reforging of the Tapestry, or are they to be actual structures to serve as foci for the work to be done?  If so, where and by what means are these towers to be erected?”

On the matter of supplies, Mistral said, “Let us gather what provisions we need and more, and bring with us as much as can be carried through.  Once there, I will enable us to bring it all without carrying it.”

Noah thought for a moment as he added a few things up. "The lead coin tower of death was shattered shortly after you showed up. Yet at the gathering today I saw new Moros mages, some in their first year as a mage. If the tower was destroyed there should be no mages."

"Then is the limit of the towers part of the lie for control? When the tower shattered so did my name on its surface." Noah pointed at the map Mistral had, he indicated the point of entry and the fact there was a beyond point. He then expanded his hand showing other such blobs of systems and their shells. Places of strange physics and likely even stranger magic.

He smiled, holding a thought that Mistral of the whole group had the highest potential for power. She could, in time, pop out of the local hyper cluster, find a cluster that had liquid diamond, and come back using it as a means to fuel other unique concepts.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:40, Fri 31 Jan 2020.

 "Have any of you ever wondered why some sleepers awaken while others become sleepwalkers, aware of magic but unable to harness it? Have you ever wondered why you awoken but no one else? Who built the towers and why?

 If the towers were built to fight back the Seers, then how did mages awaken before then? Noah is correct. It was the Seers that built the towers. What better way to limit the powers of the Awakened than by disguising said limiter as the source of their power? How better to control all mages than to have access to their True Names?

 No normal mage would dare destroy one for fear of shutting off their own power... but one IS destroyed... and the Moros will continue to grow exponentially in number as the supernal energies of Stygia reinvigorate the tapestry. That said, I'll need to destroy the tower of the Beastlands next to prevent oversaturation.

 Ultimately, the Observatory will serve as the main entry point for the flow of supernal energies to reinvigorate the Tapestry... and the new Towers... your towers will be the metaphysical representations of what those towers should have been."

Mistral studied the star chart and marveled, "These points lie beyond our cosmique event-horizon.  Far beyond it.  Our galaxy will have burnt away into a cold and inert void a trillion years past before light from these places arrives.  Très extraordinaire."  She pored through observations of anomalous physics and life-forms so alien as to be scarcely recognizable as life.  Mistral leaned back against Noah, glanced up at him and asked, "This data could be the source of vast discovery, but it also begs an infinitude of questions.  What do you seek to glean from it, mon dragon?"

---

As Talion spoke Mistral arose from her draconic seat to pace the room, listening intently with brow furrowed in concentration.  His words contested the very foundations of the Awakened understanding of reality, and that was no small matter.  To the question of whether they'd wondered why she of all people awakened Mistral answered succinctly, "Every day."


As soon as Talion had finished Mistral spoke up, trying to make sense of it, "The Watchtowers were built by the Oracles after the sundering of l'échelle d'argent to rejoin the supernal realms to the fallen world.  Awakenings were possible prior to the Towers because there was not yet an Abyss severing access to the supernal.  Is this not so?  If the Towers never served as beacons, how did the supernal cross the void of the Abyss before your Observatory?"

She paced further and went on to ask, "Do you claim that the Seers erected the towers in the beginning, or only corrupted and overtook them?  If they own the towers and all True-Names, then why do they not dominate reality itself?  There would be nothing to stop them.  They could utterly annihilate any of us with but a thought."
This message was last edited by the player at 01:00, Sat 01 Feb 2020.

Noah thought for a long moment and smiled at a mental image he sent her.  He tilted his head side to side as he enjoyed the moment.

He rubbed the back of his head at Talion. "Going to have to step up my game and sign all the towers before you put them to the hammer." He started grinding on the numbers of what Mistral was saying. She had a point. Then again so did Talion. In either case Noah wasn't present when the towers had been built. The towers had been built as anchor points for the silver ladder he thought.

 "What do you think they've been doing? They could very well exercise such power, but their hold over the world was complete before my arrival. The Lie was understood, but it had infected every aspect of a mage's life and not a single soul I saw even knew they were imprisoned.

 From what data I've been able to gather from Atlas, the towers were built by the architects of Atlantis... not the Oracles, but beings far older. They were merely corrupted by the Seers. I have my suspicions regarding how but no proof.

 Also, there has always been an Abyss... though it did not always take the form you saw in the Observatory. It is infected now, a festering sore, but it once served the purpose of keeping the Supernal Realms and Fallen World close but separate. The swelling has widened the gap but a collision would be worse.

 The jagged wound left by the fall of the Silver Ladder allowed for energies to bleed into the space in between, where it came into contact with Hell's Prison, a contaminating agent that turned the Abyss into the festering mass you know now."

Noah tilted his head side to side. "That is why you allowed me to make the wish as if I had been born a dragon. You need a dragon to work some of the things you are running into and this was a wish of convenience for you..."

 Talion just chuckled. "I would have granted that wish either way. It's your wish to use as you see fit... though I won't deny that it solves several of my own problems as well."

Argentus smiled, hearing how the two took advantage of the opportunities one another presented.  Both tended to plan and dream bigger than he did.  He had been planning to use his wish to negotiate with Talion for a long-term plan that would spread power and responsibility out, and could survive Talion's demise or incapacitation.  That had already been dealt with, though.

He thought for a moment, then asked Talion: "So, would Aion's plan of using the Planetary Court influences to reform the ladder still function to aid this plan for a new ladder?"

Mistral narrowed her eyes at the dragon bobbing his head happily to his own imaginings.  She shook her head and turned her attention back to the star chart. 

---

Talion’s response left Mistral thoughtful.  The claims were still extraordinary, but at least now plausible and not contradictory with things she knew to be true.  “Je comprends.  I have long suspected that the Watchtower of the Iron Gauntlet could be no work of human will.  It was... well, I would just say it was beyond the capacity of even the cruelest Nephandi’s imaginings.”

The idea of the Seers of the Throne owning the Watchtowers still bothered her greatly.  Mistral pressed, “Perhaps more to the point, who is it that wields the Watchtowers?  To speak of Seers in terms of shadowy anonymity grants them power, as I know well.  To know them robs them of that power.”

 Talion finally, at this point, broke into a full-on grin. "You've already met him. His soul is stuck in my Roomba. Killing him would have raised the next Seer in line to power. Until I figure out how they're artificially creating archmages to replace themselves, I can't have that.

 I've done my share of interrogations, but this "King" is worthy of his crown. He still hasn't spilled his secret. Pandemoneum's not that bad. I've been sealed away in worse places."

 To Argentus, he replied, "It certainly wouldn't hurt. Mind you, the Spirit Courts will only really bolster one Arcanum. The other Arcanum need to be restored equally. An imbalance of Arcanum could be ruinous to the restoration of the Tapestry if left unchecked for too long. Again, I'm speaking in decades, so there is no worry that it would create an immediate Arcanum imbalance."

Argentus let out a short laugh at the Seer being bound in the Roomba.  "Does it still miss spots?  I'd hope with a Seer inside, that particular failing would be fixed."  He quipped.

A moment later, Argentus frowned slightly in response to Talion's answer.  "I may have assumed and simplified too much when I said support of the Spirit Courts.  The particular courts I'm speaking of are the planetary courts.  These courts have access to the energies that millennia of Consensus has given over to their planets and corresponding elements... not that the Consensus has been adding much to that reservoir lately, but it's still deep and strong.  I get access to those energies by obtaining a name within the courts and I have gained the ability to wield them by shaping my soul to function as an adapter between them and my own magic.

   "It's not directly bound by Arcana or Supernal Realm, but by Consensus association.  Mercury is the closest related to a Supernal Realm - Pandemonium, though it also embodies the connection between places and Realms.  Saturn's energy is the easiest to approximate directly to Arcana - Death and Time.  The Sun isn't too hard to equate to Forces, but also touches on Life and a few others.  Venus roughly corresponds more to each realm's subtle arcanum, as Mars does to their gross.  The Moon and Jupiter correspond less to any one set of Arcana but more to magic itself and its rules, respectively.

   "If that's misinformed in terms of ladder construction, or not very helpful, I'd like to know sooner rather than later so I can begin shaping my soul toward a more practical use of the energies."

 Talion retained his smirk. "Unsurprisingly, my unwilling volunteer hasn't much cared to improve on the imperfections of its prison.

 You're not wrong in that the planetary courts will grant great sympathetic connections to other Arcanum, but I was referring to supernal energies themselves.

 Still, the problem with consensus of reality is that its power lies in its current form. As new beliefs rise, old ones fade from power and significance, retaining only sympathetic ties to its ancient power.

 Regardless, the answer doesn't change. Yes, restoring the planetary courts will help, providing that they can once more shift belief in their favor... though that would require people start believing in them as gods again. Otherwise, their powers will remain sympathetic at best.

 It won't take much to get the synthetics to acknowledge them. You might want to start there."

Argentus nodded at the wisdom of starting with the synthetics.  He considered how the change of plans regarding the ladder affected his plans with the courts.  Should he follow through on his plan to mold his soul in accordance with the Thrice Great tradition?  Or should he break off to a more practical end?  That would be a problem for another day.

"Well, anyone against gathering supplies and getting a move on?"  He asked.

Noah curled his toes as he smiled at Mistral.  He smiled and nodded once. "May want to double up. Full set of rations with Mistral and I will set up a saddle. It's the fea realm, good Lord knows that they will find a way to screw with something they are not supposed to mess with."

Prometheus listened for a long time in silence, his mind going through what little he know, what little anyone knew of the days after the fall of Atlantis, "Stories tell us after the Fall that Awakenings did stop for a while....but their is other possible causes to that if the Watchtowers existed before that point. The appearance of the Abyss almost certainly effected all human souls after all. Likewise the idea that you could awaken to Paths different from the 5 current ones before the Fall could also by a myth..."

However one question came from this that concerned him, "The rise of the Watch Towers is the most famous story about the Oracles. Each order has their own myths and legends, about the Origin of their Oracle....and why they chose to take their place guiding Mages to Awakening.... If the Watchtowers have always been a tool of Exarchs, rather then one of the Pentacle, if they were built before The Fall, and since the Fall only ruled by the Exarchs...."

Prometheus looked at Argent, Noah and Mistral, wondering why they haven't realized the terrifying question, "Do the Oracles even exist? What proof do we have that 5 Archmages climbed the Celestial Ladder and decided to fight rather then rule? What story remains that they exist? Or has the legend been another tool to control and weaken us.... a tool to give us false hope and expect aid that will never come?"

 "They exist... maybe not as stories would write them, but there are archmages who are not Seers, archmages who have come back to help guide mages... but I've found that they often do so for their own goals rather than some 'greater good'.

 Necessity dictates that, to cast Imperial Magic, they must interfere with mortal affairs. It is only the creation of certain sympathetic circumstances that can serve as the focus for such magics... it's why I detest the use of such things.

 That said, they believed the same as you. When I began the destruction of the tower of the leaden coin, they showed up to stop me, fifty in total. If I am correct in my understanding of what they said, that is the full might of all non-Exarch archmages in existence.

It was that conflict that caused Grey to try and defend me."

 Grey looked down, knowing what he was referring to.

Noah leaned down and placed a claw on Grey's shoulder. "There is justice in defending one's creator. It is good in trying to do the right thing. It's the scale alone that was off. And that is something that can be taught. Trust that if you ever see Nidhogg again, you have my full permission to throw rocks at it till it goes away."

Mistral listened to the conversation between Talion and Argentus as well as Prometheus's concern.  At some point during the exchange she slowed her pacing and cocked an ivory eyebrow slightly.  At some point she spoke up, pale eyes fixed on Talion as she challenged him, "You speak of les Oracles with much familiarity, Monsieur Talion, and your fluency in the lost High Speech is rather remarkable, even considering all else remarkable about you."  She crossed her arms, tilted her head inquisitively and then asked, "If you do not mind my asking... were you there when Atlantis was swallowed by the seas, or had you already ascended l'échelle d'argent while it yet stood?"

 Talion shook his head. "Nothing quite so grand as that. I'm not sure if you'll remember, but about 5 years ago, I was paid a considerable sum to map the sea floor. Synthetics are able to easily survive in places that would kill men. In any event, within the Mariana Trench I located the ruins of a city. Despite its ruinous state, it still sat upon and harnessed a powerful artificial leyline nexus so I set Atlas to archiving its history and language.

 As you might have guessed, that city was once named Atlantis... though it was renamed to R'lyeh at sometime thereafter.

Prometheus fell silent. 50 Pentacle Arch Mages. That was it. It was a low number to say the least, especially given Talion had implied that there were more Seers, more Exarchs. Still they needed an exact number.

"50 Archmages of the Pentacle... and how many Exarchs are there? Should we follow your path and climb the ladder once more, what will we face?" He fell silent for a brief moment and then with a shudder said, "Actually....it needs to be asked... do Abyssal Arch Mages exist? Or Banisher Arch Mages? Such groups may unite with the Pentacle to prevent the destruction of a Watch Tower... for they need them too.

But other times they will work with the Exarchs."


As they continued to talk, Prometheus gave a smile to Noah and nodded his head in thanks for the scales. It wasn't much, but they both had other things to do for now.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:49, Tue 04 Feb 2020.

 "It seems that there 11 Exarchs in total, 10 that are still in play. There are most definitely Nephandi archmages… but they work differently than normal archmages and resemble demons more than mages. As for banisher archmages, not so much. The nature of the Abyss would literally sunder their soul in twain if they were to try and ascend."

Prometheus had questions, as 11 seemed like a strange number, but for now it was time to prepare...

Nodding, he moved to get supplies for this next rescue mission.