Mistral let the illusory Mystique costume fade as the ritual commenced and the sun sank to the sea’s horizon, leaving her in the unassuming look she’d actually been wearing all day.  She watched Noah conduct the ritual with pale gray eyes twinkling by the light of perfected flames made into tiny stars of mana.  The lanterns were made as the real stars lit up the sky above brightly here out on the ocean far from shore.  Talion received his lantern first, then Noah approached with two more for her and Grey.  Mistral held his eye as she received the lanterns with two hands and an inscrutable expression.

As Noah turned away Mistral offered the first lantern to Grey, who snuggled on her lap as cozily as a nearly weightless elfin godling could.  She held her own lantern next to Grey’s and shared a faint smile with the child as they admired the glimmering flames together.

Everything was okay, in this moment.  Perhaps Noah’s lyrics weren’t all naive.

When Talion took his small lantern Noah smiled just thinking of all the random insanity he could pull off with it. When Mistral took hers his smile grew wider. "I always wanted to give you a bit of dragon fire."

"Come now, Sal has an appointment to keep. Just remember, there are only a hand full of things perfected fire cant kill. If you want to use it as a weapon you will have to feed the mana it gives you back into the weapon. Otherwise, it will give you a second mana reserve."

He offered one to Nef and Michael. "I think you could use it to sustain you. For you, Michael, find a demon you cant kill and this will turn it to ash. Just be sure to recharge it every now and then." And then there was the thread that connected them all, a creative mage could make a global communication with them. "Just don't pitch them if they burn out. We can always use them later."

It was effectively a magical helper that would last until it wasn't fed. But as with anything Noah-related, it had layers beyond that. Most importantly, it was a fixed moment and ritual. Something he could hook on to with Omnimagic later.

"I've twisted the aura on the one for you Michael. It's gonna take a hunter worth his salt ten times over to tell its little more than a magnesium sulfate lamp."

Sal accepts the lantern with both hands, bowing as he does. He doesn't leave right away, waiting to see everyone else receive their lanterns.

Nefertiti was graciously received the mysterious lantern giving to her by Noah.  For a moment she stared at it intensely as if she was looking at it in a different sight.

Michael accepted the lantern in reverence. It was strange being given a magical gift by a Mage. That’s another one for the Hunter History books. He waited for the full ritual to be completed.

Fate accepts her lantern carefully and stares at it for a moment.

Once everyone had a lantern Noah put a hand to the barrier of the ward and he started pushing back. Talion was kind to power the ritual but just leaving it to saturate the air would be problematic. He couldn't just feedback the mana into Talion as that would be screwing a garden hose into the hoover dam. Within the ward it started raining, he was creating Tass as little stones shaped like rain. Once the spell to convert the wards contents into tass was underway He turned back to the group.

"Never played with that much mana before." He clapped his hands to get the crystal dust out of the scales that covered his hands in the mostly human form. He clapped his hands with a magical echo. "I now declare the Cabal official as of midnight tonight." He looked over at fate, "The silver ladder is gonna be pissssssed."

"Thank you all for humoring me. I've got a few more rituals to cast so dont let me keep you any longer if you have plans." He looked at Michael. "There is a cintas truck with a lock on it near your haven. The code on it is the address of your haven. You'll find it loaded with care packages and bags of candy as I am sure you are protecting kids too."

Michael looks at Noah with increased respect at the generous gift for the people of the Haven. He sends a quick text to the guy he left in charge about the truck. “Thank you. I know they will greatly appreciate it. I know not to look a gift dragon in the mouth.” He a light hearted chuckle.

"Thank you, but why exactly would the Silver Ladder be pissed?" Fate felt her newness showing as after all she was still learning everything that there was.

Noah grinned as he imitated a voice of some high-up fuddy-duddy, "A mad young brigand will never find a home in my city. Just a bad running joke."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:47, Sun 21 Feb 2021.

"Ah." Fate responded brushing it off as an understanding that he had had a bad experience with one of their order and that this was a way of spiting them.
As the ceremony came to an end Fate stuck around to watch Noah work. He was obviously much more skilled than she was, just like Mistral. She admired that about both of them and wanted to one day be as skilled one day herself. It would surely be a long ways away however.

"Thanks, Noah. I'll be going now. Don't have too much fun without me, everyone!" Sal said, and then changed into a suit (with his concealable weapons concealed, of course,) grabbed his "briefcase" (survival rifle) in one hand, his lantern in the other, and took the portal to his estate.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:01, Mon 22 Feb 2021.

Noah set out a number of objects on the table as he was raking up the small gemstones with his tail. "If you want to watch you should participate." He offered her one of his imbuement tools. "You may not be a prime mage but learning how to be a cooperative caster may be a boon if we start doing Cabal rituals."

"Sure." She spoke sheepishly. "I've never been apart of rituals like these before. Let's just say they are a bit ahead of me. I still have much to learn. I would be grateful to help in anyway that I can." She accepted the tool carefully.

It seemed that Nefertiti was also interested in participating in helping with the objects on the table but she wasn't sure if she could because of her not having the same sort of connection to magic as they did.  She was able to cast spells of a different nature but still she could cast Rituals of another.

"Would I be able to help as well? she asked Noah.

Noah nodded to them both. "In reality, it's an illusion caused by Omni magic. Mistral is leaps and bounds ahead of me but I touch every sphere of magic with a giant bulk of power." His tail went to the underside of the table as he passed his Omnisight to him. It covered every sphere of magic and allowed them to see that the end of his tail was coated in rituals and a magical circle around its tip in the air.

"Ritual casting as a group is great practice to later dealing just masses of raw magic. In my education, it wasn't about directing so much as adapting." He drew on the local leyline, a visible act to omnisight, and started his casting.

"More casters means more potency." He was handing out small holdout pistols to both of them. "Ill vent the spell, all you need to do is focus on using a casting tool to direct it into the weapon and anchoring it. Once done the bullets will act on this side and the other side of the gauntlet."

"Ghost bullets." He nodded at Nef, "Many forms of magic don't require any formal arcane training. Sadly much of it is about summoning demons, but there are rites and rituals you could cast. It's still good training for the control needed."

 When Noah was finished turning the mass of mana within the casting circle into rain-shaped crystals, he found that he had another 30 miniature tass crystals. Further, each lantern had been augmented a fair bit further than he had originally anticipated (an extra two per lantern).

 Talion himself didn't say anything about it. Instead, he just stood up and held the lantern up as he looked out at the darkening sky. "Once everyone is finished here, I was going to go meet up with my kids. I promised them a Halloween to remember and you're invited too. There will be a haunted house and I'm throwing a Halloween party for all of the people in the city.

 I'd like you all to be there for the party at the very least. I have some important announcements to make."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:55, Mon 22 Feb 2021.

Mistral gave an enigmatic smile and replied evenly, "Merci.  Now the others may have some as well."  As the ritual concluded, she projected the mana-lantern beyond linear space, making it appear to fold inward to the point of vanishing.  Mistral inclined her head in farewell to Sal as he departed, watching closely as he passed through the portal.

Noah held court with an impromptu ritual magic class, which Mistral observed unobtrusively for a time.  She was gone between one moment and the next, having stepped away to approach Talion.  Mistral asked him quietly, "Is the haunted house préparé?  I might assist in its arrangement, if needed."  She was not one for parties as such, but she would be interested to check up on the children and to hear whatever announcements Talion might make.

 Talion nodded. "Indeed. I rented out an abandoned building, purchased the candy, crafted the fetters, and hired the ghosts myself. I believe that's all that's required. This is my first time running a haunted house."

 He pulled out some ghost hunting equipment (including an Ouija board) out of his pocket with a slight smile. "Apparently, this gear is used by humans to locate and communicate with the dead so I got them too. I would like for the kids to look back on this night as one to remember."

With a twist, he moved to what seemed the boring part of his little ritual. "My style can be a bit boring as it's just moving giant blobs of mana around. Is there a ritual you always wanted to do? Or perhaps a boundary you want to stress and test?"

During the whole Ritual she kept her eyes in a different Realm to see what all was really happening and she wanted to remember all that she could.

There never is a boring part to any Ritual, the whole process is a sacred.

When Noah spoke she didn't know whom he was speaking to she remained quiet and assumed he was speaking to Fate for she was more attuned to the Mortal realm of magic.

While the ritual had been going on Fate kept her sight active wanting to see everything that she could. When Noah asked his question Fate hesitated for a moment then responded, "Are there any rituals you'd recommend to know which can be done with only one person?"

Noah smiled at Nef, "Don't be afraid to speak up, as I said, there are rituals you don't need to be a mage to do, but I can see you're solid with the potential of it." He tilted his head side to side as he thought about Fate's question. "Imago is the important thing in what rituals you cast. So the sky is the limit if you have the will for it. But in your case rituals that you can fire and let autopilot will be a massive heavyweight for you."

"In all cases, spells and their long-form rituals can be allowed to continue on their own without taking up that little space in your will. In my case, I keep up a link, armor, my anti-collateral Talion shield, and an Omni sight. I could then, cast a long form ritual phantasm on the island to hide it and with that little push of will maintain it without stressing my daily spells."

"I think, from what I have seen, that is where you could swing really hard. I could see you designing a rote that allows you to course-correct spells you have just going on their own. For example, a ritual that by fate forces someone to end up back up at a certain building currently running on a potted plant, events and random chance somehow always forces them back there. You set that ritual up and its just floating in the either. You then use a 'tap the rite' rote and mark the person. They are then stuck in a fate prison until the spell runs out. As it is a free-floating ritual you could set it up to last weeks if you get skilled at it."

"Could lend to your natural talents, preparing many options to solve problems allowing you to tap any of them in a moment's notice." The limit would be her willpower. It took willpower to let a spell run on its own. But if she had enough of them going she could have a preloaded ritual to trigger for just about any problem she could think of.

Sal came back through the portal barely a moment after leaving, and began looking for Nefertiti. When he found her, he said, to all present, "Sorry to interrupt, but I need Nefertiti for a bit. If you please, Nefertiti, come with me. Oh, before I go, Noah, may I have a bit of that Tass, please?"

He sent a message on his slate.

Nefertiti was a bit shocked to see Sal returning so so, when he had to rush off for his own private Halloween party.

When he requested to have a moment of her time her right eyebrow arched slightly as to wonder why.

"It is time? was all she could say before thinking of what was she going to wear.