The mages pop out, minus balloon, in a library that looks like something out of "Masterpiece Theater." There are books lining the walls, a fire in the fireplace, and a big chair facing the fireplace. Walks All Paths notes that he no longer has his wings, so they must not be in the Umbra anymore. Dog gets up, stretches, walks to the fire, circles around three times. Reuben says, "Dog? Dog? DOG?" and rushes to his familiar's side, petting and talking to him, but gets no response. Dog is a dog. While this is going on, someone notices that there is an old man asleep in the chair.

The old man awakens, and inquires if anyone would like some tea. He walks over to a tea service that hadn't been there a moment ago, and pours the tea. He asks the party what they want to know. Kevin asks about his missing flute. The old man finds it in a cabinet. Kasee starts going through the cabinets in search of hamburgers. Renee asks how to get Dog's spirit back into him. The man says, "He is just doing much too well. When he stops doing so well, then he will be better." This, of course, makes no sense to anyone.

The man then declares that he needs four people. He hands Eric, John, Kevin, and Kasee each a script, then leads everyone through a doorway. Those without scripts find themselves in the back of a theater. Those with scripts find themselves on the stage. The play is entitled "The Dollhouse."

In the play, three blindfolded men sit at a table. One is building doll furniture, one is breaking doll furniture, and the third is taking the broken pieces and preparing them to be used to build new furniture. The three are in balance until a girl comes along and removes the blindfold from the one building furniture. He sees his work is being destroyed and begins building at a faster pace. then the girl removes the blindfold from the man destroying doll furniture. He sees how much is built and speeds up his destruction. the third man thinks his work is going fine and he doesn't need his blindfold removed. then a clock begins to chime, indicating that time has run out for each man to finish his task. The play appears to be a parable of the imbalance of forces between the Weaver, the Wyrm, and the Wyld.

After the play, the party reunites, and a paper airplane comes flying out onto the stage. On the paper are written two more verses of the prophecy. Kevin enters the dreamtime and learns the verses are part of a very old epic poem. Mary finds her staff just inside one of the doors of the theater.

Kevin opens the door and they look out on a grassy field with trees. After cautiously inspecting the area (the door appears from the outside to be a door frame and nothing more - no building around it), they walk through the door. Kevin tries another of the exits and walks finds it opens to the same place, facing the same direction.

As they walk through the door, they are suddenly joined by a naked black man - Dog. Reuben rushes to his side and asks if he's OK. Dog has an odd looks on his face and mutters to Reuben, "I can't shift!" Reuben hugs him and notices that Cab is looking away in embarrassment. He asks Renee if she can conjure up some pants, a shirt and some shoes, which she does handily. In fact, they find that magic is incredibly easy here - they can meditate for as much quintessence as they want, even. It appears they are right on top of a ley line.

Renee tries to create a steak, but instead a newly-slaughtered calf appears in front of her. She shrugs, and they butcher the calf, build a fire, and eat. Reuben and Dog skip dinner and wander off. They return looking somewhat disheveled a few hours later. Everyone is beginning to bed down for the night, since the sun went down an hour ago. Cab and Walks All Paths say they're going to investigate the ley line. Reuben says since he doesn't need to sleep, he'll stand watch.

As Cab and Walks All Paths walk through the woods, they are suddenly blinded. Cab reaches for her magic, but there's nothing there. Fumbling and stumbling, they make their way back to the camp, where Reuben meets them with concern. Looking at Cab, Reuben sees that her brain has been rewired so she can't see or access her magic. Looking at the garou, it is obvious that he is steadily reverting to wolf form. Thinking it is a mind magic problem, Reuben wakes up Kevin, only to find that he, too is blind, as is Renee when she is awakened.

Reuben shrugs and says, "I guess I'll have to heal it myself." He reaches out and touches Renee's pattern, but jerks back as he feels a pattern virus enter his hand. Quickly, he dumps quintessence into his hand to kill the virus - and screams as flames and sparks leap from his hand to the ground. He feels a hand on his arm and opens his eyes to see a young girl holding his wrist. When she lifts her hand, a band appears on his wrist that looks like a constantly changing tattoo.

Reuben ignores the girl for the moment and gathers all of the mages in one place. For some reason, they can't understand what he's saying, and their words sound to him like incomprehensible grunts and gibberish. Reuben is startled to see that they have been joined by - not people, but beings. A fountain, a mischievous elf, an old, pregnant, naked woman, and others. He guesses that, since the mages can't perform magic, these are their avatars.

Reuben kneels next to the girl and asks her who she is. She says, "I am the First." At her voice, Kasee draws her dagger and starts inching away; Kevin cowers in fear.

Reuben asks, "The first of whom?"

"The First of the Four," she replies

"Who are the others?"

"They are not here yet."

Suddenly, Kasee bolts for the trees. Reuben grabs her and leads her back, soothing her. When he returns, the girl and Dog are glaring at each other. He tries to get their attention, then steps between them. Dog shakes his head and looks baffled.

Reapproaching the girl, Reuben explains that he must reunite his friends with their respective shards of the Pure Ones. The girl disagrees, and asks him why he should care. He says that they are his friends, and that is all that matters. She says that such a thing has never been done before. Nevertheless, Reuben avers, it must be done. Starting with the obvious, Reuben tries to entice the mischievous elf to go to Kasee. The girl laughs at his failure, reaches into the fire, and pulls out a basket of fruit. She tosses one to Reuben who feeds it to Kasee. The elf walks over and jumps into her. She can see and use her magic now.

Reuben next goes to Mary. He gives her the fruit, and the fountain moves under her and fades away. He is startled when she opens her eyes and they are entirely black. Mary and the girl look at each other and say, "If there were two..." and they both disappear.

One by one, the other mages eat the fruit and regain their avatars, although it takes Cab two tries and Renee and her avatar (also a woman) have a, um, interesting reunion (those Verbena!). Walks All Paths won't eat the fruit, but the naked, pregnant old woman walks over, pats him on the head, and walks into the woods. He can now see as well.

Dog takes the last fruit, peels it, pulls out the seeds, and tosses them into the fire. A tree rapidly grows, until it is at least thirty feet high. As they gather at the base of the tree wondering what to do next, a circle of fire springs up around them, somewhat limiting their options (Kasee notes that the fire was started by the woman who patted Walks All Paths on the head). They all climb the tree, and are fine until Eric decides to help by turning off gravity. They instantly all fly upwards and black out.

When they awake, it's cold. Very cold. They are all wearing furs, and are lying in the middle of a snowy plain, at the base of a ridge. At the top of the ridge, an army is marching slowly. They are sighted, and Eric tries to bend light around the mages to hide them. Walks All Paths goes to talk to the man who comes down from the ridge. The man says that they are fighting Chaos, which has all but destroyed their world. They have been marching for twenty days and will meet their foe for a final battle the next day. Kasee bounds out of Eric's camouflage and asks, "What's wrong with Chaos?" She is promptly whacked in the head with a club. Reuben and Walks All Paths calm everyone down, assure them that they are one the side of Order, and the mages are invited to join the army.

As they march, Kasee expands awareness and counts 560 people in the army. Talking to a young soldier, they learn that this is a hard world, decimated by some form of Chaos. Cab looks around and sees few spirits, but weird places around them that look like anti-nodes. The army stops for the night.

The next morning, after a breakfast of pasty gruel, the army gathers into lines and charges over the next hill. The mages are a little slower, and arrive at the top of the hill in time to see the first men approach three figures at the bottom of the hill. Kasee describes the three: an old man, a young person (she can't tell gender from here), and someone lying at their feet. Checking with life magic, Reuben sees that the young person is a girl, and the person at their feet is indeed dead.

As the first men approach the old man and girl, they fall to the ground, dying. Behind them, men change to animals or parts of animals, and fall, dead. The girl looks up to the mages on the hill, and they see a face that looks like Mary's. She smiles, and disappears. The old man is swamped with the remaining soldiers and is quickly killed. Half of the army has been wiped out, but the survivors begin to celebrate their victory.

Off in the distance, around a half-mile away on the other side of the celebrating army, Kasee sees a black tendril winding through the snow. Kasee, Walks All Paths, Reuben, Renee, and Eric walk down the hill toward the army, while Dog, Kevin, and Cab wait and watch up on the ridge.

Reuben and Renee immediately try to set up triage and treating the wounded. However, the first soldier they try to heal screams in fear at the glow they generate in healing and claims that they are foul demons who have damned his soul forever. The other soldiers hear his cries and begin to advance menacingly on the mages. Thinking quickly, Eric bends light again and hides all of them except for Kasee, who has been walking toward the black tendril. The soldiers are confused for a moment, then spot Kasee and take off after her. Eric drops the effect and they run off after the army.

Kasee comes to a pass between two glaciers and ducks into a crevice. The garou steps sideways, runs through the army, then reappears in the pass calling for Kasee. By this time, the army has noticed the mages that were in pursuit and have wheeled to attack. Eric frantically draws a circle, mumbles something, and stamps. A ten-foot-wide chasm appears in the snow between the army and the mages, extending several hundred feet in either direction. A dozen soldiers try to jump the chasm to get to Eric, but eleven of them fall to their deaths. The one who succeeds quickly jumps Eric and pummels him into unconsciousness. Suddenly, everything freezes.

Everyone except for Eric, Walks All Paths, and Kasee realize that they are now in a room with the walls painted to look like the snowy landscape they were just in. Looking closely at the painting, they see Walks All Paths and Kasee off in the distance in the painting, probably a half-mile away. They call out for them, and the garou takes two steps and, through some trick of perspective, is suddenly in the room. Kasee does the same, but Eric seems to be unconscious, lying in the snow in the painting.

As the mages try to puzzle out how to get Eric out, Kasee finds a door and opens it. In the white hallway outside, Eric is lying on a bench. He is concussed, but after a brief bit of healing, seems to be fine. Renee ducks back and notes that his form is still in the painting. Strange.

The group proceeds down the short hallway, which opens into the same library they were in before, with the same old man. Reuben quickly checks with Dog, but his familiar appears normal. The old man says that they have arrived at the intermission between the lessons. Indulging the mages in a game of "Twenty Questions," he says they may ask ten questions now and ten questions later. The group huddles together and formulates a series of questions:

Reuben: Are The Four connected to the retrieval of the garou's soul?

Old man: No.

Reuben: Are the experiences and lessons we are being put through for the purpose of furthering The Ascension?

Old man: Yes.

Reuben: Do The Four represent the Wyrm, the Wyld, Gaia, and the Weaver?

Old man: No.

Reuben: Is the purpose of this set of lessons to bring The Four together?

Old man: Yes.

Kevin: Whose Ascension are these lessons working towards?

Old man: Human's.

Kevin: Whose vision of Ascension do these lessons try to bring about?

Old man: Reality's.

As this goes on, the garou is off to the side, contemplating the prophecy they have received bits of. Suddenly he jumps up. ":I've got it!"

As attention is directed toward him, the Walks All Paths explains that he has figured out part of the prophecy: The stanza
If there were He
Torn through the Skyline
Reversing the grave
Lost in the binding
A child would save

refers to the garou himself. The following stanza:
If there were She
Reborn of deceiver
Saved from the Fall
Now made the Believer
Would watch over all
therefore refers to Nicole. Slowly, the prophecy is starting to make sense.

The questions continue:
Reuben: Who is the child in the prophecy?

Old Man: Nicole.

Walks All Paths: Who is "She" mentioned in the phrase "the locked gates She'd open" in the prophecy?

Old Man: Mary.

Reuben: What must we do to return his soul to the garou?

Old Man: Find the Great Mouth, cut out its tongue. I warn you, cling tightly - it snaps.

The old man asks the group what they have learned. After some suggestions, he says, "As the past affects the future, the future affects the past. Always remember that everywhere you are now, and everywhere you have been, is a dream."

A door swings open and the mages walk through it. They enter an empty room, but like a diorama in a museum, a scene appears before them. Many men are in a tower, wearing various regalia that looks mostly medieval European in nature. They are arguing over a document, apparently whether to sign it or not, and what is required in the document. They seem to be speaking in Latin. Eric concentrates, then pulls out a book and starts writing down the document, translating as he goes. He tells the group that the title of the document is "The Declaration of the Ivory Tower" and it calls for a union against sorcerers, bogles, night-gaunts, and creatures of the night. The document contains an odd symbol that seems to be a combination of all nine symbols of the spheres. At last, the last man reluctantly signs the document, and they file out of the room. The scene fades, and an archway appears. The mages pass through the archway.

In the next room, a scene appears in a fashion similar to the first room, only they seem to be looking at a metal works. There are a large number of men there, some familiar from the previous scene. They are pouring metal into a form to create a staff, roughly three and a half feet long. Only a minute after the metal is poured, they reach down and pick up the newly formed staff. As it is picked up, it loops around the bearer's hand, and changes from blood red to matte black. The scene fades and the room goes black.

The lights in the room come up, and the mages find themselves in a hallway, wearing clothing from the early nineteenth century. They are met by a butler who appears confused, but says that they are welcome. He take the luggage which has appeared next to the mages and escorts them to a sitting room. Cab checks the time, and reports that it is January 4, 1820, at 7:32 PM, local time. No one knows what locality they are in, though.

As they relax by the fire, a man comes in, and some of the mages are taken aback by seeing someone they recognize - much younger than when they had seen him last, though. He says, "My servants seem to be expecting you but I am not. I do not think I have made your acquaintance." Eric stands and says, "Greetings, Master Porthos. Again."

Eric introduces himself, and Porthos asks if they are there for the big handoff. Eric replies that he believes so. Porthos invites the mages to dinner, and calls for his servants to escort them to guest rooms. After a short while, they come down for dinner. Kasee is having paradox problems, and seems to have her perceptions shifted three inches to the left. She continually walks into doors. Reuben is having similar paradox problems, only he has cat's eyes. He has Renee make him a pair of dark glasses and pretends to use Dog as a seeing-eye dog.

They sit down at the dinner table (Kasee narrowly missing her chair) and join the other men and women at the table. All of the other diners are white, and seem to be English. The mages wisely keep silent as the conversation moves from "the Colonies" to "the Order." After dinner, one gentleman stands up, faces Porthos, and says, "To Reginald Fowler, long may he rule The Order!" Porthos smiles. After dinner, everyone returns to their rooms.

The next morning, Renee receives this note from Eric:

Renee,

Our disconstructionist friend is in the middle of retrieving the object from the previous scene. Be prepared for the consequences of his actions - they could be worse than the ice floe.

EM

As they awaken, the other mages gather in the hallway. They find thay are also missing Cab. As they check her room, Kasee wanders down the hall and finds a door that her correspondence talent won't let her see past. She opens the door, and sees an office. Going to the desk, she finds a sheaf of papers, beginning with the words, "If there were one" Picking up the papers, she looks into the adjoining room, only to back out hurriedly when she sees Porthos asleep on his bed.

They go down for breakfast, then putter about for a few hours after the meal. Kasee goes to the garden, and Kevin checks out Porthos' library. Reuben talks with Renee about Kasee's find, while Walks All Paths does recon through the house by way of the Umbra. Reuben resolves to ask Porthos about Cab. As he goes to knock on the door, he is struck by a force driving into his brain, something that all of the mages feel. Kasee seems to be singled out the most, but Kevin forms a shield around her and the attacks stop. Reuben knocks on Porthos' door, but there is no response.

He shrugs, and returns to his room. Meanwhile, Kevin storms up to Porthos' door and demands for him to stop reading their minds. Porthos claims that he doesn't know what Kevin is talking about. Kevin suggests he doesn't know that he's doing it, and Porthos pins him with a glare and says, "I know what I am doing, child."

Porthos returns to studying the poem that Kasee stole, which Kevin has returned to him. As he mutters to himself, he says, "All I need is the third…" Kevin asks who is the Third, and Porthos replies, "It's not a who, it's a what." Porthos continues to ignore them, so Kevin leaves the room, and meets Renee, Kasee, Walks All Paths, and Reuben in the hallway. As they stand there discussing Porthos' words, a maid pushes a tea cart past them; Reuben notices that the tea smells odd.

He follows the maid in and asks her what kind of tea it is, and she says, distractedly, that it is Darjeeling, of course, and would he please leave. Porthos waves the maid out of the room, and takes a big gulp of the tea. As he does so, Reuben realizes what the smell was - hemlock! Porthos sits up straight, then starts to fall over. Reuben catches him and calls for Renee's help. They both try to heal him and eliminate the poison from his system, but there seem to be nodes of some sort inside Porthos which absorb as much magical energy as they can pump in.

As Porthos stops breathing and Reuben begins to administer CPR, Renee realizes a nonmagical solution is necessary. She creates a vial of epinephrine and a syringe, and injects it straight into Porthos' heart. He sits up straight, sees Kasee and begins dragging himself towards her. She stares, frightened, then realizes that he wants the bag of tass she's carrying. She throws it at him, and Porthos grabs it and eats every tass mushroom, all nine of them. Reuben knows what's going to happen and screams, "Everybody down!"

The resulting explosion sets part of the library on fire. As everyone picks themselves up, a severely charred Porthos crawls toward Kasee. All she can hear is the words "Out, out, out, out" in her mind. Kevin looks deep into Porthos' mind and sees that he needs the poison out of his system. Renee transforms the hemlock into water, and together with Reuben, heals Porthos. He recovers completely, but is sound alseep.

While Reuben and Renee are busy, Kasee and Walks All Paths extinguish the burning books. Kevin seems to be in a trance. He walks over to Porthos' desk, sits down, and starts to leaf through the book that Porthos had been reading. He gets to the end and starts paging backwards rapidly. By now, all of the other mages are looking at him. He hears a wondrous song in four-part harmony and scenes of their exploits of the past few days. He projects to the others and they join into the song, seeing visions of parades, guillotines, and a big, ugly, mouth with tentacles thrashing around it. Inside the mouth is a stone, and inside the stone is the staff they saw made the day before. They see a man with a sword who grows to straddle half the world, and the opening of the cairn. They see the rescue of Nicole by Walks All Paths, and a wolf with its heart torn from him and thrown over the horizon. Finally, they see four young girls standing back-to-back with a band of metal about their waists (they recognize one of the girls as Mary, the other the girl from the garden).

The song ends, and Kevin collapses. They hear the pounding of feet in the hallway, and Renee opens the door to find the butler, the cook, and one of the maids demanding to know what happened. She lets them in, and the butler asks for an explanation. Reuben tells them the truth. The butler nods, and walks into the bedroom. He opens the wardrobe (where Kasee had been hiding) and produces a key. He unlocks the a door in the back of the wardrobe and opens it to reveal a cliff, with pink sand and a light purple sky. He picks up Porthos from the other room and carries him through the door. Kasee follows them through. Once on the other side, he ignores Kasee, stepping around her to lock the door behind them. Kasee is now stranded in whatever world they are in.

Back in Porthos' office, Renee and Reuben realize that Kasee has been cut off from them. They try to question the maid, who looks at them closely and questions them about their business there. She brooks no evasion, and it is almost as if she can tell whether they are lying. She leads them down to a sub-basement, which is a huge square room. At one end, some people are arranging furniture on a dais. She explains that this is where the "Handoff" will take place. She says, "I recommend you each take a corner. In the evening it will be very…exciting - we will need some anchors to keep us from blowing away."

Reuben and Dog take the west corner, Walks All Paths the east, Kevin the south, and Renee the north. They settle down to wait and meditate. Walks All Paths notices that there are pattern spiders everywhere in the Umbra. At around 10 PM, a group of men in robes file into the room, bearing the red metal staff the mages saw created in the previous scene. Each of the mages (and the garou) in the corners is given a gold annulet; as they take them, their corners fade to blackness. The men in robes begin to paint a blank white canvas with the triangular symbol incorporating the symbols of all spheres that the mages have seen before.

After about an hour and a half, about thirty other robed figures walk in - including Kasee, who spent a brief time in another world with Porthos, then was brought back with him and told to go to the cellar. She tries to take a place among the rows of acolytes lining up, but one of the elders notices her and chases her. After they grab her, she tries to step sideways - and is unable to, since the pattern spiders have locked up the Umbra in the room. They carry her out of the room, and she steps sideways easily, escaping them. They run off to find her, and Kasee sneaks back into the room.

Porthos enters, and the crowd parts for him, then reforms. All of the mages (and the garou) try to hold on to the reality of the room in whatever manner they can. Porthos begins a chant, and a thin band of fire races around the walls. The room slips free from reality, in spite of the attempts of the mages. The darkness in the corners fades, revealing Kasee and Kevin fighting two acolytes. Porthos picks up the red staff and looks startled when it doesn't change color. His secret is out: he isn't Reginald Fowler, and he is trying to steal the staff from the Technocracy!

Eric appears in the middle of the room, then shoots towards Porthos. The acolytes advance on all of the mages. Walks All Paths shifts to crinos form and begins chomping Technocrats; Renee and Eric fight the acolytes near the dais. Reuben increases his strength and clubs one of the acolytes fighting Kasee and Kevin, snapping his back. In the midst of all of this mess, Porthos slams the end of the staff on the floor - and it turns into a blonde girl. Around the girl, the pattern webs from the Umbra begin to appear, freezing everyone they touch. The mages scramble frantically to get out of the way, but one by one are turned to stone. Eric, Pothos, and the girl are left unfrozen. They walk out the back of the room, leaving the frozen tableau behind them.

Continued in Chapter Two, Part Four: Once More, With Feeling.

© 1997 by Tom Brady and Beth Miller