Mage: The Ascension is back AND YES I AM A HOLLOW ONE.
Didi Duvall, The Worst, rides again.
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| Ksenia Solo as Kenzi in Lost Girl |
Fortunately so do Cara, Simon, Alissa and Michael, our actual heroes.
Cara Lawson, Akashayana. Brave, kind, highly dangerous.
 |
| Holland Roden as Lydia in Teen Wolf |
Simon Donovan, Hermetic. Somebody had to play a smart character.
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| Rupert Evans as Frank in The Man In The High Castle |
Alissa Kwan, Ecstatic. Magic through energetic dance. More sensible than that makes her sound.
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| Paris Berelc as Alexa in Alexa & Katie |
Michael Lang, Verbena. Interested in ancient rituals and weird occult stuff but not that creepy because it's not really that kind of chronicle.
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| Luke Grimes in Noir State Beach |
Sunset City season 3
3.01: Putting The Band Back Together
23/6
It's been a quiet few months -
Smash cut to Cara leading the charge against a pack of ghouls in a cemetery, slashing at their leader with her sword.
But looks like there's someone hunting allies of the Traditions...
Reuel: Enjoy making trouble, you rabble rousers
3.02: The Missing
30/6
A Hermetic leader is missing, can't even be found by scrying, and we're the kind of idiot who go enter and look around his place physically.
3.03: Paper Trail
7/7
The mirror does not start talking, so that's something.
We spend several hours looking around the missing Hermetic rep's spooky-ish house, mostly the library. Simon works out where he left for and Cara tracks his movements.
He was out trying to find an ally who disappeared.
"He was player charactering? That's rude."
Simon's player
3.04: Contact
21/7
We get to the place the ally disappeared, and it checks the box for "signs of a struggle".
Cara walks it through with her mystic martial arts insight and confirms three men, one of whom hung back as the other two did the actual chasing and bundling the guy out.
And was here when the Mage arrived.
That's all we get before Simon gets a call that another Council ally has gone missing.
Didi: "So are our friends safe?"
Simon: "These seem like call-for-help-in-a-battle allies, not call-for-help-with-gig-tickets allies..."
3.05: Well At Least It's Not Our Fault This Time
28/7
After Simon and Michael get done examining the ally's apartment, Simon calls the Council and they send one of the Hermetic librarians over. He confirms it was a mystical attack, and not the only one.
Cara: "So who's behind it?"
Librarian: "More like what."
Didi: "Dude. Really?"
At the Library, an explanation.
Mages from a timeline someone here prevented happening.
Alissa, flatly: "Oh well that's okay then."
Now the Traditions know enough to get ahead of the next attack.
Cue a fight with beings who can phase in and out of reality. Cara has to time hits really well.
3.06: Echoes
4/8
Didi: "So if this is an alternate timeline, are there going to be evil us-es?"
Simon: "How could we tell?"
Didi: "Hey!"
We are assured that there will not be evil us-es as it's not that kind of alternate timeline. Though there is a danger of them using other times as traps.
Cara: "Will we have to fight N*zis?"
Librarian: "Oh, no, the N*zis never actually win in any universe."
Cara: "Reassuring but follow-up question who can I fight?"
Librarian: "See who you can find here..."
Directions to a old townhouse, which here is derelict but might not be over there.
Checking the place out, we find (a) there's weird mystical stuff afoot and (b) we're not the only people looking into it.
Time mages, who are investigating to either fix the problem or use it to their advantage. After our last experience with time mages we're a little short on trust.
They find the gap the parallel mages are coming from, which means they appear and start fighting everybody, the time mages teleport away, and several parallel mage asses are kicked before they vanish as well.
Alissa: "Did we just win?"
Cara: "Maybe for now. I wanna know what the Time Bandits are up to..."
Reuel: Yu can tell by the goatee
3.07: Dungeons. Possibly Also Dragons.
18/8
A sinister reclusive Hermetic shows up seeking to take advantage of the parallel universe attack. He was one of the coven that banished the chaos timeline originally and figures reality owes him one for that.
He tries to steal some of the leftover reality distortion power to power up his mystical gear and settle some long-standing scores, maybe take over the world or at least one of the assorted parallel worlds currently available.
That sounds like a problem so we have to fight him and his horde of not-Orcs.
Didi: "Do we get robes?"
Yes this episode was like this on purpose.
C: Cara to the chief henchman: (via Escape Room 2)
3.08: We Interrupt This Broadcast
25/8
We have to fight an evil cable TV show.
Another attack that got through in the chaos, it's one of those spooky kids' shows they do creepypastas about.
We don't get to fight evil puppets like Smile Time, but we do get to trap a ghostly mage on a video tape.
Didi: "Maybe you can start a petition site to get picked up by Quibi."
3.09: Chill Factor
1/9
Looking for ways into the chaos timeline, Michael finds some ley lines have gone wonky and the circle follows them to a pocket universe of endless winter.
Didi: "Okay, I am not going in there without my mittens."
And then we have to fight humanoid collections of icicles.
Alissa: "These are the prettiest monsters yet."
3.10: Mission Doubly Impossible
15/9
In order to stop one of the timeline fractures, we have to steal a mystical power crystal from a sinister Technomancer lab.
Cue heist episode!
Cara fights a robot.
Alissa does acrobatics through a laser alarm grid.
Didi distracts a guard by pretending to faint.
J: go Didi!
Me: She learned from the best / worst.
3.11: No Such Luck
22/9
Finding and stopping a chaos mage who distorts probabilities before everything goes Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.
Didi distracts the mage by shouting improbable things, partially to see if they'll happen if she makes him thinks about them. "I won the lottery! I'm Mrs. Ryan Gosling!"
3.12: The Clock Strikes Twelve
29.9
The rogue Time Mage leader tries to use the chaos to rewire history so his coven retroactively rules the magical city.
Simon works on a ward as Cara steps up to fight him. "Ah yes, the hero. I knew I'd have to get you out of the way." He sends in his champions.
--
Didi runs, making one chase her and get lost.
Alissa finds the perfect set of stairs to kick one down.
But that means they're both away from the main fight.
--
Cara stands and fights the Time Mage's champion (an empty suit of armor) to keep Simon safe, and has just won when the Mage opens a portal. "Feisty. I think I have the perfect Hell for you."
Cara tells Simon "Finish the ward!" and charges, forcing the Mage back.
The portal closes behind them.
Simon blocks the Time coven's spell to rewrite history and the remaining champions vanish.
Didi, Alissa and Michael get back.
Did asks "Where's Cara?" All Simon can do is shake his head.
...
Cut to Cara landing in the same place... in 1954.
"Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding..."
To Be Continued
3.13: That Was Now, This Is Then
6/10
Michael ritually tracks down the Time Mage who owes the circle a big favor for helping us undo his wife's death. Confirming that he isn't part of the coven trying to take over the world, they go to see him and ask about retrieving Cara. He confirms that the rogue moved through time but not space, into the past, and that he should be able to bring her forward again - easier than backward - if he can get some grounding items like her birth certificate.
On their way they have to fight ghouls, which is of course harder without her.
Getting the spell focuses, they manage to reopen the tear in time. Cara looks out from the other side, sees them and jumps through.
"Thanks. Apparently he went with 'really frustrating' not 'kill me instantly' so he put me in the Fifties, not during an earthquake or something."
Didi: "Though I can see why you'd not be a fan."
Cara: "Least I was only there a day. And I knew you guys would find me." She smiles. "Though if it took more than a week I was gonna find a Time Mage or an Aetheric who could make a suspended animation chamber or something. I wouldn't blend in well."
Simon: "Well, no sign of the rogue, so he might be stuck there too."
Cara: "I hope so for his sake..."
Does this mean the rogue might reappear and yoink them back in time again? Didi for one would like to see that...
3.14: Low-Key Party Episode
13/10
Didi gets the others (even Simon) to come to a Hollow One house party. Partially to make sure nobody tries Drunk Ouija again.
Didi runs into an ex.
Cara breaks up a fight by grabbing both parties by the collar.
Alissa spends pretty much the entire night on the dancefloor.
"And I let you talk me into coming out tonight."
3.15: Buy One Get One Free
20/10
Thefts at mages' sanctums turn out to be a chaos mage who can split himself into two bodies, breaking and entering with tricks like getting a hand in through a cat door and manifesting his other half on the other side.
Knock both of him out and one disappears.
3.16: Fancy Party Episode
27/10
Hermetic Halloween Gala! Formal dress code! Dancing! Academic politics! Canapés!
The girls get dresses made and go to the salon. The boys look out shirts with all the buttons attached. (Exaggerating slightly, but y'know, boys.)
Catching up with various mystical scene friends, acquaintances, and in some cases enemies. Some politicking, but no murders or duels to the death.
Simon is offered a chance to get published in a scholarly Hermetic journal. Alissa shows off on the dance floor with some of her Tradition. Michael looks at the artefact collection in the library. Cara dances when a Chorister paladin asks. Didi flirts with an Ecstatic drummer smoking on the balcony.
At midnight the Librarian hosts announce a challenge to find an item hidden in the manor house's maze.
The maze is bigger than it should be, and the challenge gets a bit metaphysical. At one point a talking statue asks the circle a riddle, and Didi bombards it with wild guesses. At another they're waylaid by wrathful spirits, and Cara fights them with her hairpin.
A Hermetic-heavy circle wins, to grumbles about favoritism.
The circle go to get Thai after.
At least they all look great in the arrival photos.
(Except Michael, who really wasn't trying. Boys.)
Cara's player: "The updo is super cute, and the hairpin is super sharp."
Michael's player: "I'm going for 'minimal effort for attending a cousin's wedding reception because my folks will complain if I don't'."
3.17: It's Dangerous, But Is It Art?
3/11
Alissa's mentor snags tickets for the preview of an exhibition of the work of a 19th century painter, visionary weirdo and possible mage.
This does mean seeing some of the same people, vampires, Sidhe and so on from fancy parties and occult events...
... and also having to fight a demon escaping a century trapped in a painting.
Cara: "I didn't even get a cheese stick yet."
3.18: A Nice Little Town
10/11
A small town upstate taken over by a folk horror style evil cult. A Verbena priest and his weirdo acolytes. Animal masks, a harvest demanding blood, the whole thing.
Michael argues with the priest.
Cara cleaves a wood monster in twain.
Didi and Alissa distract some boys.
3.19: Damn The Man, Save The Empire
17/11
Alissa leads the group to help save an indie bookstore near campus. Cue mostly low-key heroics:
Didi gets boys to sign the petition.
Cara protects the protest rally.
A suitably outraged Simon punches a despair spirit that came to drain the students' hopes and love of reading.
Michael gets coffee with a nice witch from the rally craft fair.
3.20: The Sideways House
24/11
One of the circle that defeated the chaos mages hasn't been seen for over thirty years, but now someone claiming to be her daughter has come to the Library asking for help finding her.
Her house extends into at least one parallel universe. And there's something else inside.
Simon, traditionalist that he is, uses twine to keep track of the corridor maze.
Didi takes pictures with her phone at every turn. "Did we just go left five times?"
Michael and Alissa try to divine which rooms are in our universe and which aren't.
Cara splits off to confront the monster.
Everybody gets separated as the monster charges all at once. It's a chaos thing. The mage stole its power to bridge different universes, and it took it back after the attacks.
Alissa follows Simon's twine back to him.
Didi uses her ability to open convenient doors to find everybody.
Simon and Alissa banish the monster by solving the house maze.
The mage's daughter finds her mother in the basement, which is accessible through the attic skylight, as the house starts to straighten itself out. She's lost that stolen power - she fears the monster's master has regained it.
So that's concerning.
Anyway, next week, Thanksgiving episode!
3.21: Give Thanks
1/12
Thanksgiving at Alissa's family. Since it's not as mystically charged as Halloween, Midwinter, Christmas or New Year, it gives the circle a chance to actually relax. As much as possible given monsters and stuff.
Cara and Michael are helpful in the kitchen. Didi watches the Macy's parade and cheers for the protesters blocking the Ronald McDonald balloon.
A whole lot of food is eaten, some call family in quiet moments, and everybody goes home with leftovers.
Cara drags Didi out to patrol for monsters hunting around Black Friday. Simon takes Library Girl to a play. Alissa gets a call back from the dance studio about working the Christmas show.
A chance to do normal things (monster hunting kinda counts) and prepare for normal things ahead... in case something happens in the mystically significant days ahead...
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| "You guys knock yourselves out. This food isn't gonna eat itself." |
3.22: In The Bleak Midwinter
8/12
The chaos mages prepare for a final push to revive their reality by shattering ours. The treacherous Time mages try to steal control of time during the attack.
Simon and Michael help identify focal points that need defending, like the Hermetic council leader's house.
Cara leads the defense of the museum and its assorted mystically charged exhibits. Didi helps with her knowing-the-right-door power, Alissa with her rhythm sense predicting when chaos creatures are going to phase in and out of reality.
A Time rogue tries to make both sides take each other out.
Our side loses the fight on one of the other nodes and everything goes -
There'd better be a session next week.
3.23: Let's Lose The Time War Again
15/12
1989, and Alissa is about to make her debut in the lead in Swan Lake in New York.
2025, and Cara is in the ruins of Golden Gate Park.
1982, Didi is at the opening of the Succubus Club in Chicago.
1976, Michael is in jail for possession.
1944, and Simon is trying to find a spy in Los Angeles.
--
Alissa decides to go with it and see if there's a way out.
Cara tries to push her way back to the real world. Nothing seems to happen.
Didi tries to find the right door. She tries a lot of doors.
Michael is too tired to realize this is wrong right away.
Simon figures he'd better play along too.
--
Alissa dances better than ever before - and now she's somewhere cold and dark.
Cara has to defend a group of post-apocalypse survivors from a horde of monsters.
Didi spots some obvious vampires in the crowd and they don't look fun. She goes to stop them and -
Michael wakes and realizes he's out of time, and makes himself dream again.
Simon gets to be nervous through a thrilling adventure.
--
Alissa finds a Hermetic Librarian and a Chorister paramedic have made it here too.
Cara takes out the monster leader and arrives as well.
More of their allies come into the void, escaping the times they were sent to.
And the chaos mages are coming too.
Didi gets the vampires to chase her, runs on stage and stagedives to escape.
Michael picks a fight in the prison yard and gets himself knocked out.
Simon finds the spy.
--
Once everyone gets back, the Traditions and chaos are fighting, like the rogue Time Mages wanted...
Simon and Michael follow the 'trail' of appearances back to reality, Didi finds the right door and Cara and Alissa hold the chaos mages off so everyone can escape.
It's the moment that the Time rogues took over the Library.
But now every Tradition mage who was protecting every front is here.
Sure, they have to fight mages who can distort time, but once Cara kicks the leader through the portal they start teleporting out in a panic.
Reality is more or less in the right shape again.
Alissa confirms she didn't perform in history. Cara warns the Council about the future she saw.
Didi suggests a historical costume theme for the Library New Year's Eve party and smiles blithely at the reactions.
"What?"
Roll credits.
OOC joke outtakes include Didi making out with one of the vampires, Cara being sent in the 1950s again and returning dressed up for a party, and Michael never waking up enough to figure out what's going on and having to be rescued.
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