Mage: The Ascension - Sunset City 4
Cara Lawson, Akashayana
She is beauty, she is grace, she will stab you in the face
Simon Donovan, Hermetic
The token like a wizard type
Alissa Kwan, Ecstatic
She can dance if she wants to, she can leave your friends behind
Michael Lang, Verbena
Into weird old magic with sticks and stuff
And last but definitely least:
Didi Duvall, Hollow One
Hell-o boys
4.01: Nightmares
2/1
It's been a quiet summer -
Simon banishing a spirit, Cara fighting a pack of ghouls, Michael investigating a spooky old mine, Alissa leading a tai chi class, Didi cheering at a gig
- but now people around the city are having strange dreams...
4.02: Starring In Your Bad Dream
8/2
A Dreamspeaker helps with a ritual and the circle sneak into a victim's nightmare. After wandering through some bizarre imagery, they locate and fight a closet monster. They'll have to track the source...
--
4.03: Boo
15/2
This time it's a monster under the bed, defeated with the timely aid of a teddy bear. And that's a lead back to the cause, a fear spirit.
Question is, did a mage call it up? And by accident or on purpose?
Cara: "Are we gonna have to fight our worst fears?"
Dreamspeaker: "Possibly."
Cara: "So who's gonna have to fight public speaking?"
Simon and Alissa raise their hands.
--
4.04: All In Your Head
1/3
And this is possible now because something is causing disturbing prophetic dreams. Signs to read, preparations to make. And monsters to fight.
And a cult dedicated to the half-glimpsed Bad Thing.
Cara, Alissa and Michael punch some fools. Simon tries to get a better idea of the Bad Thing without being perceived by it. Didi starts a fire nearby to stop the cops interrupting the cult-smashing.
--
4.05: Left Turn
8/3
Breaking into an occult collector's hilltop house turned labyrinth. Red string and GPS to find their way around, and more nightmares to fight.
And if this keeps up, dreamers could be in danger when they're awake.
--
4.06: Clubbing Episode
15/3
Look, we have to get the Ecstatics to help, right?
Of course we're getting dressed up.
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| Ksenia Solo |
Simon is like "nah" to clubbing and we're nice about it but he agrees to be sober companion, even though Alissa will be doing that as well she'll be busy on the dancefloor.
Cara will be on the lookout for monsters.
Michael will be on the lookout for loose women.
So the circle gets to chill in their various preferred ways (apart from Simon) because there are chances to drink, dance, flirt, and indeed fight monsters. Didi is up for the first three of those, and kind of helps with the fourth. If nothing else she looks after Cara's nice new going-out jacket while she bashes some vampires.
And then we get tacos.
--
4.07: All You Can Eat
22/3
A nightmare monster in a hospital. (This is a M.A.S.H. reference!)
Simon pretends to be a doctor and Alissa a physiotherapist to get the group in. Didi's door power helps locate and corner the monster. Cara and Michael stomp it flat. (This is a Buffy reference. ;) )
And now we have enough data, it looks like the Bad Thing is a precursor to an apocalyptic threat...
--
4.08: Reap The Whirlwind
29/3
Chaos Mages trying to use the nightmare cloud's power. Chasing through several bad dreams, having to resist them turning our own fears against us, and at one point having to stop a runaway cable car they caused to delay us and add more panic.
--
4.09: The Mad Science Of Sleep
19/3
The Chorister doctor gets the circle access to a university sleep study, and there are Nightmare spirits circling around it, trying to get at the insomniac subjects when they have microsleep moments. Simon confronts one and we find a Chaos Mage working with it!
She yoinks us into nightmares.
Simon in a post-apocalypse wasteland. Alissa at the others' funerals. Michael in endless police processing. Cara stuck in the 1950s. Didi in high school taking a math test!
Simon breaks out first as his nightmare is too big to keep up. He gets us out and we give chase.
Finding our way onto a spooky old-timey steam train cutting through nightmare realms, fighting sleep study nightmares that flicker in and out as we go to get to the front.
Simon traps the main nightmare, Cara fights the Chaos Mage on top of the train and does the approaching tunnel trick.
And we wake back on the floor of the study. The insomniac sleeping soundly, not dreaming.
"Y'know I think about the end of the world a lot too, why couldn't I have gotten the end of the world?"
Cara, grumbling about her 50s glam nightmare
C: *grumbles all the way to the sock hop*
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| Holland Roden |
--
4.10: The Deservedly Shunned House
26/4
Checking out the lair of a long missing and hopefully dead Chaos Mage for possible leads on the Nightmare alliance. The house is very spoopy, and sometimes throws stuff at us.
Surprisingly not the ghost / lich of the old owner, but instead a Nightmare spirit trapped there by him back in the day. We manage to release it back to the other side of the veil and find some hopefully useful papers.
Photoshoot! (by Photoshop!)
--
4.11: Paper Trail
3/5
Following up the Chaos Mage's studies on the Nightmare spirits, which this time does mean having to fight his angry ghost.
--
4.12: Take A Picture, It'll Last Longer
10/5
A gallery opening for an exhibition by an Ecstatic photographer. Put on because the eerie imagery is likely to attract Nightmare spirits as they basically are eerie imagery with mental energy attached.
So we get a bit dressed up. Sensible shoes just in case.
And it naturally attracts a mixed crowd. Other mages, vampires and Fair Folk in the art crowd, that kind of thing.
No sign of Nightmares or Chaos Mages right away. Time for awkward chitchat with monsters.
But eventually, the ghost of the Chaos Mage appears in the reflection in the big gallery window.
Ghost: "You think you can stop fear itself?"
Simon: "No, but I think we can stop you."
And then the ghost makes one of the catering staff pass out and we have to fight half-physical shadows and screams.
But Alissa notices that the ghost backed away and fled after dropping that bomb..
--.
4.13: Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)
17/5
Episode 13, Halfway To Halloween special!
Which considering what our normal sessions are like...
Fighting a gaggle of physical Nightmare spirit monsters sent to attack the Hermetic Library.
Didi's power to find the right door and control locking and unlocking is great when fighting closet monsters. Yay!
Simon repels some with binding rituals.
Alissa by mirroring their movements and then changing so they follow suit and get distracted.
Michael lures some of them to get lost in the grounds.
Cara sees they have a giant monster coming to smash the Library walls. "And I'm up."
Sadly Halfway To Halloween does not have proper Halloween candy readily available but we make do.
--
4.14: In The Frame
24/5
Because there's nothing like a crisis to bring out opportunistic villains, an Ecstatic art thief hits the de Young Gallery and steals some priceless antiquities including a mystic item.
Cara, Alissa and Didi figure out how she got in and out with their footwork and doorway powers.
Alissa's art world contacts pin down a likely smuggler.
Cue chase where the thief has doorway power too!
We recover the artefact. Simon wonders if it's connected to the Nightmare threat. Maybe...?
--
4.15: The Dead Of Summer
31/5
Agents of the dead Chaos Mage looking for a way to bring him back physically, possible after the Nightmares started to intrude on reality, though delayed as we stomped them.
Cara and Michael fight ghouls out to take blood from members of his family.
Didi helps Simon (stop laughing) find the ghost's new place of power.
Alissa keeps one of the ghost's family from being kidnapped. And sees that she's a victim of the strange dreams as well...
--
4.16: Haunted
7/6
Going to the Chaos Mage ghost's new haunt to send him back to deadsville. Cue much ghostbusting.
Which will mean the Nightmare King won't be distracted by him, but we gotta save the world from this guy before we can save the world from that guy.
--
4.17: Dream Big
14/6
Reports of insomnia, oversleeping, and nightmares getting more common.
In among the usual jumble of things people have nightmares about, some mentions of imagery in common.
The circle check in on family and friends, as well as people targeted by the Chaos Mage ghost including his grand-niece who was a potential blood sacrifice.
Cara and Simon check in with the Chorister paramedics about hospital admission and she has to help catch a sleepwalker - or rather sleeprunner.
Half of Alissa's college exercise course are out sick. And she finds a musician she knows came up with a new song in his sleep and it's about a common nightmare image he isn't personally bothered by.
Michael has to stop a guy breaking into a mausoleum because he thought he heard someone calling for help.
Didi looks in on the Hollow One club and the café they hang out at after it and it's shut due to staff shortages, and it's only 3.15 a.m.!
--
4.18: The Sleep Of Reason
21/6
Taking on the cult worshipping the Nightmare, seeking to scare people to death in their dreams. Seeking power in a world where the Nightmare wins and dreams literally some true. And these aren't the kind of people you want having their dreams come true.
Cue protective mind and spirit effects from Alissa and Michael which help pinpoint the source of the attacks, Didi finding the secret temple, Cara and Michael beating up about forty guys and Simon taking on their leader's astral projection as he's put himself in a coma to maintain the connection.
Waking him doesn't kill him but he's certainly disappointed.
--
4.19 but really 12b or so: Darkness Visible
28/6
No Michael or Simon so a breather episode.
Didi drags Alissa and Cara to a gig by the Gothest band around, as there might be guys to dance with or vampires to fight, or both at once.
Didi: "How many times have you made me hunt monsters in the cemetery?"
Cara: "..."
Didi: "Oh, and you totes need something to wear."
Cara: "What? I have black stuff already."
Didi: "Yeah, but like, sensible black stuff."
Cue fabulous dark outfits, dancing, and yes, fighting vampires.
 |
| Queen Didi and her ladies in waiting |
Didi: "One day I shall marry and y'all gonna be like this as my bridesmaids."
Cara: "I've killed for less." (smirk)
Alissa: "I got like eight guys' numbers. I think two of them were vampires though."
Didi: "That's about average."
--
4.20: Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made Of
5/7
The Nightmare is now unbound with nobody else trying to channel it magically. But that means it's free to cause nightmares and gaining in power.
Didi: "So not about to hit the world and put millions in comas right now so dreams can take over. Yay. But about to hit the world and drive millions mad, probably bigger millions, just maybe not as soon, less yay?"
Simon: "'Not as soon' is the important part."
And we know a way in. Maybe.
Which is good because the nightmares are rising, and sometimes manifesting physically when people won't wake.
Cue fights with weird monsters and saving comatose people.
We need the ghost's great-niece to help us get in through the connection in her mind...
--
4.21: Bedtime Story
12/7
Heading into the nightmares of the ghost's great-niece, fighting the monsters under the bed.
"Didi is friend to all children."
And fighting it we find the link back to the storm of nightmares, and how it started. The last thing binding it to the world is in danger of breaking.
--
4.22: Nightmare Day
19/7
Multi-Tradition rituals to get the circle to the heart of the Nightmare storm.
Fighting various fears, including our own. But at least we can help each other. Simon has a bad falling dream and Michael catches him. And Alissa does indeed have to do a book report in front of her high school English class but Didi kicks a heckler.
And at the centre, an ancient nightmare, the first to be trapped inside someone's mind.
Which means we have to fight a weird shadow a fire causes at the back of a cave.
Fighting formless darkness and uncertainty itself proves difficult but in the end we get past the primordial fears of lions and stuff to free the nightmare back to mindspace because it was nearly free and lashing out.
Simon: "Because some fears keep us safe, we can't just banish them all. But we can't let them take over."
Levels of bad dreams and sleep disorders return to just a little above average due to all the anxieties the effect caused. Call that a win...
The End (for now! Coming soon: a miniseries)
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