Mage the Awakening - Boston Unveiled.pdf - Mage - The Awakening - RPG

Do not presume to think of Boston as merely a

college town rich in Colonial history. History is

a net closing in around us, choking us slowly, un-

less we can maneuver our knives to cut through it.

There are other histories. Events that haunt our

nightmares as if they were memories. Shadows of

happenings that have occurred– elsewhere, in less

wholesome territories of the soul. But histories,

still.

Pray your knife is sharp.

—Culsu, of the Shadow Chorus

This book includes:

• A detailed setting rife with intrigue

and arcane secrets, introducing

many mage characters suitable

as friends, enemies or mortal foes

• A host of intriguing and gruesome

antagonists who seek control over

the same mysteries as the mages

of Boston

• A sample story suitable for use

with local, visiting or transplanted

mages

ISBN 1-58846-419-9

WW 40200 $26 .99 US

HUNT

Two years ago, I came to Salem,

looking for someone to induct me into the

“ ANCIENT AND MYSTERIOUS

traditions of the Goddess,”

or something like that.

I WAS 19 AT THE TIME

and had only rarely been more than a half-hour’s

drive out of my native Wiscasset, Maine.

I had recently graduated high school and had spent some time living with my parents and trying

to figure out what I supposed to do with my life — who I was meant to be and where I was meant

to go. Finally, fed up with almost two decades of the same vistas and eager to learn more about

the spirituality I had played at while barely passing algebra and French,

I SCRAPED TOGETHER MY MEAGER SAVINGS , PACKED UP AND GOT MYSELF

A STUDIO APARTMENT IN THE SELF - PROCLAIMED “W ITCH C ITY .”

It was that or keep listening to my mother’s nagging about when was I going to find a husband and settle down.

Salem wasn’t quite what I thought it would be. I figured it would be — spookier . It ended up coming off a

lot more like a chintzy children’s Halloween costume: a lot of the trappings of spookiness, wrapped up in a sense

of self-promoting commercialism insincere enough to make your stereotypical used car salesman come off as

genuine. The city’s air of mystery went no deeper than that found at a carnival’s haunted house. Looking past that,

there was a bit of the overall laid-back coolness of a New England coastal town, but that was nothing you couldn’t

find in Maine. All in all, I felt disappointed that the reality had not lived up to the hype. In retrospect, I have

to wonder what I was expecting. Maybe I was thinking I’d be surrounded by

To tell the truth, I guess I was hoping for something that seemed magical. At the time, I couldn’t put my finger

on exactly why I felt I needed that, but my “grand spiritual quest” fell by the wayside, and I, like so many

others, instinctively embraced the mundane chores of everyday life as armor against my disappointment.

WITCH

DRAB GRAY SKIES , GRIM - FACED MEN IN TALL , BLACK HATS AND

WOMEN DANCING BY NIGHT AROUND FIRES IN THE WOODS

in ceremonies watched over by black cats with glittering yellow eyes.

THE DAY I WOKE UP.

It was a few months after I’d gotten to Salem, a shitty, miserable day.

It was shortly after dusk, and the clouds were spitting a blend of sopping-wet snow and freezing rain that soaked straight through your

clothes and your footwear. Naturally, I had just set the water boiling for a box of macaroni and cheese when I realized I was out of milk.

Now too committed to my dinner selection to start making something else, I killed the burner,

PUT ON MY WINTER COAT AND HEADED OUT INTO THE NIGHT .

I felt sad when I left my apartment, although I didn’t understand the cause of my sadness. My time at the gym was paying off, my job was actually pretty

good and I was finding time to write again. I had no reason to be sad — none I could identify, at any rate. Even when the wind kicked up and the stinging

slush blew in my face (and I realized that I had forgotten my hat and gloves), I didn’t feel annoyed, just sorrowful. The three-minute walk from my

front door to the convenience store felt like an hour, and I just sort of wandered numbly through the place, grabbing my milk and a candy bar for later.

When I left the store, the brief jaunt back to my apartment seemed like an insurmountable obstacle,

SO OVERWHELMING WAS THE HEARTACHE

I turned to look toward the sound that had broken my grim fugue and noticed

a thin, soaked tabby cat

PERCHED MISERABLY ON AN UPTURNED BARREL .

H E MEOWED LOUDLY AT ME .

As I took a few tentative steps down the alley,

he hopped down and began to walk slowly away.

I started to step back toward the mouth of the alley. As I

began to turn, a feeling washed over me, a

sense that I could choose to return to that

empty, slushy street and follow it back to my

apartment and my three-times-weekly

workouts, my decent job

and my idle musings, but

that I would be taking the

path of the known, the safe.

After all, the only thing that

waited back at my place was a box of

macaroni and cheese. Down this alley,

after the trail of this poor, freezing cat

that seemed to want me to follow him, was

something else, something I didn’t know.

Huddling into my coat, I set down my bag on the

upturned barrel, tucked my numb right hand into my

pocket and wandered into the shadows.

* * *

I don’t know how long I followed that cat. Some-

where along the line, I completely lost track of where I was.

In the end, I lost sight of the stray and found myself in the

midst of a tangle of narrow alleys I couldn’t recall walking

I remember clearly the day I began to see through the illusion,

that had settled onto me.

It was only after I heard a very faint sound down a narrow alley that I realized I had stopped

walking and was just standing there, in the dark, under the frozen torrent. I also took some

small notice of the fact that I was utterly alone. The streets were abandoned.

through before. I couldn’t have been more than a quarter-mile from my

apartment, and I was utterly lost. The wind howled, and the heavy, wrought-

iron fire escapes felt like a net, closing in over and around me. Uncertain of

what to do, I pressed ahead and emerged into a quieter part of town. I realized

that I was maybe a 15-minute walk from my front door, though my watch

showed me I’d been out in the cold for well over an hour. I felt rather

disoriented, and, after looking around for a bit, I couldn’t determine exactly

how I had gotten from the one place to the other.

The streets were still abandoned. Maybe there were lights on in those

houses, but I don’t recall seeing any. It felt to me like I was truly alone in

the world, in the midst of a night that would never see morning. My

sorrow took on an edge of thoroughly irrational fear. I felt — no, I knew

— that something terrible was going to happen. My pace quickened, and

I tried to get a bearing on where I was. I was fairly certain that I was moving

in the direction of my apartment. I no longer cared about my milk or my

chocolate bar. I wasn’t hungry anymore. Then, I heard her.

There was the slightest note of fear in her tone. I think she was saying, “Get

out of here,” but I could be misremembering now. A reply came, a man’s voice,

cold and menacing, with a brutal conviction about it. “I know what you are.”

As I rounded the bend, I saw them. She was dressed as if she were headed

out to the club, but tonight wasn’t a Goth or industrial night anywhere I

could think of. Her black hair was slicked back, but stray locks were

lashed about her pretty face by the wailing wind. She was on one side of

a tall, broad, wrought-iron gate, which was hemmed in on both sides by

high, ice-encrusted hedges. He was huge and broad-shouldered, with a

severe cast to his features. There was something else about him, something

that looked, or maybe felt, wrong. He was standing before that gate,

gripping the freezing metal with one large hand. He snarled, “I know who

your master is, as well, and I bring a message for him.”

She answered. “You should leave.”

In reply, he smacked a folded sheet of some kind of weird, thick cloth,

or maybe parchment, against the gate. He chuckled grimly. “ My master

knows something of your Concord, and he has instructed me to have you

inform your Nemean of such.” He traced a sign of some sort in the air with

his hand, and my skin crawled as though I were covered in spiders, but she

stood her ground, and muttered words under her breath that I couldn’t

make out. The crawling feeling then quickly subsided.

As I got a bit closer, I was certain that the man was clearly at least a little

bit insane. I could also see the tension in his body, like he was working

up the nerve to pull that gate open and do something awful to that young

woman. I wanted to just turn around and leave — go home and put on some

warm clothes and tell myself that it was all right to have done so, that none

of this was my problem, anyway. But it wasn’t that part that I listened to.

“Hey!” I shouted before I was even fully aware that I was purposefully

approaching this confrontation. I pointed at the man, “You! Why are you

harassing her? What right do you have to come to someone’s house and

threaten her?”

He turned to face me, pure malice in his eyes. I knew I should have run,

but I stood firm and stared hard into his angry eyes. He wanted me to

flinch, and, though I didn’t (and still don’t) consider myself particularly

brave, I didn’t give him what he wanted. He raised his hand once more, and

that crawling feeling began anew. I heard the breath of the woman on the

far side the gate hitch softly in her throat. From behind me, though, even

over the sound of the wind, I heard the sound of a cat’s hiss. The man’s eyes

darted down, and, strangely, I saw the glimmer of fear in them. He took

a step back, though he continued to clutch at the gate. Standing beside my

right foot was the tabby, its eyes shining with far too much intelligence

and purpose.

The man tilted his head to one side, like a dog that hears an unfamiliar

sound. “You are another of his witches, then?”

I didn’t see that he deserved an answer from me. “Go home.”

He hesitated for a moment and then backed away a pace. He mumbled

something I couldn’t make out and relinquished his grip on the gate. He

wandered off into the rain and was soon lost to the night. When I glanced

back down, the cat had disappeared.

“I had that in hand,” said the young woman behind the fence, “but thank

you.”

I was so focused on the guy I was fairly certain was going to crush my

windpipe that I had almost forgotten that there was someone else there.

I barely managed to blurt out, “You’re welcome.”

She smiled. “Few would have done what you did. It took courage.”

Without thinking, I responded, “What he was doing just wasn’t right.”

It was then that I actually glanced over her shoulder, at the snowy

rooftop of the house behind her. A fierce gust of wind blew a heavy icicle

down from an old and elaborate iron weathervane, and it tumbled down the

roof to shatter on the small patio. My eyes darted back down to her, and

her smile returned as she asked, “How did you find me?”

I smiled back, not knowing why I did. “I’m not sure. I started

wandering, and this is where I stopped.”

The side door to the house opened, and a vicious-looking young man

glared out at the two of us. He fixed a baleful gaze on me. “What are you

doing here? You don’t belong here.”

The woman to turned to face him and said, “Great timing, Tempest.

She’s fine, though. She’s one of us, or close enough to it.”

He stared dismissively at me and then shook his head, laughing

bitterly. He turned and stepped back into the house, calling after the

woman I was speaking to, “Fine, Chaplain, she’s your problem. You

show her the way. If she proves to be anything, maybe we’ll take her in.”

Chaplain nodded and looked back at me as the door slammed shut.

“Don’t pay him any mind. He’s an asshole. We’ll begin soon.”

“But not right now,” I finished for her, “and not in this place. He was

right; I don’t belong here.” I wasn’t sure why that was right, but the place

somehow felt distant from me, like I couldn’t walk through any of its

doors, even if I tried.

She laughed, “No, I suppose you don’t. Sometimes, I wonder if maybe

I don’t, either.”

Suddenly, gripped by an urge I didn’t understand, I pulled the gate open.

Seconds before, such a thing had seemed an insurmountable obstacle, but

it felt to me just then as though it were the most important thing in the

world to do, and that there was nothing that could stop me from doing so.

The gate squealed in protest and shards of ice fell to the ground below. I

stepped through, and every trace of the apprehension I had felt was gone.

I extended my hand. “My name’s Ursula.”

She grasped my hand in her own. Looking back now, I felt like I had

just spoken my name for the first time, like I had never before touched

a human hand or looked into the eyes of another. I think I might have

swayed a bit. There was a violent energy within her, like a roiling wind,

only barely contained, and I felt a similar energy writhing within my soul.

Somehow, though, I knew that I had tamed the energy, and claimed it for

myself. She laughed softly, but comfortingly. “You can call me Chaplain.

Everyone else does.”

“Well,” I replied, steadying myself, “it’s nice to meet you, Chaplain.”

“Likewise, Ursula.” She looked back to the house. “You should head

home. I’ll be in touch.” I knew that she’d find me. There was no need to

give her my number or anything like that. How I understood that, I don’t

know, but it was somehow reassuring.

I nodded and stepped back through her gate. Without another word, I

walked away, toward my apartment, seeing the world through new eyes.

My hunt was over. I had found what I was looking for.

Mage the Awakening - Boston Unveiled.pdf

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