MAG 181: Ignorance

Moments of preparation and recuperation. Audio recorded by the Archivist, in situ.
==Pre-Statement==
Martin and John awake in Upton House, apparently having slept for 71 hours and begin to talk with Mikaele Salesa. John realises that he is unable to Know anything or use compulsion. 
When pressed on it Salesa tells them that though he knows Annabelle Cane works for The Web and may have bad intentions, he feels no need to try and make her leave as she mainly keeps to herself and even cooks for him. He is also fairly sure he could not make her leave if he tried. Additionally, he wants her to be kindly disposed enough towards him to kill him quickly in the event that her plans destroy his bubble of safety. 
Salesa says that he made the bubble of Upton House but refuses when John uses compulsion, as The Eye's power does not work here, and says he wants to tell his story at his own pace. 
He reveals that he is isolated from the change and does not actually know what has become of the world as he spent years preparing for this.
==Statement==
Salesa started as an assistant to Jurgen Leitner and learned about the Entities from him, but left before the attack on Leitner's library to try and bury his supernatural knowledge. He became a wealthy and well known smuggler that dealt in non-entity-related items but found himself unable to stay away from what he had learned.
He started dealing in entity aligned artefacts when he found a "leather pouch, filled with 1888 Morgan silver dollars" that was aligned with The Slaughter. He found that in selling these artefacts he was able to walk away unharmed from the fate that befell the buyers without serving an entity and with even more wealth. 
Salesa admits that part of the reason he became an artefact dealer is because of how characters of his trade were portrayed in fiction, "and how rarely the merchant themself is ever punished in those stories."
Salesa stayed neutral to the entities. He was somewhat close to The Stranger but stayed out of it given his extroverted personality and desire to have his name known. As his business grew, he became increasingly afraid that with the rise of human population a ritual would eventually be able to succeed. He sought to insulate himself from this and specifically began to track items that would protect against the entities. 
At the start of his career he found and sold "an old broken camera" that had the ability to hide its owner from all other powers. He expended a great deal of resources to find it again and faked his death while retrieving it. He spent a long time building his protection wondering if he was overreacting but is now relieved that he was right and can live his apocalyptic retirement in peace. 
==Post-Statement==
John becomes increasingly unresponsive and sick the longer he and Martin stay in the house and so, despite Salesa's offer for them to stay as long as they like in the peace, they leave.
Annabelle confronts them as they leave and Martin becomes angry with her. He is upset by her attempts at manipulating them and wants answers but John is too disorientated to help him. Annabelle says that her phone calls to Martin were hasty and not as planned as they could have been but John points out that this may be an attempt to humanize herself to them so that they may underestimate her. Martin is still unhappy and angry with her but resolves to leave. 
Once outside the house John is revitalized again and able to hold a conversation. They both mourn the loss of the peace that was in the house but Martin refuses John's offer to let him stay there, he would rather keep trying to help fix things with John than be alone and in ignorance. John is unable to remember much of what happened due to being cut off from The Eye and asks Martin to fill him in. The episode ends with Martin describing the house wistfully.
Category:The Magnus Archives Episodes