Saberlane

**Saberlane** was a member of the '94 Mountaineers.

## Biography

CJ Bernstein, also known as Saberlane, grew up in rural Florida, coming from an impoverished family that didn't afford him many opportunities to read books. His love of reading was fostered through librarians and English teachers, who allowed him glimpses into magical worlds that only books can provide. CJ was a high school drop out, and a twice college dropout, once majoring in musical theatre. He eventually decided to pursue screenwriting and moved to Los Angeles where, after a year, "happenstance and luck and being almost sort-of prepared led me to my first sold script."

CJ worked for many years as a screenwriter for movies, but became disillusioned with having a job that forced him to chase other people's ideas, and which didn't allow him to take creative risks. CJ had worlds in his mind that he wished to share with the world. After consulting with his husband, Matt, he chose to pursue his dream and move to New York City to become an indie publisher and author.

In the spring of 2013, CJ's kids found Ackerly Green's Guide to Magiq on a park bench in New York City, and the Guide became a cherished book in their household. The book was eventually tracked down by Mountaineers in early 2016, who asked if they could see it, but it was in tatters by the time they arrive. The Guide had finally disintegrated, but not before one of the children had made a hand-drawn copy. The Mountaineers begin the painstaking process of reproducing the Guide based on the rough copy and their fragmented memories of its content and illustrations. The Guide was released online, which included a foreword by CJ.

### Phase Three

Saberlane was mentioned in Martin Rank's post "The Quiet," during the time between Phase Two and Phase Three. Martin mentioned that he did not know Saberlane personally, but had heard of his name .

### Phase Four

Saberlane was first mentioned in Fragment Fourteen in Knatz's journal. She noted that Saberlane had suggested she put it online, but mentioned that she would be keeping it a secret from everyone but him. When Knatz began tracking down loose threads in the hopes of opening the Book of Briars, she remembered a Mountaineer named Nib who, in the early days of the forums, had received a locked briefcase from Benefactor. The briefcase had mostly been forgotten as no one could figure out how to open it, and there were many artifacts in play, but Knatz had an urge to check on it. So, she traveled to South Carolina, meeting up with Saberlane, to check on it. Saberlane assisted Knatz in asking around for Nib and, once they found his house on Lake Blalock, Saberlane found him in the cellar. Nib's mind was wiped from the Storm and the only thing he could mention of the briefcase was that it was "with Faris," but Knatz was able to figure out that it was thrown over the edge of the lake near his boat, which was named Faris. With the briefcase acquired, Saberlane and Knatz drove down to Atlanta together, where Saberlane flew back to Jacksonville.

Knatz was able to get the briefcase open with the help of the modern day Mounties, who planted the two combinations in her mind using the Fletcher Dawson website. Inside the briefcase was wood and metal parts. A bunch of little bits and pieces, like metal tines, a brass plate with holes in it, and flat wooden pieces and trim. Not knowing how to assemble it, Knatz asked Saberlane to come up to Chicago to help her, noting the his father used to build things and praying that he might also have some carpentry skills. Saberlane was able to assemble the box, allowing Knatz to put on the lid, but the box slammed shut and refused to open. Suddenly, the color of the box began to shift and words appeared on it, mentioning an unowl's rhyme. Knatz went through several of the unrhymes, which she solved with the help of Saberlane and the modern day Mounties. As Knatz solved more puzzles, she realized that the strange dreams she was having were someone trying to communicate with her and, when she told this to Saberlane, he believed the dreams were from the Mountaineers in 2017. Knatz was able to successfully open the box with a song the Mounties sang to her, gaining the word Obscuriotempus.

When Augernon returned, he asked to see Knatz, so she and Saberlane parted ways. Not wanting him to worry, Knatz sent Saberlane to New York with the box, to see if taking it to the Ramble would cause any reaction to the box. The results were unsuccessful, but Augernon was able to formulate a last ditch effort to save the remaining Mountaineers. He had visited his grandfather and learned a bastard hex that could cause them to forget everything they knew about magiq. Augernon believed that this would shield them from the Storm, so he rallied all the Mountaineers to come together and perform the spell. Saberlane and the other remaining Mountaineers chose to forget to save themselves from the horrors of the Storm, and Augernon sacrificed himself to the Storm so that the others would be safe. It wiped him away completely, but allowed the Mountaineers to walk away not remembering anything, and the Storm thought it did its job.

### After the Monarch Papers

After Deirdre left for Neithernor, she told the Mountaineers that Ackerly Green would be in good hands. The new steward introduced himself as CJ Bernstein - formerly known as Saberlane. Having lost his memories of the Mountaineers, CJ went on to live a normal life, marrying his husband Matt and adopting two kids. When the Ackerly Green Website was released, a new post by Deirdre Green was included in the Further Tales section. In the post, which was written right before Deirdre joined the forums, Deirdre described her struggles getting Ackerly Green Publishing on social media. She realized that both the Twitter handle and Instagram account were already registered under the name AckerlyGreen. By emailing Instagram, she was able to get the address of the person who registered the account - cj@cjbernstein.com. The man was CJ, revealed to be Saberlane, the man who had found the MAGIQ Guide and who had asked to be left alone for the sake of his family. CJ admitted that he found himself strangely drawn to the company and that he was using the accounts to try to find other people who might remember the company. Deirdre and CJ began a friendship over emails and CJ helped Deirdre learn how to resurrect the publishing company. As Deirdre's interest in running a publishing company waned, she decided to leave it in the hands of CJ.

After Deirdre left for Neithernor, CJ agreed to take on the role of steward of Ackerly Green Publishing. He planned to publish Martin Rank's account of the opening of the Book of Briars, as well as publish the contents of the Book of Briars. In doing so, CJ also began to dedicate his time to tracking down the old Ackerly Green books, such as The Forest of Darkening Glass, which he found in Bangladesh, coverless and missing its front matter.

### Strange Occurrences

Since CJ took over Ackerly Green, strange occurrences began to happen in regards to the Ackerly Green social media accounts. The Instagram in particular became a hub of unusual activities, with posts being made by someone other than CJ or his assistant, Devin. In "The Ackerly Green Book Shop" CJ told Mountaineers about the strange happenings on the account, asking if it was any of the Mountaineers who were messing with it.

CJ further mentioned that he had been experiencing unusual activities in the Ackerly Green offices, mentioning that, late at night, he would sometimes hear typewriters.

### Ackerly Green Secret Society

Together with Orvin Wallace, CJ was able to track down remnants of the former Ackerly Green, finding a warehouse filled with boxes of Herman the Hippocampus pins. The pins came with a note that they were for the Ackerly Green Secret Society, which CJ surmised meant that they were from the Book of The Wild, since the Book of Kings Ackerly Green wouldn't have had the readership to justify a secret society. After acquiring the pins, CJ noticed they had some strange features, such as always finding their way on the things he would wear.

Over the past few weeks, CJ noted odd occurrences: talking, pages turning, pages tearing, old phones ringing, the feeling of someone brushing past me when he was the only one there, even the clacking of typewriters. CJ and Devin agreed that the new offices of Ackerly Green felt like they were being haunted by the old offices of Ackerly Green. Things escalated when CJ recieved a call from building management that there had been a bunch of noise complaints made by his office neighbors. A neighbor said it sounded like someone was having a knockdown, drag out fight in the AGP office. CJ drove to the office to try and figure out what was happening. He could hear the yelling and the smashing of things from the floor’s lobby, but when he got to the office door, it got quiet. He unlocked the door, opened it, and just as he was about to turn on the light, he saw someone, standing in the dark, staring back at him. When he turned on the light, it was gone. When CJ checked if anything in the office was amiss, he found that there wasn’t a single thing in the office out of place.

CJ continue working at the office, not noticing anything besides the usual odd sounds, but he kept having the nagging urge to return to the storage building where the pins were housed. Noticing he seemed to get the thoughts when he was wearing the pin, CJ decided it was a sign and snuck into the storage room. In the room, CJ found a strip of paper from Warner Green, introducing members into the Secret Society. When CJ went to leave the room, he received a notification on his phone, sent from the Ackerly Green App - “I looked across the cold and silver swirling sea.” CJ also noted that a chronocompass had been added to the app that he himself hadn't added. Confused and concerned, CJ wondered if the process of building the app had been magiq.

Another evening in the office, CJ heard someone walking about. He opened the door and saw the ghost, and the two were able to communicate with each other. The ghost told CJ that he was a member of the path of Wool, and that he was massacred by the Silver.

S: Yes, you?
G: Do you know why I’m here?
S: No. I thought it was about the pins? (I showed it to him but he didn’t seem to recognize it.) It’s our company mascot. Ackerly Green Publishing.
G: That is this place?
S: Yeah. Do you know anything about it?
G: No.
S: Do you remember anything about yourself? Where you’re from? Maybe what you’re doing here?
G: I am lost to myself. There are holes… in my mind. I want to remember but there are missing pieces. I don’t know why, but in looking for them I was drawn here.
S: To the office?
G: Something is happening here.
S: I know. I thought you were part of it.
G: I am lost. I saw a light. I followed it. But I cannot remember what I was searching for. What I thought was waiting beyond the light. I found you here.
S: Sorry.
G: Can you help me somehow?
S: I don’t know. I have friends who know more about this kind of thing. Well, not really ghosts, so much as magic…
G: Magic.
S: Yeah.
G: I know magic.
S: You do?
G: I was killed by magic. I saw others fall.
S: Who fell?
G: The Monarchs.
S: You’re Monarch’s Mountain? Are you talking about Neithernor? The war?
G: The massacre.
S: Is this because we’ve been to Neithernor?
He didn’t answer.
S: Maybe you got lost and followed someone through a door? Maybe that was the light?
G: I do not remember… I looked across…
He stopped.
S: You looked across what?
G: It was dark, cold. I looked across…
I’m embarrassed to say it took me way to long to realize what he was trying to say. I finally caught up and frantically yanked my phone out of my pocket…
S: I got a weird text yesterday… I mean, a weird message. I think it might be for you.
I showed him the phone. He looked closely at it and repeated the phrase…
G: I looked across the cold and silver swirling sea.
Suddenly it was like all the heat and sound left the room. The lights went out. And it’s like we weren’t in the office. It was like a cold, black void.
And I could see him glowing in the darkness. The look on his face was like something had dawned on him. I could barely hear him–
G: I remember. I looked across the cold and silver swirling sea. I was the one who first saw them coming. I was the one who knew. I saw it all begin.
And then the lights came back up, I was back in the office, and he was gone.

CJ encountered the ghost again, who he nicknamed Woolie to coincide with him being on the path of Wool.

I put the keyboard in my lap and just started typing as he wrote.
W: …finally a parley had been agreed upon. It was decided that an assembly of house leaders would await them at the eastern shore at the dawn of Assembler’s Day. But they never meant to parley. They came as night fell on Assembler’s Eve. I stood at the watch. Was trusted as the first sight. I looked across the cold and silver swirling sea. I was the one who first saw them coming. I was the one who knew. And saw it all begin. I saw them, carried by wing, and wind, and blood-black sails. I was trusted as the first sight, but I stood, watching, unable to move, unable to speak. Unable to sound the cry. I failed. Frozen there as a great black wave of water rose up, obscuring their envoy, and laying waste to the house leaders who made camp on the shores. I watched them fall from sight beneath the mouth of the sea, the ice brine reaching up to the tower, and then the final silence fell up on me.
S: Is that the last thing you remember?
W: The black wave filled my chest. It drew me from the watch. There was no up or down. Only cold and dark and then… and then I cannot say. But then there was a light. And I followed it. Not swimming nor walking. I was willing myself after it. And then I was here.
He looked up at me and I realized it had become easier for me to see him. The spectral water that ran off him pooled around one of my shoes. I could see it wasn’t “real.” But I could see it.
W: The message you found was part of my memory. Part of what I lost. You made me remember that.
S: I’m so sorry.
W: No, you can help me. Help me to remember.
S: Is that what you want?
W: I am lost. And you found a part of me. Perhaps you could find more. To tell me who I am.
S: We’ll do whatever we can to help you.
W: There are… shards left in my new memory. Small pieces that don’t belong there. I think they might belong to you and your friends.
And then he started reciting a poem and I hope to God I got it right.
A clock
A courthouse
Two wheels in the sea
A tower
A market
A cemetery
The seal of a king
A carpenter’s cure
A union of time
A Romanesque lure
A brush with the law
As she spoke in a tree
That is all that you need For the first memory
He vanished before his voice did and by the end it was barely a whisper. I think that’s it, but I don’t know.

Mountaineers were able to map the hints to real-world locations, based around the locations of the pins. After all six locations had been found, they received the hints: A collector of tales, A circle of stones, A lost feather, Buried treasure, A swashbuckling pirate, and A fishing town.

After all the locations were found, CJ received a notification that the motion-detecting camera he had set up in the office recorded a portion of the Ackerly Green's Tales of Wonder podcast.

In "Date Night", after a date with his husband Matt, CJ was led by his pin to a shadow of Herman in the front window’s glass of a little store front that had been abandoned and left with a rotting for-sale sign in its window for what looked like decades. CJ described it as "the memory of a shadow."

CJ decided to go back to the storefront in "Cellar Door" after he did not get any callback after calling the for-sale sign for weeks. In the building was an old desk that contained part of a shipping receipt for a big crate that was sent to Marrekech. It said “Return has been paid for, but only upon request.” Although the recipient's address was torn off, the deliverer's address showed the building he was in - previously known as the Ackerly Green Book Shop. The sender's name was "A.G." While CJ was in the building, his phone buzzed with a notification - “I’d found the key, and with it, a way to leave this world behind.”

CJ spoke with Woolie once again in "On the Atlantic," noting that the man was more solid than before, but flickering in and out, and that he was more chatty than usual.

We’d been out on a run for a week, returning from Nova Scotia, and we happened on a battered lifeboat with only a single soul on board. A man, older than my father, near dead from cold and thirst. We brought him onboard and I, as the most junior man of the crew, was tasked with keeping him alive until we made port in six days’ time.
I kept watch on him, and after a night of filling his belly with water and cured meat he was strong enough to sit up, strong enough to speak.
He’d booked passage on a screw steamer that was coming up from San Juan when they’d run into bad weather and took on water. He said things that didn’t make sense. He said his work was almost done and he had to keep on. He’d walked a long trail and was sure he had almost reached the end of his journey. There was another world beyond this, where truth had been hidden, and he had found a secret road to walk that would lead him to the truth and allow him to leave this all behind.
He was delirious so I put him to bed for the night. But I couldn’t sleep. Something about what he’d said. The hidden truth about the world. Leaving this all behind. It had plucked a string in me, the thrum resonating in my chest, warming me. I wanted to know what he’d meant, needed to know more about this path, this truth. He was a minister and I his wide-eyed believer. I checked on him early the next morning, but he had passed sometime in the night.
In his rucksack was a waterlogged journal. In it he had written the names and locations of hundreds of places from all around the world. A list made up of sculptures, ancient ruins, works of art… Most of them had been crossed out. However, he had connected the remaining names with a thick red line that ran through the journal. On the line he’d written the words, “The Path”.
It seemed like lunacy, but I recall a feeling like a fire running through me the moment I saw those two words. The Path. There was a knock on the cabin door and I answered it, assuming it was the captain come to check on the gentleman, but there was no one on the other side. I turned back to the journal on the table.
The image of a door on its last page, where the red line ended. I felt a kinship with the man’s madness. A connection. We both saw the lie of this world, but he had sought the truth at all costs. In the months after losing all I had, I’d considered taking my own life to end my torment. To free myself. But he had persevered. Worked out the way the truth had been locked away. And now I knew with a mad, unexplainable certainty that I’d found the key, and with it, a way to leave this world behind."

He stopped talking. I turned around to ask him a question, and he was gone. I transcribed everything I scribbled and just now looked up at the dry erase board we have in the office. He was writing on it, the words disappearing just as he wrote them, but I got them down. There was another riddle hidden in his memory…
On wheels or wings
On wires or things
That grow but aren’t alive
That travel between north and south
Or twinkle in the sky
A link in the address
Where gold bubbles flow
A mill I can reach
And minerals low
A meeting of waters
A jolt in the air
Go have a wander
There’s memories there

With Woolie's appearance came a new set of locations. CJ later suggested that the new locations may all be connected to museums, giving some helpful hints on where Mountaineers could look next

After the second set of coordinates were located, Woolie failed to reappear. However, Catherine, CJ's assistant, found a strange ticket to a haunted lighthouse. In the meantime, CJ continue tracking down the Ackerly Green shipment, eventually leading him to mainland China. A woman had contacted CJ, telling him they might have a lead on some stock that remained after the former Ackerly Green went under. Meanwhile, Catherine was

    magimystically drawn to the Brooklyn Collection, when she received an application alert - “A world that could not have been imagined by man.”

In September 2018, CJ moved offices to another floor and, after the move, received another visit from Woolie. In "Moving Office," Woolie's form was faded, the magiq keeping him in the Ackerly Green office weakening. However, he was able to tell CJ about his exploration into Neithernor.

We finally moved into the new office and hadn’t heard anything for about a week and a half, until this morning. Catherine wasn’t in the office yet, but Woolie came back and he was fragmented, and fading, whereas before he had become more… corporeal before? Now he was back to the way he was when he first showed up. Whatever seems to be happening with the Instagram account and the sounds in the office also seems to be happening to Woolie. Like we’re losing our connection to him, or his connection to us. He was originally drawn to the office because he said there was some kind of light in it. Maybe that light’s disappearing. Like magiq?
He was talking but I could only hear about a quarter of it. He was telling me about his first steps into Neithernor. He said he was welcomed with open arms by these people who had taken these ancient ruins and turned them into beautiful homes for the six guilds that he’d come to learn about, almost like club houses. Rotting wood and crumbling stone had been covered with tapestries, cloths, and furniture, and there were tents set up all over the place. It was like these grown-ups were living some wonderful childlike adventure. He saw people going and coming through doors to our world, people learning magic, people sitting around campfires, telling stories, detailing adventures they had in this world. He met groups of people gathered under massive trees reading old books and parchments, working together to try and learn unknown languages and decipher strange codes. He said he finally felt like he was home. I’m not positive, and it may be because I’m biased, but I think he said he was an Ebenguard. How he describes Neithernor, and the new houses, the path of wool, all sounded extraordinary. I have no idea why I can’t knock in but maybe it’s just not my thing, yeah? Anyway, I’ve been pretty preoccupied.
After about ten minutes he disappeared mid-sentence and didn’t come back. I stayed until the early hours of the morning just in case, and just when I was about to leave, on the chalkboard, I found one phrase, written in what I assume is his handwriting…
“When the sun god finds one sister who still holds aloft her fire”
That was it. It doesn’t seem like it’s a lot to go on. I mean, what the hell is happening? The Book of Briars has been inexplicably delayed, whatever connection we had to the other Ackerly Green and Woolie seems to be dissolving. Any ideas what we should do?
As for the AG package, no word yet from China but I’ve been following up regularly. I’ll let you know as soon as I know something.

After the discussion, CJ found a phrase written on his chalkboard. The first clue led to a series of chain reactions.

While Mountaineers searched for their clues, CJ followed up on the shipment. He was able to get in touch with the woman from China, who told him that she did indeed have a shipment there. However, sending the shipment required a password, set up by "A.G." before it could be sent.

   The final clue led to the word "Vordicriminant" which proved to be the keyword to release the Ackerly Green shipment. The package was promptly sent out and was revealed to be a strange cabinet that seemed to have too many drawers. CJ, however, was unable to open any of the drawers, but did detect a strange rattling noise. Within the shipment was also a piece of paper for Hermie the Hippocampus - a cute cartoonish version of Herman.

In "[1]," CJ encountered a strange apartment building while walking to his barber. The door buzzed him in and the intercom told him that he had been granted access. Unable to resist exploring, CJ entered and found an old piece of cardstock with a phone number. The number failed to pick up, but CJ did receive a new application notice - “A light that both blinded me and made me whole.”
Later, Woolie appeared yet again, his essence seeming to fade away. He revealed more of his memories, of a woman he loved and how they parted ways. He knew he did something terrible but couldn't remember what, and began to break down as he lost his foothold on the world.

I was camping in the office, and Woolie showed up around midnight, about an hour after I scared the hell out of the cleaning people.
He was in terrible shape, flickering and faded. Distraught.
What follows is what I pieced together from what I could hear and understand.
“The light that drew me here is almost gone, and I feel myself breaking apart, turning to ash like embers on the wind. I was something real, but now I am vanishing. Held together with a light that wanes by the moment.
I knock and knock to try and get back to what I lost. Who I left behind. But my hands pass through the doors like mist. I can’t return to her.
Molly. My own Molly. The first of my guild who welcomed me. The girl who lived across the world, who I never would’ve laid eyes on had I not found Neithernor. The warmth of her hands. The light in her eyes. A light that both blinded me and made me whole. I never deserved her, but I feel as if I have somehow betrayed her, though I don’t know how, not by following through the open door, to the light of this place. No, it was before we were all made of mist. I broke her heart. The pieces here, still in my hands, but I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know much of anything anymore. All the warmth is fading from your world. Perhaps I belong here, having wronged the ones I love, though how escapes my mind.
I will end here, in ash, undeserving of a way back home to her, and unknowing why.”
Then he knelt in the corner of the office and wept in silence. It was heartbreaking.
I sat beside him. I couldn’t touch him to console him, and he either couldn’t hear me or didn’t want to. I don’t know when, but I fell asleep there with him, and it wasn’t until the sun rose that I noticed he was gone and fragments of phrases had appeared on the walls. Written in what I think is ash.
After a couple hours of toying with them, Catherine and I think this is the order they go:
As the hunter’s moon ascends, find a feast for all the senses
Seek a long-abandoned sun that’s now rotting behind fences
Find a monument to travel and a way to let in light
And a view upon a hilltop that once was used for flight
Feel the wind over the water, where bodies lie below
Then find the lonely, wayward stone where prairie grasses grow.

After the new memories had been unlocked, CJ revealed that he had followed up with the phone number from the apartment. It had led to a private tour of the New York subway station and a slot had recently been opened up. Catherine also noted a strange occurance of her own - her journal had been swapped out with another, similar journal in size and color. The journal was empty, except that it said “Continued in Vol. 6 – Evelyn Avis Green” at the corner of the last page.

CJ visited the station in "Down to City Hall Station" and found a strange photo on his phone that he didn't remember taking. It had the word "betrayer" on it. During this time, CJ also revisited the Ackerly Green Instagram and found strange comments from "AG."

    In "The Dreamer", CJ revealed that he had been having strange dreams, where he felt like he was piggybacking off someone else's dreams. He could feel himself being inextricably connected with Woolie, but it was painful. He was drawn into Woolie's nightmares.

You know, like you do on Sunday. This is Woolie’s nightmare.
“My memories are lies. As I fall to pieces, the lies fall away as well.
The man we saved from the boat, the one who began me on the path to Neithernor, he did not lead me down the path of wool like my memories tell me. I can see that now. He set me on a journey to the island across the great sea. To those who called themselves the Silver. That is how I first found Neithernor. I learned of the other houses from them, yearned for their community and sense of wonder. I never felt like I belonged with the Silver and in time they became suspicious of me and rejected me.
They made me forget them and set me back into the world with only an inkling, a need, to return to a place I couldn’t remember. And that’s how I found Neithernor a second time, though until these dreams I believed it was my first. That is how I joined All Ebgorad, how I found my Molly there on that shore that looked onto the sea that stretched between the Silver and us. How I found my home and heart.
In time, when a meeting was to be held on that same shore, a parley for peace that would begin on Assembler’s Day, I fought, despite my inexperience, to be watch on that night. To be the first sight. And Molly fought for me to have the honor, the responsibility. But it was not me who asked to be the first sight. It was the Silver. It had all been their plan. They sowed a seed in my mind before sending me back to the mundane world. A seed that would grow into a need for me to return as one of the six guilds, and to ignore their seabound betrayal until it was too late to stop them. The Silver lied, lied to us all, but it was I who was the betrayer.
When I saw them approach, their blood-black sails raised, the wave tall enough to wash us all away, I did not warn my kin, my family. My Molly. I watched, unable to speak. The seed they had planted in me had grown into a choking vine, and there I died in silence, beneath the waves, forsaking all I ever wanted. All I ever loved.
My every waking thought has been about returning to Neithernor to find my Molly’s spirit and hold her again. But I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve the world I handed to our enemy.”
That was the end of what he wrote. But, sitting there with the journal in the dark, I was thinking about A.G.’s journal and how she said it helped her work through things.
I felt compelled to keep writing, for her. For Woolie. For everything they’ve sacrificed, and honestly, this could be nonsense, or it could be clues…
Fall below the five waterfalls and trade a whip-crack for whiskey.
In her city of the dukes, find the fifteen creatures standing guard.
Coyotes drink in the place of wells where the black stars lie.
The father of gazelles hides a phantasmic collection in a minuscule place.
The proclamation tree casts shadows on the heads of the beautiful island.
A war of knives in a city of light follows a path to a star.

    Finding the next set of clues, CJ revealed that a new object had found his way to the modern day Ackerly Green - a printing block with the old Ackerly Printing House logo.

Shortly after, Woolie reached out directly to the Mountaineers in "Intertwined," noting that he and Saberlane had become trapped together.

All we hear are the sounds now. The sounds down in the dark. He too is fighting, trying to be himself. He is afraid to show, to share how much pain he is in. What are we meant to do?

As a response, a grounding hex was cast to keep Saberlane alive while they figured out how to safely split the two souls.

Once Saberlane regained his sense of self, he updated in Mountaineers in "Of Two Minds." He noted that the video he had captured in the abandoned subway station had a knocking sound and endeavored to return. After the Mountaineers figured out the knocking pattern, CJ broke into the abandoned station and knocked into Neithernor. After doing so, he encountered the spirit of Molly, Woolie's long lost love, and the two

    departed peacefully together. While there, CJ found a Walking Stick and took it with him into the mundane. After returning to the Ackerly Green offices, CJ realized that the objects he'd found acted as a magimystical combination to opening the box. There were six notches on the top of the box. By putting each item on a notch, then tapping the drawer with the walking stick, he was able to open it. Inside was a silver necklace with a caged pendant, holding a pearl-like crystal. The box contained a note, informing CJ that it was an Aliquary.

### The Search for Magiq

When SpiritSeer came to the forums and asked Mountaineers about a strange post tagged #TheSearchForMagiq, Saberlane admitted that he too had been following it. Supporting the Mountaineers in their choice to follow the post's lead and do a thirty day spell, he redesigned the spell image in his company's aesthetic and posted it on social media. He kept an eye on the SearchForMagiq Instagram account and updated the Mountaineers on any new posts.

When the Mountaineers realized that a veil was over them that barred them from communicating with other magimystics, Saberlane noted that he was unable to get in contact with Marty, even through his personal email. He also attempted to tag the old Mountaineers - Endri and Ascender, but to no avail.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.cjbernstein.com/about-contact/
2. ↑ http://magiq.guide/
3. ↑ http://forum.basecamp33.com/t/the-quiet/587/5
4. ↑ https://ackerlygreen.com/2017/12/04/the-lost-post-of-deirdre-green/
5. ↑ https://ackerlygreen.com/2017/12/01/publishers-letter/
6. ↑ https://ackerlygreen.com/2018/03/13/the-ackerly-green-update-march-2018/
7. ↑ http://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-ackerly-green-book-shop/1864/34
8. ↑ https://ackerlygreen.com/2018/01/14/wonder/
9. ↑ http://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/these-secret-society-pins/1843/2
10. ↑ http://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-ackerly-green-update-march-2018/1931
11. ↑ http://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-secret-society-i-looked-across-the-cold-and-silver-swirling-sea/1951
12. ↑ http://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-secret-society-i-looked-across-the-cold-and-silver-swirling-sea/1951/13
13. ↑ http://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/weve-done-something/2028
14. ↑ https://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-secret-society-on-the-atlantic/2116/72
15. ↑ https://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-secret-society-on-the-atlantic/2116/237
16. ↑ https://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-secret-society-saberlanes-summer/2178
17. ↑ https://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-secret-society-the-brooklyn-public-library/2182
18. ↑ https://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-secret-society-moving-office/2184/198
19. ↑ https://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-secret-society-moving-office/2184/226
20. ↑ https://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-secret-society-moving-office/2184/265
21. ↑ https://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-secret-society-moving-office/2184/315
22. ↑ https://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/spell-discussion-and-planning-for-woolie/2407/227
23. ↑ https://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/spell-discussion-and-planning-for-woolie/2407/234
24. ↑ https://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-secret-society-down-to-city-hall-station/2437/5
25. ↑ https://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-secret-society-the-dreamer/2447/136
26. ↑ https://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/complete-the-secret-society-calling-the-corners-for-saberlane-and-woolie/2473
27. ↑ https://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-secret-society-of-two-minds/2560/55
28. ↑ https://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-secret-society-of-two-minds/2560/62
29. ↑ https://forum.ackerlygreen.com/t/the-secret-society-of-two-minds/2560/66