2020-03-18 Columbia University

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## 2020-03-18 Columbia University

### PCs

Shiloh Young
K. Malcolm Lawson

## Log

> **Shiloh Young**\&61;\&61;\&61; new scene \&61;\&61;\&61;
> Malcolm receives another late night text, just as the clock strikes 12.
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> "Hey dude, free for tutoring? This lockdown is driving me mad. If yes, my place or yours?" @K. Malcolm Lawson**K. Malcolm Lawson**Lionsgate Apartments, 17th Floor, Room 17C - 12:01 AM
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> Malcolm was indeed going a bit stir crazy. All the classes being moved online was one thing, he still had the internship. That went remote last week. Then he still had the clinics. Both of them shut down entirely, moving whatever operations they could online. He had contacted his associates at Aldea - Credible Fear Monitoring and sat in on a few interviews - deportations were still proceeding apace, despite every other part of government shutting down, after all - just to have some social interaction and practice his Spanish. He had already completed the coursework for the day by 2 P.M., and by 6 P.M., the call center had shut down too, so he had spent the rest of the evening reading, in particular his copy of the Memoirs of the First Cabal, to refresh his memory for this conversation which he hoped would happen tonight. So Malcolm was happy to get the text.
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> Absolutely. My place, if you don't mind. Doorman will expect you. I'll put the kettle on. See you shortly.**Shiloh Young**"On my way."
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> She was faster to arrive than last night, and considerably less well dressed, draped back in her loungewear that was nearly uniform grey. She does, however, have that notebook tucked under her arm - he'd be able to spot a mess of colorful taped bookmarks sticking out from it - as she knocks on the door.
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> When he greets her, she shoots him a smile. "What's up?"
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> @K. Malcolm Lawson**K. Malcolm Lawson**Malcolm smiled broadly to see a friendly face. "Isolation sucks, I'm glad you could come over. Come in, please. What can I brew you tonight?"
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> The apartment looked much the same as before, though the laptop and a headset are on the breakfast bar, along with a Spanish to English Phrasebook and an open notebook with Spanish phrases and their English translations written out longhand. The law books have also shuffled a bit, and by the chair where Malcolm sat last night, an old leatherbound book with several tassel bookmarks hanging out of it sat atop the stack. It's title is written in Latin.**Shiloh Young**"Surprise me, I'm in the mood for something new," this time, she hangs up her own coat, and again she heads off to that window with the city view, though she does note the phrasebook with interest. "You know," she says as she settles down in the same spot, "If you ever want a Spanish tutor, I'm your girl. Least I could do to repay ya."
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> Now, the leather book drew even more attention, and she leans forward to get a good look at it. @K. Malcolm Lawson**K. Malcolm Lawson**"Tonight feels like Raspberry Chai to me, though I think I will have Orange Blossom, it soothes the allergies."
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> He poured the steaming water into the teacups over the bags, putting three sugar cubes in each one.
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> "Yes, I'm finding Spanish to be more an more helpful every day. I was on some calls with Aldea, as I would normally be at the clinic tonight and wanted to do something to help out. Deportations continue apace, and while most attempts at stopping them are futile, we have to try when we can, and if I can understand the people I'm advocating for better, I will be able to defend them better as well."
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> Shiloh could see the book was very old, as the pages were yellowed with age and the leather worn smooth. A closer look at the title revealed it to be "De Via Fragilis: Testamentum De Magia Primia"\*
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> Malcolm came over and offered the saucer to her. Notes of Raspberries plucked right from the vine filled the air as the cup radiated warmth.
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> "I'm normally a pretty quick study with language, Spanish would be my fifth and I'm also working at German - but I haven't had the time to practice much. Guess I will have more of that if this 'Social Distancing' business isolates us much longer. I would certainly take you up on your offer, though I am happy to help you understand our hidden world and how it came to be like it is now."
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> Settling down in his seat, Malcolm set the mug and saucer down on it, the Star Trek Emblem on it very obvious even across the room.
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> "Now, where was I?"
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> * (For those who read Latin: The Fragile Path: Testaments of the First Cabal)
> **Shiloh Young**Mention of those deportations brought a sneer to her face. "Scum. Absolute scum, to be targeting people like that, during a fuckin' mini-plague no less," her entire body had become tense, but she shook it off, holding up an apologetic hand. "...sorry, I, uh, get worked up easily. I'm glad you're trying to help, though, being one of the good ones," she fixes her attention back onto the leather-bound book, aiming to cool that anger through study.
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> Again, she cups the tea in her lap, and would recite the books title to him. "Five? Jeez, you got me beat, I only have the three. And I think you were just finished explaining how that splinter group took down... Mistridge, am I right?" She flicks open her notebook to an empty page.
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> @K. Malcolm Lawson**K. Malcolm Lawson**"Yes, I speak French, Greek and Arabic fluently, Latin is a long - dead language but it's also the only foreign language used in American Law, and I'm trying to pick up Spanish for work and German because it's an interesting challenge. The verb comes at the end of the sentence, you see, so you have to wait until the end to find out what's going on!"
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> Malcolm nodded his head in assent. "In the previous administration this was a civil proceeding where people were treated with more dignity. Nowadays, I'm talking to Aldea's clients from detention facilities and concentration camps. To think we would ever do that again on American Soil . . . It does make my blood boil, which is why I dedicate time to doing something about it. We don't win often, but we always try."
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> "I went into the law to become one of the good ones, trying to use the law to help people, not hurt them. Truth is always more complicated than that, but I always hope that the law should do what Hammurabi said it would do, 'To bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, so that the strong will not oppress the weak.' Not that that's ever happened in human history, but it's an ideal to strive for."
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> "Oh, yes, Mistridge. The opening salvo of the Ascension War and the end of the Golden Age of Magic. Because before Mistridge, and even for some time thereafter, magic was far more real to the sleepers than science, and magi whose practices aligned with the local superstition prospered. We didn't even think it could ever be different - the consensus, so to speak, favored us, and we squandered that golden time squabbling among ourselves. Mistridge was a warning shot, and it was a warning shot that went unheard for over a century."**Shiloh Young**There's a twitch. "More dignity, maybe, but they were still marching them off to camps and deportations even back then. I gotta say, I don't like your capital-L law, dude. I'm glad you're trying to help, really, but it's all broken. Corruption dressed up in a fancy suit," she flares back up, and he could get the sense that this was something personal to her.
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> She throws one hand up, waving it off. "So what happened after you guys ignored this warning shot?" @K. Malcolm Lawson (getting dinner, slow mode)**K. Malcolm Lawson**"Nothing good. The First Massassa War continued until it burned itself out. Our losses were terrible, the fallen House's resources were vast but not limitless, we have to assume they fared just as badly. There may have been fewer than a hundred members of the Order extant when it was over."
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> "But the Craftmasons were not idle. They built up their own covenants, and reached out to like - minded people, gathering forces. In 1325, they struck again, assassinating the Archmagus Yoassemy of Brittany, capturing her tower, and turning it into the first meeting place of what would become the Order of Reason. This time, however, the Order was not so preoccupied with its own internal conflicts, and realized, almost too late, that our enemies were encircling us, that they had found allies, and that they were turning the hearts and minds of the people against us, for the haughty wizards of that time had become almost as bad as the feudal lords oppressing the people. It's that whole lesson on Pride, all over again."
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> "We were not caught completely unawares, and while embattled, we were and remain the greatest Order of Sorcerers the world has ever known. The Black Death ravaged the land, sparing neither sleeper nor magus. The Clockwork Purge, when we fought Daedalean war machines for the first time in Germany. The Burning of Baenwald. The College Wars. By the time of our narrow victory at the first Siege of Doissetep, we knew we were in over our heads, and decided the time had come to seek some allies of our own."**Shiloh Young**Back down she settles, although he could still see a knot on her brow betraying her irritation. "These names are killing me, my dude. What is a Massassa? What kinda name is Yoassemy?" She quickly follows with an apology, shaking her head and sipping the tea. That, at least, brought a small smile. "Sorry. It sounds like you guys have been through a lot."**K. Malcolm Lawson**"To be quite honest, I know Massassa as a proper noun, not what it means off the top of my head. And they had lots of weird names back then, but it makes them memorable when I try and recall them."
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> "At the dawning of the 15th Century, the balance of power in the Ascension War was shifting. The Daedeleans, as the Order of Reason's members were sometimes called, had been dealt a number of heavy defeats but were turning the tide against us. Their leaders, the Craftmasons, who had broken from the Order of Hermes three centuries before, were so successful in changing the perceptions of the sleeping world that magic itself was becoming more and more difficult to perform. The Paradigm of Consensus Reality itself was shifting under their feet, and we knew we had to do something. It took a visionary to realize this, and his name was Baldric LaSalle."
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> "On the last day of the year in 1439, leaders of three different schools of magical thought and an outsider from the far east met in the ruins of Mistridge. Baldric LaSalle, a Magister Mundi of our Order, Master Valoran of the Celestial Chorus, Lady Nightshade of the Verbena, and Sh'zar the seer, met to discuss the looming threat of the Order of Reason in what is called the first Mistridge Tribunal. Baldric, Valoran, and Nightshade, whose respective organizations had been at war with each other for centuries to this point, agreed upon a truce to engage the Order that threatened them all, and resolved to meet again after they had gathered more allies to the cause. It was a remarkable achievement, as these differing traditions of magical thought had spent the last thousand years warring for the hearts and minds of the people of Europe, and now they were losing all of it to the Daedaleans of the Order of Reason. It was enough incentive to cooperate at last."**Shiloh Young**"These are a lot of terms I don't know," she sinks back into the chair, blinking slowly, staring off at the skyline. He could see bite her lips as he dropped various names, clearly holding back on some commentary. "So, did this new team take out the splinter Order? Because we're still here, still will-working."**K. Malcolm Lawson**"I'll explain them all as the story continues."
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> "Ten years later, the Second Mistridge Tribunal convened, including leaders like Star-of-Eagles, Al-beh-shaar, Naioba, Chalech, Diplomate Luis of the Solificati, and Wu Jin of the Akashic Brotherhood. It saw much discussion and debate, and the formation of a Unified tradition in the Dreamspeakers when Star-of-Eagles and Naioba realize how much their arts have in common with each other. The conversations that happened during this convocation would later lead to the promulagation of the Nine Spheres Theory by scholars of our order, and it became the unifying theory of all magical metaphysics, so successful in practice that even the Daedeleans adopted it."
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> "Speaking of which, the Order of Reason learned of the Second Tribunal, and the Craftmasons and their Artificier Allies crashed the party, leading to the Battle of Flames, where cannons used by the Order of Reason fought against several dragons brought to the field by the Verbena and the Order of Hermes. The casualties were tremendous on both sides, but in the end, the Order of Reason quit the field, and the mystics decided that they needed to find a secure location to continue these discussions."**Shiloh Young**Shi hums and mhms as he lectures on, but that finale made her head snap in his direction. "Dragons? There's honest-to-god dragons flying around out there? And y'all were fighting alongside them against cannons and shit?" Another long blink, a shake of the head. It was almost too much to believe.
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> @K. Malcolm Lawson**K. Malcolm Lawson**"Yes, there were. It's hard for you to believe now, but fantastical creatures like dragons were once part of our reality. None have been seen in many centuries, though - the modern world and the current consensus reality has no place for them, Game of Thrones notwithstanding. That's how powerfully reality itself has shifted since the days that mages held sway."
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> "The mystics built a new covenant, called Horizon, and kept its location a secret. Starting in 1457, the masters of nine traditions of magical fellowship met in secret at Horizon to form an alliance of Magi to defend our faith and the mystic traditions we hail from. The Order of Hermes were instrumental in organizing the whole affair, though support for Baldric's scheme was hardly universal within the Order. Indeed, Baldric LaSalle fought over four dozen duels both physical and magical to consolidate the Houses of Hermes as one Tradition under one Primus, the only way the other Traditions would join with us, as equals. That was a hard pill for the prideful Hermetics to swallow, but the other Traditions would not join us as lesser Houses any more than we would join them under a subordinate position. But our fingerprints are all over the results, as the Council of Nine Mystic Traditions adopted large sections of the Code of Hermes, slightly modified, as the foundation of Council Law. Our promulagation of the Nine Spheres Theory enabled Magi of wildly different backgrounds to productively share knowledge of the Art. Our system of rank and mastery, simplified somewhat by the intervention of Valoran, enabled Magi of different orders to recognize each other's achievements in the Art. And our resources made possible the construction of Horizon, which was the seat of the Council of Nine for five centuries after."
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> "At the end of the Grand Convocation, the Council of Nine Mystic Traditions stood as one, an alliance of magi to stand for the Traditional ways of Magic. It was and is still our greatest achievement."**Shiloh Young**Shiloh can only whistle when he's through. The pages in her notebook are positively filled, her writing becoming small by the end as she tried to cram in every detail deemed important. "That was a lot. So many names, and I've got so many questions, about these other Traditions and those spheres you keep mentioning. And duels! Like, is that a thing you guys still do? Thunderbolts and lightning when a wizard is ready to throw down with another?" she grins.
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> "But I can see it's getting late - again. We really are going full nocturnal, my dude."**K. Malcolm Lawson**"Indeed, it feels that way a lot. And yes, magical dueling is still something we do in the Order of Hermes. Called Certamen, it's a specific form of ritual combat that pits two magi against each other, and the resulting clashes, I'm told, are spectacular. I have never witnessed such a duel, but they remain an option for settling disputes among members of our Order."
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> "Yes, the Nine Mystic Traditions and the Nine Spheres Theory are essay questions in and of themselves. We'll get to them tomorrow, and hopefully into the story of the First Cabal as well."
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> Standing up and stretching from his chair, Malcolm escorted Shiloh out the door.
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> "I do appreciate you keeping me company, and letting me drone on about our secret world. Nobody else I know can get it like you will, except for those already in it who taught all this to me."**Shiloh Young**There's a small bounce to her step as she makes for the door, and she's almost about give him a playful elbow before pulling back, unsure of boundaries. "And I appreciate the history lessons. You don't know how much you've helped put things into perspective for me." Of course, she didn't mention there were other perspectives she planned on getting, too. That would come later.
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> "Seeya around, Mal." She steps out and away.