CLOSET LAND (NONE OF THIS IS OKAY!) 2/27-3/3

        The creatures - twisted interpretations of pallbearers - left no bodies behind, just piles of discarded clothes. "I don't think they can be killed," Helena ponders aloud, "At least, not by us. These are the childrens' fears, not ours. You can't conquer another's fear for them. But clearly they can be metaphysically inconvenienced for a time." She takes a quick look around the neighborhood, notices a porch with chairs on it, and ushers everyone towards it; the warded circle moves with her. Settling into a rocking chair, she holds up a finger. "There is one thing in our favor here, though - Jude's and mine, I mean. Paradox apparently doesn't exist here. We can be vulgar as shit with our magic."

        Jude's simple act of showing concern has a powerful calming effect on Crux - it's really remarkable how a kind word can soothe the soul. Are things rough right now? Sure... but somehow Jude makes it seem like everything will be okay.

        "It makes sense," Helena nods at Jude. "Children believe in magic. It's real to them - the flashier the better, I'll bet. Of course," She furrows her brow, concerned. "The monsters have magic too... and I'm not happy that we haven't seen anything like that yet."

Jude nodded at Crux, "I'm sorry it hurts, but that should stop soon." She ran her fingers through her hair.

The life mage turned to look at Helena. "About this Avatar business." She said, knowing something fucky had just happened with her magic. A thousand questions whirled in her mind. She took a deep breath. "I would like to know more, if that's okay."

    Thoughts arrive in your head, the words of another mind. A voice, so to speak. A familiar one; the voice of a friend. Of Helena.

        - You would like to know more?

    Your own thoughts answer back before you think to answer.

        [ Yes ]

    Your vision goes black, and the sound of the rain vanishes. In its place comes the rustling of pages. A match sparks somewhere, and a candle illuminates nearby. The party stands near writing desk with stacks of books upon it, an ornate hourglass set to one side, counting out its namesake with the soft hiss of falling sand. Each book is hand bound and written in a neat, precise script. Histories, sciences, occult knowledge... a fine collection by any measure.
 
        - How small my understanding was. So far I had to go. Such a quaint beginning.



    Behind you, flickering electric lamps flare to life down an aisle which extends out into darkness. Row after row of shelves - made from rich mahogany - are dimly illuminated. You begin to walk, your footsteps echoing on the polished stone floor. Brass placards display the names of subjects too numerous to list on every bookshelf; no two are the same, and many are in languages from across the world - some of them, even Al doesn't know.
Timepieces of magnificent clockwork hang beside them, ticking by the minutes in perfect unison.
    A chill seeps into the massive room starting around your feet; a fog has rolled in, clinging to the floor. The tap-tap of steps on tile replaces the lower tones of stone. The rustling of pages has faded, replaced by the soft clicking of keyboards and the hum of fans. You no longer walk among bookshelves, oh no - stack upon stack of servers flank your path, countless indicator lights blinking benignly in the long shadows cast by LED strips above evenly spaced screens with fold-out keyboards. The stacks are simply labeled, with Sharpie on bits of masking tape - in the same precise hand as the books first encountered on the desk - above and below seven segment displays, each accurate to the second.

        - The weight of years sees all things change and fade... except knowledge.

    The fog fades away with the whirring of fans. Your footsteps have been muffled, too; the floor now a seamless, gleaming surface that looks like cold metal, but is warm and ever so slightly yielding to the touch. The server farms resemble no technology any of you are familiar with; smooth and seamless, with everything from soft blue light strips to displays to the keyboards themselves flush with the face of the machines. The aisle end caps have their own interfaces - simple directories of the knowledge contained within.
In the corner of each display the time is shown once again, numbers flowing like liquid into their new shapes as milliseconds fly by.

        - After all, an idea can't die. It can only grow and evolve.

    The rows of metal give way to a translucent, iridescent substance similar in structure to bismuth, dimly illuminated from within. As you pass each aisle, the data medium therein projects a series of holographic symbols mere centimeters above the surface of the material. The symbols are not language, yet convey meaning through some kind of symbolic logic borne of science beyond your understanding.
Time is no longer marked out for you; instead, the symbols instill upon you an innate sense of time's passage - if only for a few moments.

        - Ideas are immortal.

    The mysterious data media fall away behind you, faint lines of light along the floor directing you to a chasm in the center of what you can feel, rather than see, is a truly cavernous space. Illumination, apparently without source, rises throughout the chamber, and before you is a massive slab of black, quasi-crystalline material. Physically foreboding, the structure extends in height up and down beyond what you can possibly see - dozens, perhaps hundreds of kilometers - and easily a kilometer in length and width. Separations in the composition of the device are discernible only where the grain of the crystalline surface changes direction at each new segment; the monolith is otherwise featureless. Faint traceries of electrical activity occasionally playing just beneath the surface are the only indicators of any activity in the device's interior. Throughout the space you can feel a faint warmth alternate with a subtle chill - like a pulse, or breath. There is an undeniable intelligence here; immense, ponderous, and unknowable to you.

        -Behold, unsleeping Cynosure; the golem whose minds span kalpa.

    Helena is standing beside you; you did not perceive her arrive; perhaps she was always there. In this place, this construct of thought, she is very different, though at first glance she appears as she does in more physical realities. One must look very closely to realize her skin is crystal, her hair optical fiber, her blue dress coherent light. "It is said that the first inquiry posed to Cynosure was, 'what is the shape of the universe?' To which Cynosure responded, 'The question is not even wrong'." She laughs, a soft laugh like a chime.
    She reflects this place, and this place is a reflection of her. Even Cynosure reacts to her presence, displaying numerous timepieces on its face; aesthetically pleasing pieces worthy of Swiss craftsmen. That's not all, of course. Images resolve throughout the massive chamber - movements of the planets, stars, even galaxies; the clockwork of the very universe, projected in hologram. "The pursuit of knowledge is more important than riches, power, even life. You ask, and I will answer."

    "To be an Avatar is to be in harmony with an aspect of the cosmos. Seven billion people can't be wrong. All those minds churning away, attempting to make sense of it all, finding connections and symbols. It is our greatest gift; pattern recognition. From the instinctive identification of faces - the first thing a newborn learns - to our ancestors' understanding of what it meant when water fell from the sky - simply because it had happened many times before - we find meaning. There is strength in the truest, most recognizable patterns. These are the archetypes. Personalities, roles, commonalities that transcend time and culture. The raised fists of the Warrior, the steady walk of the Pilgrim... the particulars may vary, but the symbology is universal, seared into the collective consciousness. They are a product of us; we strengthen them with every thought, intentional or not. So too can they strengthen us if we live in accordance with the symbolism. Take the Athlete, as old as the first Olympics, at least, and a modern man named Michael Jordan - he wasn't just great and loved, he was loved because he was great, and great because he was loved. It is a symbiotic relationship, but one easily broken. When Jordan changed sports, he turned from his team, his fans, and ultimately the archetype. It abandoned him, and the unintentional Avatar failed in his future endeavors.
    "Symbolic magic is not something you do, it is something you are, and as you play your part with greater accuracy you gain power accordingly. You become the role as much as it becomes you, and if you stray from the path, the connection weakens and you lose power accordingly. If you choose to pursue such a path, you metaphysically bind yourself to it, and the consequences for straying are greater... but then again, so are the rewards. Symbolic magic is just like any other in that respect - it rewards strong will, and frowns upon those who waver. The cosmos will not bend to the faint of heart." She looks over you all with a serene smile. The symbolism is clear in her face, her posture, her gaze:

        Would you like to know more?

Al snapped out of whatever daydream he was held by at the moment to very assuredly notice they were not in the Kansas of the Kansas they were no longer in. He fought the urge to go looking through the books that were not books, but at the same time were absolutely books and servers and What in the world is that? He wanted to touch everything, and maybe live here forever. There was so much to be consumed here and he had to literally stick his hands down his pockets to keep from running off like a kid in a candy store. Though when he passed some sections on the occult, he very nearly tried to go off and get lost in Helena's mind? His mind? The projection of her mind into his mind? Al tried not to think about it too hard but his expression was nothing short of giddy. 

He'd pay, literally everything he had, just to stick around for an hour unsupervised. He did not guard those thoughts in any way. 

After all, knowledge was power and Al knew that more than he knew anything else to be true. 

Like an overstimulated puppy, he circled around the party, looking at things as much as he could when they got to Cynosure. Yep, he could live here. He wondered if he could make a place like this his own personal Hell. He liked the sound of of that. Crux asked her initial question and he wandered over to her side to stare at the clock faces. 

As a followup to her question about whether the Avatar stuff could affect demons and prometheans, he continued with "Where does the God Machine fit into this kind of symbolic magic? Do they quarrel? Are they enemies or friends? Or just two sides of the same coin, or err-gear?" Al found it nearly impossible to stop asking questions once he finally broke his own stunned silence. 

    There's that laugh like a chime again. "You really are a perfect example of your archetype. Intuition and impulse. It suits you, and so you suit the archetype." Helena takes Crux's hands in hers. "You go where you shouldn't, say what you ought not, and get in to that which is forbidden. Reckless, random... and undeniably lucky. Fortune favors the Fool, even as you walk unheeding into the abyss. Just by being aware and choosing the path, you are becoming The Fool." And, of course, she's right. She's filled you in on the basics of of this symbolic magic in general and the archetypal Fool in particular, but it was the act of committing to it - as impulsive as it may have been - which brought on true awareness of the path.

Make the following changes to your character sheet:
Your morality path - currently Humanity - changes to Avatar: The Fool. Its new value is 3. Being a Malkavian, already deranged, and embracing the Fool Avatar means you will not gain a derangement from the paradigm shift. However, the Beast is strengthened by your low 'morality' and Frenzy will be harder to resist until you raise your Avatar level.
Your Intelligence score can never rise above 2, and must immediately drop to 2 if it is higher - the Fool is not particularly bright. Your Wits score can never rise above 4, and must immediately drop to 4 if it is higher - the Fool can be clever, but is never exceptionally so.
The Fool is not discerning, either being universally suspicious or universally gullible. So far, you have approached more situations with suspicion than acceptance, so you must adhere to that trend. Furthermore, the Fool acts on impulse; others may plan, but the Fool's contributions are based on intuition, not logic, and when it is time to act, the Fool acts on impulse.
Acting in accordance with the archetype will entitle you to raise your Avatar level, or possibly even grant you a free Avatar level. Acting against the archetype will force a degeneration roll, with all that entails.
The powers granted by the Avatar are based on your path level. At level 3, you possess only the first channel; this power allows you to 'happen across' useful items. You have to be looking for something specific, either a named object or something suitable for a stated task. Faced with a locked door, you could say 'I need a bobby pin' and find it, or 'I need to jimmy this lock' and find a credit card which will work. As long as there is a reasonable possibility of finding the object in the area, you will.
Channels function by rolling a d100 - basically two d10s, one which stands in for the tens place and the other for the ones place. In order to use a channel, the roll has to be below a certain value to succeed; at Avatar 3, a 39 or below succeeds. As you can see, chance of success increases with your Avatar level, all the way up to 99% at 9 ( what happens at 10 dots is, well, special ). You are aware that you will gain your next power at level 5, but do not know what that power will be ( unless you specifically research it at a later date ).

        Helena releases Crux's hands and turns to Jude. "In my observation, you are already acting in accordance with an Avatar path; the path of the Mother. The only other thing required of you to carry out the paradigm shift is to intentionally, willingly, and willfully commit to it. It is an internal act of conviction, deliberate and forceful."

    Last, but certainly not least, Helena addresses Al. The Cynosure behind her flashes a few runes across its surface - somehow, you know that it is greeting you, specifically. If Helena is aware of this exchange, she does not indicate it. "Those who study such things are quite certain that the mechanics of symbolic magic and God-Machine operations are aspects of the same set of metaphysical laws, possibly the most fundamental ones. The most eloquent argument in favor of this conclusion is the inability of any creature of angelic origin to utilize Avatar magic; as Avatars are derived from the collective consciousness of humanity, Angels and Demons have no link to the source of that power. However, other forms of symbolic magic are available to them. It is unknown what level of awareness the God-Machine has of symbolic magics, or to what degree it can manipulate said magics - for example, some argue that it is the God-Machine which enforces Taboos and punishes those who violate the strictures of their Archetypes, but there is no proof the Machine takes an active role. It is known that practitioners of symbolic magic appear to be targeted less by the Machine than any other supernatural type per capita; as symbolic magic appears to tap into the metaphysical framework of the universe's construction, it may be the only 'acceptable' magic - in fact, not really being magic at all but the harnessing of reality on its most fundamental levels. This would mean that the Machine is not, and possibly cannot, be aware of symbolic magic in action as it is affecting reality from within, not forcing change from without. This would imply that any Angel which targets symbolic magic practitioners is doing so of their own initiative, and not under direct orders; as an Angel's ability to make decisions independent of Machine guidance is limited, this would explain the low incidence of interference. It is also possible that the Machine views symbolic magic as 'normal operations' and, as a device designed to maintain reality, does not interfere because it perceives no deviation from programming." Her serene smile returns, once again. She looks at each member of the party in turn, once again. The symbolism is clear, once again.

        Would you like to know more?

Jude tucked her hair behind her ear. She then shrugged, "Then yeah, count me in." she said and then smiled. If it would help, she was all for it. High risk, high rewards, and she really wasn't unsure. "I mean, yeah. I want to help my friends, and it really feels like this was meant to be and who am I to say no to that?" she smiled pretty cheerfully.