The mission I gave to Neils’ player was simple: What AlterNeils wants, what he really really wants, is to expand the area of effect of what’s happening in RealNeils’s laboratory. For the moment the effect is being constrained by the natural walls of the space, but if those walls were to be removed the effect could expand.

Dutifully, when everyone else runs off to the Consilium to ask for ideas, AlterNeils heads downstairs “to study the problem”.

While others are attempting to call in favors or find any references to this kind of thing having happened before hidden among the library’s extensive collection, AlterNeils was trying to help in other ways.

While Glamdring was busy attempting to call in Obrimos Archmage Guthwine (who the PCs don’t get much chance to interact with since he works at the state level in Albany), and Narsil is trying to not find out anything too damning because as a Guardian he should be killing them all right about now and that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as letting AlterNeils kill them by accident, AlterNeils is removing the wall between his laboratory and the rest of the basement so that the effect can start to expand.

Naturally, when the others return home he denies all knowledge of what made the wall disappear.

This is definitely one of those sessions when I loved the fact that my players, well most of them anyway, bring laptops to the session. Neils’ player and I were totally discussing his actions by IM and playing off the sound of his dice hitting the table periodically as rolls for his attempts at scrutinizing what is happening in the basement. The other players were blissfully ignorant of the truth. Additionally, he was able to keep me abreast of what RealNeils was doing all this time, which is to say that RealNeils wasn’t at the Sanctum at all. RealNeils had gone off to see his mentor to ask for ideas.

You can only imagine the hilarity when the Mages regroup at the Sanctum, discover that the basement wall “was overtaken by whatever is going on down here”, and suddenly Aenaiyah gets a phone call from Neils asking what’s happening back home.

Neils’ player had secretly asked me if I had any specific ideas as to when he should have RealNeils contact his friends, and I secretly told him to wing it.

Good times!

Sadly the Mages were not to be lulled into attempting to harness the effect. This could have proven useful to them for a time as all the mana pouring out of downstairs was double-the-potency and double-the-fun, but in reality it is exactly the kind of thing that can draw unwanted attention to your Sanctum. (Not that anybody seemed altogether worried about that. Go fig.) It also would have required the pumping of personal mana into the effect from time to time to keep it under control (the very same way a Mage can use mana to mitigate a standard paradox), which could have been fun when the time to pump in mana came up during a fight with some Seers or something. (Of course, what are the chances they’ll wind up in a fight with some Seers?)

Even more sadly they dispelled AlterNeils out of existence. Poor AlterNeils.

I wept. Inside.

Since they were not sufficiently tempted they did decide to go with the one way that they found to possibly get rid of the event horizon in their basement: the creation of a Soul Stone. The chances to wiping out the effect entirely is enhanced by creating a Soul Stone of the same path as the effect, which gave the Mages two choices: Neils – the Obrimos who wasn’t in any way responsible for this thing happening in his lab at all!; and Argus – the Guardian of the Veil who happens to be of the same path.

Although Guardians of the Veil are typically expected to be the ones to create the Soul Stones for their cabal sanctums (thus making magic safer for everyone present), our Guardian made the decision to let Neils clear up his own mess – thus, in his mind anyway, making Neils safer for everyone present. Damien and Rex decided that Soul Stones are pretty cool and so they decided to contribute Soul Stones of their own to the Sanctum, though this was done a bit later.

As for Neils, there was a chance that his Soul Stone might explode without wiping out the effect entirely, or explode but completely clear the effect, or clear the effect and not explode even a little. Damn his good fortune (and the Acanthus who keeps giving it to him) he made his target successes and the Cabal had their first Soul Stone. It was quickly joined by the other two, and once again the city was saved!

Yes, the black marks of Soul Stone creation were in their auras, but it was pretty clear what those marks represented and why they had chosen to do it, so not much was said about it by the Consilium. Of course, it was duly noted who contributed Soul Stones and who didn’t.

It was right about this time that the Mages found out something interesting about their friend Officer Brewer, but that is a tale for another post.