As it happens I only coughed up one lung last week, which is fortunate because I only have one spare!

So we’re wandering around in Damien’s ex-wife’s dreamstate… and of course our Thyrsus Mage Arrow is naked. Nothing at all awkward about that!

Among the questions that Damien wants answers to is precisely who is working for the Seers of the Throne. Now his ex, true name Sara, isn’t all that high ranking as of yet. Her grandfather is pretty much at the top of the food chain in NY, but she’s still fairly young and hasn’t earned her rank just yet. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a pretty powerful Acanthus with some sneaky tricks up her sleeves, but these things take time. As such, she doesn’t always know who everyone is, or what all of the Seers plans are at any given time. She has seen a bunch of people however, and her brain is collecting its impressions of those people in a setting rife with symbolism.

Because honestly, where else would the Seers of Panopticon hang out? Am I right?

As a side note, when I was writing this campaign I came up with a bunch of NPCs named after weapons from the Lord of the Rings. (Narsil, Glamdring, Guthwine, Orcrist, etc, etc). I did not yet have the Seers of the Throne book, and as such had not chosen the Seers of Panopticon as the main adversaries of the Consilium in NY. It was completely random chance that the Seers in my campaign are represented by an all seeing eye… much like some other main adversary we all know and love…

Apparently I just can’t be not awesome.

In any event… the Mages are wandering through Sara’s Oneiros looking for clues as to who in the Consilium might be a Seer spy, or simply be being used by the Seers unbeknownst to them. They have as their guide (in one of the smartest moves my players have ever made <~ Truth) the part of Sara’s psyche that likes to tell secrets. This was a move I hadn’t specifically planned on, and so  I had to come up with how this part of Sara would manifest itself to them. I decided it would manifest itself as a child, because we all know that when kids have secrets they LOVE to tell them to everyone. There will be more on this in my next post (NO SPOILERS ARROW!), but for now simply understand that the Mages are wandering around Sara’s dreamspace with a part of her that really, really, really wants to tell them everything they want to know if she can – and especially if she shouldn’t tell them about it!

And at her side they walk up to this enormous Pyramid with an eyeball floating above it. Sara tells them that if they want to find out who the Seers are they have to go inside. She doesn’t know all of their names, but if she’s seen a face and they are somehow working for the Seers they will be here.

It’s a crowded pyramid.

So for their next trick the players have to figure out who is working for the Seers without realizing it (Sleepers in their employ would have no idea what is going on); who may be being coerced into doing things for the Seers without knowing for certain that it’s the Seers pulling the strings (for example, if someone’s sister has been kidnapped and made the subject of the Bad Stuff that will result from a broken Geas); or who may be very happily bowing and scraping before the Exarch. There are a lot of people in this pyramid, and trying to talk to all of them would take a great deal of time. This is where the next Smartest Thing The Players Have Done Ever comes in!

Aenaiyah turns to young Sara and asks her if she knows who is working for the Seers because they want to, who is working for the Seers because they have to, and who doesn’t know that they are working for the Seers at all. Sara says she can’t be sure, but she can make some guesses. Aenaiyah says that would be swell, and then asks Sara to color code the clothing of everyone in The Pyramid as follows:

• RED = Willing Seer Supplicant Mage
• ORANGE = Unwilling Seer Pawn who is Aware of being manipulated by Seers
• YELLOW = Unwilling Seer Pawn who is Unaware of being manipulated by Seers
• BLUE = Not Working For The Seers At All

And suddenly the clothing of everyone in The Pyramid, including the Player Characters, becomes color coded to indicate their status as far as Sara is herself aware of it!

Aenaiyah makes careful note of her own Cabal Mates who are standing where she can see them. Herself, Neils, Rex, Riff-Raff, and (much to Sara’s dismay) Damien are all wearing BLUE.

At about this point Argus walks over and asks “does anyone know why my clothes just turned Yellow?” Aenaiyah explains the color scheme, and tells him that his YELLOW clothing means that he is an unwitting pawn of the Seers. He replies “Well, then shouldn’t my clothes be ORANGE now?” Sara exclaims “GOOD POINT!” and Argus’s clothing turns a lovely shade of ORANGE.

Various of the characters wander around looking for people in The Pyramid to interact with. Riff-Raff has a very interesting conversation with Sara’s mental image of her grandfather, who explains to him why it would be a very bad thing indeed for all of humankind to Awaken. “Can you imagine what would really happen should that come to pass? Why, should that much raw power be handed to every individual on Earth the world would surely be ripped apart by the resultant clashing of wills. Humanity is ill prepared to handle the magnitude of even a small fragment of what we can do. It would be chaos, and ultimately annihilation. The Lie is all that stands between us and the Abyss. Surely you must see that?”

He actually makes an extremely convincing argument.

And then we get to Arrow, who has indeed dressed for his trip to The Pyramid, and his clothes turned a lovely shade of…

…To Be Continued…