Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition - Absurd Encounter with Fear Episode 2.3

Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition Chronicle:

Absurd Encounter with Fear

CAST

Chuck Carver: He's been through a lot recently and is looking for some guidance.

Chuck Carver sat in his truck getting ready to start his line prep for the day of serving food. He couldn’t clear his head at all. Hadn’t realized what had happened or what he’d done to his former mentor the night before. Only really dawned on him when Ursala mentioned Akbar had become that creature in the basement. He was silent for the trip back.

He couldn’t focus on his work. He was low on some ingredients and the idea of stocking up and going through a busy night’s service didn’t appeal to him at all. At that moment he wanted more answers, but without his mentor the only other person he knew that might be able to help was Vinnie.

Last time they’d spent time together, Chuck had had to flee for his life after his awakening caused him to accidentally liquify the brain of a thug attacking him during a bar fight that was started due to Vinnie’s shady card playing. Vinnie had caught up with Chuck and tried to convince him that everything was okay and that Chuck just needed some guidance; and Vinnie was just the man to guide him to be a mage just like him. At that moment, Chuck wanted nothing to do with his kind of magick at this point and fled from him. It was not long after that night, when Akbar Shadowchild approached Chuck and offered to mentor him in the ways of subtle magicks to help elevate all peoples.

All these years later, it looked like Vinnie might be the only one that could guide Chuck afterall. At least point him in the right direction to find this Dossiestep place. Vinnie had gotten in touch with Chuck via Bookface a few years back. They’d chatted through emails and Vinnie had Liked a few of Chuck’s more impressive food photos, but the two gave each other a wide berth in the physical world, just as a consequence of building a life without someone for such a long time, the space they had once occupied sometimes no longer fits them. Even so, Chuck was out of options and Vinnie was the only other mage he knew that might be of any help.

Chuck locked up the Wagon and took public transportation down to the Long Beach Marina where Vinna had his boat. Chuck hadn’t been down to Long Beach since the port riots. The harbor had been a mass of cargo ship wrecks. Most still laden with cargo when the anarchist protesters sunk them. The government had promised to do something about this, but from the Marina it looked like all they had done was put some lighted buoys around the ships so anyone trying to leave had at least a chance to make it out safely through the debris.

Most of the boats in the marina were behind high security fences. The ones that weren’t were half sunk or just the burnt remains of the hull. Vinnie’s boat was an old wooden tugboat that remained looking as new as the day it was made, polished brass and all. Chuck knocked on the gate and called out for Vinnie.

A hatch on the bow of the ship popped open, Vinnie popped his head out to see who was calling out, “What the fuck?” He lept out of the hatch wearing only an undershirt, boxers, and boots, then closed the hatch and scrambled down the dock to open the gate, “Well damn, Chuck. I had no idea you were showing up or I would have dressed all fancy for you. Come on in!’

Vinnie very enthusiastically showed Chuck to the small cabin at the back of the boat that lead down into the hull. On the inside of the boat the space seemed to be used in such a way to give the appearance of more space. Everything could be tucked away or moved aside to make more space. Vinnie quickly cleared some bedding off a surface then lifted it to form a small booth with a table to offer Chuck a seat.

“Can I get you a coffee? What time is it anyway? Is it a time when people would drink coffee even?” Vinnie was trying to offer friendly hospitality, but seemed unsure of what he could really offer.

“It’s almost 5, you got anything stronger?” Chuck said.

“How strong we talkin here?”

“Hit me with the strongest you got,” Chuck said not sure if he was just schmoozing with an old friend at this point or drinking to forget about everything he’d seen the night before.

“I gotcha,” Vinnie grimaced and nodded, he reached into a cupboard to produce an absinthe fountain, glasses, and spoons and began making them both glasses of absinthe from a very old bottle he kept in the same cupboard.

Through the course of the evening they had too many glasses for Chuck to keep count. Somewhere in his haze he remembered Dossiestep and why he’d come to Vinnie.

“Hey Vinnie, you ever hear of a Dossiestep before? Is that some sort of magick dance?” Chuck slurred.

“HA! I thought you Disparate assholes were all about rebelling against order and structure and the kinds of shit that gets the important shit done?” Vinnie offered with the scorn oozing from his voice, but he took another drink from his glass and sighed before launching into an impassioned if a wee bit intoxicated speech, “It was a place. A realm where magick was reality and mages were pushing the bounds of even that reality. Finding new ways of understanding the Tapestry that would make your Disparate head blow up. The stronghold was enormous. Made Manhattan look like a shanty town. It was just one of an infinite number worlds out there. It was a safe place for a mage to train themselves without fear of Reality pushing back. Chantries all over the world would form links to Dossiestep to expand their ability to train and experiment with the adepts as they were awoken. The scared adepts of the world that needed to be protected while they got their powers under control could live there without fear of destroying those around them with backlash as they tried to help. It was unimaginably beautiful.”

Vinnie took another drink to finish off his glass, then refilled it straight from the bottle and started to drink it straight, “This Reality we’re in right now, this world? It’s only the center of the onion. Beyond this are hundreds thousands of layers, each another world, another reality. To even get to those layers you need to get through the Gauntlet that protects our world. It’s like storming whirlwind of cosmic energy that you need to push your way through before you reach the Penumbra, a layer of worlds that includes High Penumbra, the astral world of thought and reason, Middle Penumbra, the world of nature and spirits, and Lower Penumbra, the land of the dead. You need to find your way through one of these layers; which one you wind up in is anyone’s guess and you can be standing next to someone who is experiencing a totally different level of the Penumbra than you are, because all three occupy the same space. Beyond the Penumbra is the astral fog. You need to find your way through that in order to reach other realms like the Horizon Realm where Dossiestep was located. So just imagine the kind of genius minds that must have been involved to build a whole reality and stronghold within that reality on the outskirts of all that chaotic spirit world garbage.”

“That sounds incredible. How do I get there?” Chuck said excitedly.

“You don’t. It’s lost. Somebody told somebody they shouldn’t and it’s lost. There was a war,” Vinnie finished the rest of his glass of absinthe in one gulp, “There were no survivors.”

“I wanna know more, but I really gotta use the bathroom,” Chuck said.

Vinnie pointed to the far end of the boat. Chuck stood up to go to the bathroom, but immediately realized he was for drunker than he had expected. In the bathroom the entire world spun around him. He managed to pull himself together, but when he left the bathroom, Vinnie was snoring loudly where he had slumped into the seat. Chuck stumbled over to the couch and crashed too tired and too drunk to try to sort anything out with Vinnie.nie passed out right after Chuck realized he was way too drunk. Chuck crashed on the nearest coach.

Sometime in the middle of the night still a little drunk and partially hung over, Chuck was woken up by the sound of someone trying to get through the gate to Vinnie’s dock. There was a lot of yelling for Vinnie and demanding he show himself. A quick scan of the cabin of the boat and Chuck saw that Vinnie was nowhere to be found. Chuck was able to sneak to a porthole to see who was out there without attracting any attention. At the gate stood a man in a black suit and sunglasses who had his phone to his ear, a beefed up guy wailing on the gate, and smaller man behind him with his arms folded across his chest. Chuck searched the boat for Vinnie. The bathroom covered in absinthe puke is the only immediate sign that anyone else was on the boat with him. No sign of Vinnie the person though.

At the bow of the boat is a set of small wooden doors, Chuck expected it must be the escape hatch he saw Vinnie pop out of when Chuck first got there. When he opened them them he saw a ladder leading up to a metal hatch with a wheel to spin to open it. The moment Chuck put his hand on the wheel he felt the presence of someone’s powerful magick on this space. Chuck opened the door anyway and Vinnie immediately lunged out to tried to pull him in. Chuck dodged every attempt Vinnie made to get a hold of him.

“What the fuck are you doing? Either get the fuck in here or fuck the fuck off and close the hatch,” Vinnie said giving up his attempt at grappling him.

When Chuck finally looked up, he realized Vinnie was standing upside down. In the small room there was lots of electronics set up on the ceiling as well. Chuck gave in and climbed up. When he passed the threshold of the hatch gravity reversed and he fell to the floor that Vinnie was standing on. Vinnie slammed the hatch shut tight before lighting a cigarette.

Chuck saw for the first time a large glass front to the room and realized he was not only in some sort of submersible, but also based on the clarity of the water, couldn’t possibly be in the marina, or even the harbor, any longer.

“You got shitty timing for a reunion Chuck.”