[OOC: This post brought to you by a borrowed tablet and the world's tiniest Bluetooth keyboard.]
Sepúlveda knit his fingers together again like to keep himself from fidgeting as the youngest of them realizes she hasn't been keeping up. Or becomes overwhelmed. Or else loses track of what the Scientist is going on about.
Magic and science have been at odds with each other since the dawn of time. She's not wrong in the presumption that in order to learn the ways of her own craft she cannot learn from someone whose paradigm does not prescribe to primal ways of doing things. Not when his entire worldview revolves around the concept of progress.
No more mescal for the two of them. Him either. He's wound up enough as it is.
"Come," he says. "Come come, get your coats on."
If they're going to talk about dusty things like history and politics he wants to be outside while they do it. Pictionary and Astrophysics. They can exist in the same sentence sometimes.
Sepúlveda waits for the kids to collect their coats and leads them through the kitchen and out the back door. Slips his feet into a pair of banged-up old-man loafers on the way out into the yard and cloudless sky above.
His breath plumes. His hands go into the pockets. His eyes lift for theirs to do the same.
"So long as man has known darkness he has tried to light it. Yeah? And so long as the Awakened have known of others, they have tried to find ways to coexist. Some of those ways involve war. You ask two Awakened to describe, eh, say--"
He holds up a hand to indicate a constellation to the west. Thin fingers frame it in a thought he does not vocalize and then drag themselves down his beard.
"Well, there is the problem. Humans have no universal language. Never have. Possibly never will. Uniformity is not the ideal, eh? That we have differences, this is how we have evlution of ideas. The Traditions, this is the faction into which you two have found yourselves Awakening. There are others. The Technocracy is one of them. We fought in a very long war that ended when the Traditions lost in the year 2000. Then you have Nephandi, Marauders, Infernalists... people you never want to encounter. Their Avatars have inverted, or they are divorced from reality, or they have made deals with demons."
He is getting off track again.
"We'll come back to them later. Everyone you meet will wish to know if you belong to a tradition, and which one. Some ask because they are looking for their own tribe, so to speak, and others are paranoid, and they ask because they think if you are not with us, you are against us, and this is a crazy way of thinking, but it comes from a place of powerlessness, you understand. This is why I told you, when we first met, you were to tell those who ask that you are students of Doctor Sepúlveda of the Society of Ether, because I am known to the community for seventeen years and have a reputation and can vouch for you until such time you are initiated, and so on and so forth."
Though he clears his throat he does not give them time yet to interject.
"The Traditions make up what we call the Council of Nine. Nine Traditions for nine Spheres." He begins to count them off on his fingers. "For Correspondence, the Virtual Adepts. For Entropy, the Chakravanti. Euthanatos, we used to call them. They don't like that term much, not all of them believe their calling involves administration of the Good Death. Forces belongs to the Order of Hermes, but they have many Houses within their Traditiion and some of them specialize in other Spheres and I have heard rumors--" A breath. "I have heard rumors. Life, the Verbena." A glance to Margot. "Matter, the Society of Ether. Obviously the most intelligent and most talented and most good-looking of all the traditions, so we are, ah, difficult to join, without having read the Kitab al-Alacir before Awakening. Mind, the Akashayana. Akashic Brotherhood, but they have many women in their ranks, so 'Brotherhood' is not accurate. Prime, the Celestial Chorus. Spirit, the Kha'vadi .Dreamspeakers. And, ah, Time, the Sahajiya. Cult of Ecstasy."
He waggles his fingers and puts his hands back into the pockets of his cardigan.
"As I said, those who do not undergo an initiation to become part of a tradition, we call Disparates." He frowns. "I never liked this term." Anyway: "Some Disparates form Crafts, and these have their own names and Spheres for which they have an affinity, and they are very much like traditions which already exist, in some ways. In other ways, no. Other Disparates never find their tribe or they;re more comfortable, eh, owning the fact they choose not to subscribe to an ideology others share, and everyone calls them Orphans, themselves included." To Ned: "You, with drink being an instrument of focus, I would suspect would find your... Guide steering you towards the Sahajiya, but..."
A thought. He lets it go.
"Bah, you'll freeze before I have the chance to bore you to death."
Margot
Margot went and fetched coats from whatever closet or racked they were stored on and brought all three back to the living room. She was glad to do so-- she felt sly for having escaped with aggravating the Doc well enough to drive them outside for fresh air, and with only one shot under her belt too. Felt pretty proud for relying on being able to drive home tonight after all.
Once outside, Margot stood with a beanie pulled down over her head and ears and kept her hands in her coat pockets. She stood still while listening, but looked up at the sky for much of the lecture about the traditions, eyes remaining there after having been directed in the first place. She only looked back down again at the word Verbena, but that was only to make brief eye contact with their mentor before she found herself considering how the yard may look in the warmer months to come. Next, to Ned when the Doc suggested he be aligned with the Sahajiya (Cult of Ecstacy?), pondering that on her own. She hadn't stopped to think where her friend would end up, having been much too wrapped up in working her own shit out up to now.
"Look," Margot said and looked toward Sepúlveda once more. "I'm not trying to bail out on you in a hurry or anything. I appreciate what you've... y'know, helped with and all." She was, of course, referring both to the information and structure he's provided thus far, as well as bailing her out of a stupid situation past midnight on a weeknight.
"But I don't think this has to be an exclusive relationship. Like, how are we supposed to land on a Tradition without actually speaking with one of them?"
Dr Sepulveda
He's still looking up at the sky when Margot asks her question. He chews his lower lip and frowns before looking back over at her.
"'Exclusive'? Nah, girl, live your life. I don't do 'exclusive.'"
Says the man wearing a wedding band.
Margot
This is followed by a sigh that could be construed as long-suffering. Chances are that she's had practice at it-- they don't really know much about her history after all, do they?
"Okay, good. So how about helping me know how we're supposed to find people from the other Traditions?"
Dr Sepulveda
"Heh."
He scratches his beard then pats down his pockets in search of a pack of cigarettes.
"That depends. It's usually the other way around. My mentor, she--hah." They're in his hip pocket. He lights one before taking a step back from their young pink lungs and going on: "I know some people. They're not local. But Denver, she's always had Verbena and Chakravanti around. There was a Chantry here, couple years back, but the Technocrats burnt it down." A beat. A frown. "Where'd you say you're from?"
Ned
"Hold on."
He turns to look at Margot, brow perked and scrutinizing. Ned's been quiet since the shots and they had ventured out into the cold of the Denver streets. Sorting his thoughts out and forming new opinions over time. Now he's direct in interrupting the pair discussing terms.
"We talked about that." He doesn't make any bones about conversations Margot and he have had. "There is no guarantee outside of the Doc that others aren't going to try and be avidly manipulative and/or demanding. Don't you think we should at least get a basic understanding of the Traditions before courting? What about emnities between traditions or the threats the Doc is talking about? Even if he gives us names there's nothing to say those names will look at us or interact with us the same way they would with the Doc." He isn't infallible in his opinions in other words.
"Free education. It's what this is about. We're dealing with dangerous stuff and even if the Doc doesn't speak anything but Tech and Gizmos doesn't change the bare bones of what we're learning."
Margot
"Yeah, but I want to look into this Verbena thing."
Margot was quick to defend herself, and looked back to Ned with a small frown on her face. She shook her head and took her hands out of her pockets. Fished out a pair of cheap black gloves with them and pulled them on while she spoke further.
"I think we're both smart enough to know if somebody's trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Or I'd like to hope we would have an idea of it. I'm just saying, maybe a part of learning is taking more than just one class. This isn't elementary school, after all."
Dr Sepulveda
Sepúlveda pulls a face they've seen in meme form on the Internet before. <I> Not bad. </I> Ned oscillates between impressing and aggravating him. Both of them do. Thus is the nature of an apprentice-mentor relationship.
He lets Margot tackle this one since she brought it on herself.
Ned
"We're both smart enough to know that ghosts don't like us, unless we've broken their necks. Being able to see or smell differently doesn't make us more badass and there are things people like him-" He points directly at the Doctor "-can do that you and I don't have any clue about. Power corrupts. Can see that everyday with those who hold onto paper and metal coins and call it profit or folks who believe in imaginary all-fathers living in the sky. Power corrupts,Margot. This is a whole new field of play and a whole new ballgame and until we know the rules we-" He pauses, catching himself in an analogy spiral. A deep breath taken because he can hear the agitation in his voice...concern? Irritability? The Alcohol?
"In order to learn Calculus we have to learn how to add. Or even what numbers are. Right now I get 2 + 2, if that. You get 3 + 3 because unlike me you've seen what the...Paradox can do." A frown escapes him, turning now to face her fully, hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. "Why don't you at least let the Doc explain more about how he views the Verbena and maybe describe the individuals he has had contact with from the Tradition. Form your own thoughts off those rather than just pluck at his Rolodex and hope the next guy has a care not to push you too much on what happened..."
Cause let's face it folks. Everyone and the next door neighbour's dog, knew Margot was having some avoidance issues.
Margot
The irritability in Ned's voice was easy to notice, but Margot didn't think it unjustified. For a 19-year-old girl who was being told she was wrong and reckless, she did a pretty admirable job of not puffing up defensively or cutting in to snap back and defend herself. Her ears were hidden under her beanie so whatever they were doing was masked but her cheeks had bloomed pink patches on them that seemed very sudden to have anything to do with the cold.
All the same, by the time he was finishing up his caution with a warning of how she's bound to end up pushed for more details than she wants to give soon, especially if she goes asking around other Mages for advice, she was displeased regardless of how good a job she was doing of reigning in her own temper and pride.
"So, what, do you think all three of us are doomed for a path of corruption?" Her nose wrinkled, bothered by the idea. "Or should you and I just put down our instruments and give up now, to avoid the challenge of corruption altogether?"
Now, shaking her head, she continued. "We're lucky we found Doc, and that the first guy we wandered after turned out to be him. But come on, we can't go about this scared out of our wits and presuming the worst in everyone else. I'm not saying that we should go and sniff out an Infernalist and get their point of view on the world. I'm asking about <i>Traditions</i>, people with structure enough to be a part of something bigger, and with structure comes rules. I wouldn't be surprised if one of those rules isn't 'try not to murder the new kids or we're never going to recruit anyone again'."
Then, with a sigh as though that was settled, she glanced almost sheepishly back at the Doc. Like she just remembered that he'd asked something before she and Ned started getting into it, and that could be used as a change of subject.
"I'm from Maine."
Dr Sepulveda
Right now his question may seem like a non sequitur. If they come back to it it won't be until the conclusion of this train of thought if not the conclusion of the night itself. Not all of the answers he seeks present themselves on the night he asks and science has always been a lifelong endeavor for the ones who really want to change the world.
"A lot of Verbenae in Maine."
That's the end of that. In the meantime:
"We've been over this before, have we not? You two are so impatient!" He sounds amused. Charmed even in the way that abrasive men sound charmed when they aren't sure how else to sound. Like he's been watching toddlers try to navigate spiral stairs before they can even walk. "You want to shop around and learn about each of the nine traditions from someone in the tradition, this is what I'm hearing."
He pinches off the cherry of his consumed cigarette and blows out the dying breath. Pockets the filter. Maybe he'll use it for fuel later. The back yard is not littered with butts as one would expect from a habitual smoker.
"Okay, if I may interject a few minutes, I'm going to tell you a story: the Society of Ether began with the philosopher Aretus of Troy, who, it goes, became a pupil of refugees from Atlantis. Atlantis, as in the island which exists now only as an allegory of the hubris of nations, having sunk into the sea, supposedly. Supposedly, also, it had harnessed the Aether, which... I will explain later... but the society harnessed the Aether to its full potential, and then... sank. Aretus recorded what the refugees told him, and this became the Kitab al-Alacir. The Book of Ether. It survived the sacking of Troy because of Aretus's pupil Parmenesthes, and then later Aristotle, who translated Parmenesthes' recordings and from them deduced the fifth element.
"It remained forgotten in a library until the Arabs translated it, and two mages who became aware of its existence separately, Lorenzo Golo and Simon de Laurent, met together in Paris to try to decipher the book. This is where House Golo of the Order of Hermes came from. Twelfth century. The traditions are very very old, which makes them crotchety and hard to reason with or change. House Golo only lasted a couple decades because of internal problems... I'm not as familiar with the problems they had with House Verditius. The two later founded the Natural Philosophers' Guild.
"This is where the Order of Reason comes in. We know them now as the Technocratic Union, or the Technocracy. Golo and Laurent, they came into conflict with the Church during their studies, and Laurent was excommunicated for heresy, which led to the guild seeking a patron who could protect them from mortal religious authorities. Golo later died while attempting to create an airship, and the Natural Philosophers' Guild became known as the Voltarian Order sometime during the Victorian Age, and then later the Electrodyne Engineers, when the Order of Reason came together as the Technocratic Union, but there was a schism between the two when the Union moved against a Croatian named Nikolas Tesla."
He waves his hand.
"The point: throughout history you will hear stories of the Traditions and the Technocracy being or not being, and the Traditions and mortals working together or not working together. Some of the Traditions have fought against each other, in the case of the Akashayana and the Chakravanti, or the Chorus and the Society, as I just told you. The Order of Hermes has always had infighting and Houses rising and falling. There is an entire world of which you are only just becoming aware, and that's fine! There is nothing wrong with not knowing, or with not knowing what you don't know. But to go out into the world, and seek out members of these traditions, and to say to them 'We are new-Awakened, we don't know what the hell we're doing, we wish to know more before we make a decision,' you may find yourselves, ah, lucky, and those you meet will encourage this and find it all well and good. Others will not. If this is what you wish to do, to speak to others of the traditions you're interested in, I have people I can call. If not..." A beat. "Well, time. Practice. Experience. These are the things you need. You're going to get a little banged up while you're learning."
He pats his left shoulder with his right hand in an illustrative move maybe only Margot will understand. He almost lost his damned arm recently and he's been doing this for almost twenty years.
Ned
Ned's a bit flustered. Or maybe just a bit fed up as Margot rants off about where she wants to be and how she wants to go about it. Enough that his hands jam into his pockets and his frown doesn't falter or bleed away at her finalizing statement. He becomes internal for the Doc's speech, words filtering through his mood over the course of time, though many of the names and identities (Was that Indian he was speaking at some points?) go through without leaving much of an impression. Ned was never one for history lessons or classes.
It isn't until he gets tot he tail end of things, about the Technocracy and the Traditions. About how infighting happens, how there are complex politics and how claiming to be newly-awakened could potentially end badly. It might not? But Lucky was not something to count on. Ned didn't feel lucky. Exactly the opposite. It made him nod in affirmation, foot kicking gently at the edge of a rock.
"Last I checked, this thing that happened to us was a statement. Reality, or the Guide or whatever purposeful thing tapped us to wake up. It didn't hand us ultimate power and a destiny, just some new tools that I don't know how to use properly. Or even what the hell to use them for but..." And he glances at The Doc, lips and jaw tucking a little deeper into his high collar. "You said it wasn't a choice. We were sort of forced into it. If I have to deal with this non-choice thing I've got then I want to be prepared or as prepared as possible, before I go making choices or shaking hands with anyone. Faust, Gandalf or Caeser though they may be..."
Margot
Margot looked over to the Doc when he began his history lesson on his own Tradition. Enlightenment, bestowed by the people of Atlantis who had tapped something powerful and knowing, passed down through survivors accounts into transcripts and translated a few times over. They feuded with the church, but of course they did. The Church was also founded by a several-times-over translated story recalled by survivors. They were too alike to not disagree with one another.
But fighting existed within the traditions, and the point was they were trying their luck just floundering about seeking the next person who just happened to belong to a tradition that were to come along. However, the Doc knew some people, and he could put in some phone calls if they wanted. "That'd be nice," Margot added, but quieted down for him to keep going.
When he finished and Ned spoke up, Margot glanced to him, then down to the ground between the three of them as she listened. He wanted to do his own thing, feel it out before letting any doctrines influence his own personal mantra. She could respect that, but all the same...
Well, she didn't argue any further anyways. Instead, Margot looked over to the Doc and brought up, out of left field:
"I got that rabbit, like you suggested. His name is Yorick."
Dr Sepulveda
His eyebrows wing up. "Yorick." Not judgment. Delight. Thank you, Alcohol or innate hyperactivity or whatever it is that makes him act the way he acts. Some combination of substances and traits. The world is not black and white. "'A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.' Good name. I look forward to meeting him."
And when he inevitably dies they can use him for a practical lesson on reanimation. Brilliant.
As for Ned and his conundrum:
"May I make a suggestion?" He's going to anyway. "... actually, first, both of you." He jerks his head towards the house. "Come. I want to show you something."
They're going into the basement. Prepare yourselves.
Margot
Margot smiled a little bit at the doctor's praise in her choice of a name. She was pretty pleased with herself too, especially since her initial name for him was going to be Albus but she decided she didn't want to be shouting Albus! into a goddamn graveyard while chasing rabbits who chased spirits any time soon. Yorick seemed way more suited to such adventures.
The Doc wanted to make a suggestion, but he wanted to show it to them rather than just tell. Margot was thankful for the opportunity to go back inside where it was warm, and glanced briefly--searchingly, really, in Ned's direction. First, to give him the chance to walk in first so she could bring up the rear. Second, to meet his eyes and ask silently, with a raise of eyebrows: We okay?
They'd end up back inside and paused at a door that opened into the basement. Margot had read enough books and seen enough movies in her lifetime to know that basements were exactly where mad scientists kept shit like laboratories and floating Frankenstein projects. She made an anxious face and hesitated, but would ultimately wind up going down the stairs along with them all the same.
Ned
Ned's attentions are...not present and accounted for during their exchange. He's lost in thought and considering something distant and indistinct to this moment. When the Doc calls for them to proceed back inside, intent on showing them something, his attention half-forms to catch it, digest what's expected of him and follow along at a clip that'll take up the rear.
Ned's attention is everywhere at once. This is an arena that he and Margot share like-minds on. He pauses with the library, eyeballs the door briefly, lip vanishing between his teeth as he considers the length and space of it. Considers where the current might actually be running from and by extension, how to get around it. Cursory, hypothetical and safe considering he'd never make the effort to try (The safest dreams are the ones never to be).
Margot's glance is caught and it shakes him out of the reverie, pausing slightly to motion her forward in the Doc's wake, a quick smile flashing over his features. Whatever was bothering him or running through his head, didn't seem to register around her or about her. The smile was passive, but genuine and handled with the sort of care and dismissal one attributes to getting past or over it quickly and efficiently. Guilt, hurt feelings or otherwise were...irrelevant? Or problematic?
"So Atlantis was real. That mean there's a Kraken living on the bottom of the ocean somewhere?" He chuckles, obviously a joke. Then, as the front door opens and he considers it, it forces him to pause in the threshold and stare at the Doc's back. "Seriously, is there a Kraken out there?"
Dr Sepulveda
They go back in through the door that leads into the kitchen but instead of heading up and into warm he shoulders open a painted wooden door that has seen better days and reaches into the darkness to fumble on an overhead light. The shoestring attached to its cord wiggles with decaying energy for a few moments and then Sepúlveda leads them into the basement.
"Kraken?" he asks. "What do I look like, a malacologist? I have no idea. Probably."
A comforting thought for their trip to the Mad Scientist's library.
The basement itself is half finished and not intended to support human life. Storage mostly. It is cold down here but dry at least. The vestibule in which they find themselves has been turned into a library. Not a mundane library like they're like to find upstairs but a mystical and scientific one. Shelves line the walls and crammed into those shelves they may very well find something useful.
Straight ahead from the stairs is another door. He indicates the door with his ring-bearing hand.
"Never try to go in there," he says. "You don't belong in there, and the door knows this, and it will electrocute you if you try to pass through it." Anyway: "This is a library. Not like you'll find at the university or the public branch. A proper arcane library. Most of it pertains to Forces and Matter and Life, you know, physical Patterns, things of that nature, but... I have been meaning to learn Correspondence, myself, as I don't know it and I feel it would be useful. You're welcome to come over and use it whenever you'd like, provided I'm... well, I suppose I can give you keys. But I think this would be a useful exercise, yeah? Learning together? Not tonight, but, eh... going forward."
Looking at Ned even if the statement pertains to both of them: "You're welcome to practice using your tools here, as well."
Margot
Downstairs everything got Margot's careful regard, from the titles scribed on the spines of books visible to the door he indicated. The door in particular got special regard, consideration for whatever quiltwork of protective magic may lay over the wood and hinges. She wondered how that may look, through a scope of Seeing Resonance. She bet that it was chilly to try to touch the knob.
He was thinking about using Correspondence, and Margot perked up. She'd been considering this recently as well, for many of the rituals in the tiny cache of books that she owned took place from afar. Concoctions and chants and what-have-you all taking place out in the woods or in the safety of your own kitchen with the wood of your table as the canvas and altar. But the target? Afar. Anywhere in the world. Curses were more insidious that way.
She had listed off to the side to look at one book in particular. She'd plucked it off the shelf and cautiously flapped the pages, making sure they too wouldn't electrocute her before curiously opening to the title page.
"I'd like to learn about distance," she chimed in thoughtfully.
Ned
Ned's face drains a little at mention of a Kraken potentially existing, thus eliminating any need or requirement for him to ever go near the ocean ever again.
The Doc offers his warnings and indications and Ned offers nods and acceptance in return. This was his realm and landscape, afterall.
"I think exposure to information should proabably be done in tandem with someone else present. At least to begin with but...I would...be interested in exploring Distance as well. It seems like a solid extension of safety, precaution and planning." Ned doesn't follow Margot's immediate reaction to the books. He peruses but doesn't touch, reading titles to himself if any while frowning those without titles.
"...But I'd like to hear about the Boogiemen, first." He turns, eyes hardlining toward the Doc. "You said you'd explain them and really, out of all of this, I want to know what I'm going up against. Traditions fighting are one thing, at least I have a hope of understanding them from the inside someday. I get the feeling if I'm on the inside circles of the others though, it's already too late."
Dr Sepulveda
This library is not yet set up to support group efforts but in time it may be. Their temporary mentor is a Disciple of Matter and an Initiate of Prime. If he decided he wanted to completely redecorate the place it would take some time but it would happen.
In the meantime there are a couple of banged-up old armchairs that have absorbed another's resonance. They are not consecrated but enough magick occurred there that they can hear the echoes of elemental and temperamental forces. Ned wants to hear about the boogiemen before he goes on speaking of history and things for which the two apprentices have no frame of reference.
The Etherite flops down into one of the armchairs and begins pulling what looks like detritus from his pockets. Paper clips and bits of paper and empty pill bottles. Idle as he does so.
"Yes," he says as his eyes are on his exploration of the contents of his own pockets, "once you undergo an initiation, the rest of the tradition tends to ostracize you if you decide you don't want to sit at their table anymore." The pill bottle loses its top and he begins to pack everything else he finds into it. "The universe is not all darkness, Ned."
A small unlabeled vial of clear fluid next. He removes a dropper from the vial and drips a bit of fluid into the pill bottle. That doesn't do what he wanted it to do.
"Son of a bitch," he says without enthusiasm. Does not give up yet. "And it's good for you to ask questions, but I think you also need to just... experience things. Open yourself up. Observe. Explore. Eh? I already told you, there isn't a handbook for this. What, in your life, have you ever tried to master and found yourself able to do so overnight?"
There it goes. A couple more drops of the clear fluid and the orange bottle full of pocket-junk becomes Quintessence. Pure Quintessence. A flickering will o' wisp of energy. He blinks and sits up straighter in the chair. Energy sure but it is the stuff of the universe and it will do as it damned well pleases if he isn't careful.
"Come here. Come here, look at this." His eyes leave its morphing color to find their faces. "I'll show you a boogieman in the morning. Quintessence, the stuff reality is made of, that's what this is."
Margot
Experience things, learn by doing, live life a little. This was what the Doc was trying to tell them now. They could stay there and talk and read until they were blue in the face and red in the eyes, but doing was how they really learned things. Margot had to confess, she learned more about ghosts and what their binding laws of existence may be by her experiences in the frat house than she did from her two books on the subject tucked away onto a bookshelf at home.
When the Doc started messing with things including a dropper and a vial of fluid, Margot stilled and watched carefully. Eyebrows lifted and eyes widened when the pill bottle began to glow.
When bade forward, Margot moved to the armchairs as well and took the bottle so she could peer inside. Offered it to Ned after she'd taken a good look and swished it around just a little bit.
"It looks like Energy, and Everything. What would happen if we touched that? Or drank it?"
Ned
Once again, Ned is the more hesitant of them. He doesn't immediately approach the glowing container when offered for perusal but studies it from what must be a safe distance. Carefully, at that. Reality as they knew it was dependent on a number of variables and laws that before the awakening, they didn't fully grasp. That new rules had just been introduced contradicting the current laws or even subverting them made the foundations brand nee. New legs, new equilibrium and new respects.
Operate like you're an infant, in need of education and process recognition.
Glowing pill bottles defined itself as potential hazard before they did actual benefit. The Doc's assurance was not proof of a law as much as it was assurance from a parent you could do this.
Reality vs assurance. Caution proved them both with minimal risk.
So Ned keeps his distance, sticking behind Margot to observe how it interacted with her and listened as she questioned. His frown had abated slightly in time for him to voice a single question of his own.
"What can be done with it?"
Dr. Sepulveda
"When you begin studying Prime, you can perceive and channel Quintessence. You'll find it in Nodes, Tass, Wonders, and Effects. You can use it to read others' resonance signatures, and absorb it into your own Pattern. As you learn to control Prime energies, you can divert it. Conjure new physical Patterns from thin air or, ah, enhance existing items so that they are stronger than they were. For protection and destruction both."
He considers the contents of the bottle. Shifts it a bit in his hand so that the flickering light washes against the inside of the plastic and then consumes it. The plastic disappears. Now the light is resting in the palm of his hand.
"It won't hurt you." As if Ned needs reassurance. He stands and holds out his palm if either of them want to try and touch it. "If you were to poke it, hold it in your hands, drink it, nothing would happen if you are not schooled in the Sphere. It would go back into the Tellurian. Reality. The Tellurian is everything. This includes our world, the spirit world, the world of dreams. You have to know what you're doing with it for it to be dangerous, eh?"
Margot
A short glance was cast over her shoulder when Ned came up behind her to peer past at the Quintessence. Margot stared with wonder as the pill bottle vanished, eaten up by the light that it contained. The sight of the little glowing orb in their teacher's hand had the young witch all wrapped up. She leaned forward, one hand on one knee, and reached out slowly with the other hand with her index finger extended. Paused just short of touching it and looked back up to Sepulveda.
"So if I touched it while you were holding it, it would just go back to a bottle filled with pocket refuge?"
She watched it thoughtfully, and added: "I've sensed this before. Went for a hike from one of the rest stops when I was driving out here, and I think I found one of those places you were talking about? I thought I sensed it."
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