Turn 2

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For the first time in months, your father King Vader is back from his travels on company business. It's hard to say exactly what his job is, but in your father's words, "If they have to send somebody somewhere, I'm always the one who has to go. At least I get paid a lot for it".

For once gathered together for the holidays, your family is busy almost exclusively resting from busier days. You try to go to bed early every day so you don't have to listen to that annoying creaking till midnight.

Thanks to the reduced blockages on the floor, your room seems a little more spacious than usual. It's even almost acceptable to exercise in it if it weren't for the fear of fragile appliances that make you hold back your moves. An unassembled suitcase with your predecessor's treasures awaits under the bed, and a new diary, already containing your notes and secrets, is stored in a stash under the double bottom of the bottom drawer of your computer desk.

It's a little over a week before school starts, and if you want to try to start recruiting supporters for the school, it's a good idea to find at least one Secret Knowledge. After all, without tangible proof, your words are empty, and only those who already trust you can believe them.

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It's the middle of the Christmas vacation, and except for some family time, you're as free as the wind. For the next week, you are free to do whatever you want.

You have one action of the Body (B), two actions of the Mind (M), and two actions of the Passion (P). You have 16 units at your disposal (all available savings).

Influences: Inspired Vitality - The blood sings in my veins! Any job is up to snuff! (Bonus to Body Rolls)

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Turn 2 Results

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After waving after your father leaves in a cab, you go back to your room and open your diary. In the past week, there have been many events and accomplishments that need to be written down, and records need to be organized. You haven't had a chance to systematize what has happened in the past time, because other things have required close attention.

School starts next week, which will drastically reduce the amount of free time that you can devote to more important things. But there will also be new opportunities. You have to be ready.

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Influences: Inspired Vitality - The blood sings in my veins! Any job is up to snuff! (+10 to Body Rolls)

Work:

[X] (B) This body is mine. All these rites and rituals are rather traumatic acts, not to mention sacrifices. Yes, and some knowledge, as well as much more than some practices, hurts the one who learns and performs them. You need a much sturdier and stronger body so that you don't have to go to the emergency room after every vein you open. Physical exercise should do you good, and the dumbbells dug out from under the rubble in your room are already helping a lot with that. Requires 2 passes, 80% chance of success. (On completion, +1 body action, vitality boost)

Required: 20. Roll: 39 + 10 (Decreasing Growth Burst ) + 10 (Inspired Vitality) = 59 Passed!

"... - And twenty-nine, and, thirty!" When you're done with your push-ups, you can barely get to your feet. Your hands are shaking and won't be able to hold anything heavier than a fork for the next half hour, but it's worth it: You wake up in the morning feeling better than ever. Except for the aching muscles. Or maybe it's because of them.

You've been eating more lately. Linda complains more often, though jokingly, about "disappearing" food, but so far she blames the faster-than-usual emptying of the refrigerator on King's presence in the house. Despite the increased appetite, your hinted "strategic reserves" on the sides are rapidly depleting. It is worth thinking about expanding your diet before the people around you begin to excite gastronomic interest...

Study:

[X](M)Exploring the Inheritance. The contents of the suitcase are also worth examining in more detail, because according to the diary, it contains valuable reagents, and perhaps even artifacts, not to mention receptacles of secret knowledge.

Now, having studied the diary, you know more about what the contents of the suitcase might be. Requires 1 pass, 80%/50%/10% chance of success

Required: 20/50/90. Throw: 48+ (7/2 - Supplemental Throw from the "Words Have Knowledge" Crit) =48 + 3.5 = 52 2nd Degree Passage!

As you pull the suitcase out from under the bed, you spread its contents out on the blanket. There aren't really that many items in it, but individually they take up an unexpectedly large amount of space. When you open your diary, you reread the notes on your predecessor's possessions, which you compiled from his notes.

By carefully comparing the descriptions of each item and the items laid out in front of you. You make a catalog of your possessions.

Books (10):

- Diary of the Predecessor. First-person memoirs of an unknown initiate. Still holds some mystery.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

- The Collected Works of one Therese Galmier, in four volumes. Something about Locksmith's dreams.

- A three-volume book, "Traveling at the Night," Dreams of a certain Christopher Illopoli, with commentary. (The diary mentions that the authors of these two works, Christopher and Teresa, are somehow related.)

- "The Burning of the Unburnt God". Some Persian tales were recorded by Jay Wigglesworth Jensen. According to the diary, contains something important.

- "The Manner in which the Alchemist was Spared" - At least that's what the enclosed note says. A really ancient-looking book, wrapped in several layers of leather and cloth. If the Predecessor considered the last book important, he was literally shaking over this one, which is evident in the dancing letters of the diary. Sort of an unthinkable rarity, containing the supreme secrets of the Forge, the Old and New Testament of this religion in one bottle. Too bad there's no translation. The original text resembles something between Indian hieroglyphs and crushed cockroaches. According to its predecessor, it is the language of "Vak."

Paints and reagents:

- Two bags of "Bitterblack Salts" - black crystals no bigger than a fingernail. According to the diary, cannot be created without the secrets of the Forge.

- A small tin can of shoe polish. Signed "Vital Pigment".

- Two more similar jars. One with "Refulgin", obviously toxic stuff that glows in the dark;

- The other with "Rose Pearl Dust". The color of tender maiden's love. It's a miracle I didn't spill it.

- "Martensite Paste" is silvery-green stuff in a pot with a tightly lapped lid. It smells like pine needles. In addition to its use as a paint and in rituals, if the Predecessor's notes are to be trusted, it somehow improves the cutting power of the edged weapons on which it is applied.

Other things:

- Tight leather case with a dozen sketches of paintings inside. Scrawled on both sides. I don't know what they are for.

- A casket with unknown contents, with no visible joints or lock. There are incomprehensible symbols scorched all over the surface. It is definitely not a Vak, the hieroglyphs are too different. There are no mentions in the diary.

- A scattering of sheets at the bottom, with the Predecessor's typical verbal patterns, complex formulations, and reasoning in inappropriate places. Many lines seem to have been taken out of context, arranged at odd angles, and filled with non-obvious idioms. There is no page numbering or pagination, but it is obvious that there are at least three different articles. It's hard to make sense of it.

- A bag of large, coin-like metal circles. Each one has a different image, from angry men with knives gutting other unarmed men to scenes from the Kama Sutra. Some kind of currency?

Tired of fiddling with brain-blowing papers, you put off digging into antiquities for the sake of developing your mind for the rest of the week. When you return to parsing with fresh eyes, you're caught up in the Insight!

- The tube contains paintings dedicated to the Hours! Even though they are only sketches, the descriptions of the Principles allow us to understand more than what is visible on the surface. The idioms, on the other hand, contain a kind of scheme, for each his own, which are simplified symbols of each Principle.

- Thanks to the symbols you discover, you manage to break down piles of sheets into three separate articles: On the "Mysteries of the Knock", the "Secrets of the Lantern", and the "Craft of the Forge". If you are not wrong in your assumptions, these chaotic stacks of paper contain the very real Secret Knowledge!

All that remains is to decipher them...

- The "coins" in the pouch are so-called spintrias, the currency of the secret world!

This is a kind of tokens, the origin of which is attributed to ancient Rome, and the originals of such things are worth a lot of money. Even for quality copies, you can probably get something... There are 7 iron, 5 bronze, and 2 silver spintrias.

[X] (P) Admiration for art. Your drawing skills have dulled considerably, and at the best of times, they didn't exactly shine. But you can fix that! The Internet is full of films about famous art galleries with the works of great artists of the past and online tutorials on many kinds of art! If you set your mind to it, you can greatly improve your skills.

Requires 2 passes, 70% chance of success. (On completion of +1 feeling action, increase in creativity)

Required: 30. Roll: 14 x 0.5 (Emotional Fountain) = 7 Fail!

You set out again in search of creative ideas and inspiration, going to the sites of famous art galleries. Perhaps some paintings "inspire" more than others, leading you to look for inspiration on other sites. After all, movies are a kind of art, too! And moving and voice actors, and even more so actresses, are much more interesting than static and silent pictures.

Only after a few days do you realize that this search for inspiration has obviously gone nowhere. You haven't learned anything, and while a few interesting scenes are worthy of being captured on canvas, it's not worth the attendant risks to paint such things at home, where someone close to you might see them.

[X](M) There is knowledge in words. A mind is a useful tool. Especially when the path to greatness involves comprehending secret knowledge. To better understand them, to assemble them into a single mosaic, decipher them, and perhaps to find new ones - one should keep this tool sharply honed. School textbooks are good to start with. Requires 2 passes, 70% chance of success. ( At the completion of +1 mind action, increase in erudition)

Required: 30. Roll: 100! Natural Crit!

Sitting at your computer trying to find a website that explains one of the most difficult mathematical theories from high school in human language, you suddenly find a really useful article. It is simple, concise, and with clear examples, describes exactly what you need. After saving the whole article, you go to the author's profile page, where you find a whole set of similar articles on school subjects.

You copy them all, making sure they are just as useful as the first, and then you plunge into your schoolbooks, checking them against the most useful reference material you have ever seen. Everything is as clear as it can be, and you only take your eyes off your notes when your wrist begins to ache from all the writing.

In a few days' work, you get through all the basic subjects by the end of the school year, outlining the required advanced topics for the same period. You write a rave review to the author, wondering why he/she is posting such excellent papers on some shitty website with a hundred visitors a year, but not on state educational resources.

A couple of minutes later, after turning off the computer, you decide to go back to sorting out the contents of the suitcase, temporarily postponed due to unexpected progress with your studies, from which you could not tear yourself away. And when all the things were again laid out on the bed, you suddenly had an insight!

Conversation:

[X] (P) A kindred spirit? 2. You certainly have a penchant for the arcane arts, you remember the Woods, and you've noticed some signs of yourself. But is such an inclination hereditary? Perhaps a conversation with your father might help clarify it. Requires 1 pass, 50% chance of success/???%. (Given his schedule, this is a rare opportunity indeed. Revealed during the 1st turn)

Required: 50/95. Roll: 51 x 1.5 (Emotional Fountain) = 77 1st Degree Pass.

Before you go on to leading questions, or even more so to sermons, you devote some time to observing your father, carefully pointing out any oddities in his behavior. And they don't wait long!

Maybe it's that King is more relaxed at home, or maybe he always is, but you manage to spot a really iconic trait in his behavior.

King can't stand locked doors. And it looks like locks in general. Everywhere he went, everything was wide open, or at least ajar. He never once locked the front door behind him, and when he went out to get the mail, Linda had to go outside and lock the mailbox herself because King "forgot" to do it. What's the big deal, he doesn't even lock his toilet when he's inside!

All these signs combined make it clear that the Knock principle is very strong in him. That means that at least one of your parents is Special. To be sure, at breakfast, you describe the dream you had about the Woods a couple of months ago as today's dream. As you narrate, King's face grows frozen and his gaze drifts off into space.

Some time after the story ends, he unfreezes and says that such dreams are not uncommon, and he himself recently saw a similar one.

What your father says afterward, about going to nature on his next visit in the spring, you no longer listen. What has been said is more than enough. All that remains is to find a way to convince him of the reality of Mansus, and of the powers drawn from it, and you will have a trusted and very useful ally. Given that King will be back to work by the end of the week, it will have to be done remotely: By letter, for networks and telephones cannot be trusted in such matters under any circumstances.

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