2026.03.10: Measure of Many Pt.4
| Measure of Many (Pt 4/5) | |
|---|---|
| Continuing from the previous log, the group tries to figure out how to help the webbing and thus the Mouseguard. | |
| IC Date | March 10th, 2026 |
| Players | Archimedes, Book, Lavender, Paul, Phil, Robert, Storm (ST) |
| Location | The Nexus |
| Prp/Tp | Previous Scene Pt.3 <-- Measure of Many --> Next Scene |
| Spheres | Mage, Sorcerer, Psychic, Traditions |
Last week, when everyone returned to the Nexus, they found that the strange webbing they had previously only seen in the Umbra had begun appearing in the physical world. Fine strands stretched through the building, forming a careful lattice across beams and open air while hundreds of the Mouseguard moved along the threads maintaining it.
As the group asked questions and began examining the structure, the mice explained that the Nexus itself was just a place — what the webbing was really doing was holding magic together. With so many different paradigms and working magic gathered in one place again, those ideas were starting to pull against each other. The web had formed as a kind of scaffolding to keep everything from coming apart.
When Archimedes and Ed looked more closely using Prime, energy visibly ran along the strands, showing that the lattice was moving ambient quintessence through the system and redistributing strain where magical beliefs conflicted. The Mouseguard also confirmed that the wards around the Nexus were weakening and that the node that once fed the place was now dormant. By the end of the night, it was clear that the Nexus was actively reacting to the mages inside it — and that what they did there was shaping the structure itself.
–
Archimedes nods to Ed, not fully understanding how he's thinking about magic, but seeming to understand enough, "I think you're right. Small things, from as many schools of thought on the topic of magic as we have here, spread along key points aligning with their corresponding areas of reality." He lifts up a hand, reaching to his chin and scratching at his chin, "But slowly, allowing the web to regenerate." He then tilts his head, "Perhaps some of us can use our own chi to fuel the process even?" He looks around, a raised eyebrow indicating the question is for all.
Thomas Book moves carefully along the strange lattice of threads, his posture relaxed but intent, the quiet curiosity of a field researcher fully engaged. One hand holds open a small leather field journal while the other moves steadily across the page with his familiar fountain pen, the nib scratching softly as he records observations before the moment slips away. Every few steps he pauses, crouching slightly to study the strange architecture of the webbing — how the strands cross, where the light had surged moments before, and how the tiny mice technicians now adjust the tension of the lines with practiced precision.
From the worn satchel slung over his shoulder he occasionally produces a pencil or a bit of chalk, sketching rough diagrams in the margins of his notebook: branching threads, the flow of light through the lattice, little arrows marking the direction of the energy pulse. A few quick drawings capture the mice themselves — whiskered silhouettes perched along the strands like engineers on telephone wires — while others attempt to map the broader geometry of the structure around them. "Just taking some notes...feel free to ignore me." he adds to anyone who might note what he's doing.
The normally quiet Paul keeps towards the back yet close to Robert. He is watching and listening to everything though, taking it all in.
"Sorry, did you say something?" a voice calls out, without missing a beat.
That is Phil. He is kind of an asshole. Just ask him.
"Weird seeing how the look of the thing contrasts with the weak points. Ain't how I would've built something like this, but we knew that much already."
Several of the mice pause when Archimedes suggests feeding their own energy into the lattice. Tiny paws stop knotting and whiskers twitch as they quietly confer with one another. A few of them scurry along nearby threads to inspect the junctions that were glowing earlier, tugging the lines gently and watching how the glow settles along the web.
The scout mouse tilts its head and finally says, “That… might work.” Another mouse immediately chirps from a nearby thread, “Slowly! Very slowly.” Several others nod in agreement as they continue adjusting the lines.
The scout taps the strand beneath its feet with a tiny paw and looks down at the group again. “The web grows around what you do,” it explains. “If you feed it gently, it will learn where the strong places should be.” It gestures toward one of the brighter strands nearby. “Start with one thread. See how it answers before you push too much at once.”
Storm frowns just a little. "So.. one at a time then?"
The mouse rubs his little paws together and he nods. "One at a time."
Lavender does not quite understand. She looks to Storm, and whispers, "What is chi?" She's still getting up to understanding terminology. "So what are we trying? And are we taking turns?"
Storm leans Lavender's way a little bit. "Quintessence. Just a very small sensory effect should light things up."
Archimedes leans forward to listen to the mouse clearer, followed by nodding his head with a smile, "Yes, very slowly." He looks around for a moment and nods, "Here goes nothing." The sometimes Wizard, sometimes Monk, sometimes Scholar paces down the length of one of the weaker strands. He takes a moment to take a deep breath, then closes his eyes, his right hand moving to chest level and remains flat, palm facing his left. He bows his head and not much seems to happen, but anyone with an awareness of the magical arts feels something begin to stir in the vicinity of Archimedes when the man begins reverse breathing. As he inhales deeply, his chest and core contract, paradoxically expanding as he breaths out. It is carefully controlled and slowly rising to its small crescendo. Weak magic, but expertly done.
Thomas Book slows to a stop near one of the brighter intersections of the web, tilting his notebook so the strange glow along the strands spills across the page. "Quin...tess...ence..." he murmurs, brow furrowing slightly as he finishes the word Quintessence across the margin of his notes. He leans back a fraction, studying it as though the act of writing it might make the meaning reveal itself. After a moment he exhales softly through his nose, taps the pen once against the paper, and adds a small questioning mark beside it. "Right," he says quietly to no one in particular, glancing up at the glowing threads and industrious mice moving along them. "I have absolutely no idea what that is."
Paul hears Lavender and looks at Robert with the same type of question in his eyes, "Bobby, would that be our Mana?" He looks around the room and asks, "I have Precognition, and could see if I can help tell how certain things could work."
Phil takes another look around, then breaks open a fresh pack of-- no, not playing cards for once, this one is a set of three-by-five index cards. He starts setting them down here and there and scribbling some numbers and letters on them, though, so... six of one, and all that. "Okay, you," he adds, looking over toward Lavender. "Orange or green?"
Lavender replies to Phil, not knowing what he means, but an easy choice. "Green." It goes with her whole background. "So we give to a strand. Ok."
Robert nods to Paul for a moment and takes out a candle. "I can.. paint them. Make sure we're getting them all."
Archimedes seems to finish what he set out to do, his breathing returning to normal and his eyes opening. He looks around, satisfied with the results. He turns, looking around until he spots Book. He furrows his eyes for a moment, then walks the intervening distance between himself and the bookseller, "Mr. Book, a moment please?" He then gestures to the notebook, "Let's put that aside for a moment?"
He pauses for a moment, waiting, then asks, "When you find yourself reaching out to do magic, and you need to interact with the fundamental energies of creation, what do you call it? I called it mana when I was a static practitioner of magic. I also called it chi, depending on how I was talking to?" He reaches into a pocket, removing two stoppered vials of a honey colored liquid that further scrutiny would reveal interesting things, "What do you call it, Mr. Book? And can you do something small, even just open your senses to it, in the vicinity of one of these strands?"
He wiggles the vials, sloshing the honey colored liquid within, "I'll even spot you some. I can no longer use these."
Storm considers for a moment, letting everyone do their thing, then he closes his eyes and does a little deep breathing and explains to Lavender, "I'm just manually turning on my Umbral senses instead of letting it go naturally. I don't want to overwhelm it or myself. Just nice and easy. See where we go from here."
He suggests, "Those of you who are WATCHING the flow, let us know if shit gets weird."
At the question, Book tilts his head slightly, considering it with the quiet seriousness of a man who has spent a lifetime working around something he never learned to name properly. "Honestly?" he admits after a moment. "Most of the time I don’t call it anything at all." His eyes flick briefly toward the webbing around them. He shrugs faintly. "I suppose if you forced me to pick a word, mana isn’t terribly far off. But I’ve always treated it more like energy in the air than a substance."
Book doesn’t chant or gesture dramatically. He simply breathes in, focusing the way he would when beginning a ritual circle -letting the background noise of the world fall away until the quiet hum beneath it becomes easier to notice. The web answers almost immediately. The strand nearest his hand gives off a faint vibration, like a taut string lightly plucked somewhere far away.
"There...," he murmurs.
Lavender nods to Storm, "I'll do the same. Keep track. I'm happy to give a bit myself, when it is my turn too. Don't want to overwhelm the webbing either." She watches as some of the others start to give as well. "Everyone should try, I think, as we see how this goes. I'm betting what it needs is only a small drop of what we can give now."
Phil is still wandering around, with some colored pencils this time, tagging some of the cards as green - good choice, Lavender - fewer as orange, a couple as something else, and about a third left black and white. "There's probably a hundred different names for it. 'Quintessence' is the Latin for 'fifth element'. Or sixth, if you do the whooshing thing." Wuxing, Phil. Show some cultural sensitivity for once.
Paul closes his eyes for a moment in concentration as the others are talking, taking a deep breath and reopening them. He is quiet for a minute or two before he begins to speak, his eyes darting around the room, "In a few minutes there's gonna be several strands that are gonna start flickering." He points to several strands, pointing out where they will be rather than where they are now. "Most of the lattice looks stable..." he blinks rapidly, tensing up, "but one junction over there," he points it out, "is gonna flare up for a moment, as if too much strain will be gathering there. If several people push energy through the web at once, that point looks like it could overload or snap before the lattice has time to compensate."
Robert looks up where Paul is directing their attention. "I'll redirect the energy, at least some of it, along a different strand..."
Thomas lingers there beside the strand, eyes half-lidded as he listens to that faint humming tension running through the web. His hand lifts again, slower this time, fingers spreading slightly as if feeling for the edge of a current. The motion is almost absentminded — more like nudging a floating leaf than forcing anything — but a quiet breath leaves him as he lets a small pulse of his own gathered will slip outward.
The strand beneath his hand answers with a faint shimmer, the light along it brightening for a brief heartbeat before carrying that tiny push of energy a short distance down the line. Book watches it travel with mild curiosity, then lowers his hand again.
Soft pulses of light travel outward from where Magic (or science. I don't judge) is happening. Archimedes' strand glows brighter than the rest and is quickly absorbed and shuffled around. The glow runs along the lattice like energy through a wire. Several of the mice immediately chase the motion along the lines, tiny paws testing knots and adjusting tension as the surge passes through their section of the web.
After a few moments, the glow fades but leaves a few of the nearby strands slightly brighter than before. The net seems to be shifting a little here and there, redistributing the energy across several connections instead of letting it gather in one place. The mice continue their careful adjustments. The system absorbs the strain.
Across the room, the junction Paul pointed out flickers brighter than the rest. Even as the web stabilizes around Archimedes’s quint, that point remains tight and tense, as though several outcomes are still competing to happen.
Book's contribution doesn't actually cause much of a difference. A little shimmer, yes, but it is very readily absorbed.
Phil looks up and over to Robert and nods. "One of those is probably good," he answers, gesturing with one hand toward-- "Yeah, see?" A good quarter of the web's junction points were in that direction anyway. Hexes aren't an exact science.
Lavender is watching as the magic is happening here. "You know. When Archimedes gave with his magic to the webbing, it lit up like a Christmas Tree. When Paul and Robert and Thomas gave, it was helped, but it was less of an impact. It did something, but it just reacts differently."
Robert smears a bit of oil on his finger from a vial in his pocket. "It seems like Awakened magic with your fancy Avatars seems to be harsher on the setup than my meager skills."
Archimedes watches the energy travelling down the webbing carefully, considering the situation carefully. He looks to Lavender and nods his head, "I have theories about that, but they need more research." He then looks to Robert, "I don't think meager is the right word for it. The fact that this magic of yours, and formerly mine, never suffers backlash is thought provoking. I wonder if that has something to do with it. Since your magic seems to be done with a hand-shake agreement with reality and dynamic magic isn't."
He then looks around and comments, "This is very, very not in agreement with the natural way of things."
Storm studies things carefully, actually ANALYZING instead of just jumping in. "So.. what's the purpose of this then? It's holding it together. But why? Sorcerers don't have the same effect as the mages we said. But what's the SOURCE of this? What do we need to do? Do we need to FIX it or BREAK it?" He looks around for actual answers.
Paul nods his head slowly as he hears the others, his eyes remaining guardingly on that one spot, "But our magic is nowhere near as powerful. Sorta like the difference between a summer rain and a thunderstorm."
Phil squints at Archimedes for a second. "What do you mean it's not in agreement? Sounds completely goddamn typical to me." He's drumming his fingers alongside the edge of one of the cards, not quite picking it up from its resting place just yet.
Robert seems to consider as he's about to do something and looks a little closer "This reminds me of a clogged artery..."
"I mean..." Archimedes looks at Storm and says, "This is literally holding several realities together in this one spot. I don't know the repercussions of letting them go, but the mice seem very dedicated to holding it together. Getting it back in order could be a positive for the community." He then turns to Phil with a quick grin, "From the point of view of a high-degree Hermetic, I'm sure." He peers towards Robert, furrowing his brow, "So it needs a stent. Something to widen the flow of chi through the netting."
Book seems more than a little confused as the others are wondering about breaking and fixing things. He's still fairly new at all of this magical energy work stuff - which is probably evident to all. "Did you say this place is holding several /REALITIES/ together?" his eyes bloom with surprise and more than a little concern. "I mean, I've seen Marvel, I know about the Multiverse... this is not a good thing."
Storm's question hangs in the air for just a moment. The netting/strands/lattice/web/scaffolding continues its faint adjustments, threads tightening and relaxing as the whole thing moves through. The mice keep working along the lines, but several of the clothed ones pause to listen. "This isn't the source. It's the RESULT. This place was built by the gods so all the magics and sciences could share the same area without tearing things apart. That balance should happen quietly, but with the node dormant and the wards weakening, the system is compensating."
Another mouse pipes up, rising to its back legs. "So don't break it." It nods to Robert. "Help it carry the strain until things can be repaired or removed safely."
Storm nods to Archimedes. "I agree." He motions to a mouse. "They agree."
Back to the mouse. "What IS the source?"
The mouse moves along a strand closer to Book. "Reality. Capital R. Not multiverses. It's a thing the Gods have to deal with."
Phil shakes his head. "Yeah, the neighbors are doing all right, actually. I mean, they're acting up, but just in parallel, like they usually do." Being parallel somethings and all. "Now has anyone got a laundry list of the things, or do we need to track 'em down on our own?"
Robert says, “One person playing chess, one playing checkers, and one playing monopoly, all with the same board. That's what it's like getting some magic users together on a project.”
Archimedes turns to look towards Book and nods his head, "Indeed, Mr. Book. Awakened magic finds its true power in telling the common understanding of reality to go take a smoke break, so to speak." He then looks to Phil and nods his head, "I believe they are, but the apartment walls could be a little thicker to follow your metaphor."
He turns his head, looking along the webbings and commenting, "I think, with the help of the mice, I can do something to reinforce the netting. It can hold the weight better, but I would need help."
Lavender has been thinking about it. "Would we want to reinforce the wards that are failing? Then work on restoring the Node that is dormant? Wouldn't that help with it all? Or are we trying to do something else? This isn't in my wheelhouse, yet, but I think we should try something to help the mouseguard and what was started by our predecessors."
