1 - Myra Lockwood

About 15 minutes later a knock, followed by the doorbell ringing

"Oh hello!" A kindly old woman with lively eyes and a spring in her step, garbed in a tai chi outfit, greeted Kyle at the main door of the impresive Lockwood mansion. "Three years of high school and hardly with friends over, but tonight, oh my. Come in, come in, you must be here for Myra." It was another boy, but Evelyn Lockwood reminded herself not to tease these young ones in that manner, for it was a different generation now. More than anything she was genuinely surprised by Myra's new social activity. What a way to start senior year. "She and a friend have been holed up in the library since they got here." A study circle? Evelyn thought. It was no secret to her that her granddaugther wanted to ace her final year.

"Hellos miss. I'm Kyle. Myra invited me over?"

He keeps up a dialog but tries not to overdo it. His folk had money but this place gives Kyle the impression of old family money. "I knew Myra last year but we were mostly in different circles. A bunch of us just clicked early this year and she invited some of us over. You have a nice home here mam. "

Upon reaching the library Kyle instantly though he would have loved this place as a kid. Though he did most of his reading on devices now, as kid he had loved reading all kinds of books and would likely have spent many hours in the room, if allowed. Seeing Myra and Joe he smiled and apologized. "Sorry I'm late. I seem to keep arriving after thing happen or have already been discussed, so I need to play a bit of catch-up. Thanks for the invite" and nods to Myra

"Evening Kyle. We’ve been busy, and it looks like Myra’s family have quite some history; we’ve found a lot of material, but it’s not exactly designed to fit together just for us. We’ve got these symbols associated with different magickal Traditions though, and we’ve been talking about which we feel some affinity for. Do any of them speak to you?" Joe gestures to the collection of symbols Myra had found. "We’re also pretty sure that our parents were preparing us for something like what’s happened, this Awakening, but, uh, didn’t get to finish the job. They seem, quite independently, to have been nudging us forward and hoping something would happen, that they couldn’t explicitly explain until after it happened, and all the signs are that the school, or at least some of the people there, have been proceeding on a very similar path, maybe without the active nudging part. We’re definitely not the only ones; I’m sure that Emily - the girl who vanished - had magick too, and she was using it just before whatever happened, happened yesterday." Joe finally pauses for breath, aware that he’s infodumping excessively, and stumbles to a halt. "It’s a lot to process," he finishes weakly.

Looking over the symbols Kyle shrugs
" Nothing.

So, is it just the symbols or are there any other references?

I'm not sure if it's just me or what but so far everything I do seems to work well with or be related to tech, or tech like effects. But that might just be me limiting myself. Of this really is magic them I think I need to get rid of allot of preconceptions and the modern social mindset.

Zane, another student, also seems to be a bit sensitive to these things. I found out the hard way and I think he's pissed with me now. I really wish my parents had been prepping me for anything like this. I've only just been fumbling with things by myself over the summer."

To be honest, I think this tradition thing is also just a mute question right now. With no one to guide us, then what use is it?
On the other hand, we know there are others at the school who are in the know.

Cass for one, Cass Devereaux, and her father Alistar Croft are both active, and I think we can trust Cass with some questions.
But who else we can trust I dont know.

Mr Necth and Ms Nixon, the new Guidance counsellors, those I don't want near me.

Myra share a look with Joe. What did you learn Kyle? Joe and I got to talking about energy flow and martial arts, and how Shi-Gong, and Thai-Chi both have moves that benifets the flow of energy we feel when we do... She cant say the word. When we do what others cant.

Kylel pauses a moment to think before replying.
"Honestly, I'm still figuring things out. It seems to be a combination of mindset, both mine and others, as well as some sort of power. Whether the power is mental or magical I have not clue, if it really matters either way. I experimented a bit over the summer and found that some things are a lot easier if I find some plausible way to explain it to other, like this" and Kyle pulls out his phone and taps it a couple of time, causing one of the lights in the room to flicker and pulse in time with his commands. Parlor Trick

" I've also noticed that doing too much of it can result in some sort of feedback that can make things worse latter on. I'm still trying to figure it out but it seems that, for me at least, mixing in science and tech seems to help me get the results I want. Just thinking about it isn't enough. But if I can create some form of plan that make sense at least in my own mind or use something to focus my idea of what I want to happen then it becomes more reliable. The biggest problem I have now is, how do I figure out the rules in dealing with others. So far all my tests have been on my own and I hadn't interacted with anyone who could even feel what I was trying to do. Now it seems there a a ton of people, students and faculty, that not only can sense it but are way better at it than I am."

Myra and Joe had had some time to pore over the Lockwood collection of eclectic tomes. Perhaps it was their newfound awareness that gave them the ability to be more effective than any librarian in choosing the books that were relevant (perhaps it was some heightened intuition), and then zooming in on the information that was of interest and seeing their inter-connections. There was too much to process, it would take time to go through it all, but they scratched the surface and got the gist of it.

All this wasn't immediately apparent to Kyle. While he loved the notion of books and libraries, lately his knowledge came through online sources. Also, because he had been witnessing the effects of his own digital manipulations and how that could affect things, he didn't immediately see anything useful in the arcane symbols that Joe pointed to, nor to the older names given to what appeared to be schools or philosophies of magick such as the Order of Hermes, or the Akashic Brotherhood. But then a page from one of the volumes caught his eye, then another. Some of it looked like ordinary writing, other parts like a transcript of indecipherable squiggly lines. Kyle had a flash of insight, could they be code? A quick scan of the image would help.

In the meantime as Kyle caught up with all the wealth of resources this library provided, Myra and Joe contemplated on what they had found. The knowledge, though eye-opening, was still merely academic in nature. They knew the history behind the traditions of magic, but as Myra rightly pointed out, they still didn't know the actual practice of it. For that, the books mentioned apprenticeships, training, learning from others who had mastered the mystical arts. Joe, Kyle and Myra did not know yet that Jonathan and Minsoo were one step closer to finding out about this, for the two of them were at this moment consulting with someone who gave them direction as to whom to speak with to learn more.

One book even made it sound like there were such things as wizard schools (presumably where the fiction of Harry Potter came from), but this view was largely dismissed by others. Most of them taught that it was about finding a tradition (with a small t), a way of believing and of expressing that belief in concretely manifested ways. If one thought that magic was about incantations and fomulae and spells, then they had to practise those in order to be able to perform that magic.

The other thing that Joe and Myra started doing was to take note of who in school already had inklings of this other world. What surprised them, and in equal measures comforted and concerned them, was that there were others like them they did not know about. Amongst their classmates were Cassandra and Zane, and Wren mentioned Daniela had an episode yesterday and left school before lunch today. Minsoo and Jonathan also currently realised that Kirk was within their sphere of knowledge. Was it coincidence that they were all from the same class? And so many of them?

The last conclusion Myra was inferring was that their parents were somehow preparing them for their eventual awakening, based on what she discovered in her own home. This was disputed by Kyle, for a number of them had absent parents for some reason or other. Perhaps there would be reason to dig around their own family background to see if there were secrets to uncover. They would find out later that Wren had gone straight home to do exactly this, confront her parents, and that she did discover, not the truth, but that there was some mystery behind why their parents stayed silent about their innate abilities.

Kyle is instantly curious about the potential embedded code within the books. As he reads up and listens to the others talk about their own insights he wonders just how much the arcane and mundane worlds cross paths and how much of mythology is actually history of the arcane world. He would love to scan this entire place and starts a systematic search of all the symbols. While they mean nothing to him now, the idea that each persons beliefs or mindset affects how they interact with the arcane world suggests that the symbols might be useful to others. If he can figure out how then maybe he can adapt the knowledge for his own use. The idea of finding a mentor sounds great too, but Kyle is incredibly wary of revealing his powers to others at this time. He wonders if his family, his parent and his uncle, are or were involved in the arcane world. He cant think of anything that would indicate it but determines to look into it more when he gets home.

Thinking about it he asks Myra, before he can talk himself out of it "Hey Myra, since your family has all this information then it seems like they are in on this hole magic secret. Most of the books seem to be using a method that doesn't seem to be the way I do things. Do you think they might know others that work the way I do?"

I would love to have an answer for you, but I don't. They didn't share this with me. And looking for my parents' journals... Myra has a sense of vertigo and takes a few extra steps to keep her balance. ...Would not be proper.

As they discuss things Kyle decides it s best to get more comfortable and familiar with the world of magic pulls out his off grid phone to take pictures of the pages that caught his eye. As he does he focuses his mind through the phones camera to feel beyond just sight, recalling that using tools seemed to make working with the energies easier at times. After recording and probing the most interesting symbols and pages he then opens his senses, shifting through each in turn, Prime, Matter, Force, to the library and house around it.
"It's your family, so your call, but maybe they left clues that would only make sense once you started on this path we are all on now. What about the lady who let me in? Maybe she knows something that might help.

Well if it is common to follow families it makes me wonder about my own. Only, how do I find out without getting if trouble if none of them do have magic, and what does that mean for me? I mean my parents were well off, but they're gone now, and my uncle does OK, but nothing like this." and gestures at the room and beyond to encompass the house.

" I'm no expert but humans are humans and history shows that older established power often don't like young upstarts. Not that I want to start anything. Sheesh, I mean it seems that in school at least some of the leaders are in on it but they don't seem all that open and inviting. But going in blind as we are seems risky. It's a good thing that there are others that seem willing to talk about it but since all of this is not general public knowledge I'm a bit nervous about why that is and how they manage it. "

As they spoke, Glitch seemed to have made itself very much at home in the well-appointed space of the Lockwood library. The drone took to reading the book titles off the shelves, row by row, from left to right, high to low, as if recording everything to add to its database. Whatever books were open it showed a great curiosity about, hovering over Myra, then Joe, then Kyle as Kyle began to also delve into the wealth of information before him. It felt so natural for Kyle to interface with the books through his gadgets, just like the interweb was itself a vast library. His phone screen began to fill with bytes and bytes text, so much so he needed to pull out his laptop instead to use its processor to resummarise what Myra and Joe had been researching into organised data maps, labeled graphics, and clearly laid out expositions, in essence, a 'cheat sheet' of all they unearthed.

And while it was rare for Myra to open her house to others, the fact that she did meant she had to deal with opening herself up a bit more. The presence of Kyle and Joe prompted her to talk about her family. For Kyle's questions were sincere, no one had asked about her parents for a long time, and Myra's first impulse was to feel a little protective about what she wanted to say about them. She was resolved in her heart that if her parents wanted her to explicitly have the knowledge she was meant to have, they would have laid out a will containing instructions, or something more personal, like letters or journals. But Myra did not have anything of that sort. Perhaps that was the mystery. They must have wanted her to know about her legacy, but also took pains to not give her anything direct or explicit. Not until today did Myra discover that things were there all along, but hidden, embedded, implicit. Did grandma know anything about this? What about the staff and helpers, some of whom had been with the family for a long time?

So while Kyle's question was a legitimate one, Myra had had no reason to think anything of the people who lived with her knew anything about magic, and could only answer him in the negative. But Kyle's heritage paralleled Myra's; both of them had absent parents. Did this mean that Kyle's parents would have also left him some legacy for him to discover? How would he go about doing so? By asking his uncle? This also made Myra the most suited to help him discover this, given how she just discovered it for herself.

Quietly, Joe contemplated his circumstances. He had had other preparations. His mother had passed recently, but unlike the other two, had made some very specific and significant arrangements for him. Even though she didn't have the chance to talk to him about it, she had plans. But what were those plans for? With such a context, could Joe assist here? It was up to him how much he wanted to open up to Kyle and Myra about himself.

Myra explains that it's only her grandmother and herself that lives in Lockwood House. There is a maid service that comes around 3 times a week and helps with the cleaning, washing, etc. There is also a gardener that comes around 1-2 times a week, depending on the season, to keep the grounds.
Other than T’ai Chi, she is certain that her grandmother does not know anything about their new world.
But they all knew her parents in a different way that Myra did. They could know something.

Kyle is getting excited at the results and thanks Myra sincerely for the use of the library. Since Glitch was interested he just tied his laptop to the drone and fed the images through an OCR filter to record as much text as possible while simply flipping pages for the drone while searching for hidden messages, patterns, or anything that Glitch or the programs missed.

Feeling a bit guilty he decided it is best to keep things fair and two way so shares a bit about his own resources as he continues flipping through books.

"Near the end of last year I found a place that jut felt interesting, like it was calling to me. Anyhow Glitch seems to love the place and it seems a bit easier to mess around with some of my powers there. It isn't too far from campus and I have no idea what these are but the place produces these periodically and they seem to be some source do energy. " and pulls out a Tass crystal he had collected from his node to show the others. "The place seemed to be hard to find so I have been using it to stay off anyone's radar while experimenting but today it felt like someone had been that way. I'm not sure why. Maybe just someone exploring or a new student getting lost but with all the strange things with the first day back I'm honestly wishing it wasn't in such a public space."

Kyle felt comfortable enough here to be entirely open with Myra and Joe. Even the house itself felt like the kind of place that seemed to make the display of magic safe, as safe as when he was alone in his own hideaway. His mind was already wondering how he could link the two locations. One of the books mentioned mages transporting themselves or other objects instantaneously from one destination to another once those places were linked and empowered by magical essence, or tass, the substance of which Kyle was very excited to finally give a name to. He assumed tass would take the form of crystals, for that's what he understood in terms of nodes. But raw quintessence came in various forms and substances.

During all this discovery, Joe wondered if he ought to also tap into his inner landscape. That was the place where he found many of his answers, perhaps interrogating his dreams now would reveal more based on what he had learnt today.

In his enthusiasm and novice unfamiliarity, Kyle attempted to tap into the essence of the mansion itself without sufficient understanding. And something in the mansion pushed back, like a ward or enchantment of some sort designed to preserve the privacy of the place and everyone in it. Kyle's wireless network went down again and he had to scramble to reboot his system. The house clearly attempted to enforce some compliance. Perhaps Myra had some insight into what occurred.

Just then, the doorbell rang. Wren was expected!