open | full circle pt 1

[exequy]

WHO: Concerned mages/rifters/others
WHAT: An emergency meeting!
WHEN: Solace 20
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Explanation in the OOC post. Please tag this like a network post. There are top-level comments to provide a little chronology/structure, but threadjack to your heart's content.

Before and during dinner on an otherwise unremarkable Wednesday, there's a chain of whispers (or notes, or perfectly audible comments from the particularly unsubtle) about an emergency meeting, at an evening hour, in a basement room, regarding a matter of concern to rifters and mages.

The basement part is probably unnecessary. It's certainly ineffective; the organization is too small, the Gallows too contained, and the halls too echoey for something arranged with this much finesse-wrecking haste to truly remain a secret. They could have done it in an empty office or the recreational dining hall, probably, and sat on chairs instead of storage crates. But Kostos picked the location, and he's dramatic. If nothing else it signals a clear intention to do this as unofficially as necessary.

Anyone who accepts the invitation (or just decides to come see what the fuss is about) will first encounter Marcus Rowntree, posted up outside the door like a bouncer, letting mages and rifters move through undisturbed but stepping in to question and likely bar the arrival of anyone else. Inside, Kostos is nothing but a dark scowl in the room's far corner, picking at a splinter of wood on a crate and not mustering a word of greeting for anyone who comes in. Derrica has parked herself within arm's reach of Kostos, a long gold-edged shawl spilling over one shoulder. Her diplomacy pin gleams from the front of her tunic. The worried pinch to her brow is the only outward sign of anxiety; otherwise, she is tightly contained, watching people enter. Julius–notably not in robes–is serious but calm as people come in, standing next to the ever-composed Madame de Cedoux.

Once as many people have arrived as seem likely to, Marcus closes the door, remaining beside it, and they explain what the problem is.

Comments

[overharrowed]

If we're assuming the proposal will be similar to the Circles that existed before the war, very little. More senior and more ... cooperative mages were sometimes allowed to correspond with those elsewhere, but it varied widely by country, as well as by the temperament of the Knight-Commander -- the highest ranking Templar. But no private communication even then. I was in what passed for a permissive Circle, and was senior enough to have correspondents, but I expected all my letters could be read, whether or not all of them actually were.

[detestable]

[ well, that's a complication. ]

And this is what they're clamoring to get back to? Didn't get enough the first time around?

[overharrowed]

Some of them think it's inevitable, and they want to be sure they have the highest rooms in the tower they're locked in. Metaphorically or literally. Others know it's a sacrifice, but they think it's necessary, either because they don't believe other solutions will answer the problem of abominations, or because they think that anything short of a return to the Circles will lead to us being hunted down outright instead.

Some are just bastards, but that's a minority of any large enough group of people.

[detestable]

How big a problem are the abominations?