Great observation. I wonder what other seemingly inconsequential moments now have added portent given we’re fiddling with time.
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Some cool lore, at least I think so, is finding out that in the past there was multiple Lodge’s trying to open the BoB.
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I want to know who Dawson is.
My theory is that he’s either allied with Sullivan, or that he works for the Council. And it wouldn’t be a stretch, I think, given his involvement with us in our time - enabling us to complete the phase 3 assessment and communicate with Augernon and the 94 Mountaineers - to imagine that he could also be the mysterious Benefactor of the 94s.
I mean, the coordination it would require for that to be true would be stunning. But less a coincidence than two separate, unrelated individuals supplying both them and us with information and support.
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I think you’re correct in that he’s an ally (if not an alias) of Sullivan Green’s -and- working with the Council:
“Much of the “how” won’t make sense at this moment, but I hope by now you’ve looked to my letter to Deirdre and found something the 18 Gates left with our storyteller friend.”
Edit: Assuming this refers to our time portal, it would mean that Sullivan had the 18 Gates leave it on Fletcher Dawson’s website deliberately as part of his plan he exposes for us to open the 1990’s Book of Briars here in the present. This little line proves the three collaborate.
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It also makes sense that Dawson is the storyteller as he’s an author
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This is just a random thought, but when Marty talked about the Low with us in The Quiet, he mentioned a few '94s. Saberlane, Huma, and Knatz. Do you think we should namedrop any of them in the post? Or maybe we should tell Augie that we know Marty? Apparently Marty knew Augie, Ascender, and Knatz personally.
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While true we know Marty now, we didn’t know him then. If Augie asked Marty about us it may cause problems,
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Agreed - this has been brought up before in another thread, too.
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We could say we know of them, it might help.
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That’s a good point. I don’t necessarily see the harm in just namedropping some people, though. For instance, we could say we’ve heard of those Mounties before, and if Augie asks, just say we have a Mountie in the lodge who has a few Low contacts, and those are names they’d heard. Marty might be harder to namedrop, but given he was known to try and contact people in the Low, saying we’re aware of him wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.
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The biggest thing that stuck out for me reading Sullivan’s letter to Deirdre was the history of Neithernor and where the Silver and the Storm fit into all of it. Here goes:
My research of Neithernor goes back to Anne of Brittany’s death and the eventual splitting of her court of artists’ secret guild into the paths of wool and silver. At some later point in our current history the path of wool became Monarch’s Mountain so that’s what I’ll call them going forward.
The Monarchs discovered a small but verdant place connected to our world through secret entrances, but wholly hidden from us.
Neithernor was not affected by whatever removed magiq from our world. That’s how the Monarchs learned that there was an alternate history of magiq.
This set of excerpts tells me that while the Path of Silver (and therefore it’s Storm) had it’s origin some time after magiq was hidden from the world, some time before Anne of Brittany - sometime before the early 1500’s!
There was peace for an untold time. But then something unknown happened that pitted the Monarchs against the Silver. I don’t know whether it was a gradually building conflict or if there was a single catalyst, (or who was ultimately at fault) but it escalated into “The War of Neithernor.” Many were lost but MM drove the Silver out of the land and barred all entrance back.
The Silver scrounged for power here in the mundane world, trying to use everything they had to get back in. But they had been exiled.
While wild and forgotten, Neithernor is likely totally free of the influence of the Silver and their Storm.
Years later, The Council sent The Book of Briars to Monarch’s Mountain and the Silver scrambled to take it from them. They had grown strong in their own secret place here in the mundane, using what they learned from Neithernor and gathering artifacts and objects from the old time… They had also created The Storm. Once they realized the book was not for them, they sent the Storm, and in doing all but wiped away any memory the Monarchs had of Neithernor.
This is where I find his letter most interesting. Early on (before The Last Oracular Eye and May 31st) many of us had colluded Kemetic Solutions and the Storm. I did not think that was the case, but Sullivan’s letter even broadens the scope of what we’re facing. It puts way more players on the board than what I think we all originally thought was the case.
We found out (the hard way) that Kemetic Solutions was not part of the Storm. They were wiped out by the Silver and their Storm for trying to pierce the Veil by sacrificing adepts to an arcane apparatus. After that, I had assumed that The Storm was the operating militant arm of whatever had originally set magiq apart from our world. Now, with information from Sullivan’s letter to Dierdre, I can no longer assume that is true.
What does this mean, practically? While the Silver and Storm are powerful, they aren’t so powerful as to be the ones who initially took magiq from the world, and their motives seem to revolve around petty vengance more than anything. This makes facing them seem like a much less insurmountable goal.
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This also means that the Council of 18 Gates is much older and probably much more powerful than we imagined:
They have sent the book, in varying forms, to groups for centuries.
It requires immense power to send the book to us from where they are.
…the book persists because in each era the 18 Gates have used what power they have to not only send their cherished object to us, but also to protect it from The Storm and its Master. They have kept the book safe while also trying to spread what remained of that protection to those who’ve tried to unlock it.
…I convinced the 18 Gates to focus their power to protect you instead of the book when The Storm arrived, and let the book burn…
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Would it be possible to tell them about who and what is hunting them with out changing time too much? As it is better to know your enemies so you can fight them. Also are we sure that the past Mounties haven’t caught on yet that something isn’t right? There have been tons of references to past and present in this fragment. I wouldn’t be surprised if they aren’t already speculating that we’re not in the same time as them.
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Not to take away from this convo, but I really want to talk about the latest message…
I wanted to talk about the implications of what we just learned? Missouri and those other young Mounties who attacked Ascender and Knatz, they were brainwashed by the Storm some twenty years ago. But what happened to them after? Are they still being used by the Storm as puppets? Are they catatonic like Augie? Like…where did all these old Mounties go? Are they even alive?
And that brings us to our old pal, Marty. Back in Fragment Eleven, we received some information, an email from one of his old colleagues. According to the email, “I don’t know what else to say. There’s no conspiracy. If there was you have to believe I’d be there with you, fighting that fight. All that stuff you said, The Santa Colette Six, the girl in Jersey, those are fringe cases where kids went missing and then came back. They’re not connected, and they’re not connected to the kid who drowned in the tunnels.”
So we have this and just…what if Marty was right? What if those cases they’re talking about, the Santa Colette Six, the girl from Jersey, what if those were old Mounties who got controlled by the Storm? And like, if that’s the case, what happened to those people? Are they sleeper agents for the Storm, just waiting to come back? Or actively being controlled towards some mission? Those poor people…it’s stuff like this that haunts me…
Also would someone be so kind as to check over the doshen image for photoshop clues? I’d do it myself, but I’m kind of mediocre at spotting little things. Would definitely appreciate the help of someone with a keen eye. It has the glitchy Aether artifacts, so that makes me want to check if anything is hidden…
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I thought I had nightmares about this stuff before. It never even occurred to me there were mind wiped, sleeper zombie shells of previous mountaineers trying to lure me into the forest to stab me. Thanks @Revenir!
Also, what image did you want searched for clues?
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Sorry about the nightmare fuel, @Robert. We should all stay away from parks I suppose? Heh 
This is the image I was hoping we could look over:
Also, apologies if it’s already been searched, I couldn’t find anything after a quick scan of the forums though. 
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Well that’s a scary thought.
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Have we messaged him yet?
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I don’t think so
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Would it be okay with everyone if I sent it tonight?
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