Sacha was the leader of The Devoted, and childhood friend of Brandon Lachmann.
Personality
As a child, Sacha was a kindhearted girl who supported Brandon, and possibly had a crush on him. After being shown magic at a young age, she was permanently affected. After that, her allegiance to her lost friend, Brandon, was unwavering. This led her to create her own secret society, the Devoted, who Reader described as being like a family.
Unfortunately, the presence of an infiltrating group within the Devoted caused some changes in Sacha’s personality. She became paranoid and cruel, even to other members of the Devoted. Reader, who was a longtime member of the Devoted, seemed terrified of Sacha, despite being a close friend and confidante, stating that she’d “seen people disappear for less than this.”
Biography
Sacha was Brandon Lachmann’s best friend as a child, with the pair hanging out often after school. Sacha was a strong supporter of Brandon’s writing, encouraging his work on the Glass Report, even when their teacher, Mr. Ashwood, tore it apart.
When Brandon discovered the secret of magic, Sacha was the first and only person he told, before embarking on his journey. Desperate to convince Sacha that he was telling the truth, he invited her to see real magic. Sacha agreed to this, as Brandon seemed to be serious. Brandon took Sacha to a nearby outdoor clock, inside of the sidewalk.
While staring down at the clock, it initially did nothing, leading Sacha to believe she was being pranked. However, after a moment, the hand on the clock moved. According to Sacha, “The numbers changed into these odd symbols that I’d never seen before and the colors turned super bright. It was glowing. the whole sidewalk around it was glowing, like there was light behind it trying to escape. Then all of a sudden the air was filled with sound. Sort of like music, but not like a song. It was like a thousand voices singing, but not human voices. It sounded sad but the harmonies were beautiful. And then all the pay phones started ringing. In every direction. And then Brandon waved his hand and it all stopped.”
Once Sacha was convinced of the truth of the world, Brandon invited her to come with him, to escape to the world of magic. Torn on whether or not she should escape with him, she eventually chose not to go.
Phase One
Sacha ultimately did not go with Brandon. She spent the rest of her life devoted to finding him, forming a cult dedicated to missing memories, with Brandon as the cure for breaking open this lie of a world. Every year, around the anniversary of Brandon’s death, The Devoted would attempt to connect with Brandon, but they remained largely unsuccessful until the events of Fragment Four.
By Fragment Four, the Devoted had been infiltrated by another group, corrupting Sacha with it. Paranoid of even members of her own cult, Sacha attempted to use The Mountaineers to solve puzzles and connect to Brandon, before betraying them at the end. She ultimately failed, being locked out of one of the final puzzles, which she blamed on the betrayal of Reader and the Mountaineers.
After Sacha failed to make contact with Brandon, she abandoned the Devoted. Before she left, she said she’d been “brought into the fold,” and her work with The Devoted was done.
Phase Three
During Aether and Martin Rank’s infiltration of Kemetic Solutions in Phase Three, it was revealed by Theodore Fallon that Kemetic Solutions had been magically controlling Sacha to do their bidding. Kemetic Solutions made Sacha contact Marty as Whistler, pretending to be a whistleblower for the company. However, they had simply programmed her to believe that she had woken up when they were simply using her as a lure to bring in Martin and Aether.
Since the Storm attacked Kemetic Solutions, with Sacha inside, her fate was unknown until February 2020.
Mirumagiqum
After the Wellspring spell succeeded in bringing about the new age, a new user named Jonah Dobner posted to the forum about one of his psychiatric patients. The patient had no memory of her past, and spent her days sitting at a window and repeating the word “sorry,” until one day in February 2020 she briefly became lucid and began writing the word “Magiq” on the walls. The patient responded to the name Sacha when he suggested it, and responded even more emphatically to the name Brandon Lachmann, but then had an outburst, screaming “sorry” and trying to force a window open. With the help of the Mountaineers, Jonah was able to reach out to Brandon’s mother, Susan, and facilitate a visit.
Of the visit, Jonah wrote:
”I brought her into the common room where Sacha was, and they both started crying. Sacha couldn’t look at Mrs. Lachmann, and she just kept saying sorry. Then Mrs. Lachmann put her arms around her and said that she forgave her, and then it stopped. It was like a peace washed over Sacha. Mrs. Lachmann brought some pages from the book she was writing about Brandon and Sacha to read to her, and Sacha recognized the bookmark Mrs. Lachmann was using, this green leather bookmark. It turns out it was Brandon’s.
I told Mrs. Lachmann to just let someone know when she was ready for me to come and get her, and gave them some privacy. When I left, Mrs. Lachmann was holding Sacha’s hands and telling her that she still talks to Brandon, still feels him sometimes, watching over her from a world he imagined.
When she’s ready, I’ll take her home. She didn’t talk much on the way up. She seemed nervous. But seeing Sacha, them seeing each other, seemed to put them both at ease.”
The visit resulted in the release of Part One of The Book of Briars.