Of spirits and failure

You must accept that you will fail.  In spite of our great power – or perhaps because of it – things will go poorly.  At times, they will go very poorly.  There is great danger in thinking that because we can control the fundamental building blocks of the universe, that we have the ability to ensure everything will go the way we want it to go.

This is not so, especially when there are other things that can change the fundamental building blocks of the universe – both Mages and other entities.

Take, for example, what would happen if the only person capable of manipulating souls had lost his.  Now, I do not know what your mentors have taught you about lacking a soul, but it is not good.  Losing your magic is the least of your worries, though it feels the most traumatic.  Losing one’s abilities to defend oneself from enemies is worse.  But, in my opinion, slowly losing control of one’s sanity is worse.  Most elderly individuals will agree, as will the people who have to watch them give into to dementia and Aleshimer’s.

 Beyond that, not having one’s own soul is a large issue for one who had not yet forged a Legacy – it automatically makes one susceptible to becoming a Trimere Litch.   

Fortunately, there are ways to temporarily starve off the insanity by borrowing a soul of one already dead .  Would any Guardian ever do this?  Well… debatable.  The Guardians do what they need to do

But if something like this ever happened, it is always within one’s best interest to keep it completely secret.  And if one cannot keep it completely secret, one must make sure that what one is doing is legal within gold, silver and iron law.    That way if someone finds out about it, he or she cannot bring an entire order up on charges, but can only huff and puff and say “You should have done something different… I quit… you may all burn in Hell”.  That, of course, is a fairly unorigional curse – though it can be done dramatically.  (I, personally, would have said “and may you all find yourselves on a lovely plot of land in the south with hot and sunny weather, beautiful women, and all the cotton you can pick”.  But I also just saw Twelve Years a Slave.)

At least I managed to convince that young Guardian from Cambridge not to wage war on the entire Guardian Caucus of Hamilton.  Of course, I didn’t tell him not to tell anyone else.  He wouldn’t listen to me if I did.  If he does tell someone else… well, it is their problem.

The second thing that didn’t go well was having an abysmally tainted bus show up.  I need to go through my records and find out exactly who agreed to let this company install driverless buses in this city.  What’s worse is the number of people who were on the bus – a number of people who, by the time we Guardians got to the scene, had fled.  Perhaps an APB could be put out, asking for witnesses to this.  I will have to figure out how these abyssally tainted creatures are tracking Billy Motion.  Perhaps I can occlude him, somehow.

The third thing that did not go right was Death appearing where some idiots decided to search where he had been.  Stupid new Arrows!  They think that because they know how to fight that they can be anything less than cautious!  That was a venture I was supposed to have joined as well… one that I probably could have aided them with – for I do have a spell that will partly weaken Death and his companions.  Of course, I would be a target…  It may not be the best idea for me to meet with the Horsemen just yet.  But soon.

Death had prepared a ritual.  We saw some of it, but not all.  When the individuals who had encountered Death – and those who had helped heal them afterwards – had returned to the Gathering, they brought with them spiritual parasites (which even looked like bugs) which flowed out of them and attacked us.  Fortunately, we were able to destroy it – mostly through the ghost guardian on site and some quick use of lightning.  How we are going to explain the power-outage for five city blocks, I am not yet sure, but we will think of something.

I blame myself.  I am a Guardian and am in charge of keeping walls safe.

The second in command said there was nothing that could be done.  But the second in command was one of the infected.

I ask you this, godchild: what do you think motivates this statement?   And is it worth punishment as a Guardian for accidentally bringing forth an Abyssally tainted being into our safe-haven?  Does my lack of foresight require punishment?  And if yes to these questions, what?

The life of a Guardian is never easy.  You have control of the building blocks of the universe.  How will you use them when things fail?