"Yeah, we... we talked in live chat. Before and after she said she got sucked into a computer world." She sniffs and rubs her nose. "I didn't know you were Irish, that's kinda neat."

"That actually happened," Ashlyn says. "Long story."

Grease finds a bit of her strength and energy, sitting up. "Thanks for coming, y'all." She takes a breath.

"It's all right. Wire? What's the game plan here?"

"If you need to know anything about what happened, I can try to explain. I'm not sure I understand it, though."

Grease sighs heavily and nods, and launches into her story, giving Valerie as much as she can...

------

Rain pattered off the back of the enormous semi, the lab within a thing of madness to anyone but Grease. It took effort to get even basic 'spells' working, though she could never, cannot see them as such. Sparks jumped from coils positioned above the body, the creation of metal and ceramic that is her need, her obsession. Tall, beautiful, marked in symbols she doesn't entirely understand, it stands in defiance of the story she told herself, that magic isn't real, that it's all just a higher science - a hypocrisy she dealt with. She brushes her hand over the cold, lifeless face, the hairless pate.

She turns to her equipment, raising the power on the towers. They spark more fiercely, continuous burning arcs, and a light enters her eyes. She sees something in the plasma, something that calls to her, something behind the curtain of the forces she's using, and she holds up a tool, guiding it down to connect with the chest of the robot/golem/whatever.

The computer readouts, attacked to leads, begin to spit out confusing output. Models of the simple brain begin to form more connections, and more, and still more, until the program crashes. She watches in awe as everything in her semi goes dark, shorted or tripped, and finally -

Her creation begins to stir.

She groans, heavy. Her moans are weak, her body spasming, leaving dents in on the metal plate beneath her. It progresses as she gets up, twitching, and focuses bleary, uncertain eyes on Grease.

They try to talk for a while, but the girl hasn't figured out words. Rather than accept Grease's soothing reassurances that it'll get better, she starts to panic, to beat around, and eventually screams. Metal begins to break down around her, crumbling and blackening, and Grease backs up in horror. Whatever she strikes, she destroys, tearing through the walls, the equipment, before running off into the rain, screaming, while Grease slinks away and cowers here, by this hut.

Valerie is quiet, listening with eyes closed as she does her best to visualize everything that happened. Finally, once it is done, she opens her eyes. "From my understanding of the practice of patterning, a basic golem would be capable of feats of strength, though not quite ... this." She motions at the truck. "It would obey whatever order it was given last, with enough memory for just that command.

"But then, someone with the arcana of the mind would be able to put a piece of their own psyche inside, to create an intelligent golem. Enough to be self-aware and able to show intelligence, but not to the degree of having complex speech and confusion about what it was. I'm not 100% on this, but Ikenga did have notes to that effect."

Valerie shakes her head. "No... I believe that something rode on the expressway and took the body for itself, or imbued it, I'm guessing by accident." She pokes the inside of her cheek with her tongue.

"Leaving us not so much with a runaway golem, but some manner of spirit or otherworldly being riding inside. What, precisely, I'm not sure yet."

"First thing, regardless, is to be able to tell where she is. What's the most unique material you've used on her?" she looks to Grease. "And do you have any more?"

Valerie blinks, lifting the bar. "Oh wow. That's a big solid chunk of brontium. Where'd you get that?" she muses. But if there's perfected metals in that golem, there's only so many other sources of brontium in the vicinity, so it should be fairly easy to track down.

She takes out her rod and lays it on her lap, then begins to make a few gestures above it to give it a bit of extra potency for her next spell.

(As above, so below (Valerie's rod): Gnosis 3, Prime 4, shadowname 3, academics 2. Reach instant, Reach 8-again.)
QxzwrzPC12d10
1 succ

(Detect substance ("brontium"): Gnosis 3, Matter 3, High speech 2, shadowname 3, rod 1, -6 scale. Reach instant, reach advanced scale, reach advanced duration.)
6d10
reroll 8
1d10
1 succ, giving her a mall sized radius to detect brontium for quite some time.12d10·6d10·1d10

"Perfect copper isn't very common outside of mage circles - let alone brontium that changes locations on its own. Once we're inside of a 600 to 700 foot radius, I should be able to pick her up." Then she puts a hand on Grease's arm.

"You can't do what I do... yet. But you are giving it a chance and letting me this close... and I am proud of you for that. Becoming properly aware of the supernal is the first step in mastering it. Come. Let's find your wayward golem and see what we can do."

She then looks back to the truck, seeing if there's something she could do. Might be best to leave the ruined hitch behind and just repair the truck itself, unless it's too far gone...

[So that's where it came from. I awoke with it in hand! It's done very well. Thank you] she hesitates sending for a second, then smiles. [, mom.]

"So, Grease, I think it's time for a quick crash course in being a mage. You have some catching up to do; your technique with tools has worked so far, but if you are willing to look at the light from within the supernal, then something has to give.

"I will be fixing your truck, but I'd like you to watch me carefully with eyes only a mage can have. Observe, as closely as you can, what your truck's material is made out. Open eyes you've had tightly shut all this time until you can see the crystaline molecular matrix of the metal and can name me the constituent atomic parts of part of it.

"Breathe deeply, focus, and look, without questioning how you can.

"You just can."

"Give it a try nonetheless. Concentrate, want to see with your own two divine eyes, and look deeply."

Valerie doesn't want to breach the idea of Space with her just yet until she 'gets' magic a little better as being an intuitive part of her soul, and understands the work of her own divinity in gnosis.

It'd break the poor thing.

"Very, very good!" She praises. "Maintain it, and now, watch me carefully as I bring up an imago and project it through my nimbus."

Valerie raises her rod and utters out a command of mending, then points it at the ruined truck bed, leaching out the colors from the ground, rain and the very air before projecting it like she's designing a 3D model of the repaired truck.

(Nigredo and Albedo (perfecting): Gnosis 3, Matter 3, shadowname 3, high speech 2, rod 1, -4 potency. Reach instant.)
iZZfVho68d10
(2 successes. Repairs potency 5 amounts of structure.)8d10

Creating gravity or conjuring the very truth or concept of a lie itself is impressive, and certainly makes her feel powerful. Her innate ruling arcanae are awesome and she wouldn't trade them. But there is something about Matter that just ... speaks to her. It's because it can be translated to the concrete all on its own.

And it just looks so much more awesome to see in action, all those moving parts, than even a bolt of lightning.

"It's never not awesome," she agrees, patting Ashlyn's hand.

She then turns to Grease. She reaches out and takes her hand with a smile. "You have a lot to learn... Your training wheels have taken you quite far. But you are Moros, master of matter and the unliving. Your only limit, your only antithesis, is the world of spirits.

"But just because you will find it difficult to affect does not mean you will not understand it. I will strive to turn you into a shining star, and your gnosis and knowledge will soar, and you will feel comfortable in, or comforted by, any magical situation."

"But for now? Let's find your wayward charge. ...I don't know how to drive, let alone a semi, so you should do it."

"I'll be fine," she assures.

Ease out of her chair, carefully, then considers the truck. It's like the parallel bars in rehab... Reach up and grab and reduce the weight on her legs. One foot up, pull, other foot up. Ow. Other foot up. Okay. Turn around, then put her hands back and haul her butt onto the seat behind her, and finally turn around with a breath.

Then she peeks her head out to watch Vin at work, blinking in surprise. Wow, he's a little factory. No wonder they could clean and repair the temple like it was no trouble. A team of them could turn this truck into a pile of ingots.

"That's Vin," she answers. "And not yet... but I did, in a past life. It's complicated, but to boil it down, my soul used to be an angel of the aether, equatable to a grand-master in my control of forces, prime, matter and life. I made a little army of these cuties to maintain my home on Earth. But then, I was dying, so I had my soul transplanted into twin fetuses.

"I'm a long ways from my original prime days, but I'm catching up. Give me a couple weeks, then I'll probably be able to make golems. Not as good as Vin, though - he's the result of archmagery-grade magic.

"And he's just the best good boy." She smiles back at him. "Industrious, too!"

Valerie reaches out to poke his ...snout? "For now, I'll point out what to refine, okay? But you and I, we'll make a great team!" She beams. Goodest boy. And his little chittery purr is just adorable.

"Well, since this was all your stuff? Those are yours now. Think of it as a bribe for continuing to keep an open mind and letting me teach you the arcanae."

It's not like she was entirely fake. She just played a version of Valerie for the camera, a version that wasn't bitter and jaded and angry at the hand of fate (or, as she now knows, Time.) So her being socially awkward in person might have been a bit of a weird reality check for some of her fans... but she was never not nice to them, and knowing she positively touched lives... it's what kept her going sometimes.

Things will be fundamentally different from now on, though. The same on the surface, but with a lot more meaning behind it.

Pending they find this golem, though. This does highlight that this situation may well be turning out to be rather serious. Not just a runaway golem hiding in a corner somewhere, but one looking for ... answers or guidance of some kind, and lashing out at anything that doesn't have it. It seems they've avoided loss of life so far, but for how long? Even if she's not trying to hurt anyone on purpose, an accident is bound to happen with this much destruction.

Whatever mentality ended up in there is not finding any comfort with it.

"I guess we'll follow the carnage. That looks like the exit wound," she notes, glancing at one of the holes.

"There's a moving source here," she warns, bringing a hand up. "I felt it in that neighbourhood block. It's her, or it's a mage with a pimped out laptop or car, but we should check it out."

Good. People staying indoors means no sleepers to complicate any spellcasting she may have to effect, and fewer people out means fewer who might cause or get involved into an accident.