World of Darkness World of Darkness: Attrition - Chandelier [complete]

[Graham Johnson]

8:00 pm

Graham runs the back of a dirt-caked calloused hand across his sweat-stained forehead and sighs, hefting a 20 pound stone into place. He places the final stone on the wall and looks around. Graham stands at the end of a 20 foot long, 4 foot high wall of unworked stone. He shakes his head at the apparent randomness of design in the different stones used. He’d been at this for several hours, but hadn’t seen his boss for the last couple. Graham wanders around the backyard that he had been working in, looking for the cooler with the water and ice in it. When he finds it, he grabs the top water bottle, and begins running the ice-cold bottle around his neck and head. After a couple of minutes of doing that, Graham opens up the bottle and sips from it, slowly. He turns when he hears the scuffing of work boots on dirt, and smiles when he sees it’s his boss. “Mr. Mills, good to see you finally show up. So, what am I to learn today? How to maintain concentration while holding heavy weights? How to look good in a suit? How to boss around mundanes?”

His boss just shakes his head, and takes out a small black rectangular box and hands it to Graham. He then takes a small night-light bulb out of a pocket, and places it in the ground, like it was sticking into a socket. “The box is a battery. I want you to be able to place the battery on the ground, and have the bulb light up. And I want it done before midnight. If you do this well, then you can take the weekend off.”

Graham sighs to himself, “And I can’t go and get wires from the truck, right? I guess this is one of your magic lessons?” He smiles, and concentrates on the dirt in front of him, trying to get it to assume the properties of copper. His brow slowly begins to bead with sweat, not from the heat, but from the stress he is putting on his mind and the light bulb is still dark.

[Graham Johnson]

11:31 pm

Graham, seated in front of the light bulb, is still concentrating on the ground in front of him. His mentor, Jim Mills, is sitting behind him on a lounge chair, in the warm California summer night. Graham digs a small hole into the ground for the battery to rest in, on its side. He sighs, and wipes at his brow with a towel that Jim had gotten for him an hour ago. Suddenly, the empty backyard is filled with the sounds of an active home-building site, and the smell of fresh sawdust wafts through the air. Graham suddenly looks as if he has a bit of a wood-grain to his skin. When the din dies down, the bulb in the ground is glowing, and Graham moves to the side so that Jim can see the bulb. Jim gets up and walks around the bulb, nodding as he does. “Graham, a deal’s a deal, but you still need to learn control. You unveiled your nimbus unneccesarily. You get the weekend off from your training. You still have to show up at the job site for your day job. I heard that there’s a frat party at UCLA you might want to go to this Friday. After all, you should get to know some of your fellow students.”

Graham gets a confused look on his face at the unfamiliar term, "What's a Nimbus? Is it the aura of a spell, or something else?"

Mills picks up the bulb and turns to Graham, "Think of a mage as this light bulb. When ever you cast a spell, you give off "light" or energy. If you cast certain spells, your spiritual energy will be unveiled for everyone to see. If you don't learn how to control it, you'll unveil it in a bad circumstance. After all, you don't want to have a witch-hunter catch you. Or something even worse. However, there are some tricks you can do with a Nimbus that I'll teach you later on. Now get out of here, and get some rest."