Places

Past the edges of that fountain’s Domain, the ground coils with thick shadows. The trees reach high into the misty night… higher, in fact, than they do in the Earthly realm. Cleansed of graffiti, the stone walls hold a weight and age to them that few people would recognize on the other side of the Gauntlet; here, they look regal, as if they’d been quarried from a magnificent castle. The grass grows higher and thicker here, free of the broken glass and dog shit that makes it such an eyesore in the mortal realm. The breeze, too, smells cleaner – hints of rot, to be sure, but without the exhaust fumes that permeate the city on the other side.

And yet you still catch glimpses of that city here: grim lattices of gleaming webs, crawling with mathematical spiders. These creepy bastards are often called Pattern Spiders, weaving a web of technological stasis. You’ll see the damned things all over the Umbra, especially if you pursue the technomagickal Arts. Shamans hate ‘em, and with good reason. Supposedly, those spiders present a metaphysical image of stagnation; if they ever succeed in weaving their web across the world, there won’t be such things as possibility, magick, or imagination anymore. As things are now, the city looks like some haunted spider web, glowing with manmade light.

Look closely and you’ll see one of the reasons these trips can be so dangerous. Moving through the shadows, slipping in and out of view, you’ll spot spirits – in this case, the tiny

avatars of misery and corruption that feed on drug deals and furtive sex, the brave guardian spirits of the fountain, the urban animal spirits who refresh themselves at the fountain’s edge, and the embodiment of the fountain: the White Lady herself. That’s why that girl over there seems as solid as we are – she’s not human, she’s a spirit. Normal humans can’t be seen on this side of the Gauntlet except perhaps as faint smears of spiritual presence in the air… and then only if they have some fantastically strong or especially corrupted soul.