The Man in The Mirror

THE PAST
Marcus Speculo was once a boring ordinary guy. Quiet office job, nice house, wife and three kids, he was the picture of normalcy. Until about a week before his life was changed forever. His long diligent service had gotten him nominated as the company’s representative at a week-long convention across the country. During that week Marcus started assuming a false name and talking to strange sorts, hanging around in dives, and becoming involved in illegal activities. To this day Marcus does not understand what exactly brought on this sudden massive personality change, as he had not considered himself unhappy with his previous life. On the last day of the convention, Marcus had been preparing to ambush and kill a cult of lowlifes who had been making threats against a woman he met at the convention. He was interrogating a man in his hotel room about where the cultists lived when he heard a weird chanting in his mind, and everything went dark

Marcus woke up in his hotel room to discover it had gone dark out. It was only as the wooziness wore off that he noticed this was not his hotel room, but another room of the hotel, as everything was on the opposite sides of the room, then he noticed the dark patches, areas that were completely black despite the nearby lamp. Fearful, he discovered that he could not pick up the lamp to move towards the darkness, nor move anything at all. Stumbling into the darkness anyway, he gratefully discovered the door was still open, and went off to discover what was going on.

THE PRESENT
Since that fateful day Marcus has learned what happened to him – he was cast into the mirror, and is stuck in the world reflected back. The “mirror echo” as he calls it is an exact replica of the world- only backwards. However, any area of the real world not currently visible in a reflection is impenetrably black in the echo – walls and objects are still there, but if no one in the real world could see an items reflection, then no one in the echo can see it either. Surfaces that provide slight, dull reflections (polished metal, most windows etc) seem to provide a very slight illumination, lightening the darkness and making things about as clear as their reflections. Of course mirrors that are in darkness in the real world can only provide what limited reflection they have, but Marcus has fast adapted to his prison, and is now quite adept at working where he can’t see. Sounds travel into the echo reasonably well, they come in fainter and quite tinny/echoey but understandable. Sound does not normally travel from the echo to the real. Similarly scents only travel into the echo. Marcus is as yet unsure what funhouse mirrors would do to the echo, they might actually warp objects in it or merely bend and warp his perceptions, and he isn’t keen to find out.

Marcus’s ability to interact with the real world is minimal, he’s been stuck in the echo for 6 month’s now and has only just managed to project his voice across to other people. Despite this he has managed to join the underground, partly because they are the only people prepared to talk to the silent reflection of a man who isn’t there (and can read his lips/sign language) and partly because the only thing in the world Marcus wants is to be back with his family living a boring hum drum life. While the underground is certainly the place to find people who could free him, it’s also populated with people liable to abuse his new found skills. Marcus faces a tough road ahead.

THE TRUTH
Marcus Speculo never really existed. His memories and personality are the result of a major attack by a cabal of personamancers/cliomancers (the aforementioned cult). They were having trouble with a violent epideromancer, as they needed his girlfriend for a ritual they found (they believed her to be descended from royalty). To stop him they worked a large magick, to completely rewrite his identity. Unfortunately for them, the epideromancer had discovered his own lost ritual, reflections protection, which turns ones reflection into a proxy. Both rituals had worked like a charm, and suddenly the epideromancer’s reflection had its own personality and memories. The adept himself was long gone when Marcus woke up, and the cabal are all dead by his hands. He has certainly noticed that he no longer casts a reflection, but is not yet interested in finding out why, especially if it forces him to return to the city, as he fled cross country after the killings, as the police got a look at him. Marcus’s memories are all fake up until the “convention” where he mostly remembers the truth, but confused a little to mesh with his other memories. Marcus wasn’t cast into another realm, and its quite possible there is no way to bring him from that realm to this one, at least not without finding an epideromancer without a reflection and somehow sending him into the echo in marcus’s place.

MARCUS SPECULO
A lost reflection

Personality – Marcus is a timid man fast becoming a brave one, an office joe who is quickly and readily adapting into master spy, but dreams of being office joe again.

Obsession – His family and returning to them. If Marcus ever learns that his family doesn’t really exist, he is likely to suffer an extreme breakdown, but what kind of man would emerge from that wreck is too hard to tell.

Rage Stimulus– Demons and their minions. Marcus doesn’t know a lot about the cabal that did this to him, but he is pretty sure they were following the orders of some kind of astral entity, so anyone found helping such creatures brings his wrath

Fear Stimulus -(Helplessness) being trapped in the echo forever.

Noble Stimulus– Protecting ordinary folk. When Marcus sees a normal family besot by supernatural forces, he feels compelled to help them.

Wound Points 44

BODY 44 (weekend jogger)
STRUGGLE 20
ATHLETICS 30
SPEED 65 (unrealised talent)
DODGE 20
DRIVE 20
UNSEEN SENSE 60
This skill allows Marcus to move in areas he can’t see without penalty, and identify people/things by sound, scent etc and generally get by when he can’t see.
MIND 51 (solid B student)
OFFICE WORK 40
This is his general education skill
NOTICE 40
SILENT COMMUNICATION 50
This skill is Marcus’ ability to be understood by people who can’t hear him, it represents both fluency in sign language as well as skill at charades, etc.
COMPUTERS 25
SOUL 60 (burning desire)
FACE IN THE CROWD 20
CHARM 20
SOUL TALK 30
Marcus has discovered that with effort he can talk to the reflections of people in the echo, and have them talk back. However when he does so he talks not to the persons conscious mind, but to their subconscious. People’s Echoes are usually more than willing to talk to Marcus, and he can learn all a person’s secrets with a short chat to their echo.
This can only be performed on people he can see (that is, who are currently reflected in something), and Marcus receives a negative shift if the reflection is murky, faint, or doesn’t include the head and chest. Targets receive notice checks to spot the man talking in their reflection. Additionally the target is vaguely aware of the conversation, the topics discussed will be bubbling up in the back of his thoughts occasionally, and this could potentially alert them.
SOUL KNIFE 20
Marcus can barely interact with the world, but has discovered that pummelling people can still have an effect. By succeeding on a soul knife roll while punching/kicking someone’s echo, he can do soul damage to the target equal to half normal unarmed damage. If he does this however he can not use soul talk on that target until all the soul damage is healed.
AFFECT THE WORLD 20
This is the skill Marcus uses to make his voice heard in the world, or to move small objects. He can at best move 2 pounds of weight, and his projected voice is never higher than a loud whisper. This skill can only be used on targets Marcus can see (that is in areas that have a reflection), and can not be used to move a reflective surface unless it is reflected in another reflective surface.