So it is done

Prologue

Many people consider the number seven to be a lucky number, as well as the 'fact' that the number thirteen to be unlucky. Where did such a concept come from?

Frankly, we are to blame for this. Well, not exactly me, but 'we' in general, the Order of Hermes.

What is the Order of Hermes? Well to explain it in detail would take too long you know. But in short, magicians need a place, a way to 'organize' and pool their resources, to somehow unite their goals with each other. And we the Order of Hermes, the best of the Nine Traditions, are such an organization that gave them this opportunity.

Magicians and Magic? Quite common really, so much so that not even all the Awakened realize how much magic is actually a 'non-magical' action.

What's an Awakened? Well, it's us, the awakened magicians, there are also linear or hedge magicians. Linear magicians are things like vampires, fairies, sorcerers... But I wonder if spirits are considered linear magicians? From the point of view of the Order of Hermes it's more 'yes' than 'no', but it is a rather complex topic to talk about...

Oh yeah, what was I talking about? Yes, that's right, lucky numbers!

Seven is traditionally considered a lucky number, like a three and, by the way, like a nine - a tripling of threes. It seems to me in this case twenty-seven should also be considered a particularly lucky number - triple triplet of triplets or three of the third degree, cubic luck...

Hmm, I'm sorry, I'm running off tracks again.

So, lucky numbers and how we are to blame for this.

If you look closely, our whole world is somehow saturated with the number three. According to the Babylonians, the world consists of three parts - Paradise, Earth, and Hell. The biblical God is represented in the form of the Holy Trinity. The Three Norns are spinning the fate of the Scandinavians. Trimurti are united as the three faces of the gods of Hinduism. Third time's a charm, after all.

There are also a lot of cases where the number seven pops up in our world. Seven great gods of Sumer, seven spirits of Egypt, seven rishis, seven metals of the Magnum Opus, the seven years the temple of Solomon was under construction... In other words a lot of 'coincidences'. There is a lot of numerology, in the world, in which, in general, we are mostly to blame for first of all.

We, as in the Order of Hermes, not like, me personally - and not my old man personally...

Wait, you're still confused? Interesting... But what else to expect from a Sleeper? Okay, I'll start from the beginning...

***

I was born under the name... Let's leave my name out of something that others would read huh. A 'name' is a very important part of our being after all and I do not want to trust you with this secret. Not that I don't trust you per se, let's just say that there's a lot of ways of finding out secrets even without the secret keeper blabbing it out.

In any case, I was born on the eighth of August in the year one thousand nine hundred and eighty-two in the year of our Lord, in London, Great Britain, in the family of my father and my mother. It's the year 1982 AD if you have a reading difficulty.

That's probably all I can say about them, anything positive, at least. After all you either only speak good things about the dead, or nothing but the truth. And the truth is that in the four years that I spent living with them, only one thing has been deposited in my memory bank. My first and last memory of them. The fire in which they died - and where I almost died too.

How many times have people told you 'don't smoke in bed' - but it never works. Father was drunk, mother... probably, too? And soon the whole house was on fire. Now, I'm afraid there is no way for me to check this. Although, if you find a couple of people versed in Ars Spirituum, then you can summon her ghost. But, well, what good will it do?