"I don't know all the details, exactly. What I do know is that anything that's very, very old is very firm on their opinion of this matter, and that, at some points in natural history, humanity and the ancestors thereof have gone through some population bottlenecks. I don't know for sure that these things are connected--divination is a kind of magic, and it may just be that everyone who ever considered genociding humanity got enormous 'WOE' warnings."

"I feel like genociding humanity being woeful is kind of a given even without divination, but perhaps it's limited to woeful effects that would bother the would-be genocide-doers? - I'm not sure humans did in fact have a consensus view on how reality works at most points of history even when not having a population crisis."

"That's a point, but honestly, we're wandering outside my area of expertise. I know enough to issue warnings and not meddle with the veil, not enough to submit a paper on the topic to any of Hawthorne's publications."

"I will at least do research before taking out a full page ad in the Star."

She doesn't point out that between the ORC, the Watchers, and other interested groups, there's no way such an ad would make it to print. She promised to do research, after all, and Penelope has already explained that those groups are invested in maintaining the Masquerade. No need to turn it into an argument. 

"That's everything I can think of off the top of my head." 

"Okay. So - now what?"

She holds her hands out flat, palm-up. 

"If you're ready to begin, take my hands."

May sets down her laptop, takes a deep breath, and joins hands.

It feels like there's something tugging on her, but not in the sense that she has to physically resist it, more in the sense that--if she relaxes into it, something will happen.

Okay. Let's get some magic powers.

wheeeee

It feels almost as if she's being pulled out of her body, except not in any direction that really exists. 

The place she finds herself is almost a starfield, except she isn't perceiving it visually. The qualia she's receiving right now are in no sensory modality she's ever experienced. 

After taking a moment to orient herself, she can begin to perceive structures between the points of "light." Three of them are currently the largest and closest to her, followed by a grouping of sixteen. And each of the three is a different "color" than the other two, and each of the sixteen has two "flavors," which overlap with each other substantially, and then of the more distant "stars," most of them have a color and a flavor, although much less strongly than the closer nineteen. 

Whoa.

Can she... talk. To Penelope. About what all this is. "Are the three things - academic and warlock and sorceress?"

Try reaching out to them, Penelope's voice echoes in some way that is not particularly centered in May's ears. 

Well, if she's not going to accidentally pick one and be stuck with it, sure. C'mere, option-star-things.

The "blue" colored one slides closer to her, and she can perceive more detail as it does. 

This one is definitely Academics. She can feel the association with power built through study, and amplification of magnitude of "blue" power, as well as making it feel easier to pull blue outer-stars closer towards herself. She can also feel the distance at which the "star" would "click" into her. 

No choice is final until the Awakening is complete. Most choose to build a scaffold of tentative choices, before examining the whole and making alterations, Penelope counsels. 

Oh, good idea. She will poke each star in case one of them feels unexpectedly awesome but if they don't she will tentatively click academic.

The "red" Sorceress star feels about as she expects, based on her experience with the Academic star and what Penelope said earlier about the respective classes. 

The "green" Warlock star, as soon as she "touches" it, reveals a feature that the other two had not: additional points, not external like the other "stars," but internal like seeds in a pomegranate.

- oh? What are these pomegranate seeds trying to tell her?

The first one identifies itself as Hekate, Greek goddess of magic and liminal spaces, who sees great potential for magic in her and is interested in offering her power on those grounds. 

The second one identifies itself as Lucasta, a modern goddess unknown to mundanes, whose portfolio centers on altruism and mortal agency, who sees great potential in her to change the world for the better, and is interested in offering her power on those grounds. 

This one is Nabu, ancient Mesopotamian god of literacy and wisdom, who really likes the sheer amount she writes. 

There are additional offers from various beings, not all of whom claim to be actual gods, some of whom claim to be known to the mundane world albeit obscure, some not. 

...gosh. What would she need to... do... to hold up her end of the bargain for these folks.

...also how did they come by this information about her.

The Warlock "star" encodes the information that the way a patron relationship works is that a patron assigns their beneficiary certain tasks, or makes known a general category of action they wish taken, and the witch fulfills those tasks, and the patron gives them power-potential in exchange; this is equivalent to how an Academic gains potential through study or a Sorceress through practice. A patron cannot rescind any power the witch has already received. 

There is nothing on how any of these beings know things about her. 

"Penelope, how did these would-be patrons find out things about me?" Also are they making clear what tasks they like to hand out?

You could think of it as a kind of high-level Divinations, seeing probabilities for impacts you're likely to have and actions you're likely to take in their areas of interest.

How can I tell what kinds of errands they like to dispense to warlocks?

It depends on who's making you offers, if it's anyone I know about I could give you some past examples. In general a god has priorities more or less in line with their portfolio, and will assign tasks in line with those priorities--non-deities are a little more complicated. Predicting specifics without a track record can be hard because it depends on what comes up.