Quotes:
"The only angels who take action without thinking are the ofanim." - Blitzen
"Time just flies when months are rolling by." - Jason
The session opens with the five angels all standing in the forge of the small shop, discussing how they're going to take care of Terry. They're interrupted by a knock on the door. It's Fox, the Seneschal, and it turns out that Malcolm has a visitor. An other Ofanite of Fire named Ofiel had descended the tether, came to collect him, and needed to bring him to the Bright Lady. Malcolm ascended the Tether up to Heaven. He finds the tether leads to the Council Spires, which are absolutely bustling with in sane activity. He splits and cruises across Heaven to Gabriel's volcano. On the way there, he sees the black smudge of clouds hanging over the Marches, the sign of something Not Good. He's shown inside without a hitch, and gets in to see her immediatel y. Gabriel is in the form of a flaming woman, but she's just happy to see him. She gives him the distinction, making Malcolm a Vassel of Fire, and talks about burning things. She wants him to bring her back information, but she says she will summon him back at least one more time for a Great Burning. She's not too much more descriptive then that. When Malcolm wonders how she's going to find him, one of the Cherubs who follows her around puts his hand on Malcolm's back. Oh yes, they'll find him when the time is right. Malcolm splits, a little more powerful, and goes on down the Laurence tether back to the shop.
While Malcolm is gone, Dana leaves the group to go find Daimon. Her attunement tells her that he's in the basement apartment under the shop. She gets down there and he's snoozing, so she watches some of the stories that roll past on CNN for a few minute s instead. She sees Malcolm give his 'Plight of the Black Man' speech, a clip about some semi-famous writer being stabbed to death out in LA, and Cardinal Biotti having some big pow wow out in Washington DC. Dana listens with interest before she wakes D aimon up. Then she gives him the terse "I don't like what you did but I value your friendship" speech which confused him, but that's okay. The conversation wandered off of that topic when Dana became clearer to talking about the fighting upstairs and Wh at the Kobalites Did. He seems pretty scattered.
Star announces that she's "going to a hospital to help people". She walks out, and Maxwell decides to follow her without her knowledge. Star walks over to the residential area, swooping down on humans who are going to their cars to get them to take her, since it's several miles away. She walks up to one, tells a tale, fails, and the human gets into their car and flees. She decides that she just wasn't good enough, finds another one, tells a tale, and this time skirts flat out dissonance. Maxwell appr oaches her, and she tells him what she wants to do. He's confused, but agrees to walk the entire way with her. They start out walking in the wrong direction.
Malcolm, when he shows up, ducks into the forge to talk with Jered about stuff. Jered informs Malcolm that everyone just took off. Malcolm looks irritated, yelling that Maxwell is a Wanted man, what is he doing wandering around in public? Malcolm tries to call Max, but Max has no portable phone. Dana comes up from downstairs and watches Malcolm talk to Jered further. Okay, so what are they going to do now? Dana points out that going after Terry is just a poor plan, as he has hordes of little demonli ngs who worship him to beat up on them. Dana says she wants to go up to heaven to do some research, but she emphasizes that she wants to go up ALONE. Besides, how would it look if a servitor of judgement was hanging out with a servitor of fire? Just no t a good plan. So Dana ascends up the Tether to go do her thing. Malcolm and Jered decide to go collect Star, and they drag Daimon with them, because he makes good Star bait.
On the road, Maxwell and Star talk, mostly about Star not really understanding how things are supposed to work.
Dana is in the Council Spires. She starts to make her little cheetah-looking way up to the records room, and sees absolutely no Dominican Malakim. On her way, she passes a room, above which there is a neon flashing sign which says 'Plot'. Well, nothing that obvious, but close. There are about two dozen servitors of Judgment in the room, yelling at each other, mostly. In the center is a small table and a chair. At the chair is a Mercurian, clearly not Judgment or ANYTHING Dana has ever seen before. He looks strange, definitely a Mercurian without discord or dissonance, but he's black haired, cobalt eyed, and is mostly dressed in some sort of black flowing garment. And he radiates angst. Dana gets approached by an old friend and comrade, Drial, the Seraph of her old Triad, who is very happy to see her. Drial says they picked this guy up out of Raphael's old closed cathedral, and they were really confused what to do about him. They would have done more questioning, but war broke out and they were busy. They take the Mercurian away to the holding cells. Dana goes to the records room, and notices that the Seraph she talked to just the other day has now been replaced by an Elohite. She requests the transcript, and she gets it. [To be placed on the web page]. It should be noted that the player read it, and said "Oh my God." Nothing more needs to be said, I think.
Jered, Malcolm and Daimon find Maxwell and Star readily enough, and the five celestials end up looking like a giant Asmodean target that says "Bomb me, here!" Star complains that there aren't any people, so she's going to the hospital to cheer people up. This totally befuddles the three newcomers, who absolutely can't understand. Maxwell explains that she just needs to help people and be nice to them and talk to them. This is about the time that they pry the story of Daimon's active geasa out of him, which he claims was invoked by "Just this guy." They all seemed pretty amused by the concept of being forced to serve Heaven. Malcolm announces that he'll take them to the hospital via a shortcut... which seems to lead them right back to the Tether of t he Sword, oddly enough. There are stores nearby this one where people are arrive, Star goes and talks to humans about stuff, happy and joyed that she can do the Mercurian thing. [Daimon takes this moment to flee from the group and go back to taking a na p, but that's another story]. Jered and Maxwell talk while keeping an eye on Star while they have a conversation about what's going on.
Dana puts the copy of the transcript in a pocket and goes over the the holding cells. She's stopped by a pair of Cherubs who have replaced the Malakim on duty, and they will not let her pass without some sort of authorization. She figures she can come b ack, and hears the bells sounding a call to the Seraphim Council. Much like the Halls of Congress in DC [has the GM been there? mebbe] there is an observation deck. Dana sits near a small clutch of Laurentines who are also watching. Attending the Coun cil session is (of note):
The meeting opens with Novalis announcing that she's just going to take Michael and Dominic, and give them both a good solid spanking. They tried to talk Novalis down while Blandine's Menumin tried to plead the case for getting the fighting out of the Ma rches. People started arguing, and Joduthun got them to shut up. He pointed out that Laurence was working his best to find a reasonable solution to the problem, and starting to work with Jean. Dana left when the mudslinging between the Michaelites and the Dominicans started, the Seraph of Marc trying to get them all back in their seats.
Dana left to find someone to get her into the cellblock. She knew of a Mercurian Master of Judgment named Madiel, and as plot would have it, was actually accessable. After she gave him some reasoning, he gave her a pass to get in to see the prisoner. S he drops the name 'Raphael', but he only sorts of buys it.
Back at the tether, Blitzen goes back into the forge. He gets some pointers on swordmaking from Fox. Jered's phone rings, and he picks it up.
The caller was Mr. Gray, who was calling in that duel with Maxwell. Max seems amendable to this, and sets a time several hours in advance. Max sets some rules: no essence expended, and they can choose any weapon. Mr. Gray seems to particularly like the second one - unbeknownst to Max, the weapons he chooses are three souped up Calabites.
Star talks to humans, and generally feels better about life.
They talk about reclaiming Dana in time to meet with Rigziel. Maxwell volunteers to go fetch her and bring her back. In the mean time, Star comes in, and goes downstairs to go bug Daimon and talk to him. Since when they talk they usually end up removin g clothing articles, and that's that. Maxwell WAS going to consult the resident Lilim, but he got half way down the stairs before he had to avert his eyes. "Oh, my god." (Do they ALWAYS have to do that? A Lilim and a Creationer? Why, yes.)
Maxwell ascends. He asks some people if they've seen Dana. He finds someone who has and says she was headed toward the cellblock, last they saw. He decides to go to the 'basement' of the Council Spires. Somehow Maxwell gets lost, and ends up on this s piral staircase that certainly goes down... and down... and down. Oddly, there is no one here. No guards. No people. No windows. Nothing but a spiral staircase. He reaches the bottom, where it's becoming dark, and up to a large metal door. The door is obviously locked, and around the hinges are strange scratches, like someone was trying to rip open the door with claws... from the inside. Maxwell gets freaked out and runs. He gets back to the well travelled areas, and someone shows him the way to t he cellblock. He gets there, finally, and gets stopped by the guards. Maxwell is forced to wait.
Dana walks down the cellblock, and notices that the cells are full of Creationers. They aren't dissonant, or discordant in any way, and she's not sure what they've done. She reaches the cell at the end which holds the strange Mercurian. He doesn't seem real talkative, at least not to her. She manifests in her vessel, and asks him what he knows about Raphael's cathedral. He replies that he was just hiding there. Then he makes some strange comments, about how ironic it is that he got all the way here, and Heaven turned out to be more of an armpit then Hell is. He asks her if he knows how he can go about Falling. Dana is a bit disturbed, and walks away.
Dana meets Maxwell at the enterance, and Max reminds her that she has that meeting with Rigziel in a few minutes. Dana says she's going to skip. Maxwell doesn't seem real happy with this, mostly because it's dishonorable. Maxwell, on the other hand, go es to meet the Man. Maxwell descends again.
In the front of the tether, right on time, Rigziel in his vessel with his axe pulls up in his truck. He looks for Dana, but she was too cowardly to show up, and he's disappointed. They talk about what is going on up in the Marches and killing Dominicans and all that other good stuff, when Dana decides it would be a good plan to show up anyway. Dana makes a point of saying that she'll make her own decision, and they talk about getting in to see Michael. Rigziel thinks it will be difficult, but possible , to get in to see him. They elect Jered as the official spokesperson. As Rigziel went to leave, Daimon tried to pounce him with"Riggydoyathinkifyouhadtostopthefightinghowwouldyadoit?" and Blitzen grabbed him before he got his fool self killed. Riggy l ooked down and just said softly, "You really are getting fucked up, aren't you?" And then he pulled away.
Afterwards, the group devolved into arguing. The GM only has what Maxwell said to Daimon, which basically came down to the accusation of, "You never cease to surprise me. You don't really want to stop this, do you?" Daimon didn't have alot to say on th e matter, other then he would like to do it, but without the Geas driving him on. Blitzen and Dana argue relentlessly. Star and Jered talk in the background.
When Dana drags Daimon off to have a 'private' chat, and Maxwell slips away to go to his duel, Malcolm breaks out into the telling of Parables, mostly about "why it's good to smite sinners". Scary. Dana describes the Mercurian she saw in the cellblock t o Daimon, and his face darkens. He listens intently, and then says sudddenly, "To get him out of there... what's it worth to you?" This takes Dana by surprise, but Daimon is pretty adamant and pretty shook up about it. Dana finally says that she'll thi nk about it, and goes off to ascend up the tether once again.
Dana goes back up to the Spires, and still in possession of her permission to get into the cellblock, makes it back to the cell with the strange Mercurian. He still doesn't want to talk, so she drops Daimon's name. He seems to perk up a bit at that and be a little more chatty, but still not the friendliest person in existance. He gets up and leans against the bars. They talk for a little bit. She finally gets his name: Janeth.
Maxwell walks for a while, and it begins to grow dark. Right near the meeting point for the dual, a girl runs past . Maxwell hides in the bushes, and she looks wild-eyed and scared. When she leaves, he follows her tracks for a while, but doesn't catch u p. He turns to go back to the dual meeting point, when he's jumped by three Calabites, one who is still zipping up his pants from their enjoyable bout of rape. They resonante and drop trees on Maxwell. He tries to hold it off with a Song of Shields, bu t it fails to go off and the trees hit him. They walk over and try to sing Harmony on him, but it fails. Maxwell struggles out Soulpiercer, and kills the vessel of one of the Calabites. They respond, the first one singing Charm, and succeeding, and th e second one using Dark Desire. Suddenly, Maxwell doesn't want to fight anymore. He wants to worship them. He gets down on his hands and knees and starts kissing their boots. Mr. Gray walks out of the woods, applauding Maxwell's performance. He reach es down and puts a collar with a leash around Maxwell's neck, to lead him to the car...
