Quotes:
"I want to deface something that's corrupt." - Dana
"This guy walks up to you on the street, and out from under his overcoat he whips out... a RESUME!" - Steve or Shade, can't remember which, talking about Dylan pledging to Kobal.
"I'm not going to get my security deposit back." - Dana, referring to the dead demon vessels in her apartment in NYC.
"... and so I hooked up with a demon and an outcast and went to New York!" - Dylan
"I'm going to write this review even though I haven't heard the song yet." - Dylan, writing for Rolling Stone
"I've Fallen, and I'm still a nice guy!" - Shade, as Larry
"People are so fickle when they're high." - Dana
"What's this under my feet? Is that... Good Intentions?" - Steve
[Insert pre-Session here, where Dylan joins Daimon and Dana on their road straight to hell. The GM did not take notes, so just be reassured that dinner happened, and a plan was concocted.]
7:30 PM.
From the resturant, where Dana ate octopus of all things, the three went back to Dana and Daimon's hotel room at the Holiday Inn. On the way there, Dana stopped and grabbed a copy of the Boston Globe, which the GM pointed out is probably one of those hor rible evil right wing flaming liberal rag, making an out of game joke. The Globe has some stories about the Dreaming, a smallish local scandal involving the school board, and some new developments on who the President is sleeping with this week. Dana do es notice that the guy involved in the local scandal might have been once a Soldier of Judgment, but he could have been corrupted by a dozen of things. Other then that, she doesn't readily recognize anything. There is also a small story in the back abou t some warehouse in Michigan attracting worshippers who have claimed to see the incarnation of Mary appear there several days before during some sort of hostage rescue thing.
Daimon lies on the bed with the phone on his chest and receiver in his ear and talks in a continuous stream of helltongue. The angels wince, and try not to listen. At the same time, he's trying to scribble something that looks like lyrics on the notepad that came in the room.
Dylan has his laptop. He finds the second phone jack in the room and hooks up to the net via his modem. He cross-posts some flaming post about Freedom and Corruption and Liberty and the like on Usenet across the talk.politics.* groups.
Dana talks to Dylan, and finds out that he has a Jeep of Many Things. Well, nothing really useful, but yes, he has a few cans of spray paint, and even a few cherry bombs. Dana considers a good political target to deface.
Daimon gets through to Larry Eisner (Eisenal), one of Terry's Minions and Record Producer, in New York. He makes things perfectly clear. Either Larry happily helps him out and makes out like a bandit, or Daimon gets a few very Funny Shedim to show up in Larry's apartment and piddle on his carpetting. Larry, not knowing the Kobalite Mediator has gone Renegade and has the authority of a banana, decides to defer to the one who is much higher rank then he. Larry, irritated at having to leave his 24 hour a day party, makes a few phone calls. He arranges for the Studio Musicians, the Sound Studio, the techs, the interns, the drugs, the alcohol, the whole shots. He even gets the Spin Doctors to come in as a back up band, but they can't show until around 2a m, they have a gig. Then Larry collects his personal demonic underlings, Sweetheart and Patty. Sweetheart is dressed in a tight red latex mini skirt, a tight white spandex middy, and red high heels. Patty is wearing a black leather mini skirt, a black sleeveless leather vest, and black high heels. Neither, it should be mentioned, bother with underwear. The three go to arrange things.
8:30 PM.
After taking a trip of fear, Dylan drives the trio in his Jeep to NYC. It takes a surprisingly small amount of time, considering that Dylan drives like a complete psycho. They drive around, having some time, Dana wanting to find a T-Shirt shop. The fin d one, easily enough. Dana goes in to look for political t-shirts, and hey, all of the shirts are political t-shirts! It just happens to be that kind of store. Dana buys some that have slogans like "Liberate Yourself" and "Free your Mind" printed on th e front in big letters - she's really starting to get into this Freedom thing. Daimon passes on a t-shirt that says "I'm Flaccid" and an arrow that points downward in exchange for a shirt with a stylized fish on the front. Dylan goes two stores down to an occult book store. He burns a point of essence and makes a book levitate in the middle of the store. This gets 'oohs' and 'aahs' and 'the spirits are among us' from the human denizens of the bookstore. Daimon and Dana both notices the Symphony being disturbed. They leave the t-shirt shop, and stand on the sidewalk just sort of looking at Dylan. But Dylan leaves happily, knowing he has enriched some wiccans lives. [This started the Kobalite jokes, including the resume line.]
8:50 PM.
The trio get to the recording studio. They're met by Sweetheart down in the lobby, and she picks up Dana's superficial Needs right away. She leads them upstairs to the sound studio, where Larry is draped with Patty and giving orders. (Larry, having las t seen the Mediator 8 weeks ago before Mara was murdered in Las Vegas, was frankly surprised to see Daimon, who looked completely out of character. For a Lilim who was always impeccibly dressed, he looked like a mess.) Daimon does the acknowledge people thing, and then disappears to collect a guitar and a joint, and then off to talk to the studio backup band and start hammering out some of the details of his song. Larry instantly recognizes Dylan as the outcast Windy that the Media was trying to recrui t... why, as early as this morning. Larry starts thinking about what sort of accolades he can get if he does this job AND recruits a new minion for Nybbas.
Dylan starts writing a review of the song, even though he has yet to hear it.
10:00 PM.
Mayhem is in full swing. Patty goes over to give Dylan some 'extra special attention'. She seems so charming, so friendly, so wonderful. It does help that she doesn't bother to wear underwear, because it makes what happens on the couch that much easier . Larry, while on the phone, snorts some cocaine out of Sweetheart's cleavage while she whispers the Needs she's picked up off the trio into his ear. Larry is, from Dana's Needs, starting to believe that she is some sort of really twisted and weird Game ster. Daimon gets high, disappears into the soundbooth, and becomes completely detacted from the party going on around him. Dana gets high on pot and starts eating all the chocolate in the Green Room.
Sweetheart makes the round of Needs, and reports them back to Larry. It bothers him that one of the Mediator's Needs is to 'find Eli'.
After screwing his brains out on the couch, Patty fails to get essence out of Dylan, and he notices. But he's already starting to get too screwed up to really care. She pouts, and then goes back to hanging out on Larry's lap.
Larry, thoughts of becoming a Captain still in mind, makes a few phone calls, and locates for himself a lower ranked Balseraph of Media to come in and give Dylan the 'recruitment speech'. He locates an agent, and he makes some excuses about promoting and radio stations about getting the guy to come in. Then Larry slides over to Dylan, and makes sure that Dylan really really REALLY likes him. Then he starts to explain that working for Media is like this, every night. Isn't it cool? Isn't this fun?
Dana, getting really high, gets a bunch of interns together and starts to explain to them why they need to Fight the Man and Resist the Government and all that other good stuff. They really start to buy it, and Larry gets bugged that someone other then h im is getting all the attention, and attention he finds counterproductive. Larry sends Patty to get a female intern to stand on a table and do a strip tease. She can do this thing with ease. Dana loses her audience. Larry then gets someone to pass Dan a a 'corndog', a joint laced with crystal cocaine. Dana smokes it, and waves goodbye to her brain.
12:00 AM
Sweetheart, reading Dylan's Need to have sex with her, does so as soon as she believes his vessel is 'capable'. She picks up a geas hook. Then she begins to beef up the hook by giving him special attention. She gets him endless drinks and drugs. Dylan becomes quite happy without realizing what is happening to him.
Dana starts to talk to Larry in a spacey, stoned sort of manner. He charms her, thinking hey, if she likes him, she won't make up some screwy report and give it to Asmodeus. (Why the Kobalite Mediator is travelling with an angelic outcast and a Gamester is an absolute mystery to him.) Dana starts to ramble about wanting to go up to heaven and 'give it to the Man'. She's very adamant about wanting to give it to the 'Man'. Larry starts to get scared, but through the use of a happy Celestial Charm song, she starts to really warm up to him. He's a friend. He's a buddy. She begins to regurgitate the entire 'rescue Creationers from the Spires' story. He gets her into his office, where there's a tape recorder duct taped to the underside of his desk. La rry gets the entire story on tape... in Dana's stoned rambling speech. Then she goes on about Daimon, life, all sorts of things. Larry figures out that Dana is _not_ an Asmodean, much to his relief.
Dylan is glommed onto by Sweetheart.
Larry goes and digs Daimon out of the sound booth, and pulls him off to the side. He starts to demand to know why he's hanging around with two crazy angels. He gives Larry an answer he buys, using straightforward demonic doubletalk about Dana being a wa cked out Djinn of Dark Comedy, don't mind her, and that Dylan is being actively recruited. Kobalites work in mysterious ways. Really. Trust him.
1:00 AM
The Balseraph of Media, Matmoniel-call-me-Matt shows up. Larry talks to the Bal, gives him orders, and lets him go. The Bal sidles over to Dylan and starts to give him the recruitment speech. But, ah, the resonance sort of backfires, and the Bal become s dissonant in a big way. The Bal decides for himself that Dylan is not worth recruiting, gets into a fight with Larry, and leaves. Larry is beginning to believe this is a comedy of errors.
1:30 AM.
As Matt leaves, the Spin Doctors show up. The band recognize Dylan as a writer for Rolling Stone. "Hey, how ya doin, man?" Larry provides the proper pharmacuticals while Daimon sits on a table in the Green Room and goes over his notes. The musicians d isappear back into the sound booth. Dana, in a completely wacked out drugged state, wanders around the building. She finds her way to the roof and sits down, looking at the sky, trying to figure out why she can't see any stars.
4:00 AM
The song is recorded. It's called 'The Holy War', and Daimon calls himself (and if he ever finds any real band members) 'The Logos'. He also does a pretty decent cover of Bob Dylan's Song, 'All Along the Watchtower' to be the companion piece on the sing le. Larry writes up this big press release about it being 'experimental music' and getting together with various bands and starts talking about record deals. Daimon blows him off to, exhausted, curl up on the couch. He doesn't need to sleep, but he jus t needs to rest his mind. The Spin Doctors take off.
Sweetheart tells Larry exactly how many hooks she's picked up off of Dylan. Then they sit Dylan down, and she invokes them all at once. He can't seem to resist, and she gives him the order: Dylan is to go up to the Marches and get first hand footage of the Baal-Michael combat, and better yet, interviews, and bring it all back to Larry direct. They'll even provide him equipment, a relic video camera with relic video tapes and relic microphone and relic tape recorder, all in a nice black relic bag with N ybbas's seal on it. All Infernal. Sometimes it's nice to have a recording studio in a Tether. (Heh.) Larry starts thinking, at this rate, he'll make a Word in no time. So what's his Word going to be? Hmmm.
6:00 AM
Larry arranges for an 'accidental' leak of the song 'The Holy War' with real audio to the net with its own web page. They're burning CDs like mad in the basement.
Larry also makes a few copeis of the tapes of Dana's ranting. He's thinking about leaking the rant, after Terry comes out of Trauma. He needs to talk to his Boss.
Dana returns from the roof.
7:00AM - 9:00AM
In New York City, during the morning commute, the song is played on the Howard Stern Show, another Shock Jock's show, and the hard rock stations. The Howard Stern Show is syndicated, so the song goes out over the airwaves for the first time across the co untry.
Larry arranges for it to be worked in the daily 20 song lineups on the popular rock stations. He intends for it to get as much airtime as he can possibly arrange. Now to go pry the Lilim off the couch and start talking about deals....
9:00 AM
Larry pries Daimon off the couch. He's acquired a disturbing Creationer look about him - scruffy, schizoid, and having that crazy look in his eyes. Of course, Larry has never met an artist who literally oozes sex appeal, so this is starting to seem like a better and better thing, regardless of what is going on.
Dana gets Daimon into a bathroom where showers are taken. Larry arranges for a black suit in the proper sizes and tailoring be sent up, along with a hairdresser. If he's going to make this guy even more famous then he already is, then he's going to do i t with style. What emerges an hour later and looking hung over is the Mediator that Larry remembers. He also remembers to be afraid. Daimon just finds someplace to sit and stares dispondantly into a cup of black coffee.
10:00 AM
After some strange calls, someone who claims to be a writer for 'Spin' magazine calls one of the hard rock stations. It seems she heard the song on her morning commute, and she'd like to talk to the artist. After checking out her name (and somehow it so rt of checks out) the phone is handed to Daimon. He says, "Yeah" alot into the phone, and then hands it to Dana. "It's for you." She takes the phone.
It's someone named "Debra Daniels", and no, she doesn't work for Spin magazine. But Dana can call her Dedan. Does Dana recognize the name? Sort of, it's a Dominican. Dedan makes things very clear - they both have a goal in common, and that's to not en d up as demons. See, Dedan has no interest in returning to Hell. Returning? Dedan arranges that they meet somewhere very public for lunch. "The Malakim are less likely to kill us in public," she says. Dana agrees. Lunch is set.
There is a discussion between Dana and Larry, where Dana tries to figure out what she did last night. She's a little disturbed that she can't seem to remember any of it. She tries to get what she told to Larry out of him, but he waves it off. It was no thing, babe. It's around this time that Dana actually hears the Song and reads the lyrics for the very first time.
Dana gives Daimon her phone so she can get in contact with him, although she doesn't need it to find him at any time. She wants to protect him, but she has to go out to meet for lunch, so she hopes he doesn't get wacked on the way. He announces he's ta king off to a Kobalite tether to send some messages, he'll be in contact for whatever is next.
Dylan ends up staring at the video equipment, trying to figure out exactly what he _did_ last night, but whatever it was, it ended up with him on the bad end of the stick.
GM Notes: The Seneschal was the Media Djinn Recording Engineer, in case anyone is curious. He just had nothing to say. The next session will pick up with Lunch.
There is a lesson to be learned here with this mess, but I'm not sure what it is. Maybe, "Don't party with demons you don't know" is a good start.
