Dana returns, distraught, from her encounter with the Calabite In Love, and she’s comforted by a handy Lilim, who do that sort of thing. While everyone is clustered around, Dana explains what she has learned from the Calabite, and mentioned that he to ld her that Dominic was ‘intending to take over Gehenna’. Maxwell busts out the device in which to communicate with Archangel Michael, and hands it to Blitzen to send a message. Blitzen does so, but the only answer he hears, in his head, is "Thank you."

There is some discussion of the papers that were taken from the Supreme Court and this Darkon guy. They talk about how to get their hands on him, and come to the conclusion that walking in is bad, and maybe an outside hacker attack is better. Dana consults here Game Tether list, and looks up DC. She notes that there are three listed: a legislative office, a DC Police Station, and the offices of the Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles (MVA).

Blitzen and Star ascend to Heaven via the Cathedral’s tetherpoint, and Blitzen goes on a hunt for a terminal. It being Heaven, there are always terminals available, they are always completely functional, and there is always one close by. Star finds h er own, and sees the message that Dana left her telling her that she’s cute. Star responds, and then sends a message off to Malik that she too is cute, complete with smilies. Blitzen sees a few messages from Jean about the video tape being completely an alyzed, and requires a hacker. Blitzen quickly receives a message that a servitor of Lightning has been requisitioned and is going to be sent to Earth via a Lightning tether and will meet them at the Laurentine Tether. Blitzen then heads to the Volcano, and Star, wondering what has happened to the servitors of Animals, heads to the Savaanah.

Dana looks at her lists of contacts for the Game Tethers, and notes that the person for the MVA is a guy named "David Kathleen". As she’s calling long after office hours, she gets routed to a rather unhelpful answering service by the name of June who just makes Dana’s life difficult. Dana leaves a message.

While Dana is getting harrassed on the phone, there is a knock at the back door of the tether. The seneschal, Dumiel, and Maxwell go to check it out, and it’s a big guy with a large black bag. They let him in, and the first thing he does is clap Maxw ell on the back with one solid hand and announces that he’s happy to be among such honorable folk. Joaquim, Malakite of Lightning introduces himself to the rest of the group, and then settles into Dumiel’s office with his laptop computer to do a little h acking for Heaven.

Dana takes Maxwell, and explains that she really needs to talk to the Game. She waggles a finger at Dylan and Daimon to stay out of trouble, and then the two Cherubim take off. They walk down the block to a pay phone, and call a cab. They wait for 1 0 minutes.

Blitzen zips over to the Volcano, and notes that it’s a hotbed of activity – which is different then before they left to go to DC to look for information. He seeks out Soldekai, who is findable in the main throne room inside the Volcano. Soldekai is alone, and he’s gazing up at an empty rack that a few hours before held something – that something being Gabriel’s Horn. The Mistress, Soldekai explains, seems to have taken it. Blitzen comes to the quick conclusion that this is bad. Then th e talk of burning DC comes up. Fire intends to level the place much like they did with Sodom and Gomorrah, so if Blitzen has anyone he wants out of there, he better get them out. There is some messing with the relic, and getting Michael’s approval for t his, and the time set – midnight. Blitzen notes that a time limit has just been set, and time is now running out. He makes his way back to the endpoint of the Laurentine Tether, where he said he’d meet up with Star. Unsurprisingly, he beats her back.

Star makes her way to the Savaanah, and finds that it’s emptier then usual, although filled with the souls of animals. She plays with the animals for a bit, and then she finds a Mercurian who is tending to a few of the apes. The Mercurian tells Star that Jordi and the servitors of Animals are making a concerted effort to stay out of the war effort. She ends up with a monkey soul that sits on her shoulder, and she goes off to meet Blitzen.

Star and Blitzen meet back at the tether, and then descend. Then Star comes back up when she can’t bring her monkey-soul with her. She goes back down, and frets. The monkey soul chews on some of the draperies.

Meanwhile….

Dylan and Daimon were left alone in the cathedral, and it wasn’t too long before Dylan started bouncing off the walls in boredom. Daimon was trying to stay out of the Malakite’s presence, to attempt to curb the endless drooling. And there they sat, u ntil Daimon sat straight up, looked at Dylan, and said, "I’ve got to go." Next thing Dylan knows, he’s following the Lilim up the tether, through the Cathedral (where they wandered around until pointed the way out), through what is left of the Eternal City (where Dylan prompty said, ‘I finally get to Heaven and it’s closed!’) and out toward the Groves.

The cab pulls up. Dana and Max climb in, and heads toward the freeway out to Maryland. Max was just watching out the window when he started seeing car wrecks, cars on fire, cars belching black smoke littered along the side of the road. He tried to get the cabbie to stop, but the cabbie told him he wasn’t crazy. Maxwell tried to point it out to Dana, but she saw nothing. So Maxwell leaned back in his seat and shook his head.

The MVA building was, well, an MVA buiding.

The cab leaves the two angels looking for a way in. They find the back door, but it’s locked. All the windows have their shades drawn. They knock on the door, but no one answers. They looked at the door for a nice way to get inside, but can’t reall y think of one, so Max just broke it down. He got riddled with .9mm gunfire, which caused a minor bruise to his upper arm, although the GM never specified which one. Maxwell, in a most cinematic manner, leapt up on the desks and came down on one of the assailants, sword drawn, and with one deft swipe, cleaved him in twain. And then it became a little less cinematic when the disturbance hit the Symphony like a jar of mayo hitting a large brick wall at high velocity.

The other two rent a cops started mourning for their lost comrade, Roger. And Maxwell got them to throw down their guns by using a few stern commanding words. Dana found the door to the basement, where, at the bottom of the steps, she could see a sma ll pool of light. She descended.

At a small desk in the basement, surrounded by paperwork and large filing cabinets, sat the Seneschal. Dana told him, "Dominic is taking over Gehenna." He said, "Tell me something new, and by the way, who are you?" After some dis cussion it came down to this – he had "files" (if they were real or not, who knows) and that he would arrange to have burned and destroyed the files of a certain redeemed Lilim and the rest of the angel pack in return for something a little more useful. Dana left.

Outside, Max and Dana call a cab.

After dealing with Star and her worries about her monkey, Blitzen uses a phone in the tether and calls Dana’s cellphone. Dana passes the cellphone (which might or might not still be possessed) to Maxwell and Blitzen says that they, ah, have to tal k. Now. Right now. And that Blitzen thinks that the Laurentine Heartroom might be compromised. Maxwell says that the cab will be there in a few minutes, and that they’ll be there in 15. Blitzen bounces around, bugging Joaquim about what he’s found, a nd Joaquim annonces that this Darkon boy looks to be middle management. Blitzen also asks Dumiel, the Seneschal, about what it means for a senescal to lose their tether.

Dylan is following Daimon through a warzone, and it really doesn’t look like Daimon is going to slow down any time soon. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t look like Daimon is going to slow down at all. When asked what he’s doing, the response is, & quot;I’m not sure." Dylan, not wanting to get killed and not wanting to leave someone to get killed, grabs Daimon and attempts to go for the "knock-out" punch. This mostly results in some minor celestial damage and the beginning of a figh t.

Dana’s spidey sense starts going off, and she knows the attuned is in danger. She fast-talks the cabbie to pull over to the side of the road. Once the cab pulls away, Dana ascends to Heaven, and stops the fight before either the Lilim or the Merc urian get hurt.

Max arrives at the Cathedral, and he ascends with Blitzen and Star (who promptly collects her monkey.) They go to the Laurentine Heartroom, but it is largely unmolested. Blitzen explains that Gabriel’s Horn is missing, and what this means. Star cele stially tongues a message to Dana attempting to rendezvous, but not much comes from it. Then Star has this brilliant plan that they can go to the Halls of Creation, and peer through Creationer hearts, and find people. They do this thing, collect Midian because he looks good in jams, drag the Malakite along, and head to the Groves, where everyone meets.

The group tries to get information out of Daimon, but it’s no good. Star gets a massive background reading (which contains many things she just didn’t want to know) and knows that the active geas isn’t new. It’s decades old. Maxwell sugge sts that they just let him go and do whatever it is going to do. Which, right now, is taking them to the center of the Groves.

They get stopped by a patrol of four stonies: two cherubim and two malakim. They tell the group of mixed angels to either leave or answer to their superior (not their Superior, just the guy in charge of their company.) There is a big mess between the Lilim continuing to walk off and the patrol not wanting anyone to leave, and what ends up happening is that the patrol sort of nudges the group in a general direction toward their superior.

They get to the center of the Groves, where Marc was stabbed, and it’s a bloody warzone. Angels are slaughtering angels, and now the War and the Wind are jumping in on it. The group circles the battlefield, as Daimon heads toward this large stump whi ch had once been a large tree. He climbs up on it, and oddly enough, starts reciting a sermon about charity and brotherhood and togetherness. (See I Cor 13.)

It’s a little weird, but it seems to do the trick, at least to the nearby Stone servitors. The sermon goes on, and a few more stagger out of the trees, and a few more… Maxwell and Blitzen starts looking around for guys who nail people like this to tre es just because it seems like a good plan. The sermon ends, Daimon sags as the Geas gives up and goes, and he’s faced with a horde of Stone, War, Fire, Sword and Wind servitors, bloody, beaten, tired, and looking up waiting for something to be said, some one to show them the way.

So Daimon stood up there trying to figure out what to say until Blitzen whispered to him, "Free Laurence…"

Flaming edge graphics from Our Domain Gallery of Graphics
The "In Nomine" and "flaming feather" graphics are
(C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated.
Used with fnord.