Session Eight: The Balseraph Media Blitz
"Oh, damn, this die has no numbers!" - the GM
The session opens with Dana, who moves to face the Cardinal behind Daimon's chair. The Cardinal gets upset that his target has fallen unconscious, and begins to become frustrated. He starts spewing his crap to the other Seraphim, and the one who argues back is Rigziel, Seraph of Michael. This is the first inkling that this guy isn't going to take this crap for too much longer. Dana stays silent.
After having their say, Jered and Blitzen walk out of the warehouse through the loading dock, which is unfortunately empty. They spend some quality time discussing the Cardinal, the arguments going on inside, and some of the finer facets of punishment. Eventualy they get over to the garage next to the warehouse. Although Blitzen can't seem to get through the garage door, he can get through the side door. Inside they see a pickup truck, a forklift, and the cab of a 16-wheeler. They look around a bit for a crowbar, then go outside to join Maxwell and Star.
Outside, Jered and Blitzen spend some time talking to Star and Maxwell, then go over to occost Terry, who is writing a little note and leaving it on the windshield of one of the limos. They try to take his phone away, but he points out, it's too late. T he cavalry are about to arrive. Then he cackles, and does a happy dance. This just bodes. Jered wants to know what they're doing dealing with ANOTHER demon, anyways.
Eventually, the news vans arrive. One is from the CBS affiliate, the other from the NBC. Each have one reporter, one cameraman, and one crewman. Terry leaps to life, grabs Star by the arm, and drags her in front of the cameras. She happily gives her s ob story to them, and they eat it up.
(One tick in the Symphony.)
Jered and Blitzen go inside. There is some arguing, since the locals are going to arrive any moment. The Cardinal, Kezef, wants to finish this here and now. The seraph of Michael, Rigziel, wants to finish the Cardinal off here and now. The consensus i s that they should grab the prisoner, and move locations. Eventually this is decided on as a good idea.
Rigziel goes over and unties Daimon, and heals enough wounds so he starts to come around. Dana helps him up, and gives him two points of essense so he can go celestial. But he doesn't seem to be comprehending what is going on around him. "I'm sorry," h e says quietly, "I seem to have bled on your shirt."
The cops begin to arrive outside. They yell for them to come out with their hands up, and no one will get hurt. Terry grins, this is getting better.
Yoshiko Nakamura, the Seraph of Yves, and Joduthun, Seraph of Laurence, decide that they will go on ahead to prepare any of the area. The change into celestial forms. The CBS camera roll ridiculously well on a random roll, and catch the celestial forms. A few humans also roll well (lots of snake eyes), and point and gape. This includes the cameraman in question, and the NBC reporter. Maxwell walks over to the CBS camera, reaches up, and crushes the lens.
(One tick in the Symphony.)
The Malakim, Anapion, looks upset. He wants to kill the demons. His eyes go from Daimon, to the Cardinal, and back. Rigziel tells him "not this time." This puts Anapion in a minor tizzy... either don't kill the demons, and get dissonance, or disobey a direct order from a superior, and get dissonance. Rigziel assures him he will be cleared of the problem later. The Malakim decides it's better to take one point now and track the demons down relentlessly, then take the point and get crushed by an ArchAngel later. He forms his celestial form and follows the two previous angels. He is not caught on tape.
Rigziel hefts his axe, and grins at Kezef. Now it's on. Blitzen, all for killing the bad guy, pulls out his gun, uses Jered as a body shield and takes a few shots. Rigziel moves to attack. The edge gleams as essense is pumped into BloodKiss, his Battl eAxe, and he rushes towards the Cardinal. With a deft move, he plants it in his midsection. Kezef screams, and Sings. The Song of Entropy takes Rigziel down to his knees. Blitzen fires again, drawing some blood, and Kezef Sings again. Blitzen's mind is assaulted, and he just starts firing randomly.
The cops bust in the door. The cameraman is right behind them, getting the Song. (Tick. Tick.)
Kezef stares down Dana, Daimon, and Jered. He throws back his arms, laughs, and transforms into his Celestial form. The Symphony ripples and bulges. The huge six eyed dragon whips its tails, and grins. "This is not over," it says. Then the pit of Hell opens beneath it, and it decends. Several of the cops fall to their knees at the sight, praying to God. The cameraman never loses his focus.
(Tick.) Outside, Terry grins a wide maniacal grin. He starts negotiating for a copy of the tape with the reporter, still on camera.
Jered goes Celestial, and descends through the floor. He reappears 15 miles away, and ascends to heaven. Blitzen goes Celestial, and goes directly to heaven. Blitzen appears as a light, barely noticable smudge on the tape, but more interesting is a man disappearing.
(Tick.)
The cops don't actually arrest anyone. They try with Rigziel, but he seemed a pretty convincing victim, still writhing from the Entropy. The EMS personnel come in, and take Daimon from Dana, and load him up into the ambulence. They try to help out Rigziel, but this is met with angry glares. Dana does a good job of pulling down Lawyer mojo over on people, and they leave her alone. The EMS people start administering sedatives to the people who were stunned and gibbering over seeing a many force demon in full form.
The reporters report, and it becomes a huge media mess. The affiliates are eating it up. They try to get to interview the people involved, but they never seem to get close.
Star and Maxwell take off to go find a telephone. The walk the mile to get to one.
Jered and Blitzen ascend to heaven, but not together. Blitzen runs around looking for Gabriel. He finds her in her quarters, being a little more sane then last time. She is mighty pleased at his actions, and her new leverage on her hated enemy Dominic, but a little bugged that he didn't kill Kezef outright. But, he explains, I need the tools. He strikes a bargin, and she agrees. She will think about it, and give him a new tool to set the wrongs and put forth the rights. Blitzen is pleased, and goes off to find Jered.
Jered goes to the Library, looking for Yves. He finds him, talking to a tall thin young man with a weird halo and an electronic rubics cube. The young man is very excited about it, but is crushed when Yves reaches up, takes it, solves it in 15 seconds, and hands it back. The young man spirals off into the night.
Jered and Yves has a very weird conversation which goes absolutely nowhere whatsoever. Jered asks for answers, and just gets his same observations handed back to him. Jered, frustrated, leaves.
Blitzen, who is screwing around outside, meets the young man from inside. The young man hands him a card: RAZIEL. EMAIL: raziel@heaven.org. Blitzen sticks it into his ethereal pocket. Then Blitzen antagonizes the Malakim who is standing guard outside the Library. He manages to piss him off, to his huge delight. Eventually Jered emerges, and they chat for a bit. Blitzen finds someone who can do a Celstial Song of Tongues, so he can send a message to Star to take care of Tyrone.
In the aftermath, Rigziel and Dana track down Terry, and drag his sorry Balseraph hide away from the front of the camera. They play, "Tell me Five Reasons that I shouldn't kill you right now." Terry comes through with five reasons. Dana tells Rigziel her professional opinion is that this guy is mostly harmless. There are bigger fishes to fry, never minding what is going on around them. Rigziel explains that "This lying sack of sleaze was once a proud Seraph of Michael." (Terry answers, "But I got better.") Rigziel lets Dana keep him around, for now. Besides, it would be bad form to chop him up during a media fest. Basically it comes down to, if Terry can use his magic powers of sleaze to get them some rides, he would live longer. He calls cabs. Before they arrive, Rigziel puts an offer on the table for Dana - she's welcome in Michael's camp. She says she'll think about it.
Star and Maxwell get a cab, and take it to the Best Western in Saginaw. They get situated in their rooms, and see that the media fest is already hitting the television. Star does some detecting of the Symphony, but the waves aren't very big yet, as the viewing audience is quite small. They call a Budget rental car, and take off. Star goes to the hospital where they have Daimon, and Maxwell goes to report his destroyed car stolen. Max's trip to the police station was quick, succint, and without hassle.
Star visits Daimon, who is not conscious and looks like he's been through hell, metaphorically instead of the normal day to day literally. They've cleaned up the blood, but it's not a real pretty sight. She sings a Song of Healing (Ethereal), and pumps a bunch of essense behind it, and he comes around. He's groggy and really badly out of sorts. She tries to explain that she's going to talk to Novalis and try to get some help, and they talk about Brightness a bit. He tries to explain that "going good" for selfish reasons is a good way to become a little smudge on the ground. She tells him she loves him, and goes. He curls up and goes back into his drug induced coma.
Dana and Terry get into one cab, Rigziel into the other, explaining that he's going to the hospital to talk to the Lilim of the Day. Terry explains to Dana that he really is handy to have around, and he'd love to make her into the next Marcia Clark. Think of all the good she could do for mankind, on a wide scale? She mulls this over, and decides she likes this guy, demon or not. He gets the driver to take them to Lord and Taylor, and he treats her to some clothing, because her clothes are covered in Daimon's blood. He also gets something for Dai.
Back at the best western, Maxwell runs into Joduthun, who tries to explain in halting terms Laurence's position in all this. Luckily there are no Lilim around, or it would be a chick drool fest in the lobby. But anyways, Joduthun seems confused, tries t o toe the party line, and basically wishes Maxwell a good day.
In heaven, Blitzen and Jered go and find Yoshiko, who is in the Library giving instructions to some of her underlings. They have an easier time dealing with her. She comments she was given a direct order to observe, not to interfere. They all talk about Kezef for a little while, and Dominic. They get that she is irritated as well, but now she has to go ride on the Yves Wheel of Confusion. When they are done, Blitzen and Jered go back to Earth, off to locate Daimon.
Star ascends to Heaven. She spends some quality time, wandering around the empty cathedral which used to be Eli's home. It's deserted, there are no angels present. She finds Eli's room, which is the same as every other angel's empty room, and she dusts and cleans. Eventually, she goes over to Novalis's Continuous Eternal Wild Party, and drinks a little bit. After a while, Novalis sees her, and tries to comfort her a bit. They talk about Daimon, and going Bright, and what it means. Novalis points out that it would be easier if people used more love then violence. Eventually, Star asks for something that will help her along. Novalis says she'll think about it, and Star takes off. She goes to Ann Arbor, and hangs around the Nectarine, trying to get some Essence back.
Max, holding Terry's card, gets him on the phone. Yeah, he has the number to reach Mr. Gray. Why? A duel? Well, your funeral kid. Maxwell calls the head office of the All Holy Christian Tabernacle Ministries, and gets a receptionist. He leaves a message. Then he goes off to the Hospital.
Jered and Blitzen get lucky, they get the right hospital on the first try. They go up to Daimon's room to accost him, and they hear two voices coming out of the room. They evesdrop, and hear Daimon talking to Rigziel, mostly about politics and some stuff that doesn't make too much sense out of context. So they come in, and drag Rigziel out. Rigziel comments that yes, he was under orders to kill Kezef. That doesn't mean he didn't enjoy it. And no, he was not unsurprised by the reactions of the others.
Maxwell shows up and joins in this discussion.
Dana and Terry leave the Lord and Taylor, also heading for the hospital. RPG karma tells them that is where the action is. When they arrive, Dana drags Terry around by the hand, making this big show of "he's my man" so they don't have any problems. They can hear the discussion in the hallway from quite a ways away. So, they show up, but instead of joining in, they go into Daimon's room to talk to him for a while.
Daimon is looking better, although still dazed. He points out that he's now in love with the nurse that shot him full of morphine. They talk about this and that a little bit, and Terry wanders out of the room. With it just Daimon and Dana, he shrugs, and comments on her change of views on him all of the sudden. She's noncommital. He tells a story about doing goofy stuff in the service of Kobal, his eyes shining a little bit. It's obvious he wants to go back to that life... but... It's not that easy.
He shakes his head. "I don't think I'm going back, though," he says.
"Back where?"
"Back home. Home home." He frowns. "So would make me a Renegade, I guess. Unless I can get free of Andre. Then I'm not. We might have some unwanted guests, though."
Eventually, it's obvious he's getting groggy again, and Dana leaves. On the television, which is on, are the continuous reports, Princess Diana-style, of what happened at the warehouse. No one pays much attention.
Out in the hallway, the talk has shifted to taking up guard shifts, and wondering what to do next. Rigziel points out that he really has to report, and whoever takes up shift to be extra careful. There might be more entertaining beings showing up then Kezef. He remarks he will be back, but to communicate, he's going to send a Reliever. People are cool with this.
Rigziel bids them all goodnight. On the way out, he grabs Terry by the collar, and slams him into the wall. Maxwell, resonanting on Star, notices she's in Ann Arbor. He apologizes, and mentions that he will take up the next shift after he gets her.
In Ann Arbor, a 30-something man in a black suit buys a drink for Star. She touches him, resonantes, and her resonate gets all screwy. He smiles, asks her if she's enjoying the humans, and mentions that they're so much fun. She gets creeped out. He looks her over carefully, makes some smart remark, and disappears into the crowd. When she looks again, he's gone.
Star splits, finds some frat party, and goes to get very very drunk.
In the night, the television plays the scenes over and over again, this time with commentary....
