Omar's In Nomine Campaign

June 6-17, 2009 (Session 4) — San Francisco

Madian and Jarebai took a long scenic drive from New Orleans to San Francisco. They went up to camp at the Colorado River gooseneck, and then drove down Route 66. They stopped in to visit various Tethers and other acquaintances of Jarebai— who had, after all, been on Earth for many centuries, and had been primarily stationed in the USA for quite a number of years.

On Saturday, June 13, they were on the last leg of their trip, up I-5 in California, when traffic backed up. Jarebai scouted ahead with a possessed bird, and saw that there was a huge pileup of several tens of cars not far ahead, probably as a result of the bad visibility that came from high winds blowing dusts off of the dry plains by the road. Also, as he was scouting it out, he heard a small Symphonic Disturbance. They went forward to investigate, and discovered that it was an angel helping victims of the crash. This angel later identified himself as Tragan, the Angel of Car Wrecks, an Ofanite of the Wind in service to Lightning, working under the role of Alan Lu, a consulting engineer. They worked with Tragan to rescue some other accident victims. After a few hours, once emergency personnel had arrived (it takes time when you are on a freeway in the middle of nowhere!), and had rescued those who needed the most help, the continued on to San Francisco, arriving at about 7PM.

They checked in with Samuel Crane, the human leader of the local section of the Purifiers (a worldwide organization of Soldiers of the Sword, and a Vassal of the Sword (thus outranking Jarebai)). He welcomed them, and gave them some rooms in his PI offices where they could crash. He said there wasn't much news, although his section did have suspicions there was a new Renegade in town, and that it was being hunted by servitors of the Game.

Jarebai and Madian went to check in with the largest Tether in town, the Tether to Flowers at Golden Gate Park. A concert given by a group named Digital Epitaph was ongoing at a band shell there. The park is large, so it took some time for them to find the local angels. Eventually, Kyriotate named Pollofyto approached them in a human body; Pollofyto spends most of its time possessing various flowers and other plants throughout the park. This put them in touch with Hallaren, the Seneschal, and they also met two other angels, named Alastair and Euoidas. None of them had any word of a new renegade in town or of Gamesters, but they said they'd look into it.

They also visited the nearby Tether to Protection at the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, where the Seneschal (a Kyrio named Hazana) told them that if there were a new Renegade fleeing the game in town, she'd be happy to receive the Renegade at the tether and protect it, and hopefully help it along to redemption if in fact that is what it was seeking.

Sometime shortly after midnight, Madian heard a large Symphonic disturbance from across the Bay. They drove over to investigate, and in East Oakland found the scene of a murder. It took a little bit of investigation to find, but they found two freshly dead bikers in a dumpster (later identified by patches on their leather jackets as members of the Roadrockers, a local small biker gang overseen by Pete, a Cherub of Stone), and one smashed up Harley nearby.

What happens when two groups of angels who don't know each other each suspect the others of being demons? Especially when each group has a Seraph who is so accustomed to knowing the Truth of all things that they always believe they are right? Five or ten minutes after Madian and Jarebai arrived at the scene of the murder, Thiessin (an Ofanite of Flowers in the vessel of a young black man) and Soren (a Seraph of Flowers in the vessel of a tall white man) screeched up. Things got ugly for a little while, up to and including Jarebai briefly attacking Thiessin while possessing Duke. However, the situation was defused, although the two sides didn't part on great terms— in particular, with Madian and Soren each bearing antipathy for the other. They had come to investigate the disturbance, but didn't have any more information.

The next day (Sunday June 14), they learned from talking both to the staff at the Flowers Tether and to Samuel Crane (who called in other Soldiers in his section, including Barbara Brookhaven, a detective in the Oakland PD) that a woman with long black hair and well-defined features had been seen quickly driving away from the scene on a motorcycle about 20 minutes before Madian and Jarebai arrived. What's more, this woman was identified as Maggie, a signer in Digital Epitaph. However, over the next few days, Maggie would prove very difficult to track down.

Madian and Jarebai went to talk with Pete, the Cherub of Stone. They found him mourning the loss of two of his friends, together with others in his gang. He also had a note of dissonance, for he had been attuned to one of the victims. He said he would head out to the Stone tether at Mt. Diablo to deal with it after he made sure that the rest of his brothers were dealing OK with the death. He did reveal that, as sometimes happens in gangs that David's angels foster, there was some ugliness in the Roadrockers. In particular, the two guys who had been killed had, a week previously, had waited outside a local Jewish temple and had hassled them with shouted anti-semitic remarks. Most of the people had ignored them, but a woman matching Maggie's description had shouted threatening things back at them.

Madian and Jarebai visited the temple; it was here that they learned Maggie's name, from a receptionist at the temple, but she didn't know anything else. That night, they broke into the temple and liberated a member directory, finding a few people named Margaret. They staked out the house of the one single woman. The next morning (Monday), they discovered that that this Margaret didn't exactly match the description, was a student living with two other students in Berkeley, was not a musician, and had never heard of Digital Epitaph. The true Maggie remained elusive. (They also managed to convince the three young women living in they house that they were nuts. Fortunately, in Berkeley, this is not all that unusual.)

Madian and Jarebai returned to San Francisco, not sure if they would be able to make any further progress until the next Sunday, when they would attend the service and see if Maggie had appeared. However, it occurred to them to check to see if Digital Epitaph was going to perform again soon, and they saw that they were going to be performing this coming Wednesday at a small venue in San Francisco.

At this stage, things began to get a bit more complicated. First, wanting to further the word of Judgement, Madian dragged Jarebai along to the courthouse. There, Madian found a poor woman, Yolanda, who had been accused of shoplifting; she figured out that Yolanda was in fact innocent of this particular charge, even though she did have some prior convictions. She volunteered her services to defend the woman, but alas did not convince the judge. A bit of a scene erupted in the courtroom between Madian's righteous indignation— after all, she knew Yolanda was innocent— and the judge who wanted to get on with proper courtroom procedure. Madian wanted to call the news and expose this injustice, but found out that many people weren't particularly surprised to find out that a poor black woman, particularly one with previous convictions, might have been unjustly found guilty. Jarebai, meanwhile, recognized that Madian was in danger of dissonance if she stood by. Madian filed for an appeal, and learned that during the week she would have to wait, it would take $3,000 to purchase a bail bond to bail out Yolanda.

Jarebai and Madian went to visit the Tether to Trade, thinking that that might be a good place to secure the money. Lao Chin, the Seneschal, sighed, for of course every time an angel needs a substantial amount of cash, they seek out servitors of Trade. He was willing to write up a contract where they might perform a corresponding service for him at a later date, but Madian expressed righteous outrage that Lao Chin wouldn't just do what she thought needed to be done for Justice, and they parted on bad terms.

Madian and Jarebai returned to the Tether to Flowers, hoping somebody there might help. They ran into Euodias, who was full of questions about what it was like to fight demons. Euodias revealed that she was a Bright Lilim, redeemed five years ago by Eli and dropped off at this Tether; she had since then been assigned to be in service to Flowers by the Seraphim council. Since then, she'd spent all her time working on the Tether's work, and had yet to come face-to-face with a real, evil, killing-needing demon. Madian asked Euodias if she could provide them with $3,000; she offered that she could secure that money, in exchange for them agreeing to take her along when they went to fight the Gamesters or the Renegade when they found them. Madian said "absolutely not", and eventually stalked off in a snit.

After that Euodias and Jarebai came to an agreement; Jarebai, recognizing that Euodias may have been placed in service to the wrong Archangel, summoned Laurence. After updating Laurence with what he'd been doing, Jarebai told him about Euodias. Laurence said that he was always eager to have Bright Lilim in service to him, for they are a rare resource in the War. He met with Euodias, and agreed that he would take her into his service— although, for political reasons, he needed her to speak with Novalis and convince the archangel of Flowers to bless the transfer.

Shortly thereafter, Jarebai received a call from Lao Chin indicating that he had a check for $3,000 waiting for him. (Madian just glowered.) They retrieved the check and bailed out Yolanda. Yolanda was grateful, but indicated she wouldn't be able to pay them back. Madian admonished Yolanda that she had to pay them back by being good from now on, helping others and setting an example for others about proper behavior. They too, Yolanda home.

On Tuesday, June 16, yet another complication reared its head. Samuel Crane asked Jarebai and Madian to meet with him. He had there a man, John, who attended the same Zen monastery as Eric Claymore, a Soldier in Crane's section. John, rather confused about the whole thing, told the unmistakable story of having been possessed by a Shedite (whose behavior indicated a Shedite of the Game), having called in sick to work for several days, and having driven around the area with two others— a banker of some sort, and a "disheveled" woman— visiting high tech industries and in particular looking into employment records. The believed-renegade they thought they were pursuing, Maggie, did not match what it appeared that these three demons of the Game were looking for.

Madian and Jarebai drove down to the Tether to Lightning and spoke with Gulestrupniel, aka Gil Balter, the Seneschal. He was not aware of any Gamesters looking into high tech employees, but said that he would investigate further to see if he could learn anything about what was going on. He did advise them to make sure that they didn't cut themselves on Occam's Razor— leading Madian and Jarebai to consider that there might not be one, but perhaps two renegade demons in operation: Maggie, and however the Gamesters were looking for in the high-tech industry. Jarebai, wondering why any demon would be attending Jewish services, and wondering why after getting to the Tether of flowers would go across the bay to commit murders when supposedly fleeing the Game, began to speculate that Maggie might in fact by an Outcast angel.

Also, on Tuesday, Madian met with the Triad of Judgment that was operating in town. These three imperious and humorless angels (a Seraph, a Cherub, and an Elohite) had contacted Crane, and Crane put them in touch. They indicated to Madian that they believed the Tether to Flowers was harboring a Renegade and keeping the Renegade secret from them, not cooperating. They asked Madian to look into it, since she had a better relationship with the Flowers servitors. Madian and Jarebai went to the tether, and, through Pollofyto, got in touch with Soren. The conversation did not go well. It did become clear that in fact if they were harboring a Renegade, it was not Maggie, so at least they weren't working against Jarebai and Maggie in that particular area. However, Soren refused to discuss the matter further, and there was more Seraph Clash between Madian and Soren both being assured that they were absolutely in the right. After that, they spoke with Hallaren, who was more willing to try to explain why it would hurt the ability of Flowers Tethers to be a place for Renegades pondering redemption to hide if word got out that that Flowers would just turn them over to Judgment. Madian wasn't entirely satisfied, but agreed to let the matter drop, since she was assured that neither Maggie, nor somebody in the high-tech industry, were being harbored.

On Wednesday, Madian and Jarebai back at Golden Gate Park throwing the ball for Duke. Euodias ran up to Jarebai and threw her arms around him, kissing him on the cheek. (Madian didn't fully approve.) She said that Novalis had approved her transfer. She didn't know that one could just be honest and ask these things— for, in her previous experience in Hell, being so direct was rarely a good idea. She thanked Jarebai for being the one who catalyzed her transfer, and said that she would very shortly be returning to Heaven, where Laurence was going to send her to the Groves for combat training.

Finally, on Wednesday evening, Maggie and Jarebai went to the Digital Epitaph concert, and saw Maggie performing. At break, they spoke with some of the other musicians (who came out to talk with the crowd), and learned that Maggie was in fact new (they had already heard that she'd only been in the band for a couple of months), and also that she was very standoffish, not hanging out with the other band members after performances. Following this performance, Madian and Jarebai confronted Maggie in the parking lot. She immediately sang the Celestial Song of Motion, and teleported out, but Jarebai was watching the area in possessed birds, and they were able to track her down. After a chase, eventually she gave up, although she didn't stop cursing them after they picked her up.

They drove Maggie to the Tether to Dreams, a bookstore and coffee shop, hoping for a quite place to talk. It was closed, but the Seneschal, Chelsea, allowed them in and allowed them to use the place to talk. Here, they learned that Maggie was in fact an outcast Ofanite of Creation. She had been in the Role of a Jewish singer in Germany back in the 1920's and 1930's, and had been trapped in the Holocaust. When she was vessel-killed and (an Outcast as the result of dissonance she had obtained by being trapped), she went to Limbo, where she received no word or Essence from anybody. She clearly had the Angry discord, and was extremely bitter about Heaven in general, her archangel in particular, and felt completely abandoned. She also, unsurprisingly, was very angry about anti-semitism, and seeing anybody espousing any of the evil philosophies of the Nazi regime. (It was for this reason that she gave into her anger and killed the two bikers. She had absolutely no sympathy for Pete, who gained dissonance as a result of this.)

Madian, primarily, talked Maggie into letting them take her to the tether to Flowers, where they would deliver her to heaven to go into the care of Novalis, who might be able to help restore Maggie's faith, and save her from continued destructive behavior and even Falling. Maggie was reluctant— she just wanted to be left alone— but she'd been caught.

Back at Golden Gate Park, Alastair, the Cherub of Flowers who had been a bit mopey after Euodias had been taken away from Flowers (it was his responsibility to keep track of the redeemed Bright), accompanied Maggie up to heaven.

In five days, Madian and Jarebai had rescued one angel by getting her away from Flowers, and rescued another (hopefully) by turning her over to Flowers. However, there is still at least one likely Renegade demon lurking unknown out there, and three servitors of the Game— including a shedite— in town....