Cassia peers at the mirrored surface and then touches that one, too.
Cassia's hand slips easily through the mirrored surface into empty air beyond. Cassia and Jewel can both hear a whistling from another stall, a sort of happy, bored whistling with no celestial meaning.
Cassia pulls her hand back and knocks on the stall from which the whistling comes from. "Hello?"
Called back, as if from a distance, "Wot?"
Cassia peers back at Jewel, as if not knowing quite what to say...
Jewel senses ...
Boredom. Endless, terrible boredom. And fastidiousness.
Jewel says "Excuse me, but where are we?"
Jewel addresses the stall, that is.
Cassia steps back and murmurs to Jewel's ear, "There's a mirror in the stall tht the blood leads to, and I think we can go through that as well..."
The doorway to the stall bumps open, under pressure from behind, and a small imp rolls a janitorial cart through the mirror beyond, reaching up above his head to push the handle. He hops up to peer at Jewel, and says, "This is the Men's Room. You shouldn't be here."
Jewel nods to Cassia.
Jewel says "Sorry! Wrong turn."
The imp looks around, pulls himself up onto the handle of the cart to manhandle the mop out.
The imp shakes his head. "Blood. Tsk tsk."
Jewel lifts the mop out for the imp.
The imp dangles from the mop until Jewel puts it down, and then begins assiduously cleaning up the blood.
Jewel says "Say, did you see a couple of guys come through here?"
The imp says, "Hell, I've seen *everybody* come through here, one time or another. Well, excepting most of the women."
Jewel says "I meant within the last five minutes."
The imp grins. "Them, too, if the lines are long enough, though."
Jewel snerks.
He scratches between his horns. "No, can't say as I have. But if you look around for a while, I bet you'll find someone or other."
Cassia peers about.
Jewel says "Okay, thanks."
Jewel checks for emotions in the stall that Cassia was looking in.
She gets a very faint, receding trace of ... worry.
Jewel opens the stall Cassia was looking in before and steps through the mirror, ready to dodge.
Cassia gives her a moment and then steps in after her...
Nothing but the room they were in, backwards. Well, except for the man who Jewel sent in after the ex-Shedite host.
He's slumped next to the stall, neck quite broken.
Cassia says "ow."
Jewel says "Oh, *SHIT*."
Jewel puts her face in her hands.
Cassia pats Jewel's shoulder awkwardly.
Cassia then goes to look at the body.
You hear the imp call from the mirror behind you, "Don't make a mess, wot?"
Jewel draws her gun!
Jewel slumps down across from the dead guy, gun in her lap.
He's just an ordinary Joe Doe, wearing jeans, a nice white shirt, and a tweed jacket. He's missing his right middle finger. Severed by a knife or NC: Claws.
Cassia shows Jewel the hand and then prowls quietly through each of the stalls on this reflection.
Jewel has her face back in her hands.
Behind each stall is a mirror, although one stall has the mirror on the back of the door instead of in the air behind it; that mirror shows the reflection of the stall's inside, even after the door is opened.
No blood trail on this side of the mirror, except for a pool by the guy's finger.
Cassia nods quietly, and tugs gently on Jewel, "Another mirror... it might have gone that way..."
Jewel looks up at Cassia, tears running down her face. "Sure, let's keep going. Let's see how many more people I can kill!"
Cassia blinks a bit.
Cassia says "You didn't kill him. The Shedite host did."
Jewel says "I sent him in here!"
Cassia says "So?"
Jewel says "So if I hadn't, he'd still be alive!"
The corpse's head seems to be a little closer to the ground than the last time Cassia looked. Hard for anyone but an angel to notice, though. His pose looks identical.
Cassia says "uhm... if the host wasn't a killing monster, he'd still be alive..."
Cassia peers at the ground under the head of the corpse.
Cassia moves the corpse's head a little?
Jewel says "I *knew* what kind of demon was in here! Well, that something awful was, at any rate."
The linoleum beneath the man's head is scarred and black, like someone had splashed an extremely weak acid on it.
Jewel says "Leave him alone! Haven't we done enough?"
Cassia says "Look here..."
Cassia moves the corpse away from the acid.
Jewel says "What?"
Jewel looks over at the corpse.
Cassia points out the scarred area.
The blackened, scarred area seems to have conformed exactly to the man's shape, like an expert's chalk outline.
Jewel says "So?"
Cassia says "What does that?"
Jewel says "Acid, looks like. Lots of demons and soldiers like to spit acid."
Jewel has a horrible thought. She tries to extend her resonance out in all directions, to see if she can sense anything. Like, say, billions of souls in torment.
Cassia nods quietly, "Over the whole body?"
Jewel says "Sure, why not?"
Jewel senses ...
A handful of faint traces, none in torment, is all. Except for a faint non-localized ache that seems to hang all around you, in every direction.
Cassia nods quietly.
Cassia says "Shall we go after it?"
Cassia says "Then you can't send anymore people ofr it to kill?"
Cassia is kinda quizzical.
Jewel looks around. "Maybe. Do you have any idea where in Lucifer's sight we are?"
Cassia looks around, then calls to the imp, "Uhm... do you know where we are?"
He yells back, "You're in the Men's Room!"
Cassia says "Which Men's room?"
Cassia says "And what's through this other mirror, that's behind this stall door?"
The imp yells back, "It changes."
Cassia says "To?"
"Different Men's Rooms."
Cassia ah's quietly.
"And Ladies' Rooms! My Lord Bezaleel is egalitarian!"
Cassia cringes at the name. Oh oh.
Jewel recognizes the name. That would be the Demon Prince of Reflections. Not a major player, but a Prince.
Cassia says softly, "Looks like we're in some demon lord's area..."
Jewel nods. "Not a very big one, but bigger than us."
Cassia nods.
Cassia says "shall we go back out?"
Cassia says "This isn't getting me the journals any more quickly."
Cassia smells something faint, like a match burning, for just a moment.
Jewel says "I think we better. This is not the sort of place I want to get caught."
Cassia peers around, sniffing a bit.
Cassia nods and heads back the way we came, but still sniffing a bit.
Cassia says "Do you smell smoke, Jewel?"
Jewel picks up the corpse. "But we shouldn't leave this here. At least his people should know that he died."
He's *hot*. And not sexually.
Jewel stops and sniffs the air.
Cassia nods.
Cassia says "It was just a moment... but..."
Jewel drops the corpse! "Yeep! Hot!"
Cassia meeps?
Cassia touches the corpse lightly. (But he's not hot to her!)
Jewel says "He's *hot*. That's weird."
Cassia says "That is... I guess we'll need to just leave him... and leave while we can?"
Cassia blinks quietly.
Cassia picks up the body.
Cassia says "Weird. He's not hot to the touch to me..."
Jewel says "Probably because you're fire."
Jewel says "Let's go think about it someplace else!"
Cassia says "Oh... okay..."
Cassia goes after Jewel and goes back the way we came.
Jewel leads the way back through the mirror.
Their plan: to go back through the two mirrors and out the door to the cafe. Jewel's addendum: leaving the body in the men's room of the cafe' itself.
Incidentally, the ground is a little scarred under the corpse's last location, too, before Jewel picked him up.
Cassia blinks a bit at the scarring...
Cassia says "I wonder if something is *in* him?"
Cassia walks after Jewel. "Yes.
Jewel says "Nothing that feels. I checked."
Cassia nods.
Jewel opens the door to the cafe. There's a mirrored surface behind it, reflecting the room precisely, stretching from top to bottom, left to right.
Jewel taps on the mirror.
Jewel's hand goes through.
Cassia says "Fun house mirrors."
Cassia sighs and keeps hold of the body.
Cassia doesn't leave it, after seeing the additional mirror. "I think getting back is going to be a bit harder than we'd hoped."
Jewel pokes her face through to look, presuming nothing bad happened to her hand.
Why, it's the room they're in, except that the two of them aren't there, and it's facing the other direction.
Jewel says "Belial burn me!"
Jewel turns back.
Jewel says "Let's go ask directions."
Jewel pokes her head through to where the imp was.
Cassia nods.
The imp busily manhandles the mop around, even though it's twice his height.
Jewel says "Excuse me! Can you direct us to the exit?"
The imp bobs his head, failing to work up any malice, and points at the sinks. Judging by the angle of his hand, he doesn't mean the mirrors above them, either.
Jewel looks at the sinks.
Cassia peers at the sinks as well.
The sinks affect an air of nonchalant innocence.
Jewel steps all the way through and taps on a sink.
The sink looks like a perfectly ordinary sink.
It feels like one, too.
Cassia turns on a tap?
Jewel turns one of her smiles on the imp. "I'm sorry! I don't understand!"
Water flows into the sink and vanishes down the drain. A few drops splash against the edges of the sink-bowl and rest there. Unlike the water vanishing down the sink, they are glittering and red.
Cassia meeps and closes the tap.
The imp says, helpfully, "Usually, I squeeze down the drain, but the menfolk stop it up first."
Jewel says "Is there a way out for people who aren't as good at squeezing as you?"
Cassia sniffs a bit above the red.
It smells like ordinary water.
The imp explains laboriously, "Like I said, the menfolk usually stop up the sink first. To make a mirror, see?"
Jewel says "Oh! I see!"
Cassia ah's quietly.
Cassia rips a strip off the bottom of her t-shirt and stuffs it into teh drain of the sink.
Cassia then runs the water.
The water level in the sink slowly rises. You can see a vision of a happily burning place caught in the water. Why, it looks like good old Sheol.
Cassia meeps.
Jewel says "Wrong door!"
Jewel shudders violently all over!
Cassia pulls the plug from the drain.
Jewel says "Let's try again and see if it gets anywhere better."
Cassia can't reach the plug. Her hand seems to have gone through into a very hot place.
Cassia grumbles, winces and pulls her hand out.
Cassia says "Can't."
Cassia says "Or another sink?"
Cassia says "It goes through to there. Period."
Jewel blows on the water to ruffle it so it's not a good mirror anymore and tries to pull out the plug.
Jewel snatches out the plug. As the water starts to drain away, they catch distorted images of what look like a troop of military demons marching towards the image -- but the water drains before they get very close.
Jewel smiles at imp again. "Excuse me, but I meant we wanted to get back to the corporeal world. That's where we came in."
He frowns. "Oh." Then he brightens. "Well, he says that if I work for another century, I'll be allowed to go outside for a day again! I could ask to take you with me."
Jewel looks sad. "We can't stay that long; we have an appointment. But can you show us the way?"
The imp says, dubiously, "Well, any door will take you out, if Bezaleel wills it."
Cassia sighs a touch and crouches with the body on her shoulder.
Jewel says "What if we just want to slip out quietly without bothering him?"
The imp mulls. "Find someone else going out and go through the door with them?"
His forehead is so furrowed he looks like a Buffy vampire. This was clearly a huge mental effort.
Jewel says "That's a wonderful idea! Have you seen anyone who looked like they were about to leave? Who hasn't left yet, I mean."
The imp thinks. "Haven't seen a soul for months, before you three."
Jewel, of course, sensed a few people moving around.
Cassia sighs quietly again. "This doesn't sound good."
Jewel says "Well, let's go look for someone and see if we can talk them into leaving with us."
Cassia nods and stands.
Jewel leads the way. "I think I heard someone over this way..."
They proceed through a number of mirrors and reflections, usually winding up at more or less the same place visually, although it swaps left and right, front and back with some regularity. Cassia notices that, for the last few mirrors, a few wisps of smoke accompany her through; Jewel notices the same thing, except that there is no such phenomenon for her.
On average, 1/4 of the rooms match the original bathroom.
Behind the door, in those, is a mirrored surface.
Cassia is faintly puzzled by the smoke, but is more worried about getting out...
Cassia taps the mirrored surface, thinking that it might be anything like the water?
Her hand passes through into the reflected room beyond.
Cassia gets on the other side of the mirrored door and says softly. "I wonder what would happen if I broke it?"
Jewel says "I don't know if we *can* break them. But give it a try."
A wisp of smoke follows Cassia through.
Cassia| finds out she has another half an hour plus a bit...
Cassia tries to break the door that the mirrored surface is on the other side of.
Cassia kicks it...
<
Sean counts up the total there.
Sean hms. 29.
Cassia blinks.
The Soccer Angel's foot moves like lightning, slamming into the door with the impact of a 747. The door explodes. The door frame explodes. The ceiling begins to crumble. The stalls twist, buckle, and jerk. Cracks swim through the floor like sharks on amphetamines. A few moments later, nothing remains but a mirrored half-sphere above and around them, rubble and split linoleum all over the mirrored floor, and an endless array of reflections in every direction. They get knocked about a bit in the process, but now they can more or less directly *see* the few shapes moving about in the distance.
Cassia blinks. "Wow. Keen."
Cassia says "Didn't get us out, but at least we can see the truth."
Jewel blinks up from where she's sprawled on her rump. "I'm glad you're on my side!"
Cassia grins at Jewel.
The few shapes in the distance that are still moving are now running towards you. Except for the ones who are running away.
Jewel holds out her hand to Cassia. Her other hand is of course holding a gun.
Cassia takes Jewel's hand.
Cassia pulls Jewel up to standing, gently.
A spear of door-wood has gotten into the corpse's side, where it is smoking vigorously.
Jewel smiles warmly at Cassia.
Jewel pulls the wood out before it catches on fire!
Cassia looks at the spear and the bubble of reflections.
Jewel looks around to see who's approaching.
Blood drips out of the wound and makes acidic puddles on the floor.
Cassia meeps.
It looks, from the color, like it's mostly Calabim coming their way.
Cassia says "I think it's time we got out of here... shall we try going Celestial and head up?"
Jewel turns even paler. "I don't think that's a very good idea..."
Cassia nods quietly.
Cassia says "Uhm... why?"
Jewel says "I'll explain later."
Cassia says "okay."
Jewel looks for a direction in which there are no Calabim. What's up?
(Up looks like it normally would in a circular mirror, reflecting itself. It's really confusing to the eye.)
There's a sharp pop from the floor beneath them. It looks like a bit of blood has eaten through the mirror and, well, it didn't fall through, it's just lying there in the hole it ate out for itself.
Cassia says "Cool."
Jewel is looking up at the moment.
Cassia takes the blood that dropped onto her, and smears it on a reflective wall.
Cassia says softly, "Sorry, sir, to leave a bit of your blood here, but I think we're in need..."
Cassia just closes her eyes, and smears what she can touch, then.
Jewel looks carefully to see if there are any Calabim- "Cassia? What are you doing?"
Cassia says "Getting us out of this mirror half-sphere?"
The blood hisses and begins to eat through the mirrored surface.
Cassia says "So we can run away from the on-coming Calabim?"
Cassia says "Instead of being stuck in here?"
Jewel says "Good plan!"
One of the Calabim is almost to them, on the far side of the room.
Cassia kicks the weakened area of mirror.
<
Jewel puts three bullets into the Calabim to slow him down!
<
<
The Calabite experiences stopping power. Cassia's foot stops at the half-eaten mirror, as if she were kicking stone -- but then the mirror shatters, in an area about eight feet wide, opening to what looks to be the hallway in a rock memorabilia cafe!
Jewel dives through!
Cassia runs into the hallway.
Jewel almost certainly dives after the Ofanite. :)
They're in the hallway, complete with corpse. Looking back they see -- the door of the Men's Room, wooden, closed.
Cassia takes a really deep breath.
Cassia peers at the body on her shoulder.
Cassia sighs softly.
Cassia looks for, and finds, an emergency door. Rigged to an alarm.
Cassia moves to the back door, with the body. Isn't sure she wants to go into the Men's room again, at all.
The blood that drips onto the floor here doesn't smoke.
Cassia whispers softly to Jewel, "Should I leave him here?"
Jewel whispers back, "I guess so. There isn't any really good place."
Cassia nods and settles him on the floor, then, back to the wall.
Cassia says a brief prayer over the body.
Jewel bows her head too, although she doesn't say anything out loud.
Jewel sees Cassia checking the door and goes over to look.
Eli's heart pulses reassuringly to Jewel.
Cassia nods.
The bathroom door starts to open.
Cassia whispers, "Fly when we're out? Meet you back at your place..."
Jewel goes!
Cassia opens the emergancy door and goes!
<
<
<
They're outta there. Way outta there. The alarm rings behind you. And, looking about -- they are definitely in L.A.
Cassia peers about at street signs looking for the way back to Jewel's.
Jewel first tries to break line of sight from anyone looking out the door.
There are no problems. Cassia hits the sky on fiery wings, I think, and Jewel either hits the sky or gets out into the crowded streets and vanishes into said crowd. They've come about ... 2 miles.
Cassia says "Weird."
GM's Note: The corpse was the mortal remains of a good man who died in the direct service of Heaven. While his whole body is less of a relic than a single saint's fingerbone, he was still destructive to the integrity of a Tether of Hell.