Ares, Ethereal God: commander in the ethereal army.
Beleth, Demon Princess of Nightmares: concerned about Saminga.
Blandine, Archangel of Dreams: besieged in the Marches.
Dmitri, Mercurian of Creation in Service to Wind: PC.
Enforcer, The: Habbalite of Death, the man in the metal clothing.
Ethan Howe, Seneschal of Trade: you want it, he's got it.
Evi: a black hat on the wrong side of a Divine Intervention.
Ewok: unnamed Ewok, killed by Tirshatha.
Gerar, Malakite of the Sword: PC.
Jamin, Seraph of the Wind: an ex-sidekick.
Laurence 2.0, Archangel of the Sword: leather and chrome.
Lyta Aram, Soldier of Trade: Scale hunter and book translator.
Pimpernel, Malakite of Trade: horseman and trader.
Saminga, Demon Prince of Death: the Big Bad Guy.
Slog, Demon of Death and Technology: Vapulan traitor.
Tiglath-Pilesen: Lilim of Nightmares, sometimes a flying squirrel.
Tirshatha: Balseraph of Nightmares, the man with the metal arm.
Triam, Malakite of Trade: the man with the burning hands.
X3821, Habbalite of Death and Technology: Vapulan traitor.
Unnamed angels and demons.
Dmitri: a dashing, stylish Mercurian with Eli's Malakite Attunement and an invulnerable umbrella.
Gerar: a fairly straightforward Malakite sworn to give challenge before making an attack and never to lie for his own sake only.
Crown of Aesculpius: a healing artifact.
Death Star: the one from the third movie.
Dmitri's Umbrella: an invulnerable umbrella-talisman.
Liber Mors Mortis, the: a book compiled by an Empty Habbalite on Saminga's demons and practices.
Metal Clothing: a vast array of weaponry-clothing!
Monofilament Sword: an experimental Jeanite weapon. It must be plugged in regularly to keep its edge "stable." Has a forcefield sheath.
Shuriken-Shooter: an automatic shuriken launcher, with an infinite supply.
Zero-Gee Gun: a raygun that causes people and things to float.
Zombies: filled with little presents from Saminga, like crackerjack boxes.
The phone rings in the Emperor Suite. The PCs answer and hear a recorded voice repeating, "Security violation -- in the basement." After they both hear this, Dmitri hangs up, waits a few moments, and then calls Ethan, who does not answer. The PCs hurry down the stairs. The Malakim and Ethan are busy getting the humans out of the restaurant, using ungentle persuasion if need be. The PCs decide that they would rather help with this than go watch or enter the basement, so they do so. Then, while the PCs are inside the restaurant and the Malakim are by the door, a car screeches to a stop out front, the door bangs open, and (literally) several hundred snakes pour out towards the restaurant door. At roughly the same time, the door to the back rooms (and the basement) opens, revealing a few walking dead. Triam and Pimpernel work on keeping the snakes out; the creatures are evidently driven by some malevolent force. Dmitri drives the remaining humans upstairs to a suite (like a cowboy, not a chauffeur) while Gerar addresses himself to the matter of the undead. The first one he hacks open with his monosword, unfortunately, appears to have been pumped full of a poisonous gas, which immediately billows out into the room. He attempts to swing a table around to block the entrance. One of the undead, in an astonishing display of agility (for a zombie) grabs hold of the door mantel and swings out into the room. It then draws a gun from nowhere and splinters the table in three shots.
Gerar proceeds to cut off the creature's gun arm, pick up the gun, and shoot at a zombie. Meanwhile, Dmitri has the most dominant personality in the group above lock the people into the suite, while he skids down the stairway rail into the restaurant. Inconveniently, a moment later, the gun teleports into its original owner's left hand. Said zombie proceeds to shoot both of our heroes. Gerar, fed up, cuts him in half, and sees a Shedite boil out of the corpse. Dmitri, meanwhile, cudgels a zombie's neck with his stick, opening a hole. Something starts to crawl out through the hole. Dmitri hits the creature again, tearing a huge gash into its side; as the zombie falls, a humming begins from inside. Another zombie, in the back, Sings something and drops into a shadow on the floor as if it were an elevator shaft. Dmitri doesn't like the humming, and he flees for the door to help Triam and Pimpernel out. The Shedite, somewhat frayed by being in celestial form in a Heaven Tether, dives into another zombie and gets off another shot or two. Then Gerar hacks that one in half, and gasoline sloshes out onto the floor. Another zombie bites the dust just as the shadow-zombie rises from another shadow, immediately behind Dmitri, and wraps a whip around his throat. Gerar charges and hits the zombie with his glove, and receives a Divine Intervention. The zombie looks a lot healthier, suddenly -- almost alive -- but is wrapped in a gleaming shell of golden light, and falls, trapped, to the ground. (This is actually a very useful thing, as we will probably find out next session.)
The humming has resolved into a cloud of dead-looking bees pouring out of that zombie. Dmitri decides that this is not good, and therefore he uses the whip to Indiana Jones across the room, simultaneously whipping a tablecloth around the bees, landing across the room with a makeshift bag of undead bugs. He then proceeds to smash them against the floor over and over again.
In the back, a man wearing shining metallic clothing and a gas mask stalks into the room. Gerar tosses a knife at him; the man whips the hat off his head and the two meet and rebound in midair. (Unfortunately for our film crew, the hat did not rebound into his hand, nor the knife into Gerar, but even so Dmitri had a moment of reluctant respect.) Dmitri throws the bag at him, but it doesn't do much damage. Then the man -- who happens to be a Habbalite, casts Love towards Gerar, and gets Infernal Intervention. Suddenly, everyone really admires and trusts this guy. Realizing what he has done, the man slips off his gas mask long enough to command everyone to stop fighting. Even the zombies listen. Dmitri concludes he is a messenger from Eli; Gerar determines that this man is obviously a Master of the Armies of God, given that he could end an argument like that! Confident and pleased, the man orders the zombies to activate "the device;" the Shedite's newest host does so, making a shimmering gate in the air, with a forest beyond. They go through. Shortly thereafter, the man commands the PCs to accompany him through said gate, and they do so, finding themselves … in the Marches.
The man in metal clothing interrogates the PCs about Jamin. Unfortunately, they don't know terribly much -- not even why he would have gone off with Servitors of Fire. Then he has them kneel down on the ground, facing away, and attempts to take their heads off with a lash of his scarf. They manage to get mostly out of the way, and this action alerts them that this guy may not be what he seems. A fight begins, during which the man attacks with scarf, enhanced boots, and lower pant legs that separate into four whirling blades. Unfortunately for him, the PCs are Ethereal monsters, and mow him down before he even gets through his full list of tricks. He gets snapped out of the Marches, leaving behind his coat, boots, metal handkerchiefs, and the artifact that seems to have led the Death Servitors to the PCs -- Umbrella!
The PCs hear weapons-fire in the distance, now that they're not distracted by the demon. They also happen to look up, noticing a half-completed Death Star in the skies above -- which is in the process of becoming an artifact. Dmitri concludes that the weapons-fire, which is slowly approaching, is the AT-AT walkers, and they run. After a bit of running, they decide to climb a tree, instead, and spot Tirshatha and Tiglath-Pilesen (the latter being carried) fleeing through the woods. Dmitri drops down and lands dramatically in front of them, and interrogates them about what they're doing there. Tirshatha has no idea who they are, but admits that he's theoretically there to stop Saminga from heisting the Death Star out of a kid's dream and into the Marches proper. The PCs offer to bring in Beleth's forces; Tirshatha reluctantly leads them out of the dream, managing to lose the AT-AT's that were chasing them in the woods. On the way, he blows up an Ewok. The two demons refuse to leave, though, because they're there on their Mistress' orders.
It probably says something about just how nervous Tiggy and Tir' think Beleth is that Blandine's involvement would be 'good'.
The PCs charge through the Marches towards Blandine's Tower. Unfortunately, it's surrounded by a besieging Ethereal Army and, more importantly, it's got a giant dragon wrapped all the way around it. They allow themselves to be stopped by a camouflaged scout, and are led into a tent to discuss things with someone more important. This turns out to be Ares, who listens to their story. While he listens, something changes about the PCs' environment. In the end, he agrees to let them into Blandine's Tower, and to let a reasonable force of angels out to deal with the problem. When the PCs open the tent flaps to go out, however, they discover that they're in a bubble of Marches stuff suspended in the air in a lab. They agree on a standard scream-and-leap strategy, and burst through the border between worlds. Gerar lands a bit awkwardly; Dmitri floats down using his umbrella. Ares doesn't appear to be participating, and shortly after the bubble vanishes.
They are greeted by X3821, who holds a raygun on Dmitri. He explains that after the "Enforcer" -- the metal man -- was cast from the Marches, and the Shedite's army was devastated, Saminga has decided that it would be better to convert them than destroy them. Dmitri doesn't want to see the darkness, and neither does Gerar. Gerar throws his monosword at X3821, missing completely and embedding it in the machinery all around, which sparks and stuff. X3821 hits Dmitri first with 4-day Habbalite Love and then with a gravity-nullifier ray. Gerar dashes for his sword, but a demon named Slog tosses a knife into his foot and he stumbles and falls. Gerar concludes that the situation is Not Good, so he attempts to kill Dmitri with his own blade (and fails) and then himself (and succeeds.) X3821 steals the monosword.
Dmitri and X3821 argue about things for a little bit, while the sparks from the monosword-hit machine spread through the complex network of B-movie stuff. Finally, X3821, Slog, and two assistants head for the bomb shelter underneath the lab, and Dmitri, drawn by his Love, uses the Enforcer's scarf to catch hold of things and drag himself out the door after them. Halfway down the stairs, the 0g-ray wears off; at the bottom of the stairs, as X3821 and the assistants move down the hall, Slog shoves Dmitri into a cell. Dmitri manages to wedge Umbrella in the door before it closes, struggles his way out, and demonstrates vast combat superiority to Slog. Slog then shows vast running-away superiority. Dmitri gets Divine Intervention on something or other, and manages to put the two assistants down for the count without injuring them, which is a good thing, as he gets a skirting-dissonance twinge. (That is, they were humans.) This also helps things work out later.
In Heaven, Gerar discovers that it'll be a couple hours before he can see Laurence and get a new body. He's reporting the various things he encountered to Jean's people when a Seraph giving off Ethan vibes charges up. Ethan explains that the Scale is glowing like mad and doing other funky things, and that Lyta says it has something to do with Gerar and Dmitri, so he's to get Dmitri and get back to Jack's House as fast as possible. Being a Seraph Seneschal, he has no trouble ordering the person behind the desk to get Gerar a new weapon and a healing device chop-chop. He also gives Gerar a ring with one of Dmitri's hairs wound around it, explaining that it has Affinity in it; Trade apparently collects these things from people who spend much time at their Tethers. In indication of his urgency, he also gives Gerar his Vessel. (Although he wants it back.) The Lightning secretary returns with an automatic shuriken-launcher and a circlet that slowly heals its wearer.
Gerar dives back to Earth where his last Vessel died, entering a smoking, flaming laboratory. He follows the trail of open doors downstairs. Meanwhile, X3821 is running down a side hall, a bit bothered by Dmitri's effectiveness against Slog and the others, perhaps. Dmitri follows, calling for him to wait! Gerar hears these yells as he barrels down the stairs, and chases. X3821 enters an underground arboretum, full of trees and flying mice and such, as well as a ravine with a river and such. He continues to run, and Dmitri continues to follow, until Gerar tears in and grabs him, sticking the circlet on him and charging it with Essence. Dmitri breaks away and continues after X3821, who opens a box at the far end of the Arboretum and pulls a lever. There's some Essence spent, a communication sent -- and a little bit afterwards, four shapes in white lab coats rise from Hell behind the PCs. There is the Symphonic sound of celestials destroying stuff, even though nothing happens.
Gerar insists that they flee. When the first trees begin falling for them, the PCs spend their Essence on bursting into celestial form and Ascending once again to Heaven.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Hell again. Odd, given Laurence's information, isn't it?
Saminga is on the verge of achieving Marches superiority, too. Where is he getting this kind of mystical know-how?
Jamin may be more important than he seems. Or, maybe, Saminga is just annoyed that someone with the passwords for his older zombies is out there and on the wrong side.
TSING Index.