Chapter III: The Fall

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IamLEAM1983
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Re: Chapter III: The Fall

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"I mean that you'll have to lose," repeated Marko. "The Black Goat will only ever lower his guard if you're on your knees and begging for mercy. His nature won't allow him to keep his guard up past what should look like a total victory. This is why victory is going to be achieved through the Judge the warlock stole from the Pit, through the Goat's plans being divulged to Heaven's highest instances.

The Pit has to crush the Others and install its claim to gratitude. Only then, those few angels who stood closest to Humanity will be within their right to intervene."

The fox sighed, acting as though he'd delivered all that he knew. "You're going to have to fight, yes, but fighting Pride is a lost cause. No matter how inferior in numbers we might be because of the loss of Mammon's hoard, Pride is only ever going to summon those of my kind you'll manage to kill to come here again. Again, and again, and again - forever, until he wins."

He looked pensive for a moment, and then parted with a shy smirk. "Of course, you're already technically grovelling. He's working with you now; working on Ephesian's case for Lambert. I was told the relationship isn't exactly cordial, but that my former employer still thinks he has the advantage. So, that's good."

* * *

"I'll do my best," replied the ungulate with a chuckle. "I'd planned on raising them one by one and starting with Volker, but I'd wear myself out within a few days of trying to keep my stamina while working on consecutive summons. I've got a few of them that are a little less adjusted, and they don't need me bedridden and stuck nursing Tums tablets or seltzer water. I'd rather input a massive effort and take care of them all simultaneously."
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Re: Chapter III: The Fall

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Aislinn's smile gained a wry edge to it. "And a large "eff you" is more to the point than a handful of them," she noted, chuckling. "Tom and I will probably sound like a couple bombastic and petty assholes by the end of it, but it's part of the theatrics of a summons. It sounds kind of fun, as it's not something you do every day."
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Re: Chapter III: The Fall

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"You missed the overview I gave Ciaran," added Tom, "so here's the Cliff's Notes: Ais and I are going to turn bragging into an arcane focus, and use the power we'll pull in as well as what's been stored by Frost's misdeeds one floor down to call my friends up to the mortal plane. I will sound like an arrogant asshat, but that's part and parcel of being a warlock mid-summons. None of the contempt I'll discharge should be construed as referring to you or to anyone else in this room. If I end up selling myself as better than the feckless mortals or something, then I'm referring to the blue-collar Joes with a lifetime of ignorant hatred behind their belts. Not you, or anyone who's even slightly open-minded. I hope that's clear."

He coughed. "Then, as I told Ciaran, massive portals leading to here are going to act as a dinner bell for the nastier numbers in the Pit's wildlife. Don't expect other intruding intelligences or forms of awareness, but we might end up with something like a mangy boar on steroids trapped in the summoning circle. We have to shunt my friends into their bodies quickly, as a result. I don't want people who placed my trust in me ending up killed so close to their hopes being fulfilled - and I don't want anyone else here killed, either. I'll try and trigger a layer of the summoning circle I've prepped for such an occasion, if this happens. I set it to trap the undesirables and restrict their movements. Past that, banishing any predator from the Pit involves killing it; disrupting its manifested physical form."

The warlock jerked his chin forwards slightly. "I don't know if you packed your sword, but you might want something you could use as a spear-tip. One hard poke behind an ear usually works. If we end up with a more, um, avian intruder, we'll have a narrow zone to canvas and high ceilings to contend with. My friends were stashed away in the borderlands between Greed and Wrath, so I can't predict what could come through after them. We have an entire ecosystem of possibilities to work with - including the possibility that nothing might follow along. They're at the foot of a canyon of sorts, so the area's normally barren."
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Karl the Mad
 

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Re: Chapter III: The Fall

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Abraham looked disgusted. "In that case, would it not be wiser just to surrender now and save ourselves the effort and loss of a hopeless battle?"

--------------------------------

"I left it on my bike, but yeah, I've got my sword," Mary replied. "I've got time to finish eating and then go get it, don't I?" She nodded at his plans. "I get it, though. I'll be ready."
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Re: Chapter III: The Fall

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Marko smiled sadly. "There's no surrender to consider if there isn't some form of opposition, first. There's also no Prince swooping in to save the mortal plane if you don't heroically attempt to push back against the epicenter of the Others' point of ingress. His plan requires you to fight, but only to a degree. Put a knee down too quickly, and Pride will suspect something's wrong - or that someone among my former brethren's spoken. 

There's a very precise set of steps that leads to Pride being stripped of his powers, a power vacuum being created, and Tom Magnus' plan succeeding. If you force the Goat's hand, you could turn a gradual invasion into a sudden one - one you have no hope of repelling."

He gave Abraham a frank look. "We've had to study you, before coming here. All of you. We know you're not the kind of men to back down in cowardice, but being inflexible in this case would result in greater losses than what a measure of flexibility could result in."

Three nodded. "It's called giving ground - it's a standard modern police procedure when apprehending suspects. For all of Jameson's boasts about giving us tactical training, that's what we needed to pick up from the get-go. It's something I unconsciously applied back in Afghanistan, and it pissed the Hell out of my more trigger-happy team members."

He looked at Abraham. "Let's say you run into a guy who's clearly looking for a confrontation and you're hypothetically on official business with us. You have a laminate or a badge, so you're technically in a position of authority. You can go full-bore and subdue the guy, maybe miss out on the chance of learning that he's a registered schizophrenic having a fit - or you can keep your gun raised but your finger away from the trigger. You then keep the guy in place with your gun, radio for backup, then have him carted off. You're not showing the other guy that you're spineless or unwilling to fight; you're showing him that fighting is a last resort for you.

The Goat's expecting us to bow down, he's not expecting us to take the fight to another battlefield - one where our tactical advantage is considerable. By giving him ground, that's what we're setting up. Besides, he'd be suspicious if his first few demonic incursions didn't result in people picking up guns to re-enact Doom levels. Heck, that's how things have been going so far!"

Marko seemed to agree. "You have to ease the frog into the water - then heat it up. Your quarry will simply run if you don't behave as should be expected. He expects you to attack, because we were only sent to calculate our own numbers. The first official waves were already told not to attack. They need you to stumble, open fire first. They need you ashamed. They need you contrite. They know how sensitive the later generations are considering snap judgments. A play from the Sammaelites' own book."

Three scoffed. "I'm not comfortable with the idea of genuine Infernal assholes claiming the moral high grounds on the notion of the faithful of this world unloading at the first sight of things with red skin and horns...
- Yet, that is what they will do," replied the newborn Jenkins. "They admittedly have thousands of years of inured cultural hypocrisy to capitalize on."

* * *

Tom smirked. "My friends can wait long enough for you to finish," he said. "Pull up a stool, I won't have you munching on pizza standing up."

Mary's comment about him having proven to be interesting amused him, however. "So, now that you've had to spend a few hours around two of the Pit's more congenial gentlemen, am I still rubbing you the wrong way?"

He chuckled. "Don't take this too personally, I'm just trying to figure out how many drinks I'll have to tab you for before you start spilling trade secrets I could bribe you with for favors. You know, as you do."

He winked for good measure.
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Re: Chapter III: The Fall

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Abraham shook his head. "Everything in me says that surrendering to the likes of the Black Goat, even for a greater advantage later, is... is just wrong. No matter how you argue or spin it." He gave his boss an apologetic look, but he did not bend. "If this is your plan, I cannot agree to it. I will fight the Goat with all I have, even if it is fruitless, even if I am alone. To tell me the odds is just to spur me on harder."

"Yer ain't alone, Abraham," Charles replied, putting a hand on his man's shoulder. "Sure we'll fight, you 'n me. 'n we'll leave th' bright boys t' their stuff, aye?"

"I was supposed to be one of the bright boys," the Israeli muttered, looking away, trying not to act sullen.

----------------------------------

"How many drinks... what?" Mary replied, looking confused. "Run that part about bribes by me again?"
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Re: Chapter III: The Fall

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"I doubt anyone here is expecting you to agree to it, mister Zahavi," noted Curran. "If I'm not mistaken, Marko did mention you'd have opportunities to fight. I like to go one step further, however, and see that Marko is arguing for the tactical value of compassion, of careful deliberation. After all, you've already saved one soul today. Maybe there's hope for more of the Damned."

He shrugged lightly. "I understand that it might be difficult to see this from your current perspective. You're told to be on your guard while lowering your guard, you're told that actively eliminating a threat could be detrimental... I'd be worried as well."

Marko nodded at that. "Do what you think is best. You've saved me, the least I can do is trust you. Just - keep an open mind. Be aware of opportunities as they happen. Maybe you'll win this by the sword, and maybe words will deliver the final blow. Maybe both at once."

Three took a few moments to gaze at a few stained-glass windows. "The morals I had back in Afghanistan have been working well for me, so far. I'll attack whatever's attacking us, keep an eye on whoever's keeping their distance, and watch out for people who might see things the way we do. Seeing as even demons can have doubts, I'd be crazy to attack anyone who's asking for help. If there's traps hidden in that logic, I'll deal with them in due time. There's no sense worrying over what I can't predict."

* * *

Tom rubbed one of his tusks and shook his head slightly. "Sorry, that must've been the pizza grease and the leftover woodcutting calculations cluttering my mind... I was joking and asking if you'd be fine with me bribing you for information from time to time, as a result of us working together. You know, congenial demon running a gray-area nightclub, my generally existing in a moral, supernatural and ethical Switzerland and all..."

He coughed. "In other words, am I managing to slowly pull you out of your earlier reticence towards us supernaturals?"
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Re: Chapter III: The Fall

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For a moment, it seemed like Abraham was going to continue arguing, but then he shook his head. He was not in the habit of justifying his decisions. "Be that as it may, we should show our new friend around town," he said. "Or at least, take him back to the Hall, so the others can take his measure as well."

-----------------------------------

"All by yourself? No," Mary said bluntly. "But you and the others, certainly. You have to understand, I am the way I am because others are the way they are, or were. You know?" She guzzled some soda and went on eating, one eye on Tom and the rest.
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Re: Chapter III: The Fall

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Marko seemed uncertain. "I don't mind meeting them, but I don't see myself as a fighter. I was coaxed into acting as a scout, forced to do it."

He pursed his lips together. "Belial first made me for his forge. I'll fashion metal for you or your friends, but I won't hold a weapon again."

* * * 

"Well," countered Tom, grin etched on his face, "those who made you the way you are received their comeuppance. One day, the Fates willing, you'll see that. At that point in Time, Club Ishtar's most eclectic melting pot of cultures, arcane statuses, forms of life and variable talents will be waiting for you with open arms."

He gestured at the club. "None of this is about me, Mary. It's about you. You, Aislinn, Aidan, Archie and Bucky. Dancer and Eyes and Warrior. This is for Meris and her friends, for Naberius and Samigina. It's also for Matriel and his wife, Hanako. It's for Melmoth, too, who desperately wants to stop pretending he has a shred of evil left in his body. It's for poor Frank Lambert, who was used and abused throughout all this and who was forced to commit unspeakable acts in the name of entities he barely grasped. Acts that hurt you and all of the world's Transhumans and cyborgs. If we play our cards right, maybe Heaven's more progressive corps will come out of the woodwork and endorse this place, what this represents."

He pursed his lips together. "Lucifer, you could also argue I'm also doing this for Nereus, Meris' beau... There just can't be progress, advancement, growth, if there's no place for exchanges to take place. Iram touched on fun as the wick for the flame of grand ideas, and then excessively fed that fire. I know you have to feed that fire, temper the warmth, and then direct those involved to the real table - where what starts as a friendship between cocktails and pizza slices becomes something bigger, bolder."

He smiled again. "I want you safe and loose, Mary. One day, I'll get you to come here and hang your sword and fighting reflexes by the door, all so Party Animal You and Business Maverick You have all the space they'd need to make sparks fly."

He then gave Aislinn a conspiratorial side-eye. "Speaking of, I might need to tweak your Rolodex again, Mary... Gubbin needs a decent place to hang his coattails, and Aislinn spends way too much time tidying things up in her studio over actually creating designs. It's cramping her ward work."

Leaning on the bar, he smiled at the selkie. "Don't think I didn't notice you straining against the lattice designs for this place's sustaining columns. You're intuitive and perceptive as a tattoo artist, but you're still referring to designed cadged from the Institute when it comes to sealing via in concrete pillars. Wide-ranging jobs like this and the Courthouse don't do well with via that's been forced to go places."

The warthog looked back to Mary. "Seeing as the Sin Seven started out as a store-owners' association a few centuries before the Jameson brand would make them skyrocket, I'm wondering if you know anyone who could work with small-scale refacing projects; designers who might've worked with either you or Auntie Song... I'm not saying where or when in front of a certain selkie, but I'd be open to letting a lady-friend of mine into this little conspiracy..."
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Re: Chapter III: The Fall

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Aislinn shot him an amused look. "What are you up to, you devious incubus?" she asked rhetorically, knowing he wouldn't tell her what he was planning.
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