Roleplaying
2004 Archive
2005 Archive
Seminars
| When: | 22 April 2005 |
| Who: | Christina, Daevon, Damien, Soludarius, Tymel |
| What: | The night before, Tymel learned a good amount of Truth from Sandra. Now he's been stalking Damien to talk to him, and corners him at Fado's. Damien makes a vague promise to tell Tymel his whole story, and does. Tymel makes the mistake of verifying its Symphonic accuracy and gets more than he was intending, leaving Tymel distraught and Damien feeling guilty. |
Fado Irish Pub and Restaurant
Fado's has become a hotspot for many of the locals. The place is split between three different sections, the bar and tavern in one room, another room for the restaurant, and an outside patio area as an extension of the restaurant; all of which are no smoking. The owner, Tyrr Ceallaghan, opened Fado's two years ago and has advertised and made enough deals to watch it grow.
The bar and tavern room has a counter top bar where any of the patrons can sit and talk with the bartenders or their fellow patrons. Near the bar there are a few tables where anyone can sit with friends, share a drink, and just have a good time.
The restaurant and patio area is your classic walk in dine-in restaurant, with different celtic elements on the walls and in the way the rooms are built. The waitresses and waiters are dressed in all black, and always very courteous, as the owners insist on top quality customer service.
The youth nods for a few moments, "Well.. hopefully, she'll come to consider me a friend, at least." He smiles for a moment, then hums lightly, consideringly. He sips on his tonic, or orders a tonic water if he hasn't done so yet. "She seems a very generous spirit. She likes to help people achieve their potential.. to help them overcome their pasts and reach for better things, even if it's difficult? A social worker, yes?"
Damien raises one thin eyebrow, and takes a long drag off his cigarette, taps it out, and then leans it against the ash tray. He blows out the smoke away from Tymel, and then says, "Sandra believes in her job with her entire heart and soul. It's one of the reasons why it's so easy to fall in love with her."
Tymel nods, "I hope to do be able to do that sort of thing, sometime.. though I don't really have the ability now." He shrugs apologetically, "She really believes in you, too. I hope that you both succeed, in that respect."
Damien's other eyebrow joins the first and he says very slowly, "What is it you really want to talk about, Tymel?" He draws out the kid's name into two long syllables: Tyyyy-mellll.
Tymel coughs and blushes a little bit, glancing down and dipping his fingertip into the little ring of water that condensed of the side of his glass and using it to trace abstract patterns on the bar. "Well. Ah. I'm curious, you see..."
Damien picks up his smoke, takes a long, thoughtful drag, blows out the smoke, and asks, "Am I going to need a drink? Because this is the best place for it." He starts flagging down the bartender. "Hey! Excuse me! I need a double Maker's Mark over ice!"
Tymel blinks, looking momentarily confused, "Why would you need a drink?" He looks at you for a few moments, then ehs faintly, going back to his drink and looking into the middle distance, his gaze aimed towards the back of the bar but unfocused. He murmurs, "Just curious.. Damiel.. mm. I don't have very much experience with.... very much at all, really."
"I'm seeing that," Damien says as he fishes around for his wallet and, presumably, money for a drink. He keeps his voice low. "When Sandra and I discussed, briefly, sharing information, I had expressed some small interest in it. Mostly, I meant telling Genevieve, but I haven't seen her and then I chickened out and never got around to it. I guess Sandra took it upon herself to talk to others of her kind." He finds his wallet, and pulls out a $10. He drops it on the bar. "I don't blame her, really. What did she tell you, exactly? Now I'm all curious."
The youth grins mischeviously for a moment, "Well.. um. She didn't really intend to tell me anything, to be honest." Ty glances back up to you, his expression returning to neutral, "I was curious about you, since you knew her, so I asked her about you. I listened to what she said... and listened to how she said it. I didn't expect to hear as much as I did."
Damien succeeds in waving down the bartender, and puts in an order for a drink. Then he turns back to Tymel, and looks him over critically again. "I don't know what you heard, or how much. Sandra just..." He trails off and heaves a sigh. "Why don't you ask your questions and I'll do my very best to answer them and I promise to keep it as close to the truth as possible."
Tymel hums faintly and glances around for a moment, "Is it okay to talk, here? I don't wish to cause any of what I learned to spread about, really... I didn't think I was going to end up being as invasive as I was."
Damien looks around and says, "We can move to a booth, if you'd feel more comfortable. I don't feel comfortable bringing you back to my place, though. No offense, I just don't. We can go hide in a library at the University, maybe. A booth is probably fine."
Tymel nods softly, "I understand your reluctance, certainly.. ah.. a booth is good, then." He gets his drink refilled, then picks it up carefully, nursing on the straw for a few moments and looking around, "Library seems a bit excessive?'
Damien gets his whiskey, and he throws back about half of it the moment it arrives. He then stubs out his cigarette, picks up his newspaper, and gets up off his stool. Luckily, this time in the afternoon Fado's is clearing out in preparation for the evening rush, so there are plenty of booths. He finds one way in a corner in the back, and slides on in.
Tymel winces slightly at the sudden and fairlyt impressive drink, then trails after Damien, glass in hand, and slides into the booth so chosen. He places his drink down carefully, biting his lower lip for a moment or two and waiting for Damien to get settled in. "I.. I do realize that this is probably not particularly welcome.. and I apologize, again."
"It was going to happen sooner or later," Damien admits, toying with his glass. "And you're not coming at me with an axe. So make yourself comfortable and ask your questions."
Tymel grins slightly, "I wouldn't know what to do with an axe." He shrugs lightly, then sips his drink for a moment. "So. Um. I know your general affiliation.. but may I ask as to a more specific one?"
Damien considers for a moment, and then says, "I work for Prince Kobal."
Tymel ahhs softly. Well, at least it's not Kronos. "What's that.. like, may I ask? And what Ch.. Band are you a part of of?" He watches curiously, hands wrapped around his glass.
Damien sighs again, and adheres to his promise to answer all questions. "I'm an Impudite. No, I'm not going to suck your soul. Working for Kobal means working all the time. He runs a large, unruly band of bitter, disaffected intellectuals, all of which think they're all smarter than their friends, and he keeps us all going with constant cattle prods."
Roll by: Tymel .-----. .-----. .-----. |* *| |* | | *| | * | | * | | | |* *| | *| |* | '-----' '-----' '-----' Tymel hmms softly, "Well.. I'd rather you didn't suck my soul, really." He nods solemnly, then hehs faintly for a moment. Ty tilts his head slightly to one side, "Have you always worked for Kobal..?" He humms, "I know a bit about the work that you are intended to do.."
Damien gets a hard look in his eyes, and then throws back the rest of his drink in one smooth motion. He sighs, and looks away from Tymel, and says, "No. No, I haven't always worked for Prince Kobal."
Tymel reaches across the table to pat the back of Damien's hand gently. "If you are willing to talk about it.. I would very much like to listen." Ty looks at Damien sympathetically and a bit worriedly.
Damien looks at Tymel and says, "You'll just get it all out of Sandra anyway, sooner or later. I wasn't always a _demon_, let alone working for Kobal. It's a long story."
Tymel hehs faintly, "I don't want to upset her further.. and I'd much rather hear it from you." He shrugs a moment, "That way.. you can decide what to reveal, as well. There are certain things that I am meant to.. that I feel justified in investigating. But there are no such necessities in your case, I think."
"Well," Damien says, "I made that strange promise to you to answer all your questions, so what the hell. I'll answer all of your questions as candidly as I can. I don't think I can lose anything by answering, can I? You already said you're not going to kill me, so I think we can find a perfectly good middle ground here."
Tymel smiles, "Sounds reasonable.. and no, I don't think you stand to lose anyhting by answering. Mmm... how did you come to be in the service of Kobal, then, might I ask? You may ask questions of me as well, if you like.."
"I, uh..." Damien gets a far away look in his eyes. "I, um. I. Maybe I should start from the beginning, and maybe not in the middle? Then you can ask more probing questions afterwards." Tymel mms, "In media res is a difficult sort of thing, at times, and can be confusing." He shrugs and spreads his hands for a moment, "My time is yours."
Damien shifts uncomfortably, and then reaches into his coat pocket. "I'm going to smoke, if you don't mind." He pulls out the pack and shakes out a cigarette. "I'm not technically addicted to them, but it's my very favorite human habit, and having something to gesture with and the drug effects help me get my thoughts in order." He pulls out his lighter, lights up, and takes a long drag. Then he shifts a bit so he's staring out the window and not looking directly at Tymel.
"In what feels like a million years ago, I fledged under Judgment. When I think of the concept of 'my father,' I still think of Dominic. Stern, unyielding, rigid, conservative, but still my progenitor. I studied to be a theologian a hundred, hundred lifetimes ago, and was assigned into a triad with the requisite seraph and cherub. And we worked, and it was good, and we were happy." Damien takes a long drag off his cigarette. "And I knew nothing else, until I was assigned to look into the well-being of an Ofanite of Fire named Raimetheryn, who had gone to sing the words of God with her Superior, Gabriel, to the Prophet Mohammad at the Kasbah in Mecca. Raimetheryn was a poet, an artist, a beautiful soul beyond compare and I fell in love with her." He takes another long drag. "And I fell hard for her and she fell in love with me. My desert rose. When I was released from the triad to work in the communities of fair Toledo," he pronounces it To-lay-do, "into the Jewish communities among the Moors, she came to me on her great swings through Islamic Northern Africa and the Middle East, tracking down lost books and poems from kings and monestaries. And I was a Rabbi instructing on the will of God and the Law, and she would come to me whenever she could, and she would flit among the powerful and bring them the passion of the Prophet and the One God. And my God, I loved her." He takes another drag. "And in time, she became closer to me than any other being, closer even than my Triad brothers or my fledge brothers. She was my wife, in a more human sense of the word, and my lover, and my soul. I was, later, assigned to Venice to help out in the ghettos as the Jews were being persecuted by the Catholics and set to the flame and torture by the Inquisition. Rem went to Damascus. This was the 16th century. And word came to me that something was wrong, very wrong, with Rem." He pauses, and takes another long drag.
"By the time I got to Heaven, there was already a full inquiry on Raimetheryn. I went to Dominic personally and got on my knees and begged for him to let me bring her in. I believed I could save her. We loved each other. If she could not listen to the words of love, who else could she listen to? He begrudgingly gave into my request, and only because I had been so steadfast for so very long. It was a long chase to Damascus. She was always one step ahead of me and my Triad brothers. She fled like the wind across the desert sands, but I did, in time catch up with her. I broke away from my brothers, hoping to talk some sense into her. But I didn't know... I didn't know... I didn't know how gone she was. She pulled me off my horse. She stabbed me, and left me there to die on the desert sands. She fought my Triad brothers with her sword. They saved me and hauled everyone back to Heaven where they awaited the Inquiry." He stops here for a long minute, and looks at his cigarette instead. "She was... she was... she was more Calabite than anything else. We judged her guilty. My triad found her unfit, and ordered the final solution. She died screaming my name and damning me to Hell for eternity."
Tymel nods slowly, listening intently through the entirety of the story. The youth winces slightly on occasion as the narrative flows over him... he's young in a Celestial sense as well, new to Earth and new to the sweep of the conflicts between the divine and the infernal. "Something had happened to her... she could not have started that way, could she?"
"The Fire that burns," Damien says flatly. "The eternal Jihad. The Crusaders into the Holiest of Holys. The Crusaders must be punished for what they did, and the British were just starting to colonize because f the Spice routes. She murdered an entire village of Syrian Orthodox Christians, including children, with her sword."
Tymel ahs faintly and nods a little bit. "That.. that.... I see..." He works his throat a moment, then takes a long drink to dry it before coughing softly and clearing it. "That must have been... I cannot imagine how you felt."
"I went stumbling along for quite a long time," Damien explains, and takes another long drag on his cigarette. "And during that time, we hunted down, captured, tried, and executed one of my fledge brothers. I couldn't take it any more. I went to Dominic, again, on my knees. I said, 'Please Father, please. I feel I am going mad. Please reassign me.'
"He did. Dominic sent me to England as an Anglican priest to study at Oxford, to learn all I could about Christianity, and then teach. He felt the proper way for a Mercurian to get his bearings was to teach and report in every week. And I did this for years while gradually growing more and more numb. I can remember the day I bought the ticket." Damien taps out his cigarette, puts it out, and then starts lighting a second. "I reported in, didn't bother to pack, climbed onto a boat headed for the Colonies, and left that afternoon. The change happened to me somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. One long night that has never, ever ended." He takes a drag on the new cigarette. "A night where I sat on deck staring at the moon and willed Silence. I'm still living that night, you see. No running or hiding or playing Outcast games for me. Sometimes, our place in the universe is a matter of will and belief." He pauses and says, "The Game was waiting for me right there on the dock the moment I got off the boat with their job offers. Who knows how the little bastards knew." Tymel mms very softly, drinking slowly from an empty glass, apparently not having noticed it's state. "Knowledge comes in mysterious ways, at times..." He humms faintly for a moment, "How long as hit been.. since you joined the Game? Did it offer any solace, at first...?" Damien laughs out loud. It cracks like a whip across the table, that strange, eerie, half-insane Kobalite laugh. "I never joined the Game, Tymel. Never, ever, ever."
Tymel blinks.. and licks his lips for a moment before extending a hand hesitantly, "I.. will you allow me...?" He gulps softly, glancing around for a moment before looking back up to Damien's face, the youth pale and looking rather stunned by now.
Damien says, "I was going to tell you about the Man, but sure." He reaches out and takes Tymel's hand with the hand not holding his cigarette. You paged Tymel and Kacela with 'It's so much easier when life is a little bit Funny.'
Tymel blinks.. and grins slightly, "I.. I can wait. Considering how much I wish to put behind this, I can only try once.. and will have to wait for some time afterwards." Ty withdraws his hand, leaving it on the table. "Please.. continue your story?"
Damien nods, and takes a long drag off his cigarette. "So the Game was waiting for me with a package deal of triads and a title -- a title! -- and flunkies and the whole bit. I had never had any of this stuff, and it sounded comforting, you know, the same work I had always done but I didn't have to think about Rem anymore. I could just go indulge and stop feeling guilty and whatever. I was thinking about it when in the Year of Our Lord 1757 in a dingy bar in New York City, a city then and now filled with thieves and scum and villany, I met a man in a bar. And the man talked to me." He takes another drag, and then sings along with Dire Straits... "'I can still here his laughter, I can still hear his song. The Man's too big; the Man's too strong.'" He contemplates Tymel for a moment and then says, "The man promised me nothing. No flunkies. No titles. No packages. He gave the right to wallow in my own bitterness and grief. He allowed me to hate the War, and the games that get played, and the little skirmish battles that come to naught. He showed me to a seat on the side instead of playing in the middle, and to use the intelligence my Creator built into me to appreciate the spectacle of the crass and utter stupidity of angels and demons going at each other forever. And to laugh at it. Because if I didn't laugh at it, I was going to tear my eyeballs out with my own fingernails. Because if I didn't laugh at it, I was going to kill myself." He looks at his cigarette. "And so I said yes, and I'd be lying to you Tymel if I didn't think it wasn't great fun for a really long time. But that kind of terrible grief, even it burns itself out after a while, and then what?"
Tymel chews on his straw, staring at you and nodding slowly, biting lightly down his lip. He stays silent for a few minutes, just watching you quietly. Ty sighs shudderingly, then, and tilts his head lightly to one side, "What do you plan now...? Do you have a goal.. a task.. a dream?"
Damien slouches in his seat, and slides down a bit. He contemplates his cigarette. "I'm on the Kobalite hampster-wheel. Everything is living from one Funny to the next. Every day, I have to do _something_, or else things get bad. It's how he keeps a whole bunch of super intelligent beings from storming the castle. And he's bored, so there's this persistant feeling of, 'What have you done for me today?' So my mind keeps turning back to, well, what can I do? What haven't I done? Why am I not working? It's hard to get out of that mode of thinking when it's sort of baked into who you are. It's great when you're having a great time with it, but right now, it's a strain. I feel like the floor of a cab most of the time. I don't tell Sandra most of what I'm up to. She gets very disappointed, and then I get disappointed and then we're into a big spiral of feeling sorry for ourselves and that's not terribly productive." He takes in a drag, and puffs out smoke. "I'd like to get off the wheel. I'd like to go into law. I'd like to be in a position where I'm fighting for something worthwhile again, something that means something again. I'm not passive enough to follow Sandra to Dream, I don't think. I need something that will let me be the diplomat I was trained to be and fight with rhetoric and word. That's what I want." He stabs out his second smoke. "But that's not going to happen, because Redemption means no more Earth for me. I already fell off the wagon once, they're not going to let me come back here even if I do manage to go home. So that kind of nips all my dreams in the bud."
Tymel extends his hand again, nodding slowly, "I... There's always a way, I think. Once I can, if you wish.. I can listen to the symphony to hear of the possibilities.. or ask my own master. Though they say that hope is the ultimate cruelty.. you -do- still now have something to fight for. Something worthwhile, at that. You can fight for your self.. for your soul and your spirit. Even if you are forced to march in one path, the fact that your mind has not surrendered entirely to it means that you have -not- failed. Everyone has a bright destiny... your search has been harder than I can truly understand, but your fate cannot be sealed until the very end of things." He mms softly, "After.. after I attempt.. and after I have had time to rest.. I shall try to speak to Destiny, if you wish. Perhaps there is some way that you have not yet been able to see.. or which simply has yet to be revealed."
Damien takes Tymel's hand. "Do whatever," Damien says, "you feel is best."
Tymel bites his lip lightly, "Would you be willing... I do not want to fail in this... to lend me strength, afterwards? Enough so that I can flee if need be, before I have a chance to recover strength?"
Damien considers Tymel for a time, and then says, "Sure, I'll refill you."
Roll by: Tymel .-----. .-----. .-----. |* *| | | |* *| | * | | * | |* *| |* *| | | |* *| '-----' '-----' '-----' Tymel concentrates a moment (and a disturbance at 8 rings out). He stares at Damien, working his jaw for a few moments, eyes wide. The youth emits a very small whimper, gaze locked and unfocused, gripping Damien's hand tightly.
Damien watches what happens to Tymel, and then first looks very sad, and then mouths the word, "Fuck." He reaches over and puts his other hand on top of the first, so he's holding Tymel's hand. "Ty? You okay?"
Daevon walks in the door. His eyes looking around.
Roll by: Soludarius .-----. .-----. .-----. |* *| | | |* *| |* *| | * | | * | |* *| | | |* *| '-----' '-----' '-----' Christina darts in abruptly and does a similar job of taking stock of the situation, though she at least offers an explanation for her appearance. "Okay, who's making all the noise and why?"
Tymel is sitting in a booth with Damien, his hand between two of Damien's. He looks somewhat frozen. After a few moments he shakes his head slightly, mumbling under his breath, "Unexpected consequence. Pay no mind. Small mistake." The youth stares blankly at the wall behind Damien.
Damien says quietly, soothingly, across the table of the booth, still holding the kid's hands, "Come on, Ty. It's okay. I'm sorry about that. Just relax. It's okay."
Christina nods. "Okay, but still. I need to file a report about the disturbance upstairs. My job to keep them informed of what's going on. Just gimme a blurb, I'll be out of your way." Daevon walks over and says, "Well.. hello Mr. Hirsch... Ty... ", He looks around the room and murmurs, "Need.. any help here, he looks to be in shock.?", while grabbing a chair and sitting nearby.
Damien doesn't even give anyone else the time of day. He doesn't even look at them. He keeps his hands clasped on Tymel's, and continues to speak soothing words to the kid across the table.
Now, Tymel looks like he's in shock and Damien is holding both of Tymel's hands across the table and trying to talk Tymel down. There was a level 8 disturbance that happened."
Tymel turns slightly towards Christina, taking a few moments to process what she said before nodding a little, "Inexperience. Spent essence." Ty sighs softly and turns his head back to look to Damien, his gaze finally refocusing. "... m'sorry."
Damien doesn't let go of Tymel's hands. "You have nothing to be sorry about. I thought you were a little more ready. I should have thought about it. Are you going to be okay, Ty?"
Christina smiles warmly. "S'okay. We all have off days occasionally. Thank you." And then she zips away again.
Normally, around this time, Father Dae would be enjoying a nice relaxing dinner, and read the paper of the day. Unfortunately, however, this was disturbed from where he was in his Rectory. The disturbance rippled throughout the area, and forced him to attend to the matter at hand.
Making a quick movement into the establishment, Daevon looks around the area, and he tries to use both his corporeal senses, and his celestial powers to determine where the Disturbance came from.
Daevon just watches Ty, Trying to ascertain if the man blew a fuse or if he's merely in shock. You paged Sandra with 'Poor Ty.'
Tymel doesn't look to have smoke coming from his ears, but he's certainly in shock. He mms very softly, nodding slightly to Damien, "Will be, I think." His voice hasn't really come back yet.
After a few more moments of sniffing around mentally, Daevon moves into the backroom, and swiftly opens the door. The Man in the Roman collar looks around the room and he spots Tymel. A faint look of recognition appears in Dae's eyes, but he does not touch on that fact yet, "What happened?"
Damien loosens his grip on Tymel's hands but doesn't let them go quite yet. "I think what you need are a few stiff drinks in you, kiddo." He starts to vaguely notice all the other people collecting about now, and frowns a bit, then turns back to Tymel. Daevon looks to the man entering the place and smiles to himself. HE begins taking mental note of everyone dropping by.
Agent Douglas had just arrived back into town the previous evening and was leaving the downtown area after dinner when he heard the disturbance and made his way slowly to the source. Upon entering the building he takes a casual look about the room for anything that looks out of place as he takes a seat at a table. Kedar seems to focus on the menu but tries to listen in on the conversations around him to see if any might give him a clue as to the source of the disturbance.
The ghost of a smile passes over Ty's face, and he nods slightly. "Mmm. Pity you finished yours, already." He closes his eyes for a few moments, breathing out in a quick rush of air. The youth puts his other hand on top of Damien's and squeezes the man's hand gently, his grip finally starting to loosen. "Thank you for not letting go.."
Damien says quietly to Ty, "I would not have ever let go," as the phone in his jacket starts to go off. Damien gets an exquisitely pained look on his face. "That's my life calling for me, Ty. I can't ignore it. Not right now. I have to leave you. Can I give you to someone? Should I call Sandra?"
Daevon smiles, "I will handle it,... Go to your meetings."
Daevon stands and moves over to the table. He looks at Tymel and pats him on the shoulder. "He's a trooper and will pull himself around."
Tymel mmms faintly and leans back, nodding, "Ah.. I understand, certainly. I.. I think I'll be okay..." He glances over to Daevon, apparently seeing him for the first time. The youth blinks, then nods to him, "Hello, again." He lets go of Damien's hands, "Take care.."
Damien finally lets Tymel's hands go. He starts to slide out of the booth and flags down a waitress while he reaches for his phone. "I'll get with you later Tymel." He nods to Daevon and says, "Thanks. I owe you one." He sighs, gives Fado's a look around, and heads out of the bar.
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