Ascension Council [Attn: All The Last Day SL]

[-ix-]

Kalen walks in, surprisingly quietly for someone who limps as heavily as he does. The room gets a single sweep of his eyes by way of evaluation. Grace, Garrett, and even Sera get easy smiles. Lena, Shoshannah, and Trent get slightly more guarded smiles and faint nods. Strangers get just the barest dip of his head and smiles that are polite but have no real warmth at all.

He settles near where Garrett is, not making any rounds to do up close greetings, flopping back into the couch with a sigh. Sera is perched on the back of the couch like some manner of gargoyle, but that seems to bother Kalen not at all. He pulls a map out of an inside jacket pocket, turning it over in his hands idly.

And strangers who approach can get handshakes and the short version of his introduction, "Kalen Holliday, bani Flambeau." But he does not make an announcement out of that introduction.

[mnemosyne]

Sera, see, she finishes that beer pretty quickly while waiting for the other mages to filter into the rec room. Sliiiiides off the spine of the couch, where she sits, and wanders back to the kitchen to drop the bottle in the recycling bin and grab another, a pumpkin ale this time. And what the fuck probably a bottle of whiskey as well. Tequila doesn't seem like it'd go with pumpkin fucking ale does it, even with a chaser. Two completely difference aesthetics.

The heavy leather jacket hangs open to frame the slices of denim / skin / leather / skin defined by her revealing clothing and she wanders back into the room with a sort of hip-slung gait. She retakes her position - yes, like a gargoyle - on the spine of the couch, but this time has the grace to kick off her heels. She does not have the grace to put them away properly, so they are just laying there on the floor, all akimbo.

Sera chats with Sid, telling some involved story that includes a pizza delivery guy, three guinea pigs, and possibly Pike's Peak or bowling, it is hard to say. When Shoshannah comes in Sera asks if she did the decorations outside. When this is affirmed, "Cool." More folks enter. Arrange themselves and then rearrange themselves. The Hermetics or at least one endenger Sid's retreat to the corner by Shoshannah, and Lena and Grace and Whitney all follow to cluster around around them.

Lena gets a lift of Sera's beer and Grace gets a great big grin and a reach of Sera's wiggling fingers all let-me-ruffle-your hair. Sera raises her (second) beer (of the meeting, not the afternoon) in greeting to Whitney, too, another arc of surprise at the revelation of her Tradition, but that's really all.

Garrett gets a look and a look around the room and a look-back and then a quick, ironic smirk-of-a-grin. Her own straight brows spike into twin arcs, or rather will spike into twin arcs, when Garrett introduces himself to the group with all those Hermetic honorifics. She manages to contain

The Many Hermetics (well just the two, strangers both and then Kalen) are a surprise and when Trent comes up to Sera to introduce himself she does take his hand. Shifts her beer from right to left and wipes away the condensation on her thigh and reaches up to shake. Another ironic little half-smile twists her mouth as he introduces himself.

"Serafíne," she says, not to the room-at-large but directly to Trent. "Call-me-Sera. Slytherin."

To Táltos, a sweep of the whiskey bottle by way of offering.

To Kalen, the quick flash of a peace sign, which reveals the tattoo on her left hand. The blades of a pair of scissors on index and middle fingers, the handles on her palm, one of the loops of the handles turning into a shark. As scissor-handles do, no doubt at least on some planet far stranger than this one.

--

In all honesty, there is a bit more of this fucking sitting around. Milling about. There is some background coughing, the sort that happens during the interstitial period between the chaos of the orchestra tuning and the moment the concertmaster steps in to tame them. Everyone's trying to get it out of the way before the conductor gets on stage.

Sera is pretty much thinking that someone should start this fucking thing already it is so fucking boring and then she's gradually realizing that no one's starting this thing and she realizes with a sort of dawning horror that fuck, maybe she's going to have to start this thing.

And it is a kind of horror, and not because she is scared of public speaking (ha ha ha ha ha) but more that organization is not her fucking thing. Ask anyone who has been in her bedroom and stumbled over the chainsaw carving of a frog on his or her way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

---

"So." Finally, and the thing is when Sera wants to be heard, she will be heard. "We're here to talk about that fucking movie, and where it is, and shit. And who's gonna get it back. And I guess anything else anybody wants to fucking talk about.

"Joseph Keller took it out of the theater, called his partners afterward and headed off. Jim and Sid and I met with his partners and got the address of his place in the mountains. That's where we figure he headed."

[FadedNoel]

It's not that Grace doesn't want to help, it's more that she doesn't think she can do much more than she already has. But still, information is her thing, and the fact that the film has been maybe located means a good deal. She pulls out her cell phone, making sure that none of the new information goes missed. Ginger will hear about this.

"Can somebody not do that scrying thing on this guy's house? Might help whoever has to go to the place," she says, head buried in her phone. She's obviously not including herself in that "whoever".

[CourtCat]

"I can scry," comes not-quite-shyly from Shoshannah where she sits holding Sid's hand as long as she wants it held, and glaring at the person who made the Orphan feel like she needed it - in this case, Taltos who the younger Dreamspeaker has nothing against, doesn't even know, but will definitely kick in the shins if he makes one of her very few friends feel unsafe or in any way bad. "I'll stay here to keep care of this place, but I can peek at what you're getting into, if you want."

[Shayla]

Mara's late to the ball as you would say. Coming in from the wilderness where it was still warm enough to stay outside watching over the Chantries several acres. She slides into the room as they are in the middle of discussing scrying on Joshua Kellers place up in the mountains and she offers with a quick. "I can do a bit of recon, physical recon mind ya." She says as she nods to everyone in the room.

"Way things are I figure some onsight intel would be a little more spot on then any of us trying to scry at that distance with so little to tie us to the place other then an address." She leans against a wall then, folding her arms across her chest as she watches and waits.

[Joey]

Jim clears his throat.

Oh, yes. Jim must be there to clear his throat.

Or, if a Jim clears his throat and no one is there to hear it, does what he say after matter? But this Ecstatic isn’t just talking to himself. He’s there.

We’ll start this way, instead…

Jim gets there. He’s the scruffy gentlemen of some six feet who wanders in at some point or another. The one in the dark ash grey sweatpants and a heavy knit sweater held closed by toggles. He pads up in New Balance sneakers and leans in the door frame. That’s from where Jim hears a bit of what is said.

What Serafine gets up to say - oh, yes, he’d seen that look of horror on her face and even lingered near the edge of that entrance to that living room turned into assembly area or staging ground depending on the listener to what’s being said. And he’d waited for her to pipe up and say what needed saying for whatever reason he has for doing so. Lets others give their suggestions and offers of aid and tracking down Keller, information on Keller, intelligence on the whereabouts of the movie, all of this.

And that’s when Jim clears his throat. Not for maximum effect, but because he’s taken a sip of whiskey-over-rocks and what he said will not sound so good with a spirit rasped voice. He clears his throad and swallows so instead his voice comes deep and smooth.

"Keller-not-Keller. Keller possessed? By whatever is in the film or whatever is on the otherside or whatever other minions might already be serving it on this side. Or maybe it’s Keller awakened? Which could just be the re-awakened avatar of the original filmmaker, the Hermetic we now know to be Montanaro, who was executed by his tradition, but whose avatar was left intact to awaken again. If that avatar was too drenched in jhor or subverted by whatever spirit he was trying to capture in there it might explain his hard-on for the film, for showing it, and for the resulting violence," and there are words that Jim says with an inflection. Not just because they’re the most proper of nouns or the terminologies of will workers. Instead with a heavy heart that comes from parted lips amidst mustache-turning-to-beard. Words that ring a little clearer than others because of his distaste for them. Words like violence that get the most careful attention. Caution. Seem to stir up the most inner conflict.

"If the film’s a gateway another could be created. If the avatar is a servitor of darker entities, it might not give up so easily. He might not give up so easily. If it comes to it and another incarnation of that life ends brought to an end what’ll keep from it awakening in another. And like it did 1949, and like it did this past September, it could all happen again," something he sounds loath to allow happen. He seems to worry about those hypothetical bodies this thing might leave in its wake in the future as he does the ones it already has and the ones it threatens all around him. "Putting this film behind a vault door doesn’t seem to be a long term solution anymore, though, so getting it back and handing it over to those who’ve lost it before? I don’t know if that’s a solution either."

"Sleepers seem to only get this thing so far, though, and there’s the chance he’s popped his head up just to get our attention. A few bodies to put Technocrats and the Traditions on his trail when we’re all so thin after the Reckoning. And maybe this easy-to-ferret-out cabin in the woods is just a way to get the kind of audience he’s going for - the right demographic - in one place for a final viewing. A final summoning," he ventures next.

"Scrying and spying are options. They definitely are," like he isn’t discounting the ideas entirely. But he continues in a way that says, I feel this must also be said, because he does: "But when you peek those you gaze upon might gaze back. No matter how careful we are. Or even that the Technocrats might tie us up in the mess we’re now tied up in, whether we like it or not. If Keller or whatever controls the film has enough skill with the magic or chance and fate it may help him know that we are coming."

"I have one proposition. If the Technocrats know of this film and may now be after Keller, we make a gesture in good faith. When magically empowered drugs were going around we recovered them to neutralize the threat it was presenting to Denver. We haven’t destroyed those drugs yet. Getting them to the Technocracy for them to dispose of says that we may not be so far apart when it comes to this. And lets us come at the Keller problem without having to look over our shoulder for mirrorshades with pistols,” looking around for reactions to this suggestion.

"Would any of us be able to neutralize his avatar? Have the will and know-how to do so? Or even to neutralize the film or whatever is inside or on the otherside of it if it is a door? And it makes this into an opportunity. A way to reach out and find common ground with the Technocracy. Establish a relationship with them when it comes to the common good. War hasn’t worked in the past," again that distaste. That caution. That discomfort at having his tongue handle a word like war. It doesn’t seem right uttered in his voice. "The last time we saw them in Denver they helped clean up a Nephandi mess. We can again show we're different, but no so much to need the cold war between us to heat up."

"It's an idea. A possibly dangerous one. One we don't have to even use," like he won't impose it on anyone there. Simply suggest it to see how the others who have come to the chantry deal with it.

"Either way, if we’re going at that cabin, I think we need to do it only when we’re ready to finish it. I don’t believe in violence or advocate it. If we could do this without having to execute Keller, then it’s what I would prefer. But I think this is a threat that needs to be neutralized once and for all. And my ears are open to other ideas as to how to do that," another flitting glance of his blue eyes over the room as he looks for who might talk next…

But remembers something. Speaks one last time:

"Oh. By the way, I’m Jim," and that’s where he leaves it. Nothing in the way of rank, title, or tradition. He speaks in sentiments and possibilities instead. Or at least has thus far.

[FadedNoel]

Jim talks about neutralizing Avatars, and Grace is just keen on letting him talk there. She doesn't have much of an idea about Avatars in the first place, much less how to neutralize them. But when Jim starts talking about bringing the Technocracy into things, setting up an alliance of sorts, then Grace starts paying attention.

"The Technocracy? Really?," she sighs. "I don't know about that."

But she does have information, and damn it... the need to share it.

"But... I will tell this. There is a lab in Denver that seems to be their main base of operations in this area. My source tells me that they are working under the banner of Transhumanism, and are deeply into growing human organs and nanotech.

"Now, the growing organs and nanobots thing sounds perfectly normal from what I know of them, the Transhumanism does not. Think of the name. Trans. In transit. It's a more radical idea -- fundamentally changing humanity. That doesn't mean they're up to good, could be that they're just trying to wrangle Transhumanist ideals before they run amok, I don't know. Could be they were behind the zombie attacks," she adds for emphasis. Why ally with these assholes, seems to be the going idea.

"However, if you are so interested in contacting them, I have the number of a guy who's trying to kill a friend of mine," again, adding that last bit for emphasis -- why the hell do this? "This MIB, he feels like vomit."

"Oh, and you don't know me. If you do manage to get a hold of them, I don't exist. You got that number via accident, right?"

[errin]

Truth is, Sid feels a little bad not getting up and speaking to open this meeting up before Sera realizes she has to do it. She sees that look of horror and answers it with an apologetic frown so slight one might need a magnifying glass to see it - that or Sera's intense sensitivity to the feelings of others. Truth also is, Sid's uncomfortable in this space she and Shoshannah reorganized and rearranged and refurbished into something more relaxed than what it was before. She's surrounded by friends in their little alcove of seating out of the way of those Other People, and still they make her uncomfortable. Táltos, who makes her uncomfortable due almost entirely to unfortunate circumstances. Garrett and Kalen who make her uncomfortable for different reasons but from their own actions. Sid is uncomfortable and getting up and speaking in front of all of these people isn't really her thing, either.

Still, she feels bad anytime she does something, directly or not, that upsets Sera.

When Jim appears to lean in a doorway Sid does not become any less uncomfortable, but her gaze is drawn to him like a magnet, and like a magnet holds there for a moment before her attention shifts to each speaker in turn. If anything, their talk is what makes her shift in her seat, the shadow forming between her brows deepening by degrees.

"No," she says quietly after Mara. "No one should go there alone. Can we," but she stops, because she does not feel that 'we' is something she should offer. When it comes right down to it, Sid is hardly in a place to help anyone here with any of this. "Is there some more, ah, mundane way? To make sure he's even there? Track his cell phone, or, monitor his takeout orders. Or something."

She makes no effort to disguise her surprise at Grace's response to Jim's suggestion. She looks from Grace to Sera to Jim. Sid didn't make contact with the Techs who were around when John Brogan was running around with his people, but she knows they were around. If anyone would know if these transhumanists and those from that earlier time are the same or different groups, it would be one of those two.

[errin]

[hey folks, not to be Pushy McPusherson here, but this thread's been open almost two weeks and it's been almost a week since someone posted pertinent info. meanwhile, A) SLs are starting to gear up all over the site, and B) if this is a "happens when it concludes" scene, two people involved are infected, with more possibly going down tonight. so just, uh, can we start angling for a wrap soon? maybe by the weekend or something?]

[Samael]

[[I would really like this. I apologize for not being more on top of it and cracking the whip a bit, I've been keeping Lena quiet because it's my own SL and Trent is there more for informational purposes. Some posts would be much appreciated!]]