Between The Lights, Session 1: Heat

[liquidcitrus]

This is an actual-play writeup of a game I am running on the Jenna Moran fanclub on Discord.

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"It is the right of any Power of the Light to say: I am the Light, or any Power of the Dark to say: I am the Dark, when acting in service of their Code. They are the hands and eyes of the force that moves them, and it is considered humility—not pride—to set that identity above their own."

-- from The Society of Flowers, by Heather Williams

Today's session was an introductory one, with the opening scene being a bit of Noble societal obligation (a member of the Green Snake Order that had joined a penitentiary order for a reason) and also a straightforward Thing To Chase (a Power running amok). (I wasn't sure which one the players would engage with, so I added both angles.) So we had a fun chase scene and then a bit of Noble societal obligation.

I should probably note before we go on that one extra person has joined the group:

Maddie Clarkson, Domina Fog, has a Burger King crown that ensures that it is and will always be her 13th birthday. She can turn into fog and has Secondary Domain over bad weather. And when she wishes on a star, it actually works.

Anyway, here we go:

She came stumbling through the door into Locus Kethredamen, a flicker of light in the vague shape of a person, and there she collapsed.
Something lingered at the door, for a moment, watching her, with a peculiar expression on its face.
...Sadness?
And then the door closed.

The Puddle

<HG> You are startled out of what you were doing - wait, what were you doing before this, anyway? - by a thunk at the nearest hatch of Locus Kethredamen's pneumatic-tube mail system. Upon examination it yields a copper capsule, with a tightly coiled strip of paper inside. An automated message. A disturbance. The brass bouncers are usually very good at ejecting interlopers, and the general servitors are usually very good at taking care of minor emergencies, but they have identified that this is far above their capabilities and have called you in to explain. You know, the kind of "explain" that involves punching things.

There is a puddle of light on a lovely Persian rug next to one of the Chancel entrances. Sonja discusses a little with the books nearby, and Lionel goes examining the scenery, to figure out what happened. Some discussion later, Sasha mops it up and dumps the lightspill in a Big Gulp cup. There, it reveals itself to be Rhonda Caseworth, Domina Cups. (Rhonda is none too pleased with being dumped in a cup with some dirty mop water, but, being Defeated, is powerless to resist all this.) The Raven in Sasha's head makes it clear that Rhonda is not to be trusted, but nevertheless, Maddie impulsively ducks out to investigate anyway and finds that the entrance leads to a cheap takeout place in Kansas, where the security cameras have been tampered with, and it is unseasonably warm.

Rhonda Caseworth reveals that she is currently doing the business of the Green Snake Order - that Order of Nobles that attempts to redeem Powers whose minds have turned - and was attempting to chase down the Dominus Heat when she was beaten within an inch of her life.

<HG> [Rhonda:] "The normal global warming is Heat making a deal with Cars to spread influence over decades. That's normal business around these parts. What isn't, is randomly deciding that summer in the middle of winter is a thing now."

Maddie decides without anyone else's permission to go stop Heat herself, and, after asking a local summer thunderstorm about nearby suspicious activity, takes off running. Everyone else sighs and goes along with the obvious adventure hook. They pile into Sasha's car, which is only functioning at all because it is an Anchor.

<Sasha> "Yeah hop in whatever. One seat has a belt, one seat has an airbag, pick wisely."

Walmart

Sonja asks a few nearby metaphors where Heat is is going, and directs Sasha on which way to drive. (On the way, Sonja makes the metaphor "hot as horses" real, thus making a horse exist. And then immediately claims it as her own by feeding it a cup of ice from Sasha's 7-11.) They find a figure climbing a radio tower. Sasha alienates the figure from the concept of climbing the radio tower, and it falls onto Maddie's face, because Maddie had been climbing up after it. A Surface Wound and a Persona miracle later, Maddie has a temporary Affliction sticking her to the figure, because fog clings and wraps around things. The group attempts to apprehend it. It doesn't work very well.

<Sonja> "Messing with the local climate wasn't very ice of you."
<HG> The thing struggles out of Maddie's grasp just to punch Sonja in the face.
<HG> Then again, now that it's struggled out of Maddie's grasp, it takes off for a nearby roof.
<Maddie> I think my affliction [from the Persona miracle] carries me after them
<Maddie> Even if they get away, I'm still wrapping them up
<HG> Maddie you're probably a really loud fanny pack now

Maddie starts biting at it. The figure keeps running, and ditches the leg that Maddie was biting at, throwing Maddie and leg alike away. A quick car chase (with Treasure, making Sasha's car really nimble and capable of crashing through the front of a Walmart without disintegrating) later, they catch up to it smashing the freezer doors. Sonja tries to intervene by turning her trusty roll of twine into a rope to lasso the thing with. Sasha has a better idea.

<Sasha> "RHONDA"
<Sasha> "WHEN YOU'RE NOT LIGHT, ARE YOU A CUTE GIRL"
<HG> "Um............" says the light sloshing around in the cup. "Don't we have bigger problems???"
<Sasha> "ANSWER THE QUESTION"
<HG> "...yes?"
<Sasha> "WORKS FOR ME"
<Sasha> i spend 1 TMP and take a wound to claim Rhonda as an Anchor
<HG> Your cup has sprouted a leg. Actually, it's sprouted two legs. And two arms. And a head. And then Rhonda is crouched uncomfortably in the middle of the car, foot still stuck in the cupholder, wearing a very large Big Gulp cup as a dress.
<Sasha> "...I forget what I meant to accomplish with this."

Freshly undefeated by being Anchored (I'm not sure this is how it works RAW but I figured it would be best to let Sasha use her new Anchor immediately), Rhonda (at the urging of Sasha via a Treasure miracle) traps the figure under a giant upside-down drinking glass.

<Maddie> Maddie [still being run around by the Persona affliction from earlier] smacks against the glass and sticks to the side like a bug

Now that the figure is safely contained (for at least one definition of safely, and two definitions of contained), it turns out to be a mannequin, tattooed with "PROPERTY OF HEAT", revealing that this thing is not Dominus Heat, and that actual Dominus Heat is elsewhere. Sonja uses Persona, applying the "communicates hidden truths" property of Metaphors to the mannequin. Tongue now loosened, it tells them that Heat is currently "trying to do something about Canada," and that Heat feels slighted by some recent social event or other. Maddie votes for immediately going off to Canada to pursue this further, but the rest of the group decides to try calling Kethredamen first for advice. Kethredamen wants them to go back to the Chancel first. With an offering.

<HG> A tentacle comes slithering out of the speaker hole of the phone. Could you please bring the corpse back so it could eat the corpse before it decides? Or at least, and here its eyestalk swivels to the thing imprisoned underneath the cup, what's left of the corpse?

An Accomplice

Back at the chancel, Keith contemplates the mannequin corpse and the now-properly-clothed Rhonda. Why, precisely, Rhonda is in the Green Snake Order is now a topic of discussion.

<HG> It makes a noise in the general direction of Rhonda, but whether the noise is approving or disapproving is unclear.
<HG> "Yeah, I know," says Rhonda. "I'm surprised you let me in after everything."
<HG> What everything?

They have to extract the confession from Rhonda word by word. Sonja tries to stop them from doing so, because her attempting to be a good young adult protagonist (and thus being forgiving) is clashing with her following Heaven (and thus being judgemental). Sonja's objection is overridden. Rhonda tells them that she betrayed part of Incandescence to the Excrucians.

<Maddie> "Incandescence? Like, light bulbs?"
<HG> "The fact that you only think of it as the thing light bulbs do is telling."
<HG> "We used it for other things, before."

Now that she's mostly not dead, Rhonda asks if she can leave to continue chasing down Heat. (And also to escape this deeply awkward social situation.)

<Sasha> "Are you gonna go chase down Heat so I don't have to?"
<HG> "Yes."
<Sonja> "Will you be more successful next time?" Sonja asks, coldly.
<HG> "If I am successful, I have given you value. If I am unsuccessful, I will be dead. If I betray you, you haven't lost anything that wasn't already lost before."

Sasha sends Rhonda off, with a Treasure 6 miracle, to go take care of the Heat thing. Maddie picks up on the sexual tension between Sasha and Rhonda, but thinks that it is gross because she is 13.

Bonds Instead Of Preparations

<HG> Kethredamen is back. It seems that the business with Heat is taken care of, at least for the present time. It would also like to remind you that the traditional winter ball held here is coming up soon, so you may as well work on preparing for that.
<HG> Its definition of soon is tomorrow.

Keith charges the Nobles with preparing for the local traditional winter ball. However, as soon as he leaves, Maddie runs off to go babysit some fog instead of preparing in any useful way, and Sasha begins decorating the 7-11 for the holidays. Sonja attempts to find herself a nice dress, which doesn't go well. See, when you go to Macy's and attempt to pay with 100 dollar bills, they check your ID, and because Sonja is in fact from a popular YA novel, she has a name from a popular YA novel. (Like, imagine if you tried to use an ID with the name "Hermione Granger" on it.) Instead of using miracles to get out of this situation, Sonja gives up and goes home.

Sasha tries to console Sonja. They end up putting tinsel up together. 

On The Next Episode...

A winter ball! Familia Kethredamen being really underdressed for the occasion! Other Nobles getting into an argument! And maybe, just maybe, a horse!

Comments

[cetaceanhandiwork]

> And maybe, just maybe, a horse!

One that tends to announce this fact at regular intervals, by any chance?