Promethean: Data and Torso

Last night was Promethean. We're approaching the end of a story, but we're not quite there yet.

Last time, we didn't have Feather, so this time, we start with her and Virgil in the jail as everyone's running. Virgil grabs her and notes that he felt something weird nearby, and leads her to a door that's bolted shut. Feather uses her Spagyria Alembic to shrink the door off its hinges, and immediately gets jumped by a torso with a pair of extra arms. She's too quick for it, though, and activates her Mutatus Aspiratus Alembic to give herself armor and then to give it a blast of Pyros to force it into Dormancy. She and Virgil then beat it to pieces with stuff they find in the room, and Feather takes a chunk with her (she's on Craftsman now).

The Prometheans meet up later that day. Feather shows Enoch the aforementioned chunk of Pandoran, which to analysis looks like organic material, but petrified. Feather had assumed that, when she had a vision of Jesse telling her about a thing he made, that he was talking about an Athanor, but maybe he meant the Pandoran? If he didn't, though, who made the Pandoran and how did it get locked in the jail?

Matt shows up at this point and gives them the rundown of his fight with the weird dog-angel thing and Jenna's transformation into a 12-foot-tall mirrored creature. They have a meeting set with "Dry" soon, so the throng heads over and meets him.

Dry is cautious, but a generally cool guy. He explains that Jenna had some questions for them - have they ever been to the southwest? Like, Tucson? How about Detroit? The throng confirms that they've been some of those places (though not Detroit), and Dry tells them that the God-Machine makes angels when it needs something, and sometimes those angels unplug or "Fall" (so call them demons). Angels that are still working for the Machine are dangerous and some of them hunt down demons to try and re-assimilate them. Jenna was an angel that was meant to transport data from Detroit to New Mexico, but she Fell along the way.

But now here's where it gets weird - the data she was transporting was the result of the destruction of a huge God-Machine thing, and that was destroyed because of interference from a throng of Prometheans (way back here). Dry reveals that Jenna can render herself down to data, and it might be possible to tease out the Promethean-related data. The throng notes that they've been getting dogged by "angels" and things that aren't angels but are more or less on their side (qashmallim) since this whole thing started, and learning the truth about the data Jenna is carrying might help.

Dry also reveals that in a way, he is Jenna - demons can take on different forms, and although at the moment Jenna doesn't exist, she will again. They agree to meet up at Polaris tomorrow, once they get Avalon out of jail. Dry takes off, and the Prometheans consider their next steps. Matt grants visions to Skip and Grimm, and then forces one himself.

In Skip's vision, the ectoplasm coming from the rents in his flesh because thin and solid, and spikes up into the sky like puppet strings. He looks up and sees Nergal working them, forcing him to punch, and he realizes that Nergal was there at his creation, and he needs to figure out why. That means going back to where he was created.

Grimm sees himself in the frozen wastes, monsters out in the dark, a ship behind him. He could go out into the dark...but there are monsters. He could go back to the ship...but everyone there hates him. And then he realizes that he could make them interact; he could protect people from the monsters or work with the people to mitigate their hatred. Feather, he realizes, is going to be important.

Matt, for his part, wonders about his current Role, and sees himself back at Origins in the exhibit hall, with folks fighting in the boffer weapons area...but with live steel. He encourages it, encourages them to face danger and take risk.

The next day, Avalon is led out of jail and meets with a court-appointed attorney. She has very little time for Avalon's questions and recommends just pleading out and paying a fine. Avalon is unconvinced, even more so when she sees so many people in more or less the same situation as her. She eventually winds up pleading no contest and then walking straight out of the jail. She achieves her milestone for the Deviant Role - be arrested and arraigned - and in so doing learns that when humans set so many rules for themselves, it's hard to avoid being a deviant.

She also realizes that the orb she was carrying is cracking and falling to pieces, and she can remember what she saw in the cell. But we'll talk about that next time.