"What do you call a serious injury?  Loss of two limbs?" The Anuhles asks, "I will try to restrain my aides, but be cautious, they are very very emotional!"

Lorbellis is one of his constituents, a large, old Anuhles with striking black and red chitin and a propensity for petitions. Her last petition asked that people would be moved out of their apartments to make space for an indoor park, perfect for cattle grazing.  Mostly because she really wants to eat a cow.

"a personal injury which results in death, dismemberment, significant disfigurement, a fracture, loss of a fetus, permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function or system. Or if prevented from normal daily activities for 90 days out of 180 days... in a nutshell." He says as if he had written the law himself.

He rises up again, taking his satchel and tablet from under the table.

"But rest assured, I will also make sure my employees know what they are getting dragged into before the meeting... and I hope your underlings know too. Now come on, lets make our preparations." Raising his hand, gesturing at the door signaling that this meeting has ended.

"Hmm.  So fragile,"  Mxotichtlatl muses, "But if that is what it takes... IT IS DONE!" The anuhles screeches, "I will see you in four hours, at a neutral location of your choice!  Inform me via the electronic mail, if you can type fast enough, dirty monkey-human-mammal!"

The spider opens the door with a quick burst of silk and then scuttles out to the horror of Kendal's aides.

Kendal keeps his composure and the polite smile until he is sure Mxotichtlatl exited the office proper, then letting his face drop into his own palm and letting out a short sharp sigh.

Without looking he presses a buzzer on a panel at the table, calling his secretary, talking with the usual polite yet tired tone.
"Are you there? I need 3 sacrificial lambs to jump to the belly of the beast with me in 4 hours, so can you find me a place to invite said beast and all the info you can get on Lorbellis and what she is up to these days asap... thank you."

After that he removes his glasses to rub his eyes, swallowing the fatigue and small frustration and starts thinking the best way to go about this ordeal.

Within five minutes there's a knock on the door.

"Sir?"  Her voice is a vibratto harmonic, a tensed guitar string thrumming in the distance.  The purple and blue light of her hair shines under the door before she even appears.

Xene is- was- the Goddess of Neon, not the element, but the light source that so dominated the 1980s.  Young and somewhat powerful for a new god, she had quite the portfolio during her heyday but frittered it away with drugs and bankrolling one too many Schumacher Batman movies.  Xene found herself bereft of just about everything at the time of the Exodus.

Which, in a way, saved her.  Forced to go cold turkey, Xene ended up going to one of the hundreds of makeshift 'schools' and finding she had a surprising aptitude for bureaucracy.  Unfortunately for her, as part of the new wave of clerical workers, she's one of millions of them.  They're a dime a dozen.

But she's also Kendal's dime.

"I have a list of potential lambs,"  She says, "And a bottle of vodka."

"Come on in, but don't get caught in the web that demon spat on the door" Leaning back to his chair, it was always relaxing just listening to her voice, especially after that hissing and yelling a moment ago.

When the door opens, he greets her with a genuine warm smile, happy to see her and the bottle she carries. "Thanks, you are a true life saver, you make my life better just by being here." Kendal likes to throw some light flirt with her from time to time, just to tease, no real intention behind it.

He then takes a stack of hollow books off the shelf revealing some glasses and empty bottles hidden inside, taking two of the glasses and putting them on the table "Lets see what we've got"

"Worst potato vodka I could find, which is just perfect given the circumstances." She waggles the bottle, "Made in a still on the 8th level of our own district.  A man of the people should drink his people's hand-crafted booze."

She pours him a full cup and pours half of that amount for herself.

"Well, we've got no shortage of volunteers... all of them smarmy little a-holes looking to make a name for themselves.  You have to pick two of them.  You're laying this little lamb-" She takes a sip of her vodka and gestures at herself, "Down on that altar, because you're useless without me."

When Xene fills the glasses, Kendal started raised his finger when it was half full to say that's enough, only to be ignored. He takes a good sip and lets out a long breath as the taste of alcohol hits home.
"Perfect choice indeed, i can almost taste their determination"

He listens to her, nodding in agreement.
"For this quest we are looking for lambs who can defend themselves as the monsters minions just might explode... and yes, the King does need his Queen with him."

Taking another sip "Any suggestions on the lambs?"

"I can taste the antifreeze." She remarks dryly. "OH, I'm a Queen now, am I?  Is that so?  Maybe I should ask for a raise then to match my Queenly status?  Triple the pay, effective immediately, chop chop."

She flips open a notepad and adjusts her glasses.

"If we're looking for footmen to bring along, I have a few suggestions.  But the qualification that they need to defend themselves cuts a few of those short.  For instance, I'm sure Brenda...."  (Sweet, wonderful Brenda, a wizard of political law, but in her late 70s) "... doesn't fit that bill.  So we're down to five hale-and-hearties, one of whom I'm pretty sure has never picked up a weapon in his life."

She looks at Kendal and sighs.

"They're interns, not warriors.  So, I'm going to have to say we go with the Dwalaski brothers."

Ah, yes, the Dwalaski brothers:  six years apart in age, mostly good men.  Gym time is sacrosanct to Piotr, to the point where he doesn't do nearly as much social work as he should because those gains, brah.  Michal, on the other hand, is a dedicated sportsman who plays some sort of regional ballgame (that Kendal and most sane people could never figure out) and engages in recreational swordfighting in the hopes of bagging that cute Fire-Aspected Dragon-Blooded that lives on his block.  Both of them are not exactly his best workers.

"I was first going for a Knight and squire analogy, then Prince and Princess, but decided King and Queen to be most fitting" He says, ignoring the pay raise comment.

He frowns as he rubs his chin, thinking.
"As they say, right tool for the right job, with the two of us I don't think we need more brain power, just the extra hands in case the demons try and throw a party."

He takes his own datapad and looks through the Dwalaski brothers info and drinking more of the antifrozen determination.

"Well, yes, I guess, but what happens if I'm distracted by a demonic insult?  Then the brain power in the room gets cut to 10%."  She smirks at him.  "Think they'll try something especially bad?  I mean, they're definitely going to try something, they're demons."

The Dwalaski's files give him their law scores- a solid 50%, dead average- and other basics.  Piotr's 26, Michal's 20, orphans smuggled onto the Last Refuge out of Warsaw.  No major problems with demons to date.  Michal does have something on his record from the early days on the Last Refuge- he apparently once tried to punch a God of Murder and it took Exalted intervention to prevent his death.

"Yes yes they probably will, might be venom or just violence, but I fail to see why? We already made a deal with Mxotichtlatl about our involvement, is there any reason to throw a tantrum other then just for the sake of it?"

Or just maybe someone has a grudge against him, that was not unusual.

They are asking us for help and causing injuries is counterproductive to meet their goal... are they trying to lure us into provoking them, making us the ones to blame?

"Hmmm... as we really cant tell if this is legit business or a bait, we just must prepare for the worst and be damn sure we are not the ones picking a fight" He says as he cant hide the concerned face anymore, not around her.

"They're demons, Senator Kendal," Xene remarks with an eyeroll, "Their whole point is emotion and warped morality and alien motivations.  Didn't you hear Mxotichtlatl?  He said he loathes you, but used that as a reason to ask you for help.  To the right breed of demon, pure-hearted loathing is just as good as love."

She crosses one incandescent leg quickly over the other and leans forward in her chair.

"What I mean by especially bad would be an actual concerted assassination attempt, not just a demonic tantrum gone wrong."

"Well yes, pardon me, it seems my fatigue is getting the better of me. It's good having someone with brain capacity around here." he says after listening to what she ways, avoiding her with his eyes and drinking some more.

"Even after 10 years I have trouble remembering these things, but anyway, the best way to defend is to make your defenses impossible to attack. We either go to a public place, a place we have total control over or somewhere the absolutely can't even think about attacking us, ideas?" When he speaks, he always talks about everyone's safety, not just his own, caring about others even if it's him who is in the most danger.

He brushes through his hair with his fingers, messing up the lining.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 19:53, Thu 05 July 2018.

"Don't beat yourself up over it.  If we could understand demons really well I don't think they'd be demons anymore."  She smirks as he cuts down on his drink, readying the bottle to pour more.  "I think that the best place to be is a combination of the latter two.  Public really isn't a good idea.  Do you want to end up on the news?  Because I definitely don't want to show up in the news talking to a demonic group about political skullduggery."

She thinks, "There's a whole bunch of places that might work for this sort of thing.  Like inside an airlock with a thin bulkhead sort of thing.  If they cause a problem, we all get vented."

"Well yes, getting the wrong kind of spotlight can ruin a career overnight" He agrees as he looks at her smirk and passes his glass over to her.

He then stretches his arms and massages his left shoulder, all this sitting has gotten his shoulders stiff.

"Hah! I have never been vented out of an airlock before, heck, I don't think I have been outside the Last Refuge in these past 10 years. Getting couple of space suits shouldn't be a problem or setting up the meeting in an airlock, but I feel if we do that I want a man outside in case we get vented, I reeeealy don't want that any of us get adrift out there."

"Most people haven't.  I mean, what's out there?  Just the howling dark of death."  She sips her drink now, "Well, then again, the downside is that a lot of demons are a hell of a lot more durable than you are.  I mean if you get vented or your suit gets hit, you're dead.  Me, well, I'll maybe get a headache.  I'll miss you at least." She kisses in his direction.

"A human can survive a vacuum for a moment, it's not like we explode the second there is no air pressure or oxygen, what, you're not going to grab me real tight and give me mouth to mouth just to keep me alive?" He returns the kissing gesture with just narrowing his eyes.

"Because I really doubt they would accept a skype call or something, the airlock is not the worst idea ever as long as we get backup"

Maybe it's time to pull some threads to get some "insurance"

"Look, how would I know what happens to a human body when vented?  I only know what I helped produce for movies."  She sighs and rolls her eyes, "Well, I don't breath air like you do, so I could blow some helium in your lungs and you can scream for help in a really funny high-pitched voice..."

She looks at her pad.

"Well, I'll see if I can dig up some other places."

"Well if we want to go with classics, we could go to an opera or a play and reserve a booth, but I don't think we can do that in 3 hours. Or if we want to get crazy and not end up on the news, we just go somewhere with high security, say, near command. Or if we want it equally hazardous for everyone we go to the inner wilds... but lets not do that."

He pics up his own pad and starts looking through his contacts if there was someone who would be ready to help. He was running out of ideas for places to keep a safe meeting with no outside observers.

"Well they do say: If there is no peril in the task, there can be no reward in it's accomplishment. We will make this work now that I gave my word for it."

"Think you idiot, think!" was the one thought running through his head.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:58, Tue 10 July 2018.

"The inner wilds?  Are you nuts?  It's not even all mapped out.  That's neutral, yeah, but it's the worst kind of neutral.  Tell you what.  What about the Underforge?"  Xene suggests, "I know a family or two that, uh... may or may not... worship me."

Kendal tilts his head to one side as she tells about the worshipers.
"Well I thought it was the point of being a Goddess to be worshiped? maybe i should acquire something with neon lights on it to decorate the office." he jests.

"I've never been to the underforge, but there is a first time for everything. With the lack of better option in this time frame lets go with that. Can you make the preparations?"

"Yes, we're supposed to be worshiped.  Supposed."  She says critically, "That would be nice, it'd almost make me think you cared.  The downside is that this family doesn't worship me as the Goddess of Neon Lighting.  It's more like I'm, um, they think I'm a Goddess of Parties and it's pretty embarrassing.

Sure, I can try to contact them, but I'd rather we not turn this into a rave, so I have to be prepared to lose a few worshipers."

"Huh, I never really had the time to think about all of this worshiping stuff, how should one worship the Goddess of Neon Lightning? Prayer? Bright lights? Better pay?" the last part is made with a sarcastic tone.
"And yes, I suppose if people care enough to worship something, they would worship the more visible heroes, like Five Days Darkness or Lucifer."

He then starts to look at a map of the underf- oh shit! what a mess of pathways and pipes... good thing he doesn't have claustrophobia.

"Well, bright neon lights usually help, but there's also synth music, dancing, a 200% raise, you know.  that sort of thing.  Why, you've got it down pat!"  She beams- quite literally.  She holds up her drink in a salute.  "Now get to worshiping, chop chop."

Yeah, the place looks like someone shook up a can of spaghetti and dropped it on the floor.  It takes most of his mental capacity to just figure out where the main hallways are.