The light hits his eyes straight on, argh. He pumps the air with his fist a couple of times and says "wub wub" in monotone, then back to poker face.

"I'll leave the worshiping to after you have done your job." He gulps down the rest of his drink. "If you do a decent enough job I just might humor you, now go on, make yourself useful."

"Oh, so I'm noooot useful."  She dims down a bit, though whether it's from anger or for eye protection is a mystery.  "Well then, maybe I should go find another employer, hmmm hmm."  She stands up and leaves her glass half empty, then puts down the bottle.  "You're actually going to get some sleep right?"

"Sleep? Like... right now? And I'm to trust you with all the arrangements?" he says with the voice of a man in charge questioning a employee, all though he actually wants her to take the initiative and talk back, because he Really wanted that sleep, but can't back down from a conversation.

"Well, yes.  That's my job, isn't it?  I want that raise, don't I?  How am I going to get it without taking additional responsibilities?"  She chides him, "Besides, you're only human, and I'm a goddess.  I don't need sleep like you do, only worship."

She stares down at him, shifting her weight onto one hip and high heel.

"Honestly, Senator, the way you're working you're going to collapse and die one of these days.  Do you even know what downtime is?  Do you even have- dare I say it- fun?  Let alone sleep?"

He looks back at her and keeps silent for a second before smiling and turns off the tablet. Rising up and loosens his tie a bit.

"OK, have at it, wake me up in 2 hours and have more coffee ready... Fun comes later."

Then he has to move over some books from on top of the sofa he has in the office to lay down on it, bu before he does so he thinks there was a blanket around here somewhere and searches for it.

"That's not an answer, Senator," She says softly to him as she closes the door.

There's a blanket underneath the couch, crisply folded and with the slightly musty smell that says it's been unused for some time.

Kendal's quick to doff his shirt, clear a spiderweb on the sofa, and then try to rest on the rock-hard cushions.  Most of the furniture nowadays- the cheap stuff, anyway- wasn't particularly comfortable.  But sleep comes quickly to the Senator.  Dreamless, quiet sleep doesn't come often to him.

He's woken up by a blinding light blinking in his eyes. "Time to wake up,"  He hears Xene hum at him, "I've got good news and better news."

Ahhh sleep, the daily condition that is caused by the deficiency of caffeine, to be avoided at all costs, but man does a power nap feel good.

he sits up and stretches his shoulders before putting the glasses back on, it only needs one long breath to bring him to focus.

"Lets hear it... the coffee?"

She's standing over him, arms folded beneath her breasts, blinking her incandescent skin on and off until his glasses are in place.

"Good news is we have a place.  It's basically a small refinery-house by the Underforge occupied by some of my followers.  Demons won't start any problems there because it turns out that I'm not the only one who's been hanging around down there. Alveua, Keeper of the Forge of Night, once made it her home and it's something of a holy place.  Our esteemed colleague was quite happy with my choice.

The better news- I won't be suing you for sexual harassment."

"So I take there is no coffee then?" He rises up in manner that he doesn't bump into her and starts putting his clothes back on.
"Anything else? Are the siblings ready? And what is the back up plan in that place? Or are you just going to leave me in suspense?"

When Xene mentions harassment, he isn't quite sure to what specific point in time she is referring to, but it doesn't matter, if it is a problem she will surely say about it.

"Yea leave the court cases for later, i'm too busy to go to jail or get fired."

"There's coffee on the pot but it's not done brewing." She remarks, watching him get dressed intently, "The siblings are ready.  Our backup plan- I'm actually proud of this one.  Turns out someone in our office knows a high-ranking officer of the Ilmorijo.  We've been given a code, if there's an issue, there'll be a 'standard patrol' to help defuse things."

As he ties up a merovingian knot to his tie he also checks how he looks in the mirror, hopefully not too tired.
"That's great news! Anything else but the coffee before we head out?"

He then puts on the rest of his suit, a vest and a jacket. To be good you must first look good.

"Tell you what Xene, If this all goes smoothly i'll give you a proper prayer of thanks." He glances at her as he gathers the rest of his stuff in a suitcase.

"Just a mug of joe, Kendal."  She hands him a mug. <b>"You look good, tie's too complex as always but looks good."  </b>Then they head out.

Maybe the tie was a mistake.  Xene certainly thinks her blouse and skirt are mistakes once they hit the Underforge.  God-flesh or not, this place is HOT, and the siblings are "Sweating our balls off!".  Piotr Dwalaski, in particular, is one giant sweating hulk.  Xene wrinkles her nose.

"Alright, down here."  She gestures to a ladder down a hatch, which makes Michal grumble darkly. "You first?"

"My my, a gentleman." Xene heads down, then Michal directs Kendal.  Piotr's last, partially because the bodybuilder is almost too big to fit in the tunnel.

Another turn, another.  Eventually they reach a wide-open pathway with access to a forge; a hot fiery wind blows down the tunnel, crisping their eyebrows and eyelashes but otherwise leaving them unharmed.  Xene finally directs them through a paired set of bulkheads.

The Temple of the Forge of Night, now the Temple to Xene, is really just a small refinery-house for Xene's worshipers.  There's a kitchen, a dining room big enough for 12 people, two sleeping quarters, and a forge.  It looks like they make some sort of small moving part for one of the furnaces here.  It's the house of an entire family whose sole purpose in life was to build one part for as long as it takes.

He's met by the matriarch, a tiny Korean woman with calloused hands and a broken-toothed smile.  "Thank you for coming.  May I bring you some tea?"

This... doesn't look like someone who parties a lot.

Kendal tries his best to remember all the corners and bulkheads in case he needs to find a way back home, or better yet, find his way down here later.
Good thing there is always cologne to mask the smell of sweat, the idea of a meeting place in a bulkhead still sounds really good right now.

He nods politely to the woman greeting them. "Why of course thank you, iced tea if at all possible. My name is Kendal, it's a pleasure to meet you" giving a gentle smile.

He also looks around if there are sings of anyone being here or that partying Xene mentioned.

The old woman cackles, "Iced tea!  Good one!  Iced!"  She hobbles to the kitchen giggling at the thought.

There's nobody else here, just the old woman.  But judging by the size, and given the scarcity of space, Kendal estimates there must be at least 20 people working here.  Xene notices him looking around and coughs once.

"Aye, we're gonna be sweating our balls off forever here," Piotr says in a low voice, "I hope this meeting doesn't last long.  And what's our nuclear option?"

"The forge." Xene nods towards it, "There's a control panel by the forge.  We press it, it'll flood the whole place with molten metal.  It's a last-ditch resort."

"Who the fuck would design that?"

"Last-ditch resort.  Sometimes things get a bit screwy in the Underforge with mutations and you need to sterilize or seal off rooms," Xene tells him. "Anyway we have Ilmorijo as a backup, the lava-button is only for posturing, which the demons will appreciate."

"And the rest of the people who live here?  Where are they?" Michal asks.

"I've paid for them to have a nice trip to a club close to the upperdecks.  So we won't have to worry about the lives of anyone but our hostess."

Kendal looks for a place to sit down. It's pretty much just waiting from now on.

"Piotr, would you mind rearranging the furniture so we can sit in a group opposite of our guests."

Buying a freezer for this place would have been a really good idea, but cool drinks must have to wait.

"On it, sir." Piotr is very respectful once he's actually starting to work, and apparently rearranging furniture counts.  He sets up a chair for Kendal and Xene, then leaves the rest of the chairs on the other side of the table.  "Michal and I will stand behind you, if that's okay, sir?"

Michal pulls back his suit coat to reveal a long knife.  Piotr draws a pair of brass knuckles out of his pocket.

"We have to show them we're serious, sir."

The Korean grandmother hobbles back with a hot cup of tea, freshly boiled.  "For you, my guest!" By the smell of it, it's the fake stuff grown almost everywhere in the underdecks- basically just plant-flavored water.  But it can be expensive anyway.

"Yes that is fine." he says as he sits down, putting his suitcase on the table and takes the can of Raid out of it to put it on the table as well.

Boiled drinks are always preferred because they most probably have no extra bacteria and such, wouldn't want to get an infection down here. "Thank you for the tea, your hospitality is greatly appreciated."

"I'll be in the other room if you need any help."  She smiles at him and waves, then backs away.

They wait for two minutes before there's a bang on the door.  Piotr gets up to get the door, opening it wide.

Of course, there's the usual suspect:  Mxotichtlatl, who leads the way with pompous arrogance and waves his claws in Piotr's sullen face.  He's followed by three other demons.  The first is a Chrysogonae, a Crying Woman; no surprise there, that breed of demons loves political intrigue and they infest the senate like lice.  The second is a Firmin, a Needlemaker, not well-known for intelligence; this one has a vacant look and its quills have been oddly cut short.  The last is an Erymanthus, a Blood Ape, covered in patchy red hair and wearing a tailored suit coat and a thick set of glasses.

"I am MXOTICHLATL!" The Anuhles announces, "And these are my advisors and interns!  The Chrysonagae Crowwood!  My scribe, the Firmin InkQuill!  And this is Erymanthus Torvald, my legal aide!"

Crowwood chuckles.  InkQuill stares at them blankly.  Torvald reaches his hand out to Piotr.

"How do you do, a pleasure to meet you all!" The Blood-Ape greets them as Piotr awkwardly shakes the huge hand.

Kendal stands up to greet them, shaking hands if offered. At this stage he was no too concerned yet because if they just wanted to make a ruckus they would have done so the second they stepped inside.

"Greetings Torvald, the pleasure is ours."

He also looks if they brought anything extra with them.

"My name is Kendal Raines and these are my employees, my secretary Goddess Xene and my personal aides Piotr and Michal Dwalaski. Now, as we did the pleasantries just 4 hours ago, let us talk business." He sits down and leans back, preparing his eardrums to any possible screeching Mxotichlatl may emit.

"A point of order." Torvald raises his finger and clears his throat, "Has this room been checked for bugs?"

"Well-"  Xene starts to say.

"Besides my client?"  Torvald continues, a strange twinkle in his eye.

"We didn't bug."  Piotr growls.

"I have no doubt.  But who knows who else may have."

"Yesss, yesss, check the room for bugs,"  Crowwood starts to crawl around the place, sniffing behind her strange mask-face.

"My apologies.  We have to be careful." Torvald glances over at his leader, who has busily started to push two chairs together for his wide bulk, "For both of our sakes, of course!"

"There isssssssssssss nothing." Crowwood announces.

"EXCELLENT!" Mxotichlatl screeches, "To business!!!!  Now let us see what we have!  TORVALD!  THE BOOKS!"

"Yes, sir,"  The blood-ape sighs and opens up a manila envelope, "We were looking and we found some curious things."

"We can find more curiousss thingsss if we band together." Crowwood sidles over towards their side of the table.  Michal heads her off with a hand touching the hilt of his long blade.

"This little rewording snuck in during a rather larger heading.  By such a strange coincidence, nobody has figured out who submitted it.  The arguments were getting rather heated, at the time.  You see, this was brought up during the announcement of the formation of the Admiralty Board.  And, more importantly, it was brought up when discussing a potential court-martialing of Lucifer.  So, of course, everything about it was conveniently ignored."

"Well the little people always scurry away at the mention of Lucifer or if there is even the slightest possibility to end up on his bad side."

This bloodape is quite amusing, never heard of a Erymanthus using words that long.

"Well, lets see it and think what to do about it."

"I do believe I summarized it."  Torvald pushes his glasses up his snout. "This is only the documentation."

He drops the book of proceedings in front of Kendal.  It's full of notes and notices, little bookmarks.

"Admiralty Board announced.  Prime candidates chosen.  A call to update the Code of Censuses and Citizenship while the hubbub was still going. We've got a 68% vote along the lines of Yea with 1% Nay and 31% abstaining, still arguing about the need for an Admiralty Board."  He flips through the pages with his huge shovel hand, "And here!  The Admiralty Board hasn't been formed yet, but a list of tabled selections includes Lucifer, and the Code of Censuses and Citizenship with the offending paragraph snuck in.  I took a look at their bureau.  There's fifty senators.  10 gods, 10 elementals, 10 humans, 10 Dragon-Blooded, 10 demons.  The overhaul for Censuses and Citizenship was delegated to a group of 6 humans, 3 gods, and an elemental."

"i must say you have done a splendid job. I get the idea of what is going on, but i'm still yet to hear what you want me to do specifically? You have gotten so far without my input, so what is the problem?"

So the culprit is most likely at least one of these 10 or all of them for all we know. Now he just waits for them to get to the point.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:42, Thu 26 July 2018.

"The problem is we're demons."  Torvald says gently.

"DEMONS!  HATED BY FILTHY HUMANS AND GODS!"

"Correct, Senator."  Torvald nods in agreement, "If we go to them and try to discuss this, we believe they'll close ranks.  Shore each other up.  More importantly, we can find no records of who put together the Censuses and Citizenship Overhaul Group.  Whoever did certainly made a conscious effort to stonewall demons, probably for just this sort of underhanded move."

"So the individual senators may be the problem.  It may be one of them, or all of them.  But the real problem is finding who organized it." Michal observes, a bit out of turn.

"Correct." Torvald nods towards him, "There are a number of senior senators on Censuses and Citizenship, of course.  None of them are in the overhaul committee.  They're all of them juniors.  Less than 3 years of experience each.  That's not to say they don't have the intelligence to do such a thing, but it reeks of working with cutaways."

As he listens to the explanation he nods from time to time, sighing when Filthy humans are mentioned.

"So I'm here to talk, that's completely fine with me, but I assume you keep doing the investigation so we wont get connected in their eyes."
He wants to confirm that he's staff doesn't need to do any spying.