"Uhmmm---"  She turns bright, neon-red.  "I can take a few guesses... Buuut... wait, yeah, wait, aren't you supposed to NOT be a senator anymore?  What the fuck gives?  What the FUCK."  She draws her finger back from his forehead,  "So we hit something bad, huh?"

The sudden color shift is amusing to him. "That's what I thought as well, but it turns out I just can't run for the seat, nothing is kicking me out of it. But for real I was at home decrypting the notes, I have been up and doing stuff since."

"And are we any closer to figuring things out?"  She holds up a big volume of paper, "You know... you're an Exalt now.  An Eclipse.  You're probably really fast with paperwork now, aren't you..."

"As any proper encryption, all answers just made more questions... And as I can definitely do better work, I'm not a miracle worker, lets see." He gestures at the papers.

She hands them over.

My God, this shit would take up Xene's attention for 2-3 days.  Petitions, bills to review, reports to file.  There are a lot of complaints about the food, as per the usual, and some about the water quality.  There's also always about a dozen complaining about WAL's goblins and some requests for further security in his region.

((Go ahead with a Politics roll.  You can make an action with 1d, and any additional sets speeds it up.  Anything over 20 is successful))

((Politics: 9, 8, 7, 7, 7, 5 & 2. flood 10, 10 from river
Main roll: 19 + 10 + 10 + 5 = 44
speeeed: 37 + 10 + 10 + 5 = 62
more speeeeeed: 20 + 10 + 10 + 5 = 45))

"Right then, let me look these through, can you get me a cup of dark life essence please?"

He starts working as she turns around.

"One cup, absolutely sir."  She stands up and flips him a mock salute before scampering out.

By the time she comes back he's blown through half the stack.  His pen's almost out of ink.  It's weird how fast he's gotten, how the words just trivially float across his eyes.  He knows the next sentence before he even reads it.  It's like he can look at a page and just distill it to a single sentence...

"Damn,"  She breathes as she sets the hot coffee in front of him.  "Already done with those?!"

"Well I figured I had to catch up for lost time." He stops for a moment to take some coffee, it's not like he actually needed it, but at the same time office work requires coffee to feel right. "Anyway, sooner or later I have to make this public and I want to do it the best way possible. Many people are probably not going to be happy if I don't resign immediately, but I'm not planning on doing so."

"Well, if you know the law and it lets you..."  Xene trails off as she watches him work, "I mean, what's the wrong way of doing this?  Besides not revealing it at all.  I think you have to do it eventually... but it's not like this is a terminal illness you've got to eventually break to everyone.  Or an affair.  This should be a positive thing, right?"

Kendal breathes deep after setting aside another set of finished papers and starting on new ones. "It's no longer about if I'm allowed to do so by the law or not, it's obviously about how people will view me after I do it, will their first thought be 'He stays senator because he is an asshole solar who gives no shits' or 'He is a great guy and we want him to stay senator' or something else. All I want is that positive reaction you had, but I'm afraid that the political scene and masses will have a totally different reaction."

Well the sooner it's done the better.

"Well, I don't think anyone sees any of the Solars as assholes.  I mean, we should be throwing a parade every time one of you Exalts." She says, "So we can start with that.  Spin it as a celebration!  Especially for your constituents.  Then we can go from there after we gauge their reaction?"

Wow, he's almost to the bottom of the pile.

"In fact-"

Xene is interrupted by the jingling of Kendal's phone.  It's a text:  Ilari informing him that Torvald is stabilized but currently unconscious.

"Somehow the glamour of solars was lost to me the second my sister became one, so I easily see the possible negative sides." He says to Xene as he replies to the text: "Great work, thanks. Send me a text when he comes to."

Then he puts the phone away and looks at Xene again. "You were saying?"

"Well, that's YOU, most other people will be thrilled.  In fact, I think you could really play this up.  Don't announce it Last Refuge wide, announce it in a meeting just for your constituents, reassure them that you're thinking of them first and not your greater political career, they're the first to know, etc.  I mean who's gonna get really hurt that you're a Solar?"

Refusing to be too optimistic, he still agrees mostly to what Xene says. "Well there are always people who don't like me or my way of doing things. Anyway your idea sounds good to me, make it happen after we are done here today."

He nods. "No use contemplating on this for too long, better make the best out of it ye?"

"I'll send out an urgent town hall notice," She already has her PDA out, "I can't guarantee a huge turnout... you know how people are with local politics.  But if we set it after normal working hours we should get a good turnout.  Let me check- you think we should apportion some of our Sweets Budget to see if we can't get more people here for punch and pie?"  She looks up at him, "I think the more people we get the better..."

He frowns for a second when the sweets budjet is mentioned, it's the most carefully calculated budjet after all. "Hmmm..." He rubs his chin  "I'd love me some blueberry pie... Anyway I think we can spare some of the budjet. Remember to inform the Ilmorijo and our staff as well. Let's not leave anyone out."

"Well, I'm thinking some for everyone who shows up.  You've got 50,000 constituents, so if we dip into the candy reserves... I'm trying to get an auditorium,"  She explains to him, "We can pass them out at the door, I guess. If I play it right I can save about 25% of our SB."

She looks up.

"Sorry.  Getting sidetracked.  OK.  So how do you want to play this with the rest of the office?  Let them find out during the presentation or tell them now or what?"

Kendal thinks for a moment. "Hell, why not just do it right now? Invite everyone to my office would you?"

it might get cramped, but hey, why not.

"Alright, sure enough boss."

She steps out of the office, giving him time to compose himself.  He can hear her calling everyone to the office.  There's a few muffled 'What, seriously?' style replies, but sure enough, they file in.  The Brothers take the back, especially since they're noticeably larger than the rest of his mostly scrawny, under-exercised group of bureaucrats.

"Alright, Senator Raines.  We're all here."

While they gather he looks at their expressions one by one. "Everyone, welcome and thank you for keeping your cool even at this stressful time." He stands up when he starts talking, keeping his voice loud enough for everyone to hear him clearly, but not deafening the first row. "If anyone thought your current workload was hard enough, it's not going to get any easier anytime soon. You see, you all are getting a promotion of sorts, more on the side of prestige, but nonetheless. I will not accept any holiday requests for some time. " He says with a reassuring smile.

"All this fuzz, extra security and all up coming work are a result of a single thing, as of yesterday, approximately at 4am I Exalted to a Solar of the Eclipse caste. It will be my pleasure to make the Last Refuge a better place with all of you." He follows their reactions closely.

"No holidays," He hears one secretary mutter- Liz Alis apparently had Plans from what he remembers.

"Wait.  What." Another one of his staff says deadpan, his face a mask of disbelief and something approaching hope.  It's like someone in the floodwaters watching a helicopter draw near.

"No fucking way."

"Proof?  Wait, is this standard with the Ilmorijo?  I thought it was the attack on the other senator!"

"Show us!" Piotr calls, "Yes, show us!"  Michal chips in.

"All questions will be answered shortly. Also I said I won't be taking holiday requests, not that I wouldn't be granting any, I just don't want anyone bailing on me when it gets really busy."

When they want proof, we shall give them some, it's not like Kendal would get bored showing off anytime soon.

He starts to let the surrounding essence flow through him, reading the surfaced emotions and thoughts of his underlings. The temperature drops a bit and he lets his anima flare out as blue-purpleish flames engulfing his arms and shoulders as the caste mark on his forehead flares. "Good enough?" He says with a partly smug, partly reassuring smile as he draws back his anima and ending the show, letting the temperature to rise back again.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 09:16, Mon 24 Dec 2018.

Jaws:  dropped.  Eyes:  bulging.  His crew has... no goddamn idea what to make of this. Even Xene is still quiet, and she's already seen it.

Only Piotr manages a dumb nod.

"What are you ogling at? Never seen a Solar before?" Well most likely they havent. "Now is not the time to get distracted by flashy lights. C'mon, shows over, more info will follow shortly so back to work." He claps his hands twice to make sure they wake up.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:22, Tue 25 Dec 2018.

They scatter, like roaches exposed to sunlight.  Or maybe something a bit less negative than roaches?  They are being exposed to sunlight, after all...

He's left with Xene and Piotr.  He clears his throat.

"Sir?"  He says to Kendal, "I have two words to say:  about time.  We needed someone like you exalting in the Senate, sir.  Michal and I have been talking about it.  If you need we can start laying down some groundwork..."