Prologue
Have you ever thought about what kind of temptation
the Humanity Attunement would be for Djinn?
Everything gets so quiet while it's on. The Symphony
itself is almost hushed: the screech of disturbance is
only a bad memory. The sensory apparatus of the
average human is so inferior to that of the average
demon that every movement and sound feels muffled.
You're almost forced to relax and drift along for the
duration. Best of all, you're almost perfectly safe
from discovery: the entire point of this Attunement is
to make someone unnoticeable. You can go sit and
gather dust in peace. All in all, Humanity must be
close to physically addictive for Djinn of the Game.
All Djinn of the Game.
Part I: "This is the noise that keeps me awake/ my
head explodes and my body aches" -- Garbage, Push It
Every Superior has his, her or its own methods of
stress relief: the Prince of the Game is no exception.
His, in fact, is fairly ingenuous: Asmodeus has noted
that the two major methodologies for dealing with
inappropriate impulses (expression and denial) have
significant benefits and flaws. Obviously, the
optimal path is to find a method that combines the
advantages of both while suffering from the
disadvantages of neither.
The Prince has accomplished this by the deliberate
'sacrificing' of part of himself. One facet of his
awareness has been placed in a vessel that has had the
Humanity Attunement permanently invoked upon it.
Whenever Asmodeus encounters in himself an
inappropriate feeling or desire, he immediately
banishes it to his unwilling spiritual heat sink. Let
it deal with the problem: the link is one-way, so the
main part of Asmodeus never has to deal with the
aftereffects. It's still necessary to very
occasionally 'clean out' the subordinate part of
his awareness, but the whole procedure is still more
efficient than dealing with each little impulse as it
comes up.
Part II: "Too bad dark languages rarely survive." -- Poe, Hey Pretty
Unfortunately, something seems to have gone wrong: the
piece of Asmodeus that should have been quietly
dealing with this for the betterment of all has
apparently gone insane, or dead. The experience was
... disquieting: the Prince of the Game is not used to
having any part of his well-regulated mind suddenly
spout gibberish at the top of its metaphorical lungs.
He is even less used to finding any part of himself
even more suddenly refuse to work.
Now, normally Asmodeus would simply track down his
errant fragment-self, obliterate whatever personality
was in there and reintegrate. Unfortunately, he
literally can't: whatever it was that sent his emotion
sink over the edge also metaphorically knocked it out
of the network. The Prince of the Game cannot even
determine with any certainty just where his rebellious
subroutine is. It's as if there was a blind spot,
so subtle that the Prince himself is uncertain
whether it's actually there. Asmodeus is certain that
he'd know if the fragment had been dispersed: the link
is still there, just ... unresponsive. This is
unacceptable, especially since the allegorical debris
is starting to pile up.
Asmodeus needs to fix this soon, before someone tracks
down his errant fragment and starts administering
payback (or, worse, before he himself has to start
actively dealing with disgusting emotions like empathy
or generosity). All he needs is someone to locate the
fragment, and he'll handle the rest. Of course,
anyone who does this for him is going to have a very
short lifespan afterwards (loose lips, and all
that)...
... but there are lots of demons in Hell - and, of
course, it would be pointless to waste his own
Servitors, no?
Part III: "Now get in the pit and try to love someone!" -- Kid Rock, Bawitdaba
Well, that's how you get Demon PCs #1 into the
scenario: it would be aesthetically pleasing if
they've gotten in trouble with the Game, but a little
thought should confirm precisely how superfluous that
requirement actually is. Every Other Demon PC group
(and Angel PC Group #X) will instead walk into this
scenario halfway through, when they encounter the
aforementioned fragment.
Actually, by now, the fragment has a name. It's
Alfred, if you please - or even if you don't please.
He really doesn't care much about celestial opinions,
either way.
Alfred has by now gone through anger, insanity,
despair and absolute ennui and passed through to the
other side. He could feel the pressure building
inside him, growing, growing ... and he even tried to
warn the dimly-remembered greater part of him about
what was going on. Apparently, the larger part of him
couldn't be bothered to care. What from Alfred can
deduce, that's not too surprising. Well, such is
life.
And, you know ... life isn't all that bad, once you've
allowed yourself to stand still and let it kick you in
the groin for a while. It's hard on the furniture, of
course (especially while you're foaming at the mouth
from feeling your mind slowly going all fuzzy and hot)
- but once you get past that bit, things perk up.
Coffee, for example. Have you ever just sat in an
all-night diner and drank coffee? No, of course not -
celestials never drink coffee unless it's a Need or
role maintenance. Dumb of them: coffee is one of
those things that drives home the lesson of what being
human is like. But you have to drink a lot, to
understand. At about 3 AM, the accumulated caffeine
stops being your friend and starts kicking at your
stomach. Most people stop there, the fools.
What you have to do is drink more coffee, maybe get a
slice of pie or two, and really concentrate on the
sensation. It's seriously intense. By 6 AM, you're
so wired and tired that the dreams are especially good
and surrealistic. Dreaming ... now there's an
experience worth having, for that matter. You can
really appreciate Beleth's work that way - and even
Blandine's, when the coffee will let you. You don't
get to dream, when you're a celestial - or so Alfred
remembers.
Frankly, they can keep it. Being human is so much
more intense, so much more immediate. The pleasures
may be dulled a bit, but they soothe. Coffee. Cherry
pie. A good book. Linear time.
Janet.
Who's Janet, you ask? Only the best damn waitress
Alfred has ever seen (not that he's seen many, of
course). She always knows when you need another cup,
leaves you alone when you feel like being alone, never
asks why you keep coming back every night to stare out
of the window ... and she'll talk to you without
cowering. She'll even laugh at you when you've said
something stupid. Nobody ever dared do that around
Asmod ... Al ... and isn't that a crying shame?
She's alone, too, you understand. No husband, no
kids, nobody that cares too much about her. Just the
night shift at a diner and feet that always hurt and
nobody to talk to except a quiet guy who reads T.S.
Eliot for laughs.
A man could do worse.
Now, at this point anybody who knows who Al really is
should be quietly swearing and wondering how to get
out of this scenario alive. A demon that cannot
extrapolate from the existing data and come to the
conclusion "Asmodeus will terminate anyone who even
faintly looks like they've encountered this weakness
in his character" might very well be not worth saving,
anyway. Angels who have stumbled upon this situation
(hey, it's a good diner) should likewise be paranoid -
with good reason. Asmodeus will be an
equal-opportunity eliminator of evidence, after all.
Getting a satisfactory conclusion out of this will
take some doing. Demons have it easy: they just have
to survive. Angels will have to worry about
justice/payback/mercy (although they'd probably want
to survive, too). Funnily enough, Redemption could be
an out for Either Side, provided that demons can do
some fast talking to their own Princes about how the
new Cherub would be actually one in the eye for
someone that nobody likes very much. Permanently
dispersing the poor bastard's Forces would work, too.
Really permanently. You don't want to leave even a
hint that Asmodeus could pick up on. Redeeming Al
looks better all the time.
Not necessarily easier, mind...
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