URIEL Meets Uriel
Michael
Sister Elizabeth of the Summit Lighthouse has one of her followers bring her a camp chair: hardly the bedecked throne she uses down in Malibu, but supportive enough to give her the correct Summit Lighthouse-prescribed posture for meditation and channeling: sitting upright, arms to side, eyes closed. But before she goes into her trance, she gives Archie, Charley, and Jo a little bit of patter, some more metaphysical background on what she is about to do that she had only alluded to a few minutes earlier. (I muffed this a bit the other night in-character so here's a clearer explanation of the Summit Lighthouse's cosmology.)
"The entities with whom we can make contact come in three broad groups: the Elohim, the Sons and Daughters of God who have Ascended, and the Archangels and the Angelic Hosts. The Elohim are the highest individualization and manifestation of the Godhead, shards of pure Universe who reflect back at us, humanity, what we do and are. They are the gods of legend, they are the custodians of matter and when in our realms sometimes take the forms of the elementals of old: the sylphs that control the air, the gnomes that control the earth, the undines that control the water, the salamanders that control the fire. They are purest energy, divine thoughtforms, they are both They and He and She."
"Among the Sons and Daughters of God are you and me, but also the Chohans of the Rays, the Ascended Masters, mortals whose fate has brought them to a higher plane; they reincarnate on this terraqueous globe again and again, always seeking to elevate and illuminate the planet, in service to God. You, and I, and every human being on this planet has that potential. Within us all is the all-powerful I AM, which God has graciously deigned to have tested in this material realm. Our lives, our struggles, our loves and our losses are a game God has devised to test us, to test our higher selves, to see if we are worthy of Ascension and illumination."
"The Angelic Hosts serve God directly; they are messengers of God's love, guardians, warriors, the principalities that protect our divinely-inspired nation, the pillars that hold up the universe. Their channels differ from the Elohim, their manifestations less physical, more full of the power of the Holy and Divine."
Elizabeth now begins to move her voice into stentorian chant mode. "Uriel, the Archangel of the Sixth Ray, twin flame of Archeia Aurora, the partner of the Master Jesus and the Lady Master Nada, the master of his solar servitors Helios and Vesta who formed our solar system from the cosmic dust, calls to me from across the upper realms, the Lord of the Solar Eye cries across the universe, the archangel's message is meant for you, you, you … " Elizabeth points dramatically at Archie, Charley, and Jo, " … and the others at your camp. O Uriel, make me now your Electronic Presence burning bright, through the night and through the day. Make me, then, the magnet of the Central Sun, arcing into the earth by the very sacred fire of your heart, those currents of Almighty God that are necessary for change and for the turning of the worlds!" Elizabeth's gaze goes wide as the channel is opened.
Mitch and Roger listen in from the URIEL camp, the portable transmitter carried (and boosted) by Charley giving them perfect sound and their night-vision googles/sniper scopes peering directly into the campsite. Before the "channel" opens, I want to know what everyone might want to do, powers or skills-wise, before I call for a few rolls of my own.
Bill
Roger just continues to Aim his ikoter rifle (at Elizabeth) waiting for a signal, assuming that’s most likely to come from Mitch beside him.
Rob
Archie's listening to the words behind the words, as it were, trying to connect Sister Elizabeth's spiel to the Memetics crit I rolled in our live session, along with the forensic memetics he was doing the previous week. So he's trying to figure out: is her patter juiced with Anunnaki source code? And do the memetic signatures seem like they come, directly or indirectly, from Granite Peak? Are they linked to the OZYMANDIAS memeplex that Jocasta sniffed out in the occult magazines? Or descended/drifted from older memetic operations back in the 30s? It's not so much that I think we can tell what "side" she's on based solely on the memes she uses (seems like agents of History B could hijack SANDMAN memes and vice versa, especially around Mount Shasta) but he's trying to get a read on how clued in she is (like is she deploying memes knowingly or unknowingly) and on where / what memetic lineage she's gotten her words and memes from.
Michael
Nice. I'll carry over the crit from the live session here and give you a spiel later this morning (asynchronous.gif)
Jeff
Prophet is freaking Mitch out a little bit, I'd roll for uncontrollable Pyro but for having done that already recently
He's already scanned the Summit Lighthouse people's auras and history b taint but let's try doing it while the channeling is happening, just confirm she's putting on an act rather than doing what Archie or Roger do
Do I need to roll again for it or does the previous set of rolls stand?
Michael
I'll keep the previous set of rolls, let you know how/if her aura/History B taint changes when the channeling kicks in.
Leonard
I have a question: is Jocasta's tendency to believe that this whole thing is just a cult, a bunch of genuinely misled people being duped by a (well-intentioned or otherwise) fraud? Or is it that there's something genuinely paranormal happening? If it's the former, she's just steeling herself for action in case she has to use hand-to-hand combat or shoot someone. If it's the latter, her Sense of Duty might need to kick in, in which case she'll be thinking of helping the cultists using Empathy, Psychology, Hypnotism, or First Aid, whatever seems most appropriate.
Michael
I have a question: is Jocasta's tendency to believe that this whole thing is just a cult, a bunch of genuinely misled people being duped by a (well-intentioned or otherwise) fraud? Or is it that there's something genuinely paranormal happening? If it's the former, she's just steeling herself for action in case she has to use hand-to-hand combat or shoot someone. If it's the latter, her Sense of Duty might need to kick in, in which case she'll be thinking of helping the cultists using Empathy, Psychology, Hypnotism, or First Aid, whatever seems most appropriate.
I think this probably calls for a roll. While I think the proof will be in what happens once Elizabeth starts channeling, there's probably a lot that Jo can pick up from a combination of the cultists' body language and Elizabeth's leadership. But I'm going to start with Jocasta's Empathy IQ ability because this is basically a "first impression" as Jo sees Elizabeth in full flower as the group's leader.
Secret roll, one sec.
(I also made an Occultism-18 roll for Jo.)
Elizabeth, as has already been stated, juices her liturgical I AM folderol with NLP, and Jo can sense it being laid on here as Elizabeth shifts into channeling mode. She's meant to be delivering a sense of awe to her followers, and the followers are feeling it, to various degrees. The younger folks and a few of the older folks are entirely in her thrall; the burlier men who were doing presumed security circuits around the Summit Lighthouse's campsite might be a little more practical-minded and a little less full of said awe. But Elizabeth has definitely laid it on all these folks thick, in layers, over a long period of time.
Elizabeth herself is a slightly harder nut to crack. Jo innately feels some level of inherent cynicism to Elizabeth's performance; there's more than a little Uri-the-performer here. But the sheer blizzard of references and configurations of Elohim and angels and the way it all comes naturally to her verbally and mentally … well, Jo would assume that Elizabeth is knowledgeable about her particular occult tradition and the wider occult traditions of the West, even if a lot of this verbiage is being used in an obfuscatory NLP way. Her "IQ" and "EQ" is likely extremely high. Whether that means she believes and/or delivers on being a real-deal channeler, well, that's going to depend on how the channeling itself hits Jo. But given Jo's Empathy is tuned in on Elizabeth now, Jo should be able to tell if Elizabeth is faking it when "Uriel" starts speaking or if she's actually channeling Something Else.
Archie's listening to the words behind the words, as it were, trying to connect Sister Elizabeth's spiel to the Memetics crit I rolled in our live session, along with the forensic memetics he was doing the previous week. So he's trying to figure out: is her patter juiced with Anunnaki source code? And do the memetic signatures seem like they come, directly or indirectly, from Granite Peak? Are they linked to the OZYMANDIAS memeplex that Jocasta sniffed out in the occult magazines? Or descended/drifted from older memetic operations back in the 30s? It's not so much that I think we can tell what "side" she's on based solely on the memes she uses (seems like agents of History B could hijack SANDMAN memes and vice versa, especially around Mount Shasta) but he's trying to get a read on how clued in she is (like is she deploying memes knowingly or unknowingly) and on where / what memetic lineage she's gotten her words and memes from.
Archie's memetic analysis: Well, Archie is beginning to get the hang of both the general Shasta mythcycle and the memetics that are embedded within them. He's now read some of all of the following:
The Dweller on Two Planets (back at Livermore before the trip on Viv's advice)
some of the Ballard I AM material that was seeded in the '30s with the express help of SANDMAN (again, back at Livermore)
the representative Alice Bailey material that Mitch snagged at Vera's
Nola van Valer's slim self-published volumes of Shasta/I AM lore (supported by Sheila and Lynn and ostensibly SANDMAN as a whole)
and now a full-on assault from Elizabeth Clare Prophet, to represent the Summit Lighthouse tributary of this memeplex
The thing about Elizabeth's performance, and this is after you lay aside the scattered bits of NLP she's throwing in to reinforce her bond with her cult, is that the cosmology presented within is a mélange of so many different versions of Shasta/AM lore. She made special mention earlier today of the feminine principle being front and center in her cosmology. Dethroning the Master Jesus from the Sixth Ray in favor of Lady Master Nada is a major alteration to the memeplex! The Master Jesus is meant to represent the Age of Pisces, the past 2000 years since the life of Christ, whose true esoteric message was largely rejected and thus we collectively stumbled about in the dark for illumination. Remove this from the memeplex and you get a very different story about the Age of Aquarius.
But hold on a minute. What if dethroning Christ isn't a feminist message on Elizabeth's part, but instead an Anunnakku one? If we take as assumed, as Archie has on several occasions over the past few months, that the life-myth of Christ was born from the Ontoclysm as a kind of protective collective memory to help us ward off the Kings (just think about all those evil Babylonian kings in the Bible and Book of Mormon, after all), then Elizabeth choosing to essentially retro-uncreate the Master Jesus is a move away from the memes that SANDMAN was putting into Ballard/Bailey/van Valer: memes like "Christ is just another Ascended Master which means you can feel good about your pre-inlaid Christianity memes you contracted from being raised in early 20th century America." The other SANDMAN memes that the SOE injected into the Shasta/I AM memeplex back into the '30s, like the devotion to America as a unique beacon of religious freedom and spiritual fate, even, yes, sad to say, the implicit Blavatasky-ian white supremacy, have remained in Elizabeth's memeplex. But Christ and by extension Judeo-Christianity is, well, not gone but slightly diminished in stature.
This makes Elizabeth's "channeling" of Uriel, whose meme is Judeo-Christian but also esoteric (think about that quote from Milton on the URIEL offices' door, for instance, as well as medieval and Renaissance angelology, which was as much esoteric as mainstream Christian), all the more interesting for Archie to listen to carefully. Archie very much wants to hear what the archangel will say. And he's pretty sure it's not Elizabeth's memetics or NLP getting him to think that. Pretty sure.
Oh, one more thing: I would be remiss not to mention that to Archie's mind, there is another meme tributary worming its way through Shasta Lore from the outset, at least as far back as the Frederick Spenser Oliver story. It's since become somewhat fused with the Ascended Master memeplex but it has its own memetic cadence and rhythm, and that is the idea of an alternate society inside the mountain. Whether Atlantean, Lemurian, aliens or other saucer people, or what have you, the central element to this memeplex is how much better the world could be if we just let the sciences and scientists rule us, with conveniences that put paid to all thought of work and labor (q.v. the Big Rock Candy Mountain) and allow us to live in harmony with our fellow man. This is of course the promise of much utopian fiction since More and Bacon, which means it's a memeplex that's been around in one form or another for nearly four centuries or more, since the Renaissance. And it more-than-a-little resembles Shamballa or Shangri-La. But it's its resemblance to OZYMANDIAS's recently-revealed raison d'être that gets Archie maybe a little nervous.
Anyway, all of these memes have some degree of source code, but the only ones that are identifiably SANDMAN are Ballard and successors' love of America, love of a "white" brotherhood, and love of Christ/acceptance as Christ as an AM.
Mel
Charley is taking in the show and is not paying attention to not much else. Her inner thoughts scream Uriel!!
Michael
Elizabeth's eyes fly open, manic, their whites nearly glowing in the campfire's light.
"In the light of freedom I AM come!"
"In the light of freedom that never, never fails—I AM come!"
"Uriel, archangel of the living flame of freedom!"
To everyone who can hear Elizabeth — Jocasta, Archie and Charley in person and Mitch and Roger over the audio hookup—the pitch of Elizabeth's voice has gotten simultaneously deeper and more powerful, a roaring, more masculine, bellowing tone. Her arms fly up to her sides, suggesting great wings or a blessing to be placed upon the archangel's supplicants.
Jocasta's Empathy immediately tells her that there is very little, if any, of Elizabeth in this entity's voice. She's only heard this kind of transformation in one other person during her time with SANDMAN. And Mitch's aura sight, even from this distance, sees a change in Elizabeth's aura entirely like what happens when a loa is riding Roger. Indeed, even Roger (and Charley) with their knowledge of Voudon have the inkling that Elizabeth has tapped into something Other Than Human with this channeling. Mitch's Detect (History B) doesn't sense any heightened History B presence — Elizabeth still has some odor of History B sticking to her but "the archangel Uriel" most definitely does not.
The Summit Lighthouse followers avert their gaze and some drop to their knees from their seats on logs and camp chairs.
"I AM the fullness of Helios and Vesta. I AM in the full power of the Great Central Sun. The angels of Helios and Vesta descend from the solar system joining my bands of sacred fire for the union now between the Lord Christ and Saint Germain. The oneness of that flame, God-victorious, the golden-pink glow-ray, reveals all lies and strips away all masks."
Elizabeth/Uriel looks directly at Archie, Jocasta, and Charley.
"O beloved ones, with all of your masks and make-believe and toiling at fabrication: beloved, the tearing of the mask is left to Uriel. And thus, I AM come in this hour that the masks may be removed and all may see the creeping, crawling, unclean things and the infestation of worms in the bodies of these fallen ones."
"My light is Victory. I defy and defeat all tyrants, of all nations." Elizabeth/Uriel raises her right arm, four fingers pointed toward the three URIEL members. "Remove your masks."
Jeff
"Don't," Mitch mutters urgently, heedless of the impossibility of Jo, Charley, and Archie hearing him. "Don't do it."
Rob
Archie holds Charley's hand, steps forward a little protectively, putting himself a half step closer to Elizabeth than Charley or Jo. "We … we wear no masks," he says, mildly.
Leonard
Jocasta thinks this whole place is pulsing with bad vibes. Her main concern right now is the security goons, and her hand is hitched in her back pocket ready to take the gun out of her waistband if needed. But she's also thinking of ways to neutralize Elizebeth. She doesn't whisper, but also doesn't speak loudly, in Danbe to Archie: "This is a bad scene, chief. We should leave and figure out how to handle this."
Michael
Elizabeth/Uriel completely ignores Jocasta and her use of Danbe, directing her reply to Archie. "You fight for God-justice's victory and for freedom — in my Holy Name — and you come to me in this guise and say you wear no mask? If you fear speaking plainly in front of her followers, they can be made to harmlessly sleep and forget. You may speak your role and your karma openly with me. I see your souls, I can count the virtues of your souls as jewels sparkling in the aura."
Rob
Like you say, Archie wants to hear what the "angel" has to say. He answers Elizabeth/Uriel directly: "If you know who we are, we need not speak it. But … how can we know who you are? You claim to be the Uriel who guided Enoch? The, the eye of Heaven? How can we believe it?"
He gives Jocasta a quick nod that's meant to say "I understand, but let's just play this out just a little longer"
Michael
"You need not speak who you are to me. You need to speak it to yourselves, and to the universe. You have fear right now. You do not know who to trust. You, frankly, do not know who you are anymore. You desire wisdom, knowledge of a kind not usually vouchsafed to your kind. That is why you came to the mountain, is it not? To seek the counsel of Saint Germain? To understand the mysteries, to comprehend your role in making and remaking the world?"
"Yes, I AM he who was created to illuminate the world. I AM he who brought light to Israel. I AM he who guided Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham. I AM he whose Sacred Fire purifies and clarifies, removes fear, expatiates and exposes sin. Those who named you did it as a sly joke. But I tell you when that name was bestowed upon you, you became mine. Sheltered in my wings, blessed with my solar light. Invincible in victory."
Rob
I don't know how long I can keep dining off the same Memetics crit but Archie is interested whether the memetic signature (is that a thing? memetic profile?) of what Elizabeth/Uriel is saying is the same or different from what Elizabeth was saying before. Like, is Elizabeth/Uriel carrying old SANDMAN memes or is it its own separate thing? If he needs to steer the conversation in a particular direction to figure that out (like by saying, "What's all this about dethroning the Master Jesus from the Sixth Ray?") he will.
Michael
There's no source code embedded in what Elizabeth/Uriel is saying. Neither any NLP. Without the source code, the things Elizabeth/Uriel is saying can't stick the way memes do. But Archie is interested to find out which memetic "side" Elizabeth/Uriel is on from her rhetoric: the side of History A as Archie memetically conceives of it right now — the side of Christ, Christianity, humanity's freedom and individuality, materialism even — or the side of History B — the Red Kings, humanity's existing in communal harmony but under the thumb of the Anunnaki, esotericism, spirituality.
And the language the entity is using is a mix of both memeplexes. There are sops to the all-American freedom and victory memes that the Ascended Master mythcycle accreted thanks to Guy Ballard and pre-SANDMAN memeticists (let alone the mentions of the Old Testament patriarchs), but there are also mentions of Saint Germain, the quintessential self-made hermetic man whom Mitch suspects of being an express History B agent, the language of self-actualization, of Eastern religions, of karma, of one's proper place in the universe. Could this be a History A memeplex that is now slowly being corrupted by History B? A History B memeplex that has been blunted thanks to 40+ years of SANDMAN memetics? An unexpected melding or mutation of both? Whatever the case, Archie is pretty sure that Uriel is neither one thing nor the other. Not necessarily a free agent in the war for reality but a sentient idea that draws from both Histories. Maybe even an entity who is beyond these petty cares.
But not beyond caring about Operation URIEL.
Rob
"Are we your servants, then? Because your name is ours? Then, what do you want from us? And how can we serve you without knowing what history you serve? Or do you even know? Milton's Uriel was fooled, after all, by the adversary of God and man."
Michael
"What a testament to your condition is your question, priest! 'What do you want from us?' This is slave-mind. Would it not be better, and make infinitely more sense, for me to ask that of you? What do you want from us?"
"I am a fragment of the Godhead; I have no desires other than to see creation fulfilled. There is only one world. There was only ever one world. Your adversary exists in your own minds. And one day … you all changed your minds. And this resulted." Elizabeth/Uriel gestures around her. "You crippled yourselves. You put blinders on yourselves, put yourselves in chains. Sometimes literally. You needed jailers, overseers, and kings, even after you rid your history of Those Who Provide … and yet you kept making them."
"When you call upon us — the angels, the divinities, the Elohim, the Masters — we are instantaneously with you. When you do not call upon us, even though we want to save you, cosmic law says we cannot intervene. We are required to respect your free will."
Give me a Hidden Lore (Spirit Lore)-16 roll, I'll give you a bonus to your usual 14 for observing silently for most of the scene so far.
Mel
I’d like to add corruption to this roll.
>>>> SUCCESS by 10
Michael
Charley silently observes Elizabeth's channeling methods, and Archie's tentative attempts to engage the archangel in conversation. Charley's been around enough spirits and mediums at this point — herself included, if you count Houdini! — to know when someone's faking it. Elizabeth is not faking it. Whatever this entity is, it is speaking through Elizabeth rather than just being part of her existing psyche, suffused in the Ascended Master lore and what have you.
Charley tunes in on the words and phrases and ideas that Uriel is sharing with them. Uriel mentioned the Biblical stories that Archie would have understood as almost an afterthought! "Oh yeah, I was that guy who helped out Enoch and Noah, sure." Uriel's much more interested in talking about what he is doing now. And to Charley's mind, he is trying to get the people around this campfire to correct themselves, to really confront the hidden depths of their own souls. He obviously knows about URIEL, and Charley thinks he also seems to know what we've had to deal with regarding all the revelations around OZYMANDIAS. That means he has knowledge that Elizabeth Clare Prophet couldn't possibly have. Unless, of course, she and her church know everything about URIEL. Which seems … well, not impossible, but pretty paranoid to assume. Again, these words and thoughts are coming from outside Elizabeth.
Elizabeth's invocation of the archangel was really interesting to Charley. "O Uriel, make me now your Electronic Presence burning bright, through the night and through the day. Make me, then, the magnet of the Central Sun, arcing into the earth by the very sacred fire of your heart, those currents of Almighty God that are necessary for change and for the turning of the worlds!" "Electronic Presence"! That's wild! Elizabeth believes that Uriel is basically a signal, beaming across the solar system from the sun, and that she is the antenna tuning into him!
What if that were really true?
What if all the spirits humanity has discovered and met and had congress with since the Ontoclysm are just … floating around out there, like radio and TV signals? They're generated by human belief, yeah? Christianity, Voudon, Ascended Masters … every human being is a little transmitter, putting belief signals out there into the world; Charley saw that at the St. Francis, near the end, as the MARPA and Atlantean parties, with the help of Archie's memes, claimed back the top floors of the hotel for History A. Elizabeth said she was the magnet for Uriel, but Charley doesn't think that's wholly true. Sure, she's a talented medium; she has a lot of knowledge about Uriel's lore to attract him to her. But Charley thinks the real antenna here is that giant mountain over Elizabeth's shoulders. This place makes it easier to make the imagined, the semi-real, real. When Roger described how the kulullû had to "tune in" the Comte and the Comte was still like a wavy TV channel that wouldn't resolve, and Mitch said the Comte was a real human being on the top of the mountain … well, that just proves it. Things can happen here on Mount Shasta that can't happen most other places in the world. "The turning of the worlds." Who knows what any of us could accomplish here? Jo's Psychometry and Mind Probing, or Mitch's Serendipity … even Charley's quantum powers, they could be radically extended and empowered.
Charley reaches out with those quantum powers a little bit (gaining Corruption) and realizes in a flash, this must be why it became clear to her that spirits are waveforms generated by human belief … because she can kind of sense those waves right now, thanks to the proximity of Mount Shasta and Elizabeth's channeling. Charley can identify Uriel's wavelength. Charley memorizes this wavelength innately with her technopathic powers and stores it away … for later investigation.
Mel
Charley let go of Archie's hand and steps forward to address the Archangel. She has learned from Roger and first-hand experience that there are ways to conduct oneself when speaking to spirits, especially with the older, more powerful ones. But Uriel, an angel … that gives Charley pause, and as she quiets her mind, an innate sense or wild talent delivers her the right words. As Charley speaks, the campfire casts her in an eerie golden light. "Oh great and powerful Archangel Uriel, what knowledge and secrets can you impart that will grant us the power to defeat our enemies?"
Michael
Elizabeth/Uriel smiles wryly at Charley, the first real recognizable human expression that Uriel has allowed himself in Elizabeth's body. "I could ask the same sort of question of you, old soul, that I asked your priest. 'Who are you to be so young and have so many enemies to defeat?' But you are not young, are you? Always the strategist, always the tactician … old friend Owain."
Mel
Feeling side-stepped Charley presents an oath, "Wilt thou swear by the holy blood of Jesus Christ that thou art truly Archangel Uriel?"
Michael
"I AM." The Electronic Presence within Elizabeth flares; Charley senses herself being bombarded with belief straight from the channel; even Archie and Jocasta can feel the hairs on the backs of their necks stand up.
Mitch sees Elizabeth/Uriel's aura flare brightly. An effect meant to display power, nothing more. The … pure spiritual energy dissipates into the environment rapidly, trickling into the soil and rocks and back into the mountain.
Mitch detects with his Detect (History B) the slightest hint of a VERY minor localized reality rumble. Like, on the Richter scale this would be in the 1.0 band. An incidental foreshock. There's no, like, will behind it like there is when, for instance, an Irruptor is attempting to manifest or retrocreate. Instead this feels like a result of Uriel exerting its own belief energy. Call it similar to the stray sparks being thrown off by Norton's Coin on the St. Francis roof when it deflected the Mattock of Enlil's energy.
Oh, and I would say there was probably a little bit of temporary interference on Mitch and Roger's headphones tuned to the surveillance rig on Charley.
A 1-2 second hiss of static.
Leonard
Jocasta turns again and says, sharply, "Archie."
Jeff
"Christ it's big," Mitch mutters, half to Roger and half to himself. "How is it so big?"
Rob
Archie makes eye contact with Jocasta, sees her concern, looks around to gauge the situation. What are all the other lighthouse enthusiasts doing? Everyone still on their knees, the security guys included? Other than the Angel of the Lord do there seem to be any physical threats? Are we surrounded, could we get out of here quickly if we needed?
Mel
Charley takes a step back but is determined to continue. “Good. Then will you not answer my call for assistance? What can you provide to aid in our quest to defeat our enemies?”
Michael
Charley takes a step back but is determined to continue. “Good. Then will you not answer my call for assistance? What can you provide to aid in our quest to defeat our enemies?”
"I ask you this time more clearly, then." A pause. "Who are your enemies?"
Archie makes eye contact with Jocasta, sees her concern, looks around to gauge the situation. What are all the other lighthouse enthusiasts doing? Everyone still on their knees, the security guys included? Other than the Angel of the Lord do there seem to be any physical threats? Are we surrounded, could we get out of here quickly if we needed?
It's really terrible; I was looking at Archie's sheet and seeing he has very few situational awareness skills — Observation, Strategy, Tactics... but Jo does. And Archie does have Leadership, the kind of skill that could help him convey to Jocasta that we need an urgent tactical sitrep. Between that and ESL I think you might be able to do the following: Archie: Leadership-17 (penalized 1 for the need to use gesture and ESL) Jocasta will then roll her Tactics, which will be aided by the Leadership roll. So hold off until we get Archie's result.
Mel
“Those that would mean to harm us and take away our right to free will.”
Michael
"Which ones."
I should say that just easily from looking around the campfire, Archie, Charley and Jo can see the Summit Lighthouse folks are glassy-eyed, body language untensed and relaxed; with your Hypnotism skill it's easy to tell they're all in light trances. Not sure if "auto-" or no. Mitch should probably get that info with aura sight too; they've been slowly slipping into trance over the time of Uriel's manifestation.
Mel
Charley pauses and very slowly (slow enough to be stopped) starts to say, “The Anunnaki”.
Rob
(Archie's not going to stop Charley — kids say the darndest things, you know — and he wants to hear where this goes. Jocasta may feel differently.)
Leonard
(Leonard, if you're good with Jocasta rolling Tactics-15, that would be awesome.)
>>>> SUCCESS by 8
Michael
Jocasta sees no hidden snipers in the woods, no further burly "guard" type cultists reconnoitering the camp; the two older gentlemen who looked like muscle are just as glassy-eyed as the rest of the Summit Lighthouse right now. Jo feels like the spirit, whatever it is, is in control of the tactical situation here, and she's … well, just one woman. As far as Jo knows.
Elizabeth/Uriel looks at Charley after she says, "Anunnaki" with solemnity, seriousness, and maybe even a little sadness or the best approximation of human sadness an angel can accomplish.
"These beings you call the Anunnaki cannot be 'defeated' as you put it. They have always been with you. And they will always be with you. They are … an invader. A virus. A foreign body in your world's noosphere that has been beaten down before: in fact by your own circle, Owain. But they creep back in. They whisper to humanity as the Serpent did in the Garden: 'Connect the world. Spread your beliefs, your technology. Enslave your fellow man to create paradise. Be like unto Us. In our absence, do our work and recreate the world that your efforts long ago destroyed.' And you do it, unheeding, because you carry some part of them around, in here," Elizabeth/Uriel points to her temple, "and forever will. The Ark of old that saved all the wild beasts of the field — the ravens, the scorpions, the snakes, the lions, the bulls, those monstrous Nephilim made when they lay with the Daughters of Cain — was not a ship made of gopherwood. It was your very minds."
"But in this as in all things, you have a choice. We are required to respect your free will. If enough of you believe differently, avoid the corruption that comes from using their methods, with the right plan, the right moves on the right game board … you can prevent their return forever."
Mel
“Great Uriel, what do you mean by ‘right game board’ Can you tell us what would be most advantageous?”
Jeff
"They've always been with us, but they're an invading foreign virus?" Mitch asks Roger sardonically. "And they'll always be with us, except we can prevent their return forever."
Leonard
Jocasta has heard and seen enough. "I'm going back to camp, Arch," she says. "I'd like it if you and Charlie came with me." She walks off.
Michael
“Great Uriel, what do you mean by ‘right game board’ Can you tell us what would be most advantageous?”
"The way for their return, first it must be stopped on its current careening path. Remove the desire among your people for their return. By stopping the men who seek to accelerate this process. Then the Ascended Masters can be assembled at the axis of the world … "
Elizabeth/Uriel's voice fades into uncertainty as Jocasta leaves the Summit Lighthouse camp. Elizabeth/Uriel doesn't say anything to Jo, or try to stop her, or indeed pick back up her train of thought with Charley. She simply looks at Archie and Charley, expecting them to leave too. "Well, fare well, my namesakes. May my flame of illumination continue to light your way, my eye ever on your progress."
Mel
“Oh!” Charley looks at Jocasta leaving not understanding why she would go. Then turns back to Elizabeth/Uriel and adds, “Thank you Archangel Uriel the light you have provided will be put to good use!”
Michael
(Unless Archie has anything to say or do, Elizabeth will be releasing the channel and ending the mediumship.)
Rob
(No, I think he's at a loss for words. He: makes sure Charley is ok, is curious to see what Elizabeth does/how she seems after the channeling ends, but tries to extricate himself and Charley from this scene as quickly and politely as possible. Walking back to our campsite he'll tell Charley what a great job she did, ask her what she made of all that.)
Michael
The sleepy-eyed, entranced Summit Lighthouse members offer no resistance to Charley and Archie leaving, and the last look Archie gets at Elizabeth in the light of the campfire is two of her attendants slowly making their way over to her and helping her up from her camp chair. Elizabeth gives one last look to Archie and Charley as they vanish between the pines on their way back to the URIEL camp.
Bill
"They've always been with us, but they're an invading foreign virus?" Mitch asks Roger sardonically. "And they'll always be with us, except we can prevent their return forever."
Roger would shrug, but it'd throw off his aim. Not that he's aiming so hard anymore. "Mysteries can be paradoxes, man, but can still be true."
Mel
Charley is beside herself with excitement and dances circles around Archie as they try to catch up to Jocasta. "Dad! THAT WAS INCREDIBLE!!! We just spoke to Uriel!" We'll be okay; we'll get the help we need now! We already got some help, and oh my gosh!" Then concerned for Jocasta, she stops and looks up at Archie. “Why did Jo leave? What's wrong?"
Michael
(For the record, and sorry this got lost in the shuffle, but as Jocasta was leaving the Summit Lighthouse camp, she could clearly see the numinous angelic aura of Uriel channeling through Elizabeth but given that Jo knows since her "Bucket and Spade" dérive through Oakland during the Mansa mission she's been mildly synesthetic under mental pressure, she might not look at it as anything especially noteworthy, let alone truly numinous.)
(I would also say that the five URIEL members will have a few minutes to discuss stuff without Viv and Mary-Lynn poking their heads in, if they need it.)
Rob
Charley is beside herself with excitement and dances circles around Archie as they try to catch up to Jocasta. "Dad! THAT WAS INCREDIBLE!!! We just spoke to Uriel!" We'll be okay; we'll get the help we need now! We already got some help, and oh my gosh!" Then concerned for Jocasta, she stops and looks up at Archie. “Why did Jo leave? What's wrong?"
"Oh, I think Jo was probably just... being careful. We don't know for sure who that was we were talking to. ... Do we?" Archie looks closely at Charley here - he's genuinely asking her if she does know. "Let's get back to our campsite and see what everybody else thinks." As they arrive back at the campsite, he adds, "You did a great job there, pumpkin. You asked smart questions and you were very brave."
Mel
Charley takes Archies hand again and says, "Thanks Dad. " Then seeing Roger and Mitch and says, "Did you guys see that!? Can you believe it?! Roger, have you ever talked to an Archangel before? I knew this camping trip was going to be great!" Then to Jocasta, "Jo, why did you leave?"
Rob
Archie's somewhere between bemused and baffled. "Well, that was something!" To Mitch and Roger: "Did the radio work? Could you fellows hear all that?" But he's also interested in Jocasta's reply to Charley.
Leonard
Jocasta leans up against a tree, still half-watching the Lighthouse camp. "I don't think that was a real angel, Charley. I think that Elizabeth is trying to trick us."
Jeff
"We heard it," Mitch says heavily. "And I could see it … listen, angel or, I don't know. I mean, she's definitely being disingenuous about stuff; she's an urigeller. But Elizabeth Clare Prophet isn't in the club. The thing that was riding her … " He shakes his head. "I'm not so sure."
Mel
Charley considers what Jo said briefly and says, "No! No, she wasn't, or maybe she tried, but it was a REAL angel. I could sense its wavelengths. They were beautiful!"
"It's this place Mitch! Anything can happen here!"
Rob
Archie's thinking aloud, thinking this through. "Well, the woman is obviously a huckster. Not SANDMAN — Charley's pass phrase went right by her — but, like you say, Mitch, a Uri Geller type."
"Her patter was a hodge podge of esotericism, Shasta lore, what have you. She's put a 'Women's Libber' spin on it, I don't know if that's her innovation or the enemy's work. I mean, both sides have thrown so much at this mountain over the years, memetically — there's almost no untangling all the threads."
"But the entity she, ah, channeled. That wasn't Prophet speaking. We're all agreed on that, right? It knew who we were; she didn't. It didn't use the enemy's programming or NLP. And it wasn't a creature of History A or B in any obvious way. But it claimed to be on our side."
(Gesturing to the group when he says our, indicating "the club" rather than SANDMAN or History A generally.)
Jeff
Mitch is nodding as Archie is speaking.
Leonard
Jocasta lights a cigarette, in clear violation of the rules set forth by Forest Service spokesanimal Smokey Bear. "Look, I know … my paranoia can get the best of me. But Christ! Are we supposed to just accept at face value some two-bit hustler who just happens to show up right next to our campsite on one of the biggest nexuses of occult power on the West Coast, and just happens to have a direct line to a spiritual entity our unit is named after, and just happens to know all about our mission, and that we're going about it all wrong, and can help us win as long as we change our approach to what she says and show the proper amount of deference to a bunch of contradictory bafflegab? I don't buy it. Not for a second."
"Look," she continues, "We've all spent a lot of pain and frustration learning that we've been infiltrated, manipulated, spied on, misled, and fed a line by people inside our own organization. We've had to learn the hard way that we've been led around by the nose. We found out Puharić was a point man for OZYMANDIAS, and that he wants to create a whole world of Uri Gellers, but we couldn't do anything about it because we're not sure how much he's in line with actual SANDMAN leadership. And now, this … this rinky-dink trance medium just happens to appear right next to us as we're trying to figure out what to do next, this Uri Geller soundalike of the sort that we know OZYMANDIAS is actively trying to cultivate, and we, what? Listen to her advice because she's got a little psychic juice? Let her build up another one of these cults of gullible technocratic believers that's going to help make the world they want? It feels wrong, Archie. It's wrong."
Jeff
"Also good points."
Mel
(meekly) "But the wavelengths"
Leonard
"I'm not saying she doesn't have power, Charley. But power itself doesn't mean anything. Our enemies have power. It's not the reality of the energies, it's how they're directed. Power can be turned to any cause, even what seems like divine power."
She looks in Archie's direction with a regretful look. "Do you know about the archangel Michael? He was one of Uriel's brethren. Archie's church believes he is the father of man, the prince of earthly powers, and the caster-out of Satan from Heaven. And do you know what he did?"
She crushes out her cigarette. "He killed people. Hundreds of thousands of them, in a single day."
Rob
"I hear you, Jocasta. I'm not saying we should trust this woman … or her angel." Archie immediately looks to see if this upsets Charley. "I'm not saying we can't trust it, Charley... that's what we have to figure out."
Back to Jocasta and the group: "Certainly we should open a file on these Lighthouse Keepers, put them on our watch list if they're not there already. Maybe we neutralize Prophet. Maybe we turn her into an asset. That's all standard operating procedure."
"As for all these coincidences … yes, it's all pretty incredible. But … I mean, Mitchell brought us here. Mitch picked the campsite. Isn't this … how it goes with him?" Archie gestures at the mountain with both arms. "We're in Mitch Country. Doesn't kooky coincidence go with the territory?"
"Roger, what did you make of this 'Uriel'?"