The team had a long conversation about whether they should take out the Auroch Minister and whether they even had that right before beginning a discussion on tactics. London was pretty angry that they didn't seem to think his predicament was worth getting into a murder match with Minister Ortega. He eventually convinced them (a few didn't need much convincing, like Leningrad who was immediately happy to do it) and they started talking about outcomes.
Kill the Auroch Minister? Frame her for something? Break down all of her alliances? They weren't sure what to do.
In conversations with their handler, Nice, they were told that the Prometheus Project could provide them with a device that flushes the area of its place memory so that Patterns and similar powers couldn't determine what had happened there. They could also provide another artefact (pre-Abyss item of Fallen construction) that would destroy a Fallen's sympathetic connections with other people (such as pacts) if it penetrates the heart before that Fallen dies. This meant that they could sever Minister Ortega's pacts and prevent her from immediately possessing a thrall when she died.
They then decided that they'd station a sniper (London) and a spotter (Miami) on a rooftop with a direct sight line to her own rooftop. I decided to allow all of Miami's successes on a spot roll to add to any successes London made to make having a spotter more worthwhile. If his successes just added more dice to London's roll, those dice might not roll successes and therefore wouldn't be as good as Miami simply having a rifle himself. I pre-warned them that this wouldn't be a permanent house rule but would work during this set up and they were okay with that.
Oxford and Nomad 6 waited in the chopper a short distance away so that they could provide an immediate extraction if necessary.
They waited until Minister Ortega and her Fallen Angel pilot (whom they had identified as a pilot who used to work for the Center for Disease Control) flew off.
Then Leningrad and Tokyo decided to take a chance sneaking into the building through the basement via access tunnels to avoid security and people's attention on them. Dallas led them through the tunnels as he has a perfect sense of direction. They found a corridor which led to a locked door into the basement that was guarded by a single camera. Tokyo snuck up as it rotated (going with Deus Ex tropes rather than real world) and touched it to hack it into showing a loop. Then she unlocked the door and got inside.
They then found access into a vent and went up to the top two floors which were Minister Ortega's apartment. The bottom floor seemed to belong to her two security guards and the Fallen Angel, judging by the room set up (two singles in one room, one queen-sized bed in another). Leningrad can use his three roll system to either assassinate or knock out (one success on a Stealth, Medicine, Brawl) to knock out the two guards. Tokyo then hacked the cameras, of which there were many, and after studying the pilot for awhile figured out a couple syllables of his True Name. She could then identify his Celestial Name from that.
Remiel. Devil of Flame. Ebon Legion. Luciferan. Formerly Eminence 2 but had it ground down to 0 through a number of poor choices as he was an example of everything a devil is stereotyped to be and this was pretty humiliating for the others of the First House. Part of a combat squad of Fallen back during the war. Tended to be pretty mouthy and didn't watch what he said.
When the pilot and Minister Ortega landed on the roof in their own helicopter, there was a bit of a discussion through invocations as to whether they should slay the pilot or not. They decided not to (though Oxford was pretty eager to blow up the helicopter or something similar and take him out too).
The door opened and Minister Ortega stepped out in her full demonic glory (well, her 4 Low-Torment form abilities and the 2 High-Torment form abilities that no longer cost her anything). This allowed her to see all around her with 360 vision. Luckily, London and Miami ducked out of sight before she could see them. She proceeded into the elevator while Remiel remained in the helicopter for awhile longer.
Minister Ortega dropped out of her demonic glory once she stepped out of the elevator and was no longer exposed. She went into her living room on the top floor and Leningrad slipped out of a vent hatch behind him. He snuck up behind her and stabbed her through the heart with the artefact. Her demonic self was knocked out of the corpse and it hesitated in confusion as it took a moment for it to realise it was dead. It then took another turn as it reached for pacts that were no longer there. On the third round it rushed off in search of a new host.
Basically, with each round that a Fallen is outside of their host they must roll to prevent being dragged back into the Abyss. They must also roll to see if they can spot an appropriate host. I figure this out with a percentile dice. The greater the number of miserable or dying people in the area, the higher the percentile chance of finding a new host within miles equal to Faith. Miami had a reasonably high chance of finding someone (as opposed to a dessert).
The pilot then fled in his helicopter. They'd thought he might be being controlled by his True Name and this supported that.
Tokyo set off the artefact-blast of energy to muddle the place memories and then they fled back the way they came through the tunnels. On the way out, she tracked Remiel's passage through various airspace monitoring stations and detected that he was heading north west out of the city and over the walls. She lost track of him once he'd passed over the wall.
Oxford suggested they threaten him in order to get Remiel to return to the city. London vetoed that as he assumed that Remiel was just another victim. And that's just about where we left it.
It's been a few weeks since the session, so if any of my players notice any discrepancies, feel free to mention them.
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