Session 3: 12/5/12

Burning Avarine! (as best I can remember - fill me in +Rachel E.S. Walton  and +Sara Williamson, and weep at what you have missed, +Rachael Storey Burke)

CROW COLOR: Crow returns, wroth, to the bedchamber he shares with Lycelle.  He smashes his crown against the wall.  But Lycelle shows him an old video of Kestrel as a child, stomping about in his shoes, and reminds him that she still has big shoes to fill if she is to be Forged Lord.
MARIS INTERSTITIAL: Maris approaches Crow to apologize for her earlier rudeness, but when she (mistakenly) interprets his mood as anger that Kestrel will supplant him as ruler, is disgusted by what she sees as his selfishness.  She throws the copy of the Revelations of Aisha that she planned to give him to the floor and they both storm off.
KESTREL INTERSTITIAL: Kestrel meets with Maris at the bombed-out former summer palace of the Tamars.  They speak forthrightly about their differences on religion, and come to at least a mutual respect for each other - and an agreement to seek to put Kestrel on the throne, regardless.  Maris gets what she believes is an assurance from Kestrel that she, not Phoenix, will be Kestrel's surrogate - but confides her fear that she may be infertile.
TORRENT INTERSTITIAL: Alix confronts Maris at the party, who collapses in his arms.  He expresses his anger that, in all those years, she had not yet sought him out, and she tells of her near death on Isla Norte and later conversion.  He tells Maris that he is working to make things better for his people - the slaves, and Maris tells him that they need to learn their place on the Wheel.  He then sneers at her that she was not born to misery, which she takes umbrage at.  They then both need a drink.
KESTREL COLOR: Kestrel remembers when Kaduka found out that Maris (Swift) was not her child - she could not have been responsible for such a damaged, deformed child - and how Kestrel protected Swift from her mother's anger.
TORRENT COLOR: Torrent meets with his slave followers, and tells them that it is the time to strike, while the nobles are divided.
KESTREL BUILDING: Kestrel searches the House Tamar Archives for speeches given by nobles that can be twisted to make them look like dangerous rebels (so long as they are nobles who sided with Crow rather than Maris).  She goes to Maris' printing press, and they argue about how far to push the blasphemy angle, with Kestrel ultimately convincing Maris that they should focus on an approach that downplays the New Horizon and focuses on the potential for unrest.  Kestrel designs the propaganda with some advice from Maris and Wren, and it has some impact... but an archivist remembers Kestrel's inquiry as the posters go up, and alerts Lady Astrid and Lady Jenna, both of whom are slandered by it.  They trace it back to Kestrel, and mount counter-propaganda declaring her to be a danger to Avarine.
LOCKE COLOR: Locke convinces the Archcotare to help him fake medical records to throw Maris off the scent.
LOCKE INTERSTITIAL: Locke interrupts a supposedly romantic dinner with Maris to try to throw her off the scent with the doctored records.  She realizes that he is trying to cover things up.  She does agree to arrange a meeting with Kestrel.
MARIS BUILDING: Maris meets with the Inquisition (hey, Rachel, since we made this a builder, do I get to retroactively drop the +1Ob and name my Inquisitor friend?).  After much shouting and brow-beating, Rachel accepts a dangerous social-bloody-versus gamble, and Maris is able to convince the Inquisition that she is not crazy, that the Archcotare really has been infiltrated by the Worm.  The Archcotare is imprisoned by the Inquisition, tortured, and revealed.

MANEUVER ROLL: Vaylen Assess vs. Human Take Action (6)!  Both succeed!

VAYLEN SEQUEL: Torrent meets with Crow and shows him psychohistorical analysis revealing that the split among the nobles favors an uprising.  Good for Avarine he says, though Crow is fucked.
HUMAN SEQUEL: The Inquisition opens aggressive investigations against New Horizon nobles who favored Crow at the party, disrupting their power.  Inquisitors storm Lady Astrid's New Horizon temple while she is at prayer, accompanied by Maris in Iron, bearing aloft the split head of the (former) Archcotare, with the remnants of the worm hanging obscenely out.  They leave Lady Astrid alone for now, but haul off the other worshippers and officiants for questioning.