(1610) Formal 1

[Star]

Sentinel?

Yeah, right.

Even if everyone was cool with a non-existent Hierarch appointing someone, the fact remained that no one had seen Aquaman's 'cabal' in a year. Which meant even if they weren't going to follow the letter of the law about what constituted a Sentinel...

...Aquaman was legally incapable of being Hierarch when he appointed Wayland.

But it's not Wayland's fault.

Not his fault the pompous douchebag who hadn't amounted to anything but Dire Warnings, trying to make a personal Sentinel army out of whoever the newest idiot with any hint of martial ability had just walked through the door, and appointing hot chicks to be 'Herald'.

"Jesus, Truce." A mop peeked up over the top of four robes and two stoles. "Keep going. Like, I got stuff to do. And these are heavy. Or Fisher. If you want to say it, say it. Are we seriously standing around and staring at each other while everyone asks for permission to speak? Or saying we should talk about stuff? Instead of, you know, actually talking about it?"

"I'm out the second we plan a meeting to plan meetings. I'm not even playin' you guys."

[Tuesday]

Lots O' Disciples of stuff. Neat. But Tuesday kinds assumed that the Acanthus Counselor would be more then just a Disciple of Time.

Star's meandering and pawing at All The Cloaks, gets laugh and an aborted snort. Okay. So the snort wasn't aborted. It was a sound that her laughter made her nose make. Deal with it.

Maybe she should have grabbed a few more cloaks for herself. Making not a blanket plus single cloak fort, but a full blown cloak fort...

Regrets. This Unicorn has some.

Then True stats to talk. Apparently he's a talker. A nerdy talker. Who is a Master O' Death.

It sorta worked....question mark

Tuesday just wondered when they'd get to the Titanic Shenanigans.

Because wasn't that of the Importantness?

Meh. Apparently there was a scheduled To Talk About List.

Buuuut sunk the Titanic and Got Felt Up By Mister McHandsy!

That was totes Important too!

At Star's words on meeting to plan meeting the Unicorn made a 'Me too' face. Crunching on some peanuts.

Was she even allowed to bring up the Ship O' Dreams?

Since just a Noob without a stole.

[Fisher]

Fisher sat around patiently waiting for something to happen...anything really. I mean a man organizes a meeting, does a ceremony and then shockingly enough Fisher expected him to have an agenda and to keep things moving, but no. The mages all spoke there little path and stuff, but still continued to wait. It wasn't long before Fisher started tapping her foot and then finally standing up. Star had decided it for her.

"Oh for Pete's sake! We have a flipping war going on and we are pussyfooting around. Come on guys!" Fisher said with a frown.

"I'll start off. Basically we learned a lot from this last trip to the Titanic. The first was we were no where near ready for this. For example how does one get on a luxury liner without ticket fare? What do you eat without dinner seats from a ticket? How does one identify a seer agent? Frankly we got lucky guys and we can't afford to be lucky, with the fate of reality in the balance we have to be good, we have to be better than them," Fisher looked around the room and gave eye contact to everyone present to accentuate her points and give them time to consider her words.

"We were able to get on board. I was able to drug up a person or make them high so Wayland could steal a ticket to duplicate. But that meant that we had one small cabin for the entire team and only one dinner seat. We had to reduce a person to full time meal duty just so we wouldn't starve for four days. How much of a waste of man power is that? Then after we settled in on board and the initial fascination wore off, I mean how cool is that to be on the real Titanic, we set about to find the baddies. We totally lucked out because the old woman, their Moros leader, wore an artifact, a necklace, that kind of broadcast what she was so we were able to focus on the enemy team quickly. At the same time we had a team investigating below deck and they found a bunch of lobotomized zombified people below which we later determined thanks to Wayland's help examining the necklace, and the below deck team that it controlled squads of foot soldiers, at the very least. There were items of power and these mind broken people they were using as weapons to reinforce their operations in America. We couldn't target the hold items because it was too much of a risk. We could be overwhelmed by the soldiers if they react to threats or intruders and there were only a few of us in the team that could fight effectively enough especially when they had a few mages and physical types on the enemy team." Fisher paused for moment to catch her breath and let the information settle in. She was giving a lot of details all at once and feared she would overwhelm some people with details.

"We went with my plan to create smoke near the library so that they have to evacuate it, and then jumped the enemy mages in the confusion when witnesses left. I was able to kill the leader and took control of the necklace, but the younger apprentice was able to teleport to safety. Then the following day was the last day so the plan we came up with was to split up again. The matter and death guys went below deck to weaken the inner hull and rivets, and Tuesday and I were above deck to ensure we hit the iceberg. We tried the bridge first using maid uniforms and bringing tea to distract them, but didn't think there would be so many on duty at night. Tuesday was able to distract one of the crew and I was working on trying to clear out some more, but there were apparently some issues below deck and the ship lurched, which ruined our plans there to try and speed up the ship. We had to cut our losses there and then Tuesday and I sought out the watchman and I put him to sleep so he could not warn them off. After that we found ourselves back in our time. The necklace disintegrated or something on the trip back." Fisher again paused for a moment to collect herself before continuing.

"We need to find away to get money for our trips to the past. Collecting coins I think would be too costly and difficulty to get in any quantity so I think if we can get goods in the present that will not rouse too much suspicion in the past we can barter for currency. Much of past the economy was barter focused that should help with funds. We also need a team leader for trips to the past. We wasted too much time trying to figure out what to do. If we have someone that can listen to all the ideas and plans and make decisions then it would streamline things greatly. We also need to bring rations with us for extended trips. So if either Wayland or Strix can comment on their operations below deck we can then focus on our shortcomings and ways they can be improved."

[Strix]

Strix was equally waiting for thing to continue, but he did figure that the council members would lead the discussion compared to them having to initiative it. Fortunately, Fisher took control after Star spoke up about getting on with things.

While she spoke, he gave a few nods here and there, but waited for her to be done, he figured he should probably say something as well.

"I would just like to add to Fisher's recounting," he said, getting up from his chair and putting the 'gifts' in the vacated seat for now, "her recounting is to the point and I don't really feel much more needs to be said, for now. As she mentioned, Wayland and I took over weakening the hull to make sure the iceberg would truly do enough damage to sink the," damnable, "ship. The 'lurches' that were, unfortunately, noticed came from the hull rupturing prematurely. Perhaps, the material used for the hull was weaker than previously imagined it to be, but it was taken care of and made to hold until it was time to break again."

Maybe the ship was also just being spiteful about Strix and Wayland trying to mess with its hull, but he would keep his paranoia to himself. He felt vindicated to know the thing was rusting at the bottom of the sea.

Strix didn't really care to recount the whole situation, or just how many times he had found himself with debris smacking in his face. "It should also be mentioned that we lost three mages on this trip: Arthur never returned from his part in controlling the smoke and possible fire, no idea what happened with him. I cannot recall there having been mentions of someone having been found dead. The same day, Runner also informed us that July fell off board during a skirmish with two hostiles. As for Runner himself," he shook his head slowly, then gave a small shrug, "we left him in the cabin to recover from the beating he took during the fight, still very well alive. Either something happened to him while we were doing our respective part of the plan, or...well, he simply wasn't sent back with us."

The latter was actually a pretty worrying thought. The feeling of temporal displacement that kept growing worse the closer they came to the time when the iceberg would hit had Strix assume they'd just get flung back regardless if they succeeded or not.

"I agree with Fisher, though, that we need to prepare for any possible future trip more thoroughly, and should be mandatory for those who plan to pass through the portal. I won't deny I was not as prepared as I believed to be. Having items along that could be bartered or pawned off for money," he motioned with his right hand towards Fisher, picking up her idea, "definitely would be helpful. Even if we decide that one person is responsible for ration duty, I would still suggest everyone to pack enough to sustain themselves, at least for a few days, in case the person fails to pass through the portal for whatever reason."

One could never know, after all.

Strix rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand. "I also agree that some form of leadership would be preferable. We did spend quite some time discussing our next move, ideas kept being exchanged — which, mind you, isn't bad — but since we were on a short time table, it could have left us with too little time to execute any plan we actually might have come up with. Someone to mediate and ultimately decide would have saved us a lot of time." He dropped his hand, stuffing it into the pocket of his pants. "Alternatively, if people don't want just one person running the show and deciding everything, we could rotate the 'leader' duty. Of course, we can't prepare for everything, we never know just what situation we will be faced with, but that doesn't mean we need to stumble over our own feet trying to decide on anything."

[Truce]

Truce sighs, but doesn't object to the insistence of discussing the results of the mission. It is a matter of great importance and he's sure many were impatient to hear how it went, including himself. The rest can wait, he supposes.

The Moros Councillor returns to his seat as Fisher takes the dais. He listens intently, committing the details to memory. A Moros leader? That was indeed interesting to him in particular. It seemed the Seers hadn't planned on receiving any resistance. Hearing of all the obstacles they encountered, Truce feels a pang of guilt that he hadn't decided to join the away team. His affinity for Death might have given them more options when dealing with the animated corpses.

Strix's recounting of events gave Truce a chill, hearing about Arthur's and July's disappearances. Runner he hardly knew, and yet they all knew the dangers, especially July who it seems appropriate that he should go down fighting. What hand Time had in their disappearances might well remain a mystery.

"So, the mission to stop the Seer transportation of their artifacts overseas was a success. The timeline was preserved, as far as we know, and their artifacts condemned to the bottom of the ocean." A tragedy ensured seems a hollow victory, but some destinies are unavoidable. To think of what could have been may have been far worse.

Truce stands once more. "Councillor Fisher, you and your team have our deepest gratitude. Your deeds have shown us what courage and ingenuity are capable of, and your actions may have well saved us all from a gruesome fate. I agree, such further excursions using the Circle's time-traveling artifacts should be well-planned and should operate under an unquestionable command. No doubt the Seers of the Throne are not finished with their manipulations to the timeline. Under our Charter, such perceived threats to the our security naturally fall under the purview of the Sentinel's duties. I suggest we give the Sentinels command over future missions and allow them to select a deputized team."

"Which of course brings me to the next item I would like to address tonight, namely the matter of authority and responsibility within this Consilium. As you all know we are currently lacking a Hierarch and, by extension, a Herald to perform the duties of their office. I ask the Council to come to a decision on who among them is to be named 'Wisest Among Us' so that there can be no question of command in this time of war."

"Once decided, I ask that selected Hierarch state their immediate choices for the Herald position and if there is to be any changes or additions made to the office of Sentinel."

Fisher's concerns only give more weight to their need for structure and hierarchy. Though some may favor Strix's suggestion for a dissolution of centralized power, now seems an appropriate time to assign official leadership.

[West]

Kinda need the Councilors to speak up at this point so the thread can progress. Everyone else is just stuck until that happens Orianna Yog-Sothoth Truce Cayce

[Avis]

"There's only one portal," Avis declared from the back of the crowd, "but there's nothing that says that portal couldn't open consecutively in a very short time. If our only Sentinel is leading a mission somewhere, but another team needs to go somewhen else, what then?"

She frowned, then, wondering what else she might say to debunk the idea, but she kept butting up against the possibility that she didn't trust Wayland to have command over her. To be honest, she didn't even really consider him as an equal (which perhaps said some unfortunate things about her), and she was pretty sure she'd be tempted to ignore any order Wayland gave to her even if it made sense. Again, that was probably a serious character flaw, but all the more reason to try and navigate away from that eventuality.

"What if each order was declared to lead each mission, and thus Order ranking would dictate the leader?" she suggested.

"Oh, and as for the Hierarch, it's pretty clear that we already have one. You don't need to play games and pretend like it's some sort of democratic process. Or republican, whatever. And Heralds are fine as long as we still allow Councilors to acknowledge people."

[Star]

Well.

That was a lot to absorb. And someone should totally buy the Away team a beer. Where were Arthur and Runner? And July fell overboard?

Convenient, yo. Like Striker-Convenient.

But Arthur would be fine. With that slick smile and easygoing-almost-invisible way he had? Tempting to look in the history books. See what happened to him.

"Guys..."

Come on. Look around. There's five people in Big Chairs in front of... five people. And if one person gets named Hierarch (which means a new Moros Councilor) and one person gets named Herald... just gotta wonder who the unlucky two are that don't get fancy robes. Last Kid Picked tends to think in terms of Last Kids Picked.

Was there anything wrong with just having Councilors vote? Did a Hierarch of a dozen people need a Herald? Should Sentinels command Away teams? Was it a problem Truce couldn't see the legal issues with Wayland and Aquinas?

"...Whatever. That's fine."

Happy Heralding, Unicorn.

[Aurora]

Her eyes look down as she takes in what Fisher and Strix say. Filing away little pieces of important information for later.

And the Avis speaks up, and makes a lot of sense. Blue eyes looks to Avis, head nodding.

“I agree with what Avis has said. Only one Sentinel isn’t enough, and if we face more missions like the Titanic one, we’ll need more. Allowing the Orders to step up and lend their knowledge and aide to future missions is a great idea. More will feel like they have a voice in those matters, perhaps helping create good will between Orders.” Her and Avis may have their differences, but the woman had a good point, and Faye wasn’t above giving credit where it was due.

“As far as Hierarch, you have my support,” she says, looking to Truce, “Unless there is another who wants to step up and make their own case for the position.” It was only fair, who knows, someone might want to fight Truce for the seat.

[Benji]

...for the position?

Getting that last question scribed down, Brother Rat stands. He had a question, but was unsure if the charter protocols would allow him to speak, since he wasn't afforded the full rights that most everyone else in the chamber seemed to take for granted.