There's a little problem.
You see, once upon a time there was a Saint Perfectus:
he lived, he got martyred and he achieved his Destiny.
The blessed soul ended up working for Laurence: first
as an assistant, then as an actual Saint. He wasn't
the best Saint in Heaven, but he was a strong, steady
worker and a real asset. Unfortunately, his latest
mission on Earth ended in his disappearance. Now,
Hell would crow like mad if they had managed to
soul-kill (or worse, corrupt) a Saint, and corporeal
death would simply have sent him back to Heaven, so
there's a reasonable chance that he's still alive.
Possibly in considerable pain, but still alive.
So far, not a particularly unusual problem - but
there's a wrinkle. You see, the Saint's original
martyrdom was at the hands of, well, Moors. Perfectus
wasn't too happy to find out that Islam was a divine
religion, and was even less happy when a couple of his
executioners eventually ended up in Heaven themselves.
Words were exchanged, at extremely high volumes.
Now, all of this took place over a thousand years ago,
and Perfectus has long since gotten over his
not-really-justified outrage. Still, it does look a
bit awkward that someone once known for his loud
condemnation of certain policies has apparently
disappeared just as the adherents of those policies
are finally being fully reintegrated into Heavenly
society. It looks bad, aside from everything else.
Time to find out what happened.
Guess who gets to investigate things?
Now, both Khalid and Laurence want this handled
properly, so they've even sent over a couple of
specialists to help: Daniel, Malakite Friend of the
Lord's Troops, and Caedwalla, Saint of Faith. Daniel
is one of Laurence's specialists on Saints - in fact,
he's a minor Catholic saint himself, thanks to the
bloody end to one of his Roles (Donan, killed
mysteriously as part of the Celtic Church's
expansion). Caedwalla simply knows Perfectus
personally. Between the two of them, they should be
easily able to assist the PCs' search.
They will, actually. That's when the trouble starts.
You see, no matter what their respective Archangels
may personally think, not everyone in either Faith or
the Sword is especially happy to give each other the
kiss of peace. There were a few ... incidents ... on
the corporeal plane, over the last thousand years
(kept well-hidden, of course), and a couple of
diehards on both sides aren't ready to give up their
grudge match quite yet. Ironically, neither group of
holdouts had anything to do with Perfectus'
disappearance: the Saint simply had the bad fortune to
get hit by a car and is now in a coma in a convenient
hospital. If anyone had thought to ask Blandine, she
could have had him located in a day, but, well, nobody
did.
At any rate, both cabals are paying close attention to
the situation. The holdout Laurencians would like
nothing better than to pin the blame on their opposite
numbers (a sentiment fully reciprocated) - or failing
that, just get a few good licks in. Like many
incidents, the actual facts are immaterial: what's
important is that there's an excuse to fight. The PCs
are going to have a lot of unexplained hindrances on
their way to Perfectus' hospital bed.
However, it should really be noted that the vast
majority of both Faith and the Sword's Servitors are
not involved in this grudge match. We're talking
about, at most, twenty or so angels on either side
that aren't ready to move on and forget the past.
There's also a certain reluctance to use violence on
the PCs themselves, or their helpers: the two cabals
are quite glumly aware that both Archangels will not
find this behavior acceptable (to put it mildly).
Frankly, both groups are really, really stuck here:
they know that they're committed to a futile and
deeply stupid course of action, but they've sniped at
each other for so long that they can't figure out how
to stop. Hopefully, with enough clues, the PCs can
work out what's going on and unravel this Gordian knot
peacefully.
Of course, if they're sufficiently powerful, they may
just decide to emulate Alexander and do what he did
with knots. You never know, with PCs. Heck, they
might decide to take over both groups and set up a
professional wrestling federation. You just never
know.
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