World Tree MUSH

    The growing arcology of the San Francisco Metropolitan area was never going to be domes. Instead it is an agglomeration of rebuilt skyscrapers, with corridors of enclosed pedestrian thoroughfares and shopping arcades strung between them above the streets. The city core is slowly filling in the areas between the skyscrapers and the corridors with housing and public utilities. Shrubbery is kept just about every where in the corridors and blocks to both beautify and help with air scrubbing.
    The place that needs to be broken into and information stolen from is a triangular spire that was rebuilt from the wreckage of what was known as the Pan-America Building. It's a pretty innocuous looking. Since the city was becoming multi-level, most buildings remodeled to have office entrances where the corridors and blocks join. The block-facing facade of the office says "Johnson and Smith, Attorneys at law" and has some nice LCD screens next to the windows containing photos of smiling clients and short glowing reviews.

'Civic Beautification' was a relative term. One Venom thought the locals failed at as the nine foot tall creature was in the process of climbing the side of a building. "Did I ever tell you about the hanging gardens of-"

<Not now buddy,> Eddie's voice was soft in Venom's head. <Anyone looks where we are they're going to either have guards waiting, or send drones in.>

Venom grunted and continued climbing, searching the building for some way to slide inside. This 'Johnson and Smith' was both a name that came up, and was annoyingly close lipped about themselves. They were utterly polite when dealing with one Edward Brock, but Eddie had dealt with lawyers before- partially because he was engaged to one for a fairly long time -and knew the threat that hung in the air regardless of how pretty the words. "This may be for nothing Eddie." Venom's voice rumbled as tendrils spidered out, seeking a crack to exploit rather than simply smash a window in. "We only have thin records and a hunch connecting these people."

<Firms don't go this hard in protecting public defender cases.> Eddie grumbled. <Really not liking it up here.>

"I will work faster if you stop whining Eddie. I've got us, remember?" There! A hairfine tendril was able to worm through a crack between window and frame, and from there it expanded, spidering out like blackroots of an alien plant. Venom grinned asthe window gave way, opening and allowing it access. Once inside it propped the window up, using its tendrils to pull until it would at least stay where it was hopefully until they were gone from this place.

the Symbiote flowed, retreating back into Eddie brock, leaving him there attempting to figure out where in this building he was as he fumbled about with a notebook, pen and paper even, for the list of namesh e was looking for. Deep breath. You can do this Eddie. No alarms just yet.

Door opened and Eddie started walking the halls as if he belonged there, as if you didn't want to bother him.

    And AGAIN the really insistent tug came along and annoyed Demon Queen. It's the third time today already, and whereas other Demon Queens might have been brooding on their throne and scheming the downfall of all mortals, this particular Demon Queen has had it up to HERE with being interrupted when she's getting into the good bits of this stack of comic books, freshly liberated from the religion of Nipom. Or however her dread lieutenants called it. Really good stuff, too, gets the heart thumping. 
    "I swear by Me..." Demon Queen rolled up from her gigantic, comfortable bed, stuck her feet into the fuzzy, dread slippers, and grabbed the thread of the summonings with both hands and YANKED. 
    A badly-rendered, squareish portal popped open like someone had an animation budget of two Arizona Tree Teas, to reveal the elaborately-drawn circle on the opposite side and maybe some kind of occult gathering full of demon summoning people. She sticks her head through, disregarding any stares at her comfortable, pink, terrycloth house robe.

    "WHAT?!?!"

After the Sutter's Fort incident, Spiral decided it would be a good idea to work directly with the Beacon Society, as a sort of experiment for becoming more involved with the World Tree in a more official sense than they were already, and her superiors in the Starbringers approved even though Anna isn't a Star Paladin.

However, a glowing pink-haired magical girl is likely to call attention to herself, so Anna improvised, wearing a rented business dress and carrying a briefcase. It was touch-and-go sneaking in, but she's fairly certain she was more-or-less successful.

Which is why, when Eddie nears a corner, he sees Anna walking by, with the confident expression of a new intern who is absolutely going to prove her worth to her new employers. Recognizing him from the Sutter's Fort incident, she raises her eyebrows, smiles and nods, and wordlessly falls into step beside him. Obviously, they're both here for the same reason.

    The occultists confer with each other, looking at some formulas. The Demon Queen can probably infer from their talk that they had intended to summong some manner of hellhound with great slavering jaws and a nice coat of flame. "I think we summoned you at a bad time?" the apparent head occultist says while a colleague berates a junior member for substituting an unscented tallow candle for one that's lavender scented. The headman frowns and waves at the other two to shush them. "Anyway, we need you to protect this room. Keep any intruders from getting in until we return. At which point we'll... oh I don't know, pay you for your time with a luxurious spa day and make sure you get back wherever you came from safely." He points to a room labeled 'Records' on the second story of the law offices. That was about an hour ago, around 1pm. The embarassed occultists also gave Demon Queen some cash and the number to a few food places that deliver.
    In the present, Aurelia is looking at the front of the law office and thinking about how to get in. Hard to justify using her magic since... well... public space and she's in her so-called civilian clothes. The front of the office says 'By Appointment Only', so naturally it's closed. Well, she could magically pick the lock, that wouldn't attract attention.
    Both Eddie and Anna are visible to whomever is looking out the offices' second story windows as they enter. The window is actually not alarmed, but there's clearly a supernatural surprise waiting... This could get loud quick. The smell of sulpher from the botched summoning lingers.

Eddie smiled when he saw Anna. Onlookers might mistaken that for a client grateful for an intern to show up without having to badger someone. Maybe he phoned ahead? WHatever. Eddie adjusted his suit jacket. He wished he coudl've gotten away with his riding leathers, but it would havestood out too much.

<For the third time Eddie,> Venom insisted as they walked, <I can't do fabrics. I'm well aware of how useful that would-> Venom paused mid sentance and growled. <Something's here. Sulfer, burning. Wrong.>

Eddie's body language tensed as he let venom guide his footsteps, not even bothering to see if Anna were following. 

All subtlty is soon dropped as Eddie starts to gain mass with each step. First his clothes are coated as blackveins spider up his neck and presumably his other limbs. Then he grows in bulk and height as jaws close around his head, large white eyespots forming.

Venom now moves purposfully, teeth bared as it shoves past anyone and anything towards where it smells the ongoing magical nonsense making the hell-smells.

"You!" Venom roughly grabbed someone, uncaring of whoever they were, and sat them to one side before shoving roughly against a locked door with its shoulder.

    Demon Queen stands back and dusts her hands off, satisfied with her work of an hour. These were surely newbie occultists, who were so careless, DESPITE BEING LAWYERS, as to phrase their request so loosely. It would have been deserving if she had just done something horrible to them right then and there, but, hey, company expense card! Spa! Shopping! Delicious food! 
    So the Demon Queen had consented immediately and pulled out her purse. It took a while to explain her plan, but of course all of her fanatically loyal demons who would all gladly give their lives in her service can be trusted to carry it out.
    "Don't let anyone getting in? Hmmph!" Demon Queen smugly admires her work and the straining door to the Records room. "Let's see anyone try, now that I've packed the room completely full of demons, like sardines in a can!" 
    She turns around, twirls the expense card in her fingers, and heads towards the front door of the office. She yanks the front door open and then looks at Aurelia face-to-face from right next to the 'By Appointment Only' sign. 

    Some sort of bombastic latin chorus music starts up because All Of Hell just popped up in front of Aurelia. If this were a comic book the color scheme would be shifting over to dramatically shaded Evil tones.

Anna completely fails to recognize Aurelia. But she frowns. "I'm starting to feel something ... weird," she murmurs, only just loud enough for Eddie to here. "Something like ..." She can't quite place it.

But then her eyebrows raise as Venom transforms. "Guess we're getting right down to business, huh?" she says. "Okay, I can do that too!"

She focuses, and begins to glow with pale blue light as she gathers power into herself. There's a column of light, which then explodes outward as she becomes the pink-haired magical girl in pink and blue and white again.

No way she's gonna try to use super-speed here, though; the offices are slightly too cramped. She jogs with Venom, only the slightest blue flicker around her legs as she keeps up with him.

Latin Chanting. Why was it always knock-off gregorian chant? Venom grunted in annoyance. The scent changed. Split? It growled before looking to Anna, "Your call, keep going ahead, or split to make sure whatever's down there isn't rampaging?"

For a moment there was a sense of pride from Eddie. Sure it only lasted a moment and as replaced by unease, but Venom actually considering turning back or splitting their strength to concern with civilians was something he hadn't expected, but welcomed.

"Either way we are moving ahead and will attempt to disrupt whatever is going on." Venom swelled as it ploughed forward. Towards the demonic clown car that was the records room.

<You do realize we'll need her to shut this thing down if we can't just like... hamburger the cultists to make the portal stop, right?> Eddie hated being the one to advocate killing, but was it not written 'suffer not the witch to live'? Well technically the original translation was more referencing 'those practicing evil magic' and politics made it more expediant to lump all magicans and congorers get lumped in the bad/wrong/burn/kill/purge catagory...

Venom snorted, "You worry too much Eddie."

Anna shrugs, frowning as she looks in the general direction of the stairs; she's having a harder time keeping track of it, however. "... I'll at least go and look," she says. "I'll be back ASAP if there isn't!" And with that, she turns around and jogs over towards the way Demon Queen went!

    The platinum blonde girl stares with surprise at the appearance of the demon queen. That's going to be a problem to deal with in the pedestrian-heavy walkway in front of the law office. Her immediate, frantic thought was to jam the glass and metal door to contain the supernatural creature. There's a subtle squeal as Aurelia invisibly welds the door hinges solid and unable to turn. And then she takes a few steps back before other pedestrians notice the strange things happening.
    The door to the records room comically swings outward suddenly, unleashing the bottled up demons within.

    The weird bunch of demons, crammed in like sardines, look at Eddie with indifference.

Venom jumped, clinging to the ceiling as demons started spilling out. Then looking towards where they were spilling out FROM. "This is.... unexpected."

<Yea no kidding. You can't just like... swim through them can you?>

Venom extended a tendril out into the mass of Demon t otry probing for a path through. "It's almsot like the room is either larger on the inside, or the space continues to fill itself with these...." It looked at the demonic beings gleefully tumbling out, "Things."

Hair find tendrils would branch and thread seeking any path at all. Sure the room was full of Demon, but Demon does not perfectly fill any given volume, so eventually Venom SHOULD be able to find a path through. 

All this as Venom also noticed the Demons piling up OUTSIDE of the room was getting disturbingly large. Sure they were largely content to mill about NOW, bu t they reeked of sulfer and hate and had teeth as sharp as Venom's own. 

And Venom was sure one of them just winked at it.

    Demon Queen failed to interpret the bang-thump-thud-thump noise and simply proceeded on, leaving her loyal minions to continue being sardines right in Eddie's face. Fixated on the exciting, Demon Queen immediately walks towards Aurelia, intending to pass by and on the way to the little convenience store that she can see right over the other's shoulder. The blackened metal credit card glints dangerously in her fingers. Time to unleash her newest weapon on the unsuspecting Lawsons! 

    "WHAT?! What is the meaning of-" Demon Queen screeches as Aurelia shuts the door in her face. She tries the door. It doesn't budge. She bangs on the door. It doesn't budge. 

    "OUT! LET ME OUT! I DEMAND ICE CREAM! I WILL HAVE MY SPA!" 

    Bang! Bang! Bang! Goes the door in front of Aurelia. "Open this door right this second or there'll be HELL to pay!"

Anna stares down at Demon Queen. She certainly recognizes her. "Oh, hi, Daria," she says flatly; there's nothing particularly hiding her identity. Except, y'know, the fact that she has pink hair and is wearing a hero-type costume. "Anna here," she adds, as she starts to descend the stairs after her. "I was at Clerk's Ferry?" She shrugs. "What's going on this time?" She pauses. "Are we gonna need to, like ... 'thwart' you, or however that goes?"

    With Aurelia on the outside of the offices, Daria and Anna on the inside in the lobby (at least there's a snack and soda vending machine?), things are at a bit of a deadlock. Aurelia takes a very deep breath as she looks around, and presses her face against the glass to look inside. The ball is very much in Demon Queen and Anna's hands right now.

"YES! No! Maybe." Demon Queen reacts instinctively to the offerings of a thwarting, but there's really good things to be had right now, too! "I got this credit card and there's a really good food court outside! Become my servant! Help me get the door open, and your rewards shall be delicious!" 
    Demon Queen holds up the great Corporate Expense Card, its metal black as night. Tens of thousands have passed through its account, and its hunger remains undiminished. Will the Card's power overawe our Heart Mage Anna? Will Anna succumb to the siren song of free parfaits and ice cream? Will Demon Queen actually breach Aurelia's desperate ward and break through to the free world beyond????

    The lobby is not super fancy, with couches, magazines, and little coffee tables. The floor is wood, maybe that fake laminate stuff that you put together a bit like Legos. There are naturally pamphlets that discuss legal rights as well.

"Um." Anna just furrows her brow for a moment, and makes no move for the door. Isn't it all glass? Y'know, the world's most fragile building-construction material? "... mm, back up a tick," she says. "What are you actually doing here?"

    Venom's tendrils can kind of end up telling that the space on the otherside is some kind of... office. Desks, chairs, books, and knick-knacks where roly-poly demons aren't taking up space.

Venom grumbled at the demonic sardine can that was the records room. A waythrough existed, but it meant risking waking The Horde. So venom would reach out to grab at a demon to attempt to pull it out of the room. It's mouth was closed as it attempted to gently extract the hellbound creature. 

<Doing good Vee,< Eddie reassured. <Nothing trying to eat us, no boiling over hellflames of suffering. No chains and other horrors.>

The tendril's branches receeded once a single path was found. The mass consolidating into a single trunk so Venom could findits path through the mess as it slowly attempted extracting another demon from the pile.

    Demon Queen rolls eyes so hard that they seem like they should play a sound effect. "Some dumb newbie guys summoned me out of nowhere and gave me a credit card and said I can go visit the spa and food court and whatever here if I keep some dumb room closed. You know, like, being some guard? Pshyeah right. I just fill 'er up with demons. Job done. And like, ice cream time." 

    One thumb gets jerked towards the glass doors and Aurelia beyond it, "Then this jerk goes and locks me in. Like, what the Hell, girl? We don't even do that in Hell. So you..." Demon Queen leans towards Anna and wags her eyebrows, "... you wanna see what I did? It's real clever, I say."

    Aurelia's actually just really focused on getting the lock picked. She's not super great at fine control of metal objects yet. Anyone paying attention to the door will hear the tiny pins in the lock rattling around. She could brute-force the issue but she's supposed to be subtle this time. The mage girl can only hear about half of what Demon Queen is saying, and can't hear Anna at all.

Anna sighs inwardly. "You mean back in the room you were supposed to be guarding?" she says. "Uh ... sure, I guess I was kind of going in that direction anyway." This is feeling oddly ... surreal.

>> GAME >> Aurelia Argent spends an Edge for: Fine control over fine metal objects.

    "Yeah! Cool. Seriously, like, they were all 'make sure nobody enters the room', right?" Demon Queen walks a bit ahead of Anna, leading the way while doing a really terrible job of mimicking some cultist's voice. "So I was like, 'hey you can't get into the room if it's full', right? Like really popular clubs on a weekend night. So I just filled the room up! Wah-lah! Problem solved. Am I smart, or am I smart?"

Anna shakes her head as she continues following Demon Queen. "To be perfectly honest," she says, "I kind of ... don't really know how to answer that."

    "Just you look. Tata!" Demon Queen pushes open the last hallway door and reveals a ... giant pile of demons rolling out of the records room door, with the room beyond totally stuffed full of demons as well. 

    "ALL HAIL OUR QUEEN!" A few of them manage, while the rest of them can sort of wheeze something similar. 

    "Wait what the Hell?" Demon Queen notices something is... different. From how she had left it.

    Aurelia finally gets the lock picked. And then has to fix the door hinges with her abilities. So that takes another good minute before she is finally able to smile as she turns the door handle and walks into the lobby and follows up the stairs where she saw Daria and Anna go. Once out of sight of the lobby's windows, there's a slight flash of light as Aurelia changes into her shiny gold armored form with way too many engravings in the orichalcum plate. The helmet covering her face is some sort of marble and looks like a stern war goddess' face, though you can see her eyes through the mask's eyeholes.

    Venom has been steadily displacing the jam-packed demons, which are strewn about the floor lazily. Whatever kind they are, Demon Queen definitely picked ones guilty through-and-through of sloth, as they're not even really doing anything useful after being taken out of the records room. Some of them are probably socializing or playing at who can make the loudest/longest/stinkier farts.
    Of course, Venom is at the door of the 'records room', probing and removing the little jerks.
    Aurelia looks at Venom, Heart Mage Anna, and of course the Demon Queen. The stress of the situation brings out a stronger version of Aurelia's otherwise subtle Scottish accent. "What are you all /doing/ here?"

Venom paused to look over at Aurelia, then noticed the Demon Queen, and Anna before pausing. It's upper lip curled as it sniffed, almost is if it were tasting as much as smelling the air before settling on the Demon Queen. "You," Its left hand pointed at Daria, "These," A sweeping gesture at the slovenly lot on the floor, "Are yours. Remove them!," it roared, "Or-"

<Waiiit I've got an idea!> Eddie managed to check Venom's tirade. <Lemme talk.>

Venom's jaws opened wide, then wider. Wide enough to show a face where its throat should be. Then the jaws opened wide enough to cause Venom's head to unfold, leaving Eddie's head exposed. "Hi." Hie inclined his head at the pile of Demons who were still making weezing noises or otherwise praising their 'queen.' "Hi I'm Eddie. I would like your name.... like. Full name." He smiled at the hellish intern, his best interviewer 'I am trying to be charming even though I don't like you' smile. "I'd like to know who I'm adressing, especially if they're upper managment. Y'know, for the sake of records."

    "You're creepy." Demon Queen observes, after a couple of long seconds staring at Venom being creepy. "Nobody, I mean NOBODY, calls me by my full name. Unless you're like, my parents when they're really pissed at me. That's be weird. You can call me Daaria." 

    She is especially keen on pronouncing 'Daaria' correctly, for everyone's benefit. 

    "Like, you call me the Demon Queen too, but that's really a job position than anything else. I'm not my job. Totally not. And YOU-" Demon Queen turns towards Aurelia, robes swirling as she goes, "- THAT, is cool. Good job on the costume. But like, guys, I know this is probably like one of those thwarting things and you're all like, heroes or something?" 

    "Okay maybe not you," Demon Queen concedes towards Venom. 

    "But like, I've got this card a bunch of lawyer-wizards or whatever gave me. You wanna get dinner and maybe hit the spa? I hear it's really good and it's been -so- long since I've had anybody to have an outing with. Please?" Daaria is now channeling the Hellish Powers of Sad. It's true. None of her godling-friends wants to associate with the Demon Queen because her job is icky. So lonely. So sad.

Eddie didn't so much block or fend off the Sad Daria exuded as swim in it, "So where you're from this is just a... Job. Going by how young you look you're what. Some poor unpaid intern being told to do everyone else's stuff and your own and you should count yoursel lucky for the experiance?" He winced sympathetically, "You're where I was about twenty years back."

THen a look to all the demons scattered about. "I get it. I really do, but I'm here because I told a little girl I'd find the people that took her friends away." Technically true. After the incident with the ghosts the poor girl was socially radioactive as far as he could figure out. Nobody wanted anything to do with her. "So... what do we do here?"

    Aurelia says "We steal their records. That's why they had Madam Terrycloth here guarding the room." She gestures at the demon-filled room. 
    To Daria she says "These blokes are Hermetics, so whatever they promised you was probably a trick. I'll bet that card would come up as stolen if you'd tried to use it."
    Finally to Anna. "Do you know a way to get this whole mess banished?"

Anna nods along with Eddie's explanation, and only briefly pauses at the lie of omission. She doesn't bother responding to Demon Queen's offer, more-or-less on general principles, but also because Aurelia kind of has a good point. "Uhhh ..." She laughs weakly at the direct question. "Sorry, the threats I have to face are the 'blast stuff and then it's automatically resolved' kind of thing, I don't know any of the ... like ... 'technical' bits of dealing with magic." She looks uncertainly back at Demon Queen, and kind of questioningly.

    "... Well that sucks." Demon Queen looks at the card in her hand, looks at everyone around her, and looks back. "Okay, look. You don't wanna, like, blast anything right? You'll-" 

    "WE GLADLY SHALL DIE FOR OUR QUEEN!" 

    Demon Queen closes her eyes and inhales, clearly letting it go and clearly used to being interrupted way too often by her fanatical followers. "If what you're saying is true, and this card's no good, then no deal, I'll get them to dig themselves out, and you can all have whatever. But if it does work-" 

    A really hopeful smile spreads on Daaria's face, "You all go and have dinner and a spa day with me, and then I'll make them dig themselves out. Okay? It's win-win for you and, like, you don't have to fireball the room and burn up whatever you're- look I'll even tell them to go dig out what you're looking for and have it ready when we come back. How's that?"

    The golden girl folds her armored arms across her breastplate. "There's vending machines downstairs with a card reader. Try getting yourself a nice cold soda first then?"

Anna sighs softly. "Well, I guess," she says. She pauses, and glances down at herself. "Uh ... I'll ... skip the spa, though, if that's all the same to everyone else?"

Eddie grunted, he was pretty sure there was something about 'not making treaty or contract with demons' in the bible. He'd have to ask a priest about it when he got home. Seemed rather important.

Then Venom's head swallowed Eddie's face and it resumed pulling demons out of the room, "You guys can do whatever you like. We're gonna see what's in here." Another demon would be dislodged before Venom managed to pull a chair out.

After sitting, and somehow not causing the poor chair to shatter, it lookd to Aurelia. "What exactly are you looking for?" It inhaled and then sent out dozens of hair fine tendrils snaking out all throughout the room. The black and bulk started to unravel from Venom, leavingEddie there sitting in an offic chair as tendrils branched and forked not just throughout the room, but thorugh cabinets, through drawers, and pretty much anywhere and everywhere that could concivably be gotten into within the room. All of it connected to one Edward Brock.

"This.... feels weird." He patted one of the places this forest of threads connected to his body, "You're doing good buddy. We'll have to stop by a slaughterhouse on the way home but yea. You're doing fine."

    Demon Queen straightens up and fixes the collars of her robe, "Hey! My demons!" 

    "WE HEAR AND OBEY, O QUEEN!" 

    Another deep sigh from Demon Queen, "Just... unpack yourselves out of that room and help the weird tentacle guy find whatever he's looking for, okay? But DO NOT LET HIM HAVE IT. Hold on to it WITHOUT DESTROYING IT until I get back." 

    "WE HEAR AND OBEY, O QUEEN!" 

    Demon Queen turns back towards Aurelia and Anna, wiggling the card in her fingers. "Come with me?" She asks, hopeful.

    Aurelia quickly explains to Eddie. "Account ledgers with items sold in them. In the last... uuuuhh.... ten years I think?"
    The room is cleared to reveal what is clearly an extradimensional space that is much larger than possibly the building this office is in. Books, desks, chairs, lamps. More like a freaking magical library than one would expect to be a records room. There's also a few computers in there, likely for more recent records in the last 40 years or so. The books themselves are likely records from /centuries/.
    Since they're going back downstairs and everybody in this room kind of knows who Aurelia is already, she transforms out of her Metallia Gold armor. She accompanies Daria, but says "It's probably not going to work, but if we're going out of this office you're going to need to change. You'd only get away with running about in a bathrobe out in Berkeley, not here in San Francisco."

Eddie smiled as the forest of tendrils writhed and wriggled back into his body. Then he looked at the now emptied room.

<Bullshit.>

"Yeeeaaa." Eddie whistled as he made a show of looking around. Acting as if a series of records just out of reach were what he was after, and paying no special attention to the computers. "Yea... any of you literally damned lumps know where all the ladders are?" He asked loudly, making sure the lazy demon lumps could hear him.

Then he made a slow dejected and seemingly defeated walk before flopping into a chair that just so happened to be at a computer that ALSO happened to be connected to a printer.

Mouse, Windowed userland enviroment. Honestly thsi felt like when he was doing copy edit work. Outdated machines with next to no security.

Eddie allowed himself to smile before calling out. "Hey plae yoru bets. Think I can win this solitair game before they get back?" Oh sure Solitair was on the computer, but he was more interested in their accounting. It really felt nostalgic in a creepy crappy way. Was general computer illiteracy a common trend with manigment?

He'd try printing what looked promising. His backup? Rip the drive out to take home later then make a giant mess of the place so they wouldn't know exactly what he was looking for.

Anna follows Demon Queen and Metallia out of the room; she blinks in mild surprise to recognize the girl from Sutter's Fort. "Oh, huh," she says; seems Spiral never spilled the beans. She shrugs, focuses, and then transforms back into her own civilian form in a burst of blue light. "... now, if I could magical-girl up a costume for someone else," she murmurs, looking sidelong at Daaria.

    A bunch of bored and curious demons quickly surrounded Eddie until he's got en entire mosh pit of demons looking over/under/next to his shoulders. The room seems only about half as full as before, with demons sitting on every available surface rather than filling up every available bit of space. The OTHER several hundred demons spilled out into the law offices and then the hallway, but the panic and troubles that they're causing is happening one floor up from Aurelia, Demon Queen, and Anna.
    Our brave trio, handling this mysterious and unknown credit card, arrive at the vending machines. Daaria excitedly selects a chocolate bar (dark as her soul) and pushes her card in. And her stomach growls in anticipation because she hadn't eaten since that visit to that nice soup kitchen two worlds ago.

For Eddie it was almost an inverse of him having to do desk work while in collage. Get work done when the boss wasn't looking andgoof off when they are. In this case the 'boss' being Demons. So order a document up when they were busy arguing. WHen he noticedsomething looking his way, try seeing what gameswere on thesethigns. Because be they magic, lawyers, journalists, or even the IRS. You wre going to have games either ON the computer, or disksfor games near the computers. "....dear sweet merciful..." 

Dozens of demons glowered at Eddie, Then giggles when he held up a floppy for the shareware of HATE in font familiar to a game that was popular when Eddie was just starting to come into his own. 

So while the printer was merrily churning away Eddie loaded the disk in and smiled. the specifics were diffrent, but in general it was still 'scifi setting with a man with guns verses demons.'

"You guys will never know how much grief and damndnation got thrown at me on sundays. Said this was satan's doorway." His head shook as he fumbled about with the controls. Before getting an idea.

"You!" He snapped, "Fat round ugly thing." He nodded when a demon pointed a claw at itself, "See if you can find any other machiens that have this loaded on I wanna see if we an network them together."

He hoped to God that would keep them busy enough to avoid looking at the printer still churning away.

    To the utter shock (and possibly horror at being forced to have a spa day with a demoness?) of Aurelia, the machine accepts the card. There's a whirrrr and clunk as the machine dispenses the Hershey's Special Dark bar.
    Aurelia's surprise is pretty clear. "Are you... KIDDING ME?!"
    The computers have clearly been tweaked with some magic know-how, some of them dating back to when personal computers had just really entered the marketplace. If Eddie was guessing, it was likely because somebody didn't want to do the grunt work of converting files to more modern machines. Might be useful to figure out which machine was the most recent.

Venom grumbled as he sifted through the diffrent machines, trying to be 'helpful' or not in eddie's impromptu deathmatch party. 

<Your pace has quickened. Why are you frightened? We can overpower these useless lumps of meat.>

Eddie paused, staring at looked like something from twenty years ago wit ha mass of wires coming out of the back. "OK... I need..." He frowned at the prompt displayed. Help. Command list. Close but diffrent enough that he had to reign in muscle memory. "OK..."

F: HATE.run

CHeering from the demons as pixilated gore and midi music filled a small bubble of the room.

Then Eddie looked about. "Alright then You guys like making a mess?"He gestured about, "All of this has been a diversion. I'm sorry. You've been wonderful, you really have you little horrifying sats of fat and bile, but what I need is over thataway." He pointed to a seemingly random shelf across the magically enlarged room before he started running, making as if what he wanted more than anything was a single volume over... There. Waay way over There. 

Time to run!

Anna blinks in surprise at the successful candy bar. "Huh." She shrugs. "Okay, uh ... I guess we ... hmm." She frowns, and looks at Aurelia. "You sure this is ..." She shakes her head. "Yeah, I dunno, I'm not twisty enough to try to figure out what's up with our corporate overlords."

    After about six purses worth of chocolates and snacks were vended directly into Demon Queen's purse, which seems not the least bit bulged or even filled, she crumples up her third candy bar wrapper (that she opened. She offered a bunch more to Aurelia and Anna) and stood up. "Spa day it is! And then a steak and lobster dinner. C'mon. It's girls' night out." 
    Some time later, with the demons still playing doom and murdering each other over who gets to play doom next. an attendant leans over towards a cucumber-mask-smeared Demon Queen, "I'm sorry, ma'am... your... card has been rejected. Perhaps you would like to try another form of payment?" 

    "WHAT!?"

After a long bit of sorting out, in which the owner has extracted a license to utilize Daria's likenesses for the purposes of advertising the fancy spa's services... both Aurelia and Demon Queen are free to return to the office.
    Eventually Eddie finds a USB drive with the kind of information that Aurelia was talking about. Whether he's able to conceal this fact from the lazy demons is another question entirely. The demons are probably quite enthusiastic about ripping the place up and trashing things.

Eddie acted dejected as a pair of demons apparently fell for the admittedly rather transparent bait and switch and wre literally sitting on the ledgers Eddie acted as if he needed. So instead Eddie dejectedly walked back to the printers and handed a sheet of ascii art to a demon before taking the rest of the pile and stuffing the lot into his suit jacket where Venom wrapped the bundle in its material while Eddie decided to start throwing random thigns about, apparently in frustration. Monitor? Let's see how high you go. keyboard? Waaait is that a model M Seriously?! 

Eddie grabbed that because even if the pinout would likely end up weird, he wanted it and if he was breaking, entring, and comitting corporate espionage anyway may as well. 

Then he started pulling books off the shelves by the armload. Just... As big of a mess as he could because he was irritated, He had what he needed, and Venom was bored.

So cue the destruction.

Then, as several demons, or a dozen, or possibly more joined in on the 'fun' Eddie made for the way out of the room before either the demons caught wise, or their boss remembered he existed.

Somehow thorugh all this severla usb drives, and a couple portable hard drives found their way into his pockets and about his person beingheld there by Venom as he made his exit.

Anna facepalms when she hears what happened inside. "Welp," she says weakly. "Hey, uh, I ..." She looks over at Daria, not without pity -- which in turn causes her hero-itis to take hold. "Y'know what, after we hear back from Eddie and you deal with that other stuff, I could take you to a restaurant in my hometown of Brighton, Massachusetts. I know a place that has great food at really low prices. My treat."

"Aaand it's time to go." Eddie was quite rapidly headed for the door. Right as there was the sound of something going /CRASH/ from the records room.

"Leaving." He grabbed Anna's arm, "Right now."