Cult of Ramiel II Complex, East Dakota - Spring 2109
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Solomon
After the end of mankind’s coronation, when the Archangels were rising, a solitary angel had an incredible following already ascribed to them without need of mind or nerve control. Ramiel II was a blue octahedron that formed from the crowns of the employees and others present at the East Dakota regional headquarters of the Coronation Organization and Regulation Commission on the day the rapture began. The Ramiel Journal predicted the rise of this particular archangel, and the followers of that document believed Ramiel II to be the reincarnation of the very Throne that gave the author her prophetic vision. Thus, the Cult of Ramiel went seemingly overnight from a group of internet forum users and occasional local club members to the willing army of one of the most volatile of the rising Archangels.
Edith Gorman had joined up with the Cult of Ramiel long before the appearance of the Archangels, not for any sort of personal belief in the prophecies of the Journal, but because she hoped to earn her PhD with an extensive anthropological report on the culture and behavior of the Cultists. Once the Archangels did appear and the Cultists migrated en masse to East Dakota (as much as they could with societal infrastructure rapidly collapsing), Edith stayed with the Cult as a survival tactic, seeing that in the domain of any other Archangel she was nearly guaranteed to die— or worse.
Edith had made her way into the outer fringes of the Cult’s inner leadership in the years before the Archangels, when the organization first began serious real-world activity and formed a base of operations in the hollow Citadel created by the EOKAJ in the Oklahoma Lost Zone. When the Archangels appeared, leadership took notice of her useful strategic advice on the migration operation to move from the Citadel up into the domain of Ramiel II. This led to her being brought in to strategize on later operations, and before long despite her cover as an electrician she was back in her area of real expertise working on a project aiming to locate a lost ancient religious text.
The Ramiel Journal apparently contains references to some kind of manuscript that will allow mankind to communicate directly with the Angels at long last, and through extensive research the Cult had found numerous historical references to such a text, though there was not a consistent or promising title, and they were even further from a lead on where a copy might be located.
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In truth, they were not even certain the thing existed at all, as it was only known by its absence. It might be a missing additional dead sea scroll, a 16th century grimoire, or a cuneiform tablet for all they knew. The closest thing to a tangible lead that the cult had discerned thus far was that the manuscript was often referenced or referenced by omission in conjunction with the Greater and Lesser Keys of Solomon. These texts were believed to be modern (19th century) fabricated grimoire falsely attributed to the biblical King Solomon, but if this would-be Third Key proved to be real, it would likely prove the attribution true.
Edith had been tasked with scouring the remaining Internet for any useful documentation that might point to a clear record of the Key. It was, thankfully, quite solitary work, as the rest of the Cult upper ranks were entirely focused on the development of a mission plan to destabilize the Anti-Node Eventuality Taskforce’s Winterbase.
So far Edith was grasping at loose threads surrounding various antique manuscripts of the known Keys of Solomon. Her best bet at this stage was that the Vatican might have a lead, as they were in possession of the oldest known version of the Keys. Edith knew the uncertainty would be disappointing to the Hierophants, the functional leaders of the Cult, so she decided to mitigate the blow by developing an action plan to infiltrate the Vatican. She felt herself getting into an action movie planning sequence montage kind of flow after pinning up maps and floorplans and printing out inventory lists and highlighting relevant entries, pinning all the above to the walls as she went. She couldn't help but laugh at herself, but the result was a not -so-shabby plan complete with maps of likely patrol paths and best infiltration and egress routes for Cult operatives.
Edith was actually finding herself fairly well prepared to present what she had accomplished when the Hierophants were finally emerging from their private council, but for better or for worse they retasked her without looking for results on the previous assignment at all. From now on she was to be of a singleminded focus on one thing alone: infiltrating Winterbase and sabotaging the last safe bastion for humanity in the apocalypse.
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