Skimmed it and mostly looked at the passives, my bad.
I suppose we need this at some point if we plan on hanging out with Dresden long term. Though I think in the immediate term we'd be better off trading TLF and DPE for Anonymity Through Propriety. Environmental damage and social boosts against some monsters are nice, but the ability to stroll through a police department, the mayor's office, and the offices of various valuable publicly traded corporations and place cyber devils pretty much wherever we like is very tempting at this stage in Molly's development.
I dont think I agree. Given the profusion of vampires, ghosts and dark fae in the setting, we are going to run into a lot more situations where the social buff from DPE will matter for gathering intelligence or just avoiding unnecessary fights.
And TLF makes things like choking from smoke in a burning building a non-issue.
If we can fly, we can actually break into said buildings from the roof and wander around at night at will.
Or frankly, we can bluff and talk our way in through the front door.
Manipulation + Subterfuge, then pump an Excellency.
These are some quite good points so let me address them, first off it is worth recalling how confused Dresden was by Mouse, it took him quite a while to even realize even the general sense of that Mouse was and even so he kept being surprised by his abilities. One can argue that cyber devils are a lot more common and a lot more likely to make trouble for a wizard than foo dog scions so Ebenezer would have taught him about them. But we also have to keep in mind that Ebenezer had according to the timeline three years to teach Harry between the ages of 16 and 19. Three years in which to teach this volatile teenager who had already broken the Laws how and why to use magic so he does not end up dead. One can well imagine the particulars of tech-possessing demons being pushed to the back of the line, at least the details of where they come from.
Now you are right Harry was not surprised by the notion of cyber devils, but well, he has four occult and for him details about the Yama Kings and the nature of the Wicked City would be the fifth dot.
Fair enough.
Its worth noting that Harry is often used as the audience surrogate for info dumps, so he's often portrayed as ignorant of things that he should by all rights have had drilled into his head by his teachers or by Bob.
So there's that.
I mean, thats the only reason for things like being suprised by Fidelacchius and Esperacchius in Dead Beat after having met and worked with Amoracchius and its wielder several books before.
You know, as another potential money-making scheme to add to the pile…
1)Most wizards live outside the US. Shipping costs are nontrivial.
2)They would have to be able to trust that we left nothing behind that can later be used as a tracker or an arcane focus to guide magic in on them.Or even a delayed activation carbomb.
We dont have that sort of reputation; those who do, like the svartalfar, have a track record.
3)They would also have to be sure that whatever means of shipping that stuff is secure, and noone else can slip stuff into it between our workshop and delivery. Like a car bomb.
Which is a significant issue in and of itself.
Its a nice idea, but I dont expect it to be feasible.
Wizards are paranoid enough in the normal run of things, let alone five years into the Vampire War.
Wanted to add my two cents with a new idea. Since we are dealing with nazis, and in general later, recovering lost art could be a profitable and respectable enterprise. With
paintings alone there are bounties in the millions. And
there's
more than paintings out there. It could be both a source of profit, and of experience. Fun expeditions, busting international mafias and looting nazi archives.
Meh. Its just art. Might be my bias, but original art isnt that interesting.
Futhermore, while some of these are lying forgotten in one spot or the other?
A lot of these things are in private collections of very rich, unscrupulous people, behind shitloads of security. And we dont have the Larceny or charms to break in and out undetected; rejiggering for it is a nontrivial expense.
If there is a plot relevant item? Yes. If we stumble across some yes.
But I dont really expect Molly to do an Indiana Jones for the hell of it.
Unless something has gone very wrong, Gorfel is in custody of the White Council by now. He has probably already been executed.
I don't have anything against trying to learn who these people are and where they're at, but that's not the next clue we should be looking for. We have to be careful about how we ask questions, and a lot of information we may learn isn't going to be relevant to us.
As demonstrated by Gorfel having to pay a visit to Matthews for information when he was going to be operating in the Chicago area, they don't have any local supernatural assets to speak of. Probably means they don't have an extensive muggle network, either. It won't do us any good to learn that they're all based in Argentina or Germany, or wherever else Nazi warlocks hang out.
That also lends more credence to my assumption that the sniper was a local contractor rather than a member of the Society.
If we decide to sit down and start querying the Crown for more in-depth information on Matthews' former associates, this isn't the place to do it. That can be done back in Chicago behind friendly wards rather than out in the middle of nowhere with who knows what lurking in the background. We've already spent Essence quite liberally today. No need to drain ourselves dangerously when there is a not insignificant chance of combat in the near future.
Point of order:
Gorfel might have had no local supernatural assets. Especially if this was an off the books job for himself, or just a personal project on his own initiative, which is possible. That does not mean that the
Thule Society does not have corporate assets in Chicago, or that other Thule Society agents dont .
Remember the ongoing internal power struggle between the Old Guard and The New Men.
I doubt they share unless absolutely necessary, any more than Grevane, Cowl and the Capriocorpus shared resources during the events of Dead Beat.
I am also pretty sure that sniper was not just some local contractor either. There's no DoorDash for assassinations; no freelance hitman is ready to take a sniper contract at less than an hour's notice on a Sunday afternoon in summer. Epecially not outside the home of a hard target like Dresden, who does have a reputation in the local underworld.
Not to mention that you have to have prescouted the location in order to find places with good firing angles.
And that you also have to be a good sniper.
There's a reason most known shootings are close range.
You only get that kind of response time and performance from an employee, and a dedicated one.
Commentary on the update later.
@DragonParadox
QUESTION
Do we remember how many months ago Ace the Nazi mook said he was put in hospital, and when Gorfels fixed him?
And what can Clippy tell us about when his accident took place from news reports? Vehicular road accident with two fatalities and one crippling certainly made the news, especially in the context of a police chase.
Im asking because it gives us a timeframe for when Gorfels became interested in Chicago.
