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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Arc 2 Post 21: Morning Visitations
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    • Morning Visitations ​

    22st of July 2006 A.D.

    After a moment's thought you decide not to risk showing your hand. You have the address for the scene. Once you are back in the city you can look into that inconspicuously. Security cameras mean there is some kind of security system which could reveal all sorts of interesting things, not to mention the property records should be online for whoever owns an old meat processing hall with working cameras inside. As you roll into Menominee under fluffy white clouds and morning sunlight that seems a thousand miles removed from Greene's gruesome killing you start thinking of where you had been that would have a camera. Maybe the general store... Harry had asked a few questions there while you had stayed in the car.

    No luck there, the place looks like it had not been renovated since the sixties, though on the plus side the smiling middle aged cashier does remember Harry from yesterday. "Beanpole of a man in a trenchcoat asked after Old Man Matthews, said he was a detective 'r something."

    So it goes, you find plenty of locals willing to attest that they had seen both you and Harry in town yesterday morning, from one of the regulars at the pub who had admired Harry's gun to a bunch of kids from the local Middle School who had mostly remembered you on account of your piercings, but had noted Harry as well, though that last conversation does yield an... interesting question.

    "Are you one of them Satanists?" a wide-eyed boy around Leech's age asks. He sounds like he is really hoping for a yes so he can impress his friends for having spoken to one.

    "No, I'm Catholic," you disappoint him.

    "But... but..."

    "Last I checked there wasn't anything in the Bible about piercings."

    He just kind of nods and mumbles under his breath: "Wicked cool." You have a feeling he'll try to make that argument to his parents when he gets home, not that it's likely to do him any good but that's sure to be a fun talk.

    Finally you manage to find a camera in the local liquor store. Alas it proves to be a lot harder to get the footage for yesterday morning out of the elderly owner than it had been to get people to talk about seeing Harry "Well now little lady I'm sure things will work out just fine, don't you worry none. Iffen what you say is true I'll hand the tapes over to the serif and it'll all be cleared right up."

    Tapes? Who still uses tapes? You shake your head bemused scrambling to think of a reason why you need them. It's not like you can tell him the Men in Slack are out to frame Harry, or make sure he stays framed for blackmail purposes.

    Lost 1 Essence

    Maybe you could try... "I'm sure your sheriff's a fine fellow and will send the tapes off as soon as he's asked for them, I worry about when that's gonna be with all the red tape suits love so much. If I can get this right into Father Forthil's hands he can get things settled a lot faster." At his confused look you fake a blush. "Oh sorry forgot to explain, Harry's lawyer also a priest up at Saint Marry's in Chicago. I can give you his number to check in..."

    "A priest eh?" the old man seems to consider it. "Well if you're gonna need a lawyer you could do worse than one who's sworn holy vows."

    One phone call later you have a copy of the security tape. You were not thinking if it's even worth going back to old man Mathews when you notice the sleek black Mercedes in the driveway. What on Earth is that, a C219 model? That is a showroom and jet setting luxury car from two years ago.


    They wouldn't... Surely no one in their right mind would try to do shady business by driving a big black luxury car through the middle of a sleepu med western town in the middle of the morning.

    "Common sense is for common sorts," Usum offers delicately. "Being able to flaunt it is one of the privileges and proofs of power."

    Do you go check what's going on

    [] Yes, if one of Matthews old 'friends' caught up with him then you would very much want to catch up with them
    -[] Write in plan (optional)

    [] No, you have what you ca,e here for, just get that tape to father Forthil

    [] Write in

    OOC: Since you guys took mechanics as the crafting specialization Molly knows cars really well so I did not roll for recognizing that one.
     
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    • [x] Yes, if one of Matthews old 'friends' caught up with him then you would very much want to catch up with them

    always do all the sidequests
     
    [X] Yes, if one of Matthews old 'friends' caught up with him then you would very much want to catch up with them
    -[X] Take a moment to listen at the door for anyone talking inside, you never know what you might hear.
    -[X] Fukit, demons for everyone. Stick a demon in the car's electronics if it has any. And if it's been customized to not have any, well, that tells you something interesting as well.

    DragonParadox said:
    You want to tap the depths of hell for oil... I mean with the right charm and artifacts you should be able to do it.
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    So you're confirming Hell-oil will stay oil and not dissolve into ectoplasm after a while like most stuff taken out of the Never-Never?

    Good to know. I was at least partially meming when I made the suggestion, but with that it starts to sound potentially viable, if still extremely dangerous to do at industrial scale.

    On a related note, as an alternative to making a lot of money we could try setting up a parallel economy. Summon a lot of high Intelligence spirits, gremlins from the Wicked City, etc, bind them into animal Formori and give them the start up resources to build their own society in the Chicago Underground. Also thumbs if the Formori transformation doesn't give them those already.

    It'd synergize pretty well with the Hell Oil operation as well. Besides the obvious use of it as a fuel source for the infrastructure they build, DP has said the thing preventing Formori from reproducing quickly is lack of magic in the environment, which could hopefully be at least partially ameliorated by supplementing their diets with waste products from the Hell-diesel conversion process (stuff like floating chunks of sinner that would need to be filtered out first, and the glycerin byproducts separated from the oil when it gets converted to diesel.)

    Also, having any kind of portal to Yomi-wan surrounded by an army of our minions and nowhere near our house regardless of how intraversable we designed it to be for demons just seems like common sense. Almost as good as making it on Mars.
     
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    [X] Yes, if one of Matthews old 'friends' caught up with him then you would very much want to catch up with them
    -[X] Take a moment to listen at the door for anyone talking inside, you never know what you might hear.
    -[X] Fukit, demons for everyone. Stick a demon in the car's electronics if it has any. And if it's been customized to not have any, well, that tells you something interesting as well.
     
    [X] Yes, if one of Matthews old 'friends' caught up with him then you would very much want to catch up with them
    -[X] Take a moment to listen at the door for anyone talking inside, you never know what you might hear.
    -[X] Fukit, demons for everyone. Stick a demon in the car's electronics if it has any. And if it's been customized to not have any, well, that tells you something interesting as well.
     
    [X] Yes, if one of Matthews old 'friends' caught up with him then you would very much want to catch up with them
    -[X] Take a moment to listen at the door for anyone talking inside, you never know what you might hear.
    -[X] Fukit, demons for everyone. Stick a demon in the car's electronics if it has any. And if it's been customized to not have any, well, that tells you something interesting as well.

    Also that car is sexy
     
    Odysseus2099 said:
    [X] Yes, if one of Matthews old 'friends' caught up with him then you would very much want to catch up with them
    -[X] Take a moment to listen at the door for anyone talking inside, you never know what you might hear.
    -[X] Fukit, demons for everyone. Stick a demon in the car's electronics if it has any. And if it's been customized to not have any, well, that tells you something interesting as well.


    So you're confirming Hell-oil will stay oil and not dissolve into ectoplasm after a while like most stuff taken out of the Never-Never?

    Good to know. I was at least partially meming when I made the suggestion, but with that it starts to sound potentially viable, if still extremely dangerous to do at industrial scale.

    On a related note, as an alternative to making a lot of money we could try setting up a parallel economy. Summon a lot of high Intelligence spirits, gremlins from the Wicked City, etc, bind them into animal Formori and give them the start up resources to build their own society in the Chicago Underground. Also thumbs if the Formori transformation doesn't give them those already.

    It'd synergize pretty well with the Hell Oil operation as well. Besides the obvious use of it as a fuel source for the infrastructure they build, DP has said the thing preventing Formori from reproducing quickly is lack of magic in the environment, which could hopefully be at least partially ameliorated by supplementing their diets with waste products from the Hell-diesel conversion process (stuff like floating chunks of sinner that would need to be filtered out first, and the glycerin byproducts separated from the oil when it gets converted to diesel.)

    Also, having any kind of portal to Yomi-wan surrounded by an army of our minions and nowhere near our house regardless of how intraversable we designed it to be for demons just seems like common sense. Almost as good as making it on Mars.
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    gonna be honest I thought fukit was a type of demon for a good minute or some deep lore.
     
    [X] Yes, if one of Matthews old 'friends' caught up with him then you would very much want to catch up with them
    -[X] Take a moment to listen at the door for anyone talking inside, you never know what you might hear.
    -[X] Fukit, demons for everyone. Stick a demon in the car's electronics if it has any. And if it's been customized to not have any, well, that tells you something interesting as well.

    How good does someone need to be to notice a devil? Harry could cause he's a wizard, and Matthews could because he specializes in spirits.

    If we put a devil in this car, do we need to worry about them taking it out?
     
    BronzeTongue said:
    [X] Yes, if one of Matthews old 'friends' caught up with him then you would very much want to catch up with them
    -[X] Take a moment to listen at the door for anyone talking inside, you never know what you might hear.
    -[X] Fukit, demons for everyone. Stick a demon in the car's electronics if it has any. And if it's been customized to not have any, well, that tells you something interesting as well.

    How good does someone need to be to notice a devil? Harry could cause he's a wizard, and Matthews could because he specializes in spirits.

    If we put a devil in this car, do we need to worry about them taking it out?
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    I suppose it's possible someone might notice, but not only do they have to be skilled enough to do so, they have to actually be able to discern what they're sensing as well. Just getting a strange feeling or inexplicable ping on their mystical senses isn't going to be enough to tell a non-expert what's going on.

    There's also the matter of proximity. The more likely someone is to be able to detect the Cyberdemon and work out what it may be, the less likely they are to be near the kind of technology we're able to use HMP on in the first place due to the issues caused by the techbane effect.
     
    BronzeTongue said:
    [X] Yes, if one of Matthews old 'friends' caught up with him then you would very much want to catch up with them
    -[X] Take a moment to listen at the door for anyone talking inside, you never know what you might hear.
    -[X] Fukit, demons for everyone. Stick a demon in the car's electronics if it has any. And if it's been customized to not have any, well, that tells you something interesting as well.

    How good does someone need to be to notice a devil? Harry could cause he's a wizard, and Matthews could because he specializes in spirits.

    If we put a devil in this car, do we need to worry about them taking it out?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    1. The Sight sees things as they truly are so anyone with that will be able to sense them no question, though that is not often used
    2. As for passive sensing it depends on how high their Spirit sphere or general spirit lore for minor talents is as well as how much their personal style leans into technomancy
     
    DragonParadox said:
    1. The Sight sees things as they truly are so anyone with that will be able to sense them no question, though that is not often used
    2. As for passive sensing it depends on how high their Spirit sphere or general spirit lore for minor talents is as well as how much their personal style leans into technomancy
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    any wizard who intentionally uses true sight to check for a demon is retarded. True sight is often a last resort cause you can and will go insane if you see the wrong shit which is technically endless in the grand scheme of things. Some stuff rather than trauma can straight up just melt your brain with true sight. Demons of anonymity admittedly probably aren't too bad as far as demons go seeing with true sight probably still some level of traumatic though.
     
    Goldfish said:
    There's also the matter of proximity. The more likely someone is to be able to detect the Cyberdemon and work out what it may be, the less likely they are to be near the kind of technology we're able to use HMP on in the first place due to the issues caused by the techbane effect.
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    Had a thought on that since making the write-in. Fae don't have the techbane effect, and we know at least one is hunting necromancers. Could be the Ankou is here for the same reason we were.

    Which would be incredibly convenient if true, which is why I don't think it's likely.
     
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    Odysseus2099 said:
    Had a thought on that since making the write-in. Fae don't have the techbane effect, and we know at least one is hunting necromancers. Could be the Ankou is here for the same reason we were.

    Which would be incredibly convenient if true, which is why I don't think it's likely.
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    It could be one of those yes but actually no situations.

    As in Ankou does want to go after the same people we are but plans on killing them all as quickly as possible, harming our ability to use them to clear Harry's name.
     
    BronzeTongue said:
    It could be one of those yes but actually no situations.

    As in Ankou does want to go after the same people we are but plans on killing them all as quickly as possible, harming our ability to use them to clear Harry's name.
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    When I said convenient, I meant that we could tell him to call his boss so that would be one problem down, and we could work on clearing Harry without worrying about Mab.

    Yeah, optimally we want the Ankou's help tracking down the Necromancers, but we don't need it the way Harry needs to fulfill his contract with Mab.
     
    Yeah people don't use the sight casually, the small downside of going insane. Pretty sure Dresden is super reckless with his use of the sight, and even he doesn't use it more then a few times per book.
     
    Earth-Destroyer said:
    Yeah people don't use the sight casually, the small downside of going insane. Pretty sure Dresden is super reckless with his use of the sight, and even he doesn't use it more then a few times per book.
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    something worse than a skinwalker could of straight up killed dresden. Beyond insanity some things straight up melt your brain. There are sadly many things worse than skinwalkers out there in the wide world or beyond it.
     
    Ferrovax implies that looking at him with the sight could be very bad for dresden, one minor angel (and IIRC Mac (the Bartender)) outright block him from looking because it would hurt him.

    He seems to have learned (or gained, maybe the winter knight mantle helped his mental resilience) some control by the time of changes though, since he uses it in his duel with Arianna, while the red court nobles he sees and just remarks that they are horrible without much reaction ("each a unique and hideous monster, according to their particular madness") and also manages to not look at the red king and his night lords, despite them being right there, because he suspects that might end badly.
     
    I doubt it wonder if we could replicate true sight its so useful especially with our own bullshit mind stuff. The villainous sorceror of the first book made a drug that let mortals use it so not sure why we couldn't. True sights pretty bullshit if you could handle always having it on and dealing with the consequences of seeing gods and exploding energies in large amounts.

    Edit: Also admittedly a better sensory power than even most exalted powers if it didn't have the insanity drawback for too much uses or dangerous uses.
     
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    [X] Yes, if one of Matthews old 'friends' caught up with him then you would very much want to catch up with them
    -[X] Take a moment to listen at the door for anyone talking inside, you never know what you might hear.
    -[X] Fukit, demons for everyone. Stick a demon in the car's electronics if it has any. And if it's been customized to not have any, well, that tells you something interesting as well.
     
    It should be noted... the Sight would be a lot less problematic for you than for a mortal since you have a perfect mental defense. It's the shock that and horror that gets to you mostly and you have perfect scene long shock absorbers.
     
    Couple answers I have to get to later.
    DragonParadox said:
    I will say this much on the nuclear transmutation thing, some of the things that have been suggested will fail, not every idea for making money works, but I cannot really tell you guys which is which since Molly does not know IC
    Also Vote closed.
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    Lets not do this.

    IC Molly might not know everything her power can do without exploring it, but she would know what her power cannot do.
    Thats how you avoid attempting to walk off a skyscraper roof with a balance charm, or blowing Essence trying to do stuff that the charm does not apply to.

    OOC lets not spend updates running up mechanical dead ends on her power's capabilities.
    Just make a call on what works for your story or not.
    DragonParadox said:
    Rolls
    Talking to the locals
    Getting the footage
    Somehow you made the pure perception roll no alertness
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    Huh.
    The dice really didnt want Molly to get her hands on that tape.

    DragonParadox said:
    One phone call later you have a copy of the security tape. You were not thinking if it's even worth going back to old man Mathews when you notice the sleek black Mercedes in the driveway. What on Earth is that, a C219 model? That is a showroom and jet setting luxury car from two years a
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    Mercedes CLS 55 AMG. 2006 model, which makes it a year old or less.

    Thats a hundred and thirty thousand dollar car minimu; its European MSRP was 98k euros for the 2006 model. GPS inbuilt, radarguided cruise control, power seats, trip computer, remote key door entry. Lots of electronics. Whoever is driving it obviously has no fear of it dying to techbane, which makes them either a mundane or a relatively weak sorcerer/talent. Or Sidhe.

    Probably NOT government, because the US govt, both state and federal, does not buy European luxury car models.
    And a sign of conspicuous consumption; 6586 built during its two year run, most not in the US, and presumably most of them are not in the Chicago area.

    Whoever owns this both does very well for themselves and is not shy about showing it.


    VOTE
    [X]Yes, if one of Matthews old 'friends' caught up with him then you would very much want to catch up with them
    -[X]Play the car enthusiast and pretend to gawk. Take vehicle picture(s) with cellphone or camera.
    -[X]Have Clippy look up license plate and Chicago-area social media pictures and car enthusiast forums
    -[X]Attempt to sense any magic around it(Perception check, -2 DC from Usum). Spend 1 WP for autosux.
    -[X]Hollow Mind Possession on car(if its a car, and not some glamored bullshit). Spend 1 WP for autosux.
    -[X]Have new demon send Clippy any relevant data, including vehicle registration and insurance info from documents in glove box, any relevant electronic data, and especially travel itinerary recorded by the GPS since it was bought, with focus on the last month.
    -[X]Continue posing as car enthusiast and knock on door


    REASONING
    Start 11/12 Essence, 9/9 WP
    End 10/12 Essence, 7/9 WP

    Almost definitely a Chicago-area local; luxury cars arent driven cross country.
    This could be one of Lictor's people flexing. Could be Lydia's dad the presumed Ankou. Unlikely to be Marcone's people; too new, and the car stands out too much. And law enforcement cant afford this as a private vehicle.

    New, uncommon car stands out; only ~6500 were built worldwide between 2004 and 2006 before the model was superseded, and most are not in the US.If its a rental, there's little stuff like bar codes on the windshields that Clippy can identify in a photo, even if Molly didnt necessarily know what to look for.

    Its not a common car, so good odds that Chicago-area car enthusiast forums and social media have pictures and data and even an ID on the owner or when it turns up at places.
    And thats assuming Clippy cant access the DMV website from here and just check the license plate.

    Judging from the Beige Wagon and the FBI agent last night, cyberdevils can tell whats inside them or close to them even without dedicated sensors. Drivers carry car registration and insurance info in their glovebox. Insurance info tells us who holds the car's insurance policy. Which is either the car owner, or a degree removed from the car owner.

    Do not attempt to eavesdrop; with Stealth 0, we're going to be bad at it.
    And Old Man Mathews wards will probably already be reacting to Molly's magic signature anyway. Nevermind if any of the people who came in the car has the magic sensitivity to note Molly's Vortex of Doom.

    Be open, knock on the door and play the car geek.

    EDIT
    CLS 55 AMG
    mercedes-benz-publicarchive.com

    CLS 55 AMG | marsClassic

    CLS 55 AMG / C 219 E 55 AMG, 2004 - 2006
    mercedes-benz-publicarchive.com mercedes-benz-publicarchive.com
     
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