My apologies this is late @Alratan. I had to get access to my books.
Dead Beat
1)You have the trouble of unreliable narrator with Dresden, especially in the earlier books, where he, like the readers, is ignorant of much of the world.
For one thing, we know that his characterization of vampire magic is untrue for several reasons
-Thomas uses magic in Backup for a tracking spell. Entirely normal
-We see Bianca use magic in the denouement of Grave Peril. Different spells, no mention of a different source
-We see Ariana Ortega use magic in Changes in her duel with Dresden. She is described as having a shroud of greasy black magic around her, but her power source wasnt called out as any different.
And we see both Kumori and Cowl call on magic up close. There is no indication of their power sources being limited.
In conclusion? Magic is magic is magic. There is no evidence that Rampire or Whampire sorcerers are limited to a different source of power, let alone necromancers. Shit like blood sacrifices might be easier to do to raise power, like they did at Chitchen Itza in Changes, but it isnt necessary. Just a shortcut for people too lazy or too unskilled to do shit properly.
I cant speak for Outsider magic.
2) Also, Dresden knew nothing about Kemmlerite necromancy at this point.
He had to ask Bob for a briefing after Mavra told him to find the Word of Kemmler, because he didnt even know who Kemmler was.
And his briefing was incomplete because he tripped the Evil Bob switch and it nearly killed him, so he told Bob to lock away the info.
He only finds and memorizes the Word of Kemmler several hours after this conversation.
And when he reads it, he promptly raises Sue as a zombie tyrannosaur.
Using his normal power sources.
3)Word of Jim is that Odin uses soulfire to raise his undead Einherjar.
So yeah, necromancy.
Make of that what you will.
Fool Moon.
This is from even further back, when Harry was under the impression that a containment circle designed to hold a lou garou was rated to hold an archangel. And that demons were harmless denizens of the NeverNever to trade information with.
Fool Moon Harry was almost as dumb as he was ignorant.
And just to be clear: Harry does treat magic as his religion.
1)See my previous posts.
As of the beginning of Dead Beat, the only vampire sorceress he'd ever fought was Bianca, and he had only academic knowledge of necromancy. Dresden was a pretty inexperienced wizard at this point, with an incomplete education, as evidenced by the fact that IC he didnt recognize the name of the most infamous magical mass murderer in history.
Unreliable narrator tropes fully in effect.
2)He states no such thing to the Wardens. All that passage was internal narration.
I just went back and checked. Dead Beat chapter 31
Luccio nodded. "Precisely. The first attack came in Cairo, at our operations center there. Several Wardens were taken, including the senior commander of the region."
"Alive?" I asked.
She nodded. "Yes. Which was an unacceptable threat." When vampires take you alive, it isn't so that they can treat you to ice cream. That was one of the really nightmarish facets of the war with the Red Court. If the enemy got you, they could do worse than kill you.
They could make you one of their own.
If they managed to turn a Warden, especially one of the senior commanders, it would give them access to a treasury of knowledge and secrets-to say nothing of the fact that they would effectively gain, in many ways, a wizard of their own. Vampires didn't use magic in the same way that mortal wizards did. They tapped into the same nauseating well of power that Kemmler and those like him used. But from what I understood of it, the skills carried over. A turned wizard would be a deadly threat to the Wardens, the Council, and mortals alike. We never talked about it, but there was a sort of silent understanding among wizards that we would never be taken alive. And an equally silent fear that we might be.
"You went after them," I guessed.
Luccio nodded. "A major assault. Madrid, Sao Paolo, Acapulco, Athens. We struck at enemy strongholds there to acquire intelligence to the whereabouts of the prisoners. Our people were being held in Belize." She waved a hand vaguely at Morgan.
"Our intelligence indicated the presence of the highest-ranking members of the Red Court, including the Red King himself. The Merlin and the rest of the Senior Council took the field with us," Morgan said quietly.
That made me raise my brows. The Merlin, the leader of the Senior Council, was as defensive-minded as it was possible to be. He'd guided the White Council into the equivalent of a cold war with the Red Court, with everyone moving carefully and unwilling to commit, in the hopes that it would give the war time to settle away into negotiations and some kind of diplomatic resolution. An offensive action like a full assault from the Senior Council, the seven oldest and strongest wizards on the planet, had been long overdue.
That is all his internal narration, internal conjecture.
Not Warden statements.
3)Why would you believe anything Kumori said in the book without independent verification?
She's either the undead familiar or a magical associate of Cowl, attempted magical mass murderer . She was trying to recruit Dresden in that scene by convincing him necromancy wasnt so bad. She's not bound to tell the truth. Why would you believe anything she told you in a recruitment speech?
If she said the sky was blue, I would suggest checking to be sure.
Firstly, I'd ask for a citations that magic is magic is magic. Where is that said anywhere in the books?
Secondly, it'a specifically the Red Court that uses the same well of power as the Kemmlerites. What Thomas uses to cast spells is irrelevant, as he's a different order of being to different types of vampire. Also, I'm pretty sure there's a WoJ out there that Thomas does use a different power source, he uses his demon's Hunger.
In terms of why the use of another source of power isn't always called out, there's no need to. Harry's already knows it's different so wouldn't note it in his internal narrative, and OOC it's alread try called out so the author doesn't need to big the narrative down by repeating it. It may also simply not be that obvious.
And lastly, even if it was called out in the narrative, you'd probably deny it's relevance as being from the perspective of an unreliable narrator, just as you do Harry's direct observation of Kumori's necromantic signature.
Basically, it comes down to this, Harry may be a sometimes unreliable narrator, but his narration gives multiple examples of textual support for my position, including from when he has a lots of experience in facing both Necromancers and Red Court vampires and working with other people experienced in fighting them.
You, by contrast, have as as I can tell literally no textual support for your position, just your bare assertion.
[X] Take the opportunity to read the note here, even though it might be conspicuous, it might be something you need to know
-[X] Molly nonchalantly lifted her clipboard, using the motion to mask the shifting of the note so she can read it.
[X] Take the opportunity to read the note here, even though it might be conspicuous, it might be something you need to know
-[X] Molly nonchalantly lifted her clipboard, using the motion to mask the shifting of the note so she can read it.
Firstly, I'd ask for a citations that magic is magic is magic. Where is that said anywhere in the books?
Secondly, it'a specifically the Red Court that uses the same well of power as the Kemmlerites. What Thomas uses to cast spells is irrelevant, as he's a different order of being to different types of vampire. Also, I'm pretty sure there's a WoJ out there that Thomas does use a different power source, he uses his demon's Hunger.
In terms of why the use of another source of power isn't always called out, there's no need to. Harry's already knows it's different so wouldn't note it in his internal narrative, and OOC it's alread try called out so the author doesn't need to big the narrative down by repeating it. It may also simply not be that obvious.
And lastly, even if it was called out in the narrative, you'd probably deny it's relevance as being from the perspective of an unreliable narrator, just as you do Harry's direct observation of Kumori's necromantic signature.
Basically, it comes down to this, Harry may be a sometimes unreliable narrator, but his narration gives multiple examples of textual support for my position, including from when he has a lots of experience in facing both Necromancers and Red Court vampires and working with other people experienced in fighting them.
You, by contrast, have as as I can tell literally no textual support for your position, just your bare assertion.
Vadderung nodded. "You're looking for your daughter."
I felt my body go rigid. "How . . . ?"
He smiled rather wolfishly. "I know things, Dresden. And if I don't know something, I can find out. Like yourself, it is what I do."
I stared at the man for most of a minute. Then I said, "Do you know where she is?"
"No," he said in a quiet, firm voice. "But I know where she will be."
I looked down at my hands. "What's it going to cost me to find out?"
"Chichén Itzá," Vadderung said.
I jerked my head up in surprise. I stared at the man for a moment. "I . . ."
"Don't understand?" Vadderung asked. "It isn't complicated. I'm on your side, boy."
I raked my fingers back through my hair, thinking. "Why there?"
"The Red King and his inner circle, the Lords of Outer Night, have got some big juju to brew up. They need a site of power to do it. For this, they'll use Chichén Itzá."
"Why there?"
"They're enacting a sacrifice. Like in the old days." A snarl of anger touched his voice, and made it suddenly frightening. "They're preparing a bloodline curse."
"A what?"
"Death magic," he said, "focused upon the bloodline. From the sacrifice, the child, to her brothers, sisters, and parents. From the parents to their brothers, sisters, and parents, and so on. Spreading up the family tree until there's no one left."
A chill hit my guts. "I've . . . never even heard of death magic on that kind of scale. The energy required for that . . . It's enormous." I stopped for a moment and then said, "And it's stupid. Susan was an only child, and she's already lost her parents. Same with me . . ."
Vadderung arched an eyebrow at me. "Is it? They like to be thorough, those old monsters."
I smoothed my expression over, trying not to give away anything. This spell they were doing would kill me, if they pulled it off. It could also kill my only family, my half brother, Thomas. "How does it work?" I asked him, my voice subdued.
"It tears out the heart," Vadderung said. "Rips it to bits on the way out, too. Sound familiar?"
"Hell's bells," I said quietly. It had been years since I had even thought about Victor Sells or his victims. They had featured in my nightmares for quite a while until I upgraded.
Vadderung leaned toward me, his blue eye very bright. "It's all connected, Dresden. The whole game. And you're only now beginning to learn who the players are." He settled back into his seat, letting silence add emphasis to his statement before he continued. "The sorcerer who used the spell in Chicago before didn't have strength enough to make it spread past the initial target. The Red Court does. No one has used Power on this scale in more than a millennium."
"And they're pointing it at me?"
"They say you can know a man by his enemies, Dresden." He smiled, and laughter lurked beneath his next words, never quite surfacing. "You defy beings that should cow you into silence. You resist forces that are inevitable for no more reason than that you believe they should be resisted. You bow your head to neither demons nor angels, and you put yourself in harm's way to defend those who cannot defend themselves." He nodded slowly. "I think I like you."
I arched an eyebrow and studied him for a moment. "Then help me."
Vadderung pursed his lips in thought. "In that, you may be disappointed. I am . . . not what I was. My children are scattered around the world. Most of them have forgotten our purpose. Once the Jotuns retreated . . ." He shook his head. "What you must understand is that you face beings such as I in this battle."
I frowned. "You mean . . . gods?"
"Mostly retired gods, at any rate," Vadderung said. "Once, entire civilizations bowed to them. Now they are venerated by only a handful, the power of their blood spread out among thousands of offspring. But in the Lords of Outer Night, even the remnants of that power are more than you can face as you are."
"I've heard that one before," I said.
Victor Sells the black magic sorcerer powered his death spells with the power of thunderstorms.
The Red Court powered theirs with the sacrifice of humans and the power of the Chitchen Itza leyline nexus.
According to Odin, its the same spell. And as far as Im aware, he had no reason to lie about it.
2) Changes chapter 46.
Dresden sees the Lords of Outer Night attempt to cast magic:
Martin flinched, as though he'd had a dodge ready to go if I had something for him. "Dresden!" he called. "Look!"
I looked. Up on the little temple at the end of the ball court, the Lords of Outer Night and the Red King were standing in a circle, and they were all gathering magical power—probably from one of the bloody ley lines, to boot. Whatever they were going to do, I had a bad feeling that I was reaching the very end of my bag of tricks.
I heard booted feet and saw the mortal security guards lining up along the sides of the stadium, rifles at the ready. When they were in position they would open fire, and the simple fact was that if they piled enough rounds into us, we would go down.
Who was I kidding?
I couldn't keep the field of ice and wind together for very long. And I knew Molly couldn't maintain her Rave at that intensity for long, either. Dozens of jaguar warriors had fallen, but that meant little. Their numbers had not been diminished by any significant measure.
According to Dresden(who could be wrong) they are probably drawing magic from the ley lines.
Like literally any other wizard can do.
3)Dead Beat chapter 8.
Dresden describes both Cowl and Kumori actually use magic against him, spell against spell.
So we have a firsthand experience of what those particular necromancers magic actually looks and feels like:
"Enough," Cowl said, anger making his voice almost unintelligible. "Give us the book."
"Bite my ass, Cowl."
Kumori's hood twitched back and forth between Cowl and me. She took three steps back.
"Just as well," Cowl murmured. "I have wanted to see for myself what has the Wardens so nervous about you." The cold wind rose again, and the hairs on the back of my neck rose up stiffly. A flash of sensation flickered over me as Cowl drew in power. A lot of power. "Don't," I said. I lifted my shield bracelet, weaving defensive energy before me with my thoughts. I solidified my hold on my own power, wrapping my fingers tight around my staff, and then slammed it down hard on the concrete. The cracking sound of it echoed back and forth from darkened buildings and the empty street. "Walk away. I'm not kidding."
"Dorosh," he snarled in reply, and extended his right hand.
He hit me with raw, invisible force-pure will, focused into a violent burst of kinetic energy. I knew it was coming, my shield was ready, and I braced myself against it in precisely the correct way. My defense was perfect. It was all that saved my life.
I've traded practice blows with my old master Justin DuMorne, himself at one time a Warden. I fought him in earnest, too, and won. I've tested my strength in practice duels against the mentor who succeeded him, Ebenezar McCoy. My faerie godmother, the Leanansidhe, has a seriously nasty right hook, metaphysically speaking, and I've even gone up against the least of the Queens of Faerie. Throw in a couple of demons, various magical constructs, a thirteen-story fall in a runaway elevator, half a dozen spellslingers of one amount of nasty or another, and I've seen more sheer mystic violence than most wizards in the business. I've beaten them all, or at least survived them, and I've got the scars to show for it.
Cowl hit me harder than any of them.
My shield lit up like a floodlight, and despite all that I could do to divert the energy he threw at me, it hit me like a professional linebacker on an adrenaline frenzy. If I hadn't been able to smooth it out and take the blow evenly across the whole front of my body, it might have broken my nose or ribs or collarbone, depending on where the energy bled through. Instead it felt like the Jolly Green Giant had slugged me with a family-sized beanbag. If there had been any upward force on it, it would have thrown me far enough to make me worry about the fall. But the blow came head-on, driving me straight back.
I flew several yards in the air, hit on my back, scraped along the sidewalk, and managed to turn the momentum into a roll. I staggered to my feet, leaning hard against a parked car. I must have clipped my head at some point, because stars were swirling around in my vision.
By the time I got myself upright again, the panic had set in. No one had ever thrown power like that at me. Stars and stones, if I hadn't been absolutely prepared for that blow…
I swallowed. I'd be dead. Or at best broken, bleeding, and utterly at the mercy of an unknown wizard. One who was still nearby, and probably getting ready to hit me again. I forced thoughts and doubts from my mind and readied my shield, my bracelet already grown so warm that I could feel it through the ugly scars on the skin of my wrist. I couldn't even think about hitting back, because if my shield wasn't back up and ready for another blow, I wouldn't live long enough to get the chance.
Cowl walked slowly toward me down the sidewalk, all cloak and hood and shadows. "Disappointing," he said. "I hoped you were ready for the heavyweight division."
He flicked his wrist, and the next blow howled at me in the freezing wind blowing off the lake. This one came in at an angle, and I didn't even try to stop it cold. I sidestepped like a nervous horse, angling my shield to deflect the blow. Again energy leaked through, but this time it only shoved me across the sidewalk.
My shoulder hit the building, and it drove the breath out of me. I've had shoulder injuries before, and it probably made it feel worse than it was. I bounced off the building and kept my feet, but my legs wobbled- not from the effort of holding me up, but from the energy I'd had to expend to survive the attacks.
Cowl kept walking toward me. Hell's bells, it didn't even look like he was trying all that hard.
I got a cold feeling in my chest.
This man could kill me.
"The book, boy," Cowl said. "Now."
What rose up in me then wasn't outrage or terror. It wasn't righteous wrath. It wasn't confidence, or surety, or determination to protect a loved one. It was 100 percent pure, contrary stubbornness. Chicago was my town. I didn't care who this joker was; he wasn't going to come gliding down the streets of my town and push in my teeth for my milk money.
I don't get pushed around by anyone. Cowl was strong, but his magic wasn't inhuman. It was huge, and it was different from what I worked with, but it didn't have that nauseating, greasy, somehow empty feel that I'd come to associate with the worst black magic. No, that wasn't entirely true. There was a lingering sense of black magic involved in his power. Then again, there's a little of it in mine, too.
The point being that Cowl wasn't some kind of demon. He was a wizard. Human.
And, behind the magic, just as fragile as me.
I poured power down my arm, whirled my staff, pointed it at the car on the street beside him, and snarled, "Forzare!"
The sigils on the staff burst into sudden, hellish scarlet light, as bright as the blaze of my shield, and shimmering waves of force flowed out from me. They flooded out over the sidewalk, under the Toyota parked on the street nearest Cowl. I snarled with effort, and the Hellfire force abruptly lashed up, underneath the street side of the car. The car flipped up as lightly and quickly as a man overturning a kitchen chair. Cowl was under it.
There was a crash, and Hell's bells, it was loud. Glass shattered everywhere, and sparks flew out in every direction. The car's alarm went off, warbling drunkenly, and alarms started going off all up and down the street. In apartment windows, lights started blinking on.
I fell to one knee, suddenly exhausted, the light from staff and shield both dwindling to nothing and vanishing. I had never moved that much mass before, that quickly, with nothing but raw kinetic energy, and I could hardly find enough energy to focus my eyes. If I hadn't had the staff to lean on, I'd have been hugging the sidewalk.
There was the sound of metal grating on concrete.
"Oh, come on," I said panting.
The car shuddered, then slid a few inches to one side. Cowl straightened slowly. He'd gotten back to the very rear of the car's impact area somehow, and he must have been able to shield himself from the partial impact. As he straightened he wavered, then braced himself against a streetlight with one black-gloved hand. I felt a surge of satisfaction. Take that, jerk.
A low growling sound came warbling out of the black hood. "The book."
"Bite," I panted, "me."
But he hadn't been talking to me. Kumori stepped out of the shadows of a doorway and gestured with a whispered word.
I felt a sudden, strong tug at my duster's pocket. The flap covering it flew up, and the slender book in its paper bag started sliding out.
"Ack," I managed, which was all the repartee I was up for at the moment. I rolled and trapped the book between my body and the ground.
Kumori extended her hand again, and more forcefully. I slid two feet over the concrete, until I braced a boot against an uneven joint in the sidewalk and saw movement behind the two figures. "Game over," I said. "Stop it."
"Or what?" Cowl demanded.
"Ever see Wolfen?" I spat.
Wolves appeared, just freaking appeared out of the Chicago night. Big wolves, refugees from a previous epoch, huge, strong-looking beasts with white fangs and savage eyes. One was crouched on the wrecked Buick, within an easy leap of Cowl, bright eyes fastened on him. Another had appeared behind Kumori, and a third leapt lightly down from a fire escape, landing in a soundless crouch in front of her. One appeared on either side of me, and snarls bubbled out of the night.
Dresden explicitly describes Cowl's magic as not being very different from HIS magic.
4) Dead Beat Chapter 13.
We see the leftover signature of Kumori and Corpsetaker's necromancy:
It was a bitch to find a parking place. It's never easy in Chicago, and I had a shot at a pretty good spot on the street, but while the Beetle would have managed just fine, the S.S. Loaner would have had to smash the cars on either side a few inches apart to fit. I wound up taking out a mortgage to pay for a parking space at a garage, walked a couple of city blocks, and proceeded down the street with my wizard's senses alert, feeling for the dark energy that the city's dead had found.
I found the spot on the sidewalk outside of a corner pharmacy. It was so small I had walked almost completely through it before I felt it. It felt almost like walking into air-conditioning. The residual magic felt cold, like the other dark power I'd touched, terribly cold, and my skin erupted in goose bumps. I stopped on the spot, closed my eyes, and focused on the remaining energy.
It felt strange somehow. Dawn had dispersed most of the energy that had been there, but even as an aftertaste of the magic that had been worked there, the cold was dizzying. I'd felt dark power similar to this before today-similar, but not identical. There was something about this that was unlike the horrible aura surrounding Grevane, or that I had sensed from wielders of black magic in my past. This was undeniably the same power, but it somehow lacked the greasy, nauseating sense of corruption I'd felt before.
There might not have been a body there anymore, but even before I saw it, the room stank of death. It's an elusive scent, something that you get as a bonus to other smells, rather than a distinctive smell of its own. The thick, sweet odor of blood was in the air, mixed in with the faint stench of offal. There was the musty, moldy smell of old things long underground, too, as well as a few traces of something spicier, maybe some kind of incense. The death scent was mixed all through it, something sharp and unnerving, halfway between burned meat and cheap ammonia-based cleaner. My stomach rolled uncomfortably, and the rising sense of dark energy didn't help me keep it calm.
The office was a fairly large one. Shelves and filing cabinets lined the walls. Three desks sat clumped together in the middle of the room. A small refrigerator sat in the corner, near an old couch and a coffee table littered with mostly empty boxes of Chinese takeout and a laptop computer. Books and boxes filled the shelves. The desks were cluttered with books, notebooks, folders, and a few personal articles-a novelty coffee mug, a couple of picture frames, and some recent popular novels.
Everything had been splattered with blood and dark magic.
The blood had dried out, and most of it was either red-black or dark brown. There was a large pool on the floor between the door and the nearest desk, dried into a sticky sludge. A sharp, almost straight line marked where the corpse had been lifted, probably peeling up the hem of a jacket or coat from where it had been stuck to the floor. Droplets had splattered the walls, the desk, the photographs, the novels, and the novelty mugs.
I hated blood. As a decorating theme it left something to be desired. And it smelled horrible. My stomach twisted again, and I fought to keep down the doughnuts I'd grabbed at the convenience store. I closed my eyes and then forced myself to open them again. To look. The only way to avoid more scenes like this was to look at this one, figure out who had done it, and then to go stop them from doing it again.
I pushed my revulsion away and focused on the scene, searching for details.
There were a few smears of blood on the floor but none on the sides, surface, or edge of the nearest desk. That meant that the victim hadn't moved much after he'd gone down. Either he'd been held down or he'd bled out so quickly that he hadn't had time to crawl toward the nearest phone, on the desk, to call for help. I looked up. There wasn't much blood on the ceiling. That didn't prove anything, but if someone had opened his throat, there would almost certainly have been blood sprayed all over it. Any other kind of bleeding wound would probably have left the victim, evidently Dr. Bartlesby, able to function, at least for a couple of minutes. He'd probably been held down.
I looked down. There was part of a footprint in blood on the floor, leading away. It looked like part of the heel of an athletic shoe-and not a large one, either. Probably a woman's shoe, or a large child's. For the sake of my ability to sleep at night, I hoped it was an adult's shoe. Children shouldn't see such things.
Then again, who should? On an entirely different level, the room was even more disturbing. The dark power here was not the pure, silent cold I'd felt on the sidewalk on Wacker. It felt corrupt, dark, somehow mutilated. There was a sense of malicious glee to the residue of whatever magic had been worked here. Someone had used their power to murder a man-and they had loved doing it. Worse, it was a distinctly different aura than I had felt near either Cowl or Grevane. Magical workings didn't leave behind an exact fingerprint that could be traced to a given wizard, but intuition told me that this working had been sloppier and more frenetic than something Grevane would have done, and messier than Cowl would prefer.
But it was strong-stronger magic than almost anything I had ever done. Whoever was behind the spell that had been wrought here was at least as powerful as I was. Maybe stronger.
"Heh," drawled a voice from behind me. "I thought that was you."
Notably, two different necromantic workings by two different necromancers feel very different on screen.
Also? The first Red Court vampire sorceress Dresden fought was Bianca, who didnt know magic in Storm Front.
Her magic teacher was Mavra, a Black Court vampire wizard.
Which would not have been possible if they werent compatible.
I will reiterate my previous statement: Magic is magic is magic.
At least, magic in our world is much the same; Outsider magic might be different. Even Denarians usually use much the same sources of power available to mortals, as we see in Small Favor in the magic circle used to imprison the Archive on Demonreach.
Some particular sources have....predispositions, and will twist/influence their users; Dresden for example was specifically warned not to use the leyline of magic from Demonreach, because he was too weak/young to draw on it safely. And we see Hellfire's effects on his impulsiveness and control.
But magic users almost invariably draw on much the same sources, regardless of their affiliations.
Its just that necromancers and other black magic practitioners are generally less scrupulous, and will draw on sources that a lot of other wizards and magic users will balk at.
Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Nov 8, 2022 at 9:39 AM, finished with 33 posts and 16 votes.
[X] Take the opportunity to read the note here, even though it might be conspicuous, it might be something you need to know -[X] Molly nonchalantly lifted her clipboard, using the motion to mask the shifting of the note so she can read it.
[X] Take the opportunity to read the note here, even though it might be conspicuous, it might be something you need to know
-[X] Molly places de note opened inside her pocket placing it so that the camera in your phone can read it. Then she takes her phone normally and asks Clippy to show her what it was written there.
[X] Inconspicuously glance at the note as you put it into your pocket. Use the Crown of Eyes to ask the question "what information did the writer of this note want to convey to us?"
Glancing around to be sure that you are out of the sight of any cameras you open the note, the creases on the paper mute testament to how tightly it had been dripped in its writer's hand. The lines are in pencil, faint and a little smudged, but still readable and the tale it tells is a grim one.
Help, my name is Ruth Koskinen, 86 years old from 301 Elmdale Road. I don't know who I'll manage to get this too, but you need to get this to my nephew at the address listed.
They are giving us drugs, I'm not sure what it is, but it's making everyone shamble around like zombies, except when the doctor is around. I'm sure he's the one behind this. Whenever he is around people get more lively just long enough to call home and then they come back and it's like nothing happen.
People are missing from their beds at night and they have marks on their arms they don't recognize
I think they have started giving me fewer last week since I had chest pains. I heard one of the nurses say something about a bad heart. I'm taking heart medications so maybe that's part of it. She said something about me not being a good subject anyway. They are watching, always watching.
I talked to Sally , she's the lady across the hall from me, very religious, very Catholic, she said they took her down to hell. I think she meant the basement, we aren't allowed to go into the basement.
Tell the police.
It's all you can do not to snap the clipboard in sheer rage. You had known something like this was going on, but to see it written down like this, each desperately scribbled line an indictment against the monsters who run this place makes you see red, or better to say it makes you see green. The fire burns burns in your veins begging to be released.
"Excuse me," a faintly annoyed voice comes from down the hall. you look up to see a redhaired woman dressed as a nurse or a doctor. "Has Ruth been bothering you? She's a little vague poor thing and she's been refusing to take her medication." An attempt was made to make the last words seem compassionate, but it sounds less sincere and more like someone who had heard of the emotion once in passing.
Her eyes fix on something over your shoulder, on Ruth you are sure, with the sharpness of a hawk seeing their prey from on high. The poor women is not going to survive being taken away this time, you know that as well as you know your own name. You can feel the malice bubbling from her like like slick, sluggish tar.
Beside you you can hear the squeak of Lydia's shoes as she shifts on the balls of her feet, getting ready for a fight and though your dad gives no outward sign of doing the same you know he ready to drop the bag he's holding and draw the sword at a moment's notice. But you are still in the public areas of the facility, there are five patients including Ruth not twenty feet behind you.
For the first time since that horrific realization in Arctis Tor you wish you had some way to make the woman in front of you do what you want quietly and without a fuss, to crush her will with a look.
Usum helpfully informs you that you could do that, because of course you could. Maybe, maybe you can intimidate her with words.... you scramble for something to say.
What do you do?
[] Try to intimidate the 'nurse' (She counts as a Creature of Darkness of some kind)
-[] Write in how
[] Attack, you cannot afford to lose the element of surprise
-[] Go loud, if most of the people here had been made less aware of their surroundings that means you can be moire explicit with the magic
-[] Try to knock her out and stuff drag her away quietly, there is a door down the hall to what looks like a closet of some kind
[] Write in
OOC: Welp you got a lucky with the note, but that also came with this follow up. Now the question is how do you want to handle the monster coming up behind.
Hi there. New to this quest. Just recently found it and finished binge-reading exactly as the new chapter popped up. It's been a fun read so far. Hope you don't mind me joining in, Paradox.
Anyway, there are five other patients here. Some of them might not even be civilians. Might need to be a bit more subtle here. Probably better to intimidate?
Hi there. New to this quest. Just recently found it and finished binge-reading exactly as the new chapter popped up. It's been a fun read so far. Hope you don't mind me joining in, Paradox.
Anyway, there are five other patients here. Some of them might not even be civilians. Might need to be a bit more subtle here. Probably better to intimidate?
Judging by how well our intimidation of Andre went back in the cemetery last night, this could be a very good opportunity for us to terrify some real answers out of the nurse.
Also, after this is handled we may want to divert to the basement instead of where we were headed originally. The longer the director spends trying to find us, the more time we have to act unmolested.
Violence puts us on a timer. It might be good to make it count.
Instead of intimidating her into taking us somewhere private and where we might get caught, we should force her to play escort to make us look more legitimate.
Start walking us to where we want to go, and question her about where she was planning to take Ruth. Possibly force her to take us there, then kill her.
[X] Plan Ruth-less
-[X] Try to Intimidate the 'nurse'
-[X] Use intimidation excellency and DPoE
-[X] attempt to force her to walk with us, to give the impression of an escort, and explain what's going on here.
-[X] Make it clear that she dies first if she signals anyone.
-[X] Stunt: Something cold wells up behind Molly's heart and mixes with her own outrage. Nodding along Molly casually makes her way towards the woman. " Not at all ma'am, though I do want to ask a quick question about something".
—[X] Gesturing with the clipboard without showing her what's on it, Molly slides up in front of her and in what appears to be overly familiar geniality puts a hand on her shoulder. " So"
—[X] Frost spreads on the woman's shirt as Molly's fingers suddenly clamp down painfully tight. "What" Molly says in whisper that drips with venom and cuts like frozen knives "do you think you're doing"
@DragonParadox would this be enough to allow us to use strength+intimidation here for the extra base die in the pool?
Violence puts us on a timer. It might be good to make it count.
Instead of intimidating her into taking us somewhere private and where we might get caught, we should force her to play escort to make us look more legitimate.
Start walking us to where we want to go, and question her about where she was planning to take Ruth. Possibly force her to take us there, then kill her.
[X] Plan Ruth-less
-[X] Try to Intimidate the 'nurse'
-[X] Use intimidation excellency and DPoE
-[X] attempt to force her to walk with us, to give the impression of an escort, and explain what's going on here.
-[X] Make it clear that she dies first if she signals anyone.
-[X] Stunt: Something cold wells up behind Molly's heart and mixes with her own outrage. Nodding along Molly casually makes her way towards the woman. " Not at all ma'am, though I do want to as a quick question about something".
—[X] Gesturing with the clipboard without showing her what's on it, Molly slides up in front of her and in what appears to be overly familiar geniality puts a hand on her shoulder. " So"
—[X] Frost spreads on the woman's shirt as Molly's fingers suddenly clamp down painfully tight. "What" Molly says in whisper that drips with venom and cuts like frozen knives "do you think you're doing"
@DragonParadox would this be enough to allow us to use strength+intimidation here for the extra base die in the pool?
To roll strength you would have to do something that shows strength, so in this case like lifting her off the ground with one hand. You could do that certainly, but it would be more noticeable.
To roll strength you would have to do something that shows strength, so in this case like lifting her off the ground with one hand. You could do that certainly, but it would be more noticeable.
So to roll strength for something like crushing a shoulder would we basically have to break it, or can strength only be rolled for this if it's at least as overt as a strong man act?
So to roll strength for something like crushing a shoulder would we basically have to break it, or can strength only be rolled for this if it's at least as overt as a strong man act?
In that context you would have to inflict significant pain, not necessarily break the shoulder, though if you break it that might lower the DC... or it might cause her to call out and you get the fight (probably a flat willpower roll for her to see if she dares call out).
[X] BronzeTongue
-[J] But also say "Let's not get... Ruth-less here." because nothing is more terrifying than an unspeakable eldritch power that uses puns.
Thinking about it some more that stunt may need tweaked. Grabbing someone's shoulder like that is a little weird and can attract attention. When I wrote it I was thinking that it'd be worth being able to make strength based intimidation, but based on DP's follow up what I wrote doesn't do that and we probably don't want to anyway.
[] Plan Ruth-less v2
-[]Try to Intimidate the 'nurse'
-[] Use intimidation excellency and DPoE
-[] attempt to force her to walk with us, to give the impression of an escort, and explain what's going on here.
-[] Make it clear that she dies first if she signals anyone.
-[] Stunt: Molly smiles and nods. "Not at all ma'am, but I do have a quick question about something".
—[] Gesturing with her clipboard without revealing what's on it, Molly walks over to the 'nurse' and says in a friendly but blandly professional voice "So"
—[] As she gets within arm's reach something beats behind Molly's heart, mixing with her outrage and welling up to boil from her eyes.
—[] For a moment an image of fire that isn't there reflects off the false nurse's narrowing pupils as Molly continues on without an audible hint anything has changed " What do you think you are doing?"
The intimidation here being in the juxtaposition between how she's talking and the promise written across her face.
