Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

25th of August 2006 A.D.

The muggy late afternoon sunlight spills out over an apartment building with all the charm of a strip mall and seemingly all the permanence of a trailer park, chain links clanking under the hand of your host to the accompaniment of distant barks and whines from what might have been strays or perhaps dogs whose 'masters' has inconstant hearts. Be fair Molly they could just be poor, you tell yourself, though you note the lady in question seems to give lie to her surroundings. Helen Beckitt is wears a dark grey pantsuit like it is armor against the gazes of any who would look her way, a string of small pearls around her throat more like a collar than jewelry and most incongruous of all a silver watch around her wrist... stopped at two minutes past three. She's in her late thirties, early forties maybe, with that fine hand for makeup that can make a woman seem ageless, though any envy of her skills quickly dies when you look into her eyes. Hard they are and almost empty of emotion, like someone who is just making time, as though all the world were a vast ledger and she just adding up.

"I'm so happy you could make it Miss Carpenter, would you like a cookie?"

You nod automatically, turning away from Hellen's disquieting stare. 'Call me Abby' Douglas is as sweet a person as the treats she is handing out, specifically handing out here so that Helen would not be upset unless you miss your guess, though you really do not think she cares.

Out of all four women present Abby's power is the easiest to guess since she has a habit of answering things you are about to say. It was a little startling at first, but you got used to it. The fact that Abby had gotten an earful of several versions of your greeting to the Ordo might have something to do with why she is so friendly, at least that is Usum's theory. For your part you think he's not giving enough credit to regular old human niceness.

For her part Anna Ash, leader of the coven, had definitely not invited familiarity, she had returned your greetings politely and taken in your assurance that you are not some obscure sort of fiend with good grace but also with a measure of caution. You get the distinct impression that she has some kind of means to fight you, or at least hold you off lined up.

Lost 2 Essence -> Now at 10/12

Sadly you do not think it would do much good. Your first impression of the Order of the Cauldron is that Pauline is very much typical of their senior members and her guardian spirit one of the more potent personal defenses they sport. Of you spot a few charms and trinkets here and there, but it does not take Harry's Sight to tell they are small things, bound to this skill or circumstance. Any one of the four caught out alone in a deserted place, out of sight of inconvenient witnesses would have little means of protecting themselves. Well other than maybe Helen, she looks like the kind of person who would shoot an attacker between the eyes at the drop of a hat. So it is all the more odd that it's her apartment you were all here to ward.

Best as you can tell Anna is particularly worried about Helen having drawn the wrong sort of attention, but none of them respond to your gentle prodding as to what that is, not even Abby. Maybe she's involved with some shady magic, you know better than most that magic is not just black and white, but that between them lie whole vistas of things you would not want the average Warden to know about. Honestly if you were in their place you might be tempted to test those limits as well.

But as you climb the narrow stairs, more glad than sorry to find them poorly lit, you feel nothing in the dark. It does not press upon the mind nor steal the breath from the lungs. The dark and dingy stairway is... dark and dingy, the worst of the ward on apartment 16 a twinge of awareness running through your shoulders, like a sudden draft followed by some ethereal window slamming shut.

Of course the other side of the coin is... this place basically has no threshold. Not only is it newly bought but whoever had stayed here before did not think of it as a home or place of sanctuary. They had not even thought of it as a place of particular torment, which would have created its own kind of anchor... Thanks for that bit of trivia Usum.

Dismissing the silent apology with a shake of the head, it really isn't his fault, you turn back to the matter of how to anchor a ward to what is basically a safehouse for one... a safehouse for someone who is constitutionally incapable of feeling safe.

The others do not expect you to come up with the answers of course, they have their own ideas. Firstly Pauline could lay a curse across the threshold empowered by Hellen's blood. "Nothing permanent," she hastens to assure you. "Just debilitating, ill luck for one who would tress pass with ill will."

You shoot her a smile to assure her you don't think less of her for her arts. "Still less dangerous than a gun and I do not go around thinking of everyone who carries one of those as a potential murderer."

Abby giggles like you had made a joke... You decide not to tell her different.

Anna has a more straightforward, but also much more difficult way to guard the place, enchant the door to slowly sap the heat out of the apartment and then once it is 'charged up' blast all of it outwards in a flash of false sunlight. While it would not have the metaphysical weight of true sunlight it would be near enough the real thing to terrify anything vulnerable to the sun while also giving everyone else painful full body burns and unless they were very fast to shield their eyes temporary blindness.

Hellen herself is the most skilled ritualist in the group and she seems quite sure she can transmit at least some portion of your magic to whoever is working the magic, to empower the ward. You are not sure what it says about her that she does not seem the least perturbed to be working with your power.

Which of the methods do you think you can help with most?

[] The curse, you have a feeling your essence would make a hell of a knot of any enemy's fate

[] The false-sun ward. You feel there is an affinity there, though it feels a little... unsteady

[] Something else
-[] Write in suggestion

OOC: So far so good, though the fun part comes next.