Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

Oh, its not immunity. Eiko doesnt have immunity.

But its Willpower 8 Charity, with a family Intimacy to apply, and True Faith bonuses on top of that.
In a specific situation of this nature, she has more dicepool to throw than the actual head conspirator of the Emma-O plot.
Even before additional angelic protections come into play.

Im not worried about her information security. She's probably more secure than Dresden.
I never got the impression that Charity has True Fath.

She is faithful and has a strong will, but True Faith is an extremly rare merit and we never saw her use it in any way.
 
Oh, its not immunity. Eiko doesnt have immunity.

But its Willpower 8 Charity, with a family Intimacy to apply, and True Faith bonuses on top of that.
In a specific situation of this nature, she has more dicepool to throw than the actual head conspirator of the Emma-O plot.
Even before additional angelic protections come into play.

Im not worried about her information security. She's probably more secure than Dresden.

That is a bit of a hard call for Molly IC since how good Dresden's mental protections are depends in no small measure on how he feels about the shadow of a fallen angel in his head and how she feels about him.
 
Sent back to Eiko they would have fallen back into the general mass of Kakuri-pledged akuma, who are allegedly numerous enough that Emma-O and his peers will destroy some for entertainment, or lose track of them altogether. Nothing in those circumstances makes them special. Being in captivity in the US does.
Nothing special doesn't mean nothing useful. The Akuma as a concept exist in the first place to be used.

Check your idea against what actually happened here. The closest thing the Akuma had to rebellion was contained wholly in the upper ranks and involved playing games with standing orders that still required working towards Emma-O's benefit in some way.

The sort that can run away and forget are clearly special circumstances that don't apply here. Even if they did it doesn't matter if they're going to have to do awful shit between then and now just to have the opportunity.

-Dresdenverse morality doesnt care.
Christian morality doesnt care. You are not responsible for any crimes caused by someone given a second chance, and the Knights refuse to pre-judge your future intentions.

This was something we saw Michael firmly establish during Death Masks, when both he and Sanya let Cassius walk despite knowing he was insincere, and despite Cassius refusing to tell them where Nicky was.
I disagree. Or rather, responsibility isn't relevant.

It's the same as when you're dealing with someone with serious mental illnesses that make them violent. It's not their fault but that doesn't mean that if you let them wander around in public with a gun after having a clear opportunity to stop them roll by that you don't bear some responsibility. Not all of it, but something.

The white god and his agents are more focused on not doing evil themselves than on actively preventing it.

That's a fair enough perspective, one I can respect in people with that kind of power, but that doesn't mean it's the answer for everyone in every situation.

Beyond that, you aren't even giving them a second chance because nothing is changing in any way. They're not even pretending to want to get better; you'd have to prompt them to then lie to our faces and go back to their jobs.

At this point I think you've just picked the highest cost loosely connected to our current action and are wielding it as a bludgeon to push your point.

The knights aren't cops and they don't follow the same guidelines. The white god isn't going to tell Micheal to quit, at most he'd tell him to convince us it was wrong.
1)We dont know that they arent. We know very little about the Library.
We can speculate, but we KNOW nothing.

2)Emma-O's primary area of human interest for the last four thousand years has been China and Southeast Asia.
The US is barely two hundred and forty years old. My guess is that he may not even have known the Library existed, or the scope of its portfolio before now. Its not exactly the White Council.

Besides, the US only became a global superpower in the mid-20th century. Which is pretty recent by the standards of immortals.



3)They have confirmed connections in the United States and with the Church. The US is <5% of the world's population.
There's a bunch of very important magical shit in North America, but only some, like Chicago and Demonreach, are in places where they have resources. Others, like Chitchen Itza, are not.

There are genuine questions about their expertise at high-risk containment.
Still are.
1) True. We can't really do much about that without interacting with them a bit first though. We have enough from our first meeting to reasonably believe they can and would help. Now we've got to play it by ear a bit as we move forward.

Theoretically we could play twenty questions and feel out every detail, but we're never actually going to do that before engaging with a group. There's too much else to do.

2) In this setting he isn't as old either as a god or a Yama King. It's also ridiculous to suggest the only thing stopping him from walking in and doing whatever he wants is a lack of care. If it was that easy then one of the many people as good or better than him in general or at social manipulation specifically would have done it by now.

Emma-On is not the god king of earth just waiting for his antidepressants to kick.

3) We got a straight they can as the initial reply to the idea. They've also been around long enough that their assessment of their own abilities isn't completely worthless. They knew enough to ask what kind of Akuma it was before answering, so I think they've got the expertise for this.

You are misremembering.
Fair enough. Though I'd point out that another aspect to this lesson is that the knights are totally fine with you doing their evil for them.

What with the torture and the final killing being at the hands of others.

-Yes. Location matters. Circumstances matter.
Think of all those bacteria that arent a problem in a normal human system, but in a body where overuse of antibiotics has wiped out the normal population, they can kill you.

Or when gut bacteria like E.Coli which is harmless in the intestine gets in your urinary system and causes a UTI, or Staphylococcus aureus usually found on the skin, crosses the blood-brain barrier and get into your brain and causes meningitis, or Strep mutans gets out of your mouth and into the bloodstream to cause heart disease.

Or in the Dresdenverse, how Demonreach is not an issue until you are in its range when it has a hostile Warden, and then you're fucked.
I've already addressed all of this.

Your continued insistence that Emma-O has no limits and can simply roll everything in front of him isn't convincing.
Is something they are almost guaranteed NOT to do routinely. Even if they could.
The Yama Kings aren't the US of the supernatural world. They're medium sized fish and everything about their arrangement of the local politics supports that.

If they could do this a lot of that would stop making sense.

To my eye the thousand hells in WoD are clearly a case of someone getting overhyped in their own splat and then having the details fudged on their interactions with everyone else. That's nearly white wolf's signature at this point.
Going to point out that breaking the bonds of akuma-dom is in theory well within the portfolio of a Sword bearer.
Just like exorcising a demon out of a girl child is as well.
I wonder if it just didnt occur to Michael, or if it was the ancillary considerations.
When we talked about this with Eiko we got that he'd probably have to kill her to free her.
 
Looks pretty solid, lets do this.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Apr 12, 2023 at 8:55 AM, finished with 48 posts and 21 votes.
 
I never got the impression that Charity has True Fath.
She is faithful and has a strong will, but True Faith is an extremly rare merit and we never saw her use it in any way.
Explicitly stated multiple times in Proven Guilty, which happend four or five months ago IC.
I watched as Murphy got her gear into place. Charity helped her secure the armor. Her mail was a short-sleeved shirt, maybe one of Charity's spare suits. She'd compensated for the oversize armor by belting it in tight, but the short sleeves fell to her elbows, and the hem reached most of the way to her knees. Murphy looked like a kid dressing up in an adult's clothes.
Her expression grew calm and distant as she worked, the way it did when she was focused on shooting, or in the middle of one of her five trillion and three formal katas. I closed my eyes and tentatively pushed my magical senses toward her. I could feel the energy in her, the life, pulsing and steady. There were tremors in it, here and there, but there was no screaming beacon of violent terror that would trumpet our approach to the bad guys.
Not that I thought there would be. What she lacked in height, she more than made up for in guts. On the other hand, Murphy had never been in the Nevernever, and even though Faerie was as normal a place as you can find there, it could get pretty weird. Despite training, discipline, and determination, novice deepwater divers can never be sure that they will remain free from the onset of the condition called "pressure sickness." The Nevernever was much the same. You can't tell how someone is going to react the first time they fall down the rabbit hole.
Thomas, being Thomas, made the mail into a fashion statement. He wore black clothing, black combat boots, and the arming jacket and mail somehow managed to go with the rest of his wardrobe. He had his saber on his belt on his left side, carried the shotgun in his right hand, and made the whole ensemble look like an upper-class version of The Road Warrior.
I checked on Thomas with my wizard's senses, too. His presence had never been fully human, but like the other members of the White Court the vampiric aspects of him were not obvious to casual observation, not even to wizards. There was something feline about his aura, the same quality I would expect in a hungry leopard waiting patiendy for the next meal to approach; enormous power held in perfect balance. There was a darker portion of him, too, the part I'd always associated with the demonic presence that made him a vampire, a black and bitter well of energy, equal parts lust, hunger, and self-loathing. Thomas was no fool-he was certainly afraid. But the fear couldn't be sensed under that still, black surface.
Charity, after she finished helping Murphy, stepped back from her and went to her knees in the parking lot. She folded her hands in her lap, bowed her head, and continued praying. Around her I felt a kind of ambient warmth, as though she knelt in her own personal sunbeam, the same kind of energy that had always characterized her husband's presence. Faith, I suppose. She was afraid, too, but it wasn't the primitive survival fear the fetches required. Her fear was for her daughter; for her safety, her future, her happiness. And as I watched her, I saw her lips form my name, then Thomas's, then Murphy's.
Charity was more afraid for us than herself.
Right there, I promised myself that I would get her back home with her daughter, back to her family and her husband, safe and sound and whole. I would not, by God, hesitate for a heartbeat to do whatever was necessary to make my friend's family whole again.
I glowered at him some more. "To answer your question, Murph, I don't know who did this, but the list of the people who could is fairly short. Maybe the Senior Council could if they had the Wardens along, but they're busy, and they'd have had to fight a campaign to get this far. Maybe the vampires could have done it, working together, but that doesn't track. I don't know. Maybe Mab pissed off a god or something."
"There is only one God," Charity said.
I waved a hand and said, "No capital 'G,' Charity, in deference to your beliefs. But there are beings who aren't the Almighty who have power way beyond anything running around the planet."
"Like who?" Murphy asked.
"Old Greek and Roman and Norse deities. Lots and lots of Amerind divinity, and African tribal beings. A few Australian aboriginal gods; others in Polynesia, southeast Asia. About a zillion Hindu gods. But they've all been dormant for centuries." I frowned at Arctis Tor. "And I can't think what Mab might have done to earn their enmity. She's avoided doing that for thousands of years."
Unless, of course, I thought to myself, Maeve and Lily are right, and she really has gone bonkers.
"Dresden," Charity said. "This is academic. We either go in or we leave. Now."
I chewed my lip and nodded. Then I dug in my pockets for the tiny vial of blood Charity had provided, and hunted through the rocks until I found a spot clear enough to chalk out a circle. I empowered it and wrought one of my usual tracking spells, keying it to a sensation of warmth against my senses. Cold as it was, I would hardly mind anything that might make me feel a little less freeze-dried.
I broke the circle and released the spell, and immediately felt a tingling warmth on my left cheekbone. I turned to face it, and found myself staring directly at Arctis Tor. I paced fifty or sixty yards to the side, and faced the warmth again, working out a rough triangulation.
"She's alive," I told Charity, "or the spell wouldn't have worked. She's in there. Let's go."
"Wait," Charity said. She gave me a look filled with discomfort and then said, "May I say a brief prayer for us first?"
"Can't hurt," I said. "I'll take all the help I can get."
She bowed her head and said, "Lord of hosts, please stand with us against this darkness." The quiet, bedrock-deep energy of true faith brushed against me. Charity crossed herself. "Amen."

Murphy echoed the gesture and the amen. Thomas and I tried to look theologically invisible. Then, without further speech, I swung out around the frozen stone cairn and broke into a quick, steady jog. The others followed along.
She wields True Faith. Probably nowhere as flashily as Michael sometimes can, but its there.
That is a bit of a hard call for Molly IC since how good Dresden's mental protections are depends in no small measure on how he feels about the shadow of a fallen angel in his head and how she feels about him.
True.
Then again, Intelligence 4 + Occult 5 means she can make a very good guess, even without running an Excellency,

Then again, its not like he has her running around,
OOC we know Corpsetaker got into his head in Dead Beat even when Lash was there, and he had to use Hellfire to burn her out.
So...At the very least she'll give him early warning,
 
Oh, its not immunity. Eiko doesnt have immunity.

But its Willpower 8 Charity, with a family Intimacy to apply, and True Faith bonuses on top of that.
In a specific situation of this nature, she has more dicepool to throw than the actual head conspirator of the Emma-O plot.
Even before additional angelic protections come into play.

Im not worried about her information security. She's probably more secure than Dresden.
You may have a point there…

[x] Tell them both
 
Explicitly stated multiple times in Proven Guilty, which happend four or five months ago IC.
I watched as Murphy got her gear into place. Charity helped her secure the armor. Her mail was a short-sleeved shirt, maybe one of Charity's spare suits. She'd compensated for the oversize armor by belting it in tight, but the short sleeves fell to her elbows, and the hem reached most of the way to her knees. Murphy looked like a kid dressing up in an adult's clothes.
Her expression grew calm and distant as she worked, the way it did when she was focused on shooting, or in the middle of one of her five trillion and three formal katas. I closed my eyes and tentatively pushed my magical senses toward her. I could feel the energy in her, the life, pulsing and steady. There were tremors in it, here and there, but there was no screaming beacon of violent terror that would trumpet our approach to the bad guys.
Not that I thought there would be. What she lacked in height, she more than made up for in guts. On the other hand, Murphy had never been in the Nevernever, and even though Faerie was as normal a place as you can find there, it could get pretty weird. Despite training, discipline, and determination, novice deepwater divers can never be sure that they will remain free from the onset of the condition called "pressure sickness." The Nevernever was much the same. You can't tell how someone is going to react the first time they fall down the rabbit hole.
Thomas, being Thomas, made the mail into a fashion statement. He wore black clothing, black combat boots, and the arming jacket and mail somehow managed to go with the rest of his wardrobe. He had his saber on his belt on his left side, carried the shotgun in his right hand, and made the whole ensemble look like an upper-class version of The Road Warrior.
I checked on Thomas with my wizard's senses, too. His presence had never been fully human, but like the other members of the White Court the vampiric aspects of him were not obvious to casual observation, not even to wizards. There was something feline about his aura, the same quality I would expect in a hungry leopard waiting patiendy for the next meal to approach; enormous power held in perfect balance. There was a darker portion of him, too, the part I'd always associated with the demonic presence that made him a vampire, a black and bitter well of energy, equal parts lust, hunger, and self-loathing. Thomas was no fool-he was certainly afraid. But the fear couldn't be sensed under that still, black surface.
Charity, after she finished helping Murphy, stepped back from her and went to her knees in the parking lot. She folded her hands in her lap, bowed her head, and continued praying. Around her I felt a kind of ambient warmth, as though she knelt in her own personal sunbeam, the same kind of energy that had always characterized her husband's presence. Faith, I suppose. She was afraid, too, but it wasn't the primitive survival fear the fetches required. Her fear was for her daughter; for her safety, her future, her happiness. And as I watched her, I saw her lips form my name, then Thomas's, then Murphy's.
Charity was more afraid for us than herself.
Right there, I promised myself that I would get her back home with her daughter, back to her family and her husband, safe and sound and whole. I would not, by God, hesitate for a heartbeat to do whatever was necessary to make my friend's family whole again.
I glowered at him some more. "To answer your question, Murph, I don't know who did this, but the list of the people who could is fairly short. Maybe the Senior Council could if they had the Wardens along, but they're busy, and they'd have had to fight a campaign to get this far. Maybe the vampires could have done it, working together, but that doesn't track. I don't know. Maybe Mab pissed off a god or something."
"There is only one God," Charity said.
I waved a hand and said, "No capital 'G,' Charity, in deference to your beliefs. But there are beings who aren't the Almighty who have power way beyond anything running around the planet."
"Like who?" Murphy asked.
"Old Greek and Roman and Norse deities. Lots and lots of Amerind divinity, and African tribal beings. A few Australian aboriginal gods; others in Polynesia, southeast Asia. About a zillion Hindu gods. But they've all been dormant for centuries." I frowned at Arctis Tor. "And I can't think what Mab might have done to earn their enmity. She's avoided doing that for thousands of years."
Unless, of course, I thought to myself, Maeve and Lily are right, and she really has gone bonkers.
"Dresden," Charity said. "This is academic. We either go in or we leave. Now."
I chewed my lip and nodded. Then I dug in my pockets for the tiny vial of blood Charity had provided, and hunted through the rocks until I found a spot clear enough to chalk out a circle. I empowered it and wrought one of my usual tracking spells, keying it to a sensation of warmth against my senses. Cold as it was, I would hardly mind anything that might make me feel a little less freeze-dried.
I broke the circle and released the spell, and immediately felt a tingling warmth on my left cheekbone. I turned to face it, and found myself staring directly at Arctis Tor. I paced fifty or sixty yards to the side, and faced the warmth again, working out a rough triangulation.
"She's alive," I told Charity, "or the spell wouldn't have worked. She's in there. Let's go."
"Wait," Charity said. She gave me a look filled with discomfort and then said, "May I say a brief prayer for us first?"
"Can't hurt," I said. "I'll take all the help I can get."
She bowed her head and said, "Lord of hosts, please stand with us against this darkness." The quiet, bedrock-deep energy of true faith brushed against me. Charity crossed herself. "Amen."

Murphy echoed the gesture and the amen. Thomas and I tried to look theologically invisible. Then, without further speech, I swung out around the frozen stone cairn and broke into a quick, steady jog. The others followed along.
She wields True Faith. Probably nowhere as flashily as Michael sometimes can, but its there.

True.
Then again, Intelligence 4 + Occult 5 means she can make a very good guess, even without running an Excellency,

Then again, its not like he has her running around,
OOC we know Corpsetaker got into his head in Dead Beat even when Lash was there, and he had to use Hellfire to burn her out.
So...At the very least she'll give him early warning,
Good to know.

It's still less power than the average sorcerer or Dhampire gets though, so I stand by my vote.
 
Good to know.
It's still less power than the average sorcerer or Dhampire gets though, so I stand by my vote.
True Faith is situational. A lot of the time its very subtle stuff thats barely distinguishable from coincidence, like the traffic lights always being green for you when you're in a hurry, or someone being inspired with how to find your kidnapped daughter after previous tracking magic has failed.

Then sometimes its stuff like kersploding a huddle of Rampires that just tried to dogpile you while barehanded.
Or a five foot ten or eleven woman shattering a bespelled armored door in the heart of Arctis Tor with one blow of a four pound warhammer and such force that the entire tower vibrated.

Or breaking the mental magic of the Fallen Angel Imariel, or the magical amnesia spell of Mab herself, with a touch and a prayer.

Very much a scale to need effect, and well beyond anything available to sorcerers and vampires.
 
True Faith is situational. A lot of the time its very subtle stuff thats barely distinguishable from coincidence, like the traffic lights always being green for you when you're in a hurry, or someone being inspired with how to find your kidnapped daughter after previous tracking magic has failed.

Then sometimes its stuff like kersploding a huddle of Rampires that just tried to dogpile you while barehanded.
Or a five foot ten or eleven woman shattering a bespelled armored door in the heart of Arctis Tor with one blow of a four pound warhammer and such force that the entire tower vibrated.

Or breaking the mental magic of the Fallen Angel Imariel, or the magical amnesia spell of Mab herself, with a touch and a prayer.

Very much a scale to need effect, and well beyond anything available to sorcerers and vampires.
Low-level True Faith is primarily a boost to willpower and some abilities like driving back undead.
Resisting mental disciplines is already a mid-tier ability.

Everything you named is basically Michael cheating because has the Sword, not something that normal true faith can mechanically achive.
 
Low-level True Faith is primarily a boost to willpower and some abilities like driving back undead.
Resisting mental disciplines is already a mid-tier ability.

Everything you named is basically Michael cheating because has the Sword, not something that normal true faith can mechanically achive.
That is not true.

In Grave Peril, Michael did not have Amoracchius when he kersploded his way through attacking Rampires; the Leanansidhe had taken it, and it was in the hands of the Reds. In Proven Guilty,Charity only had a warhammer when she shattered that door of ice and magic in the middle of Arctis Tor, making the entire tower shake.

In Small Favor, Michael was not carrying Amoracchius when he broke Mab's spell on Dresden's memories.
 
That is not true.

In Grave Peril, Michael did not have Amoracchius when he kersploded his way through attacking Rampires; the Leanansidhe had taken it, and it was in the hands of the Reds. In Proven Guilty,Charity only had a warhammer when she shattered that door of ice and magic in the middle of Arctis Tor, making the entire tower shake.

In Small Favor, Michael was not carrying Amoracchius when he broke Mab's spell on Dresden's memories.

Charity having an exceptional deed is propably just a case of DF-mechanics not matching their WoD-equivalent, so that's up to DP how to treat going forward.
Michael is still the wielder of the Sword, I doubt mundane distance matters.
 
Michael is still the wielder of the Sword, I doubt mundane distance matters.
That does not appear to be how it works.
The Knight, or whoever the bearer is at that time, does not benefit from the Sword if its not on their person, or if the Sword is not used in accordance with its values.

Dresden has guarded Fidelacchius since Shiro's death, and guarded Amoracchius since Small Favor, with interruptions for when he died and was freshly returned.
Its done nothing for him when he wasnt carrying it.

Conversely, when Dresden tried to wield Amoracchius against Lea in Grave Peril in contravention of its rules and values?
It stopped working.
That was how it ended up in Lea's hands, and passed from hers to the Reds.
 
Arc 6 Post 37: The Perils of Power
The Perils of Power

5nd of October 2006 A.D.

Though your dreams are filled with shadows none of them take shape and if you wake a little out of breath, well that can be put down to the fact that you have to admit to your parents that you just ate a soul... spirit, whichever. Something tells you mom and dad's reactions are not going to be dictated by that distinction, no matter how fine Usum decides to split the thread.

Thankfully you do not have to jump right into the lion's den, not with the roar of one of the cubs so near your ear. "Mom! Mom this stupid hairdrier is busted again!"

Leech has been growing out her hair over the last few months, eliciting a brief bout of teasing from Matthew about the supposed desire to attract boys which had been fixed by a few kicks to the shin and constant complaints about the hairdrier which sadly is not amenable to being fixed with judicious application of violence.

"Hold on. I'm coming to help!" you shout back, quickly ducking into her room.

It's only once you had 'fixed' the hairdrier by turning it on properly and had almost finished helping her dry off that your sister asks: "So what are you buttering her up for?"

"What makes you think I'm...?"

"You hate it when I wash my hair in the morning, there's no way you'd be encouraging me if you didn't have some other devious purpose in mind. Do you need to visit the Sunken City R'yleth for a shopping trip or something?"

The question shocks a laugh out of you... and an answer. "It's not something I want to do, it's something I did."

"Well, what was it? Tell!" she commands, with all the imperiousness she could muster. The fluffy Sponge Bob socks do not make for a very impressive stomp

Struggling to keep a smile sure to be poorly received off your face you shake your head. "It'd be dangerous for you to know, I'm not even telling mom half of it."

"But you are telling her the other half right?" she insists. "Come on I told you about falsifying school records. Your secret isn't illegal... it's not illegal is it?" Your sister sounds more excited that worried. Maybe giving her a demon assistant was not the best idea.

As though reading your mind Leech raises her voice in the direction of her phone. "Wraith what's my sister going to tell mom?"

"I am not authorized to provide that information," comes the pleasant but implacable reply.

"Boo," Leech makes a face at the phone and the spirit within then to your surprise she turns around for a quick hug. "Whatever it is I'm sure it'll be fine." With that she splits out of the room, taking the stairs two at a time to breakfast.

Heartened by the vote of confidence you wait until everyone else is out of the house before meeting with mom and dad in the living room. "This is starting to become a habit isn't it?"

Mom briefly struggles with a frown at your tone, but still in a good mood overall from the fact that you had managed to get back home from Southworks without a mark on you. the fact that Harry had gotten hurt might have lead her to believe that he and dad had been taking most of the risks a fact which dad himself had not seen fit to contradict. After all risk was in the eye of the beholder...

As you think back to how relieved she had been you almost hold the secret back. Would she get anymore than Leech out of knowing really? And for what? She so can know just kind of weird powers you have? When it that going to help? You shake the thought off. Mom deserves to know and from you not someone else. Harry isn't going to say anything but the next person who notices might not be so well disposed

"This is about the hotel?" Dad breaks the awkward silence. "Something that vampire said?"

"I... can't talk about that part with mom here." You raise a hand to ward off the angry response. "Please, trust me, it's not safe for... practically anyone given who its a secret from, dad only qualifies because of the Sword."

The two of them exchange a familiar look, the sort all children know and dislike in equal measure parents conspiring. Just this once you are fine with it. Mom will be more at ease knowing that if it is something she has to know dad will tell her anyway "What about the other part?" she asks.

"The mastermind behind all of this, the akuma I dueled that was worse in some ways that the Denarians, they just let something in that given some time, long or short can wrench the wheel away. The vampires of the Jade Court are not so lucky, they are made from those already damned to Yomi Wan, a kind of hell and a kind of test. if you pass the test you can beak out, break back into the world of the living with your corpse as the key, but no matter that this is a test that confers powers upon the one who passes it it is also breaking the rules. Each soul escaped from the Thousand Hells can give itself back to its dark lords for power, for knowledge, for skill and lordship, it matters little in the end. What does matter is that these unfortunates condemned once by divine diktat, twice by their own folly are far more in the hands of their masters than any human could ever sell themselves. The demon does not take the wheel, it makes of them a ship, the Ship of Theseus, cutting, molding, adding as they please."

Mom is watching you like a hawk, so much so that you wonder guiltily if she can somehow see where this is going. No, you realize as you listen to the words that are flowing now through your lips as though of their own accord, it's just that this does not sound quite like you, at least not the you that is Molly Carpenter. Much like when you had written the Big Book, knowledge, insight bubbles up beyond words, only lightly constrained by the grammar and syntax of English.

"The one I killed at the end... my crown called him the Will of Kakrui and it does not lie, that was all that was left, save perhaps some kernel of the man he had been, enough to feel degradation, to know without knowing what it had once been so I... destroyed it."

Seeing the confusion on dad's face you sigh. "I don't mean I killed it, I mean I destroyed it, nothing will return to Kakuri-Wan to be send once more on the errands of the Daimyo of the Dark, the spirit that was once a soul is gone. I tore it to shreds of essence. That is not something I can do with any mortal soul, thank God, only deathless spirits."

Before either of your parents can answer a thought so preposterous comes to mind you almost let out a nervous laugh. Could I do that to one of the Fallen? Yet in that place within deeper than Usum's resting place whence metaphysical certainties come you do not hear a 'no'.

"This power it... came from the same place didn't it?" Mom asks, carefully. The horror you had been half afraid to see in her eyes is not there, just the struggle to understand, to make the pieces fit. Alas you do not think she will have much luck. "Maybe it has power, authority over these things?"

That doesn't seem right, you think, you're sure that you could unravel spirits that are not of Yomi Wan that are not dark at all but bright, but if it helps your mom sleep at night what harm is there in nodding? No, again you close your eyes. I can get through this. "It's broader than that."

Your parents are quiet a long moment, then dad speaks up: "Alright." Not 'be careful' not 'promise not to use it for this or that', just 'alright', an ocean of trust in one word. He always does like to think the best of people, you think. Your smile is more than a little shaky, but it is a smile nonetheless.

Mom reaches out across the table to take your hand. "You shouldn't use it, I don;t know much about spirits and demons, but this much..." she gives a long rattling breath and for one terrifying moment it looks like she might start to cry, you have no idea how to react to mom crying. "Those that can't die fear death more than any mortal man or woman can. If they know you can give it to them they will come after you."

What do you reply?

[] Promise to exercise caution in the use of Murder is Meat

[] Do not make the promise, it is a power like any other, if something is dangerous enough, evil enough it should be destroyed, not for a season, not for a year, not for a century but forevermore

[] Write in


OOC: This was going to move on to the next action, but then I got into Molly's head as she described this and into her parents and it felt like disfavor to all three of them to rush though it.
 
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[X] Do not make the promise, it is a power like any other, if something is dangerous enough, evil enough it should be destroyed, not for a season, not for a year, not for a century but forevermore

We didn't buy the charm not to use it.
 
They will learn to fear the practical more than the abstract.

Coming after us to prevent us from possibly, eventually killing them is a terrible idea that makes their true death vastly more likely.
That's a lesson to teach.
 
"You shouldn't use it, I don;t know much about spirits and demons, but this much..." she gives a long rattling breath and for one terrifying moment it looks like she might start to cry, you have no idea how to react to mom crying. "Those that can't die fear death more than any mortal man or woman can. If they know you can give it to them they will come after you."

Her reasoning, is sound, those that we can touch with it will not like it. But! It is a part of us all the same, it will be used at some point, we just have to be extremely careful, show that it isn't going to happen all the time, the cat is already out of the box anyway, Emma-o will know it, and he will tell it if he wants to, better to be the one controlling how it is seen.

In fact:

[x] You cannot promise not to use it at all, Emma-O will know you can do it anyway, so hiding it completely is impossible. You can however agree that it isn't something to use at all occasions, those that are concerned will indeed fear it and showing them that true death is not the only thing a fight against you will bring will make you less ennemies.

Still think it's a little too barebones and could be said better, but that's what I have.
 
I say let them come. It's about time for the creatures of the night to fear the (metaphorical) nuclear fire of humanity that Molly (kinda) represents.

I mean, once the cat's outta the bag there's no reason to hold back, the knowledge that Molly is not only capable of slaying immortals but able to do so very easily can only be kept secret for so long.

Although to be fair being cautious about using MiM isn't necessarily bad as it does buy time for Molly to get stronger until she hits the point where people don't run to gank her before she gets too big but rather run from her because she's already too big.

If we need the Essence in a fight, we do it. If we can keep it secret, we do that too. Nothing wrong with keeping a good relationship with Charity, her heart's in the right place.

[X] Promise to exercise caution in the use of Murder is Meat
 
The things that pay attention either know and are already coming or else have something else holding them back. If not because of this than any of the other ways we are kicking over the delicately arrayed chessboard. We may exist within their fog of war but they know we are here.

Do not flaunt it, perhaps, but do not fear it either.

In other news... we dearly need to go to church and do some heavy praying and contemplation in the light of the man up top. We might be fighting against perversions of the natural order but, fuck, what we are doing doesn't really sit comfortably either. Its necessary but I would have the humility to at least think about it.


I'll abstain from an actual vote until I see a few more write-ins.

[X] Promise to exercise caution in the use of Murder is Meat
 
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[X] Do not make the promise, it is a power like any other, if something is dangerous enough, evil enough it should be destroyed, not for a season, not for a year, not for a century but forevermore
 
[X] Do not make the promise, it is a power like any other, if something is dangerous enough, evil enough it should be destroyed, not for a season, not for a year, not for a century but forevermore
 
There's a whole bunch of souls out there that need to be destroyed. If we also get to taste and document the flavor of each of those souls, that's a hardship I'm willing to tolerate. 🤤

[X] Do not make the promise, it is a power like any other, if something is dangerous enough, evil enough it should be destroyed, not for a season, not for a year, not for a century but forevermore
 
[X] Do not make the promise, it is a power like any other, if something is dangerous enough, evil enough it should be destroyed, not for a season, not for a year, not for a century but forevermore
-[X] They will come for me anyway; not just for any of my powers, but for what I am trying to do with them. This, at least, would deter some of the more cautious ones. I will be cautious, but one of my main enemies who sees my power as rightfully his, already knows of what I can do.
 
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