Way of the World
17th of October 2006 A.D.
Sensible people that they are the Jade Dogs tend to stay out of Porter's way when they meet him out in the tunnels, but he is a semi-regular guest in the gaming room, he likes to spectate at board games, particularly Monopoly, which he remembers fondly from the days when it had been
The Landlord's Game played in parlors all across Chicago. One can hope that he does not apply his memories of old time cops to the woman across from you. There is something very deliberate about how starched and ironed the shirt beneath the dark jacket is. If she did not have to walk through a stretch of muddy tunnels to get here you would expect Karin Murphy's shoes to shine, just about everything she could do to remind you of her position and the power and responsibility that came with it short of flashing a badge.
Yet there is nothing strained about the smile you gave her. The woman had offered to run into danger not just against the servants of Kakuri, but into the Heart of Winter. In a very real sense you owe the very impulse you are here trying to curb your life. "'Evening detective this..." you motion to the arc of stone and mental that shifts into draconic shape. "Is Porter, he's our landlord. He is the most experienced one here and has seen quite a lot of the city's history in his day..."
"Rarely... one as mighty... as the.... Slave of Night," the dragon picks up the thread of conversation where you left it off. "For all the strength of the... deep earth I could not bar his way.... only weather then breath of his coming. Yet... behold I am and he is not, gone as the passing wind."
Did... did Porter just make a fart joke? You wonder, not sure if you should be amazed or horrified. It certainly seemed to fit the cadence. That long dead warden has a lot to answer for, corrupting the minds of elementals
Lieutenant Murphy does not get the joke, though to be fair to her it is the first time she met something like Porter up close, especially in a situation where she's not trying to shoot him. To her credit she wishes him a good day and thanks him for his hospitality without wasting too much time in contemplation.
"As you may have guessed there is a reason I invited Porter here tonight. He's older than the United States,
a lot older, though he could not put the span down in years because he does not pay much attention to the stars being in elemental opposition to them."
"I see the point you are making and there is a lot to say about native rights," the detective replies, shifting her gaze to you. "But as long as magical folk stay hidden he can't have that conversation, he and everyone else here cannot benefit from all the services of the United States, including security. If we'd known..."
The implication hangs in the air like a hook that will work just as well if taken with aplomb or with anger. You do nothing, letting Porter say his peace.
"Suppose for a moment... that I decided to take offense at a water pipe flowing where it aught not though my domain and I caused floods... mischief... misery... not death. What then?" The elemental's acrylic blue bored into hers. "Arrest me? You cannot. Bind me? You cannot."
"I would try to reason with you over it," she replies carefully. "And if you were not amenable to reason I'd leave you be as long as I had some assurance that broken pipes is all you would do. Look," Her left hand twitches as though she'd like to run her fingers though her hair or some other nervous gesture. "I get that the full rigor of the law is not an option out here, it's the Wild West, but even the Wild West had sherifs and they did not have one for part of the town and another for the other part. For cases of clear and present danger to the people if Chicago I either act or I am not doing my job."
In other words 'I'm abandoning my duty'. The good detective is making a lot more sense than you would have given her credit for even if it is by sheer stubbornness.
Thankfully you do have something to fall back on. "What if it had been a diplomat? Someone with immunity?"
"They would have been extradited and it would have had diplomatic consequences, hopefully at least," comes the wary answer.
Not where she thought this was going. Good.
"There are worlds beyond this one, layers of reality atop and below our own that those with the magic and the will to breach can cross over into. You've been to the nearest of them, faerie, most like the world of men. But there are other realms, other powers. In one of these realms it is ever-night and and the eternal blizzard is heavy with ice to strip the flesh from the damned ones who turn their face towards it, their wails adding to the voice of the maelstrom, mountains rise not out of divine purpose or congruence of geology, but in mockery of its master's hated foes, though these mountains all paths lead to ruin and all shelter is false. Should the wandering souls by some cruel generosity of their bearers carry a source of fire it will burn not with heat, but pale, a ghost of itself, more ghosts to itself drawing." With every word you speak a look of horror grows on the detective's face, but she does not stop you. "Hell does not abide by the Vienna Convention"
"Hell... but that's..." As she shivers you move away suddenly uncomfortable and not with the fact that you had made her cold.
Silence reigns for a long moment as she catches her breath. Then once she is done you try a different simile. "Do you play chess, Lieutenant?" At her cautious nod you get up, reaching around Porter to grab a board from where it was stored. "Great." You say, as you begin to rapidly assemble the pieces. "The comparisons will be imperfect, but it gives some idea of the balance I was trying to strike." You pick up a black piece, weighing it on your palm before you continue. "Eiko? Eiko was a rook. Powerful, valuable, flexible, but routinely replaceable. The Daimyo of the Dark, lord of the Hell of which I spoke numbers many such in his retinue." You set down that piece and pick up another. "The Will was a queen. Each Yama King has very few such, and they represent significant investments of resources and prestige."
She follows your hand intently as you play with the rook, nods again.
"That's how diplomacy words before the conventions, even if you are facing an enemy army, even having defeated an army
you have to leave someone alive to carry your terms. That's where the immunity comes from." You offer a rueful smile. "I'm afraid even the wild west is off by a thousand years."
"Then why leave so many, why her and not one of the others?" Detective Murphy asks at last and you know you've got it. She has conceded to the paradigm you had proposed, though she may not realize it yet.
"Because it had to be someone Emma-O would actually pay attention to, a servant not a slave." You consider your next words carefully. "That is not just a matter of him being a right bastard though." On cue one of the screens lights up with the footage from the hotel, Eiko shaping the perception of the staff as a potter molds clay.
"Explain what I just saw." Clipped, professional, a little stilted, not that you can blame her.
"The reason why I had doubts about J's culpability. That is called....the closest translation is Authority. Jedi mind trick on turbos. Give the target orders they obey without question. Get them to ignore discrepancies like...that."You wave at the screen. "Spill their secrets, and the secrets of others, without even remembering they did it. The Jade Court use it on each other as well, elders on fledgelings, it works almost as well as it does on mortals, that if why he would not trust a message send though one of them why their memory could not be trusted."
"Almost as well?" the words rise in concern.
Unfortunately you cannot give her the answer she wants. "Any Wan Kuei five years into unlife can do it well enough for
that."
She seems to deflate, shoulders slumping forward, gaze dropping. You barely catch the words. "Well aren't we all
fucked."
"There are still people willing to stand up the monsters, ones with the means and maybe the lack of self-preservation." The smile you offer is not the most sunny, but it's the best you got. "Me, Harry, my dad and when that is not enough remember there are Higher Powers at work as well."
"I didn't become a cop to try to pray my problems away Miss Carpenter." There isn't much heat left in the words. "You've made your point, I'm not going to ask you for more details on this case, but I'd like your word at least that when some trouble comes into town, even if it's the kind SI can't handle you'll give me a call. Harry is better about that than he used to be, but that does not mean he's all good."
What do you reply?
[] Promise to give a heads up of any major supernatural happening in Chicago in exchange for Murphy listening to your advice in such matters carefully
[] Do not promise to give a heads up of any major supernatural happening in Chicago
OOC: That had more rolls than some combat, but I think it came out decent. I had to change some of the stunts around and we did not get to the reveal of the demon form because there was no need. 
