Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

They're not any more dead in one route than the other, why not add an extra layer to help us attempt to manipulate the situation? Either it helps and we use whatever we find out, or it doesn't and we fight them anyway.
Because I would rather at least have a chance of being able to save them. I know our odds are far lower then I would prefer, but that's our hand without Inner darkness Unchained to empower our friends at least a bit.
 
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Conspiracy twist:
Seeker wants to eat Harry to get the Starborn power and cast out the Outsiders.
Obviously a nigh-indestructible monster with the power of a Senior Council Wizard can make much better use of the ability to kill Outsiders than Harry could.

Nah, just kidding.
 
Maybe the Seeker is holding a coin which is manipulating him to get rid of this Exalted that is allied to a knight of the cross if at all possible. With the weird methods being because the fallen angel and BS don't actually have the same goals.
 
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By the way, since uju is already winning and my choice has no chance, I might as well vote for what I want to see.

[X] Revealed Flames
-[X] Stand in the street and take on Shintai form and show full Anima, cut through the front of the oncoming van with your sword.
-[X] "You wanted to talk, here we are to talk"
 
[X]Uju32

I remain baffled that this skinwalker is here for Dresden and is willing to get into a cage match with Molly for whatever he wants. You'd think immortal predators would be more cautious, so I definitely wanna know why he's decided that Dresden needs to get wrecked.

Seriously, this guy has had enough time and intel to know there is a significant chance of him dying to Molly like everybody else who's tried to pick a fight, and what's worse Molly's limits haven't exactly been shown by any of her fights. She's been wounded but never really pushed to the brink, and hasn't visibly seemed to have ever been in a position where she'd have to go all out, considering how quickly heavy hitters like the Will and the Walker died once they got smacked by her turbomode/glowy sword.

So this skinwalker is picking a fight with someone who's visibly displayed a monstrous level of combat prowess, who hasn't ever been grievously wounded even by her heavyweight foes, and who has a Knight for a dad and a Wizard for a friend.

It's more likely the skinwalker dies in Chicago than he succeeds at his plans from what I can tell, so I want to hear his spiel at the very least.

Edit: honestly, the level of supernatural foes that Molly has buzzsawed through in the past few months should give her the kind of reputation that makes immortals leave the country for a hundred years until she dies of old age (spoiler: that ain't the right move), yet still we get challengers coming to square up.

The Walker is forgiven because he came for the only right reason, a good fight, but this skinwalker is about to get made Example #3 for why immortals shouldn't piss off (seemingly) mortals with the capability to kill immortals and little reason to hold back. Hopefully third time's the charm and everybody will make the wrong decision to wait for Molly to weaken/die of old age, or at least give us some more time to build up.

It is possible that he sees your intervention on Dresden's side as inevitable and so has prepared to fight you. If you want to hear more on the matter it might be worth talking to him.
 
I remain baffled that this skinwalker is here for Dresden and is willing to get into a cage match with Molly for whatever he wants.
The baffling part isn't this. The baffling part is why didn't Broken Seeker attack Harry while we were away in these four days? What does it want with Harry that it can't just go and grab him? Let's be honest, if it wanted, it could take Harry fairly easily, with Harry's only chance being summoning the coin fully.
Conspiracy twist:
Seeker wants to eat Harry to get the Starborn power and cast out the Outsiders.
Obviously a nigh-indestructible monster with the power of a Senior Council Wizard can make much better use of the ability to kill Outsiders than Harry could.

Nah, just kidding.
That's... actually not that far-fetched? I mean, not "cast out the Outsiders" part, but "get the Starborn ability to affect Outsiders" part. That would be a very valuable acquisition indeed.
 
It is possible that he sees your intervention on Dresden's side as inevitable and so has prepared to fight you. If you want to hear more on the matter it might be worth talking to him.
Yeah, whatever he wants from Dresden is enough to stick his head into probably the deadliest city for immortals on the continent, so I definitely want to know more. Considering Dresden is willing to leave Chicago at times, I'm surprised the skinwalker didn't wait for that kind of opportunity as a hunter would, so there must be some sorta time constraint involved too. Whatever it is, I want to know! (Molly's desire for forbidden knowledge is infectious)

That's... actually not that far-fetched? I mean, not "cast out the Outsiders" part, but "get the Starborn ability to affect Outsiders" part. That would be a very valuable acquisition indeed.
Thing is, a theoretical addition to its power level against Outsiders isn't worth it compared to the very real risk of Molly turning it inside out; if it just wanted Dresden's power, it could afford to wait and ambush Dresden sometime and somewhere far from Molly and Michael and co. Going out of the way to neutralize Molly first shows it knows Molly's danger, yet is still willing to provoke her for something that needs to be done now, rather than in a few weeks/months when an ambushing opportunity arises. As it is things are shaping up to a no-holds-barred war in downtown Chicago, which is not the greatest situation for an immortal predator.
 
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Vote closed.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Aug 5, 2023 at 3:29 AM, finished with 204 posts and 16 votes.

  • [X] Answer the phone the next time it calls, get some answers as to what Broken Seeker wants before engaging, maybe you can shake him up
    -[X]Give Harry some of your hair to track you, just in case
    -[X]Have Clippy pull up a map of the local electrical substations for Chicago, find the one for the local district, fly over and HMP a key transformer: 1m
    [X] Usum's plan, get line of sight on the van, put a spirit in it and make it stop working to get them off their loop
    [X] Usum's plan, get line of sight on the van, put a spirit in it and make it stop working to get them off their loop
    -[X] Use Harry's veil as a crown focus for a question "How can this be improved to hide magical emanations from the senses of a naagloshii known as Broken Seeker"
    --[X] Use Occult Excellency to better explain the results to Harry
    [X] Usum's plan, get line of sight on the van, put a spirit in it and make it stop working to get them off their loop
    -[X] Use Harry's veil as a crown focus for a question "How can this be improved to hide magical emanations from the senses of a naagloshii known as Broken Seeker"
    --[X] Use Occult Excellency to better explain the results to Harry
    -[X] If Crown data doesn't give us essence, ask Harry or dad to share whatever arcane secret they can to do so.
    [X] Revealed Flames
    -[X] Stand in the street and take on Shintai form and show full Anima, cut through the front of the oncoming van with your sword.
    -[X] "You wanted to talk, here we are to talk"
 
Thing is, a theoretical addition to its power level against Outsiders isn't worth it compared to the very real risk of Molly turning it inside out; if it just wanted Dresden's power, it could afford to wait and ambush Dresden sometime and somewhere far from Molly and Michael and co. Going out of the way to neutralize Molly first shows it knows Molly's danger, yet is still willing to provoke her for something that needs to be done now, rather than in a few weeks/months when an ambushing opportunity arises. As it is things are shaping up to a no-holds-barred war in downtown Chicago, which is not the greatest situation for an immortal predator.
A possible explanation is that it wants / needs Dresden for a prolonged period of time. Like, take him to perform a month-long ritual or something like that.
 
Because I would rather at least have a chance of being able to save them. I know our odds are far lower then I would prefer, but that's our hand without Inner darkness Unchained to empower our friends at least a bit.
I see no connection between what you're talking about here. Talking doesn't reduce their odds of survival unless you think the skinwalker is completely incompetent, at worst the odds are the same.

IDU remains bad for this, because the people you want to use it on have zero useful abilities to leverage it with. The whole point of bakemono is to be trash mobs, the only way around that is to invest in the human side to cheese their powers against their existing skill set.

Remember the three bakemono we went through who weren't even speed bumps? That's what we're talking about here.
I remain baffled that this skinwalker is here for Dresden and is willing to get into a cage match with Molly for whatever he wants. You'd think immortal predators would be more cautious, so I definitely wanna know why he's decided that Dresden needs to get wrecked.
It might be a debt thing, as the canon reason for shagnasty had for being around.

Someone called in a marker on Dresden before it knew about us, and BS can't leave without ruining its rep/credit score/pissing someone off it fears more than us unless it has a good excuse.

If that's the case it's probably cursing up a storm about how it got played, and there's good odds that it's holding off on its attack until we pop up specifically so it can avoid us following it home afterwards or appearing by surprise to blend it during the fight.

Which we would totally do if someone ganked Dresden, so it's not necessarily a bad play if you're not aware Molly simply won't barter his life away.

If he'd succeeded already we'd probably make destroying Broken Seeker's life on our revenge quest to murder him before god and everyone our priority for however many arcs it took to happen, so I can see why he might not be enthusiastic here if the job isn't even wholly his idea.
 
It might be a debt thing, as the canon reason for shagnasty had for being around.

Someone called in a marker on Dresden before it knew about us, and BS can't leave without ruining its rep/credit score/pissing someone off it fears more than us unless it has a good excuse.

If that's the case it's probably cursing up a storm about how it got played, and there's good odds that it's holding off on its attack until we pop up specifically so it can avoid us following it home afterwards or appearing by surprise to blend it during the fight.

Which we would totally do if someone ganked Dresden, so it's not necessarily a bad play if you're not aware Molly simply won't barter his life away.

If he'd succeeded already we'd probably make destroying Broken Seeker's life on our revenge quest to murder him before god and everyone our priority for however many arcs it took to happen, so I can see why he might not be enthusiastic here if the job isn't even wholly his idea.
This can't be about simple assassination. If it was, Dresden would be dead already. The amount of assets Broken Seeker has is enough to give us (as in collective us, Molly and all her allies) pause. Dresden wouldn't have stood a chance in the four days we were gone or at all other times we weren't right there with him. Unless Broken Seeker is afraid of revenge or needs Dresden for something, his actions make no sense. In which case, he is never letting our friends go, as he needs to permanently neutralize Molly as a threat for himself.
 
Yeah, at the end of the day, the resources needed to make Molly, Michael, and Dresden hesitate to take you on is a lot. Like, this skinwalker has been grooming his followers for decades, and at this point it would take an actual strike force of wardens from the White Council to drive them off, or multiple vampire elders, or something of that level. That's a lot of power and enough to make pretty much anybody short of Ethniu worried, so finding out what it is they're after is very much a priority.

Not to mention the skinwalker is playing for keeps, here: even if someone called in a favor, I doubt the skinwalker's ever indebted itself to the point of having to commit suicide to repay the debt, which is pretty close to what it's being asked to do here; while its assets are pretty impressive, so's the opposition; we're marking failure here primarily in terms of how many innocents get caught in the crossfire rather than ourselves dying, after all. This naagloshii knows its limits and has acted accordingly, but that doesn't change the fact that even with Molly's friends as hostages the odds are clearly not in its favor. It knows this and hasn't run for the hills. I want to know why.
 
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Winning Vote
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Aug 5, 2023 at 5:51 AM, finished with 209 posts and 16 votes.

  • [X] Answer the phone the next time it calls, get some answers as to what Broken Seeker wants before engaging, maybe you can shake him up
    -[X]Give Harry some of your hair to track you, just in case
    -[X]Have Clippy pull up a map of the local electrical substations for Chicago, find the one for the local district, fly over and HMP a key transformer: 1m
    [X] Usum's plan, get line of sight on the van, put a spirit in it and make it stop working to get them off their loop
    [X] Usum's plan, get line of sight on the van, put a spirit in it and make it stop working to get them off their loop
    -[X] Use Harry's veil as a crown focus for a question "How can this be improved to hide magical emanations from the senses of a naagloshii known as Broken Seeker"
    --[X] Use Occult Excellency to better explain the results to Harry
    [X] Usum's plan, get line of sight on the van, put a spirit in it and make it stop working to get them off their loop
    -[X] Use Harry's veil as a crown focus for a question "How can this be improved to hide magical emanations from the senses of a naagloshii known as Broken Seeker"
    --[X] Use Occult Excellency to better explain the results to Harry
    -[X] If Crown data doesn't give us essence, ask Harry or dad to share whatever arcane secret they can to do so.
    [X] Revealed Flames
    -[X] Stand in the street and take on Shintai form and show full Anima, cut through the front of the oncoming van with your sword.
    -[X] "You wanted to talk, here we are to talk"
 
Arc 8 Post 52: Monstrous Messenger
Monstrous Messenger

18th of November 2006 A.D.

Using your sword to take off a lock of hair is a little awkward and more than a little weird since it is not supposed to cut its bearer, though probably not as weird as it is for Harry and dad to see you do it from the looks they give you. "Here, to track me with, just in case. I'm going to take out a transformer downtown."

It only takes you five minutes to get in sight of your destination, threads of essence reaching beyond into a realm where code is law and the song of transistors screams.

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 10/15 (HMP; Control active for 1 month)

A moment later as you head back to the car. Clippy announces another call, this time she lets it though. "Hi," you say, all fake cheer, wondering if he's going to try to pretend to be Izzy, to lure you into a trap.

The voice on the other end is male though, keep but not unrecognizably so, the accent has a bit of a Texas twang to to like an old episode of Walker Texas Ranger. "Miss Carpenter, my name..." He gives off a husky laugh. "Well I have had many names over the years, lets go with Fixer, that is my function at the moment. I have something of yours: Isabela McDougal and Alexander DuPont, both intact and unharmed which I am willing to deliver back to you in that state in exchange to helping me finish a troublesome contract."

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 9/15 (Intimidation Excellency)

"I have a counter-proposal, you will set them free unharmed in mind, body and soul and I will give you a head-start before I start hunting you," you answer, voice saccharine sweet like mom sounds when she's talking to someone she really hates.

The Naagloshi does not laugh, but you can hear the smile in his voice, you can all but smell the sweetness of rotting meat on his breath "I'm afraid I cannot do that, a bargain has been made, a price has been paid. It's not much but it's a living, a fellow has to eat." The way he says that makes your stomach churn, but now is not the time to get distracted.

"What do you want?" You ask sharply hoping to keep him out of balance.

"To kill and consume Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, he has been making a lot of trouble for his betters or so I am told. What I was not informed when taking the contract is that one of my kin had staked a claim to his body."

"I am no kin of yours," you answer without hesitation, without the thinnest crack of doubt into which he could jam a knife.

"No? Do you think the gifts of darkness and desolation are so common then? To be found by chance asking nothing? Costing nothing? You are as a wolf sister, awoken suddenly by a careless sheep. Having devoured it you then fell back to fitful slumber 'neath its flayed skin and behold you think yourself a sheep. Yet you are a dream of elder days which has crawled into the husk of mortality and for the moment forgotten herself. It will crumble eventually, no matter how many times the Shepherd repeats the lie. You and I should really be on the same side, like-minded as we face a future bright."

The one fount of secrets your Crown cannot unlock, itself. A chasm of sudden dread opens before your feet. Another time, perhaps in another place you might have fallen into it, but not here not now, not in the face of this thing.

"You can smell it in the subtle perfume of destitution, can't you? You can hear it in the shards of broken hopes and ruined faith rubbing together, the Turning of the Age? But still you will not listen, not yet..." Broken Seeker sighs with some sincerity. "All you want to do now is fuck Dresden, you want to fuck him alive which is just unreasonably picky by the way." The monster tsks as you discover just how tough your stomach is. "So here is the deal, according to the contract I made Dresden has to die and I have to consume him. But nowhere is is specified he has to stay dead or what part of him I have to eat. Bring the wizard and the little Greywalker, Lydia I think her name is. I will stop his heart for a bit, eat some minor aspect of his, musical talent, his sense of smell, his ability to see colors that kind of thing, I am open to negotiation on the matter then she puts his soul back in, I start his heart with a bit of a jolt and you get Isabela and Alexander back safe and sound, they won't even know they were taken unless you tell them."

The unspoken threat at the end of the sentence is obvious, too obvious for Broken Seeker to speak apparently.

What do you reply?

[] Ask more questions about his deal, try to see how sincere he is
-[] Write in social buffs (optional)

[] You have heard enough, battle it is.
-[] Write in plan

[] Write in


OOC: I had to do a rewrite of this since I initially had Molly use Broken Seeker's name for intimidation purposes, but that is the kind of call that is best made by the players I eventually realized. Hope this works.
 
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Ok, and listen to me here, this is an insane idea that makes sense as a gamble IC. What if we get naagloshii to eat Lash? It gets Dresden out, and solves two issues with one effort. Ideally they'd annihilate each other.

Also, naagloshii is both right and so hilariously wrong here. It is right that at one point we'll cast off the seeming of humanity. It is so wrong in what that means. We are not a dream of elder days forgetting itself. We are a promise of new dawn, a heir to Creation in all its splendor.

I think it didn't actually see us personally yet. Felt us, sure, but not seen.
 
Using one of his few Social Rotes
6 Dice on using a spell, so that's elder Mage territory, if not the higher end of it.

Aside from that being reasonable and convincing doesn't seem to be his strenght, if an ancient monster who he time to git gud in his area of interest only rolls 7 dice.
Betting an internet-cookie that he had more in Intimidation, but he seems interested in not making us any more hostile than stricktly necessary.
 
... Tell me that naagloshii are not, in fact, lunars.
I doubt it; their reputation is too universal and they all definitely answered to the Holy People here. They're also not really powerful enough to match what a Lunar should be after millennia to grow.

Trying to get all Lunars to willingly answer to someone other than maybe OG Luna would be more than a bit of a trial.

My initial thought is that this guy has seen the turning of ages before, and he knows at least a little of what happens under the hood. That doesn't necessarily mean he's fully aware of exalted bullshit though, just that he's seeing something emerge that follows a familiar pattern and can potentially make good guesses about it.

It's entirely possible he could know more, but he's a bit low on the rankings for me to totally trust that when he's stopping at the vague hint level.
Ok, and listen to me here, this is an insane idea that makes sense as a gamble IC. What if we get naagloshii to eat Lash? It gets Dresden out, and solves two issues with one effort. Ideally they'd annihilate each other.

Also, naagloshii is both right and so hilariously wrong here. It is right that at one point we'll cast off the seeming of humanity. It is so wrong in what that means. We are not a dream of elder days forgetting itself. We are a promise of new dawn, a heir to Creation in all its splendor.

I think it didn't actually see us personally yet. Felt us, sure, but not seen.
Letting that thing eat a part of a fallen Angel seems like a bad plan to me. If they don't perfectly annihilate then we potentially get some really spicy leakage.

Broken Seeker isn't dumb either, he probably won't agree to eat an energy field larger than his head unless he thinks he can chew it down to something reasonable first.
 
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