Everyone has a price. If it is here on someone's behalf, the only way his behavior makes sense if sticking to the letter, but not the spirit or the intent is still valid. That pretty much says fae or magical contract.
For one thing, thats not true.
Not everyone has a price, and most people have stuff they will not sell or bargain for.
Most parents will not sell their children, for example.
Naagloshii are not fae. They can lie.
Thats the whole point of being a shapeshifter who can take the forms of others; we see Shagnasty impersonate a security guard and lie onscreen during Turn Coat.
And I think I've conclusively cited evidence suggesting their unwillingness to do shit under duress
Even such duress as a binding contract.
Especially if their magic power works like those of wizards with regards to oaths.
I maintain that you are wildly extrapolating with too little evidence.
Agree to disagree.
Supernatural world gives no shits; you make an arrangement and you keep to it until someone else breaks it, you find a loophole, or the terms are met.
Fairness doesn't factor into it and human standards of what qualifies as a valid deal rank even lower than that.
^^^
This.
We can and should set our own rules. Mab would hold to the word she gave under duress and exact terrible revenge centuries later. We just won't hold to said word. It's a valid tactic, as long as it's known that we do hold to our word not given under duress.
We don't have to play by these rules.
Yes you do if you intend to operate in this society.
Sovereign citizens bullshit gets as short a shrift in the supernatural as it does in the real world.
This is a society, and there are society standards in play, loose as they are.
You cannot reject their reality and substitute your own.
Not yet at least.
If the rules were good enough to prevent friends and family from being targeted I'd consider following them.
They are not.
So I don't give a damn about the rules and I'm willing to directly betray our word, we are Exalted after all, our word doesn't us in any particular way, no more than circle or threshold do.
All breaking them would do is drawing more enemies to us, to which I'd say let them come.
1)You break the rules, you eat the consequences, reputational and otherwise.
And they do exist for everyone. There's a reason why oathbreaker is an insult, and the Archive explicitly advises Marcone to be scrupulous about his dealings with Monoc.
2)My sibling in Christ, we are currently trying to keep two of Molly's friends alive and are having issues doing it
The idea that we can aggro most of the setting and win is just hubris.
As far as Molly knows you have not, it appears from the plans she has glimpsed to be trying to actively kill Harry and not you. That does not preclude Broken Seeker trying to kill you after Harry has been dealt with, either of its own volition or because of its mysterious employer, but right now it seems to be trying for Harry.
One other thing, courtesy of actually looking up this kind of being several months ago: To the question of why anyone would ask the assassin in so many words to kill and eat the target and not say 'bring me their head', it might be because the assassin is a semi-divine spirit of greed, murder and cannibalism. This is not Victor Sells frog demon, even at the scale of beings who can afford to command the likes of Broken Seeker they would not do so lightly and they may have to use the Skinwalker's idiom to do so.
Please do not take this to mean the bad guy is speaking the full truth here, I know how quests can go with word of GM
I am cognizant of how difficult it must be for a GM to work around the exigencies of an ability like the Crown, and I'm not trying to be difficult. But this?
This doesnt appear to make any sense.
He could have taken Dresden if he really wanted to, without much issue.
His involving Molly actively makes things worse for him. Even getting Molly to deliver Dresden under duress doesnt prevent her seeking retribution in the future; given that he took her friends, he just guaranteed it.
The only thing that I can possibly think of is if Mab called dibs and he's trying to avoid coming up on her to-do list by using a proxy.
But that has never stopped people before, even when he was officially Winter Emissary.
And Mab wouldnt be fooled by such.
Either the story doesnt make sense, or we're missing a piece.
I dont like it.
EDIT
Maybe HE wants Dresden, but someone else(call them X) wants Molly/Lydia.
And part of the deal is ensuring they are at a particular location where a summoning can be triggered?
Which would satisfy the whole incomplete truth vibes Im getting.
Hmm... This is very tempting to apply Crown to the call we are on right now and ask who is behind the murder attempt discussed in this call. If essence wasn't so right, I think I'd go for this. What do you guys think? This would give us valuable information.
The call. Or the flipphone.
If it turns up a supernatural secret, we're net Essence positive, so I'm leaning towards it.
