Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

18th of November 2006 A.D.

You would like to say walking though the palace was familiar as the back of your hand and you got the hang of the green, black and red markings instantly, you would like to say that but it would be a lie too big for even essence-whispers to cover for. The truth of the matter is that you are hopelessly lost by the time the little not-quite-a-tour guide reaches the second elevator, this one screened behind a veil of blue-green ferns, for privacy. Once more on translator-duty since Clippy has not downloaded the full language package from Tri, you hear and recount the tale of He Who Travelled the Five Corners, the first explorer who reach the centre of the world, the first to mount the dragons' backs and enter the Palace of Sublime Majesty which even then had hung, imperishable crystal hanging above the eternal ice. Here is is said a spirit of prophecy known in the poem that recounts his deeds only as the Mother of Spiders had first spoken of 'the Empress-to-Come' or this very day, adding to the much older Labyrinthine Mythos which has never been written down, but can only be guessed at though historical reconstitution.

"We are as dreams in the mind of the sleeper, we are as a single side of a die that has not been cast, pray not that the day of awakening shall come, for that has been written in the book of fate imperishable as gold. Pray instead that She will remember us in waking and we shall Be in truth," Ameli recites from memory the holy text.

A shiver, not of cold slips down your spine. You dare not ask more about the history of the Covenant, not yet, the accounts of bloody religious conflicts on earth all too vivid in your imagination. Had that happed on Sanctuary too? Did millions die, millions suffer because of how they choose to interpret a spark of distant revelation.

Huh, that's interesting, your force your attention outwards again. Instead of having the buttons light up with you reach then the elevator comes with a simplified cross-section of the surroundings in black glass with portions lighting up as you reach them, each with a specific aural cue. Briefly you wonder how anyone is meant to remember all of that, much less read the unlabelled glass cross-section, but then you remember everyone has at least a simple AI helper to aid in navigation. There is probably a lot of stuff people just use their implants for.

A smile plays at the corners of your mouth as you imagine Mrs Scot, your primary school maths teacher encountering a world where all the kds have calculators built into their brains. She might just spontaneously combust.

As the doors open in to a wide sweeping lobby all bedecked in blues and golds, arches like bird's wings, holo-art of icy vistas all around the story of He Who Travelled the Five Corners comes to an end and you are greeted by Ascendant Eye of Silver Peace, foremost spirit binder of the palace, one of the most skilled of his craft in all the world, certainly the most skilled of those who still deals with the distractions of mundane society on a daily basis.

From a distance one might mistake the grandmaster for a child, certainly he more than a head shorter than you with delicate bone structure, but then one looks into those too-wide-eyes and sees circles within circles, binding the gaze and the will, shaping the spirit within and he has more eyes than the two. In the centre of his forehead is a brass eye, ringed with arcane runes so filled with power that it makes the flesh of his forehead translucent showing veins and wires, threads of steel and threads of gold beneath. From all three of his eyes stardust falls glimmering blue, covering every part of him not robed in yellow in an ethereal sheen.


"Long have I waited, long have I hoped to look upon the face of the Maker," he says with trembling voice, weeping with joy at the sight of you.

"Hail and well met learned one, I am glad to have been able to offer you this moment, but as I have said before I have much yet to learn and so do my companions..." you motion to your father and Harry. "They are of a world beyond this one and wish to learn of how the pillars of being are wrought alike and different. This is Harry Dresden a magician of deep power and puissant lore."

As you say this you spot Harry recoil a little, more uneasy than he had been even in the throne room.

"What is it?" you ask in English.

"He's got so many things in there they must be subletting on his soul."

"And how else do you expect a spirit binder to reach the pinnacle of their craft?" Usum asks snide as he is swift. He does have a point here.

Absent a wizard's ability for evocation the spirit-binders of the Fivefold Courts had turned instead to shaping their bodies into temples to more than their own souls, sharing them with like-minded spirits so that they may invoke magic more smoothly. Only masters of the art attempt this as the process reduces the original soul to merely the first among equals in the parliament of a gestalt mind so utter conviction in the spirits' honesty and understanding of their goals is required.

Alas Harry does not see any of this.

"I don't know maybe with circles on the ground not inside his own eyes!" he answers your demonic companion

What do you do?

[] Harry can deal with this on his own, you have to go meet the Exarchs

[] Your father can mediate, ask him to stick around

[] You can afford to be a little late, try to defuse the situation

[] Write in

OOC: Culture clash ahoy.