Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

25nd of November 2006 A.D.

Getting Lydia though the veil is harder than you expect. For just a moment it feels like the girl whose hand you are pulling along has infinite weight, a thought you will never be sharing but then with a short sharp jerk around where your heart is you are though into the bright bland entrance room where the pair of you are greeted by a very wary Guardian of the Brass Flower. Apparently Lydia while Lydia might look like a girl in a dark blue sundress, silver rimmed glasses to go with her silver pendant she feels... a lot more out of this world than either Harry or Dad. Also not sharing that pun.

"Woah, that felt weird!" Lydia herself leans on the wall a little. "You know how I can open a door to the Otherworld? Well it's just it, a door that takes you to whatever is on the other side, mostly Faerie. When someone uses the Ways to get someplace fast they are just taking advantage of the local topography and the way the worlds overlap. There is no speed there. This was like being pulled though one of those express mail tubes."

"I have pneumatic tubes in my soul, noted," you say wryly, but Lydia isn't paying attention, instead she wanders over to the door, down corridors emblazoned scenes of a history wholly alien. Here scores of toactli scamper up vertical farms wrapped in broad leafed vines heavy with what look like golden gourds, though you know they are the fungal bodies of symbiotic mushrooms grown far larger than in the plants wild cousins. There a scene of battle from centuries past, a troupe of soldiers from the City of Laws hefting mag-winches, ancestors of the modern bold casters face off against jungle-folk armed with 'icy' spears, white marble against the dark grey of the twilight battle so shown. The next panel is an aged Seta, grown so vast they can barely move, threads of lichen growing from their cap to show that they had long rested in place and only with great difficulty risen from their place that they may mediate the conflict.

"When you said palace I had imagined... well I'm not sure what I imagined, but you weren't kidding about this being a whole world were you..."

The wide-eyed shock does not stop her from picking up a small SUTRA relay like a black bglass watch without any dials or buttons and talking to the various people who greet you once it becomes clear that this time you are not here for business or to deliver prisoners and bodies for cold storage. In fact Lydia gets along really well with Ameli whom she finds just the right blend of informative and friendly to chat about the local culture, history and metaphysics.

When talk of the wheel comes up with you explaining some of the less obvious particulars she snaps her fingers. "That is what it was!" she turns to you as you are walking along and waves her joch-kab, literally 'sweet-drill', at you. "This is an afterlife!"

"What?" You had been briefly zoned out, wondering how it would look if you got a third of those. How the chefs had managed to create something like ice cream with the texture of a cloud and a little kick of alcohol without the last bit of aftertaste you do not know. Maybe they are actual wizards.

"This world is an afterlife, that is why souls linger beyond Lethe's touch why everything is so awake and aware, guardians, they should... could be guardians. Though it is kind of strange how..." she taps her foot on the marble. "Solid everything is not just subjectively, objectively. As manifest as matter. Not to mention the people. You realize you are a goddess now right? To these people?"

"They think I am..." you start and cut yourself off before Usum can even offer up the many, many arguments on the tip of his nonexistent tongue. "Yeah, I guess I am."

You are not expecting the next question. "So are you planning to take more souls in, from the world out there I mean?"

Reflexively you shake your head. It was bad enough when those Infected started treating you like their old bosses, you are not going to go looking for more of that.

Seeing your reaction she lets it go all though the little presentation of each of the Five Cities which Ameli and her team had helped create for Earth people, taking into account the data they had on Earth, though once the presentation is over she works herself up to explaining: "The reason I asked before about taking in more souls is that a lot of the unquiet dead, ghosts desire above all other things to live again, not caring where or how, they want the taste of food, the smell of summer in the air, the touch of sunlight on their faces, those are the most vulnerable to the blandishments of necromancers. An afterlife that is just life, but a little stranger..."

A four-armed street performer who had been entertaining passers by with light sculptures stumbles mid-spell and shoots out a gout of many colored radiance that strikes the done high above casting the plaza into unearthly radiance.

"A lot stranger even," Lydia laughs as she helps the very embarrassed and maybe a little awestruck fellow dust himself off. "It would be really appealing to the more vulnerable among the dead."

"This one is wise beyond her tender years Majesty Mighty and Merciful." Now Usum chines in. "White it would be difficult for you to carry the dead into thine kingdom she is a shepherd of the dead, by blood and by power, though study, art and artifice she may learn to do this thing and thereby save souls uncounted."

"Since when did you care about saving souls?" You snip back, not wanting to think about the enormity of what he had just said

"I care for the things you care about my Queen," he answers for once simply, without artifice.

How does Molly react to Lydia's idea?

[] It is a worthy goal

[] Nope, you are not about to start claiming souls postmortem, let them go to where they are supposed to, even if it takes a while

[] Write in

OOC: I did not expect this to happen so soon, but yeah Lydia has ideas about how this could help the dead she was charged with protecting.