Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

Oportune Obstruction​
13th of January 2007 A.D.
COMMENTARY
Chronomancy/Divination?
Von Trier has more game than I initially thought. Especially given as she has been around for three centuries; thats a respectable lifespan even for a White Council wizard.

I do have to say that, while she obviously isnt fond of her interviewer, she doesnt appear to think of him as incompetent or malicious. She even thinks he's a good politician. Just unqualified for this.



Fascinating look at what other people know and suspect.

Von Trier calling Molly a Freeholding Lord is expected, since the Library is connected enough to understand what a greater akuma is, and we did send them lesser akuma prisoners they would have interrogated about Emma-O's interest in Chicago, but it does make it clear they have no idea about her empire.

I assume they'll probably learn about Molly killing a god in the next month or so, which will elevate her threat profile; it was a very public event, but I dont think they have the same supernatural sources that other actors do, so it makes sense they will get news a lot more slowly.

We're likely to get a very polite visit from the Library in the next month or so after we get back from Vegas.
With very polite inquiries about our vacation.



Cautionary note about cameras and camera data, and a warning the next time
We might want to consider getting Electric Devil Caress to fry electronics.



F.E.D? lol :V
Thats less a detector and more a disruptor. Something that might disrupt veils of a lot of entities who will not be happy about it; someone like Seeker will eat your face for the presumption. Nevermind the gods slumming it in bars or as wrestlers.

That will almost certainly get everyone in that project killed. And nobody in the supernatural world will raise a voice of protest


We should probably advance our plans to make the Archive a neuralyzer.
Just having the design in reserve might be useful.



Note that despite the framing, its not like anything they have done so far has been outright maliciously stupid; oversight appears to have been reasonable so far, even if it required magic to ensure that.

Its just that Daedalus are basically ignorant G-men playing with corium, in a department created as an explicitly political strategy, and so gung-ho that their own side dont trust them to be reasonable. And politics being what it is, I dont trust oversight to remain reasonable in the country that gave us the McCarthy witch hunts, the Southern Strategy and post-9/11 politics.

Most of the US natsec apparatus is used to being the top dog on this planet, and arent likely to accept a realization they arent gracefully. And some org-chart climber is going to try and work some angle for promotion.
Im still shuddering at the Cold War CIA effort to weaponize demons that required Knightly intervention to clean up..


Had to check, but yeah, it's illegal:
NRS 630.400 – Unauthorized Practice of Medicine – Nevada Law
We're not impersonating another licensee; Cuddy is a fictional doctor, and not a perfusionist, physician assistant or practitioner of respiratory care. As long as you're not offering medical services, looks like they cant prosecute you for representing yourself as a doctor to a rando.

Wont stop a civil suit though.


Worse. With Source Code Compliance, we can trigger the damage that triggers Dreams of Disease, which doesn't have a line-of-sight limitation.
In other words, we can call someone up, cuss them so bad they spit blood, and then inflict the Black Plague on their ass.

Not sure if we can record ourselves speaking and cause damage that way, but if so SCC could literally be used to attack anybody with a phone; set up a spam center and start making everyone's life miserable any time they answer their phone.
You think thats bad?
Mocking Murmurs Retort will murder the career of any politician we dislike if we bother to watch a live broadcast of them.
Mind Spider Curse will mind control any mortal we make a phone call to.

And Endless Torment Emanation allows us to wreck a nation's bureaucracy with a single phone call.
Black plague is funny enough treated by a simple course of penicillin. If we want to kill someone we need to pick something that wasn't largely cureable.
Freak the CDC out by giving some poor dude hemorrhagic smallpox. Or rabies.
Or, if we want to get really exotic, one of the supernatural diseases listed in the Sidereal section, like the one that makes your organs fall off your body while you are still alive.

Imagine having a person's head fall off his body and the person is still alive and talking.
Or have their heart fall out of their chest and remain beating, while their blood continues to circulate in their body somehow.
Like I said, the setting rolled box cars to have gotten Molly Carpenter as an Infernal.

This could have gone a lot worse. For everyone.
 
Well, it seems the Library has no idea what's going on. On one hand that's good. On another - maybe warn them that we are less than a day away from losing half a continent to a major Outsider incursion and to get the fricking government out of the way so they don't hinder us from stopping the Apocalypse?
The Library was apparently formed around 1800.
Las Vegas was established in 1905, same year the Dragon was chosen by the Sin-Eater. Las Vegas was built up with Red Court money and resources in the Dresdenverse, even though the Dragon is an independent force who answers only to the demon.

Von Trier may or may not be aware, but I give good odds that the Library's governing board have been around long enough to know who and what the fuck lie under Las Vegas, and why its supposed to be no touchy.
Just like I suspect the really senior White Council wizards do, even if young Wardens like Dresden and Ramirez do not.
 
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The Library was apparently formed around 1800.
Las Vegas was established in 1905, same year the Dragon was chosen by the Sin-Eater. Las Vegas was built up with Red Court money and resources in the Dresdenverse, even though the Dragon is an independent force who answers only to the demon.

Von Trier may or may not be aware, but I give good odds that the Library's governing board have been around long enough to know who and what the fuck lie under Las Vegas, and why its supposed to be no touchy.
Just like I suspect the really senior White Council wizards do, even if young Wardens like Dresden and Ramirez do not.
That seems a fair assumption I still wonder what kind of supernatural resources the library has.
 
That seems a fair assumption I still wonder what kind of supernatural resources the library has.
Enough to be significant. Not enough to be decisive.
They have significant amounts of human-derived lore, and leverage the hell out of magic/technology synergies where they can.
But they dont appear to be a major Power.

I mean, Hyde, the first Library agent we saw was wearing low-end enchanted shoes as standard, with language that implied an organized tradition of crafters behind them. And they had protocols and people for containing and detaining low-end lesser akuma and other vampires in a more or less safe manner.

And its implied that it was their aid that led to Seeker's coven losing their war with the local Indian tribe and fleeing into the NeverNever. But they know enough about the balance of power to not make waves and....irritate the really big players.
 
Inconclusive is looking unanimous, but the two ways of going about it are very different.
Adhoc vote count started by Goldfish on Jan 25, 2024 at 8:14 PM, finished with 73 posts and 7 votes.

  • [X] The inconclusive group
    -[X] Impersonate a doctor doing contact tracing for potential exposure to contaminated street drugs.
    -[X] All Things Betray + Empathy Excellency + Etiquette Excellency + Boiling Sea Mastery + Without Honor: 3m
    -[X] STUNT: A thoroughly irritated young male voice answers your spoofed number on the tenth ring. "Whatever you're selling, Im not goddamn buying. Jesus." You cut him off before he can slam the phone, projecting authority at him by voice alone. "Dr Elizabeth Cuddy, University Medical Center's ER department. Are you Chris Taub?"
    [X] The inconclusive group
    [X] The inconclusive group
    -[X] Impersonate a representative of a scholarship foundation, seeking to verify Sandra's good character before awarding her a personal scholarship
    -[X] All Things Betray + Empathy Excellency + Etiquette Excellency + Boiling Sea Mastery + Without Honor: 3m
    --[X] STUNT: "Hello? Hello?" you speak into the phone, a tone of voice perfectly suited for a young and eager to please intern with their eyes on the dream job ahead - something a fellow college age student can sympathize with. "Is this Jacob Cole? My name is Maggie, of Five Score Fellowship, and I am calling you about Sandra Marling. Could you give me several minutes? You see, by luck of the draw, she became a candidate for our scholarship grant, and I need to make a detailed character profile of her for my bosses. I understand you are her friend, so would you mind helping? "
 
@Yog you should've given your plan a differ name. I'd rather the call seem more urgent less likely to be dismissed.

[X] The inconclusive group
-[X] Impersonate a doctor doing contact tracing for potential exposure to contaminated street drugs.
-[X] All Things Betray + Empathy Excellency + Etiquette Excellency + Boiling Sea Mastery + Without Honor: 3m
-[X] STUNT: A thoroughly irritated young male voice answers your spoofed number on the tenth ring. "Whatever you're selling, Im not goddamn buying. Jesus." You cut him off before he can slam the phone, projecting authority at him by voice alone. "Dr Elizabeth Cuddy, University Medical Center's ER department. Are you Chris Taub?"
 
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Black plague is funny enough treated by a simple course of penicillin. If we want to kill someone we need to pick something that wasn't largely cureable.
That's what the prions are for. As far as modern medicine is concerned they can't be cured, and we have barely any idea on how to change that as a species.

Nicodemus has the resources to use magical medicine, but for something like that it'd be difficult and expensive. If Shiro can die of pancreatic cancer then I don't see why the fallen would get to fix their people for free, so it'd be a whole thing to handle it. A very painful and terrifying one.

If we got really luck his mind would start degrading before anyone noticed it, resulting in a death spiral where he ends up unable to die because of the noose but also unable to really live because his brain is mush.

Almost certainly won't go that way, but he'd have a fun few months of treatment thinking about the possibility.
but it does make it clear they have no idea about her empire.
That's going to be an interesting one. I'm curious to see if they make the same leap Arthur did about the potential of Molly's magitech industrial complex.

There's another angle here for them too in terms of information; the electro-lasers.

We gave that free sample to the council a few weeks ago, and they're planning to share with Giles. Those guys are good, but they're also a fairly sizable group of street level people. When they start using their new ray guns to fry vamps, which they should jump on with both feet because they're just better than regular guns, the Library will have a lot of ways to notice and trace the logistics of the delivery.

Supposing they keep demonstrating a lack of stupid asshole disease arming the librarians as a way to enhance mortal law enforcement while simultaneously advancing our own influence over it wouldn't be a bad plan.
 
Nicodemus has the resources to use magical medicine, but for something like that it'd be difficult and expensive. If Shiro can die of pancreatic cancer then I don't see why the fallen would get to fix their people for free, so it'd be a whole thing to handle it. A very painful and terrifying one.
I'd guess that wouldn't work because the Fallen regenerate, fast.

Maybe Anduriel isn't quite as good at that as the tanky ones, but any disease should be taken care of in a matter of hours or at most days.
At least if the Fallen function even vaguely similar to Demon the Fallen Earthbound, healing is trivial.
 
We're not impersonating another licensee; Cuddy is a fictional doctor, and not a perfusionist, physician assistant or practitioner of respiratory care. As long as you're not offering medical services, looks like they cant prosecute you for representing yourself as a doctor to a rando.

Wont stop a civil suit though.
Farily sure there's still impersonation here.
The Library was apparently formed around 1800.
Las Vegas was established in 1905, same year the Dragon was chosen by the Sin-Eater. Las Vegas was built up with Red Court money and resources in the Dresdenverse, even though the Dragon is an independent force who answers only to the demon.

Von Trier may or may not be aware, but I give good odds that the Library's governing board have been around long enough to know who and what the fuck lie under Las Vegas, and why its supposed to be no touchy.
Just like I suspect the really senior White Council wizards do, even if young Wardens like Dresden and Ramirez do not.
I meant "they have no idea there's an imminent crisis going on with potential Apocalyptic consequences". And also they are using data on Molly from before the Courts became a thing, meaning they don't have informants in either higher tier of Summer courts or, more realistically, higher tiers of White Council.
@Yog you should've given your plan a differ name. I'd rather the call seem more urgent less likely to be dismissed.
It's not a name? It's the group selection. And the reason to call the inconclusive group is that they are more likely to care about Sandra having a scholarship. For cultists you need some manner of different approach - if they are thinking that Rapture is coming, they wouldn't care about either drugs or scholarships.
 
I'd guess that wouldn't work because the Fallen regenerate, fast.

Maybe Anduriel isn't quite as good at that as the tanky ones, but any disease should be taken care of in a matter of hours or at most days.
At least if the Fallen function even vaguely similar to Demon the Fallen Earthbound, healing is trivial.
That's the fun thing about prions - nothing anything remotely like a human body does is capable of handling them, and more cellular activity just makes them spread faster. If you wanted to put down a strong regenerator this would be a pretty horrific way to do it.

I don't doubt that they could magic up a solution to it, but we're basically talking about the nastiest diseases Mother Nature is capable of producing bar none. HIV is child's play and rapid onset flesh eating bacteria like macaroni art to Mona Lisa. It's exactly the sort of thing that requires more than a casual splash of magic.

The fallen aren't allowed to do what Lash does and actually exercise their lores, that's why they train their partners and why her freedom to do so is such a big deal. The Denarians could probably still make it work, but it I doubt it'd be a snap of their fingers.
 
That's the fun thing about prions - nothing anything remotely like a human body does is capable of handling them, and more cellular activity just makes them spread faster. If you wanted to put down a strong regenerator this would be a pretty horrific way to do it.

I don't doubt that they could magic up a solution to it, but we're basically talking about the nastiest diseases Mother Nature is capable of producing bar none. HIV is child's play and rapid onset flesh eating bacteria like macaroni art to Mona Lisa. It's exactly the sort of thing that requires more than a casual splash of magic.

The fallen aren't allowed to do what Lash does and actually exercise their lores, that's why they train their partners and why her freedom to do so is such a big deal. The Denarians could probably still make it work, but it I doubt it'd be a snap of their fingers.
Even without Lores, healing diseases is one of a Demon's basic offers during pacting mortals.

Not sure if they can apply it as easily in other cases, but I suspect the Fallen will cheat if it is about a valuable host.
 
Even without Lores, healing diseases is one of a Demon's basic offers during pacting mortals.

Not sure if they can apply it as easily in other cases, but I suspect the Fallen will cheat if it is about a valuable host.
The pact rules by RaW wouldn't allow that; you can only re form one when the mortal gains significantly more faith in you, and the boons that come of it are granted by shaping the mortal's soul. They can't choose to just do that for free without the lore.


I'm not saying it's impossible to correct, just that it'd be hard. The fallen are scary, but the Denarians are severely limited. Which is why they aren't universally 5 dots in everything and impossible to trick.

Edit: error
 
hat's what the prions are for. As far as modern medicine is concerned they can't be cured, and we have barely any idea on how to change that as a species.

Nicodemus has the resources to use magical medicine, but for something like that it'd be difficult and expensive. If Shiro can die of pancreatic cancer then I don't see why the fallen would get to fix their people for free, so it'd be a whole thing to handle it. A very painful and terrifying one.

If we got really luck his mind would start degrading before anyone noticed it, resulting in a death spiral where he ends up unable to die because of the noose but also unable to really live because his brain is mush.

Almost certainly won't go that way, but he'd have a fun few months of treatment thinking about the possibility.
Unlikely to work against the Fallen's hosts.

We have literally seen Polonessa Lartessa suffer multiple mortal injuries in the same book and survive them.
First time she gets splattered across a room by Gard wielding an automatic rifle, and she literally rebuilds her body in combat time from scratch. It might have been Lethal damage, but it was still impressive as fuck.

Second time, after she shoots Michael, Dresden burns a foot-wide hole through the middle of her chest with blue-white magic fire, and while she dropped and screamed, she didnt die.
Now that was Agg.

Not to mention that in Death Masks, Nicky's plan was an infectious magical pandemic, which did not affect himself or any of the Denarians he brought with him.
So odds are no dice.
That's going to be an interesting one. I'm curious to see if they make the same leap Arthur did about the potential of Molly's magitech industrial complex.
There's another angle here for them too in terms of information; the electro-lasers.

We gave that free sample to the council a few weeks ago, and they're planning to share with Giles. Those guys are good, but they're also a fairly sizable group of street level people. When they start using their new ray guns to fry vamps, which they should jump on with both feet because they're just better than regular guns, the Library will have a lot of ways to notice and trace the logistics of the delivery.

Supposing they keep demonstrating a lack of stupid asshole disease arming the librarians as a way to enhance mortal law enforcement while simultaneously advancing our own influence over it wouldn't be a bad plan.
We'll see.

I doubt they are that trusting. Unlike the White Council, they dont get as privileged a look at Sanctuary tech or at the ruler, and are likely to be less inclined to tie any supply chains to an external actor anyway. They'll happily tear down anything they can get their hands on, but I doubt they will be establishing any reliance.

Besides, its not like they need bigger guns; to quote Von Trier, they have largely avoided getting into enforcement for a reason.

A situation grave enough to require man-portable DEWs on US soil is one where they can requisition heavy weapons and the trained personnel to use them from the US military. Not as manportable, but a heavy machinegun or chaingun with explosive bullets works against anyone magic laser rifles can kill.

They probably have a longstanding quiet arrangement with one or more of the components of the US special forces community.
As well as deniable mercs like Monoc.
So they have options by virtue of being an agency of a mundane superpower. They dont need Sanctuarytech.


I meant "they have no idea there's an imminent crisis going on with potential Apocalyptic consequences". And also they are using data on Molly from before the Courts became a thing, meaning they don't have informants in either higher tier of Summer courts or, more realistically, higher tiers of White Council.
Correction: Von Trier doesnt know.
She's a very senior field agent, but she's still a field agent. She has a partner for field agenting.
She's not Management, she doesnt know where all the bodies are buried.

Besides, even if they knew, what do you expect them to do about it, besides talk to people who might be able to take action?
Where would they even begin to look? Thats why they have a White Council liaison.
And probably other contacts; Odin didnt end up with a nuclear command center in the continental US by accident.
 
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Oh, my bad. @TheGrape you may want to choose one stunt over the other.

Also @uju32 your vote seems to have vanished along with some others maybe. Not sure whats going on here.
*checks*
Ah.
The problem is that the count defaults to starting from the latest update, and the latest update is an Interlude.
You need to change some settings.

Here is the corrected vote:
Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Jan 26, 2024 at 1:49 AM, finished with 87 posts and 11 votes.

  • [X] The inconclusive group
    -[X] Impersonate a doctor doing contact tracing for potential exposure to contaminated street drugs.
    -[X] All Things Betray + Empathy Excellency + Etiquette Excellency + Boiling Sea Mastery + Without Honor: 3m
    -[X] STUNT: A thoroughly irritated young male voice answers your spoofed number on the tenth ring. "Whatever you're selling, Im not goddamn buying. Jesus." You cut him off before he can slam the phone, projecting authority at him by voice alone. "Dr Elizabeth Cuddy, University Medical Center's ER department. Are you Chris Taub?"
    [X] The inconclusive group
    -[X] Impersonate a representative of a scholarship foundation, seeking to verify Sandra's good character before awarding her a personal scholarship
    -[X] All Things Betray + Empathy Excellency + Etiquette Excellency + Boiling Sea Mastery + Without Honor: 3m
    --[X] STUNT: "Hello? Hello?" you speak into the phone, a tone of voice perfectly suited for a young and eager to please intern with their eyes on the dream job ahead - something a fellow college age student can sympathize with. "Is this Jacob Cole? My name is Maggie, of Five Score Fellowship, and I am calling you about Sandra Marling. Could you give me several minutes? You see, by luck of the draw, she became a candidate for our scholarship grant, and I need to make a detailed character profile of her for my bosses. I understand you are her friend, so would you mind helping? "
 
The pact rules by RaW wouldn't allow that; you can only re form one when the mortal gains significantly more faith in you, and the boons that come of it are granted by shaping the mortal's soul. They can't choose to just do that for free without the lore.


I'm not saying it's impossible to correct, just that it'd be hard. The fallen are scary, but the Denarians are severely limited. Which is why they aren't universally 5 dots in everything and impossible to trick.

Edit: error
Maybe.

But I think on a pretty fundamental level Fallen don't care about material differences between different diseases and other bodily harm.
It's all just simple biology to a being that operates on another level.
 
Correction: Von Trier doesnt know.
She's a very senior field agent, but she's still a field agent. She has a partner for field agenting.
She's not Management, she doesnt know where all the bodies are buried.
Von Trier is the person advising a senator here though.

She might be both a field agent and one of the most senior members of the Library.

I'm assuming they can't waste a 300 year old Wizard purely on administrative duties, similar to how Senior Council members still have to go out and solve problems for the WC, because age and authority is almost inevitably connected to real power.
 
he pact rules by RaW wouldn't allow that; you can only re form one when the mortal gains significantly more faith in you, and the boons that come of it are granted by shaping the mortal's soul. They can't choose to just do that for free without the lore.


I'm not saying it's impossible to correct, just that it'd be hard. The fallen are scary, but the Denarians are severely limited. Which is why they aren't universally 5 dots in everything and impossible to trick.

Edit: error
Small Favor Chapter 13:
At one time in my life, a shapeshifted, demonically possessed maniac crashing through a window and trying to rip my face off would have come as an enormous and nasty surprise.
But that time was pretty much in the past.
I'd spent the last several years on the fringes of a supernatural war between the White Council of the wizards and the Vampire Courts. In the most recent years, I'd gotten more directly involved. Wizards who go to a fight without getting their act together tend not to come home. Worse, the people depending on them for protection wind up getting hurt.
The second most important rule of combat wizardry is a simple one: Don't let them touch you.
Whether you're talking about vampires or ogres or some other kind of monstrous nasty, most of them can do hideous things to you if they get close enough to touch-as even a lesser member of the gruff clan had demonstrated on my nose the night before.
The prime rule of combat wizardry is simple too: Be prepared.
Wizards can potentially wield tremendous power against just about anything that might come along-if we're ready to handle it. The problem is that the things that come after us know that too, so the favored tactic is the sudden ambush. Wizards might live a long time, but we aren't rend-proof. You've got to think ahead in order to have enough time to act when the heat is on.
I'd made myself ready and taught young wizards with even less experience than me how to be ready too-for an occasion just such as this.
The coil of steel chain in my coat pocket came out smoothly as I drew it, because I'd practiced the draw thousands of times, and I whipped one end at the mantis-thing's face.
It was faster than me, of course. They usually are. Those two clamps seized the end of the chain. The mantis's jaws clamped down on it, and the creature ripped the chain from my hands with a wrench of its head and upper body, quicker than thought.
That was a positive thing, really. The mantis hadn't had time to notice two important details about the chain: first, that the whole thing was coated in copper.
Second, that a standard electrical plug was attached to the other end.
I flipped my fingers at the nearest wall outlet and barked, "Galvineus!"
The plug shot toward the outlet like a striking snake and slammed home.
The lights flickered and went dim. The Denarian hopped abruptly into the air and then came down, thrashing and twitching madly. The electricity had forced the muscles in its jaws and clamps to contract, and it couldn't release the chain. Acrid smoke began to drift up from various points on its carapace.

"Wizard!" Gard gasped. She gripped the wooden handle of her ax and tossed it weakly toward me. I heard shouting and the bellow of a shotgun coming from downstairs. It stayed in the background, unimportant information. Everything that mattered to me was nearly within an arm's length.
The ax bounced and struck against my leg, but my duster prevented it from cutting into me. I picked up the ax-Christ, was it heavy-hauled off, and brought it straight down on the Denarian, as if I'd been splitting cordwood.
The ax crunched home, sinking to the eye somewhere in the Denarian's thorax. The thing's convulsions ripped the weapon out of my hands-and the plug from the wall outlet.

The mantis's head whipped toward me, and it screamed again. It ripped out the ax and came to its feet in the same instant.
"Get clear!" Gard rasped.
I did, diving to the side and going prone.
The wounded woman emptied her assault rifle into the mantis in two or three seconds of howling thunder, shooting from the hip from about three feet away.

Words cannot convey how messy that was. Suffice to say that it would probably cost more to remove the ichor stains than it would to strip and refinish the walls, the floor, and the ceiling.
Gard gasped, and the empty rifle slid from her fingers. She shuddered and pressed her hands to her belly.
I moved to her side and picked her up, trying not to strain her stomach. She was heavy. Not like a sumo wrestler or anything, but she was six feet tall in her bare feet and had more than the usual amount of muscle. She felt at least as heavy as Thomas. I grunted with effort, got her settled, and started for the door.
Gard let out a croaking little whimper, and more blood welled from her injury. Faint pangs of sympathetic pain flickered through my own belly. Her eyes had rolled back in her head. It had taken a lot to beat Gard's apparent pain threshold, but it looked like the visit from the Denarian-and the activity it had forced on her-had done it.
The day just couldn't have gotten any more disturbing.
Until the splattered mass that had been the Denarian started quivering and moving.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" I shouted.

Where there had been one big bug thing, now there were thousands of little mantislike creatures. They all began bounding toward the center of the room, piling up into two mounds that gradually began to take on the shape of insectoid legs.
The shotgun downstairs roared again, and running footsteps approached.
"Harry!" Thomas shouted. He appeared at the bottom of the stairs, sword in hand, just as I hurried out the door, still toting Gard.
"We had company up here!" I called. I started down the stairs as quickly and carefully as I could.
"I think there are three more of them down here," Thomas said, making way for me. He took note of Gard. "Holy crap."
Small Favor Chapter 44:
E ven as some part of me noted all of that happening, the rest of me started screaming in raw, red rage, in agony, in denial.
I was pretty sure I had worked out who had taken my blasting rod away. I was pretty sure I knew why they'd done it. I even thought that, looked at from a certain point of view, it might not have been an entirely stupid idea.
But as of now, I officially did not care.
I didn't have my blasting rod with me, and I was not sure that my raw power, no matter how furious, would be enough to hurt Tessa through the defenses the Fallen gave her. I had never been able to attain the kind of precision I would need without artificial aid.
As of right now, I officially did not care about that, either.
I focused my rage, focused my anger, focused my hate and my denial and my pain. I blocked away everything in the entire universe but the thought of my friend's bloody body hanging from that rope, and a spot two inches across in the center of Tessa's chest.
Then I drew in a breath, whirling a hand over my head and bellowed through my ragged throat, so loudly that it felt like something tore, "Fuego, pyrofuego!" I stabbed the first two fingers of my right hand forward as I did, unleashing my fury and my will. "Burn!"
A bar of blue-white fire so dense that it was nearly a solid object lashed across the distance from me to Tessa and slammed into her like an enormous spear.

The mantislike Denarian threw back her pretty face and screamed in agony as the shaft of fire bored cleanly through her, melting a wide hole that burned wider still before searing itself shut. She went down, howling and thrashing, burned by fire far deadlier and more destructive than any I had ever called before, with a blasting rod or without one.
I sensed something moving toward me from the side and rolled out of the way just as one of Rosanna's cloven hooves slashed through the air where my thigh had been an instant before. If she'd struck she would have opened the flesh to the bone. I whipped my staff at her face, forcing her to duck away, and followed with a surge of will and a shout of, "Forzare!" It wasn't my best kinetic strike, but it was a blow heavy enough to throw her a dozen feet through the air and into a tumble over the ground.
I seized the hilt of Fidelacchius from where the Sword had fallen. As my fingers closed around the weapon I realized several points of cold logic, as if having them explained to me by a calm, rational, wise old man who was utterly unperturbed by my rage.
These are some of the best resistance/survival feats for Denarians in the setting.
And Lartessa is one of their oldest and most powerful.
So they could be outliers.

But its also worth recalling that in the same book, they gas the entire aquarium to capture the Archive, and while it takes down Ivy and starts to incapacitate Dresden, it doesnt affect them either.
I have my doubts about their vulnerability to mundane or (most)magical toxins or infectious agents.
 
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Von Trier is the person advising a senator here though.
She might be both a field agent and one of the most senior members of the Library.

I'm assuming they can't waste a 300 year old Wizard purely on administrative duties, similar to how Senior Council members still have to go out and solve problems for the WC, because age and authority is almost inevitably connected to real power.
Possible.

For a real world analogy, its not the CIA director who delivers the US president's intelligence briefing every day, nor is it his job to brief the Gang of Eight. Its an important job, and one that requires seniority and clearance, but not necessarily top management.
For all we know, Von Trier is the best at this kind of thing, because of her time magic schtick.

If I had to guess, she's their equivalent of Morgan. Or pre-Senior Council McCoy.
Senior as fuck, with an intimidating reputation, an impressive track record and relationships across the spectrum, with input into overall agency strategy. But not on their equivalent of the Senior Council.

Thats just me guessing, though.
 
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Correction: Von Trier doesnt know.
She's a very senior field agent, but she's still a field agent. She has a partner for field agenting.
She's not Management, she doesnt know where all the bodies are buried.

Besides, even if they knew, what do you expect them to do about it, besides talk to people who might be able to take action?
Where would they even begin to look? Thats why they have a White Council liaison.
And probably other contacts; Odin didnt end up with a nuclear command center in the continental US by accident.
This is a dangerous assumption to make. We don't know how the Library is organized, and in most other supernatural organizations, senior management are also the heavy hitter field agents (senior council of White Council, Queens and Knights of the fae courts, Odin and his valkyries, etc).

As to what I would have expected them to do? At least have a couple of nukes ready to glass the place. As I said previously, we are very much at the godzilla threshold. There's a f*cking solar exaltation primed to be released as a counter-measure. Having killsats and nuclear bombers at defcon 1 is just common sense compared to that.
 
By the way, I'm guessing now that von Trier is a real Wizard, not just a high-end Sorcerer.

I don't see how her trick with picking the best option out of several is possible with Path magic.
It would be doable with Entropy or Time Spheres though.
 
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