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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Arc 11 Post 76: Damage Control
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    • Damage Control​

    13th of January 2007 A.D.

    Eight people in various states and styles of dress come flying out of the corridor with exclamations of horror as the sprinklers come on, screaming, shouting in an unintelligible din as you set them down flat on their backs, careful not to get the stuff from one of the other. "What's the meaning of...! Stop! Help Help!"From them perspective they are being drawn into danger and not away from a shower of poison. Why so many ways to kill, why here?

    "Lash, over here!" you shout. Some of them are already twitching in your grasp. That does not make them any calmer nor does carry's cry of "Defendarius!" staff out for all to see, the runes spiraling along its length glowing a ghostly blue as the air in the corridor thickens into a shimmering curtain like the distant haze on a summer day brought up close.

    "Everyone keep calm!" Silk interjects somehow striking a perfect balance of urgency without being alarming. "We will be exiting the club in a moment. My associate just needs to look you over to make sure you aren't hurt."

    Tiffany had taken the chance to grab hold of a shaky hand and an even shakier bare shoulder, briefly closing her eyes against the distractions of the scene. A few seconds pass in a storm of panicked questions and complaints.

    An uncanny stillness fills the air, a sterile peace threaded with silver. Larry isn't laughing any more, the woman with the grenades is crying, great tearing sobs. The guy with the exploding bag is also not saying anything, though that has more to do with Lydia expertly choking him out.

    Lydia loses 1 Essence -> Now at 5/7

    "What? Woah!" A man whom you recognize as the husband from a few moments ago exclaims and gives Tiffany what you can only call a love-struck. That's not going to help his marital prospects. Somewhere in the back of your mind a demon laughs.

    "Wha' haphened," a woman, one of the employees most likely slurs, her face and eyes starting to droop. She calms down as Tiffany reassures her as she reaches out to touch her face and literally wipe away the chemical agent as she bestows healing and protection all at once.... though the same could not be said of everyone else, if anything the questions have gotten louder.

    "Stacy you just sit tight OK," Silk half whispers at the dancer before raising her voice again. "Everyone! Everyone listen to me, there's just been an attack. Anyone who wants to talk to the authorities is free to take a seat, anyone who doesn't should probably get going now. Consider all services and goods aquired today and last night on the house."

    How that is what finally calms everyone down you will never know, but at this point you'll take it.

    One of the guys in rumpled suits points a non-chemically-induced shaky finger at Harry. "I wanna know what the hell you're doing here mister!"

    Door opens outwards so you kick it closed with a very definitive thump. "Nothing. Nothing to see here."

    He does not speak up again. Alas that is the least of your problem. While three of the witnesses are edging towards the door to follow Silk's advice that still leaves you with six witnesses and three attackers in states from shock to hysteria to unconciousness with some kind of police response no doubt on their way. While you had warned the Library to prep a cover up it's doubtful that will extend to letting you walk off with the perpetrators to interrogate.

    What do you do?

    [] Wait for the feds and try to negotiate a solution that ends with the domestic terrorists in custody and you with your answers from a few minutes of questioning

    [] Grab the cultists and pass them to Sanctuary as soon as you are out of sight and earshot

    [] Write in

    OOC: Crises over, lets see about the aftermath.
     
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    • Average national urban police/emergency services response time is 7-10 minutes.
    Im assuming that with the Library on things, it might be a little faster.

    Now which of these are thralls and which are true believers? And how do we tell?
    We could burn a Crown question, I suppose, using the scene as a focus.
    But I was going to use that to delineate the scope of this.

    Anyway. Cellphones and wallets. Each of the attackers should have one of each.

    Grab those from the attackers, and we have both phone records and multiple foci to work with.
    Interrogating them would be great, but with the personal foci, we can manage if absolutely necessary.
    Everything else is secondary.


    @DragonParadox
    QUESTION
    Is Demonic Primacy proc-ing on anyone here?
     
    Cavalar said:
    Those federal agents offered by the Library would have been useful now...
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    Or they could have delayed us and we could be showing up in the aftermath rather than just before the attack.

    And quite frankly we don't care about the longterm legal situation in the Vegas strip. We care about stopping the Outsider plot. We do not need to get entangled in whatever coverup the Library settles on.
     
    Fouredged Sword said:
    Or they could have delayed us and we could be showing up in the aftermath rather than just before the attack.

    And quite frankly we don't care about the longterm legal situation in the Vegas strip. We care about stopping the Outsider plot. We do not need to get entangled in whatever coverup the Library settles on.
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    we do tho cause we want to raise a city god and control the underworld
     
    uju32 said:
    With respect?
    Shortly =/= Combat time. It allows for improvising, it doesnt allow you to make shit on the spot in three seconds.
    Thats stretching it even for Exalts.


    I disagree.

    If you activate MHM as a prop or a stunt in a situation where you are primarily using another Ability, it has no mechanical impact. For example, you can use MHM in a tea ceremony to move around teapots and shit, but you'd be rolling Etiquette, not MHM. A situation that is primarily MHM, though, is going to be working off Occult, Melee or Brawl.


    Fair enough.
    Missed that discussion somehow.
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    We'll have to agree to disagree on the crafting speed one. But the Mind hand manipulation and using it with craft.

    That is still not how abilities work. If you are coding it doesn't matter what your coding with you still use computer it may increase the difficulty or if you're doing other things while doing it may decrease the dice pool you have available but you're still using the computer ability.

    If you're investing you're still using the finance ability doesn't matter if you're at a terminal in Wall Street or using a newspaper from home. Mind hand manipulation along with any other charm that might extend reach do not affect ability charms.

    They might allow you to apply abilities at a greater range than is specifically initially possible but they do not change the abilities that you use to perform those tasks and when you perform a task and you have a specific Excellency it can work no matter how you're performing said task as long as it's covered by said ability.
     
    Acolyte said:
    we do tho cause we want to raise a city god and control the underworld
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    We want to raise a city god in Chicago. We are already talking about juggling Chicago and Harvard. We don't need to get involved in an entirely separate underworld across the country.

    That can come later, but not until we have moved enough of our servants into this world to form the backbone of a faction rather than just running around in AP hell dealing with everything using our grossly overpowered self.
     
    Fouredged Sword said:
    We want to raise a city god in Chicago. We are already talking about juggling Chicago and Harvard. We don't need to get involved in an entirely separate underworld across the country.

    That can come later, but not until we have moved enough of our servants into this world to form the backbone of a faction rather than just running around in AP hell dealing with everything using our grossly overpowered self.
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    I mean leaving behind a vacuum is a bad idea. And its not like there is number to how many city gods we can raise. We can leave it to look after itself and our operative.
     
    Acolyte said:
    I mean leaving behind a vacuum is a bad idea. And its not like there is number to how many city gods we can raise. We can leave it to look after itself and our operative.
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    Can you imagine Charity's reaction if she discovers we are leaving a string of offspring gods in our wake? Do you WANT to deal with that level of matrimonial disappointment? Every last one of those city gods will be getting a Christmas card and will end up invited to all the family functions.

    And we will have to sit there and pretend we didn't just abandon them in some strange city to run off, all the while Charity fusses over them as their grandmother.
     
    [X] Grab the cultists and pass them to Sanctuary as soon as you are out of sight and earshot
     
    Waiting for the feds to show up, then getting them straightened out, doesn't seem like a good use of our time. Not sure about transporting the cultists to Sanctuary, either.

    I wonder what's on the NeverNever side of Club Xanadu?
     
    Fouredged Sword said:
    Can you imagine Charity's reaction if she discovers we are leaving a string of offspring gods in our wake? Do you WANT to deal with that level of matrimonial disappointment? Every last one of those city gods will be getting a Christmas card and will end up invited to all the family functions.

    And we will have to sit there and pretend we didn't just abandon them in some strange city to run off, all the while Charity fusses over them as their grandmother.
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    they will adults persumably, fully formed from the essence and nature of the city and only young cities would be children.


    also i wished we used the fetish crafting system instead of the current one, this is fetish i found in my books read through of rage across the world.

    People's Microphone Level Two, Gnosis 6
    This fetish, common among the Children of Gaia and rabble-rousing Bone Gnawers, is a megaphone with a spirit of revolution bound into it. It has the ability to channel the ephemeral spirit that forms when a crowd of people gather, using the spirit's power to enhance the speaker's words. If the user of the fetish is speaking on behalf of (or to raise the morale of) a crowd of up to 100 people, his relevant Social rolls receive a +1 die bonus. A crowd of 101-500 people provides a +2 bonus, a crowd of 501-5000 provides a +3. Every 5000 people beyond that provides another +1 up to a maximum bonus equal to the speaker's Willpower. Normally, this fetish does not require spending Gnosis to activate but a werewolf who does can hand it off to a human or Kinfolk for their use.

    This is perfect for a exalt like us

    or this one
    Profile Skimmer Level Three, Gnosis 6
    This is an example of a variety of technofetish referred to as 'softwere.' It's not a device but a program that has had a spirit bound into it that can be sent off to do dirty work. This one in particular is bound with a Pattern-Spider and can be sent out to put together a profile on a target. The user searches for a person based on either name and a rough description, or a photograph. The softwere uncovers any available information about the target. The player rolls the Profile Skimmer's Gnosis with a difficulty set by the Storyteller based on how much information is available on the target, with 6 being the head of a country or famous television personality and 9 being an average Joe seen on the bus. With a success, the Skimmer comes back with a profile on the person composed of all publicly available information, along with police and government records, and full records for known aliases. With 3+ successes, the Skimmer can dig up information protected by supernatural security systems.
     
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    [X] Ignore the cultists, track down Sandra using your available foci

    Seriously, the cultists don't matter. Even the police can probably hold them for a moment and the Library stands behind that, so they will be taken into proper custody.

    What matters now is moving on Sandra before she tries to push the next domino and we are back to reacting instead of hunting her.
     
    Acolyte said:
    we do tho cause we want to raise a city god and control the underworld
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    Technically we don't have to do that here though. There are advantages to it politically, but not doing it here isn't the same as not doing it at all.

    While this opportunity is very tempting objectively it's probably safer to use a city smaller than Vegas and in a less volatile position than "neighbors of an outsider portal" as our test case.

    It's not like this is a one and done project either.

    I at least think there's potential in a carefully curated set of city gods answerable to us all across the world. Much harder to eat people if a divine place spirit built from the essence of mortal experience is right there to notice and get upset about it.

    Not even just in the city itself either. There's a WoJ about how even Harry isn't crazy enough to put little Chicago on demon reach and anyone who learned about it if he was would think he was building a comic book supervillain doomsday weapon.

    He doesn't say why specifically, but given the intellectus stuff there and how the item is basically a thaumaturgic mega project it seems like at minimum it'd let the spirit use its perfect knowledge on things it really shouldn't be able to.

    Why settle for one city when you can instead have cities, or for cities when you can theoretically pin the regions around them beneath the all seeing gaze of your new pantheon of helpers?

    This message brought to you by Twilight Intrusive Thoughts, a Solaroid company. :V
     
    Artemis1992 said:
    Then use the Crown right now asking where Sandra is, we don't have to talk to them to use one as a focus.
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    I think you just ignored my comment... Going into Molly's world would also allow us to regen a bit. It depends on how much info we want on her plans before going in.
     
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