Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

13th of January 2007 A.D.

"Harry, grenades, in the water!" you call and that is all you have time for before they are upon you.

"Vento Servitas!" the he shouts and the wind comes as it is bid, even as a small part of you —Slash, a vampire's head goes flying in a crimson arc— notes that the words actually mean 'slavery to the wind'. First the Ordo now Harry, what is it with magicians using Latin wrong? The Sword-that is Usum continues on through the hand of the next offending vampire slicing the arm lengthwise, the bone barely offering more resistance than flesh. Out of the corner of your eye you see another pair of vampires descend upon Lydia, nightmare beasts against a girl armed only with her fists... only to flail and scramble helplessly against marble hard skin.

You would have laughed if the air did not go out of your lungs from the wave of sound that hitting your eardrums like a hammer.... from the other direction. Head snapping back to where the gunfire had come you realize Harry hadn't just thrown the grenades back along the tunnel, he had picked them up and flung them over everyone on your side and into the gunmen coming up from behind.

How many grenades that had been you have no idea, but the enemy, the infected you realize, are torn to shreds by the blast, the sight so shocking that you almost let your guard down against the one armed vampire.

"No," the word comes out as more of an admonishment than a battle cry as you decapitate this one as well.

Lydia is having a lot more trouble killing the enemy than she did weathering their attack, an attack that would have snapped a human's wrist doing very little to the uncannily flexible anatomy of a vampire. Something tells you those aren't the nice Sicilian words. Hand of Gently Falling Ash raises a gun to the back of the offending vampire briefly illuminating its ribs in a corona of eldritch flames.

Somehow and you are not sure what sins it must have committed for the misfortune beside those common to its kind it does not die instantly. Harrowmont tries to stab it with a sword that looks like it's more suited to challenging the Cardinal's men at high noon than poking monsters in the sewers.

"Fuego!" For all it summons fire there's ice in the word, calculating precision that summons a sheet of flame, white hot and sharp as a guillotine's blade slicing the last remaining uninjured vampire in twain at an angle and rendering the one in the water into so much steaming meat.

"Damn, don't hold it in Harry," Tiffany jokes.

It's only once she speaks and you are halfway though biting back a relieved laugh that you realize what the look in his eye is, guilt. Not at the dead vampires surely? Following his gaze you understand, the infected. They might have been mortal thralls and he had just thrown enough live grenades to blow them to pieces at them.

"That's not..." he starts, but she does not let him pick up steam

"What, impressive? I'm a pretty good judge of what impressive magic looks like I'll have you know."

"You know what I mean," he shoots back wearily.

"Too well. I know all about what you're thinking." The tone goes from joke to innuendo smooth as silk.

You avert your eyes. Seeing someone regrow a jaw is less uncomfortable than this. "Are you alright?" you ask the unfortunate agent, before realizing that she'd have a hard time answering.

Her left hand signs a complex gesture, fingers bent, crossing open. Unless she uses the cant for which her organization is partially named, right. It is still wierd always-having-known-something you had never thought of before, but at least you are relieved at the answer: "Toothache."

Amethyst Hand Agent Healed to full.
SPICE uses Refreshed

All in all the fight had gone well, none of you had spent any Essence and the ambush had been broken, but there was no sign up ahead of whoever had thrown the grenades

"The air tastes like lies soaked to the bone, a touch of sorcery to it," Tiffany scrunches her nose as Lydia touches one of the walls not paying any mind to the vampire blood. "The stone knows its enemy, the mutilator of matter and killer of minds. Something worse than a vampire was here."

"And it used grenades?" you find yourself asking, but you already know the answer, using offensive magic tends to break veils. You wonder if the reason Harry had taken the chance to kill the people behind you and not the thing that might have been in front of you is that he had been unknowingly nudged not to interact with whatever that had been.

"We should breach the first hall soon," Mr. Adkin says. "If our sources are to be trusted."

Perhaps at one point they could have been, but what you actually come to is a wall of collapsed concrete and rebar, in a sense the least of things that Sandra had blown up, but unlike the ambush this one will cost you. Not Essence though, what tools you need you draw forth by will alone.

Lost 1 Willpower -> Now at 7/9(TTC)

"How...?" Harrowmont gives a bewildered look to the diamond tipped drill you are pressing into the stone.

This is what surprises him? You shake your head, but alas there's more important things to concern yourselves with. There's sure to be more foes on the other side, question is how to deal with them:

[] Use Akdin's talisman, that is sure to clear a lot of vampires

[] Try to take prisoners this time, it would be nice to know what's been going on down here

[] Write in

OOC: I took some risks in this fight tactically so that Molly would conserve Essence since I figured you guys would want to, but if you want to set policy for future engagements you are free to do so.