Down Dangerous Roads
25th of January 2007 A.D.
"Those you trust only. Those of
like mind?" The question is perfunctory on some level, if he did think you should die it's not like Nergui, a word would tell you before he'd finish his contract and come back to finish you in the bargain, but you'd like to think you're a good judge of character no matter the state of one's mortality.
"Like grains of rice remain the living who churn and swirl in the passing of the ages yet we who follow the Great Principle grow apart with each night passing." The ancient tips his head back as as one might great a pleasant rain after a long drought, senses expanding all around. "It will be as you ask, expect correspondence before the winter is out."
You nod and take your leave of the old warrior, wondering what it is about him that sets you more at ease than say Lara Raith. Certainly he is not any more human, less son indeed, his every every mannerism of mortality directed with the precision of a Noh performer. Is it just that he isn't trying to trick your brain into thinking he's a friend that's lowering your guard? Maybe it's just that his help is bought and paid for, there aren't any angles to assess. Which might be the reason you gave him the book.
Life without any angles is kind of boring.
Over the next few hours you make sure the arcane saw you recovered from Daedalus is safe in storage and check in on on the people you rescued from Basilisk. They are in stable condition now, but according to the doctors their prospects aren't good. Even with access to the spirit that had infected them and its collaboration it is going to be an uphill battle to do major restoration work.
***
So by the time you get back to Chicago it's lunchtime, it is also snowing, a light dusting of white over most of the cars in the neighborhood, most people are in no rush to get anywhere, after all why would they, it's just another Friday? The peacefulness of it all leaves you off balance, like you can't quite believe there aren't any akuma in the shrubbery or some kind of aquatic infiltrator cyborg in the duck pond. It's where you'd put one.
"Molly, how was Boston? How was
Harvard?" Mom asks you as soon as you come in the door, with just enough emphasis on the last to make it sting.
"
Weird," you offer, the word enough to make Leech's metaphorical ears perk up a little. No doubt her own cybernetic helper had already shared a good bit more than Mom would want an eleven year old to know, but you remember being eleven and listening at doors to find out where people are going, with whom and what kind of danger they might be in.
Dad's shoulders tense, but he don't stop washing the lettuce he'd been handing which you walk in. "We'll talk after lunch. Your Mom's making oven baked pork chops."
So she is, it's very tasty and you say so, but Daniel Mathew and Leech can all tell you have a lot to share. Alas you can only offer a commiserating look as they are shooed away with a piece of cherry pie each while you go into the living room to face the music.
***
"If you have any investments in mortgage backed securities get rid of them, they most likely aren't worth a hundredth of their face value." you start. It would be a lie to claim you aren't doing it at least partially to see the look on your mother's face. "I uncovered a plot by one of the Yama Kings to blow up the US financial market and
hopefully I slowed it down with a call to someone at the Federal Reserve, but a slow down is all it's going to be because the financial market is
strikingly bomb-shaped as far as I can tell with my previous lack of knowledge or interest for no sinister reason beyond those that can be assigned to mortal greed. Either way though this can't stand. If Mikaboshi does not see any consequences he is going to try again and it was dumb luck or Providence that I spotted it this time..."
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 14/15 (Empathy Excelency)
"What are you planning?" Dad asks, not accusingly but as serious as you had ever heard him.
"Well you remember that the fey courts owe me favors, I'm calling one of them due. Hell is about to come down with an epidemic..."
You had been expecting Mom do go off at some point during the subsequent conversation, what you had not been expecting is being quizzed by dad about the nature of the hope plague and what it's going to
do to people, if rebellion is just going to make their existence even more miserable.
"Hell is...
varied, it creates the illusion that some fates are worse than others, but it is still hell, it can't get worse. Oblivion would be better than what's happening to those poor souls, how they are being used and made to use themselves. It's... hard to describe and the world's a better place for not doing it."
The frown does not leave his face, if anything it deepens, though now whatever thoughts he has turn inwards... which is all Mom needed to jump in. "Molly, why, just why are you doing this? The thing's been beaten right? The economy will do whatever it was going to do in the first place. There's no reason to keep risking yourself," she's almost pleading now and you hate it. "Why would you need to go into the bowels of
hell...!"
Reasons there are plenty, chains of logic for every step of the way. All that damn Akuma would had to do to keep its head was not to try to shoot a girl in a coffee shop. But really it's simpler than that: "You came looking in the bowels of Winter for me. "
That stops her in her tracks for a moment, but then she rallies, leaning a little forward. "They're not like you, they weren't taken." She doesn't finish the sentence, she doesn't have to: They ended up in that place because of how they lived their lives
"I don't think they deserve hopelessness and I can do something about it. How could I not?"
"I'm coming with you," Dad says quietly, shocking both of you into silence with the implications. If he had been inspired to go he'd have said to, he hadn't been, but knights are people too.
"With Amoracchius?" you ask after a moment.
"It does not feel
wrong to take it." Which is a long way from it feeling right, his tone says loud and clear.
How does Molly react?
[] Accept Michael
-[] With Amoracchius, the Sword of Love is sure to come in handy in the depths of hell
-[] Without Amoracchius, that is not a choice that should be taken on mortal judgement alone, but if he wants to come you're sure he'll be of help, foe his wisdom and skill with as sword both
[] Ask him to stay home
-[] Write in argument
OOC: Dresden is not the only one who would insist to come if you told him. 
