Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

25th of January 2007 A.D.

You regard the not-child for a moment, then smile, reaching back into your backpack for a water, the plastic oddly sticky under your fingers, drink. "You had my curiosity..." Note to self, bring a glass bottle next time. Not that you've ever drunk crude oil before, but this might be trying to become Texas Tea again from the nearness of the Mothers and you are not a fan. "Now you have my attention. Stakes?"

"A Tempering for Temperance," comes the answer, plainly spoken, or so at least it seems in this hour. To the Fair Folk of old, how old even you do not know, temperance is the Ring-Grace is the mechanism of being, the lines in which the soul and mind are colored, or as a wizard of the White Council might call it, a Name. One who knew that much but not more might then raise hue and cry about guest right being broken, but the she had said 'a' and not 'the', a wealth of meaning in a single sound. What has a Name but no need to communicate, no compassion to give, no valor to show, no will to express, a machine, made thing, an artifact.

"Such as will do no harm to my heart and soul," you elaborate. Not that you think she'd be so foolish as to ask for something directly harmful or repugnant to your morals, but it's good to lay these things on the table where the Fair Folk are concerned.

She nods... and the table before you becomes as three fields in miniature with an axis running through the middle: Palace Pillar and Pit one atop the other at the center, each field split into quadrants: Earth at the Center, Air to the North, Water to the West, Fire to the South and Wood to the East... and all around Moonsliver Ring.

Up to fifteen players can play at once, one per element per layer...

Armies of land, sea and air all are pieces, but so too are spies, diplomats, merchants, sorcerers and assassins, hinting at a world that could not be, obfuscated once by the the symbolic logic of the game itself and again by the whims of the ancient fey and yet for all of that the name of the place-and-time of which this board is a poor canvas comes to mind: Creation.

Opal steps to take command of the Center-East, the living world under the canopy of the great trees. Instinctively you reach for the command of the center before you realize that all the pieces there are willfully disordered, hard to disentangle without causing a cascade that will take out more than half of them. So instead you claim the north instead, tokens of strength of self-reliance, but also of stiffing tradition, isolation and melancholy. It is only once you had made the first move that you realize the game could be taken as an approximation of Winter versus Summer.

Probing attacks give way to traditional strategies, deep strikes to a doctrine of slow subversion, but she always proves too willy, or just a bit too quick, maybe just plain lucky. There are no dice, nor colored sticks not any other invocation of chance in Gateway, but unlike any game you have ever seen the sheer number of potential interactions brings forth emergent chaos. It's like this is real war, you marvel at the long dead mind that built this fey-remembered game. Even if you lose you'll have this... and you might well lose.

"What's going on," you hear Lydia ask worriedly only for Tiffany to shake her head.

"Do you really think whatever this is would have been considered cogent to the task of tempting Harry?"

"I don't know, maybe he' into competitive games," the girl counters defensively.

Still a little you see it, Opal is trying to orchestrate an entirely bloodless defeat, Blue Gambit and that leaves a Satrap open to corruption and another turned into the house of war, easily prodded into an excess of zeal in dealing with the traitor. The forest burns though not for long, cold winds blow, after them a glacial advance. Glacial in more ways that one way, granted. It is like playing against a swarm of wasps. more than once the fey girl manages to needle you into rash action —Rest in peace Elegant Fabric Merchant, sorry for putting you in the way of that landslide— but eventually you cross the Meridian of the Inevitable, the point in the game where playing more can only delay and not turn the tide.

You've never heard more giggling at losing in your life as she hands you your prize, the stone hollow in ways more than physical: "Good game! Would play again! thanks for calling on me Mother!"

It is only then that you realize Mother Summer is standing next to you with what might be the hundredth cup of water to pour on your head for all you've been keeping track of time. So you flush but bite back an apology. That's just guest right working as it should, no matter how grand the host.

Earned Dark Rider Essence-Attuned Artifact

"Well, I'm glad you are enjoying yourself dear," Years of familiarity with that tone almost has you flinch back from an anticipated attempt to pinch your cheeks, but no cheek pinching is forthcoming as she continues: "It was good for Bright Opal too, she hasn't been this springily in a long time."

When has she been anything but a bundle to mischief? you are tempted to ask, but she has already turned towards the door. "Come on now we have some brewing to do."

You had been expecting... well you are not sure what you were expecting, a cauldron over an open flame maybe? Instead she leads you to a polished stone bowl twenty five peaces across set between two stone pillars wrapped in moss and ivy. There's water already bubbling away inside by the heat of some underground flame. A far-cry from Helen's kitchen making Bane.

"Listen well now," Mother Summer begins, not really chiding, but with that certainty that only experience can bring. "There's five seasonings to this brew, best that you each stick to one, I'll handle the mixing."

Elements you realize, each of you three will have to align your contribution to one,m but which might that be?

[] Flame, that it be kindled bright and burn far

[] Air, that it would slip under any ward

[] Earth, as solid and unbreakable as the mountains

[] Wood, Virulent and ever-changing

[] Water, Eroding all certainties

OOC: Congratulations you are now the owner of a genuine Age of Legends artifact. It takes motes to attune, though how many she cannot tell at a touch.