Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

4rd of February 2007 A.D.

While you certainly are not above capital C Curiosity and a good bit harder to kill than any cat ignoring the advice of an ancient Welsh God about what should and should not be spoken of after sunset seems like a bad idea, the kind that ends in violence. So instead as misty day gives way gracefully to a night of cold and fitful winds playing in from the sea the five of you wonder, first on the paths, clear-marked for visitors then on the solid ground where snowdrop, aconite and even daffodil are starting to grow. All around owls hoot and nightjars sing, likely sensing Midnight's intrusion. Strangers, strangers, they call one to the other until once you are well out of sight of the paths Lydia starts letting the pale silver of her light shine through, a new beacon alike onto the old. In a tongue which no mortal had spoken since even the Celts were newcomers and the rings of stone still whole under the moonlight she called out in turn. Before she gave them voice in full your friend had explained their meaning as near as the English Language could not render them:

"Who calls, who calls, who calls," the words seem at first echoes of hers, a rustle in the water, a hoot in the trees, at least until you realize that they hadn't been in English and yet you understood... the meaning and the malice. "Pretty little corpse girl come to die. Born thief, made thief, thief is what you've chosen..."

Pale shadows moved at the edge of sight, hunting hounds white and grey, like snow splotched with ask, except for their eyes, red and blood, lolling tongues just as red. "To be, to be, to be."

"We should maybe get out of here..." Daniel starts, though you have no doubt he'd try to be last in any retreat.

"Alas young Daniel we are not moths," Tiffany retorts. "No eyes have we painted on our wings to ward off hunters, no wings at all, guard up and wits about you!"

"You who have hunted, you who have found, you who have pledged to give what you can once the Treasures of Arawn have been put in their place. I speak to you now of the world past thine shores, I speak you softly of what I have learned: The world is changed yet changing still, the tower of six names will not be raised anew as it was, but in the land where a dozen, a score, a hundred towers of metal and false stone are raised a charge I now offer, free as I am."

"Free thou would be as ever lords are," the largest of the hounds declares, "but what of our freedoms who cannot walk where death has not tread? What care have you, by the crown burden even less than thine father?"

More lights now are fathering tens, dozens hundreds, a swarm of pale lights in perilous contemplation..

"Is that what you think of him then? That he left because it was easy and then left again because of some whim?" The words ring with anger, but more they ring with sorrow. "The doors of death are broken and things sneak through the cracks to take bodies untimely and tempt those unwilling to pass. If none should wear the crown of death than forgotten it shall topple into ebon depths until a clawed hand snatches it. I offer you a chance to help and thereby help yourselves to more than a lonely vigil on this narrow island, gusts of the wind that once girdled the world?"

In posture and in manner anger turned to longing, but still the greatest and Eldest said onto the daughter of Death "While prisoners four are still bound under stone so we must guard, until the turning of the world."

"All of you together, four prisoners to keep?" Lydia asks, her voice sweet as sage and wormwood burning.

"Aye for they are mighty. First Llyr Half-Speech, who was imprisoned by Euroswydd, and the second, Mabon son of Modron, and third, Gwair son of Geirioedd. And one who was more exalted than the three of them, was three nights in prison in Caer Oeth and Anoeth, and three nights imprisoned by Gwen Pendragon, and three nights in an enchanted prison under the Stone of Echymeint. This Exalted Prisoner was Arthur. All now are bound before the spoils of Annwfn which they tried to take and we given leave to guard these lands lest they escape."

"So... if we take the nice doggies away King Arthur is liable to return to Britain and what ask for his crown back?" Olivia can't quite hold back a nervous laugh.

"If we take all of them," Lydia points out reasonably. "I ask only for those who are weary of your vigil, of showing yourselves only to the dead and the dying, that again in flesh you shall live."

Lydia loses 1 Essence -> Jade Talisman now at 0/3 (Manipulation Excellency)

The hounds turned and spoke one with another, in no language you or even Lydia could speak. Some there were who wished to take her bargain and they would not be dissuaded but the others did not know what would happen if the guard was lessened on those who sought to steal for Arthur the secret of Immortality.

That is why they had chosen to stay in Britain rather than pass into the service of the Winter Court along with their once master, they had their own gates to guard against the heroes who were almost-as-gods. And that more likely than not is why Saint David intervened to allow it for the dead should not live again until Judgement Day comes, by Scripture at least

What do you do?

[] Offer to strengthen the door that leads to the prison of the three and onto Arthur's return from Avalon

[] Just take with you what hounds had grown weary of their task

[] Why should the doors stay closed when there is so much wrong in the world, why should heroes sleep until the end of days? Offer to walk to the gate and break it with brass that all will be free to range as they will

[] Write in

OOC: The literary basis for this little conundrum are the Welsh Triads and the Raid on the Otherwold, combined and reimagined of course.