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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Arc 14 Post 7: Of Tangles Pulled Apart
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    • Of Tangles Pulled Apart ​

    18th of February 2007 A.D.

    Essence for information, that's still a trade you'll take, especially after the surge you just got. What are their contingencies for being discovered?

    Isfet Reigns.

    The Crown reflects your own emotions magnified thousandfold: disdain and rage, but still it tries to make sense of all within its purview.

    Disorder, injustice, the loss of control, chaos-all-consuming. Mortals, they are all mortals, at least the ones making these decisions are. Depends on who depends on what... depends on where... You get the vague sense that they are expecting to be found by other wizards, some kind of internal dissent they can use to their advantages. Finger their accusers, get wizard fighting wizard.

    Mark that down as 'cause a wizard civil war Usum',     you note rubbing your temple, before asking the next one, focusing on the next nervous kid... You're starting to see Harry's point here.

    What are they doing right now?

    Flashes pass before the mind's eye, most of them startlingly mundane: a seemingly ordinary middle-aged couple having lunch at a nice restaurant, an old man playing checkers in the park, a lady riffling through a foreign paper, some subtly disturbing: a silver haired man whistling as he walks among a collection of unlabeled wine bottles that you are morally certain don't have wine in them, another braiding poppets out of human hair, a woman looking over pages covered with reams and reams of complex numbers while a teen about of an age with the ones in front of you whimpers in the corner. Are those glass shards? And a few, just a few of those images are filled with rites of black magic, not the small stumbling things of warlocks just slipped from the narrow path they did not know of, but willing atrocity of the sort one can only commit with eyes open, gleeful.

    Next kid: Where are they?

    Snapshots again, faster this time since you can already recognize the faces, vague sense of locations, some of them in this world some of them in the other, names barely making sense, one of them Almost Nowhere. Just for the moment, too much to expect that they would be slow as well as evil. The two in the Hidden Halls would find it the easiest to inform the other five and make use of any subverted wizards they have access to, though maybe at first for political purposes.

    54 Total conspirators, 7 Total Aware

    Nevernever
    13 in sundry other Nevernever realms 0 aware
    1 No Name Always Aware, always knows, Almost? Outside.

    Material World
    7 in the Hidden Halls 2 Aware (One is Peabody)
    9 in the in Central and South America 1 Aware
    5 in Europe 1 Aware
    12 in Africa 1 Aware
    6 in Asia 1 Aware
    1 in Australia 0 Aware

    "Carlos can I look at your glove for a moment... " You're not sure what you had expected for Carlos' enchanting, for him to have fought maybe like he'd done against La Ilorna, but all you get is a meeting in an office, a wizard he calls 'sir', black eyes magnified behind thick glasses, a younger Carlos just... stops as he is given exacting instruction, hypnosis in the tone of a bored bureaucrat. Nothing about ongoing control, thank God.

    There's a lot of calls to make, but before anything else you have to make a call to... yourself. Some of the trainees are whispering among themselves at the sight of a working phone though they soon have something a lot more remarkable to gasp over. Dancer in Glass Shadows just appears next to you with a smile, like she's about to make a crack about him not being able to handle two of you. Then she notices the air of fear in the room, the kid on the floor and catches the timber of your thoughts.

    Lost 4 Essence -> Now at 11/18

    "Compulsion?" She asks, more for the sake of breaking the silence.

    "How are there two of you" The obvious questions start pouring in, there is no way to hide how alike the two of you are when she flashes her inner power like this. "Are you twins?"

    Without answering she kneels and touches the girl's hair. "Be free." Three more times she picks trainees out of the crowd. "Be free, be free, be free..." Her power pours out in a soft green light in memory of one that knew no barrier. It severs all bonds save those laid by beings mightier than the Queens of Faerie. Then she stands in front of Carlos.

    "Fuck me!" He curses softly, realizing what she means to do. "You sure?" His gaze oscillates between the two of you obviously wanting to ask the question the trainees are but all too aware that time is of the essence.

    "Unfortunately yes," you answer as other-you just nods. After Digs taps him on the forehead like she had done the others Carlos frowns. "I don't feel any different, I don't remember anything..."

    "All I can do is break chains, I cannot return that which was taken," she half-apologizes. "If one of your memories was changed it will stay that way. There is simply no remaining means of ongoing control, unless you pissed off one of the Mothers or an Angel somehow, but that's not..."

    "Evil wizard," you explain, not sure how much you should be saying with all the trainees here. On the one hand the White Council is theirs too as they are its future, on the other hand they are still just trainees, not expected to handle anyone more dangerous than Isabela.

    How much of what's going on do you explain to the Trainees and to Carlos?

    [] Trainees: Nothing more, keep them in the dark

    [] Trainees: The bare bones, there are lots of evil wizards infiltrating the White Council

    [] Trainees: Write in

    [] Carlos: The bare bones of the conspiracy

    [] Carols: Admit that you knew something was the matter months earlier as was Harry and McCoy, but they did not know who to trust

    [] Carlos: The whole story, Crown and all, you could use another good friend on the council and there is nothing like secrets to bind a friendship, so at least says Usum

    [] Carols: Write in

    OOC: Yes, it's the Molly that usually goes to school who broke a warlock's curse. She was closest but also it's a reminder that all the clones were built with some heavy duty abilities.
     
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    • Honestly, I think trainees shouldn't know almost anything. Carlos should have access to general information, but not too much. It's not necessary and even dangerous for him to know everything.
     
    Telling the trainees anything at all is basically giving that information away to anyone who cares to learn it, and putting a target on their backs at the same time.
     
    Ok. It seems we are not fighting Peabody, someone else will have to, while we are going almost outside. No one else is going to be able to do that.

    We have at least 6 strikes in parallel to organize. That's going to take some thinking. At least. And I think we are going to have to call Maeve and Odin, and probably Summer too. Way too many actions to organize immediately.
     
    I am honestly dissatisfied that we have once again found ourselves in the center of a damned conspiracy that must be resolved now. I was hoping for a easier part of the story. But no, we are again forced to put out a forest fire with divine atomic bombs.
     
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    For Carlos I don't think telling him about the crown or that we knew but didn't act is a good plan. Giving him the full details of the conspiracy otherwise has some value. If only so that we can emphasize how important the council is and how much effort the Outside went to in order to make this happen.

    He's pretty influential among the young wardens and young wizards in general. We do not want him to lose faith in the institution instead of diving in to fix it.

    Nyarky said:
    Ah!

    I knew we had told them!
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    I don't think we gave them the list though, otherwise McCoy would be hunting people.
    Ivar said:
    I am honestly dissatisfied that we have once again found ourselves in the center of a damned conspiracy that must be resolved now. I was hoping for a relief part of the story. But no, we are again forced to put out a forest fire with divine atomic bombs.
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    To be fair, we did this one to ourselves. It was a surprise that Peabody could watch from behind wizards' eyes, but we knew poking this stuff might be risky.
     
    Yog said:
    Ok. It seems we are not fighting Peabody, someone else will have to, while we are going almost outside. No one else is going to be able to do that.

    We have at least 6 strikes in parallel to organize. That's going to take some thinking. At least. And I think we are going to have to call Maeve and Odin, and probably Summer too. Way too many actions to organize immediately.
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    One challenge we have is that Winter and Summer aren't friends or allies of the White Council. They might take the opportunity to inflict significant collateral damage on loyal wizards by intervening in ways that are particularly provocative now they have a valid excuse to enter reality and act against the traitor wizards, so they can claim they only acted in self-defence when loyal wizards tried to defend people they thought were friends.
     
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    BronzeTongue said:
    To be fair, we did this one to ourselves. It was a surprise that Peabody could watch from behind wizards' eyes, but we knew poking this stuff might be risky.
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    I know, but I'm starting to miss arcs like the diplomats' visit to the Five Courts. Or anything where we're not forced to plug holes in the world. Thank goodness at least the GM isn't obsessed with turning every action we take into CONSEQUENCES that will inevitably make everything go horribly wrong.
     
    I think we should only give the trainees and Carlos some information. Enought that they have a hint at how bad it is, but little enought that the white council can spinn it how they want.
    Hopefully that will minimase the political fallout for us. If we take that decision from them, they might consider us someone that just uses them in their own plots.

    [X] Plan Minimal Information
    -[X] Trainees: You discovered a Plot against the White council.
    -[X] Carlos: Like Trainees + You discovered Outsider involvement and will bring the Information directly to the senior council. You have hints that he is not the only affected Warden.
     
    Yog said:
    Ok. It seems we are not fighting Peabody, someone else will have to, while we are going almost outside. No one else is going to be able to do that.

    We have at least 6 strikes in parallel to organize. That's going to take some thinking. At least. And I think we are going to have to call Maeve and Odin, and probably Summer too. Way too many actions to organize immediately.
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    The Outsider seems very restricted in what it can do without servants. Given the situation I think it might make more sense to focus on the wizards and try messing with their backer later. Killing it or something would be great, but if the council takes serious hits from a traitor anyway then we're still coming out behind.

    As a bonus, if we do it in that order we can use the crown to steal its secrets then hand them to a vengeful order of the strongest wizards alive. The last thing anyone wants is for wizards to learn how you work.

    Just imagine what a bunch of Arete 7-9 wizards could do with the right opening when motivated to make an example of someone.

    The red court might try to take advantage, but I'd say that's about the time we should bring some demon armies out to play.
     
    Yog said:
    And I think we are going to have to call Maeve and Odin, and probably Summer too. Way too many actions to organize immediately.
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    Alratan said:
    One challenge we have is that Winter and Summer aren't friends or allies of the White Council. They might take the opportunity to inflict significant collateral damage on loyal wizards by intervening in ways that are particularly provocative now they have a valid excuse to enter reality and act against the traitor wizards, so they can claim they only acted in self-defence when loyal wizards tried to defend people they thought were friends.
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    They don't actually have to be malicious to cause problems either merely uncaring. Getting both Winter and Summer involved on anything is just asking for problems as well. This is supposed to be a delicate operation the more factions that get involved the more complex a political situation this becomes.
     
    BoredMan said:
    They don't actually have to be malicious to cause problems either merely uncaring. Getting both Winter and Summer involved on anything is just asking for problems as well. This is supposed to be a delicate operation the more factions that get involved the more complex a political situation this becomes.
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    Yeah, the most I'd want to call in would be the Archive because Ivy is well positioned to be involved in this sort of thing. Even then it could cause problems.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    How much of what's going on do you explain to the Trainees and to Carlos?
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    Every Warden knows there's a traitor(s).
    Every White Council member with a brain suspected it ever since Simon Petrovich and the Brute Squad got ganked at Archangel.

    Any wizard who survived the events of Dead Beat, the multiple Outsider ambushes, and the magical wards that prevented the Council from retreating from an ambush for almost a day, knows there's a traitor(s); Carlos was there at McAnally's when Morgan declared it. Telling the trainees about this is something they already know, or will be informed of soon enough.

    As for Carlos, if he cant keep his own head safe how does he safeguard Molly's secrets?
    Default to Ivy's advice about secrets.
    He doesnt have need to know.

    Its worth remembering this is not the first time the White Council has had evil wizards inside the house.
    Im pretty sure that Kemmler was a Council wizard originally; Corpsetaker and Grevane both were as well.
    And Harry's first teacher Justin DuMorne only died in the 1990s.
     
    Ivar said:
    Honestly, I think trainees shouldn't know almost anything. Carlos should have access to general information, but not too much. It's not necessary and even dangerous for him to know everything.
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    Well in the past uh hour or so Molly immediately knocked someone unconscious, brought in a clone to do something obviously significant and everyone with authority is looking super serious. I'd say we should give them something to avoid rabid paranoid speculation. Which tbf would be a rational response to being left completely out, since this is Top Grade Hinky Shit.
     
    BronzeTongue said:
    The Outsider seems very restricted in what it can do without servants. Given the situation I think it might make more sense to focus on the wizards and try messing with their backer later. Killing it or something would be great, but if the council takes serious hits from a traitor anyway then we're still coming out behind.

    As a bonus, if we do it in that order we can use the crown to steal its secrets then hand them to a vengeful order of the strongest wizards alive. The last thing anyone wants is for wizards to learn how you work.

    Just imagine what a bunch of Arete 7-9 wizards could do with the right opening when motivated to make an example of someone.

    The red court might try to take advantage, but I'd say that's about the time we should bring some demon armies out to play.
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    Is No Name the backer? I thought they were a mortal even higher in favor than Peabody, and the Outsider (we were given the name, I forgot it) is still outside.
     
    @DragonParadox : Can we quickly craft together a prodigy prop? Just some needle that will point at Peabody when he gets close and glows?

    Something something magic signature.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    "Calos can I look at your glove for a moment... " You're not sure what you had expected for Carlos' enchanting, for him to have fought maybe like he'd done against La Ilorna maybe, but all you get is a meting in an office, a wizard he calls 'sir', black eyes magnified behind thick glasses, a younger Carlos just... stops as he is given exacting instruction, hypnosis in the tone of a bored bureaucrat. Nothing about ongoing control, thank God.
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    This guy has Dominate. Or something very similar to it.
    That...significantly complicates the tactical picture.
     
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