Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

BronzeTongue · Aug 21, 2024

Yog said:
Another thing is that the spirit was intercepted too. I can buy, maybe, a strong hit team being assembled in ten minutes if the situation is favorable. But one that can also intercept a fleeing spirit? That requires specialized skills.

Depends on what the environment is like at this compound. It's possible the spirits of note in the area really hate the red court and they have security forces around available to manage them.

It's also likely that they've had to deal with a lot of wizard spirit pact bullshit over the course of the war. Having more teams on deck if the local terrain features maliciously betray you to your enemies could be a common requirement for them in general.

Worth looking into, but not necessarily indicative of a more complicated plot on its own.

uju32 · Aug 21, 2024

BronzeTongue said:
We didn't need to draw him a map though.

Molly stonewalled by admitting a connection to how she's gotten all her information and he drew the right conclusions from it.

If we'd lied then he'd have potentially known we were lying and maybe made a speculative connection to what we've done in the past, but at least there'd have been another layer of misdirection instead of admitting to it.

The worst possible result would be us ending up where we are right now, maybe with Odin being a touch more annoyed with us. I'd take more uncertainty for more irritation in a heartbeat. Not that I think he would have been, because he essentially did the same thing the Archive did with the warning about Molly's senses.

Odin basically told us that we'd just screwed up and should have done a better job lying to him at the end of that call.

We didnt draw him a map.
Unlike us, he doesnt need to use an Excellency to get his full dice pool in play, so if we had gone Subterfuge, he would have had 17 dice to our 16 dice. And we would have lost that roll off even more badly.

No, the worst result would have been us burning our credibility and still not actually keeping a secret.
He has a guess, he doesnt have the details.
I dont like it, but its not the end of the world.

EDIT
It just occurred to me that if we had spend Willpower for an automatic success, we would have beaten his roll.
But I forgot, because its not something we've done very much in this quest.
Ah well. Lesson learned.

Yog said:
Another thing is that the spirit was intercepted too. I can buy, maybe, a strong hit team being assembled in ten minutes if the situation is favorable. But one that can also intercept a fleeing spirit? That requires specialized skills.

Like I said, premeditated hit.

Just like when Ebenezar got ambushed by Outsiders and Red Court vampires at the beginning of the quest. If you are a Red Court warlord, you only bring your A-game against the dude whose kill tally in the last eight months includes two Red Court Counts, a Duke and a Lord of Outer Night.

Expect Outsiders in the Amazon, in addition to everything else.

BronzeTongue · Aug 21, 2024

uju32 said:
We didnt draw him a map.
Unlike us, he doesnt need to use an Excellency to get his full dice pool in play, so if we had gone Subterfuge, he would have had 17 dice to our 16 dice. And we would have lost that roll off even more badly.

We did draw him a map:

DragonParadox said:
How did I know to contact you in the hopes of getting the message out? How did you know to pick up the phone at the first ring? A dangerous thing the word 'how' its edges sharper than a razor and worst of all it cuts both ways. I shan't insult you with a lie nor even a half-truth, asking only do be judged on my record. What was my word to Winter and to Summer both?"

This is Molly confirming to him that the thing she did here and the things she did on those other occasions with the fey were all the same ability and that this ability is one of those things Molly considers unusually valuable.

Social dice can't read your mind in detail. You can know more and more clearly how someone is feeling and the precise way they lied, but that's not the same as confirming connections. Especially since we wouldn't have strictly been lying, just answering exactly what he asked and no more. The value of this is self evident in that Odin had 80% of this information already and it was this conversation where we gave confirmation that he sealed the deal.

He might have suspected a connection between all these things, but if he did then he already had all the information to draw that conclusion prior to this call anyway.

We set up the scenario in a way that gave him something to work with when using his powers and told him where to point them.

This is him telling us we screwed up:

DragonParadox said:
Be wary though oh Queen of Brass for none fear the stormwind more than men who think that it might rip the roofs off their houses and leave them all bare to wandering eyes. I will pass on your warning and muster my own hird against the coming battletide."

Odin is one of the guys who would fear this most. Depending on how you want to read it that's an admonishment for telling him or the gentlest threat a guy like him can make; given who it is I'd say both.

This was by the numbers unforced error.

uju32 · Aug 21, 2024

BronzeTongue said:
We did draw him a map:

No we did not.

BronzeTongue said:
This is Molly confirming to him that the thing she did here and the things she did on those other occasions with the fey were all the same ability and that this ability is one of those things Molly considers unusually valuable.

You need to distinguish the narrative storytelling of the QM from the vote of the players.
None of the stunts that were part of the winning vote did that; it was the QM looking at the roll, and deciding how it would make sense to portray it as part of an update.

There is only so far that narrative storytelling can interpret mechanical dice rolls.
If DragonParadox had instead written the update as Molly just shrugging and going "I cant share that" the roll would have been the same and Odin would have gotten the information anyway; if not during the conversation, by scrying on it afterwards.

As is, Odin managed a single net success. ONE.
Thats some information, but that is far from the detailed brief you appear to think it is.

BronzeTongue said:
Odin is one of the guys who would fear this most. Depending on how you want to read it that's an admonishment for telling him or the gentlest threat a guy like him can make; given who it is I'd say both.
This was by the numbers unforced error.

One: We didnt tell him.
The dude who trained the first Merlin is no slouch at divinatory magics.

Two: Strongly disagree. Odin is just one of the intelligence brokers on this planet; one of the best, yes, but by his own attestation there are people in his weight class. Anduriel, for example. And if you think One Eye hasnt drawn the appropriate conclusions from Molly still living at home after Exalting, you're not as sharp as I think you are.

TheGrape · Aug 21, 2024

Odin got lucky, or unlucky here.

Lucky that he beat Molly by 1 success. Unlucky that he got a clue about the most dangerous secret in existence, to him. Because if he tries prying any further, I'd vote for Molly to alpha-strike his ass by airing out all his weaknesses and secrets.

He really doesn't want to play this game, but he's unluckily good enough to tell Molly's hiding something under the tarp, but not good enough to tell it's a nuke. Again, he literally does not know he's playing with hellfire, even though he should be able to tell from context clues that he's out of his league.

uju32 · Aug 21, 2024

TheGrape said:
Odin got lucky, or unlucky here.
Lucky that he beat Molly by 1 success. Unlucky that he got a clue about the most dangerous secret in existence, to him. Because if he tries prying any further, I'd vote for Molly to alpha-strike his ass by airing out all his weaknesses and secrets.

He really doesn't want to play this game, but he's unluckily good enough to tell Molly's hiding something under the tarp, but not good enough to tell it's a nuke. Again, he literally does not know he's playing with hellfire, even though he should be able to tell from context clues that he's out of his league.

Thats about as implausible as @BronzeTongue's suggestion that Odin would get it it into his head to threaten or try to kill Molly for having access to superior divination.
Seriously, thats just silly.

Molly having intellectus puts her in a very rarefied tier of informed characters in the setting. It doesnt make her unique.
Odin already knew Molly was uncommonly well informed when Molly figured out that Donnar Vadderung = Odin = Santa Claus in a handfull of meetings, something that it took Harry Dresden around seven years to put together after his first hints back in Dead Beat.

And while there are always dumb shits who will take fright and start shit at the notion of their secrets being discoverable, the actual old players who live long enough to become pillars of the society are not, and have never been that stupid.

Seriously, Odin has a regular lunch with the Archangel Uriel once a year.

Battle Ground chapter 6 said:
I put my finger on the map. "Michael Carpenter's house. The Knights of Hope and Faith are there. Both of them."
"Two doughty foes," the Erlking noted. "And armed with fell blades. But only two."
"There's a dozen guardian angels on duty there at any given time," I said. "Part of Sir Michael's retirement package."

"We will not plan to use them," Vadderung said in a tone of absolute certainty. "Not the angels, and not the Knights. Not in any way. The being you call Mister Sunshine would be quite annoyed at the intrusion."

I arched an eyebrow at Vadderung. I was pretty sure I hadn't ever mentioned my nickname for Uriel to him.
Vadderung gave me a very bland look. "We have lunch once a year."

They talk.
We are far from the biggest fish in this pool.

TheGrape · Aug 21, 2024

uju32 said:
Molly having intellectus puts her in a very rarefied tier of informed characters in the setting. It doesnt make her unique.

Name someone who can ask what Big G is doing and get an answer. I'll wait.

uju32 said:
We are far from the biggest fish in this pool.

We are, however, the only fish in the pool with nuclear codes in our pocket. Knowledge is power, and when you can get any knowledge... even what can make Angels Fall...

A LOT of people would say screw everything and devote everything to killing Molly if they realized just how powerful her Crown is. That Odin is poking around is a direct threat to Molly and everything around her, and if he actually understood what secret she was hiding he wouldn't want to know. Ironic, considering his own lust for knowledge.

uju32 · Aug 21, 2024

TheGrape said:
Name someone who can ask what Big G is doing and get an answer. I'll wait.

We dont know.
The Dresden Files is written from the PoV of Dresden, who is still a baby in the setting's power plays and spends almost all his time in one city in one country of an entire planet.

Also worth remembering that we dont actually know that the Crown would work on big White G.
We're not even sure that it would work on a loyal angel; it would do something that Uriel would prefer not to happen, but that doesnt mean that it would be able to See.

Its not an unlimited power, as we can tell by how it goes null every time we point it at a decision that hasnt been made.

TheGrape said:
We are, however, the only fish in the pool with nuclear codes in our pocket. Knowledge is power, and when you can get any knowledge... even what can make Angels Fall...

A LOT of people would say screw everything and devote everything to killing Molly if they realized just how powerful her Crown is. That Odin is poking around is a direct threat to Molly and everything around her, and if he actually understood what secret she was hiding he wouldn't want to know. Ironic, considering his own lust for knowledge.

1) That is not true.
Ivy has the actual, literal nuclear codes in her head, as well as secrets of every faction that uses mortals in the setting. Everybody knows that she has those secrets and more in her head because how her power works is more or less public.

And she's not the only one, like when Nicodemus TOLD Harry about his brother before Harry even knew he had one.

===
2)Yes? A lot of people are also fucking stupid, what else is new?
That kind of information-gathering capability is valuable, and a lot of people and factions would devote effort to trying to get it under their control, or denying it to enemies.

Molly is young enough, mortal enough and new enough that the Taylor Hebert codicil would still kick in for most people who would take a look at a teenager and go "I can take them". Until she shanked them.
Thats the reality of many new Powers without an established Power explicitly backing them. People test them for vulnerability.

One of the benefits of the Fae favors that Molly is known to wield, and the company she is known to keep, is how they act as a passive filter to most opportunists, who might not believe in Molly's personal and organizational power, but believe very much in the power of Summer and Winter. And in Amoracchius the Dragonslayer.

Which deters most of the opportunistic riff-raff.

PS
We cannot make angels Fall. I dont know where you got that idea.

BoredMan · Aug 21, 2024

uju32 said:
That is not true

I think he was being metaphorical.

[X] Molly, you can probably blast though any trouble the fastest, not to mention use the Crown to track them down fast
-[X] Bring Sophia or Alex with her, leave the other in Last Station

TheGrape · Aug 21, 2024

DragonParadox said:
At a guess from Usum, you could ask such questions as 'How can this angel be most swayed to Fall?' and 'How would one go about destroying the Swords?' Knowledge is in a very real sense power and the more it is hidden the more power you get from unveiling it.

Uriel didn't want to meet until Molly promised not to peep.

The Archive knows everything written down. People just... don't write down their biggest weakness and they're good. Molly just asks, and receives. There's no easy countermeasures for her Crown.

You're arguing that Molly's Crown wouldn't work on Heaven... when Uriel personally asked Michael to ask Molly not to do so. When we could literally walk into Heaven (and probably get immediately obliterated but hey) with Exalted Sorcery.

Degorium · Aug 21, 2024

I don't know I'm partially of the thought that we should do what Mab did and cancel ours and Lydia Battle Dedt with him. In exchange for not getting severely pissy and fighting him for using sorcery to get at secret answers that were very explicitly not given. Even if it's not a fight we could win which I'm not saying it is that kind of behavior is definitely worth actually fighting someone over. If Mab can discharge a grand favor of winter just ending the enmity between us then we can discharge a battle by not having it with him.

uju32 · Aug 21, 2024

BoredMan said:
I think he was being metaphorical.

That doesnt appear to be what he's arguing.

TheGrape said:
Uriel didn't want to meet until Molly promised not to peep.

The Archive knows everything written down. People just... don't write down their biggest weakness and they're good. Molly just asks, and receives. There's no easy countermeasures for her Crown.

You're arguing that Molly's Crown wouldn't work on Heaven... when Uriel personally asked Michael to ask Molly not to do so. When we could literally walk into Heaven (and probably get immediately obliterated but hey) with Exalted Sorcery.

1) No, Uriel didnt predicate meeting based on Molly's promise; Molly didnt have to meet an angel to use the Crown, she could just go to church. That doesnt mean that the Crown would work on him, just that it had effects he would like to avoid.
Think of it this way; you can be bulletproof, and still decline to show up for a gunfight because of the risk of collateral damage.

2) Written AND spoken.
The Archive was created to also store knowledge from human cultures back when writing wasnt exactly common, and there were many human cultures who had no written records

Death Masks c10 said:
"Who are you?" I asked. "Why are you called the Archive?"
Ivy nodded. "The thorough explanation is too complex to convey to you here. But in short, I am the living memory of mankind."
"What do you mean, the living memory?"
"I am the sum of human knowledge, passed down from generation to generation, mother to daughter. Culture, science, philosophy, lore, tradition. I hold the accumulated memories of a thousand generations of mankind. I take in all that is written and spoken. I study. I learn. That is my purpose, to procure and preserve knowledge."
"So you're saying that if it's been written down, you know it?"
"I know it. I understand it."
I sat down slowly on the couch, and stared at her. Hell's bells. It was almost too much to comprehend. Knowledge is power, and if Ivy was telling me the truth, she knew more than anyone alive. "How did you get this gig?"
"My mother passed it on to me," she replied. "As I was born, just as she received it when she was born."
"And your mother lets a mercenary drive you around?"
"Certainly not. My mother is dead, wizard." She frowned. "Not dead, technically. But all that she knew and was came into me. She became an empty cup. A persistent vegetative state." Her eyes grew a little wistful, distant. "She's free of it. But she certainly isn't alive in the most vital sense."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"I wouldn't know why. I know my mother. And all before her." She put a finger to her temple. "It's all in here."

Death Masks Chapter 10, Page 101-102

All of that is in real time. Ivy is a horrifying security breach for anyone who has mortal minions.
There's no easy countermeasures for the Archive. And yet, Ivy is walking around.
Not entirely unmolested, because the Denarians did try their luck, but everyone else knew better.

3) Yes? The one perfect sensory modality in canon Dresden Files is the Sight, and we see the angel Amitiel shut that down too in Ghost Story so that Harry wouldnt hurt himself.
That Uriel doesnt want Molly using the Crown doesnt mean it will necessarily work on him.

It might mean that in doing so it disrupts some of his plans.
It could be that it would hurt Molly.
It might mean that he'd be forced to block it, and in doing so, that allows the Opposition to take free actions.

We dont know, and the QM might take it in any direction.

BoredMan · Aug 21, 2024

uju32 said:
Written AND spoken

That isn't how it works in Quest. DP said this earlier. Butcher seems to have retconned this as well.

Edit: Also this

uju32 said:
That doesnt mean that the Crown would work on him, just that it had effects he would like to avoid.

Butcher said directly that Nemesis and Uriel are a similar "power level" and the Crown does work on him so I doubt this interpretation is accurate.

uju32 · Aug 21, 2024

BoredMan said:
That isn't how it works in Quest. DP said this earlier. Butcher seems to have retconned this as well.

Can you refresh my memory?
I cant recall where that was said, and I dont think it was ever linked in the Informational tab.

TheGrape · Aug 21, 2024

DragonParadox said:
"Likely why this messenger came to your father and not to you Peerless Seer of Eternity," Usum is quick to point out. "If you had refused his request you could then ask a question of his nature and secrets, being under your eye."

An archangel did not show up to meet me because he was afraid of what you might learn of him, the idea sounded preposterous on one level and perfectly reasonable and all the more terrifying on another. You have never been more glad for a light change in your life.

DragonParadox said:
"The part of Uriel's message he asked me to give to you alone was a request. He said not to look into angels or heaven, or anything else that would reveal the mind of God in ways he does not mean to be revealed."

Considering the alternative to making the promise meant losing Michael as a Mentor 5, I think we can be pretty sure that Molly can in fact do what DP has written her to be capable of. Not sure why you keep arguing against the QM IC and OOC comments.

BoredMan · Aug 22, 2024

uju32 said:
Can you refresh my memory?
I cant recall where that was said, and I dont think it was ever linked in the Informational tab.

I asked about it earlier.

DragonParadox said:
Yes, it was retconed but not by me. When she gets kidnapped in Small Favor Harry writes a note to let her know help is coming, he does not just say it aloud. I guess she could have been lying too, but hat does not seem likely.

uju32 · Aug 22, 2024

BoredMan said:
Butcher said directly that Nemesis and Uriel are a similar "power level" and the Crown does work on him so I doubt this interpretation is accurate.

I think this point has been brought up before, and Ive pointed out that people are misunderstanding that sentence.
Biden and Kim Jung Un are similar power levels, both being heads of state.
They arent peer powers.

TheGrape said:
Considering the alternative to making the promise meant losing Michael as a Mentor 5, I think we can be pretty sure that Molly can in fact do what DP has written her to be capable of. Not sure why you keep arguing against the QM IC and OOC comments.

1) Usum's speculation is not actually fact. Note how he acknowledges its speculation.

2) Given as we have just gone through the plot point of it being established that some Charms can be opposed or turned off by antagonist wizards, I dont see your argument.

If Carlos is getting in to fuck with Transcendent Anathema and Iku Turso gets to turn VLE off, its not particularly surprising that a Vice President of Creation might get to bounce your intellectus when its pointed at him.
Demonreach gets to edit Harry's access to intellectus on the island when it so chooses.
=====

BoredMan said:
I asked about it earlier.

Thank you.

I dont think that was a retcon in the book, because that was just as much for Dresden's benefit that he was writing something as it was for Ivy's. Just like Ivy knows that Kincaid is going to Chicago to kill Harry(not Marcone, or any of the other supernaturals in the city) as soon as he gets off the phone line with him.

Furthermore, given how much of the world was based on oral history until education and writing supplies became cheap and ubiquitous, I doubt it.
But if the QM is playing it that way? *shrug*

BoredMan · Aug 22, 2024

uju32 said:
I think this point has been brought up before, and Ive pointed out that people are misunderstanding that sentence.
Biden and Kim Jung Un are similar power levels, both being heads of state.
They arent peer powers.

This is a bad comparison. Neither of those people have much in the way of actual power within themselves the same way purpose and power directly correlate in a literal way in DF. They are both human and any power they have comes from other people and the systems they rely on.

As was pointed out back then in order to read it any other way you need to not take the Word of God as it was stated and deliberately find another interpretation of it.

It just comes off as purposeful misinterpretation due to bias.

DragonParadox · Aug 22, 2024

Am feeling unwell, update may be much later

uju32 · Aug 22, 2024

BoredMan said:
This is a bad comparison. Neither of those people have much in the way of actual power within themselves the same way purpose and power directly correlate in a literal way in DF. They are both human and any power they have comes from other people and the systems they rely on.

As was pointed out back then in order to read it any other way you need to not take the Word of God as it was stated and deliberately find another interpretation of it.

It just comes off as purposeful misinterpretation due to bias.

I dont agree. The comparison is quite appropriate.
Biden and Kim Jung Un both wield authority based on their positions in their respective nationstates. If I used Mad Dog Mattis and Ri Yong-gil circa 2016, it would serve the same purpose.

If I stuck with the Dresden Files for examples, a similar comparison would be Arthur Langtry for the White Council and Carter LaChaise for the LaChaise clan. Their personal power is significant, but pales behind the power of their position as the heads of their respective factions.

Archangel Uriel gets a significant amount of his power, and all of his authority from his position in the White God's faction as one of the White God's principal agents. Angels report to him. Other archangels back him up, as does the White God. That same authority comes with responsibilities to carry out, and limits that he cant break without losing that authority.

Similarly, Nemesis is a Walker, one of the Knights of the Old Ones. Much of his power is based on who/what he serves.
To quote Blood Rites about a fellow Walker:

Summoning scene for He Who Walks Behind said:
And, better and better, the chant rolling from Madge's lips rose to a ringing crescendo. A wild, whirling wind rose within the center of the circle, catching her hair and spreading it in a cloud of dark-and-silver strands. As that happened, the tempo of her words shifted, and they shifted from that other tongue into English. "While here we wait, O hunter of the shadows! We who yearn for your shadow to fall upon our enemy! We who cry out in need for thy strength, O Lord of Slowest Terror! May your right arm come to us! Send unto us your captain of destruction! Mastercraftsman of death! Let now our need become the traveler's road, the vessel for He Who Walks Behind!"

Notice the invocation is to his boss, the Lord of Slowest Terror.

But you are entitled to your opinion.
I just think its wrong.

DragonParadox said:
Am feeling unwell, update may be much later

Take it easy.
There's a Covid surge going around again this summer; ask me how I know.

Might want to get yourself checked out.

Yog · Aug 22, 2024

uju32 said:
Molly having intellectus puts her in a very rarefied tier of informed characters in the setting. It doesnt make her unique.

It very much does, because all others don't have free will and are bound by Rules. Molly isn't.

uju32 said:
I think this point has been brought up before, and Ive pointed out that people are misunderstanding that sentence.
Biden and Kim Jung Un are similar power levels, both being heads of state.
They arent peer powers.

Yes. Kim Jung Un is more powerful. No, seriously, in terms of "how many people he can make suffer" Kim Jung Un is more powerful. And the statement was directly about power. You are just trying to twist it in a way that makes Uriel more powerful.

Goldfish · Aug 22, 2024

[X] uju32

BoredMan · Aug 22, 2024

uju32 said:
I dont agree. The comparison is quite appropriate.

No it isn't. You only think so because your deliberately choosing not to read Butcher's statement the way it was given and have found your very own definition for "power level" to apply here.

That's why you think the metaphor works, not because it makes sense here. A better comparison would be Mab and Titania.

uju32 said:
Similarly, Nemesis is a Walker, one of the Knights of the Old Ones.

No idea what this is supposed to prove. I'll just remind you that Outsiders are limited in what they can do in reality, especially without all of themselves there.

uju32 said:
But you are entitled to your opinion.
I just think its wrong.

Hardly just my opinion. The vast majority would see it this way, your just being thick headed and obtuse about it. If Butcher meant something else he would've used different wording. He used a well known term with a commonly accepted meaning.

Edit: Wording.

BronzeTongue · Aug 22, 2024

uju32 said:
No we did not.

You need to distinguish the narrative storytelling of the QM from the vote of the players.
None of the stunts that were part of the winning vote did that; it was the QM looking at the roll, and deciding how it would make sense to portray it as part of an update.

There is only so far that narrative storytelling can interpret mechanical dice rolls.
If DragonParadox had instead written the update as Molly just shrugging and going "I cant share that" the roll would have been the same and Odin would have gotten the information anyway; if not during the conversation, by scrying on it afterwards.

As is, Odin managed a single net success. ONE.
Thats some information, but that is far from the detailed brief you appear to think it is.

One: We didnt tell him.
The dude who trained the first Merlin is no slouch at divinatory magics.

Two: Strongly disagree. Odin is just one of the intelligence brokers on this planet; one of the best, yes, but by his own attestation there are people in his weight class. Anduriel, for example. And if you think One Eye hasnt drawn the appropriate conclusions from Molly still living at home after Exalting, you're not as sharp as I think you are.

A net success on one side shouldn't change the initiation of a conversation, but in any case stonewalling him like that didn't take the opportunity to set an alternative to muddy the waters.

Odin is an intelligence broker and a man with an obscene number of secrets. I don't think he was threatening to immediately murder Molly or has failed to make the obvious observations about her relationship with the church, but when a guy standing on a huge pile of secrets tell you that people with something to hide aren't going to be happy about something it implicitly puts him in the same group.

uju32 · Aug 22, 2024

Courtesy of insomnia, here's a stunt
====
VOTE
[] STUNT: Ninety seconds and a change of clothes later, you're stepping back into the lounge, slipping antidote patches, tampons and other medical supplies into cargo pant pockets and fanny pack as you enter. "Carlos." He turns towards you from the trainees, even as you adjust your earpiece, then begin to stuff your hair under a beanie. "I need a note to Morgan and the guys with him. Your handwriting, with whatever the current no-duress passwords are. You as well, Harry." You pause to shrug on your vest. "And a dollar." His double-take is hilarious, but before you can explain, you're interrupted by the abrupt arrival of Song of Perennial Hours Intrinsically Ascending. "Sanc is on standby. Rapid deployment teams are gearing up just in case." Sophia rattles off, more for the benefit of everyone else than you. "Ready in ten or less. Alex will be along in a minute. Pods is home, talking to Mom and Dad." She pauses for a moment. "Mom's not happy." You share a wince.

=====

Yog said:
It very much does, because all others don't have free will and are bound by Rules. Molly isn't.

Correction:
Most others we have met appear to have less free will. Thats not the same thing as having no agency, or lacking an ability to act in their perceived interests. Keep that in mind.

Yog said:
Yes. Kim Jung Un is more powerful. No, seriously, in terms of "how many people he can make suffer" Kim Jung Un is more powerful. And the statement was directly about power. You are just trying to twist it in a way that makes Uriel more powerful.

Thats like saying that because Carter LaChaise, head of the LaChaise clan of ghouls can abuse his faction members more freely, that it makes him as powerful, or more so, than Arthur Langtry, Merlin of the White Council.

Remember, I was the one who provided that original quote in a WoJ dump almost two years ago:

Questions said:
1: How fast could Lash teach magic? The bit about being able to teach Harry how to heal his hand in Dead Beat implied that it was several dozen times faster than normal (because there's no way he'd be able to pick up healing before his hand healed normally on his own).
2: How exactly would the version of Changes where Harry does the Darkhallow have gone afterwards? It seems like the kind of thing that would burn his bridges with absolutely everybody.
3: You've previously mentioned that Morgan might appear in book 17 (Mirror Mirror), is that still on track?
4: Can you tell us more about the details of how Ways work and how two people working in the same spot can end up in different places?
5: Will the Shapeshifting Guru from the Ukraine mentioned in the list of freeholding lords in White Night play a role in the series or will it be like the Jade Court and not appear in the series?
6: Why did the half-turned Red Court and Cassius experience sped-up aging the moment they lost the thing stopping their aging? Shouldn't they have just gone back to aging at normal rate if the Red Court half of them was just pressing the proverbial pause button?
7: Did He Who Walks Behind slow down time around the clerk who tried to run in Ghost Story? If no, how was he slowed down?
EDIT: Why could Harry understand Sharkface's name while He Who Walks Behind's name was just an impression that HWWB gave him?

Answers said:
1) Teach it? VERY quickly. She could alter your perception of time and give you months of pure mental lessons in an evening. If she just did it for you while you sit in the passenger seat? She can do that instantly.

2) Well, with the White Council for sure, and with a lot of human authorities. But if he'd become a friggin' necromancer, he would have found his allies among the dead and dead-adjacent, and things would have generally been a lot gothier.

3) Maybe.

4) I can.

5) Can't think of a reason to have him around for Harry's story. Might be a different case in a spinoff.

6) Because it wasn't pressing pause. It was just sustaining them for the duration of the transformation. Once the transformation dropped them back into their mortal form again, it was time to pay the piper. They paid for their life with life, the way all vampires do. They just chose not to take someone else's. But younger half-vamps, like Susan, would have been okay, just older and a lot more tired.

7) HHWB, being a Walker, is an outsider on a power level similar to Uriel. He can do all KINDS of stuff. But also has a lot of weird limits as to when and where he can use his power.

Source:

Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files) Crossover - Fantasy

Molly Carpenter... neophyte wizard, prisoner of the fey and technically a warlock, now champion of the forgotten Hells whose masters have faded from the universe long ago. If the Yozi could laugh from beyond oblivion they would. Also Harry Dresden did technically set the green fire....

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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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