He had the time to dispatch agents to arrange an ambush of McCoy in the NeverNever.
I think its safe to assume that he isnt simultaneously throwing the entirety of the Hidden Halls into chaos and trying to undo the foundational magics of the Hidden Halls with 1-2 wizards.
At the very least, I would assume that the 5x European and 12x African conspirators are here as well, because similar time zones as Scotland. While the Latin American, NeverNever and Asian ones couldnt make it.
Roughly 50% is my guess. Or at least, my hope; the full ~50 here would be....an issue.
He had agents in place to do that beforehand, the time trap had been established well prior to this.
I don't think it's credible to claim that he'd move that many people that quickly to the Halls, or that he'd seriously be planning to make excuses for all of them after the fact so they can keep their jobs. It's too obvious a movement, especially because he didn't know he needed to do any of this until very recently.
If he did do that we shouldn't have made it to the Halls. He caught us outside and had people on us. Deploying a bigger force to keep us pinned would have been significantly more effective.
1)Ready for mayhem.
Ready to use killing magic against other mortal wizards, while said other wizards arent because of the First Law.
The First Law isnt quite as inflexible as people make out, since it does allow for self-defence, but its notable that the White Council didnt kill Kemmler with magic, but with mortal weapons.
You would be kicking off a situation where the conspirators have a tactical advantage
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2)We have no evidence of exactly what happened during that murder except from the mouth of Morgan on his deathbed.
And Morgan was incentivized to do his best to protect Luccio, so not exactly an impartial observer.
Especially since Peabody allegedly wanted Luccio to be caught.
There are multiple options for using mind-control, from deception to a backup personality, so we dont know whats in play here.
He did get her to go off to Chicago and use magic pretty freely in the process of getting close to Dresden and watching him for Peabody.
====
3) The fulltime pre-War Wardens numbered around 200.
They lost almost 150 during Dead Beat; by the time of Turn Coat, they were coming close to 300 again. They dont have very many fulltime HQ staff in addition to that.
I think you are significantly overestimating the number of people who are here day to day.
Note how LaFortier was murdered and noone saw Morgan get Luccio out of the crime scene.
And in this scene, we have been explicitly told that Luccio sent a lot of Wardens away before shit popped off.
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4)Simple, no.
But given that he appears to have way more resources now than in canon, including a bona fide patron that has given him Nephandi Investments, its safe to assume that he has at least as much as he did in canon.
Ashraaaf didnt give Peabody good enough magic to contest Exalted perception charms and then omit giving him anything else.
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5)We do need full trust.
You are essentially asking people that other wizards, the people who watch their back are going to be using killing magic and other Law-breaking sorcery against them, and to be willing to use magic of the same scale in return.
Thats very much a situation where you need More People
1) The Wardens hunt warlocks, this isn't a new problem for them.
The traitors are killing people right now, and want to kill everyone here. Your plan is to leave the tools they're using to do so in their hands because they're more dangerous without it, which is ridiculous. We're taking away a tactical advantage, not giving one to them.
2) That's bullshit. Doubt about Morgan's trustworthiness isn't evidence of your point and we have no reason to believe he was lying.
That's also not what he did; he carefully managed to make her do something part of her already wanted to do anyway, which put her in position to make other choices that involved magic. This is in no way the same as using someone as a casting drone where you force them to make the choice to use magic. The more you twist someone's head in the DF the less stable they become mentally. He can't do that for the same reasons Holt couldn't shell Matthews like a pistachio and make him perform the black feast ritual for her.
The DF just don't allow for that much freedom with mind magic.
3) And yet we ran into some right by the door, and some people can't leave while doing their jobs. I don't really see why you keep hammering the point that this event doesn't matter anyway. Clearly it does, and the reasons are only partially effected by the number of people here.
This doesn't support any relevant argument about the situation we're in.
4) He was already an outsider asset in canon. Further, if you go with the option that he has more assets and has always had more assets because of background changes to the setting then he shouldn't have ever acted in a way that put the council in a similar situation to canon.
He'd have to be a blithering idiot to squander his advantages that badly.
It makes more sense to assume that on the backend the system as it stands required all the assets he has now to get as far with this council as he did with the canon one.
5) So are you. You're just not saying who the threat is from. It's the same problem but with everyone around them instead of at least a few specific names.
I wasn't asking the crown anything with that though? I basically meant to name people Molly thinks are important first. If the only stand out is Peabody then the order doesn't matter.
Edit:
Seriously, it's worth remembering that this isn't WoD and magic doesn't work the same even if we're using the basic system.
None of the wizards here have Avatars or have any idea what paradox is. The mind sphere not being as free to apply would not be the biggest difference we've seen here.
We would have met them and rolled them over in the first three seconds/1 combat turn.
Thats what happens when you have 20+ party members with 20+ actions in the first combat turn, running into 7x opponents.
Similarly, we'd spend half the time Tiffany is spending saving lives because we would have two healers on the scene.
Action economy fucking matters. Thats how you save time and move fast enough to disrupt the enemy, instead of getting bogged down by fights and traps and the like
So you mean exactly what just happened but there would be more people here. That 15 seconds I Mentioned was If we were Solo we still have at least 5 people not including us. this entire engagement wouldn't have been resolved any faster by having more people.
That you can feel something is happening bears no relationship to its progression and how far along it is.
A single set of earth tremors is not, and has never been indicative of just how much threat a building is currently under.
Ask any Californian native.
I'm Sure that a Inland 500-1000 year old Scottish castle is built to same safety standards as a modern California mega building /s. Nevermind that the most powerful earthquake in Scotland ever recorded wouldn't be able to collapse a wooden Shack never mind a castle I'm sure this castle was built with earthquakes in mind.
You have no idea what the criteria that Peabody et al have exercised for recruitment is.
You have no idea who the members are, what investments they might possess or what spirit contracts and allies they might have in their retinue, what Gifts or blessings they might have, or what fetishes they might be carrying in their pockets.
For all you know, they are ALL brawny combat wizards and summoners.
Two of them were certainly able to set up a time trap for Blackstaff McCoy, and when that failed, had access to Hellfire.
Right back at You you also have none of that info, but unlike the white council he only has warlocks to choose from very specifically reduces both the skill and and ability pool of the wizards he has.
This assertion about wizards is unsupported speculation.
There is nothing I can recall in Dresdenverse mythology that makes wizards "hellish on things that cant fight back" as you put it.
There are no canon feats that support any such assertion either.
I Could point to dozens of destroyed building, satellites pulled from orbit, Techbane in general just by presence. Nevermind "things" cant counterspell so just have to absorb damage, Entropy curses, Matter spells, Force Spells the list goes on.
This is him still being fancy in the hope that he can create enough chaos to maintain his position and Council access in the aftermath; if he actually thought he was outed, he wouldnt be bothering.
He's had an hour. The floor would be awash in blood.
That just isn't how any thing works. In both Mage the Ascension and Dresden Files Magic allows Wizards to fight against mind control if he gave any level of command to most of the white Council membership they would immediately get to start rolling to resist him and they do in Canon that's why he kills one of them that is about to break from his control when he's running from Dresden.
If he issued a mass command out right now his co-conspirators would be one caught in it. Two outed for not following them the second anyone broke from control and helped break anyone else out. Three it would fail to do anything because he can't actually command people to use Magic.
There is no magic in Dresden Files that allows the apparent complete subsumption of another being if you aren't a spirit. In Mage the Ascension you require Master Level magic(Mind 5) and you must completely crush the Will(Power) of another human being to be able to do it. Even then they still have opportunities to Buck off your control.
That isn't definitively true He was part of the Black council In cannon as well. Never mind the fact that a lot of the areas you are mentioning would definitely be suspicious if 13-10 or any amount of wizards just got up and left and tried to go into the never-never and move across the world.
They'll be outing themselves to save Peabody even with prior warning that's not enough they would be going to hiding and not trying to fight a losing battle in Edinburgh.
This is before the fact that Wizards just do not have access to instantaneous Communications at all even with Spirit help that would still take more time than what he has for them to both get the message prepare for a trip through the never never and get through the never never and arrive it's too long.
The conspirators already know there's no hope of surviving this day.
Molly identified Nemesis in Maeve, literally its greatest scheme. Molly identified literally every single Ninfected in Summer and Winter without ever appearing to investigate them personally. It's pretty obvious Molly has info supremacy and only an idiot would think they're somehow special and protected from someone of Molly's demonstrated power.
It's a horrible idea to keep the other wizards in the dark: at the very least, having all the wizards be paranoid will save them from getting stabbed in the back, a wizard's greatest weakness. Currently only the conspirators are aware and prepared for trouble, we need to make sure everyone else is ready for betrayal.
Updating my plan to add AtP with excellency, bringing our net essence change since entering the Halls from +4 down to +1, and clarify who we should name.
He had agents in place to do that beforehand, the time trap had been established well prior to this.
I don't think it's credible to claim that he'd move that many people that quickly to the Halls, or that he'd seriously be planning to make excuses for all of them after the fact so they can keep their jobs. It's too obvious a movement, especially because he didn't know he needed to do any of this until very recently.
If he did do that we shouldn't have made it to the Halls. He caught us outside and had people on us. Deploying a bigger force to keep us pinned would have been significantly more effective.
I dont think thats plausible.
Possible, but not plausible. McCoy does not clear his itinerary with Peabody, and has been aware, like the other Senior Council members, that there was an insider threat in the Council since the events of Dead Beat.
And the NeverNever is neither stable enough nor safe enough for a physical trap location.
The attack on him required a rendezvous with trusted people who triggered the trap.
That speaks to a physical, mobile item that could be repositioned, along the lines of the amulet that Madrigal Raith tried to use on Molly during the Raith party.
I dont think its credible to claim that Peabody's conspiracy are trying to crack the centuries old wards on the Hidden Halls with a skeleton crew. Even the the Vegas chaos ritual required a ton of casters to give Sandra Marling help, and that was with them not actually having any magical opposition. Unlike here.
When you are going up against the work of multiple long-dead archmages, you need a significant number of casters to work quickly. He needs the manpower to have even a fraction of a hope of both keeping the occupants of the Halls confused and to continue trying to crack the wards on the Halls.
My current working hypothesis is that this is something that Peabody already had planned, and Molly just crashed into.
Much like Vegas.
Still a hypothesis though.
1) The Wardens hunt warlocks, this isn't a new problem for them.
The traitors are killing people right now, and want to kill everyone here. Your plan is to leave the tools they're using to do so in their hands because they're more dangerous without it, which is ridiculous. We're taking away a tactical advantage, not giving one to them.
2) That's bullshit. Doubt about Morgan's trustworthiness isn't evidence of your point and we have no reason to believe he was lying.
That's also not what he did; he carefully managed to make her do something part of her already wanted to do anyway, which put her in position to make other choices that involved magic. This is in no way the same as using someone as a casting drone where you force them to make the choice to use magic. The more you twist someone's head in the DF the less stable they become mentally. He can't do that for the same reasons Holt couldn't shell Matthews like a pistachio and make him perform the black feast ritual for her.
The DF just don't allow for that much freedom with mind magic.
3) And yet we ran into some right by the door, and some people can't leave while doing their jobs. I don't really see why you keep hammering the point that this event doesn't matter anyway. Clearly it does, and the reasons are only partially effected by the number of people here.
This doesn't support any relevant argument about the situation we're in.
4) He was already an outsider asset in canon. Further, if you go with the option that he has more assets and has always had more assets because of background changes to the setting then he shouldn't have ever acted in a way that put the council in a similar situation to canon.
He'd have to be a blithering idiot to squander his advantages that badly.
It makes more sense to assume that on the backend the system as it stands required all the assets he has now to get as far with this council as he did with the canon one.
5) So are you. You're just not saying who the threat is from. It's the same problem but with everyone around them instead of at least a few specific names.
1)The vast majority of these guys are not OG Wardens. Note the lack of Warden swords.
When going after Lawbreakers, the Wardens generally had the advantage of both numerical superiority, dedicated training, and Luccio's special counterspelling swords. Luccio has not made a counterspelling sword since the Darkhallow killed ~150/200 of the serving Wardens two years ago. No Warden since Harry was appointed has a sword.
That means, counting normal combat attrition, there are less than 50 of those things still around, and Luccio already sent most of the Wardens that were in the Halls away. Any Warden you see without a sword is less than 2 years old at the job.
Lots of babies.
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2) Nonsense.
This isnt doubt about Morgan's trustworthiness; its doubt about his credibility as a witness.
His judgement with regards to Luccio was impaired, he was dying at the time, and we have no further corroboration.
This does not mean he was intentionally trying to deceive.
It does mean he can be mistaken, or see what he wants to see, or remembering wrong.
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3) We didnt run into any by the door as we entered.
These guys were deep inside the complex, well after we had split up into A-team and B-team.
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4) Point of correction:
Peabody was a traitor, and likely Black Council, but there is no evidence that he was an Outsider asset in canon. The hints are that he was Black Council linked, but he did not appear to have any direct links to or cooperation with the greater conspiracy in the Council that put Cristos on the Senior Council.
You dont have to be an Outsider asset to summon an Outsider. Much like demons, they will happily destroy.
As for the accusations of idiocy, we've been explicitly told that its greed thats been holding the conspirators back:
Arc 14.6 said:
Closing your eyes like you're trying to think, which you are you ask the closest expert on paranoia available: "Usum what do you make of all this?"
"Diverse methods of subversion, diverse mechanisms implanted, imperfect to a degree that makes open force unacceptable, an unacceptable risk... Consider the old sorcerer, the 'Hollow One' as you call him, he must have been cultivating the plot for decades if not centuries, slowly worming his way in. What odds are acceptable when what is risked is so valuable so unique? No such infiltration could be achieved again, not by the same means, not to the same scale." It's looking for a sure bet... The only thing that's kept the Council from catastrophic loss so far is the conspirators being gun-shy or greedy. Your stomach lurches with the realization even as you maintain a still worried but not yet horrified look, an eight instead of the eleven on the Oh-Shit-o-Meter as it were. Now you're fighting nervous laughter. Good job Molly you feel like someone who can save the world...
"There is no one else in this place and with this knowledge Majesty Ever-Wise," Usum points out, his usual compliments tinged with something like sympathy.
=====
5) Nuh uh.
Im voting for them to come to the Warden Barracks, where we can hopefully either meet other Senior Council members, or put together enough wizards to go out and sweep the complex comprehensively.
I am not outing a bunch of homicidal conspirators in close proximity to people who are not equipped or allowed to handle their bullshit with no notice.
So you mean exactly what just happened but there would be more people here. That 15 seconds I Mentioned was If we were Solo we still have at least 5 people not including us. this entire engagement wouldn't have been resolved any faster by having more people.
Literally just spent twice the time healing people, my dude.
And this is a situation where almost everything went right; we detected the ambush, counterspelling went off perfectly, Molly got to act multiple times, none of the opposition rolled extremely well.
Outsiders ARE NeverNever beings. At least, thats the cover story used
The NeverNever is where the Outer Gates are located. Harry calls the mistwraith an Outsider in Cold Days.
I snorted. "You missed out on the end. I hit that thing with my best shot, and I barely made it uncomfortable. It didn't leave because I hurt it. It left because it didn't expect me to fight clear of its whammy, and it didn't want to take any chances that I might get lucky and prevent it from reporting to its superiors."
"Still ran," Thomas said. "Yeah, that mind-meld thing was awful, but the bastard wasn't all that bad." I sighed. "That little creep Peabody dropped one Outsider on a meeting of the Council. The best wizards in the world were all in that one room and took it on together, and the thing still managed to murder a bunch of them. It's hard to make magic stick to Outsiders. It's hard to make them leave. It's hard to hurt them. It's hard to make them die. They're insanely violent, insanely powerful, and just plain insane. But that isn't what makes them dangerous."
"Uh," Thomas said. "It isn't? Then what is?"
"They work together," I said quietly. "Near as we can tell, they all work together."
I'm Sure that a Inland 500-1000 year old Scottish castle is built to same safety standards as a modern California mega building /s. Nevermind that the most powerful earthquake in Scotland ever recorded wouldn't be able to collapse a wooden Shack never mind a castle I'm sure this castle was built with earthquakes in mind.
Its not a castle.
The Hidden Halls are just that, hidden; an underground tunnel network underneath Edinburgh, with the primary HQ complex underneath Castle Rock. Think Moria, just smaller.
The building standards necessary to build something that deep underneath tens or hundreds of meters of volcanic rock is very much up to, if not superior to the building standards of any modern building.
Especially since noone has been doing maintenance on that place since the wizards got it from the Fae a millenium ago.
For comparison, the design lifespan of a modern California skyscraper is around 100 years or so
Right back at You you also have none of that info, but unlike the white council he only has warlocks to choose from very specifically reduces both the skill and and ability pool of the wizards he has.
We saw the detailed process by which Shaw was turned from a respectable, Law-abiding wizard into a warlock. We also explicitly know that the conspiracy has lost and replaced two wizards since Molly first scryed them a couple months ago.
They are specifically picked.
I Could point to dozens of destroyed building, satellites pulled from orbit, Techbane in general just by presence. Nevermind "things" cant counterspell so just have to absorb damage, Entropy curses, Matter spells, Force Spells the list goes on.
That just isn't how any thing works. In both Mage the Ascension and Dresden Files Magic allows Wizards to fight against mind control if he gave any level of command to most of the white Council membership they would immediately get to start rolling to resist him and they do in Canon that's why he kills one of them that is about to break from his control when he's running from Dresden.
If he issued a mass command out right now his co-conspirators would be one caught in it. Two outed for not following them the second anyone broke from control and helped break anyone else out. Three it would fail to do anything because he can't actually command people to use Magic.
There is no magic in Dresden Files that allows the apparent complete subsumption of another being if you aren't a spirit. In Mage the Ascension you require Master Level magic(Mind 5) and you must completely crush the Will(Power) of another human being to be able to do it. Even then they still have opportunities to Buck off your control.
That is not true.
We explicitly saw Peabody shutting down groups of Wardens in Turn Coat with the code word "The end is nigh".
I rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of Peabody, running up ahead of me. He turned another corner, and by the time I rounded that one, I had gained several steps on him. We blew through Administration and passed the Warden barracks, where three Wardens who were still freaking teenagers, the dangerous babies we'd hurried through military training for the war, emerged from the doors twenty feet ahead of Peabody.
"The end is nigh!" he snarled.
All three of them froze in their tracks, their expressions going blank, and Peabody went through the group, puffing, and knocked one of them down. I pushed harder, and he started glancing over his shoulder, his eyes wide.
He ducked around the next corner, and my instincts twigged to what he was about to try. I came around the corner and flung myself into a diving roll, and a spray of conjured liquid hissed as it went by overhead. It smacked against the wall behind me with a frantic chewing noise, like a thousand bottles of carbonated soda all shaken and simultaneously opened.
I hadn't had time to recharge my energy rings, and they were still on my dresser back home, but I didn't want Peabody to get comfortable taking shots at me over his shoulder. I lifted my right hand, snarled, "Fuego!" and sent a basketball-sized comet of fire flying down the hallway at him.
He spat out a few words and made a one-handed defensive gesture that reminded me of Doctor Strange, and my attacking spell splashed against something invisible a good three feet short of him. Even so, some of it wound up setting the hem of his formal robes on fire, and he frantically shucked out of it as he continued to flee.
I made up even more distance on him, and as he turned into one of the broad main hallways of the complex, I wasn't twenty feet away, and the first security checkpoint was right in front of us. Four Wardens, all of them young, manned the gate—which was to say that, since all the grown-ups, grandpas, and fussbudgets who might object were at the trial, they were sitting on the floor playing cards.
"Stop that man!" I shouted.
Peabody shrieked, obviously terrified, "Dresden's gone warlock! He's trying to kill me!"
The young Wardens bounced to their feet with the reaction speed of youth. One of them reached for his staff, and another drew his gun. A third turned and made sure the gate was locked—and the fourth acted on pure instinct, whipping her hand around her head in a tight circle and making a throwing gesture as she shouted.
I brought up my shield in time to intercept an invisible bowling ball, but the impact hit the shield with enough force to stop me cold. My legs weren't ready for that, and I staggered, bouncing a shoulder off of one wall. Peabody 's eyes gleamed with triumph as I fell, and he snapped, "The end is nigh!" freezing the young Wardens in place, as he'd done before. He ripped the key on its leather thong from around the neck of one of the Wardens, opened the gate, then turned with a dagger in his hand and sliced it along the thigh of the young woman who had clobbered me. She cried out and her leg began spurting blood in rhythm with her heart, a telltale sign of a severed artery.
I got back to my feet and hurled a club of raw force at Peabody, but he defeated it as he had the fireball, leapt through the gate, and ripped at the air, peeling open a passage between this world and the next.
They didnt get a scene where they got a dramatic struggle.
Just shut down.
That isn't definitively true He was part of the Black council In cannon as well. Never mind the fact that a lot of the areas you are mentioning would definitely be suspicious if 13-10 or any amount of wizards just got up and left and tried to go into the never-never and move across the world.
They'll be outing themselves to save Peabody even with prior warning that's not enough they would be going to hiding and not trying to fight a losing battle in Edinburgh.
This is before the fact that Wizards just do not have access to instantaneous Communications at all even with Spirit help that would still take more time than what he has for them to both get the message prepare for a trip through the never never and get through the never never and arrive it's too long.
We dont even know what the Black Council is; its a hypothesis by Harry which has yet to be sufficiently corroborated.
There was no evidence that Peabody was part of the Black Council. He had allies, and there are hints that he was tied in with Cowl, but thats as much as we know. Its hardly beyond plausibility for two or more conspiracies to have been active in the canon White Council.
Wizards already do this.
And in this AU, Peabody is apparently head of local operations under Ashraaaf, according to the impression that the Crown gave us. If he called, or if Ashraaaf did, they would move.
Somebody was looking through the eyes of the kids in Last Station in real time.
So no, while not all wizards have access to instantaneous communication, some do.
Which is why I said only 50%
Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Sep 20, 2024 at 8:52 PM, finished with 77 posts and 16 votes.
[X] Send a shout through the tunnels as Tiffany suggests
-[X] Leadership excellency, FPoR, BSM
-[X] AtP and Etiquette excellency to mask from the conspirators
-[X] Name the traitors we know to be present in order of importance as time allows.
-[X] [Stunt]: As the wizards prepared their spell Molly took a moment to center herself. With the beat of a red drum thrumming through her bones she stretched, reaching for one note of the song.
—[X] Opening eyes she did not realize she'd closed, Molly nodded to her companions and took a breath.
—[X] Her voice did not so much carry her words as carve them into the silence. Even where there was other sound they seemed to carry their own hush about them like a cloak, something terrible and sublime seizing attention with all the remorseless strength of the gravity pinning them to Earth.
—[X] "Wizards of the White Council, you have been betrayed. Glamoured warlocks walk the Halls and kill by stealth in the name of distant masters. I have masked this message from them as best as I am able to give you an advantage. Peabody and his stooges have desecrated free will of many. Teachers, shield your students' minds. Students, guard your teachers' lives. We rally at the Warden's Barracks."
I'm changing my vote because I just realized BronzeTongue changed his plan so we'd use three motes of essence on this. That isn't necessary at all and diminishing returns are a thing.
Molly just used Mind Hand Manipulation too right after getting four more so with his plan we'd be back to where we started.
[X] Send a shout through the tunnels as Tiffany suggests
I'm hesitant about increasing the burn, but this does seem like an opportunity to turn this situation around at a strategic level. With the willpower of the high end wizards I'm not sure if AtP would stick unless we spend for excellency, unless @DragonParadox meant that they don't get a roll at all because shouting near them doesn't trigger a defensive roll at all.
… then again it's a willpower roll and willpower point, and most people don't spend those easily. Sure this is important, but they have to choose to spend before knowing it's important so it unlikely they'll do it. Gorfel shot Molly and then made her forget she needed to use her perfect mental defense right after, so I think it's safe to say this is an exploitable mechanic.
I hate to waffle so much, but we are on a budget and that point could make a difference.
[X] Send a shout through the tunnels as Tiffany suggests
-[X] Leadership excellency, FPoR, BSM
-[X] AtP to mask from the conspirators
-[X] Name the traitors we know to be present in order of importance as time allows.
-[X] [Stunt]: As the wizards prepared their spell Molly took a moment to center herself. With the beat of a red drum thrumming through her bones she stretched, reaching for one note of the song.
—[X] Opening eyes she did not realize she'd closed, Molly nodded to her companions and took a breath.
—[X] Her voice did not so much carry her words as carve them into the silence. Even where there was other sound they seemed to carry their own hush about them like a cloak, something terrible and sublime seizing attention with all the remorseless strength of the gravity pinning them to Earth.
—[X] "Wizards of the White Council, you have been betrayed. Glamoured warlocks walk the Halls and kill by stealth in the name of distant masters. I have masked this message from them as best as I am able to give you an advantage. Peabody and his stooges have desecrated free will of many. Teachers, shield your students' minds. Students, guard your teachers' lives. We rally at the Warden's Barracks."
I dont think thats plausible.
Possible, but not plausible. McCoy does not clear his itinerary with Peabody, and has been aware, like the other Senior Council members, that there was an insider threat in the Council since the events of Dead Beat.
And the NeverNever is neither stable enough nor safe enough for a physical trap location.
The attack on him required a rendezvous with trusted people who triggered the trap.
That speaks to a physical, mobile item that could be repositioned, along the lines of the amulet that Madrigal Raith tried to use on Molly during the Raith party.
"Was this in the Nevernever?" you cut in before he can say more. As it turns out it was. Someone had gotten word to at least some of the wizards who had been there, or some of the ones who were alerted had gone after McCoy. "How prepared did they seem?"
"Oh... I've no doubt that trap's been there for a while, but if it was waiting for today in particular I'll eat my hat, the good one."
I dont think its credible to claim that Peabody's conspiracy are trying to crack the centuries old wards on the Hidden Halls with a skeleton crew. Even the the Vegas chaos ritual required a ton of casters to give Sandra Marling help, and that was with them not actually having any magical opposition. Unlike here.
When you are going up against the work of multiple long-dead archmages, you need a significant number of casters to work quickly. He needs the manpower to have even a fraction of a hope of both keeping the occupants of the Halls confused and to continue trying to crack the wards on the Halls.
My current working hypothesis is that this is something that Peabody already had planned, and Molly just crashed into.
Much like Vegas.
Still a hypothesis though.
I don't think he could just snap his fingers and get people moved around like that. Not with any stealth. Maybe he got more people, but I don't think he got too many. Remember the cancer wizard was recruited specifically because he had a good excuse to pass through frequently.
1)The vast majority of these guys are not OG Wardens. Note the lack of Warden swords.
When going after Lawbreakers, the Wardens generally had the advantage of both numerical superiority, dedicated training, and Luccio's special counterspelling swords. Luccio has not made a counterspelling sword since the Darkhallow killed ~150/200 of the serving Wardens two years ago. No Warden since Harry was appointed has a sword.
That means, counting normal combat attrition, there are less than 50 of those things still around, and Luccio already sent most of the Wardens that were in the Halls away. Any Warden you see without a sword is less than 2 years old at the job.
Lots of babies.
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2) Nonsense.
This isnt doubt about Morgan's trustworthiness; its doubt about his credibility as a witness.
His judgement with regards to Luccio was impaired, he was dying at the time, and we have no further corroboration.
This does not mean he was intentionally trying to deceive.
It does mean he can be mistaken, or see what he wants to see, or remembering wrong.
=====
3) We didnt run into any by the door as we entered.
These guys were deep inside the complex, well after we had split up into A-team and B-team.
1) I do tell them to rally around their teachers. These guys have at least some experience and aren't idiots. Especially since new warden doesn't mean new wizard or even one that's bad in a fight. Harry doesn't have a warden sword and he's gotten in more fights than anyone in his age group.
2) It is the only canon information about what happened. Morgan is intimately aware of what black magic looks like, and certainly wasn't dying when he came upon the scene. He could have taken that secret to his grave if he wanted to protect her from being a known law breaker.
I could make the same argument you are for the idea that he really did commit the murder but Peabody made him hallucination Lucio's involvement to compromise his judgment. If you're going to discard the entirety of the canon source for this all arguments are equally insubstantial.
3) My bad there, but we split pretty early so I still think the timing of our encounter favors more of them being around over less.
4) Point of correction:
Peabody was a traitor, and likely Black Council, but there is no evidence that he was an Outsider asset in canon. The hints are that he was Black Council linked, but he did not appear to have any direct links to or cooperation with the greater conspiracy in the Council that put Cristos on the Senior Council.
You dont have to be an Outsider asset to summon an Outsider. Much like demons, they will happily destroy.
As for the accusations of idiocy, we've been explicitly told that its greed thats been holding the conspirators back:
He had the shoggoth in War Cry and the mistfiend in Turn Coat. He was definitely black council and mucking around with serious business Outsider stuff. The black council is associated with multiple Nemesis plots and Outsider possession games. This isn't a leap of logic, it's what happened.
Greed is not enough of an explanation for this. If he could break the council in six hours then he could do way better than he has been.
5) Nuh uh.
Im voting for them to come to the Warden Barracks, where we can hopefully either meet other Senior Council members, or put together enough wizards to go out and sweep the complex comprehensively.
I am not outing a bunch of homicidal conspirators in close proximity to people who are not equipped or allowed to handle their bullshit with no notice
The default vote you have on the board right now is to do what the party suggested; tell them glamoured warlocks are hunting in the Halls and call them to the barracks. That is the same in most of the ways important to the argument you're making.
My problem with your point is that the homicidal maniacs are walking these people into dark alleyways to murder them. We just saw a guy try to kill two right in front of us. They are not safe where they are, the enemy wants them ignorant because it makes them easier to use and kill. Letting them keep their primary tool is not helpful to anyone but the traitors.
I'm changing my vote because I just realized BronzeTongue changed his plan so we'd use three motes of essence on this. That isn't necessary at all and diminishing returns are a thing.
Molly just used Mind Hand Manipulation too right after getting four more so with his plan we'd be back to where we started.
[X] Send a shout through the tunnels as Tiffany suggests
I changed it down to 2 after reconsidering the resources involved.
Fair enough if you don't like it, but please consider writing something else in over the base vote. If we aren't convincing then it won't help, and adding to the confusion isn't as helpful as clarifying things.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Sep 21, 2024 at 2:38 AM, finished with 82 posts and 16 votes.
[X] Send a shout through the tunnels as Tiffany suggests
-[X] Leadership excellency, FPoR, BSM
-[X] AtP to mask from the conspirators
-[X] Name the traitors we know to be present in order of importance as time allows.
-[X] [Stunt]: As the wizards prepared their spell Molly took a moment to center herself. With the beat of a red drum thrumming through her bones she stretched, reaching for one note of the song.
—[X] Opening eyes she did not realize she'd closed, Molly nodded to her companions and took a breath.
—[X] Her voice did not so much carry her words as carve them into the silence. Even where there was other sound they seemed to carry their own hush about them like a cloak, something terrible and sublime seizing attention with all the remorseless strength of the gravity pinning them to Earth.
—[X] "Wizards of the White Council, you have been betrayed. Glamoured warlocks walk the Halls and kill by stealth in the name of distant masters. I have masked this message from them as best as I am able to give you an advantage. Peabody and his stooges have desecrated free will of many. Teachers, shield your students' minds. Students, guard your teachers' lives. We rally at the Warden's Barracks."
"I've got this." A smile pulls at the corners of your mouth. Is it a good sign that Tiffany looks approving, you wonder. "Somebody make me a megaphone..."
"But..." Carlos starts.
"The traitors are going to be too darn polite to hear what I have to say," you finish which earns you a very intense look from McCoy and an uncomfortably reverent one from Thunder's Silent Arrow, the sanctuary magi accompanying you.
It's a way of speaking, it's a way of standing, it's a way of being, an etiquette carved into the bones of the world that even the air and stone conspire to see it done. Even where there was other sound they seemed to carry their own hush about them like a cloak, something terrible and sublime seizing attention with all the remorseless strength of the gravity pinning them to Earth.
"Wizards of the White Council, you have been betrayed. Glamoured warlocks walk the Halls and kill by stealth in the name of distant masters. I have masked this message from them as best as I am able to give you an advantage. Here stand the names of the traitors known: Stenographer to the Senior Council Peabody, Wizard Honorius, Wizard DeValancia..." You run though the names on your list, there might be more of them now, but there is a limit on how many could have been pulled to the Halls in a few hours. "Others may have been enchanted to degrees subtle and overt. Teachers, shield your students' minds. Students, guard your teachers' lives. We rally at the Warden's Barracks."
Lost 2 Essence -> Now at 10/18
The moment you stop the old wizard gives you an even more serious look. "I'm not going to ask you how you know all those names missy because I trust you and because you've proven yourself trustworthy, but once the trash's taken out Arthur and the others are gonna be mighty curious."
"We got the names from a warlock in Sydney we captured," Carlos hurries to cover for you, until you give him a look to stop. I can handle this... I think.
Your company now grown by six, even if you also have one prisoner to handle no one bars your way until the high steel-bound doors that lead into a sort of domed antechamber like a cross between a classical temple and a really snazzy bank only instead of tellers the sides are manned by young wizards, too young, and the statues, wrought in the elegant shape of temple dogs built to titanic scale are alive and crawling at you. In the center of a group of three more experienced wizards is one far older. More than a head shorter than you and leaning on her staff for more than affection, dressed in beautifully styled silk robes Ancient Mai, for who else could it be, looks up at the arriving company through rheumy eyes.
They do not seem overly surprised to see you, those eyes, but she addresses her fellow Senior Council Member first. "You are late."
"I was delayed." There is a weight of history to those words to which you will never be party to, of triumphs and failures of confidence earned and lurking fears. "The others?"
"There was a disturbance as we met in council, a vampire attack on the city, or so it seemed at the time, given the news that precedes you that too might have been a ruse, if one that made use of Red Court vampires as its props and puppets. Luccio sent warden teams to deal with it, but they were pinned in place by the use of some new malfeasance of theirs, requesting aid..."
"It was," you interrupt, knowing the Warden Captain had been suborned.
She nods with a serenity that is somewhat undermined by the next tremor to hit, harder this time. "The enemy has slipped the wards, they are among us, they are us. Come," she motions for all of you to follow, though her gaze does linger for a moment on Thunder's Silent Arrow for a moment as she does so. "Arthur and Aleron went to seek the source of the disturbance while we remained here to protect the children."
At the word you can practically see the bale-fire armed guards' hackles rise, though not enough to challenge the elder wizard. She does not seem to notice. "Samuel was with them and Honorius. Ordinarily I would assume they would be more than a match for the pair should your words prove true, but there is something else in the air, foul as it is sly. It does not show itself openly, only to the Sight and it dreadful beyond what the eyes of the children can bear. I had thought to open myself to it if no other option presented itself."
Your eyes are drawn to the darkness at the edge of the crystal lights. It is all one thing isn't it, conceptually? One who had dwelt long in the dark could take advantage of that to stretch themselves across all of it in spirit. It would be difficult to gather enough of themselves in one place to weave magics, but if all they wanted to do was show the horror of their being to ones who could not endure it...
"What about the others?" McCoy asks as you enter what has to be some kind of information center, now eerily quiet, typing machines left abandoned mid-sentence, chalkboards with half filled out diagrams, bulletin boards with notes flying in the fitful breeze coming in from the tunnels. "Injun Joe, Martha?"
"Even more late than you are," she answers. One might perhaps read in the silence that follows a hope that they do not bring as interesting a company with them.
"The War Room," Carlos whispers from beside yo, not from any fear that you might be overheard by enemies, but because he does not want Mai to hear. A hopeless endeavor that.
And yet you'd have taken a thousand times more awkwardness over the shouts that echo from up ahead, followed by the sounds of tearing meta and the overpowering smell of sulfur.
Tiffany is cursing, you don't need to speak Sumerian to figure that out. Between them three words in English are clear: "Failed Summoning! Gate!" Ahead of you in the Warden Barracks had been a diabolist, a desperate one at that, past tense because they had tried to summon something powerful and in succeeding too well become the sacrifice to their own final spell.
It was vast, as though the space around it struggled to contain it, a thing of bone and horn and withered skin, only aping the form of humankind just enough to mock the form. Six horns had it and no face, only a great white eye that seemed to look into nothingness beyond all things. Upon seeing the host arrayed before it though the demon does something you had not expected, stops and speaks: "Lasciel's bastard and the heir of the Forgotten Tyrant. What strange happenstance this is whether chance or mischance I cannot say and I am not in the habit of gambling." It licks the blood from one clawed hand. "Give me the soul thrice-sold, the one who has so bedeviled you and I shall deliver onto you the names of all those who call themselves the True Magi."
It means the Hollow Man you know at once and you know you can trap him. This... this isn't answers, this is cover for your Crown. Does it know? Did it guess? Or is this just a particularly greedy demon, let loose from Hell's chains by a foolish summoner, trying to strike the best bargain it can?
What do you do?
[] Say you will take the bargain
[] Let the wizards speak... they look like they are about to 'speak' evocations
[] Write in
OOC: Was not expecting a double botch on the emergency summoning. There is one warlock char sheet I won't get to use *sigh*. Still now you get to talk to a big boss demon. To be clear this is not one of the Fallen, it's a demon like Chauncy, only more like his boss' boss.
Or they're nerds quoting Lord of the Rings. It's 50/50, really.
-- [X] Let the wizards speak... they look like they are about to 'speak' evocations
I don't think we need to do anything here. Our inaction is enough.
As to why:
Giving a soul to a demon is not something Molly would do, in-character.
Bad PR to bargain with souls in front of WC wizards.
I don't want that sorceror's soul to end up in this demon's keeping. The soul getting eaten would be the least bad outcome.
Or they're nerds quoting Lord of the Rings. It's 50/50, really.
-- [X] Let the wizards speak... they look like they are about to 'speak' evocations
I don't think we need to do anything here. Our inaction is enough.
As to why:
Giving a soul to a demon is not something Molly would do, in-character.
Bad PR to bargain with souls in front of WC wizards.
I don't want that sorceror's soul to end up in this demon's keeping. The soul getting eaten would be the least bad outcome.
Normally you would be right, but the Hollow Man does not really count in her mind because he has already given so much of it away already and replaced it with aspects of the Outside.
Normally you would be right, but the Hollow Man does not really count in her mind because he has already given so much of it away already and replaced it with aspects of the Outside.
As this is our first dealings with an actual demon, @DragonParadox , would you mind answering some questions about their nature as far as Molly knows?
1) Why do they want souls? Do they get empowered by obtaining them?
2) What do they do with souls? Are the fates of the souls of the damned and righteous different? If the soul was already damned, will it be cleansed after tortures of hell?
3) What is relationship between demons and Outsiders? Are they rivals? Allies? Bitter enemies?
4) What are the rules demons operate by? Are they the same as the fae? Different? Are there any rules, actually?
Technically going to Hell is exactly what awaits Hollow Man if he could die properly. So in fact it's the right thing to do. Since there are very few more deserving people to get sent to Hell. The only reason he is not there right now is because he subcontracted so much of his soul that demons can't get him without getting in a slugging match with Outsiders.
As this is our first dealings with an actual demon, @DragonParadox , would you mind answering some questions about their nature as far as Molly knows?
1) Why do they want souls? Do they get empowered by obtaining them?
2) What do they do with souls? Are the fates of the souls of the damned and righteous different? If the soul was already damned, will it be cleansed after tortures of hell?
3) What is relationship between demons and Outsiders? Are they rivals? Allies? Bitter enemies?
4) What are the rules demons operate by? Are they the same as the fae? Different? Are there any rules, actually?
They drag them to hell for which they get rewarded, in the case of this guy given the information he has, by Lucifer, so yes he would be empowered but indirectly
The ultimate fate of damned souls is akin to what you saw in the Wicked City, being use and abused for power. No cleansing of the soul, that may have happened once but no more
Enemies from what Lash knows, but then again those wizards to attacked McCoy earlier did use Hellfire so they might not be above trying to use each other. Still Demons are creatures of the world, Hell is part of the Shaped Universe which Outsiders want to reshape utterly or destroy
Demons do not have to tell the truth, though this one seems to be. They can be bound by their name same as anything else and contained within Circles
Uh should we be looking for ways to trap the Hollow Man anyways? Like no on the soul trade, it's like slave trading only with someone's eternity, but can someone write up a vote that still captures the Hollow Man since I would prefer we get him for this attack.
