Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[DragonParadox]

Of Sanctuary and Poison ​

22st of July 2006 A.D.

"Hello, mom, is dad OK?" Part of you almost feels guilty to be asking that, of course dad is OK... but you are very glad indeed when she confirms that he and Cindy made it home fine. After a moment you add: "Can you get the chainmail ready, the one Detective Murphy used." You do your best to keep your voice level, but this is not the kind of thing you are used to asking for from her.

"What happened, did you get hurt..." And there was the worry, as much as you may dislike the way it makes her act sometimes you hate to make her worry, but it's way too late now. She'll just have to trust that you know what you're doing. God, you hope she'll trust you on this.

"It's not for me, it's for Lydia. she wants to go help her father, he's almost certainly in trouble."

There's silence on the other side of the call, or nearly so, you can still hear her rapid breathing. "Should she be fighting? I think..."

"Mom she can literally carve her way into the spirit world and go from there if she wants, the question is not if Lydia is going to try to help her father, it's if she's gonna do it with our help or without it," you answer a little glibly. Poor Lydia did not have the opportunities to make any ultimatums, she had been too busy taking in secret after secret and danger after danger. But this is the most likely way to get past your mom's objections, the voice of power whispered in your mind. What does that mean for you going out...?

"Alright, it will be ready when you get here," she answers at last.

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 5/12

Alas Cindy is not the charms and bracelets kind of girl which means she does not have a focus to use to find her grandfather so that leaves you looking for Katrina...

"Her car is right back where she left it next to the tattoo parlor, I'm sure we can find something to scry her by there." you proclaim looking back at the others. Gard is quick to get up the moment the words leave your mouth, eyes gleaming at the thought of being back om the hunt after all this siting around and plotting. Looking at her sharp angled face beneath hair the color of old gold you could well believe she had once ridden on the wings of death upon ancient battlegrounds and for death she will ride again.

Harry nods. "Yeah, unless she is real paranoid about about cleaning up after herself there should be hair and knickknacks all over it."

"Knickknacks, who says Knickknacks?" you ask teasingly.

Lydia giggles, a silvery sound, seeming to surprise herself as much as the rest of you with only Mouse proclaiming his solidarity... by having Burny call out: "It seems a perfectly fine word to me, Harry."

"What the...?" Harry looks between the phone, his faithful companion... and you.

"He needed a way to talk without having to play charades," you reply a little defensively.

Harry opens his mouth, closes is and turns towards the door again.

***​

The city is different at night, even the familiar tree-lined roads that lead home filled with the rustling of the wind and the soft chirping of grasshoppers and other more secretive things, the silhouettes of people grow soft, veiled in the orange glow of the streetlamps as birds flying to their nighttime roosts throw shadows ahead and behind you. For her part Lydia seems to glow in the darkness, not with a light that the eye can see, but clear in the mind just the same, more clear, more real than the forms and sounds of the passing dark.

From the way he keeps looking at her, you suspect Harry feels it too, though maybe not the same way. If this weren't literally your parents' driveway, with them likely as not looking out the window you might say something teasing, but now is really not thee time.

"Now how I expected yo meet your mom, Daniel's mom..." Lydia admits in a half whisper.

"You met dad and that was fine right?" you try to encourage her.

"That was the easy part though wasn't it?" she asks.

You're not going to lie to her... "Little bit yeah, but mom's going to be in siege mode right now not, asking questions mode."

"Molly..." she looks you right in the eye, the otherworldly gleam in her eye only growing brighter. "Thanks." Somehow you are quite sure she does not just mean advice about mom.

"Thank me when we've won," you answer as you giver her a light one armed hug.

Alas you cannot stick around and help her deal with mom, or for that matter a worried Daniel, every moment is precious and the reason you are home at all has to do with getting your mojo back. Everyone had agreed that was probably worth the hour's time spent here, especially since you are still days away from Mab's time limit, which is about the closest thing you have to a timetable for all this.

Still just because you have to be dipped in bleach does not mean you can't do anything useful. You have Clippy go over where Katriana had dropped off Matthews.At first glance there's nothing about the place that is remarkable, a three story apartment block in Hyde Park... there were more boringly whitebread addresses in the city, but not many of them, if it is the abode of a Nazi magician than it is of one with a real determination to blend in... until that is you look at what is just across the expanse of the park from it, the Museum of Science and Industry. As much on a whim as with any expectation of finding anything you decide to look into its schedule... and find something odd. The museum was closed for the day with no reason given on the official site.

Digging a little deeper you find some accounts from tourists who had been there on Friday, apparently 'the submarine had sprung a leak', or at least that was one poster's joking account. What submarine? Well apparently the Museum of Science and Industry had an honest too goodness German U-boat in there that you could get tours on and everything, but there had been freak flooding inside and people were worried that it would damage the exhibit.

Gained 4 Essence -> Now at 9/12

When you get out of the bath an hour later it is to the sight of Harry balancing a an old mood ring of all things tied with a strand of Cindy's hair above a map of the city... pointing right at the museum.

What do you do?

[] You have your lead, go to the museum at once

[] Drop by Black Rider, you could do with a bead on Katrina

[] Write in

OOC: Well this is more prep work than I was expecting, I was really hoping we would have gotten to the confrontation by now, but you guys keep rolling high for investigation and low for actually getting on. Still this should be the last break point and I skipped over Lydia dealing with Charity and Daniel as well as Harry doing magic as Molly was not here for those parts.

 

[DragonParadox]

Lights Out ​

22st of July 2006 A.D.

The four of you depart in a flurry of encouragement and last minute advice, of words spoken and unspoken, from dad critiquing the the way you hold your low guard in spite of himself to mom interrogating a stone-faced Gard about the driver to Daniel just looking at Lydia. You would tease him, but you have butterflies in your stomach yourself, not at the thought of fighting, or getting hurt, but loosing. This wasn't just about stopping the bad guys, saving the kind, these were the machinations of Powers and Principalities.

As the lights of the city raced over the darkened glass, like a swarm of photo-electric fireflies you wonder at the people walking their dogs, going out on dates and hanging out with friends. How is it fair that they know nothing of what is going on? How is it right that they do not even understand the risks that are being taken a few miles from them, the dance of death and madness? Just because the things hiding in the shadows had made a deal, just because Queen Mab had mediated an Accord, the same Queen Mab who was now pulling strings to turn the confrontation to her will. And the White Council, the ones who were most aligned with the interests of not just other wizards, but regular people well their only representative in the car was in her pocket and trying to get out of it

It strikes you suddenly that the person who was most like the blinded people of the streets outside was Hendricks, he didn't have magical power, nor special blood, nor yet a crown of shadow and flame forged in a time before time.

"Are you worried?" you ask softly turning towards him a little.

"What's worry gonna do for me?" he turns the question around at you.

Rather than answer you just nod and check Clippy again to see where Black Rider is. On track thankfully, between the darkness and the shorter route he can take the great black bulk of the car slides into the parking lot about five minutes before you get there.

Lighting disconnected or damaged comes the factual message that does little justice to the sight that greets you as Hendricks drives up. There's no one in the wide square before the entrance the slight of passing headlights rolling wages of pale color quickly swallowed up by the dark. Ahead the museum looks almost like an old roman temple, the priests of knowledge gone, the fires guttered out.

As you get out of the car Gard checks her axe then the gun hidden on her belt and Lydia looks around the roofs, but Harry takes a more direct approach. "No one move for a bit I'm going to try to take a look at this."

There is nothing to mark the opening of the Sight, most perilous of all wizard's senses, other than the sudden darkening of his expression: "There's some kind of necromantic working leading to the water, but it's not active, less like a thread and more like a pipe waiting for the flood and there is a a black air about the place, like a cemetery on overdrive, not sure if it's meant to keep people out or if that is just a 'happy' byproduct."

"Sooo... do we break in?" Lydia asks hesitantly. "I mean won't there be guards and stuff?"

"This looks like a ritual site and for them to use such a public place means they don't plan to be quiet," Harry explains. "Anyone with eyes to see will know some serious bad mojo went on here and even the people who do not care about that on its own are going to care about the risk of exposure. It's going down tonight."

The first thing to go down is the door as the sword that is Usum cleaves though oak and steel beside Gard's axe... there is no alarm.

"Hexus!" Harry calls out, raising the rune carved rod.

As the hair on the back of your head stands on end the cameras all around you sputter and die for good.

The four of your rush through thee domed entry hall down corridors replete with the works of industry and progress now shrouded in the patina of older darker things. The creaking reconstruction of an old coal mine echoes with the sounds of distant coughing from no mortal mouth, curtains of artificial mist once harmlessly impressive now twist and warp into the shape of faces in agony, limbs bent and broken as wraiths too weak to be refuse to be not, suckling at the edges of blackest power. Eyepieces meant to showcase the ordered dance of matter to the curious public now glow poisoned blue.

"Oh no!" Lydia stops dead in the middle of a hallway pointing up.

Following her hand you spot what seems at first to be a mannequin, some oversized puppet meant to descent as part of the experience, but then you catch sight of a pale face caught in the throes of unspeakable agony, frozen in death and as the light of Harry's staff reaches up you see that the strings are the man's own entrails glistening red and black.

Your stomach churns and part of you wants to just vomit and curl up into a ball, wanting someone anyone to fix this... but you know there is no fixing it now, there is only avenging it and it's up to you.

On you run, shoes clanking almost obscenely loud in the silence between the sighs and moans of the dead, as though with unpious hands you had chosen to open a grave and turn the corpse about to see how it had died. No, you push off the feeling of trespass, recognizing it for what it is, the spoor of spiritual scavengers trying to keep others off their meal.

Looking around you see the others looking a bit more strained as well, but all still resolute, weapons in hand or in the case of Lydia hands slightly raised in some kind of martial arts style... and that is when you hear voices from the corridor ahead living voices accompanied by the harsh white light of flashlights. "Approach clear up to the science exhibit, LLE activity increasing in intensity and frequency, contact still not initiated..."

It does not take you more than a moment to figure out what you had found, Daedalus, the FBI is here.

What do you do?

[] Avoid them, a quick veil should be enough to cover you, but you will have to take a longer route to the Uboat

[] Try to cooperate, you are all on the same side against the likes of Katrina and Evil Bob

[] Write in

OOC: Not quite all the way to combat, but Gard just rolled six successes on six dice to hear those agents so I take that to mean they were making enough noise you could hear them talking in the middle of a thunderstorm and thus you have a clear path to avoid them if you want.

 

[DragonParadox]

Ship of the Damned ​

22st of July 2006 A.D.

For a split second you consider calling out, allies in unlikely places, Katrina is weaker to an attack from many angles. But what kind of allies would they be against the likes of the Capriporpus? You look towards Gard. "Send them away! They are going to get hurt!" you whisper.

To your surprise the ancient warrior seems unsure, glancing left to Harry: "Katrina would will sense this," she warns

"We're close enough," Harry answers as the air grows heavy with power, his own or Gard's you aren't sure.

A moment later as the light grows nearer the once-Chooser of the Slain raises her left hand and draws a pair of runes upon the air, one like a cross between an M and an X and another like a backwards 1 whose point is aimed right at the approaching agents.

"We have to be getting close, I haven't seen anything this bad since... El Paso... we... should..." the words grow slower as he speaks them, eventually stuttering, like his mind is catching up to the compulsion. "We need to go back, secure the entrance for so we are not trapped in here. Are the cameras still up at the entrance?" You do not hear the response, but you guess that's a 'no'.

"Alright then we'll go back and make sure the LLEs haven't gotten to it..."

Now you hear the voice on the radio, static-y from all the magic in the air, but still loud, angry or concerned. They demanding to know what is going on, not that the agents have any intention of answering as they turn around to 'check the door.' Something tells you they won't stop at the door, but will find some other reason to go right through it.

"Well that isn't creepy at all," Lydia drawls, though you can hear the shadow of real disquiet behind the words. After what happened to her she's probably not a fan of mind magic.

"Less 'creepy' than the use they would be put to by the powers herein."

No one among you doubts that one. You are a little surprised though when Lydia takes a pair of... well not brass knuckles, they seem to be made of polished steel out of her purse.

"What?" she asks, looking between you and Harry. "Pays to be prepared."

You make a mental note to tease Daniel about his girlfriend being armed like she's from fight club, but for now the long dark ahead awaits.

Thus you make your way down wide and sweeping corridors meant for crowds of onlookers, not silent save for the groaning of specters under the blind glimmer of dead neon casting back the mage-light. You come thus to a wide arch leading into a great hall filled with cases and models and little plaques in honor of history water foaming and bubbling as it races across the concrete. It's only ankle-high, but it pulls at the legs harder than aught... pulling you towards the thing in the center of the room, the piece de resistance, a fully intact submarine painted blue and grey shifting on its supports like a ship at sea in truth. A searchlight moves on its conning tower, the same hateful blue as the dead men's eyes.

It's not just the searchlight that swerves. Wreathed in ghostly flames. a pair of deck guns swivel without a hand to move them and in a single ear-shattering roar fire.

And within you fire rises to meet them, poison green like the heart of a dying star, soul mind and hand move as one and in a screech of tearing metal you cut the shell out of the air. There's two of them, there's two of them, your mind screams, but even you are not that fast. Yet there is no explosion behind you or beside you, no warm blood gushing from flesh torn asunder by phantom guns only flash of silver light, cold as starlight upon a marble brier and the impossible sound of a fist striking steel and the steel breaking.

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 8/12

There was Lydia, looking at once wide eyed at her own deed and filled with a power beyond mortal ken, shining clear through her flesh, casting an unnaturally sharp shadow even upon the rushing water. She laughs clear and fair and if there is anything of humanity to that voice then it is faint and far away: "Race you to the top!"

The guns will get another short at you before you can get under them at this range, Usum calmly informs you and Harry had raises a shimmering barrier between the ship and you, but just as you are about to lunge forward, trusting sword, spell and apparently fist to take on the guns, you notice some fifty feet ahead a familiar figure, though looking far more ragged and worn than you had seen him last, Matthews, one hand stretched out over a great dark stone and another holding a knife of bone. He's about to slit his wrist onto it.

What do you do?

[] Race to the sub with Lydia, let Harry and Gard deal with the old man

[] Advance on the submarine together

[] Write in

OOC: So you know how Bob possessing Sue gave her back her flesh, well this is the same but with a Nazi submarine getting back its deck guns.

 

[DragonParadox]

Getting Ahead ​

22st of July 2006 A.D.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, be with us sinners now, the prayer runs through your mind in a flash of almost eerie clarity, the ringing in your ears faint and far away. "Harry, get the guns. We'll get Mathews" you bark as you dart towards the old man, Lydia on your heels.

"Fuego!"

Running towards the old man you already feel the scorching gust of magic at your back as the haunted decks are shrouded in a corona of flames not blue but gold and crimson as the heart of a forge.

"Stop that. We've rescued Cindy, and her pretty blue shoes"

The old man does not look up from his work, the dagger still descends, but then the arm that should have been slashed spasms and twitches back almost as if filled with a life of its own and alive indeed as the Kemlerities have tried to make Matthews the living dead. By mingled lights silver and green you see his eyes widen in sudden horror, realization and then at last resolve. He throws the knife away sending it clattering to the floor.

As you pull him away he jerks forward almost pulling you off balance.

"Lydia hold him! We need to get him to..." you never get as far as to say 'Harry' as sudden blinding pain fills your world. Ow.... my head, what the hell!

"What are you?" The absurdly calm question in the middle of the fight is almost more confusing then than the pain.

That is when you realize two things, first that the wet sticky stuff coming out of the side of your head is blood, secondly that you are surprisingly lucid for someone who has just been shot execution style and third that Katrina is better at this time nonsense to do more than slow others down, she can make herself faster.

You take 2 Wounds

To her credit Lydia does not shy away from the fight, or the fact that she is wearing some of your blood, she pivots left and slams her foot into Katrina's stomach. You catch a glimpse of her jacket shifting, growing like some cancerous thing studded with runecarved nails, but it does not seem to help as much as she might have hoped as she's sent reeling into one of the display cases.

Glass and model ship parts fly all around you as Matthews struggles to get to the knife he had just thrown away.

"Your worst nightmare!" you hiss the answer, unsure if it was your thought, Usum or someone else's, but even as your sword flies out in a burning arc to slay the fallen valkyrie you realize something is wrong... she's moving too fast, or are you moving too slow, it's hard to tell one from the other, but the weapon feels slow, clumsy in your hand.

It slides against the strange armor and does not pierce it.

Rising to her feet with uncanny grace, pistol still in hand "Many have said that girl, many have tried, all are dead and forgotten. You will join them." She does not scream or sneer, she sounds detached and below that chillingly almost... sad.

But as she looks beyond you recognition kindles in her narrowed gaze: "Gard...."

What she might have said to her once sister you to not know for in that moment you feel the silent thrum of Gard's ward pass over you, a knife that cuts apart the subtle skeins of magic. Katrina flinches back

"Must I do everything?" The voice spews out from Matthews' lips it is not him. The old man heaves and commits bitter grey mist that starts to pull together into the shape of a cowled figure you had seen once before, the Corpsetaker.

She is as solid as you are not in ragged garb of ectoplasm and in her incarnation she had banished the power of Gard;s runes, but she had shown herself, outside of dead shell or mortal hostage. This is probably the best chance you'll to send the dark spirit to its rightful fate. On the other hand Katrina is the one who had managed to shoot you in the head.

What do you do?

[] Focus on Katrina

[] Focus on Capricorpus

[] Write in

OOC: Katrina had one more ace up her sleeve than Gard knew, whether it is new or the Monoc people just did not know about it you are not sure, but it is clear she cannot pull off 'temporal invisibility' easily much less constantly. Also you not know how slow works, each success she gets on Int+Occult (Difficulty 7) halves your damage dice. It is a Temporis power from Dark Ages.

 

[DragonParadox]

Hell Hath No Fury ​

22st of July 2006 A.D.

One gun had been silenced, the other sings again like thunder underground. lucky for you spite makes for poor aim, gouging concrete shattering glass, but the worst you get is a face full of grit. It's gonna take hours to wash this out of my hair, you think petty rage piling atop the great, you strike with malice and you strike with mastery... and you are met with both.

Katrina Sigfridsdaughter fights with an arming sword in her left hand and it is no less deadly for it, oily black like a serpent is slides though the air meeting your own blade with quenching darkness, blow and counter, blow and counter. The world narrows to the point and the edge of that blade. Even as Gard and Capricorpus rage around you you can barely hear them, can hardly feel the touch of death's cold wind on your flesh.

Blow and... a there, a fraction of a second out of time, her guard a bit too high for her own good, you feint low pulling the sword too far down and to the left forcing the error to widen and then you slash, your full weight behind the blow, and more than your weight. As you had done against the fetch you awaken the fire in the blade and like some all devouring parasite you pass it into the wound. There is kindles.

Veins of primordial fire race from the wound, coiling through flesh, seen even through the armor. The look on the fallen warrior's face is not rage, it is not even pain, just vast and all-encompassing surprise.

"No"

"No"

"No"

Her denial booms louder than the roar of the canons not in the ear but in the mind "I have seen my death and this is not the way!"

A white hot rune explodes in the center of her chest, like the symbol of infinity carved in splintered edges, a mark you know without knowing means 'day', the bright time, the coming of the sun and you feel sheer fury to see it so defiled, knitting back together that which you had broken, giving a traitor back her wretched life to work more evil upon the world, more children screaming, more hapless bystanders hung by their entrails like macabre puppets and all for what.... for what?

Because she had been promised by some evil even greater than her? Because fate?

"Be damned all fates!" you think it, you say it... something at the core of your power, something old and vicious, something sublime and perfect answers.

The world feels light and fluttering, as though all were made of gossamer and you the only solid thing as you whisper under your breath:"Shin.Tai."

Your heart beats faster and faster like some brass engine of extinction pumping out not blood but all consuming flame within as it is without. In blazing brass and pitch-black basalt you are garbed, upon your brow a crown of Ruin and Glory, in semblance and in mockery both of a thousand profane idols.

Spoiler: Shintai

To your right Gard duels the Capricorpus, rune carved axe trying to prune the every fecund ectoplasmic form writhing and shifting screaming curses and whispering blandishments from a thousand mouths, to your left Harry's fire almost sputters in in his hands in sheer shock at what you had done? What I've become?

"What you are," Usum helpfully informs you

Matthews you notice had crawled towards the exit, when you dropped him, trying to get out of everyone's way. Only Lydia is both looking towards the fight and not the least troubled by what she sees, trying to take advantage of Katrina's distraction to sneak in another punch, alas time moves against her and so the foe manages to move out of the way.

Time moves against you as well....but it does her little good. If you had been fast before than now you are the vengeful wind howling out of some nightmare realm. Hel, that is what they called the realm of the dishonored dead in the north even before the missionaries had come.

"Time's up," you proclaim in a voice colder than the depths of space.

Her right hand rises on instinct to parry a blow too fast for her sword to reach.... only to be sliced off cleanly at the wrist.

"Hel comes for you."

A traitor and a monster she may be, but Katrina is not a coward. She lunges one last time to press the stump of her hand against you as you feel the warp and weft of time trying to snare you, like a fly in amber.

Too little... too late, your sword falls in one final arc, splitting her head from her shoulders.

Yet even as it falls you see the submarine fire again, this time not at you or Lydia but at Harry. Even as he raises a hand shield bracelet shinning blue you know it will not be enough, that it cannot be enough. You open your mouth to call a vain warning when...

The space between Harry and the Uboat ripples like a pond in a high wind and the shell vanishes.. A gate made into a shield, you realize with wonder.

There is a man standing where the stone altar had been, silver of hair and heard, though you can still see traces of black in it. He is wearing an old fashioned suit and round gold-rimmed glasses that obscure the exact color of his eyes. You know who he is even before you hear Lydia gasp: "Papa!"

Spoiler: Arawn

"Lydia... what are you...?" He cuts himself off and turns towards Capricorpus, who seems to have taken the moment to choose the better part of valor again.

Lost 2 Essence and 2 Willpower (+2 Essence gained from various secrets discovered)

What do you do next?

[] Knock Harry out, he cannot call Mab if he's unconscious and she cannot even blame him for planning it if you do it now

[] Focus on finishing off that sub

[] Write in

OOC: I put the expenses at the end because I did not want to break up the flow of the narrative at your first use of Shintai, hope you guys enjoy.

 

[DragonParadox]

Grand Theft Submarine ​

22st of July 2006 A.D.

It would be so easy, the thought passes through your mind at the speed of a lightning flash, run over to Harry knock him out then deal with the Uboat and Harry does not have to choose to break his word to Mab, but then your heart catches up with your mind. Is that what Harry would want, to have the choice taken from him? The answer is as obvious as the stubborn set of his jaw as he contemplates the rogue death god. He does not say anything.

"We shall have to burn that bridge when we come to it," you hear Usum say with an edge of dark amusement as you pivot towards the sub .

The the water rises aver higher around you, the searchlights blinding as they glare upon you, a behemoth of steel and malice looking down upon an ant so you jump.

Alas it is not near as graceful as it had been in your head, between the bad footing, not being used to your new strength and how hard it is to judge distances in this light you almost smash against the side of the ship, needing to clamber up painfully, at least until you hear the thump of someone managing to jump on the deck and a hand stretches up.

"Here," Lydia helps you up. "You know that's really cool, it's almost like a magi..."

"Don't say it." The laughter bubbling up in your chest, wild and fierce rather undercuts the warning.

"I'm gonna think it anyway," she quips, though the moment's levity does not last long as the sub heaves underfoot with a groan of steel shifting, the screech of sliding on concrete.

Faster and faster the water gurgles in... and now to your horror you realize from where, not any earthly realm, but the Nevernever. The spirit is trying to get away with the whole submarine.

"Lydia!" you shout as the girl is already smashing into the last remaining gun, silver-shrouded flesh against ectoplasmatic armament. "It's trying to..."

Diving

The single word in a voice at once familiar and strange echoes through the wide hall, a threat and a challenge all at once. You know now what is animating the submarine, Bob's darker self is here and contrary to what the spirit had said he does not seem to be inclined to subtlety.

"I can get us back out of the spirit world, we can take it!" Lydia shouts back

Somehow you do not think her father would approve. Looking down at the battle you cannot see the shade form of the Capricorpus anymore, but both Harry and Arawn seem to be looking for something under the now waist high water while Gard is drawing runes upon the air, many more of them than you had seen from her before

You have Three (3) turns before the Uboat maakes the transition to some otherwrold sea

What do you do?

[] Enter the possessed sub in order to break enough of it to expel the dark spirit

[] Jump back off, he does not have any guns left and is just trying to run, you do not want to get on Evil Bob's Nevernever Ride

[] Write in

OOC: Really short update, but given the nature of Evil Bob's escape plan I need a vote here.

 

[DragonParadox]

Sundering ​

22st of July 2006 A.D.

How do you get into this thing? Almost without meaning to your left hand goes to your pocket, there's no time for Clippy and with this much magic in the air odds are no signal either. So you do the next best thing, go for the pointy bit, it's called a coms tower or something, but the ladder is on the other side, no time to walk 'round... so you jump again.

This time you do not misjudge your strength, going so high you almost brush the reeling, one of the lights popping from the heat of your sword as you raise it to land point first into the hatch held fast with spite and sorcery. It screens as it tears and like a living thing is bleeds a black tar, trying perhaps to seal away its wounds. Luckily you are not alone, like you Lydia had taken the high road and she wastes no time starting to pull away the steel where it had been torn, exposing the ladder and the room below. Once you imagine that ladder had been fire hydrant red, but now bears the color of old blood, blackening as it goes down

"Well, should be fun to see just how much damage this form can do, anyway. Bet it's more than you can, anyway, unless you're hiding your own magical superform?" You tease Lydia as much because you do not want to think of what had been done in there as anything.

Down the ladder you come to a cramped room covered from the linoleum floor to steel ceiling in piping and wiring, instruments and dials. What purpose they may once have served you do not know, but now all the dials point down like the fangs of some strange beast and all the clocks are stopped at the same hour 14:35 and yet they were ticking... all ticking, a sound like a thousand demented brass soldiers dancing on your head.

You take a breath, another, you feel the clarity of deed fade, the voice of power dimming... and so you call it back.

Lost 1 Essence -> now at 5/12

Laying about you with a sword of fire driven as much by fear at what is going on outside as by anger at fake Bob you do not slow when arcs of electricity pass through Usum and into you, you do not stop when the thing starts speaking you, its voice a broken pastiche of Bob and something... someone else, cold chillingly urbane.

Lost 1 Wound

"Such grace, such power. Why do you act ze vandal? Let us speak yes. If the ship dies you shall die with it, all this power must pass somewhere and gross matter cannot hold it, it is like ze atom.... breaking. Perhaps gods might live, but what of the mortals, the old man, the wizard?"

Like and earworm, or a mindworm, you recognize the enchantment for what it is and banish it with an act of will. Power is too precious to burn now.

"Get out of my head!" The last of the instruments are broken so you rush the door towards the front, cut your way into... well it looks like a bedroom, but all the sheets are covered in oil or blood or both. There are bodies in some of them.

"Don't look!" you shout back to Lydia. You mostly take your own advice, but you know even the glimpses you catch of them will haunt your nightmares. These people, you think it is more of the staff had died... badly. One woman with her wrists bound together in mockery of prayer and her neck slashed open starts to twitch as though to shamble to her feet, but then she jerks and falls, mercifully inanimate again. Whatever power the dark had gotten it was not infinite.

OK that is the brain of the ship, what's next the heart, the engine? No, batteries.

Even as you feel the ship lurch lower the two of you burst into the next room to find... well you think they are the batteries, though just from the ghost fire that pours through them you are pretty sure they must be important. You get to cutting and Lydia gets to smashing.

At some point between stab number six and Lydia putting her hand through the hole you made the whole structure shudders and the 'life' if that's what you call it seems to go out of it.

The ship still smells of blood of oil and of rot, but it no longer feels like it's watching you. Dead or maybe just gone... at the very least the ship isn't taking you anywhere.

"Er..." Lydia swallows. "Maybe we can go out some other way."

So you do, out through what must have been the galley, emerging into a hall, like yet unlike the one you had left. For one the water is draining out, leaving behind the expected mess of broken display cases and other flotsam, but also Harry and Gard are standing a little apart from Arawn looking up towards the somewhat scorched sub, now laying a little on its side from the sudden expulsion of the water.

Lydia waves at her father. "Hi dad, we handled the ghost!" In a softer voice to you: "It was a ghost wasn't it?"

"Dark spirit," you correct, happy to see everyone OK. For once you had taken the most hits, not that you can feel it.

"We handled the dark spirit!" Lydia corrects, still smiling fit to burst with pride.

"I can see that snowdrop." He clears his throat, it is very clear this is not a man who is used to being surprised, but something about you does it. "Who is your friend?" he settles on.

What do you reply?

[] Molly Carpenter, if you are asking what I am, not entirely clear on that myself

[] Think of me as a Good Samaritan, though one who has questions

[] Write in

OOC: You guys do not know this in character yet because you did not see it, but since I know you are going to ask it and there is no reason to keep you guessing yes Arawn got Capricorpus.

 

[DragonParadox]

Once King's Words ​

22st of July 2006 A.D.

"Her boyfriend's sister," you laugh, giggle really, though the sound does not come out as you had expected it. It's like the dance of flames joyous in destruction, it's like the hiss of shadows falling over stone.

Lydia just rolls her eyes in your general direction, her father on the other hand gives you a long searching look from the tips of your, now armored feet to the top of your horned helmet. The only sound in the room is the soft whispering that bleeds into the air from the runes upon your armor, speaking some language just on the edge of comprehension.

"I would ask whose mantle you bear, but that would be a backwards question would it not?" Arawn says at last.

Jumping down from the deck with a satisfying splash into the water that is starting to become less watery and more gooey as the magic of the portal fades you ask: "What do you mean by that?"

"A mantle is power you bear, it mediates, empowers and restrains your interactions with the world, whereas your power is contained within, leaving your hands unbound for good or for ill." He pauses, noticing perhaps that Harry is about to say something, raises a hand for silence in a gesture somehow both understated and royal . "It has been for good in this instance and not just mine own, for that you have my thanks and to each of your, fair maiden of battles, wise warden of mortalkind, and thou bearer of the seer's crown I owe a debt comensurate to your deeds."

"What about me dad?" Lydia asks teasingly as she walks over to hug him.

"You are a member of my House snowdrop, you cannot recieve, nor do you bear formal debt towards me and it is probably better not to contemplate how many house rules you broke to end up here no?"

"There is no contingency for you being kidnapped by evil wizards," she points out quickly.

"A lapse in planning, one moment more I ask while I deal with this..." the... death god, strange as it is to think of a small g god being right in front of you, turns to the U-boat.

"Do you require aid?" Gard asks, she sounds guarded, but not hostile.

He thinks on it for a moment. "The guards perhaps, they died trying to protect the others because it amused the foe to play with them, but still their courage was no less true for being outmatched."

The warrior nods and sets aside her axe and then as you and Harry watch on the start to walk around the room at a slow and stately peace, their right hands outstretched as if to grasp some unseen thing.

"They're collecting ghosts," Harry says softly. "Poor bast... er... people would probably take anything at this point."

"That is not even technically swearing you know," you scoff. Briefly you consider going over to help Matthews, but Lydia seems to have it in hand and judging from the wide eyed look he gives you before quickly looking away you suspect your help would not be welcome. Here have this cup of tea boiled in hellfire...The thought is a lot more funny than it probably should be. "Dare I ask what that... felt like?" You carefully measure your words, enough emotion to make it clear you need to know, but not so much vulnerability that he shuts down 'for your own good.'

"Like a star of destruction going supernova only to be focused down to a laser point, like an ocean of darkness flowing through a narrow, unbreakable channel."

"That's..." you swallow. "Really poetic of you."

"Comes with the job," he shrugs. He hasn't put away his blasting rod, you notice. "Magic comes from the soul, but spells come from the head and people think in words, the more of them you have the more nuanced your interactions with your magic."

You are about to ask if that means multilingual wizards have an advantage when Gard and Arawn come back from their walkabout with spirits. For the first time since you have seen him the old man is smiling. "Done and done. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure as one of your American scholars said."

"Did you always live by that?" Harry asks, more subtle on the approach than you had thought he would be. "No regrets going back through the years? Never took a bad deal?"

"Only those without shame or without sense lack regrets Warden," Arawn answers simply. "But that does not mean I would subject myself to the lash of cruel liege in penance. She sent you did she not, my once and unloved lady? I regret to inform you that the debt I owe you does not extend to not putting you into a death-sleep so that I an Lydia can escape her eye. Rest assured it will be a temporary one though."

There is something utterly chilling about the way he delivers the threat to put Harry in a coma without his polite manner wavering once. No it's not even that, you realize, he is being genuine. He would regret having to fight, but he would do it if it meant he and Lydia could get away from Mab's reach.

"Whence across the blade lies thine honor warrior?" he asks Gard bluntly.

"She whom you fear has no claim to my loyalty and I did not come here to do her any favors," Gard replies. "I do not expect you will go far through."

"I am known for unexpected deeds," he who had been the Eldest of the Ankou replies before turning his eyes to you. "There is a chill about you, but it is not Winter's and there is am flame I know, but only from its bindings now broken. Will you try to do the will of a tyrant seeking to have a rebel returned to them in chains?"

He had timed the question well, just as Lydya was coming back, having settled old man Matthews on one of the benches.

What do you reply?

[] Propose the mantle swap

[] Point out that even if he gets away this time they will never be safe from Mab unless they reach some kind of deal

[] Write in

OOC:If it seems like Arawn is appealing to your nature as a rowdy Colonial... that is because he is doing that. Also yes you can ask him for a favor, just not right now, things are a bit tense.

 

[DragonParadox]

Sorrows and Secrets ​

22st of July 2006 A.D.

The world still feels light and float about you, as tough it is the earth that is attracted to your feet and not you to it, you know it won't last, that it can't last, but in this place, under the light of sorcery gleaming off the detritus of a war past but not forgotten you meet the eye of a god of death and you are not daunted,

"No, I don't plan to, though not wholly for your sake," you sigh, struggling to put your thoughts in order, power still rushing through you like the confidence at party seven dances and three shots in when you feel like you can talk to anyone. Alas you are dealing with a far harder task than pulling some boy you only half know into the dance floor. Then again given what you can recall of Greek Mythology maybe the average booze, hook up and joint party is good prep for dealing with gods.

Bad time to giggle Molly, bad time. You bite back the impulse.

"Having met your daughter I want to think better of you, that I'm missing or misunderstanding something critical to the story, but knowing only what I know I can't trust that."

Arawn nods attentively, though part of you wonders it it is your words or your sword hand that he is paying the most mind to.

"You are a king who has broken oaths of fealty, leaving behind those who swore with him. A guardian of the dead who all but broke bread with among the worst of their defilers and bartered with him for renewed divinity, ushering in the greatest advancement and proliferation of necromancy in the modern era."

You hear Lydia gasp at the harshness of your words but dare not look at her, it is the truth and it has to be brought into the light.

"Child of Hidden Fire, do you know what is the foremost cause of death among necromancers?" the old man says slowly, almost sadly. It is clear the question is rhetorical and so you wait for his answer. "The practice of necromancy, hard was my battle against the madman Kemmler and near to the cusp of oblivion it brought me, until by guile and by chance I could be certain that his doom had come and he could not be sure that his death curse would be the end of me. He vowed then that he would not seek to slay be, but to cripple the mantle I bore. He said onto me I am one and I am great in mind and spirit, Enlightened to the truth of the world, but men are many and we only grow more so. How long until another and another like me rises and the power cracked in your hand should break."

He pauses again, not for effect, you think, but looking upon a scene far off in memory. "He offered me that which fate forbade, but which the fecund mind of man, mired in depravity though it may be, had found a means to break. This I could take on into the long years, I could be free and once more master of my domain and Kemmler... him I judged to be his own destruction and the span between the power broken and the one renewed, between a crippled pawn and again a king more than worth the evil he would do in the years left him. He was but one man and mine the duty of the ages. I was wrong."

Those last three words are spoken tonelessly, though none who could look upon Arawn's face would think they were without pain the weight of pain and sorrow.

"Before the Great War I did not understand the scale of death that mortal feromancy could wreak and the dreadful power that Kemmler would be able to draw from it, delaying his own end, once and then again. Yet if I were to make myself once more the pawn of Winter it would not restore those who passed before their time nor would it make the world any safer from such magicians as transgress against the dead."

"Well isn't that lucky for you," Harry growls. "You dropped the ball, only it wasn't the ball it was the lives of who knows how many lives..."

"There is no fortune good or ill in this understanding, only the knowledge of one who values control above the leverage to enact change," Arawn answers, or begins to, but you cut him off.

"Whatever the truth is, her revenge would not be justice and the innocent people in and around your life deserve to be caught up in it even less than you do."

"True." The sharp gaze behind the golden glasses challenges you in the silence that follows. What are you going to do about it?

"The only true peace and safety for anyone involved in this is to come to a new accord with the queen. Better to do so now while you have some people willing to assist you than later when you will once again be alone."

"What assistance do you offer and by what means are you willing to obtain of her concessions is would not otherwise give?"

And there's the trouble, the only thing you have thought of that you could hold over Mab is as Usum suggested the willingness to die so that your spite against her might survive you and... well you really do not want to go down that route unless you really have to. What else... you could offer service... but do you trust the Queen of Arctis Tor, the liege of the thing that had kidnapped you to command you even just for a time?

"What choice do you have, run away from her forever?" Harry probes as you ponder the choices this way and that.

"Forever is a long time Warden and neither I nor my once Lady shall see the end of it, the best I can do is help my daughter make her own path in the world."

"She plans to use Lydia," you cut in, sensing the shift in his tone, the one thing that can move him from his course who had defied the turning of ages and the will of the powers. "To trade your life for her service down the ages. As long as you bear that mantle she will not be safe, but you can pass it to another and so..."

"Defy her will," Gard interrupts, startling you. Truth be told you had almost forgotten she was there, which for a woman in armor with a war axe across her back is rather impressive. "One or the other, either you summon the queen now and try to bargain with her or shift the mantle to one who is not Lydua and present her with a feat accompli. Do not assume that you can speak to her to obtain of her precisely your hearts' desire. That way lie tears, or eyes frozen beyond weeping."

While she is speaking Arawn grasps his daughter's hand and speaks quietly to her. "For Lydia sake I would let the power pass from me," the death god, or is it god of death, says at last. "But I will not see her brought forth where she can yet enact her will unchecked."

Harry shifts a little, his boots squeaking on floor now more slimy than wet, but when you look at him you see no uncertainly. He can live with presenting Mab with another Ankou, but can you live with what the consequences might be for him?

What do you do?

[] Try to persuade Arawn to negotiate
-[] Write in offer to help

[] Try to convince Matthews to take on the mantle

[] Summon a lesser Ankou to take on the Mantle

[] Write in

OOC: As far as Molly can tell Arawn is being sincere

 

[DragonParadox]

Goodbyes ​

22st of July 2006 A.D.

There were advantages to speaking a language that no one else did, Lydia had learned over the years, being able to complain about stuffy parties without offending anyone, asking who this person or that was and getting a straight answer so she would know who to avoid and now talking about sorcery, specters and...

"I didn't want it to come to this, not so soon, but fate and fortune make fools of men and gods alike."

Lydia had always known she was special, you would have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to realize there was something odd about your father chasing away the bad dreams with a 'prayer' that made the air shiver and the shadows dance. she had known she was special since she was six, but knowing the name for that left her feeling lightheaded, or maybe it had been the fight. Her stomach felt unsettled, her hands were still clenching and unclenching, some part of her expecting a fresh horror to jump out of the shadows.

"You are going to have to look after yourself for a while Snowdrop, if I give this up... it's not just my power, it is my life, it's part of my soul."

She'd had to bite her lips to hold back a gasp, the coppery taste of blood in her mouth, but she had known her dad had a way out of this, he always had a way out, he had to.

"Souls are not as fragile as tales would have you think, souls heal as all living things do. Mab must have her pawn, or she will never stop hunting you and yet if I were to pass all that power on to another I would perish, sure as if I had cast myself into the maw of the Outer Dark, so I shall keep back the merest fraction, the smallest of seeds and I shall slumber, sleep and death are kin enough that I know the way of building a... what did the call them in the futurist books, a life support cartouche?"

"Capsule dad," the girl tried to smile, her throat hurt like she had swallowed something sticky and unpleasant.

"I shall sleep wrapped in my own personal dream, far from the hand of the tyrant, for how long I cannot tell this has never been done before, but I shall wake as the King under the mountain is wont to do." He was looking at her as if he were trying to measure all the contours of her face, it was a look that said goodbye.

"But... but papa, I need to know, what if I... what if I die before you..."

"You are my child Lydia, a princess in exile, but a princess just the same, the mere passage days in the sunlit world will not be your end, not unless the very thread of ages if run to its end and I will not be that tardy, this I vow. Now listen, we do not have long, there are the federal agents outside. There is a chest under my desk that has some gifts for you so that you do not have to go into battle in borrowed chainmail, but more importantly you will find my will, go to Signore Rici and give him the letter on top, he will know what to do with it. Emancipation... ah," he sighs. "I wish we had more time, but as a man more skilled in the leading of armies than empire once said ask me for anything but time. I wish we did not have to do this at all, but most of all in the United States. If the process falls through vanish, fall off the grid until you are eighteen. It will be hard and uncomfortable, but the risk of an enemy, someone who wishes you ill, obtaining custody is far too great."

He glances at Molly seemingly trying to read the runes on the armor, but for her part Lydia wasn't paying attention. She was struggling just to keep her breathing under control, it was all coming to her at once.

"Keep your friends close. I do not think she is beholden to any power, which is a rare thing for one who burns with such power, for his part the wizard is beholden to too many and he chaffs under them, a peril and an opportunity." He stops and laughs softly, his face still somber. "How strange it is to say all these things so quickly, I thought I had more time. Remember that I trust you and I love you, I always will."

With these words Lydia's father, Arawn fallen traitor god of the underworld turned on his feel to speak to an old man about a mantle.

OOC: I thought about pushing this through into the rolls to see if they can get to Matthews, but this just felt like a good Lydia interlude and at the same time the cut off point worked best here rather than including the rolls with Matthews or if that does not work the summoning. No vote this time, but the answer to some questions you guys had