Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[DragonParadox]

Planting the Staff ​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

No wood was ever cut to make that staff, nor carved into shape or polished with lacquer black, that's not a staff, just the shape of one, the story of one, a faerie's working carved from chaos or maybe it's a faerie itself, hard to say with something old and long grown into the fullness of its tale black. Huh... there's that word again. Black-story-staff... Blackstaff.

Most things though, even if they are made by the fey don't spin their names into the world by mere presence. It's the spinning that finally lodges the memory loose, the old woman with iron teeth who lives in a cottage in the woods just past Nowhere. How on Earth did the Council get Mother Winter's staff and what the heck did they pay her? Briefly, very briefly you consider the possibility that it might have been stolen, but then you recall Edinburgh isn't buried under an ice sheet. It's not beyond the bounds of imagination that some clever wizard might have stolen the staff in such a way as to ward off vengeance, men can be a bit mad at the best of times and mages more than most, but dangle such a stolen treasure in the halls of an institution and you open a thousand doors for Winter's hand to creep through. Does Meave know? You wonder. She'd probably tell you just to show off if you asked her the right way.

By the time you ask that last question the staff is gone and McCoy is holding his regular focus, carved with runes not unlike Harry's if with a finer hand for wood carving.

"We must find the source, end it before..." Ancient Mai says as another tremor hits, hard enough to unbalance a few of the younger wizards.

"Harry's on it and Donald the team we sent to Tres Fronteras. We should start scying for those that don't show up. Warlocks know the jig's up after today one way or the other and that's the worst kind of warlock to deal with."

The old woman gives him a long, meaningful look, the kind of meaning that's willfully not hidden from onlookers. 'You're suggesting the cautious approach?' it seems to say.

Tiffany clears her throat. "Given the introduction that misbegotten spawn of a goat and a mutt's bone pile gave me I might as well offer what counsel I can. This would be a very fruitful time to throw coins down gutters if one should find one's self inside the wards possessing one. How likely is that."

"Before today I would have said impossible," Ancient May says. "Alas there are other things I would have said impossible before this day."

More wizards were starting to trickle into the hall, some of them wounded, some of them carrying dead comrades, savaged, bloody. A poor approximation of a vampire attack, you think numbly, but then they wouldn't need perfect would they? Just good enough to kill.

The White Council is starting to rally around the two Senior Council Members present. What do you do?

[] Give an account of what you know of the traitors to help with the scrying

[] You are a lot faster than the wizards, maybe you can still catch up to Lydia and the others

[] Use your Crown to see if Tiffany's suspicion about the Denarians is right. True Chaos might serve them, but if you can find one of them alone it might also serve you

[] Write in

OOC: You now know what the Blackstaff is at a deep mystical level... and still do not know what the Blackstaff the posting is. High cosmic insight low politics, but then as soon as you mention the name to Carlos or Harry they will tell you, though the latter may have feelings on the matter.

 

[DragonParadox]

Breath of the Unquiet ​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

A scion of death was Lydia Rhys, but also of the deep earth, born to lightless halls under the hill. She felt the tumult and the torment of the earth and knew that it was wrong, intimately, viciously wrong. "It's not like Vegas," she called back, more to assure herself than them. When the False Dragon had tried to open tear the city asunder by the power of his broken stewardship, you could hear the laughter of his true masters, like hyenas about to fall upon a feast of fallen flesh.

"It's geomancy Great Lady," said one of the mages in robes of green, not quite used to talking to the wizards, to their eyes uncanny in form and in power. "I've never felt its like before, but one might say the same of all things of this world where the Sun shines above."

"What's so special about the sun?" Warden Dresden asked.

"It's a bit like if you looked up and saw the Philosopher's Stone just shining over all the world," she explained, or started to at least. Turning the corner the company stopped dead. About thirty feet in front of them the floor fell away into a jagged pit whose far edge was of ancient stone and black basaltic foundations. At least one set of marble stairs had already slid in.

"Think you're going to have to redecorate?" Even Warden Dresden's attempt at a joke sounded faint. If any unprotected wizards had been caught up in that they were dead, sure as sunset. Wizards for all their power were only flesh and blood.

Another tremor, more stones falling into the pit as flashlights peered within. It seemed then to Lydia that as the light traveled down something else came the other way, a black exhalation, a stillness of the...

"Warden Morgan, are any wizards buried in the Halls themselves?"

"A handful, the Council has only been headquartered here for about five hundred years. Most wizards prefer to be burned or else buried on family plots, but there were a few who were old when Headquarters were new, followers of the old pagan ways who would not lay their heads in a on earth that had been sanctified to the White God, but also didn't trust the old burial grounds that had laid untended for so long."

"Shit, fuckin' ghost Druids," someone mutters Warden Morgan snaps his head at his youngest colleague, though this time his gaze goes awry, for it's one of his own who said it, Zadok, Lydia thinks his name is.

"Worse," Lydia is in no mood to smile. "The souls are long gone, a darkness has been called to dwell in them and it loves well earthly remains of wizards, though it must be coaxed to take ones so old."

"Speak plainly girl!" the senior warden barked. Once she might have recoiled from it, but Lydia had stood in the halls of her father and called for judgement, she had descended into hell and freed those unjustly bound. Down in that pit now there a kind of little hell now festered. "Keep your wits about you, we are about to crash a soiree of the Black Court, though gods and not the kindly ones know what the power that moves them was promised to allow such a conjuring."

"'Necromancy', the magic of the Untimely Death Twisted is only partially understood lacking examples..." The War Weaver began speaking and Lydia was about to offer what comfort she could in the face of the horror that likely awaited them below, but the spirit was not done. "We are metal, never flesh, never alive, never bound to the Cycle, or to the Not-Cycle of the Beyond. We are least likely to be harmed. Let us go ahead."

"Ayup, that's a sixty foot drop, you got anything that can deal with that?" Zadock had been looking into the hole.

"Time to be the Dragon again I guess," Molly-Sophia said, her form already bright and smoking as it began to change.

The Dead would heed me, they would listen at least, Lydia thought, recalling all the times in which Molly had with words prepared a foe for their ultimate defeat.

"They are not Dead child, they never lived," the voice of her father replied, a still and secret thing at the back of her mind.

"Close enough," she countered with courage mostly unfeigned. "I just need to distract the things while someone else kills the Warlocks who called them. Thankfully I have all these warlock-slayers with me."

The first War Weaver was already climbing spider-like into the pit.

"Do not bandy words with them," the voice sounded sterner than when she had taken Tiffany's offer of power—and that worked out alright father, didn't it? she thought with some resentment— but more than that, he sounded afraid.

"Why?" She asked even as she climbed easily down, finding handholds and footholds.

"Because they will have more barbs to throw than you." The answer has the virtue of sincerity, but that did not satisfy Lydia.

"And whose fault is that then?" she snapped back.

The silent admission of fault did not warm her.

Lydia decided to...

[] Try to distract the possessed corpses, the ritually made vampires working the geomancy

[] Focus on the mortal warlocks, she could kill them far more freely than the wardens and they use their power on the Black Court things

[] Write in

OOC: Not going to lie, I was stocked when you guys decided to send Lydia down to deal with the tremors. Peabody's been a busy boy. What's worse than a fake vampire attack? A real one... of the worse vampires made from old bones that shouldn't from the Council's understanding of necromancy be able to do that. Of course the Council's understanding of necromancy is much like that of mind magic, hindered by the Laws.

 

[DragonParadox]

Dance Macabre ​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

Why did the bad guys always end up underground? It was a question I'd asked myself a dozen times and never found the answer to. Maybe it was the opposite of why wizards loved towers so much, I'd have liked one too but getting a penthouse in Chicago requires selling your soul to hell, renting it back and then subletting to them again. Also the spooky not music made of unspeakable silences, always a classic. "Hey Morgan, don't suppose you know how many druids the Council has stacked down here?"

"If I knew what earthly reason would I have to not tell you already," my personal nemesis got out, former personal nemesis I hoped, but it was hard to tell.

"I don't know, maybe you forgot. I forget stuff all the time." Smiling wasn't easy in the murky depths with nothing but the search lights of the War Weavers to break the darkness, but I managed one. Like I might forget all the times you tried to get me killed for Black Magic just to prove your gut's always right if you're going to be less of an asshole.

"I don't, it'd get you killed in this line of work." A long pause followed during which I had been left to wonder if he had seen my offer to bury the hatchet and chosen to bury it in my metaphorical back. "Heads up Dresden, being blind to what's in front of you's even worse."

I may not forget, but I can change my mind if given evidence. At least that's what I hoped he was saying. Alas Morgan was also talking about the damned hole they were in, a fact I was reminded of in that moment by a sudden flash of light up ahead as continuous beams of green-white spellfire carved a path though another mound or rubble to reveal...

Imagine a tomb, a normal kind of Romanesque tomb, alcoves in the wall for lanterns, marble slates lined up to carry the bones, jars of offerings set at the foot of each one. Now imagine everything is covered in blood, fresh blood, like someone had killed a herd of elephants, and it was starting to melt inwards like wax in front of a candle flame.

Four living wizards hooded and cowled like well... Cowl stood on the edges of the room, but in the middle where the melting was stood another five, skeletal, pulsing red and stretched out like someone had pulled them on a rack. They also had fangs because I guess it was part of the trademark.

"Daughter of Dust why do you come to us?" One of the... things asks as the focus in my hand creaks. I look at my blasting rod to see the polish that had been fresh a moment ago start to peel beneath my eyes.

"Do you bring sacrifices?" Another asks, tilting its head like a poorly made puppet. "Do you seek boons as your father did?"

"Interesting." The kid was stone-cold-sober, not even blinking like an effigy in marble and antique silver. "And what would my lord father sacrifice to such as you?"

"The father of your true self, not the shade... shade's shade... shade's shade shade..."

The way they repeated the word had the shape of laughter without any of the contents. Don't get me wrong I've heard evil sons of a gun laugh, the kind of evil that makes friends with the devil, but this was somehow worse, not even evil because evil at least wanted.

"You know of whom we speak... The Sage, the Seer, the Master."

"Touching as this little reunion might be, you have been called from your tomb for a purpose, fulfill it!" A half familiar voice commanded. Peabody. For a man who had betrayed everything he ever claimed to serve and believe in he looked surprisingly normal, maybe a little tired around the eyes, like he'd been pulling one too many late nights.

"The Necromancer."

"Ahem," Peabody sounded peeved, not the usual reaction to four Wardens leveling their swords. "Kill me and poor Aleron goes with me, I linked my life force to his. Now of course if any of you feel like unpicking a life weave where the merest error could kill, you are welcome to attempt it."

My eyes darted to not-quite Molly... who was nodding. Nothing was never easy.

Harry decided to?

[] Re-Kill the talking corpses while they were busy trying to tempt the kid to the Dark Side

[] Play Defense, he had been getting better at unmaking enemy spells lately

[] Write in

OOC: The decay aura is the effect of Nihilistics 7: Oblivion's Dance. Whatever you do, the living had better do it quick.

 

[DragonParadox]

Liars Alight ​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

Donald Morgan caught the exact moment Dresden overshot, bracing the back of the gun against a recoil that wasn't there he shot right over the son of a bitch's shoulder, though Ol' Samuel didn't seem to notice, too caught up in grand declarations: "Of your own will descended into the grave, now know death."

Zadock stumbled, spit in anger, no wizard worth his salt would curse for pain when there were spells hurled in deadly earnest, but his eyes were still on the enemy. Marguerite tittered, actually bloody tittered, as another of the warlocks tried to say something only for the word to get stuck in her throat and come out as a mouthful of blood between trembling lips.

One of the arcane automata tried to blast the third bastard... Seamus, his traitor memory provided, Donald had gone to his wedding, he'd hated it but he'd gone, just barely managing to wing him before he pulled a piece of stone like a blanket around himself for protection. Pinned himself in place, but it's a hell of a good grounding.

Warlock Three (Seamus) takes 3 Damage -> Now at 4/7

The song of electromagnetism disrupted played against his skin and Donald knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, beyond the smell of rust that was starting to emanate from his Warden's sword that whatever the girl and the dead things were saying to each other—it had stopped being English a few words back— it wasn't going to last much longer.

"Catenis aquae!" he shouted and shaped to his will magic as familiar as his own right hand.

Even if Samuel couldn't be killed as other men yet he could definitely be bound just the same. Water rushed at him at the Warden's command, drained from the tunnels above by the same passages he had used to break into the tombs. It bound him as he had dozens of others, spinning, twisting. A spiral became a sphere, a dark figure struggling like a worm in its midst.

"Did you really think it would be so easy?" The dead voice spoke in his own mind he felt his own aura inverting, memories like knives turning on his own psyche. He tried to grasp for the discipline of a warden, for the power of a wizard to command magic, but all he gripped in that moment was pain.

In his mind's eye Donald Morgan could see it, Headquarters shattering, sinkholes opening into the city above, swallowing cars and buildings and lives, demands of investigation turning into scapegoating. Dozens of wizards found by the authorities, deals made in secret failing, leaving only the threat of violence with violence met. Dozens of warlocks made in desperation, dozens of men as he could only watch on an impotent ghost. He was already dead. There was nothing he could do.

Morgan takes 4 Damage -> Now at 3/7 (Dementation 7: Personal Scourge)

Except... that wasn't true, he knew that ghosts could touch things and move them, that they could speak to the living, he knew the names of spirit speakers half the word over. He should be able to do... to... He opened his eyes and was still in the battle. Why on the floor though? Why looking up at a soaking wet Peabody, still sputtering from his just-failed prison spell? A corpse thing was looking at him too and even though he could not read the long dead face he knew that was the one that had flailed him with his own will.

"Why do you resist? There is nothing to fear... Nothing."

"Cease unauthorized use of trans-mental powers!"

The air in the back of the tomb where the corpse thing had been lurking became arcane plasma as the last of the War Weavers unleashed a honest-to-God green flame thrower on it.

In its wake not even ash remained to fall to earth.

Revenant Two ('Demented One') Takes 11 Damage -> Killed

But the wizards of the White Council were not alone that night in the depths of the defiled catacombs. Stranger Sorcerers had lent their aid alongside the Sutras of the the City of Law. What powers did they call from the farthest shore?

[] Write in (Path of Sorcery excluding Summoning and Binding; Being experts specially selected for the mission the Sorcerers will use it at level 5)

OOC: I hope this isn't dragging. It's just there are a lot of moving pieces and even though the system isn't as complex as others when you get more than a dozen people in a room casting at each other it adds up. Also for anyone who does not know, Personal Scourge is a very good wizard killer since it inflicts damage proportional to the victim's Permanent Willpower, in Morgan's case 9, that has to be soaked with Humanity... which in his case is 7, he has seen some shit. Fortunately as bad as the Council's protections against mind magic are he did get one willpower roll at DC 9 with his Code of Honor Merit to resist and he did, snapping out of it before any of the warlocks got to his thrashing body.

 

[DragonParadox]

That Fortune Might Favor the Bold ​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

Faint blue light flickered in the hands of the seekers of wisdom at least as those-who-dwell-Beyond would see. To eyes threaded with silver wire and set with flawless quartz it was as if they held in their hands spark of the great Ring. This they saw, this they knew. As thinking minds were to the guises five and living things to the humors of the world so too did even stone and metal transform under the power of the wheel and the name of that power that moved even mountains and transmuted more surely than vitriol and flame was radioactive decay.

Sigh of the Endless Journey watched with interest as one of bizarre skeletal creatures was reduced to dust under his hand, as another suffered the dissolution of half its face and he watched with horror as the thing monster, the one who had not addressed the fallen water master moved with the speed of the poisoned wind, the fury of an avalanche of black ice. Brass screamed and tore, servomotors whined and tied as onto the monster the Soul of Resplendent Jade was like onto a toy in the hand of a spiteful child, ripping off one arm, narrowly missing the other and then kicking her into the back wall.

"Ally in Critical Condition," the squad sight alert flashed though his optic nerve, bypassing the need to turn his head and look... and he breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn't passed. All of them had taken the risk that they may lose their way Beyond and never find the Wheel, but he did not wish that for she who had been his sister three circles past, his teacher before that.

Without the luck they had woven together she would have been torn apart, without the strength of her armor she would have been crushed against the stone.

Revenant One ('Creeper') takes 9 Aggravated Damage -> Destroyed
Revenant Three ('Void Shadow') Takes 5 Damage -> Now at 2/7
Soul of Resplendent Jade Takes 6 Damage -> Now at 1/7 Unconcious

"Radiation?" The enemy leader asked with an edge of strange disdain to it. "Is that what the Council is allying with these days? Maybe I should have listened to the Fallen One when he said the weapons of mass death were the answer. You certainly don't seem to hesitate do you Donald? And you Dresden if you want to kill do it properly."

Sigh of the Endless Journey could hear the skittering command behind those words just before he felt the tide of elemental power rising, but he was too slow, out of position. He just had a chance to see the look of betrayal in the eye of the foe Wizard-Dresden had been compelled to burn.

"Fuego!"

But another did move. The silver haired End-Singer hurled herself into the path of the flames, skin turning to stone even as the fire touched her.

Lydia takes 2 Damage -> Now at 10/12

"Is that all thine malice can conjure oath-breaker?" She asked, her voice thick with some emotion Sigh of the Endless Journey could not desciphre save to say that it was not pain of the flesh.

Together the End Singer and the Dragon of the Maker...

[] Turned their attention to the lesser living foes

[] Tried to take the enemy leader captive for interrogation

[] Destroyed the last of the dead things

[] Write in

OOC: That sorceress was lucky as only someone with 5 Dots in fortune can be. Trouble is the other two undead move after Lydia and Sophia odds are good they are going to kill someone. On the other hand as Peabody just proved with Lawbreaker's Lure Warlocks are also dangerous.

 

[DragonParadox]

Death's Swift Wings ​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

Lydia Rhys was 'pissed off', an expression she only knew because of Daniel. Never in her life had she gotten an offer more insulting to her character, her honor and her wits. Even if the first part was true, even if Father did plan to use Kemmler like that it did not mean it was her destiny. The Fates' weave frayed long ago and she would not be their puppet, much less His.

"No honor among warlocks, is there, Wizard Peabody?" A needle of silver radiance, sharp as the point of her rage struck the revenant standing farthest back in the eye socket and into the hollowness that animated it. For a moment, for a flash of an instant the skull leered back at her, its eyes filled with silver fire, with her fire, and Lydia saw herself the way He had shown her she could have been. Then it gave a hacking scream and stumbled back, the illusion broken, though it wasn't.

Lydia loses 2 Essence -> Jade Talisman at 1/3 (Excellency and Aggregated Damage)
Revenant Four 'Breath Thief' takes 4 Damage -> Now at 3/7

In the confusion, even she barely saw Sophia move, her friend was just there, right behind the head traitor. His eyes widened with shock and his back coiled like his spine had been transmuted into a live snake, twisting his body in ways the human body had never been meant to move, and he was fast, oh so fast. No mortal man could match him. Alas for him the one he faced today was not mortal. Shifting the grip at the last moment the ornate pommel of Sophia's sword struck the wizard in the ribs at the last moment, then as he was trying to catch his breath again squarely under the jaw. That the blow didn't shatter his jaw and take the skull with it was entirely down to Sophia checking it.

Samuel Peabody, wizard, warlock, traitor, collapsed to the floor in a rapidly expanding pool of his own blood as a roar of victory filled all who heard it with new life and purpose.

Samuel Peabody takes 7 points of Bashing Damage -> Unconscious

It is not your time. To Lydia it was a soothing balm, to the sorceress who had been crushed and thrown against the wall it was a second lease on life. She rose from the ruin of her armor whole, augmented eyes glowing with faith in the aspect of her goddess near at hand.

All Allies Heal Up to 7 Damage (Howl of Healing)
Sophia loses 1 Willpower -> Fount of Power now at 3/5

"I had hoped to speak to the heir of Her not this pale facsimile," the voice was oddly composed in the midst of the battle, its diction precise, its volume conversational, more than loud enough since it seemed to be speaking in Lydia's ear, in everyone's ears.

Both the remaining walking corpses had stopped their rite, no longer violating the earth with their magic. Instead they looked with ruined faces at Sophia-Molly and spoke with a voice far off, with His voice, the one Molly called the Hollow Man.

"If you are done breaking my tools for the sake of a system even more broken..."

He never got to finish the sentence as the jade and black War Weaver hanging from the dome of the crypt unleashed a dozen magnetically guided shells into the corpse's rib cage. Bones harder than iron withstood the first blast and the second, but the third proved too much. The body broke and with it the connection. Given what she had just gone through Lydia was indeed glad of it.

Revenant Three ('Void Shadow') Takes 2 Damage -> Destroyed

As the last of the four armed warriors turned their attention upon the final corpse the thing proved the truth of Lydia's words again as it dragged in a hissing inhalation, ripping blood through the pores of one of its own living allies. It's not enough, nowhere near enough. It too is dust, leaving behind nothing but damned and desperate souls. Lydia remembered how good her friend was in convincing people and she called out the best offer she could still make: "Give up your lives and I'll escort your souls myself!"

Warlock One (Half-Hand) takes 1 Damage -> Now at 6/7
Revenant Four 'Breath Thief' Heals 1 Damage... and takes 5 -> Destroyed

One dropped his staff with a clatter, another lay his hand on the stone floor.

"Traitors!" a cold-eyed woman with a long knotted scar across her face called. Apparently somewhere along the way irony had also been killed.

Instead of hurling some spell at Lydia or one of her allies she tossed what looked like a vial of ink at the ground. It spread in the blink of an eye until the stain, the gate was large enough for a person to step though. Step she did with her last remaining ally attempting to mirror her, but the Wardens of the White Council knew well their grisly work. Wardens Morgan and Zadock closed and they cut, wards failing before thrice enchanted steel. Now there was only one.

Warlocks One and Three awaiting execution in the hopes of Lydia preserving their souls
Warlock Two Attempting to Escape into the Spirit World
Warlock Four takes 8 Damage -> Killed

"Non... non," the old Seeress said the words in the tone of governess chiding a unruly ward, but under her will the whirlpool of darkness became more like a puddle again, ankle deep.

She died in the crosshairs of two War Weavers, the body incinerated no less thoroughly than those of the dead.

"Well..." Lydia dusted herself off as the halls shook one last time, the Earth finding her balance. "That went about as well as it could have."

Before anyone else could answer Sophia got that far off look in her eyes she has when she was 'calling home', though focus swiftly changed to something more serious.

"Thorned Namshiel is down here, trawling troubled waters. The traitors let him in."

What do you do next?

[] Try to interrogate the surrendered Warlocks

[] Try to interrogate Peabody at once
-[] About Aleron LaFortier
-[] About letting the Fallen in
-[] Write in

[] Regroup in the Warden Baracks

[] Write in

OOC: And there's the fight. Hope it worked. Personally I was a lot more happy with this than the last fight in the Wicked City, people almost died, Dresden got a brand new source of trauma, horrors man was not meant to know were faced and secrets were uncovered (even if not yet on screen...)

 

[DragonParadox]

Inside Knowledge​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

Two dead warlocks, two alive though looking like they hardly want to be and one unconscious not-quite-Senior Council spy, that's what Lydia and company bring back with. Alongside that comes the news that one of the missing senior wizards is bound somehow in life and soul to Peabody, unless he's a better liar than Lydia and Sophia give him credit for, and most worrying of all still no word of Arthur Langtry. He could be dead, you read the same fear, the same suspicion in McCoy's furrowed brow and if Ancient Mai were any less restrained you have no doubt you'd read that on her face as well. The last thing the Council needs right now is a leadership struggle. The Warden Captain is still missing, presumed enchanted alongside a score of younger wardens, news from beyond Edinburgh has been sparse and mostly filled with pleas for reassurance rather than offers of the same.

Regained 2 Essence-> Now at 14/18

Just about the only unambiguously good news is that absent tremors and the aura of decay the chaos in Headquarters seems to have melted away. The geomancy Ancient Mai now suspects had been meant to do more than crack the vaults and expose the wizards to the city above, indeed that ticking bomb may have been of secondary import compared to the strengthening of their allies, particularly tugging on the spells of compulsion.

Also there is a Denarian Sorcerer somewhere in around these halls. Even on a day like this the Fallen are never an afterthought.

"Tiffany, your thoughts on which of the Fallen might be around and what they could be plotting?" You get a very real sense that the older wizards would like to find something else for Carlos to do about now. Charitably one could say this is not trusting them to keep their minds closed, less charitably you had found that secrecy is very much a wizard's sin, just as it can be their strength.

"Though I am not privy to strategic thinking of all but one, I can hazard a guess as to who might be lead this way by their vices and desires. It is written that pride was the first of all sins among those who followed the Morning Star and I see no reason to doubt it, belief in the rightness of one's agenda often blinds the Fallen to alternatives and most hosts, even those whose will does not give out are so dazzled by the power and insight of an angel that they do nothing to correct the error."

"Er... Molly why does your friend sound like she wants to give advice to devils?"

"She doesn't, it's just that the advice she might give us on how to deal with them is the same. Insight can be turned both ways." Like a knife, you do not add that last thought.

"Namshiel is most given to greed for the souls of damnation of mortal wizards since he feels that in giving mortals leave to touch the infinite and the sublime, to use magic is the fatal flaw in... Never mind." She pauses, like she had said too much, the rest of the arrested phrase obvious to everyone. Namshiel thinks that mortal wizards are the weakest link in God's ordering of the world. Whether it is true or not it's clear that Tiffany was throwing smoke and flashing mirrors, trying to get every wizard in the room to consider if they are liable to fall to temptation, if only to reassure themselves. All the while they are not questioning why she jumped to that name so fast.

It works like a charm... almost. Eyes ringed with centuries of lines turn on her and in a very mild voice Ancient Mai asks: "Given what transpired today would it not make the most sense to consider simple opportunism?"

What do you do?

[] Throw out a few more names, diluting the value of the advice, but also exposing your Crown less (Manipulation+Subterfuge)

[] Reveal that you've divined it's him (Opposed Wits Occult rolls to come up with a plausible means you might have done that)

[] Interogate one of the warlocks
-[] The two who surendered
-[] Peabody

[] Write in

OOC: A bit short, but fortunately you do have the council's head diplomat here and Tiffany aimed Read Emotions wrong because she thought McCoy would be the larger problem

 

[DragonParadox]

Investigation on the Clock ​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

"The demon lord was opportunism, Wizard Mai" you interrupt, drawing eyes and attention away from Tiffany. "This entire...."you hunt for a word, before settling on "affair was not. Premature, but premeditated. One of the Thirty would not simply linger in Edinburgh on the off-chance of something turning up."

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 13/18 (Excelency)

You rise from your seat, motioning the others to follow you, thankful for the thin, but long lasting layer of oil still covering your face. This time nothing has seen fit to blow it up. "To have a Knight of the Order of the Blackened Denarius" you continue, turning a corner "enter your Halls today of all days? And senior Council members going missing? Doesn't strike me as coincidence."

As those too-knowing eyes turn to a focus on your way you wonder not for the first time how much she knows, or suspects of your nature. Her former apprentice thought you something akin to a Yama King which admittedly would make the present meeting pretty troubling, but did the ancient Wu Lung still think that or had she come upon some other theory after hearing your explanation, had she perhaps stumbled on some fragment of the impossible history you recall. If it could be found anywhere it would be among the shen.

"You speak sense Ms Carpenter, but if that one isindeed tangled in this ball of serpents why was he of so little use to them?"

"Little use my singed ass," McCoy grumbles. "You think Hellfire's cheap for the asking? Maybe the bastard's just late. The devil might take care for his own, but he ain't got a stopwatch."

"Late for what though, what were they trying to do?" Carlos cuts in. He has a lot more trouble than his seniors keeping the worry out of his voice, for all he's trying to be stoic.

"Thankfully we do have people to ask that, some of them might even be inclined to answer us without too much convincing thanks to Lydia." You give your friend a thumbs up in passing, though she looks busy, like she's having a conversation with someone only she can hear.

***​

The White Council's cells have the air of a place built before humanism was a glimmer in the eye of Thomas Paine, much less human rights: barely enough room to stand in, maybe four strides to pace and only a bench for seating. Then again one imagines it's rare for the Council to keep prisoners long.

Morgan motions the guards to stand at ease, as much as the day allows. You throw them a look of encouragement then look to the prisoners:

"Hello wizards" you say, loud enough for all the warlocks to hear. "I have questions."

"Keep it short, job's not over," these words you don't hear so much as read on Donald Morgan's lips. On the one hand it's flattering that he thinks well enough of you to help with 'work'. On the other you can't help but thinking that no monster is more dangerous than one with a good sense of timing. Namshiel would know what this lot know and he'd have a good guess of how long it would take them to talk. Should you risk trying to talk to Peabody?

Another thought, more dangerous: Should I dangle the prospect of salvation over their heads? Even the Fallen would not know I can do that, I didn't know until less than an hour ago.

Who do you question

[] The surrendered warlocks, they know less but are likely to be more coperative
-[] Offer them a chance to be free of the effects of Black Magic (optional)
-[] Ask where Luccio was sent
-[] Ask about the location of the missing Senior Council Agents

[] Samuel Peabody
-[] Ask where Luccio was sent
-[] Ask about the location of the missing Senior Council Agents

[] Write in

OOC: Even with all your tricks there isn't even the theoretical posibility of selling the Council on showing any sort of clemency to Peabody hence why it is not an option for him.

 

[DragonParadox]

Sorcerer's Snare ​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

The pair Lydia managed to 'save' for a value of the word so miserly as to be almost an insult could not be more mismatched. One is a large mustachioed man, his robes stained with soot and burned around the edges, the other a woman of middling years, her long grey hair tied back in an intricate braid. The only thing alike about them is their eyes. You don't like looking in their eyes, but you do. That's how Mom and Dad taught you to talk to people and they deserve this much. "I won't take up much of your time. Do any of you know where Wizard LaFortier and the Merlin are. Wizard Peabody indicated that he had bound the former to his life with magic."

"I don't know what Samuel did, I don't know what he can do," the portly man, 'Honorius', someone behind you whispers, starts, his voice ragged. "And as to what his Master can do I am not sure it can be known, but Lucio, she was sent to kill the Merlin once Samuel has gotten him out of out hair. He didn't say in so many words but it was understood. The wardens, the young one's, it really is quite day, but they wouldn't listen. They were to be used as a distraction. With the leadership of the Council thrown into doubt and Ebenezer dead we were to do a purge of your own under the guise of hunting Arthur's killers, sharp-tongued Momus abroad and loose."

"What the fuck's a Momus?" you hear Harry and to be honest you agree.

"Satire personified in Aesop's Fables, I assume he meant irony," Lydia answers reflexively... causing him to flinch. What on Earth had gone on between the two of them.

"He set her on fire," Sophia informs you, the memory of the deed riding the words.

Shit! Lydia's fine, that's clear as day, but Harry's peace of mind is a different matter. You almost wish Tiffany was back in his head where she could force him to listen to sense.

The wizard does not answer, instead he whispers. "All for nothing, all for nothing... I guess he was right about that part at least."

"What part?" Morgan dons the interrogator's manner the same way he draws his sword, with direct and without flourish, without wasted effort.

"We'll die fast, you'll die slow. Nothing is forbidden, everything is forsaken. Really it was always unlikely to work, just more likely than doing nothing."

"It?" you press, though not too hard.

"Stearing the council into a new role... or maybe I should say it's old role. They don't want to kill the world, not really, well most of Them don't and the rest could be mollified with sacrifices, sent dreaming into the long dark. But they would need priests, attendants."

Like the Starborn, the thought flashes through your mind in and instant. Just like Shaw even the inner circle had a story where they were the heroes. Doesn't everyone? They thought they would be priests and herald of the rising Old Ones.

Someone snaps their fingers, Tiffany. What...?

"That is what's in it for what's her name, the one who held a knife to your throat?" Before Harry can answer she finishes. "Kumori, she wanted to end suffering, to end death. There is really no way a god of the Darkhallow would be powerful enough to affect the fundamental laws of the universe, but if the Outside is no longer Outside..."

"Then we are all of us unmade in our essence and something new and unspeakable is born from the cauldron of our blood," Wizard Mai cuts in, not that your friend lets that stop her.

"Now that the obvious has been spoken... I meant to say that was her hook. Transgression and freedom on the one hand, salvation on t he other, be it from the evils of this world, or from the supposed darkness of the age that is to come, the same one they are ushering in."

"Where did the Merlin go? Why wasn't he at headquarters?" Morgan asks the woman, Rebeca Mortimer, drawing from the list of Crown-spied traitors.

She just looks at him blankly.

"Where did the son of a bitch send Lucio to? Where is Arthur? Answer me!" There's more than anger in his voice, more than he'd like to show: fear and pain.

McCoy puts a hand on his shoulder, as though to restrain him, though something tells you it's more there for support, to remind him that he's not alone.

Honorius thankfully is still up to talking, indeed something tells you he might keep talking even if all of you left, offering his confession to a blank wall: "Paris, they should all be in Paris now, it was tricky, but we managed to convince Arthur that we had things under control here, we had to kill... it doesn't matter now, Sacrifices had to be made, but we convinced him things were under control here and he had to go to Paris. That, we got him to believe was where the heart of the rebellion lay. He did not take much convincing, what Englishman would need to be convinced long that there is something foul afoot in France?" He laughs though the sound seems to pain him. "Then we sent in the Wardens after him. I do not know if they are in thrall or if they had been made to believe the Merlin is a traitor. It does not really matter in the end, they were meant to die there, along with at least some of the Paris circle for authenticity."

"He went by the Ways?" You try to work out in your head how long that would take, but it's pointless without knowing a lot more about where that particular path winds through.

"Yes and they followed him likewise."

You look at Lydia, but she shakes her head. 'That's all he knew', the expression seems to say.

So you have wardens of the White Council hunting down its leader and his guard and a Denarian still loose in the Hidden Halls, or at least you hope he's still here. Otherwise he's done what he came to do and no matter what that is, it would end ill.

What do you do?

[] Split up again
-[] Even harder

[] Time to call in some back up, maybe Luccio at least is still on the ways where the fey could stop her
-[] Call Winter
-[] Call Summer

[] Deal with Namshiel first, Paris can wait

[] Write in

OOC: Finally did it. I am scared to find out how many errors are in this one, but I hope you guys enjoy anyway. Sorry again for how late this is.

 

[DragonParadox]

The Trouble With Diplomats ​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

"I'm going to need some reinforcements..." you find yourself thinking aloud, going through the math in your head. It's not that you think even the most advanced of Sanctuary's tech can face one of the Fallen head on, but what can't kill can still distract.

"Though it pains me to refuse aid honestly given miss Carpenter I cannot allow a passage to an uncharted realm inside the Halls not without a vote of the Senior Council." It's funny, Ancient Mai sounds entirely reasonable even while every word coming out of her mouth is nonsense, you wonder if that is what you sound like to people sometimes.

"You have a Denarian loose and you don't know where he's going or what he's doing...." you start, following along up the stairs and onto the first landing. Someone with a particular love of medieval unicorns, the ones that look distressingly goat-like had carved the balustrade here, you realize by touch alone, every sense screaming that you have to move now.

"And we aim to find out," she motions for the wizards to follow her, at least all the wizards not named Harry Dresden. The charitable read of the gesture would be that she assumed Harry would be more comfortable with the Chicago gan.. group. 'Chicago gang' will never not sound like a D list movie about the mob. The less charitable one... let's not get into that now.

"There are no words I can say at this late an hour," Beside the ones I am saying right now that is, irony does not escape you, it is just shoved to the side so hard it leaves an indentation in the metaphorical wall. "You either trust us or you do not and I think we have done quite enough to earn the former over the latter."

McCoy is about to open his mouth, from his expression to agree.

"I do not know how the wards would react to the attempt to draw such an opening. These halls once belonged to the Earlking, they are his no more, generations of wizards have worked to ensure he left no hidden openings, intended or no."

"It does not seem to have worked very well given your visitor and the fact that two of them almost got away." Tiffany points out 'innocently'.

"Quite," Ancient Mai agrees. "I cannot approve the opening of a Way inside the halls because you are too valued of an ally to lose Miss Carpenter."

That's... not what you were expecting. Truth be told 'I could get hurt' is very far down the list of mental considerations in this moment. You know you can take more punishment than anyone else here and not by a small margin.

"Magic is an unpredictable force force Majesty." You can tell Usum has to fight himself to even imply you might not win any confrontation. "The work of many hands, be they small and insignificant can trouble even the great, even you."

"Do you think I'll get hurt if I do this?" bluntly as you can you counter. Time is slipping by. Where is the Gatekeeper when you need him?

"On the balance likely not," he replies reluctantly. "One does not lightly bar a queen from her own hall and wards meant to withstand the bastard children of the Raksha would fail before your flame."

Looking at McCoy you read annoyance on his face, but also doubt, it's not hard to guess why, the Council's senior diplomat had just made a point about an important alliance. Grim as things are he'd probably loath to contradict her off the cuff. Not to mention at the top of his mind there's probably that little bit of doubt that you will smash head-first into the walls of reality. Harry has to have learned his worrying ways from someone and it was definitely not his first teacher.

What do you do?

[] It's not like any of the wizards can stop you from seeking the sanctuary of your own soul, step though and bring help, if it breaks the wards, you'll get them better ones, without traitor fast-passes

[] Fine, you'll make due with what you have

[] Write in

OOC: Yes the implication here is that Ancient Mai is willing to risk the Merlin not getting help in time vs Molly getting tele-fraged by the wards. Diplomats are the foremost practitioners of realpolitik.