Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[DragonParadox]

What Gnaws Deep ​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

Without thought your limbs align to the points of the compass, to the passage of the sun and the path of the moon and each in turn you bow to fire, air, earth and life and then at last you strike the earth, final unshaking pillar that bridges worlds. From the Earth a crumbling archway rises, though all the ages still obedient to to the script carved upon adamant in the hour of its carving. Wandering gate, judgement's gate that evens the scales though the time Uncounted. The Hollow Man, Marcus Drusus had built up quite the debt.

As you step though the hollowness that isn't air screams, as you step though the crushing-from-that-isn't-earth groans as as layered lies are contested for the first time with an alien order, Sophia at your heels, her eyes alight with green and skin already cracking with the form of the dragon within and beside her a wizard bearing a black staff that alone of all the things here is not of your nor of the Other.

The Other... the moment your thought had landed upon it the crushing weight of its regard lands upon you in turn, a vast and knowing Intelect, a broken thing whose being breaks the cosmos. It does not even seem to notice the Sorcerers and Sophia it sees only as an extention of you, but Harry it knows, Harry it recognizes for his escape as it casts above you a net of woven stone, like the lungs of some leviathan in the shape of a dome and the Blackstaff too it sees, overcome with avarice that gleams like tomb-gold upon the eyes of corpses set in the corners of a structure that seemed to all other senses to be round. But who was to say that spheres could not have corners in a place that wasn't there.

It comes without sound, without shadow cast, thousands upon thousands of boneless winged shapes, like worms taking to the air slipping out though the holes in the ceiling, all glistening blackly like the tongue of some poisonous undersea thing and in the beat of their wings a single word:

"Die."

It has if nothing else the virtue of brevity.

To that Ebenezar McCoy answers with a word that is fire singing though the empty space, blue-hot and hungry for flesh. As you watch the cloud recoils, but from the walls grows a flora just as foul: A fungus, bone white, flaking like dead skil opening as... pages of some foul grimoire eager to drink in the magic. Yet they had opened perhaps to the wrong page, they burn just the same. When the fire passes of the Squirming flying things there is no sign.

Only the eye well and the golden lights remain.

"That was... easy?" Lydia has clearly not watched enough horror moves, a deficiency, you are going to have to fix.

No seeoner has she said the words that you can feel something start to eat at the edges of your influence. The room you are in how is big, but not five miles in size so you can't see what's out there, you can just feel out though the corridors of black stone, something gnawing. The Hollow Seer had done what few of your other foes had, for all it might have served him well, withdrawn, ceded the center ground to take advantage of positioning. 'His' Labyrinth envelops yours.

What do you do?

[] Draw your influence back to this central chamber, this way you can see what's happening

[] Try to expand the central chamber to the full size of your influence (Contested Manipulation+Occult)

[] Wait for the Wardens, you are holding the center ground and that is where they must come, the gnawing is very slow for now

[] Write in

OOC: The Hollow Man was getting some atrocious rolls even with all his advantages so he decided for another approach. He did not get to where he is now by making a habit of smashing his head into walls. Also I will be on the road for most of the day on Sunday so the update might be late or delayed to the next day, thought I'd mention that here in case it slips my mind tomorrow with all the packing.

 

[DragonParadox]

Division ​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

Squaring your shoulders, with a sound of metal and stone grinding you you exhale, heart beat open into a glare, the teeth that spiraled inwards along its slitted pupil sparking against each other with annoyance. Between one second and the next the world changes. Instead of a stone tomb you are all standing up on a mountain peak, an exit to the labyrinth thrust up to tower over the rest of it. You look up hoping to see the Great Ring overhead, but Sanctuary does not stretch that far. All you can see above is blackness. No, in among it there are lighter points, dull grey where once there had been light, the glare of long dead stars.

"Don't.. look... up." you say slowly as in those starts you read the names of things best left Nameless within the circles of the world. These are the names the Archive would see expunged from the knowledge of man. No sooner had you said the words that a false moon rose, an eye, the Eye. Light fell like knives and shadows writhed with monstrous life, connecting to the Labyrinth below, just beyond the foot of your mountain.

Spoiler: Unhallowed Sky

Somewhere out there six figures move, twisting and turning in the torment of their own making, six are the ladders of shadow, the false mountains ascending to nowhere.

"Fight me you coward! Fight me!" you shout and your voice is the roar of an avalanche sending stone onto the twisting paths. "Fight me or be known a failure to all who bear witness!"

Worms of light split the rotten skin of the sky in a parody of lighting and in a moment you are not alone.

Six figures robed and cowled stand form a circle imperfect around the pinnacle of the mountain, but these are not the missing wizards, they are not some lesser servants of the Old Ones that move though the sky. Each the Hollow Man.

There's a snap of dislocated air, one of them goes flying straight up despite a tendril that tries to grasp it and pull the misshapen form to safety. Why...? you have an eye-blink to wonder why McCoy had chosen to throw it up instead of something more violent then a comet of blue-white fire hits it. Harry Dresden might have spent his Essence, but he is still a heck of a wizard.

Five Iterations Remaining

"I need to get close to hit him properly my spear won't reach from here!" Lydia calls and she makes a good point. The enemy is within your influence yes, but only just, four miles out as the crow flies, in range of wizardry and fire arms, but well beyond your own... unless you move from the center and whichever direction you move in it will give the others a chance to retake the center. Sanctuary's influence moves with you, the exit is fixed.

What do you do?

[] Keep trading blows from afar, Harry and McCoy certainly did a good job, you can just intercept spells with counter-magic

[] Kill them all, the Hollow Seer will not be this vulnerable again

[] Write in

OOC: Sorry for how short this is but I was very busy today and this was quite mechanically dense. Also yes a wizard deciding he has several bodies now is a canon rote, albeit a very powerful one since it gives him more actions and also more health... for all the good the latter did when Harry rolled 6 successes on his arete.

 

[DragonParadox]

Enter the Emissary ​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

"As all things in the light cast shadows..." Your light grows brighter as you speak, a thousand thousand eyes swirling like alien constellations. "So does all action even the most excellent contain within itself the seeds of failure. Behold... Lydia, hit them with the mountain!"

A shard of obsidian roughly the size of a small van and moving just about as fast rips itself out of the mountainside and starts careening towards one of the twisted figures as it makes a sign in the air impossible for human digits. It barely slows the projectile down as you smile, robes tear on jagged edges and alien flesh splits open to rain acid bile on the ordered corridors below, but the thing isn't dead yet. Like a half digested leech it hangs there, impossible and undeniable.

"Call upon the Road, accept its end!"

Lydya uses 1 Essence -> Now at 5/7
Hollow Man's Dice pools Reduced by 8
Iteration One at 4/10

Three times the figure screams, struggling though the weight of our curse, twice unheard, unheeded, but the third time from the depths of the Labyrinth you hear an echo, then another and another, dead throats, dry throats, throats of stone now ringing in rage. A figure darkly luminous rides forth her mantle filled with ghostly heads that carry her aloft, bleeding burning, scratching out their own eyes. Even at so far, passing in an out of sight below the swordmaster's mantle you know them for what they are, the dead of the Ebon Road, those condemned to rest as twisted statues upon it, not yet worn to dust.

"I am the End of the Road, the Silence of the Dragon Below. Accept your fate and your suffering will end." The swordswoman speaks and most terrible of all she does not speak with hate.

Spoiler: End of the Road

"Demon, this is not your fight! Return to thy masters in Yomi and tell them you failed!" Ebeeezer McCoy circles the staff of his office though the air, leaving a line of silver in its wake that becomes a spiral, that becomes a Circle four miles in radius anchored on the mountain.

"I do not serve the Impudent Ministers," the demon, if demon she be, says as she crosses the line of silver, set alight with its flame, but seemingly untroubled by it. "You..." she points at you, a single pale finger. "Have called the name of One who should sleep eternal in a place that He might hear. Desist and you shall not know my purpose!" Turning to the nearest avatar of the Hollow Man she her face, which had been serene twists in momentary revulsion. "You, who dared call my name with lips befouled know that if those words had not been true for once in your wretched existence I would bring together the ends of your severed fate and see you unmade. Begone from my sight!"

"You have no power to banish me/us from my/our seat!" one of the four remaining figures speaks while the others are chanting unspeakable things, seeking to break the curse you had laid upon it, no to even understand the curse. Crippled as he is by the weight of your malice he has to struggle to even begin to counter it, hence summoning the... being born aloft by the souls of the damned.

Eyes of silver in a face of cracked porcelain narrow. "It is contested. Do not test the edge of my judgement Drusus, for you will find it cuts as readily as steel."

Oh right, not a demon, 'batting for the other side'. The damned... just damned had the sheer gall to summon an angel because he figured out you were doing something against her particular remit. She isn't being carried by the souls, you now see, they are begging her for release, for mercy.

What do you do?

[] Better to seek forgiveness than ask permission, signal the others to keep fighting, keep the curse going
Angels can be wrong, that isn't a thought you have lightly but after all this time to finally get to this thing and kill it, all the suffering it caused and all the people lost it is one you are willing to entertain.

[] Lift the curse, launch yourself at the Hollow Man, with an angel here you shouldn't have to hold the center
Curse or no Curse you can still end it, you can still end him and put an end to a threat to the world once and for all

[] Abide by the judgement, trust that the angel can drive Drusus off and you can recover the souls you came looking for, though it galls you to let him continue to exist
You will keep faith, in this at the end of everything, you hope there are answers to be found as well

[] Write in

OOC: Alas you rolled too well for your occult for 'stab the strange woman in the face with hellfire' to be an option, though Ebeneezer did triple both his own roll hence confusing her for a servant of the Yama Kings and trying to set her on fire. She did actually have to roll soak for that because Blackstaff.

 

[DragonParadox]

Malice Miscalculated ​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

The thought of disobeying an angel of the Lord is almost unthinkable, that of letting 'Drusus' flee after what he's done almost unbearable. So you do what you've done time and again before, even if it leaves you hanging by a single mote of power... you ask a question: "What's being disturbed by my use of power."

[NULL]

Never your life have you been so glad to hear the ring of strident nothing in your mind's ear. Turning at once to the messenger you proclaim: "Hear me, oh angel, and by the flames of my Crown know this to be true - you are mistaken, for none under your charge are roused by my words. My and mine alone is the power invoked."

Lost 1 Essence -> Now a 1/18

A time of firsts is this. Never before had you spoken of your crown so openly where others might hear.Never before had another been able to follow with eyes detached the incandescent thread of intellectuals to its end there to find not what she had thought, feared maybe, though the thought of an angel fearing something sends a chill down you spine.

["Not For Present Time/Subject to Change. He Remembers as He is Remembered. Time is given. Use it wisely/sparingly."]

Thanks for nothing, you do not say it, but it's there, the sense of outrage, anger at having to contend with her when the monster was loose, then you realize that the Labyrinth beyond the reach of your power is suddenly impossibly still, fractals means to crumble into eternal ruin, dying but never dead now made straight as an arrow, those lost are being directed to the hither as fast as their will can carry them.

As the angel floats upwards, her company of the damned swirling in her wake. the battle now has six more combatants and they are not on your enemy's side. They come crowned in fire, be it crowns of wreaths or cowboy hats, they come bearing weapons, some staffs, some swords, one of them a Colt revolver, they come with tears in their eyes and rage on their hearts.

All would have fallen but for your rescue, but now they are here for an angel had smoothed the way and now they are hungry for vengeance or maybe redemption for sins not yet indulged, only imagined.

An imbalance righted, an attempt to manipulate repaid. Now it's your turn to laugh, though you'll save that for when he's dead.

Thus the gun sings, and though the mutilated incarnation catches the bullet in a rubbery inhuman arm, that moment of distraction is all a trio of other Wardens need to cast a net of gold... numbers into the ether. Whatever the weaponized math is made of the Drusus seems to be allergic to it the figure dies, leaving four more of them, still under the curse of malice, not facing eight wizards not two.

Incarnation Destroyed (Four Remaining)

One of the twisted figures snaps its fingers, it it even has those and an object flies out from the depths of the Labyrinth, a real physical object that had to have been purposefully been brought here.

"Behold, the fruits of ruin," the hollow one laughs revealing it to be a pressurized metal tube now careening towards the nearest of the returned wizards. Shaw... the laboratory, the fungus.

What do you do?

[] Try to alter the environment around you to hamper the fungus from growing, letting go of the curse

[] Let the wizards handle it, as long as their magic does not directly touch the stuff they should be fine

[] Write in

OOC: Welp that backfired on old Drusus, he still wants you to let go of the curse though for obvious arete related reasons.

 

[DragonParadox]

Defiance at Dusk​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

Seeing yourself flash across space in an instant, sword arching down to meet the canister is briefly disorientating, though nowhere near as bad as when the metal explodes into a cloud of grey-green murk, spilling out in five corners, a twisted parody of a wizard's pentagram, alive with malice and dreams of madness. In Sidney or in Chicago, in Paris or in Boston it would have spread slowly, needing to devour talents but in this place filled with the husks of broken dreams it metastasizes in a moment, reaching down towards the wizards who had cheated the Labyrinth its due... until it reaches precisely twelve feet from the break point. There it is constrained in blazing white, magnesium fire and behind that a shell of screaming winds. Not for nothing is the Merlin still counted the Council's premier ward-maker. What would have taken most wizards hours and even the most skilled minutes he had done in the span of your battle, letting neither foe's fury nor angel's coming distract him. He'd probably intended the binding for the Hollow Man, but now it serves to curtail a weapon of his devising.

"Fiddling while Rome burns..." A cold hacking laugh carries far more than it should as eyes under the tattered hood seem to burn into your skull, looking right at you. "That did not happen you know, Nero has more wisdom in his milk teeth than the whole wretched Council has in its skulls. Behold the age is passing, behold exiled princes returns out of the foam of ages broken and all you know to do is cling to the old. That if thine fate!"

What he had been attempting you are not sure... but it's probably not what he got. One of the bodies crumples inward in sharp planes as though he had been secretly crafted of origami, though origami doesn't scream.

Iteration Destroyed -> Three of Six Remaining

Harry manages to buffet one of the remaining three like a misshapen crow caught in a storm, though he can't manage the perfect catch and and burn from before. Instead his grandfather manages to catch the body in a narrow beam sonic attack that you only catch the edge of, not that you want to hear any more. Alas the thing seems more shaken than hurt.

You'd be making quips about evil doing itself worst injury if you had the breath to spare. Hate so black and deep it swallows up fates is exhausting, maybe all hate is and you are only now just noticing.

"Your magic is a lie, you Laws are delusion and each of you a slave in a design not of your own choosing. Open your eyes and See the Truth!"

Black lines crawl between the avatars of the Hollow Man, trying to pool what mastery of magic he still has into one final gambit, one that you guess the contents of even the moment his eyes fall on Harry, mind magic.

Iteration Three now at 6/10

You see the precise moment when Harry's mental defenses waver, his expression going slack, eyes too-wide... then figure at the center of the web of three explodes all over Sophia, not into blood and gore as you'd expect, but swirling dust as every single atom heavier than carbon is forced out of it in elemental form leaving behind slop in the rough shape of a man which promptly splashes down onto the stone floor and runs through the gutters.

"Showing off again McCoy?" The Merlin sounds about as strained as you are feeling, but you could swear there's an edge of humor in his voice.

Iteration Destroyed -> Two of Six Remaining

"No one soul-gaze the damn thing, it wants you to," the other elder wizard said.

"I want you to see the truth, to know where man stands in relation to the shape of the world!"

"Do you just talk in fortune-cookies, or should I be expecting my horoscope read soon too?" Harry snarls and you do not have the heart to tell him astrology can work.

"Kill! Consume! Sunder!" Lydia does not so much speak the words as emanate them, the specters of long fallen Wan Kuei take it as a blessing to indulge their ancient hungers.

So they do, edged in borrowed silver, demons who were once men, once damned, then lost again.

Iteration Destroyed -> One of Six Remaining

Now again the Hollow Seer is alone and wounded, surrounded by foes.

"Keeper of the Thousandth and First Hell, I am not thine enemy," he speaks and you know the words are for you alone. "Step aside and I will tell give you word of where the others lie... the others like you."

What do you do?

[] Ask one last Crown Question... then kill him
-[] Write in

[] Keep him talking, the Merlin can contain the fungus you're sure
-[] Write in

[] Kill him now

[] Write in

OOC: Sorry about the wait, I had to figure out what Dark Arcanoi a pose of specters would use in a fight and how that would work out against his defenses, as it turns out the answers are 'Maleficence' and 'not well'.

 

[DragonParadox]

Rest for the Wicked ​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

The choice isn't even close, it's barely a a choice. For all the temptations you've been faced this isn't one of them, every ancient instinct screaming a warning of treachery. Drusus couldn't be honorable if he tried to, he no longer knows how. Usum flashes forward and right though his heart, tearing upwards into his chest and neck. Any man, any vaguely mammalian creature would be dead... somehow he's not, veins re-knitting in alien symmetries, muscle knitting and congealing as his head migrates along the other shoulder under the hood.

"Missed me," the laughs with lipless mouth and in an instant in your face.

"Same." You turn your other hand into the sign that for ten thousand Great Cycles the priests of Endings have given the bodies of those who depart the Cycle. An end to all things, even this seemingly endless hate. "I'd ask if it was worth it, but you have no answers."

So saying you slice again, this time aiming for center mass, fire so hot the air around you expands into an ear shattering roar... and the flesh of your foe is burned to less than ash.

Lo the ash speaks in a voice like the very breath of hell: "Oblivisci!"

Forget, forget the secrets hard won, forget the dreams of ages past and all the power that they hold, forget the truth of knowing, that in revelation is power.

Death Curse Revealed: Inability to use the Occult Skill or take advantage of the Urge

"Keep-Hold what you have found," you say in Seeker Tongue, that greeting which they had shared for moon turns uncounted across the impossible land that is your soul, then you breathe in the ash, the withered thing that once had been a mortal soul under the sun, that kept enough of the mind to tempt, enough of the magic to curse, but of that fundamental humanity that would have spared him your touch, that he had lost long ago.

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 0/18 (Occult Excellency)
You Regain 2 Essence -> Now at 2/18 (Murder is Meat)

Space shivers, Sanctuary the only scaffolding holding this place together, though not for long you know. "Come on, we have to get out of here!"

Barely had you turned to the others that the Merlin, still at the edge of the gate, marks a spiral with his staff and the cycle that composed the Shaw's fungal horror imploded. As many awful qualities as that thing doubtless had, the ability to exist inside a single point is thankfully not one of them.

All of you, wizard and demigod, Sanctuary-born and earthling, machine and organic rush for the gate, thankfully far too solid to be caught up in the ruin of this realm, one of the most solid things that are after all. You savor the feeling of knowing that, of a world still full of secrets for you to find.

On the other side, surrounded by the living, the dead, those scarred by the Labyrinth and by treachery the hard part starts: rebuilding, saving what can be saved and making sure nothing like this can happen again. There's awe in the eyes of the Wardens, enough to almost content with the guilt at their part in this whole sorry tale, but there is also fear, not the way a person might fear another, the way one fears the prospect of an avalanche. It saddens you to see it...

"And we are about to propose raising the dead," Sophia reminds you wryly, your own voice subtly different inside your head.

Are we though? You wonder. It's not like the wizards can see the shades of their fellows without opening the Sight, which none of them are inclined to do idly. You could just raise them and place the Council in front of a fait accompli. Not like there will be any lack of scary revelations coming their way even if you just stick to what you and do for the living.

[] [Dead] Offer to raise the dead wizards

[] [Dead] Raise them in secret if they so choose

[] [Dead] Bring them under the wheel

[] [Dead] Write in

[] [Warlocks] Explain all your plans for saving those who unwittingly break the Laws, the dead spirits, the book of names, all of it

[] [Warlocks] Describe False Spring Beckon

[] [Warlocks] Write in

OOC: That counter-spelling really put in a lot of work. You did not even need your perfect, which is good since it allowed you to use that excellency on Murder is Meat which got you the soul without his patrons getting to contest it.

 

[DragonParadox]

Liberty's Siege ​

18th of February 2007 A.D.

According to Casey 'Secret Nazi Moon Base' was a common story beat in modern media, Martha knew vaguely recalled learning after seeing her playing one of those new computational machine games. If only it had been that obvious. Looking down at the grotesque approximation of a man, its head an amalgamation of wolf and man dressed in a crude imitation of the uniforms of the Third Reich made of iron and... Was that lizard skin? Murmuring a spell quickly under her breath and holding out a golden bead marked with impossibility small script she touched a part of it unmarred by blood and her eyebrows darted right up into her into her hairline. That was going to get some wizards of her acquiescence interested some of them even for serious reasons and not just to indulge the little boy who lived inside every man, whether they be thirty or three hundred. A reality marble that size that approximated the proper laws of physic so closely...

"We've secured the perimeter ma'm," James called out respectfully from he door, barked out really. He was a good boy, but she had never quite gotten him to drop the military mannerisms he'd developed in Vietnam. She rather suspected he got a kick out of fighting some of the enemies of his father's war no matter how grim a sign their presence may be. "We are still working on contact with the Hidden Halls but..." he hesitated.

"We have to check all the contacts seven-fold given that we know we have traitors and not a few of them," she finished. Her face Martha knew did not show anger or sadness, a skill she had learned even before wizardry

Her Library of the Obscure was not a place that could get attacked by just any horde of lunatics out of the deep Nevernever, they had been lead here, slipped past the outer wards even, only the fact that she had the sense of contracting out the inner wards to Wyldfae used to dealing with hostile glamor-craft had prevented the attack from being much more devastating than it was.

If I had to fight that Mistfiend on anything like even ground things would not have gone as well as they did.. Martha was not one easily scared by death, but the creatures of the Outside could do much worse than kill their victims. She wouldn't take Rashid's responsibility for all the tomes in the lost Library of Alexandria. One would like to imagine the warlocks, the traitors, had underestimated the defenses of the library rather badly. After all she did not advertise, but the fact that some of them were in street clothes not to mention seemed frightened by their own bestial allies would indicate that this force had been thrown together on the fly either in an act of opportunism or desperation. Frankly neither option filled her with confidence.

Was it one of the new books, the scrolls, something dark, something they wanted? The system for taking in new works was long and laborious, complicated by the fact that she only had three assistants. The demands of war trumped those of long-term scholarship. All of said assistants were also he guard and thus not the best equipped to do library work, though again looking at the slaughter all around contrasting with the relative lack of damaged texts she could not say they had not served her well in his instance.

Served me? Come a long way didn't you Martha? She still found herself a little repulsed at the faux feudal language of the Council after all this time, the tongue of masters and servants, especially as it crept into her own head. But now was not the time to interrogate her feelings on the matter, now was the time to get back to the Hidden Halls with news of the attack, check if anyone had heard of things like this.

"Wish we could've taken one alive," she mused. "Why were they so desperate, why now of all times? Where in the Devil did they get that mistfiend?"

Another time she might have worried about invoking attention she did not need, but something told her the Devil was surely paying attention to whatever this was already.

OOC: Remember those Nevernever mages? Welp Martha Liberty found some of them, or rather they found her in her library deep in the Nevernever, thankfully the attack was very disorganized and she rolled well for prep. Still those werewolves were not something she or anyone really had been expecting. Let's just say Gorfel was not the only thing to escape from Nazi occultist circles at the end of the war unfortunately. Previous vote still open since I did not have the time to clarify things all of today.

 

[DragonParadox]

Due the Dead​

19th of February 2007 A.D.

Thus the midnight hour tolls over Paris, fortuitously late you lead against one of the ancient walls, shaking a little from the exertion, feeling empty in a way that has nothing to do with food. "We did it... we actually did it..." the words are softer than one might prefer, nothing of the cold confidence with which you had told off Drusus for his missing, or argued with an angel. Still can't quite believe I did that. As the senior wizards work to take apart the half rotted tethers of the Labyrinth there's nothing you want more than to get back to Edinburgh and make sure everyone is safe, but in the aftermath of the battle and the return of the missing Gatekeeper and Martha Liberty, both with grim news that will be spoken of when next the full Council can meet to discuss the events of the day, there is still one more urgent matter to handle as Lydia's expectant expression shows.

Thankfully none of the wizards passing through with questions, news and offers of tiny French chocolates with odd names can guess. After all the White Council rather frowns on Necromancy in general and of its members in particular.

The door to the staff-side tunnels clicks rather resentfully as if the walls here to not appreciate having the dead brought backstage at the macabre show that the catacombs had been made into. In the silver light of your friend's soul three strangers stand, slouch and sit: Maria Sanchez is a young woman whose face reminds you of the casts you had seen of ancient Mayan temple walls marred by a vicious knotted slash of her death wound, lightning or fire, though it does little to detract from the attention with which she follows you around the sparse room. Albert Walpole on the other hand is a well-named beanpole of a man, maybe as much as a decade older than you, though it's hard to tell with how he's slouching. He seems embarrassed to be dead, or maybe to have been snared by the conspiracy to begin with. Either way it's hard to focus on his mumbled greeting when the last of the fallen, one Anurak Liu can't stop asking questions about everything from their present state, to the battle to who the two of you are, faster than Lydia can answer. To be fair he is a wizard.

"My name is Molly Carpenter and I run an afterlife..." People have an inclination to make light of death almost equal to their fear of it, perhaps because of their fear of it. Today you learn that is true on both sides of death. All three of them laugh.

As you explain, as best you can your hopes for incarnating them, if not though the natural processes of the Wheel, Sanctuary had never seen an unquiet spirit, there's no telling how it would react, then though techno-sorcerous integration. When you come right down to it a spirit is a spirit and the human form isn't that hard to mimic with bio-mechanical parts, like building implants, only more of them and without having to implant them into anything, crossed with the construction of something like a War Weaver.

"Excuse me, what would be owe you for our new lease of life assuming you can manage it?" Liu asks, a sharper question than those before.

"Could we return to Earth, would the Council be informed of what's become of us? Some of us have families?" Sanchez asked... and that is when you remembered where you had heard that name before, one of the three unintended warlocks had been 'Carmen Sanchez'. From the relative ages you guess sisters or cousins. Maybe she's even the reason why the woman in front of you is a ghost. What a mess... what a sad sorry mess.

Can I make it better? The question and the dangers is presents taunt you.

[] They may come and go as they please, you'll smooth things out with the council as soon as you know if this will work

[] Given all the other offers you have to make to the White Council it would be best not to share this for the time being

[] Write in

OOC: And we are back. Enjoy guys

 

[DragonParadox]

Charting a Path Fantastic ​

20th of February 2007 A.D.

A god dies, a gate shudders and in that instant a trio of spirits such had never been seen under the sunless skies of Sanctuary find themselves transmuted. A god thence is reborn and in the far off Andes it is the mountains that shake. Can they fear it? You wonder, the Red Court? Are they listening? Birds uncounted flock into the air, mimicking patterns of fliers sporting four wings and eight and none, surfers upon magnetic winds. A god dies and is born again, a guardian for a gate open into the lands of the sun, but the mortals, the wizards, they stay dead, ethereal observers and troubling conundrums all at once. The wheel does not touch them whom it had not known in life, who had not died upon its soil, nor lived to breathe its air.

Ghost Wizards are not Reborn Automatically

Ancient God Reborn and cured of his torrment, though still greately weakened

Essence and Willpower Restored to Full

"What aren't we doing right?" you shake your head. On the one hand you had promised to tell the council, but asking for their help in this might raise more questions, stuff like: Why did you build a Star Gate to Brazil and are you planning to invade?

The fact that Ancient Luc at least would be more than happy to make that a yes after learning the sort of practices the Red Court has made commonplace probably wouldn't make them feel better.

"Well you're not asking anything of them, not even separation from their past lives," Lydia volunteers. "Afterlives are meant to change those who pass through them, that is what separates them from the grey stasis that is existence as one of the Higher Dead. I figured maybe the death of a god would tip the scales by proximity, but even so great a change as this can't make up for the lack of... choice it seems."

"Choice of what?" Half of your mind is on the gate complex itself. True the land is wild and sparsely populated and the spirits positively welcome any 'intrusion' that isn't the Red Court's defilement.

"Sanctuary, they have to choose to be here, not just be carried along by your promises," your friend explains. "You can't just reap souls by swaying them or else the land would be empty of ghosts and hell would be full... that is more than it already is. They, you need to go out there and experience the world, find something that moves you, that becomes you."

"Darkness becomes me," the shy young warden quips, earning a smile from you. A middle school Molly Carpenter might have said that in front of a mirror a time or two, but you didn't record it so there's no proof outside your head.

"Whatever works for you..." After making sure Regina knows who the visitors are and what they are looking for you return to Earth, though not to Paris, not even to Edinburgh for once.

You are back in Chicago, the rain on your face, it's too warm for snow finally. Who knows spring might be just around the corner. Certainly change is.

Over the last two days Harry has gotten very popular with the Merlin, from showing leadership and initiative under fire to the mastery of purest and most fundamental magic he demonstrated after resolving the Labyrinth. 'Stuff to do and wizards to train,' is apparently the line that finally got him the chance to return to the city according to Tiffany, who had also drawn questions, though not quite as insistent. Having decided you are going to put all your cards reform-wise the question now is how to go about it?

[] An Old Hand: Ebeneezer McCoy isn't the most enthusiastic politician in the world, but he would not have risen so high without some hard earned skill, present your ideas to him so that he can make use of his friendship with the rest of the senior council to have them considered at the highest levels. This has the virtue of discretion and being able to walk things back, but if any member of the Senior Council takes it into their head to organize resistance to your 'modest' sugestions they will have all the time they might need for it

[] A New Movement: The younger Wardens who came into their power during the war like Carlos would be the most open to radical reform and if they idea can catch in a full Council meeting Senior wizards may have to swallow their objections and go full steam ahead. You could even convince Harry to do something political for once rather than having politics be something that happens to him.

[] Write in

OOC: We have had a lot of tense minute by minute gamelpay, but now it's time to get time unstuck again. Also wizard politics, fun (not for Harry, but at least Lash's going to enjoy it).

 

[DragonParadox]

Guessing Fates ​

20th of February 2007 A.D.

McAnally's is free of the locals given the company that's hardly surprising. On the one hand there's you Lydia, Olivia and Tiffany, looking a lot less tentative than when you met the archive to be in neutral ground under the gaze of someone distinctly not neutral in matters of Heaven and Hell at least. On the other there's the McCoy looking chillingly cheerful for a man who's been putting warlocks to death for the last two days, Harry hovering awkwardly as though not sure how to treat the man he's treated as a father figure for most of his life now that he knows they are also related by blood, he can be silly like that, and last though certainly not least another wizard, thin and robed in purple so dark it's almost black, tall enough that even Harry has to look up to meet his eyes under the shadow of the cloak. I am not tempted to hover just so I don't have to crane my neck... mostly not.

"Ms Carpenter?" The greeting has the soft melodic quality of one accustomed to some other tongue than English, given his apparent age maybe one passed into history. "Before we begin I would like to thank you for all you have done, this is where I would normally say it's impossible to know how much harm you have averted, but I suspect you have a better guess than most."

"Gatekeeper," you offer a nod in greeting while trying to keep your answering look from seeming too suspicious. Is he just congratulating me for knowing about Outsiders, or is he implying something about my information gathering capacities?

"You are most welcome, though truth be told I wasn't really thinking of the Council a whole when all this started. I noticed someone had invaded the mind of a guest under my protection and... things spiraled."

Spoiler: Gatekeeper

McCoy snorts into his beard, while the other elder wizard's smile is all the brighter in the darkness of his cowl. "They do have that tendency when fate cracks under under the weight of deeds abroad." He takes a sip of tea, you didn't even know Mac served tea, maybe he made an exception. "I assume you have more you would like to offer for the clean up efforts, things that may be misconstrued if they are not defined well in advance..."

"Why are you assuming that?" Tiffany arches an eyebrow. "If I were in your place I'd be expecting to be expecting to be served the bill right now, not offered more helped unasked for."

"If that is the case I shall do my utmost to accommodate the request but blind as I might be to the threads of fate and future past experience still serves as a guide with not a drop of magic spilled."

"No, no, you guessed right, I want to talk about helping, especially the people who..." You very carefully do not look at Harry without seeming to be very careful, "broke the Laws especially under duress or trickery. I believe I have the means to set right that injustice and help the council's enforcement going forward."

"Bullets make bad medicine," Olivia adds, a reminder of her own deeds, though surprisingly not sounding too bitter about it. Having seen the Council not just struggling but almost broken from within has dredged up a bit more sympathy in her about the way they enforce the Laws, though how much it will last is anyone's guess.

"This isn't the kind of solution where you invent a new kind of vampire?" McCoy's words are barely a question, but they are a question. It occurs to you then that Olivia isn't looking very human is either of them to senses more than mortal and 'vampire' is at least a roughly decent guess.

Showtime Molly, you think... even as Usum chines in that you are an empress not an entertainer, as though those two roles have nothing in common.

How do you explain the situation?

[] Start with the familiar, the dead spirit, the legacy of Kemler
-[] Write in stunt

[] Explain as best you can how forging legends into matter works
-[] Write in stunt

[] Offer to use False Spring Beckon on one of them for something trivial
-[] Write in stunt

[] Write in

OOC: I thought about writing through this, but the direction you take this will seriously impact which wizards are willing to go along with this and ultimately if you can get this though a vote either of the Senior Council or the White Council as a whole. No rolls for this one since it was just an introduction.