Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[DragonParadox]

Of Works Wonderous and Terribile ​

20th of February 2007 A.D.

"While I am very proud of the help I was able to provide Olivia", you gesture to your Circlemate and a bowl of stroganina in front of you, Tthis would actually be a terrible idea for this particular issue. What I offered to her required strength of will and internal self-discipline. It's not for those already afflicted with mental issue". You smile just a bit, trying to lighten the mood. "No, my proposal is rather more complex than this: What if people couldn't break the Laws...?" You pause with a purpose, knowing the objection that's sure to come.

"A geas will only twist them further even should be be worked with no mortal magic," the Gatekeeper's voice is gentle. "Pushing and pulling at the fabric of the mind until it frays and finally comes undone."

"No," you shake your head. "[Could Not]" That wasn't said in English.

"Ooh!" Lash looks a little perturbed... and a lot interested. "Do you know how the constants of nature aren't? How you can find places in the Nevernever where the speed of sound is six hundred and sixty six miles per hour, where steel is an element and light can be frozen in place? That but flesh and blood and soul is what she means. That which is written in the Book of Ages, even in faintest smallest hand cannot be undone by any who do not behold it"

"I was envisioning a book that those bound would have to willingly sign," you say, a little perturbed and letting it show. Now you understand instinctively is not the sign to seem too confident or they will think the whole thing a fool's errand. "That would have a secondary function, if those so bound would conspire to break the laws anyway by magics infernal or... external the book will show their signature burning out. Such a power might break the interdict with only access to the Lawbreaker but to deceive the Book of Laws one would require access to it and the knowledge of its making for a beginning."

"How'd you mean?" McCoy asks, the terseness of his words doing little to hide the emotions carved into his face. There's anger there and doubt and fear, but there's enough hope to at least hear you out.

"Of nightmare-dreams would be the ink, on page of shattering futility writ, colorless as the void that the force of entropy itself would work to the preservation of my design and not against it." You pause and force yourself to stop thinking in the Language. "I have no idea how one could make the Book lie even with all the access in the world. I am morally certain there is a way, but it's like one of those cryptography problems where you can use a computer to build a code no computer can crack." It's not a good comparison since given enough time any code can be cracked, it's just not feasible to do so with current tech in a sensible time-frame, but the point is to tell a story.

"So the real danger would be if someone could steal and replace it," Olivia cuts in thoughtfully. "But then you would have to get signatures from everyone else..."

"Wouldn't work, you can't bathe twice in the headwaters of the same river, one would have to break the Book, make a copy and then fill up that copy with the signatures of everyone bar the warlock you wished to free..." you nod, more firmly than before. "It is logistically unfeasible without the kind of power that could crush all of us."

"Never you Majesty," the demon on your metaphorical shoulder whispers.

"Even if what you say is true, by the time we find most warlocks it's too late for them..." You can see McCoy is struggling to argue even as the Gatekeeper is staring a holw though the table thinking.

Alas Olivia doesn't get the message. "What do you mean too late? People can get help, there's an entire field of medicine dedicated to it. We aren't electroshocks and freezing baths anymore you know!"

"Olivia it's OK," you put a hand on her shoulder. "I actually have an idea for that as well..." Thunk goes the heavy book of mostly printed out information from Sanctuary's SUTRA networks dealing with the healing of psychic wounds. "As far back as the history of the Five Courts goes they've been looking for a way to heal the effects of an imperfect joining of spirit and material being. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, it's bad, some of it's as bad as Lawbreaking and they have never been able to find a reliable way to keep the wounds from opening again, the rumor from regrowing, until now, until me. Healing too is a concept and concepts can be given form."

"The Golden Flece, the Sword of Light, the Crescent Moon Blade, these are the things alike to what she speaks, objects in Essence true," Tiffany says.

"How would you even...?" Harry trails off, weighing his own conception of Essence agains what you're rescribing. "It's already inside stuff and outside of it too."

That is when you spring what may be the most dreaded words to ever grace a boardroom or classroom. "I have slides."

The prospect of reading a book that could serve as a lethal weapon goes a long way to getting people to keep an open mind about a slide show, or so at least you hope.

When you get to the birds that used to be Kemmler's alarm system are now quite dead, but could be the seed of a living self propagating system of mitigation that does not depend on strict enforcement, a means to extend the hand of help, but not intrusive, draconian oversight. The whole show ends in ringing silence, then the sound of people taking sips of half-forgotten drinks.

"Arthur's going to want the book or nothing," McCoy says. "You would barely get past the first K before he'd tell you to shove those birds into a furnace not the heads of impresionable talents and most wizards who remember the War, especially in Europe are going to back him."

"The powerful desire power, how pedestrian," Tiffany's smile is much too beautiful to be called a sneer, but it gets the point across.

"There is one other thing I can do," you admit slowly. "Lie, lie to the universe so hard and so throughly that the lies become truth for a time at least, curses undone even if they are forged of blood and magic, all ills and maladies stopped in their tracks before the promise of spring."

"The promise but not the fact?" the Gatekeeper half-asks.

"I can just... keep promissing."

That stops the conversation in its tracks again as you explaint that people do have to agree to do what you tell them, but you don't have to give them commands and all denying you will do is lift the protection.

"You know one of the first thing I have to teach young wizards is that magic isn't like children's stories, not the new ones at least, there's always a price and you have to pay..." McCoy muses. "I've ever thought before what it would be like to meet someone whose magic really works like that."

"Terrifying?" Lydia asks knowingly, though without the smile one would expect.

"Yes."

"I would sugest you mention the book and the healing, but nothing else," his fellow Senior Council member says, hands steepled before him in thought. "Especially not the last. It will breed nothing but suspicion. It will have to be tested. Sadly we have no lack of wizards so twisted through on fault of their own to which the Council as a while owes the attempt."

What does Molly say?

[] Agree, it's frustrating to limit the help you can give like this, but it's to get advice on the politics of the Council that you went to them to begin with

[] Refuse, you are sure you can talk the others around

[] Write in

OOC: I know this isn't the order you guys voted in but it flowed better this way.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Book and Beckon ​

20th of February 2007 A.D.

It occurs to you that you don't need the Council's permission to help people like Olivia, like Pauline and Anna and Helen, they are in most ways beneath wizardly notice, unless they break the Laws and that is what you want, that is what you are working towards, a world where kids don't get executed with swords for the crime of ignorance or for that matter carelessness. The death penalty may be 'biblical' as one of your more unpleasant neighbors argued to Dad one day, but that does not mean it should be given out lightly. You nod slowly, resolved not to live in a world anymore where taking up the Blackened Denarius carries a lesser sentence than being a fuck up kid.... A fuck up kid like I was.

"Alright, for the record I do reserve the right to change my mind." It's weird to have to spell that out, but it's that kind of place and that kind of time, a contract for all it's one of words not writing. "But for now the book should solve our more immediate problem."

And I have just the right ink in which to write that book, you think without explaining aloud. People tend to get jumpy when they find out you are using the ashes of newly slain foes in your work.

Gained: Ashes of the Hollow Seer (Tier 4 Splendor Reagent)
A thin dusting of black, like soot or powdered pencil lead save that one cannot touch it with the bare hand. It rejects life and warmth as life and warmth rejected it, the energy oddly responsive. Even someone without a hint of magic could form intricate shapes in the highly reactive dust, though you have been informed in no uncertain terms that most wouldn't want to. Simple shapes twist to alien geometries that swell an ache behind one's temples animate shapes decompose merge and divine into unspeakable chimera, the legacy of sight through madness.

"We will of course provide that you need for the Working," Rashid says pulling you out of reverie.

"Ah right, thanks." You're sure you'll find some other use for Drusus.

You bid farewell to the Gatekeeper and McCoy, a little surprised when Harry doesn't leave with his grandfather. After Olivia parts ways, she has to walk a friend's dog—when was the last time you did something that normal?— he falls in between you and Lash and turns his head.

"So you got room in that Book of yours for me?"

"You want to...?" you trail off surprised. It's hard to think of Harry as needing the help, as being someone touched by black magic same as those poor wardens or the idiot kids of previous imaginings. He'd been the one to introduce you to to the concept of the Laws after all, he wears a pentagram around his neck, he passed though wizardry and became enlightened for that love of magic.

"Yes," he says or starts to at least.

"You should take the lie-made true," Tiffany interjects. "It will clear your head, as though that's that's fogging it, without hobbling yourself. There may well come the day when you'll wish you could reach for the grey and I don't think that book does well with edge cases..."

"No, definitely not, if a spell even risks killing someone it won't chance the nature of it, it'll just fail and if you want to do something deliberately grey, like putting someone to sleep with magic that won't work either. It's an oath forever or at least while the book lasts."

Tiffany nods, like she had been expecting that. "Take it from someone who remembers six thousand years, you don't want to be tying your hands for centuries to come."

"There's some knots that should be tied."

A very Harry-like sentiment, though not delivered with quite the tone you would expect if that was all there was to it so you take a closer look. What you see if not a man struggling with old temptations, but one fiddling with his coat buttons against an balmy near-spring air. Oh... he wants to no longer have the option to transgress not for its own sake, but because of what it would say to the other wizards. No more 'loose canon Dresden', no more half-suspicious looks from Morgan and his peers.

If anything would get someone to think of himself as part of the White Council it's seeing that very Council almost ripped apart before his eyes and fighting to preserve it.

Is that reason enough to bind his own magic though?

[] Yes, if that makes him more at ease, no matter the reason you are happy to help

[] No, try to argue him around to Tiffany's side. Now is not the time to voluntarily disarm himself even of the most distasteful weapons

[] Write in

OOC: Next up we will be making the book and helping the White Council recover as much as one can in the short term.

 

[DragonParadox]

Knights' Passage ​

20th of February 2007 A.D.

"You had a war against the Empty Kingdom and you didn't tell us about it?"

Lydia had expected the knights to sound annoyed at missing out on the fight, she did not expect Gwair to sound hurt.

"Both of the battles took place under cities, they've been changed a great deal since last the three of you walked under the sun."

"Yes yes, we know, people don't believe in magic anymore, the which is a thing wholly foolish when they seem to be doing so much of it themselves."

Another time she might have gotten into the argument about the difference between technology and magic, chemistry and alchemy, but now wasn't the time. According to Tiffany the three of them were adept enough to at least not cause a spectacle in public, the worst attention they'd draw would be from Gwair's green hair, surely?

"I'm not keeping you here if you want to go, my only concern was that battle would turn friend against friend in the chaos. The enemy was already using glamor craft to sow those seeds. Imagine if you will dozens of wizards, many of them trained for war attacked in their own home bearing sudden witness to strange and ancient magics."

Lyr puts a hand on his friend's shoulder. "You know she has a point, you've lived it same as I."

"You don't have to remind me!" The snarl fades into a half surly half contrite look.

"The fact of the matter is we can only learn so much from words, be their dispenser as wise as she is beautiful," Lyr turns to speak to Lydia, as though he had not heard the angry words. "We need some place to go out there that isn't quite... 'the entrance of a Red Fair with a lute over the shoulder.'""

"Is that what she proposed?" Lydia did her best to stiffle a laugh as she leaned against the wall.

"In jest but we grasped the point."

"How do you feel about providing protections to some of our friends, with some of the True Magi on the loose and maybe knowing who Molly is and where she lives they may need it."

"A fair thought," Sir Gwair Mabon rumbles rubbing his chin.

It was only after putting together supplies for all of them, a few changes of clothes, toothbrush and baste, a thousand dollars each walking around money, a few books in Latin that it occured to her to wonder if Anna would would like to deal with real life Knights of the Round Table. It would surely be fine.

The boat bumped silently against the black sand shore, ready to cary them onto the western sea and from there it was one somewhat awkward flight to O'Hare as her three travel companions were engrossed in the most mundane of details. Lydia was pretty sure no one had ever paid as much attention to the pre-flight safety rules.

"Does this preparation actually work?" Gwair asked confussed in Latin.

"It works at calming passanger's fears."

"A useful skill in a world filled to the brim."

OOC: Because Chicago did not have enough magical wierdness going on already. On the plus side Molly and co can help keep an eye on them.

 

[DragonParadox]

Favor of the Fallen ​

20th of February 2007 A.D.

"You've lived with this all your life, you have been under the Doom of Damocles and now you are not." You pause and take a deep breath, doing your best impression of someone who is looking at this objectively. Good thing I'm so good at keeping my feelings off my face... "Harry you've shown that it is possible to overcome the influence of Lawbreaking through choice alone. In this you stand as an example for others. If the White Council wishes to avoid having the Book of Laws become a crutch that it is reliant upon, then it will need a beacon such as yourself, to shine the light of self-determination."

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 16/18

Tiffany gives you a look over his shoulder. Laying it on a bit tick aren't you, it seems to say, but what she's missing is that Harry has had very few people in his life who trusted him unreservedly and said so. There's the Murphies and the Alphas of the world who trust him sure, but feel no need to express it because it's just self-evident to them that the wizard knows how to wizard, the hero is heroic and then there's Tiffany making the argument that black and white are out and grey is in, but no matter how well she polishes her words there's no denying the fact that she's lowering the bar.

The thing that makes Harry Dresden who he is, you've come to realize, is always wanting to pass that bar even if he breaks a leg landing.

"I don't think I'm much of an inspiration." The shake of the head betrays him, what he really means is 'I shouldn't be an inspiration.'

"Harry what have you been teaching those kids?" you cut him off. "Not to do as you do? Of course not. The hows and whys of magic whose experience are they from? Yours right, the same wizard who broke the First Law once upon a time. Take it from someone with a literal voice in her head who thinks she should get on with becoming the Dread Empress of Everything, there's only one Harry Dresden in there and as you are the White Council decided to ask you to train the next generation. I say you extend at least as much trust to yourself as Donald effing Morgan did."

"Maybe you're right," he looks out onto the lake, towards the island out of sight, but never out of mind. "I'm just not used to all that trust. I don't feel different after Paris..."

"Or maybe you do and it's in all the wrong ways," Tiffany offers gently. Uh-oh, she doesn't do 'gentle' often. "Feeling pissed off at Susan for keeping secrets. That is allowed, justified even."

He gives her an unreadable look, or at least one hard to decipher. Susan... Rodriguez, the reporter? They had been together at one point. What would she be hiding? As far as you know they hadn't spoken in years, not since she ran off to join the Fellowship and fight the war.

"And what good does that do?" he rounds on her.

"Well that's up to you isn't it?" she answers cryptically. "What do you want to do about it?"

"Am I... should I go?" you ask, despite the burning curiosity to find out what they're talking about. "I don't want to intrude." A patent lie, but one well delivered at least.

"I have a daughter," the words burst past his lips. "Drusus showed her to me, showed me she was in danger so I'd use that place to save her... I didn't, I was afraid..." With that Harry runs out of steam, he can't quite bring himself to say it. "She's fine, but I don't know how much of that was real, I don't know if the Red Court knows where she is."

"But she is in their territory with, at best, a Fellowship protection detail. If the Fellowship were powerful enough to protect people living openly they would not be operating as they do," Tiffany finishes. "Her assumed name is Margret Mendoza she lives in Escuintla Guatemala..." she rattles off a set of personal details she must have gotten off the internet, maybe even with IRIS' help.

The Last Station has an open door policy to both of them and you had informed the SUTRAS to help both of them if they ask, though you had imagined Harry getting help with cases not... long lost daughter. Yeah, you get why Harry is pissed, just the idea of family out there where you can't protect them, not even knowing they exist makes your blood boil never mind that he's missed four years of her life, he's never getting those back. Fuck Susan...!

"Better that he avoids doing so in the future Majesty, that's what got him into this conundrum in the first place," Usum almost causes a very inappropriate laugh.

"Is that enough to find the girl?" Tiffany recalls you back to the here-and-now.

"Easy," you answer, much to Harry's... well it's hard to tell what Harry is feeling, not because he's hard to read, but you suspect because he does not know himself.

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 15/18

"See how easy that was?" Tiffany sounds almost too neutral, like a schemer whose plan had come perfectly together. Was that part of the reason why he asked about the Book, so he'd be safer around his daughter?

"[You deceived/ unwillingly moved him?]" You ask, feeling a little silly using the Language in a whisper and still more so for something this small, but it's not like you have mind speech.

"[Not unwilling. I allowed clarity of desire, clarity of self. Foremost that the girl he safe and that he is safe-in-presence.]"

How do you feel about Tiffany's manipulation?

[] It was the right thing to do, Harry wants to see his daughter and he wants her to be safe, he was just getting in his own way

[] It was wrong of her to manipulate him, even with good intentions

[] Write in

OOC: Even 7 successes are not going to allow you to guess something as far out of left field as secret daughter, that was a major part of why he wanted to sign the book, so he would be safe for Maggie and Tiffany knew it so she used the moment to push him into meeting with her at least. As far as she is concerned the safest place for that kid is behind a ring of balefire and a small army of minions because you know... Fallen Angel mentality.

 

[DragonParadox]

Writ in Blood ​

20th of February 2007 A.D.

Of course you do not smile at Tiffany, but she can read a tip of the chin, a flick of the eye. Good thing someone's taking care of the doofus, even if it's not you. It's at that precise moment that you realize what's been missing this whole time, a thing you don't like to think about but still... jealousy. You're not feeling the least upset at the most ahem Biblical proof of Harry's relationship with Susan.

"So now that's settled we should fetch the girl," Tiffany says with the kind of cheeriness that demands a double take.

"What the... no, I don't know how to take care of a kid."

"I do, it's not that hard compared to dealing with adults, children are simple creatures."

She's not... wrong exactly. As someone who remembers five siblings going though their terrible twos, tenacious threes and fearsome fours, Daniel doesn't count, you'd been the jawa back then, they are a lot more forgiving than some people think. It's work not divine inspiration and people are people even when they are small.

"If she's used to her adopted family I don't think it's a good idea to take her out of that environment." Plus according to Alec, who would know to his misfortune, that's how you get into the really bad arguments with the other parents.

"Right see that makes sense," Harry breathes a sigh of relief.

"So bring them along too," Tiffany huffs. "What's that, money? Paperwork? Those are details, what matters is..." Like glass shattering the facade gives way all at once. She just looks exhausted and scared. "Look, I did not suddenly develop an affinity to a child I never met, abstract sympathy isn't my paradigm, but Harry she is your daughter, your flesh and blood and through you she is the great-great-granddaughter of the Blackstaff of the White Council, a man who counts among his enemies beings fit to shatter mountains and scour cities of life. Even if that vision was false, and we do not know all of it was, it is a miracle no one has tracked her down to use her blood against you or him. I have not been obliged to believe in miracles in a long time."

There's a part of you that wants to tell her off for being glib, but she paints too good a picture, and by that you mean a bad one. You don't have to think of all the terrible thing an enemy could do with the blood, the death of a child, you don't want to think about it.

Mind awhirl you try to come up with alternatives: "I could provide remote surveillance, I've been thinking about sending spirits to ride spy satellites. On the ground protection would be easier now that we have a gate on the continent, but there's still training time to consider unfortunately: language, customs, I'd have to get a feel for the Red Court operations in the city, maybe subvert some of them."

There's a worryingly large chasm between being able to scare off the Reds like you had in Vegas or even work with them against a common foe as like in Cleveland against the Pathfinders and actually trusting them to stay bought, but the scope of what you can offer seems only to grow. So what if they are not human but something else pretending? I can still get them. That's good enough right?

Tiffany gives Harry a look that's hard to read not so much in content, but context, a sort of 'see what I mean' look.

"I need to meet her, Maggie I mean and then and I need to talk to Susan," Harry says simply, souding on a far more even keel, if not precisely happy about it.

"Sure I can find her too, but you'd need to move now." The three of you stop for a light. "She's a lot more likely to move around given her profession..."

And then it hits you, yours it the power of exorcism calling to the elements and the stars, the sun, the moon and the grave. Who is to say the stain of the red court upon body and soul is beyond it? The more you think of it the more certain you are, you can just give Susan Rodriguez back her humanity in full...

[] Now, you have the time, you can find her and Harry wants to talk to her.

[] Later, let Harry talk to her, find his daughter so you do not seem like you're expecting concesions for the offer

[] Write in

OOC: I know I said we'd do a level up, but the realization that you can just un-curse Susan hit me earely in the update and it felt kind of railroad-y not to give you the chance to follow up on it now.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Tour Most Peculiar ​

21st of February 2007 A.D.

"I can fix it." Four little words and one very large pledge. The moment they had come out of your mouth Harry had looked at you with something worryingly perched between despair and hope and Tiffany she had just helpfully pointed out that depending on how public you make the exorcism in question you can add the higher ups of the Fellowship of St Giles to the list of people who would would rather you'd never been born, if not the ones who would put a bullet in the back of your head if your neck if it wasn't bullet proof. The promise of getting their lives back lure all the younger Infected away where as the elders could not take it if they wanted, they'd be dust on the wind.

'Not so different when you think about it,' Tiffany hadn't even been trying to be particularly cynical by her standards and Harry still looked perturbed.

Still he hadn't even made a token attempt to keep you out of trouble, this was too important to him. So it's packing your bags again for an overnight trip. The waters of lake Eerie are cold, those of the pacific where the wash up on the verdant coast of Guatemalla are not. Susan was still in town, a sign perhaps that the vision of her looking on as Maggie had a day out with her adopted family was more accurate than one would prefer.

Essence Restored to 18/18 (Sunrise)

Spoiler: Palm Trees by the Water

There a touch of absurdity in trying to be furtive while playing Last Rites to open a passage to the world that is your soul among colorful hand-woven hammocks set out to dry. Actually come to think of it this does sound a little like how thirteen year old you thought magic would shake out.

Harry is obviously worrying more about sticking out, even a casual look around relatively quiet shoreline shows a few kids, mid to late teens looking up at you as they are untangling fishing nets. "No way we're not going to stand out, so we might as well be tourists."

Spoiler: Passage

"Harry we are tourists, you just also need to talk to an old flame, which come to think of it is probably not that uncommon." Tiffany corrects him as she slips away to look over carved shells on, strange sponges and dried starfish. She chats up the lady behind the stall on fluent Spanish, though in your inexpert opinion she sounds odd. Doesn't 'luego' mean soon? And you can only guess 'pieza' is room by gesture and context. She eventually picks out a shell necklace that reminds you of the sunset, pink so dark it's almost purple on one side and creamy orange on the other.
"You are supposed to haggle," Harry chides half-jokingly to wich she laughs.

"Only if you want to be a bastard. Even in cultures where haggling is common people would still rather be paid more than have tourists 'immerse themselves the local culture' or whatever they are putting on brochures these days."

"Everyone's got bills to pay got it," he nods. Even though you can't read his mind —and no that wasn't a wish just in case some new power is about to uncoil— but you get the sense he's wondering about his daughter's needs and wants a stranger in strangers' home.

"I'm sure she's fine," That is not blind optimism talking, having borrowed a pair of Lydia's hounds to look after the kid and come fetch you if there's trouble while the three of you talk to Susan and any other Fellowship operatives who may be present. Your questioning only established that she is still in town and the address, not who she might be with.

Thus resolved you enter the more industrial areas of the town. Here the colors are more muted, the cars more numerous, moving in haste down roads made too narrow by rows of their fellows. Here and there you see the a canine silhouette against the entrance of an alleyway, but they keep their distance, which is more than can be said for the human watchers. The closer you get to your destination the more confident you are that you're being followed.

"Definitely one of the half bloods," Tiffany whispers as she feigns getting a rock out of her shoe. "Though that only tells us half the story. The Red Court isn't shy about employing them."

What do you do?

[] Continue on to Susan's safe house

[] Confront the watcher

[] Write in

OOC: I did my best to speed though actually getting here so as not to allow this to drag, hope it worked and did not feel jarring.

 

[DragonParadox]

Colleagues and Contentions ​

21st of February 2007 A.D.

"Come out come out wherever you are," you turn on your heel a sing-song too low for mortal ears to catch. If they wanna play so can I...

Harry twitches, well. OK so maybe wizards can hear it too, but he's used to you by now. "We're being watched," you explain as a man in khaki shorts and a hoodie sporting a military haircut allowed to grow out for a few years pulls up on a beat up motorbike, the kind that had seen so many refits that it would take a wrench and half an hour in a shop to tell what the original model had been. Despite the baggy clothes you can tell he keeps in shape and despite the way he half drops his gaze, you can see the flash of alien hunger behind them, tightly leashed, a half blood, a skilled one as such things go.

"What are you?" There's an edge of awe there that doesn't just make you uneasy for it's own sake. Way too close to fight or flight.

"Marv...Martin?" Harry seems to recognize him at least so probably on the side of the angels, not that the guy seems to be paying attention.

"That's a bit forward don't you think?" you switch gears to a smile. "Hello my name is Molly, this is Tiffany, you seems to know Harry, we're here to meet a friend."

Lost 2 Essence -> Now at 16/18 (Intimidation and Empathy Excellencies)

"What... why didn't you call?" thankfully Martin is able to take in changing circumstances well, the desperate hungry darkness sinks back into the lines of his face.

"Tried, got a dead number," Harry answers causally, true enough as far as it goes, but she also didn't call to give him a new one, just people growing apart and if it weren't for the fact there's a kid in the middle maybe that's where it would have stayed. Tiffany certainly looks very proud of Harry for keeping a straight face.

Certainly Martin seems to buy it, he shoves a hand in the pocket of his hoodie and pulls out an old Nokia phone, the kind that can double as a brick in a pinch.

"Do you like seafood?" he asks as the phone starts to ring.

Tiffany nods easily to cover the fact that Harry's meeting with his Ex and co-parent had just turned acquired another party. Something tells you Martin here isn't the sort to be satisfied with vague assurances.

That is how you end up on a pair of rustic benches overlooking the Pacific, the smell of surf vying with herbs and spices and the low rumble of other people's conversations. It's not a bad means to make sure you aren't overheard by any means. Noise works better than silence when dealing with inhumanly acute ears, but you would still rather have this wards behind wards, preferably your own.

Spoiler: Susan Rodriguez

The woman who walks up with a nod to the servers, she's clearly been here before, looks like the pictures you've seen of her: hair more straight than wavy, framing a heart shaped face dark eyes adorned with eyebrows that seem made to quirk in surprise. In fact she looks exactly like the pictures you'd seen of her because the parasite in her soul refuses to be denied its meal by something as 'trivial' as old age. Her mouth is set in a hard line, though it's hard to tell if she annoyed to see Harry or just at being summoned at a moment's notice. Then she catches sight of you and Tiffany and one can practically see the curiosity win out despite herself. Oh yeah... you can tell how she ended up too deep in the world of magic and monsters.

How do you approach Susan?

[] Harry asks about Maggie first, that is why you are here after all

[] Offer the exorcism first to make it clear that isn't connected to any personal stuff

[] Write in

OOC: In Dresden's narration Martin did not look like anything, he was just bland, but Molly notices different things about people even when you do not take into account that she is an infernal running social excellencies.

 

[DragonParadox]

The Cost of Broken Chains​

21st of February 2007 A.D.

"I can break the curse," the words don't seem to land, how could they after all? To members of the Fellowship it's an impossibility, one that stands at the core of their long struggle against the monsters that made them as they are. "Cure the infection."

"That's not funny," Susan snaps, or starts to at least.

Whatever else she might have said is lost when Martin asks instead: "What's it cost?"

"One hour of my time in a safe secluded location. It's going to be a lot less quiet than I am right now."

"Seriously you're just going to believe that, no verification, no nothing.?" Susan asks looking like someone had cut her off at the knees for all she's sitting down.

"Yes. You've read the same dossier I have." Martin's voice has a peculiar serenity to it that almost reminds you of Brother Divsimar. Hmm... maybe not a bad comparison after all. Stoically ignoring the part of your brain that's wondering if the Red Court Half Bloods can learn magical martial arts and if so how easily you quirks an eyebrow at the operative: "Dossier?"

"You left an impression in Mexico City and in Vegas, especially in Vegas. The Fellowship tried to muscle in there in the 40s when it became clear the Dragon no longer had the direct backing of the Red King. It did not go well."

His tone leaves you wincing in sympathy, though it also tells you something about Martin, he's at least old enough to have been around and involved back when. Realistically that would make him the same age as Gorfel or old man Matthews if not so old that he would perish as soon as the demon is removed. Lash's words are a warning bell in your memory, though one you leave aside for now.

"A positive impression one hopes," you offer with a smile.

"Yes." He does not look uncomfortable, Martin's expression is almost studiously neutral and yet somehow manages to communicate that this is the limit of what he's going to share about internal Fellowship documents. Of course you could just ask, power pointed at either him or Susan, or heck at anything of the Fellowship, but curiosity alone isn't enough of a reason, not when this conversation is still going.

"Wait a damn minute I feel like I'm missing half the conversation, what does being able to brow up an old Red baron in Vegas have to do with removing..." She can't quite get the full sentence out.

"Remember Sao Paulo last year, this is not a war of armies, the armies are just pawns on the board, this is a war of powers. Anyone able to remove the Dragon that quickly with that little collateral has to be a power, one that's new to the game. Should it be expected that she have a means to remove the Blood? No. Is it reasonable to take her word when she says she does out of the blue unprompted? Yes, on the balance. There is no reason I can see for her to lie or for Dresden not to deny it if she were."

"So what's the price?" Susan asks the question in a tone much different from her companion.

"One hour of my time in a safe secluded location," you repeat deliberately. "I do not like people being cursed by cannibalistic monsters pretending to be gods."

"So you won't have to stay away from Maggie anymore," Harry says, it doesn't slip out, it's not an accident. It's a very deliberate choice, like stepping out from cover under fire.

There's a crack as you look down to see Susan had splintered the table, the faint lines of arcane tattoos start to show around her eyes. That's certainly a way to bring it up.

"How do you know that... how do you know?"

"Oh, same way I know most things, I got into deep trouble, then got a lucky break to get out," Harry proffers a disarming smile. "Now you can too."

"You're not angry?"

Harry sighs, putting his head in one hand, the posture somehow making him seem both larger and more fragile. "I'm not happy, but I get it. I'm a dangerous guy to know, I remember telling you that a time or ten, I'm an even more dangerous guy to be a dad. But here I am and here you are. We've got to make it work now. It's not about how I feel."

One of the less used aspects of sharpening your senses like you had was being able to read not just faces, but lips which is how you now read Tiffany: 'Now she wishes they were still fucking.'

You feign kicking her under the table.

"That offer of yours," Martin interrupts, his voice soft but heavy with meaning. "How far does it go?"

Ah and there's the trouble, one hour for the rite itself, two hours and a quarter to get the Essence back. About eight people a day if you do nothing else is your limit. So how much is it really worth for people who aren's Susan Rodriguez?

[] Still free, it will just take a while

[] The Fellowship has skills, knowledge, you could do with the help while setting up your operations on Earth

[] Write in

OOC: If Harry seemed unusually socially adroit here well... he rolled *see below*.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Stillness in the Blood ​

21st of February 2007 A.D.

Truth be told you're torn. If you didn't have other options, if it was all or nothing then you'd do it for all the hours seem to be getting scarcer every day, but as Thomas shows and Isabela and Olivia too there's short term fixes and long and the short term ones demand service. "Screw me, you could write a fable with this stuff and never run out of musings."

"Come again?" Susan looks a little worried.

"I am a ruler, I command a realm deep in the Nevernever, one that is my soul. This power I have is made to rule, among others it is made to rule spirits incandescent, caustic to the material reality. Some of my people bind these spirits to their bodies with machines, they developed way to render safe a path which was once painful, dangerous to body and mind so now I too can grant it to those who willingly serve. When I speak demons listen and the lesser ones at least," you throw Tiffany a look too brief for anyone else to catch, "cower and obey."

"This is a different thing?" Martin asks, choosing his words with the care of one walking barefoot on a path vipers slither on.

You nod. "As long as you serve me the Hunger will not trouble you and since I was going to ask for some help setting up in South America it has a certain elegance to it. I'm not entirely sure I like myself being elegant with people's souls on the line." Or knowing this is just the right thing to say the better to set you at ease, you add in your head.

He narrows his eyes. "Ask me something."

"Could you fetch me another drink?"

"What the fuck are you doing... you can't just..." Susan starts.

"Don't." Martin's words are heavy with emotion you hadn't heard from him before. "Don't tell me what I can't do. You've been in this life what? a decade? You think you've given up your innocence, your humanity because you put a bullet in some poor bastard drug mule's skull in Rio? You have no idea how much you've yet to give, how much you've yet to give."

He gets up from the table gets the drink, a Sprite of all things, turns around almost mechanically. As he comes back he feigns dropping something on the ground... and picks up the bench you and Tiffany are sitting on one handed, an inhuman feat if an inconspicuous one.

"Your face..." Susan chokes out.

She means the tattoos of St Giles, you realize.

"Nothing to see? Good, that would have been mildly awkward to explain." With that he sits down, seemingly having regained his composure at some point between table and vending machine.

"Unlike the White Council the Fellowship has no centralized base, we function on a cell based system. We stand in the devil's own mouth with an understanding that in time we will be swallowed. Passing this information on and having it be believed will take some time though given the investment appears to work remotely...?"

"It does."

"Simply name a favor, there will be plenty who wish to render service to Duchess Ariana's slayer, once they realize what has occurred I can explain the rest. The sudden quiet is impossible to mistake for anything else."

"Well too bad cause I'm not doing it," Susan proclaims loudly.

"Weren't you listening, you don't have to," Tiffany gives a slow, deliberate blink, pulling double duty showing off her very nice eyelashes and expressing disbelief that someone could be this silly.

"Damn it Harry," she rounds on him. "I'm good at this, investigation, profiling, following the money. This is doing good, more than I ever did chasing fucking Bigfoot for the Arcane. I can't just give it up to... to... take care of a kid whose happy where she is, who already has a mother."

What do you do?

[] Let Harry handle this

[] Point out she does not need vampiric powers to

[] Offer better powers (Inner Darkness Unleashed)

[] Write in

OOC: The drama, it swells. Also Susan has only been doing this for five and a half years, it's just from where Martin is standing he rounds to the decade.

 

[DragonParadox]

Twins on a Trail ​

21st of February 2007 A.D.

Pretty girls are the devil's trick on men, Terry had heard his father say some twist of those words more times than he would remember and to be fair to the old man, which he did try to do all the pretty girls he met so far in Chicago were some kind of vampire, faerie or even a ghoul which really weren't supposed to be pretty. So he wasn't really surprised when the pretty quiet girl that almost seemed to slip out of sight when you didn't look at her admitted that she was 'like a Vampire of the Jade Court'. What he wasn't expecting was that to be followed up by a scavenger hunt though the city where they had to figure out the names and dates of death Chicago ghosts while she'd be doing her best to mess with them. They were given a list of twelve ghost stories, some of which were fake and told to figure out as much as they could by the end of the week to be checked against the accounts of the real ghosts at week's end.

One of the first thing the Council had tried to teach him was to keep notes since memory, even a wizard's memory wasn't always reliable. Alas the first thing the ghost hunt taught him was that paper burned real fine. Doing the usual Warden tactic of trying to play keep away from regular folks just got them messed with more and Terry had a sneaking suspicion that he only shared with his sister Tina that the first of the lot to try using the sight to catch her at it was in for a heck of a scolding.

So they tried the public library. Sure they got looks, but it was cause of they 'talked funny' not being cunning folk and it quickly became clear that librarians were both some of the nicest people around, always willing to point you at something useful or just fun to read.

"Think I'm startin' to get a notion why other wizards love books so much," Tina confessed from behind a leaning tower of books that was like that tilted even more than the one in the postcards.

They quickly got into a system with Terry speeding though books and newspapers to see if there was any hint of a haunt and Tina diving deep, but the trouble was that it would take longer to go deep than wide and pretty soon Terry was left without anything more to do while his sister read up on scissors murders and strangled mailmen.

"Think we can have a look at the computer?" His tone may have had a bit of a whine to it, but he wasn't admiring nothing. He had wanted to get a hold of one ever since he had seen Jenny Sewer made her own came with 'programing language', wasn't a great game or nothing, but he thought it was cool. Maybe he thought it was a little too coll 'cause a few minutes after having the thought he blew out the 'motherboard' which was called that cause it was really important.

"I think that Warden Remirez isn't going to pay any property damage we cause," Tina huffed.

"He told us to call him Carlos," Terry reminded her.

"Seems disrespectful is all," she muttered, leading Terry to add another notch in the disturbing theory of his sister maybe, posibily being sweet on the Warden.

They were too young for that nonsense anyway.

He resolutely ignored the way his palms had sweated around various pretty girls since they came to Chicago, they were all magic and so didn't count.

OOC: Contrary to popular belief I did not forget about the baby wardens and neither did your Circle. These kids are going to learn important life lessons one way or the other.