Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

That talks about what we might try with him, but not what he might have done to prepare for us.

Broken Seeker loves his prep work, I don't want to fight him while he's had time and reason to be ready for us.


The guy spent months being very careful not to attract attention while scoping out his hunt for Dresden.

Even if he goes on another hunt immediately, which would be sort of dumb considering the heat involved here, Broken Seeker is unlikely to go around killing large groups of people.

We should deal with him but doing so here and now is highly likely to screw us over, trigger some sort of casualty heavy contingency, and fail to work.

I'm thinking of this like trying to assassinate evil!Batman. Taking a shot like this is asking to see what he's got in his utility belt specifically for us.

Instead we should attack him when he isn't prepared for us, like when he's getting ready for another hunt.
Why would his preparations for us conveniently disappear or be set aside after we shook his composure with Shintai + our new reality warping signature just a couple updates ago? If anything, he'd be even more highly motivated to be on guard against us after this plane raid and he'd know what to prepare for, unlike before.

He wasn't expecting us to be capable of that, he knows that we are now. Either we take this chance or he'll turtle up and become even more of a pain to hunt down later on. Kill him now before he gets the chance to readjust his oh-so-feared preparations to the new abilities we just showed off and before he gets even more of a power boost from eating the duchess, for the love of god.

[x] You are still pretty fresh, screw deals, you could kill more than one old monster today
[X] Murder is Meat the duchess, and let Broken Seeker try to betray US, instead of the other way around.
 
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Why would his preparations for us conveniently disappear or be set aside after we shook his composure with Shintai + our new reality warping signature just a couple updates ago? If anything, he'd be even more highly motivated to be on guard against us after this plane raid and he'd know what to prepare for, unlike before.

He wasn't expecting us to be capable of that, he knows that we are now. Either we take this chance or he'll turtle up and become even more of a pain to hunt down later on. Kill him now before he gets the chance to readjust his oh-so-feared preparations to the new abilities we just showed off and before he gets even more of a power boost from eating the duchess, for the love of god.

[x] You are still pretty fresh, screw deals, you could kill more than one old monster today
[X] Murder is Meat the duchess, and let Broken Seeker try to betray US, instead of the other way around.
He has resource limitations, and isn't fully aware of our abilities. He can't spent all day plotting against us, and resources committed to us can't be dedicated to other things.

Being on the offensive means we can pick the time and manner of the engagement, which is a significant advantage.

If we show up when he's on a trip to the other side of the country and hit him while he's doing research on a different target it shifts most things in our favor.
 
Vote closed.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Sep 21, 2023 at 11:03 AM, finished with 213 posts and 34 votes.
 
Arc 9 Post 29: Bright Embers Falling
Bright Embers Falling

21th of November 2006 A.D.

You want to kill him, oh how you want to, it would make the world a better place and spare the trouble of hunting him down later, but Broken Seeker has not not made it this far, a monster with every hand against him, by being a fool. He is the one who wanted to ambush Arianna on this plane. If he planned this half as well as he did Alec and Izzy's kidnapping he will have a way out at least As Usum reminds you, leaving aside the danger that him being loose in the world with a grudge would pose that would also damage your reputation.

Bitter as the thoughts might be the voice that emerges not just from your mouth, but also from the speakers grown all about the transmuted cabin has an edge of comradeship beneath the anger: "Hey asshole, save some for me!"

What he's using for vocal chords at the moment you could not say, but Broken Seeker laughs as he tears off the vampire's vanquished Arianna's head and throws it at you like a kid playing catch and then he turns towards the remaining vampires:

"Behold your betters! Behold your hunters! Behold your devourers!"

"Muerte!" One of the remaining elders screams again, you can fill in the blanks and then as one almost with gravitas in spite of their twisted forms they attack, invoking each and every one that fate twist power to pass though any guard. Skilled they might be in butchery and driven beyond themselves by the the duchess' fall, but it is not enough. For every fistful of flesh they manage to tear from the skinwalker a new spiked tendril or clawed limb emerges. It is as though they face the hydra and they are not Heracles.

Broken Seeker takes 4 Wounds -> Now at 9/13

Whatever hope they may have had it is fleeting as you shatter the spine of one and the naagloshii catches the head of the one he had wounded and shatters in a dreadful crunch. Though the remaining pair are still resolved to go down fighting the same cannot be said of the younger vampires who break with the suddenness of a wave meeting the shore rushing scuttling , crawling over each other to the door you had broken open... only for it to suddenly erupt into a curtain of searing blue flame.

2 Greater Vampire Die
Lesser Vampires Break;


Half a dozen of them die in an instant the sheer force of their desperation pushes the bodies though... Burning vampires fall like meteors from the jet towards the ground far below.

6 Lesser Vampires Die

The din of sheer unthinking terror is dreadful yet though it all you work, another vampire loses his head to your sword and the last makes one forlorn assault against the already healing skinwalker before getting.... impaled on bony spikes, casting a spiral pattern in blood upon the shifting walls.

2 Greater Vampires Die
Broken Seeker heals 1 Wound -> Now at 10/13


This isn't battle, it's butchery, you realize wading into the fight against the vampires caught between the fire, claw and sword. Do they deserve any better? A part of you wonders, angry and cold, but as you look to your right to the monster merrily killing them the answer is not as obvious as it might once have been. Vaguely at the back of your mind you had been considering if you could lead him to redemption in some way. After all had Uriel not said that all were capable of it if only they are willing. But if he is worthy why not them?

What do you do?

[] Try to get the vampires to surrender (Charisma+Intimidation)

[] Kill them all


Out of Character: Do any of the changes caused by the Fivefold Courts Impinging upon realty last?

[] Yes
May enact long term change in this world; Danger of contamination and other unintended consequences; very obvious to any who observe it

[] No
Signature use remains tactical

OOC: People do not usually get the option of trying to get frenzied vampires to surrender, but Molly is an high intimidation infernal with DPE under... remarkable circumstances.
 
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We might be able to invite Broken Seeker to our hell later, and if anyone could get him to actually come visit, then it's us doing our social best. Then we beat him down, and we lock him up. That wouldn't even necessarily ruin our relationship with him. He'd definitely include hostile escape attempts, and some, potentially horrific, vengeance. I could see him seeing it as our equivalent of a first argument though. If anyone's idea of how a relationship functions is going to be accommodating to betrayal and attempted eternal imprisonment, then he's a likely candidate.
 
Fun chapter! And we get to see Broken Seeker's combat regeneration.

[X] No
Signature use remains tactical
 
[X] Try to get the vampires to surrender (Charisma+Intimidation)
[X] No

Kill if we must, but we give them the chance first.
 
[X] Try to get the vampires to surrender (Charisma+Intimidation)
[X] No


@DragonParadox would we be able to buy a heretical charm later to allow for permanence? At E4 perhaps? It's a very interesting option, but way too inconvenient to be a base state of the charm.

As to vampire - always try to get an intelligence source
 
We might be able to invite Broken Seeker to our hell later, and if anyone could get him to actually come visit, then it's us doing our social best. Then we beat him down, and we lock him up. That wouldn't even necessarily ruin our relationship with him. He'd definitely include hostile escape attempts, and some, potentially horrific, vengeance. I could see him seeing it as our equivalent of a first argument though. If anyone's idea of how a relationship functions is going to be accommodating to betrayal and attempted eternal imprisonment, then he's a likely candidate.
He would 100% escape and be right at home in the frozen wilderness hellscape that is our hinterlands. No thanks. He is not something we want in our soul.
 
[X] Kill them all

If the White God wanted them redeemed, he should have sent a Knight.

[X] No

Permanent effects could be fun and/or useful, but they can also be troublesome or even cataclysmic, so I'll pass.
 
[X] Try to get the vampires to surrender (Charisma+Intimidation)
[X] No


@DragonParadox would we be able to buy a heretical charm later to allow for permanence? At E4 perhaps? It's a very interesting option, but way too inconvenient to be a base state of the charm.

As to vampire - always try to get an intelligence source

Hmm I am going to say yes... though it would not be simply a matter of taking the charm, you would have to pass certain per-conditions that have to do with the nature of reality. Also keep in mind Shintai is already pretty rare so you guys might not want to spent the XP just for a charm that only gives some utility while in Shintai.
 
Just a reminder, these are Rampires who were part of Arianna's retinue, or the retinue of her lieutenants, main sycophants, etc. They're not freshly transformed newbies who are still figuring out how to keep their fleshmasks from getting unsightly creases or spilling more blood than they drink from their victims.

These are going to be among the worst of the worst, every one of them an old monster with untold numbers of victims.

Don't make the mistake of assuming they deserve to live just because we didn't bother to try backstabbing BS just now. We let him live because the potential consequences for failure in the attempt (and even success, in some cases) were too great, at least at this point. The Reds don't rate any such concern, and in fact represent serious loose ends that need to be handled before this mission concludes.

Also, the faster we kill them, the faster we can move on to landing the plane and rescuing the snackpaks.
 
[X] Try to get the vampires to surrender (Charisma+Intimidation)

They might not deserve forgiveness, but is forgiveness not what the Lord offered to the undeserving? If nothing else, we might put them to work undoing the damage they have done, or at least begin to counter balance the sin they sow and the harm they reap with some good.

Their deaths will not inherently bring good into the world, merely prevent the possibility for them to do further harm when they are already barred from doing so, and maybe provide some closure to their victims if they ever learn, but that seems like a hollow reward in comparison to at least trying to turn their talents to better ends.

Worse comes to worse, they refuse and die anyway - so what's the cost of giving them a chance to be better - to prove ourselves to be better, even if that is far from what they might deserve, in light of what might be gained for the greater good?

[X] No

I'd be really tempted to say yes for its future potential alone, but if its something we can achieve down the line then tactical nimbleness is obviously the way to go.
 
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