Ways are used for both paths in the NeverNever, and gates from the NeverNever to Earth.
Im specifically referring to Mab doing this:
"Cat Sith," I called, once Sarissa had left.
From behind me, a voice said, "Yes, Sir Knight?"
I twitched and didn't whirl around like a frightened teenager. I turned in a very urbane and James Bondian fashion, in keeping with my tux, eyed him, and said, "Hell's bells. Do you always come in like that?"
"No," the malk replied. He was sitting on the back of the sofa Sarissa and I had recently vacated. "Generally I do not speak. I simply proceed."
"Are you aware of my orders?" I asked.
"I am aware that you have been given orders. I am to facilitate your ability to comply with them."
I nodded. "I need to get back to Chicago. Right now. And I need a car."
Cat Sith turned and padded down the hallway, toward my bedroom. He stopped in the hall at the door to the linen closet and lashed his tail once, then looked at me. "Very well."
I frowned at him. Then I went to the closet and opened the door.
Autumn air, humid and smothering compared to that of Arctis Tor, flooded into my lair. Brilliant lights shone on the other side of the door, and it took me a few seconds of blinking against them to adjust, and realize that I was being blinded by simple streetlights. Inside my closet, there was a bit of sidewalk and then Michigan Avenue stretching out to the storefront opposite.
I blinked several times. Sith had opened a Way between Faerie and Chicago.
The spirit world, the Nevernever, is vast almost beyond imagining. Faerie is but one part of it, for the most part occupying the realms of spirit that lie most adjacent to the mortal world. The geography of the spirit world isn't like that of the real world. Different places in the spirit world will connect with places with a similar energy in the real world. So dark, spooky parts of the Nevernever hook up with dark, spooky places in the mortal world.
And my freaking linen closet in Arctis Tor hooked up to Chicago—specifically to Michigan Avenue, to the Gothic stone building across the street from the Old Historic Water Tower. It was night. Cars went by occasionally, but no one seemed to take notice of the open portal to the heart of Winter. Arctis Tor was isolated in the Nevernever, difficult to reach without inside help. Even traveling by Ways takes at least some time, and I'd expected a hike back to the real world. "How?" I asked quietly.
"Her Majesty had it made," Sith said.
I whistled. Intentionally forming a connection from a specific place to a specific place took amounts of energy so enormous that even the White Council of Wizards could rarely manage it—I'd seen it done only once in my lifetime, the year before, in Chichén Itzá. "She had it made? For me?"
"Indeed," Sith said. "In fact, this is, for the time being, the only way in or out of Faerie."
I blinked several times. "You mean Winter?"
"Faerie," Sith stated. "All of it." I choked. "Wait. You mean all of Faerie is on lockdown?" "Indeed," Sith said. "Until dawn."
"Why?" I asked.
"One presumes it was done to give you a head start." With that, Sith walked calmly through the door and onto the sidewalk. "Your car, Sir Knight."
I stepped through the door into the Chicago air, and it slugged me in the face with a legion of scents and sensations and sounds that were as familiar to me as my own breathing. After the cool, dry silence of Arctis Tor, I felt like I'd leapt into the middle of an active circus. There were too many sounds, scents, too much color, too much motion. Arctis Tor was as still as the deepest night of winter, twenty-four/seven. Chicago is . . . well, Chicago.
I found myself blinking my eyes very rapidly.
Home.
I know. It's corny. Especially since Chicago is what a polite person would call a colorful place. It's a den of crime and corruption. And it's a monument to architecture and enterprise. It's violent and dangerous, and an epicenter of music and the arts. The good, the bad, the ugly, the sublime, monsters and angels—they're all here.
The scents and sounds triggered a mental avalanche of memories and I shivered at the intensity of it. I almost didn't notice the car that pulled up to the curb beside me.
It was an ancient hearse, a Caddy that must have been built sometime in the years immediately following World War II, complete with rounded tail fins. It had been painted dark, dark blue, and given a flame job in shades of electric purple. It wavered and bobbed drunkenly down the avenue, turned a bit too sharply toward the curb, lurched ahead with a roar of the engine, and then skidded to a halt with the brakes locked, missing the posts along the edge of the road, and the chains that hung between them, by maybe an inch.
You also see both Lea and Ebenezar doing this during Chitchen Itza in Changes.
Lea does it to summon/open a Gate for the Grey Council, then Ebenezar does it to bring in an army of the not!Tengu ninja
Essentially, if you are a bad enough dude, you can apparently open/create a Gate from one place to another.
Might require preptime though.
Mab is the Queen of Winter and can mold her part of faerie with a great deal of dexterity. Even when she doesn't choose to do that she's still Mab and her nation has access to pretty much all of earth. Unlike a mortal or an outsider she has to have a complete understanding of her kingdom's geography too, so she can just go places.
I doubt that it's a great idea to try this with Faerie unless you're a Queen or have their direct approval to do so. As would be the case when Lea and McCoy did what they did, because Winter was involved for the sake of revenge on the reds.
1) I took it more along the lines of "no official observers around on the ground".
Because the Red Court has not needed to use actual government troops in their overt operations, and along the border with Colombia and Brazil they can bring in arbitrary numbers of Rampires and mercenaries.
Even Lara in Chicago has like >40 security troops just sitting around Chateau Raith in Small Favor, and she wasnt engaged in active combat operations.
2) Counterpoint: Central Africa in Dead Beat.
Where they got an army of mercenaries close enough to jump a defended Warden medical facility, then hit it with nerve gas.
This isnt a hypothetical, the Reds have done it in this war. Several times. Archangel. Dead Beat. Proven Guilty.
It wont be the first time they have moved significant numbers of supernatural and mortal troops and the Council missed it until they got hit and had to respond
1) They don't bring official observers into their true power centers anyway, so that would be a pointless comment to make in the first place. It reads like a logistical constraint to me.
2) That is a different thing entirely. The council thought they were secure and were on the defensive. They didn't know they needed to look in a particular direction. Here they're planning an assault on red forces in the area, which requires defeating active attention instead of passive perception.
They had enough forces to notice and run down a native river spirit being used as a messenger.
A native that knew the local magical geography, yet still got run down on the Ways out of the area. Thats pretty strong evidence that they do have the troops necessary to cover that jungle and notice people moving in and out of it.
*rechecks*
We spent more than 15 minutes, less than 30 minutes. Hence we regenerated 1m of Essence in Post 8: Of Gods and Monsters. Which we then spent in Post 9: On The Edge while talking to Odin.
That put us on 11/18, and we spent 2m getting Carlos to Sanctuary. So we're now on 9/18. Half.
Ongoing war zone, and we just entered the area more or less overtly, and we're moving....fast, but not that fast; 67mph is less than routine US highway speeds. Sophia's primary responsibility is keeping Carlos alive; she is going to need a second set of eyes, and Carlos has only mortal nightvision unless he has relevant magic
"What... No, of course not!" Huh... he actually seems genuinely offended, like it hadn't crossed his mind at all.
"I know what guys are like," she grumbles wings sweeping down for lift off. Guys my age, you know that complaint would go, but she obviously so no more reason to insult him saying that than you would have.
"Well maybe you haven't been meeting the right guys. Either of you?" He sounds genuinely curious when you are pretty sure Nelson would have probably said something crass by now... assuming was ever capable of watching a girl turn into a dragon in front of his eyes.
That was probably the highest stress etiquette roll of his life.
He's a good guy, but rolling to assure the nascent primordial you have a crush on and her draconic third circle demon that you weren't thinking anything creepy while kinda ogling her soul hierarchy has to have raised his pulse a little.
Fetich soul, the crown-soul, the seed soul, that I am," you slip a little into that other way of thinking before pulling back. "We are each a aspects of the others, manifestations of a single self that has grown too vast to be contained to just one soul." You pause looking out over the jungle. "It's OK, you can call me soul-fat, I won't mind"
This on the other hand is going to make for some interesting research on his part later. I wonder if that terminology is still in use to the point that he'll actually find anything.
There's no reason not to do this, and Molly is not the type to let her friends take a hit for her if she can stop it, even if that friend is actually herself
This on the other hand is going to make for some interesting research on his part later. I wonder if that terminology is still in use to the point that he'll actually find anything.
I mean the odds of him finding anything would seem to be quite small to Molly, the people who she has found most knowledgeable about her exaltation are in rough order:
An Archangel of the Lord
Queen Mab
A creepy fey child that's not so young who lives with the Mothers
A Walker, a Knight of the Outside who wanted to best her or... die seems like the wrong word, more like Be Not.
...probably the Mothers though they did not say as much
If the Council does have lore of that age they are probably not handing it out to Carlos from what she understands of how they work. It would be in some hoary old wizard's library, or in a case you need all of the Senior Council to sing kumbaya and cross their eyes twice to open ( ) which may or may not be opened this decade.
Just noticed this, yeah feeling better and the doctor said it's pretty damn common, not going to bore you guys with my medical diagnosis, but this is one of those 'be careful what you eat' conditions that I am just finding.
I mean the odds of him finding anything would seem to be quite small to Molly, the people who she has found most knowledgeable about her exaltation are in rough order:
An Archangel of the Lord
Queen Mab
A creepy fey child that's not so young who lives with the Mothers
A Walker, a Knight of the Outside who wanted to best her or... die seems like the wrong word, more like Be Not.
...probably the Mothers though they did not say as much
If the Council does have lore of that age they are probably not handing it out to Carlos from what she understands of how they work. It would be in some hoary old wizard's library, or in a case you need all of the Senior Council to sing kumbaya and cross their eyes twice to open ( ) which may or may not be opened this decade.
I wasn't so much thinking lore about exalted in particular so much as the concept of a soul hierarchy under that name and using something similar to the phrase fetich soul to describe the center of one. I assume they don't exactly know what a primordial is, but this sort of soul biology did have at least vague parallels in other entities.
Are his odds of finding some loosely applicable framework digging around in the "exotic spiritual biology" section of whatever repositories of lore he has access to significantly different from his odds of getting something specific to infernals?
Something to keep in mind is that this has come up before in Vegas and DP said that if we get attacked while in a bottle Molly would have to spend a turn getting out of the bottle.
Yes, and the fact that he managed to stay calm when one of her clones turned into a dragon without warning and still didn't have any offensive thoughts towards her only strengthened my thinking that Carlos would be a good boyfriend for Molly to at least have fun with.
I'm sure that with time and with Harry and Lash's relationship getting stronger she might actually look at him and other options instead of getting stuck in the past.
I wasn't so much thinking lore about exalted in particular so much as the concept of a soul hierarchy under that name and using something similar to the phrase fetich soul to describe the center of one. I assume they don't exactly know what a primordial is, but this sort of soul biology did have at least vague parallels in other entities.
Are his odds of finding some loosely applicable framework digging around in the "exotic spiritual biology" section of whatever repositories of lore he has access to significantly different from his odds of getting something specific to infernals?
We should probably stunt this and have an idea of what we want to say. We've definitely ruined whatever stealth they may have had, so we're not going to have a lot of time to convince them to drop into our hell with us. We didn't leave anyone playing our song, so we're going to have to pick a random output spot or come back here to flee via RVD too.
- Be Morgan
- Out hunting Lords with fellow Wardens in jungle
- It ain't much but it's honest work
- Nuclear-green glowing dragon appears
- Terror.jpg
- Attackattackattackattack
- Did someone just parry our spell
- It's Carlos?!
- It's Molly?!?!?!?!
- Molly says no time to explain time to go to hell
- What.jpg
- Be Morgan
- Out hunting Lords with fellow Wardens in jungle
- It ain't much but it's honest work
- Nuclear-green glowing dragon appears
- Terror.jpg
- Attackattackattackattack
- Did someone just parry our spell
- It's Carlos?!
- It's Molly?!?!?!?!
- Molly says no time to explain time to go to hell
- What.jpg
The psycho wizard is the most likely guard, since you know making a habit of that kind of thing and not dying would make one more experienced in the job. That said just from the sheer power of the magic what seems most likely is that attack was primed with some kind of ritual magic. Getting 12 normally for a wizard on anything is... I'm not going to say impossible, but probably not something you can do in the middle of the jungle. On the other hand if you have several wizards, all of different, but applicable skills you can just do extended casting to get that much damage and double against vampires and splash damage.
A winged spear is still a spear and can be deflected like one, fire with fire to catch the hits and cast it off.
"Warden Carlos Ramirez, Los Angeles present!" the words come out almost at the same time, though they wouldn't have saved him a fistfull of white flame to the chest.
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 10/18
There is a long pause from below, then a familiar voice thrown up by magic such that you only hear it a whisper in someone else's ears because of how sharp yours are.
"Ramirez, what in the screaming void are you doing on a bloody dragon?" The tone reminds one that it would not have been that long ago, certainly not as wizards count time, that a young Carlos would have been in the position of the twins, and maybe just a little bit intimidated by one Donald Morgan.
"Dragon's Molly Carpenter sir, that is she's Molly Carpenter too...." If that thought is also going through the head of the man behind you on Sophia's back he does not let that stop him. "We got word of your message, though not what was in it so we came to help."
Before he can say anything else there is a soft sigh from the arcane construct below, as though space itself had been holding its breath and you are met with the sight of four wizards, an uncommonly dour looking Morgan, a dark skinned man who looks to be about the Merlin's age whose wearing his purple and gold robes as though he cares nothing for the presumptions of mortal kings, an old woman in nondescript dark clothing. She still somehow manages to have a touch of the antique about her that gives her an unsettlingly detached manner under the shadow of the rainforest giants that so far you had only seen in the fey, though iron might flow though her veins. As for the fourth... if there was a single wizard you'd assume to be a warlock on sight it would be the one wearing his own shadow like a robe of unvarnished night and casting a second blood red shadow thereby. Usum helpfully informs you that is vampire blood and speculates that the 'elder sorcerer' must have found a way to use it in his magic, so of course he would always want a wellhead close. "Not against the Laws is it, Majesty?" He seems to find the whole thing hilarious.
Regained 2 Essence -> Now at 12/18
"How did you get past the... hunting parties in the Mirror-world young warden?" the lady says, still not looking up.
Neither he nor you, nor even Sophia have a chance to give the answer before it comes in sinister howls from nowhere, from Elsewhere. Misshapen shadows burden the trees, one, a dozen, a score, all howling for blood, too mad to even notice the dragon looming over them.
Then the moon goes out like a night light running out of power.
"Well well, what have we here, set a trap to catch a possum and snare instead a jaguar, how fortunate are we to meet at last our daughter's final dance partner." The words are not English, they are certainly not Spanish, something like Sophia's mind voice, but not so, warm and smothering like a pillow in a killer's hands. "But really all these grand and storied warriors on your side and all we have to hand is blood-lost beasts."
It's lying, not really a revelation, but good to know you can read this kind of monstrosity too.
"So how about this, lets have a deal, a duel between thee and we for the pain of our daughter's untimely passing. Agree to it and we shall not boil the blood of all whom we have tasted near enough to hear our scream. Four hundred and twelve men... women... children."
"He's bluffing!" Carlos shouts, confirming that he's been hearing this nightmare as well. "There's no way he'd have set something like this up for us."
"You think much of yourself wizardling. We did not do this for thine sake, but should we have been compelled to decamp death of the vessel would have been far preferable to some petty 'knight' or 'baron' drinking of my vessels is revolting." even these titles of his own kin the Dark Voice speaks with faint disdain likely for being older than the Spanish who brought them to this land, but the greater meaning, that horrifyingly reads true.
What do you do?
[] Duel the Lord of Outer Night
-[] Yourself
-[] Send Sophia
[] Find it and kill it, trust the wizards to break its death curse becfore it can fire it
[] Write in
OOC: I figure being a Warden at over a century in age needs some kind of reasoning. Well adjusted wizards do not want to do this long term, Morgan's reason is clinical depresion, the other three here have their own.
