Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[Azais]

If all we get out of this is goodwill, then fairies are officially more politically intelligent creatures than wizards. They understand the benefits of actual interstate gratitude. We don't have time for the effects of goodwill, either. We need things now. Not in five years or never. Goodwill is far from a guarantee of help.

If they don't want to do anything in response, then I vote to just leave the high council except McCoy to die the next time they get screwed.

I won't forgive much. But the council will have to make reciprocal gestures of trust. For example, approve a program to treat warlocks without wasting our time. For starters

Click to shrink...

I honestly prefer dealing with the fairies just because when we do something to help them they are forced to help us in return unlike all the other factions who can just thank us, say "my favor for you increase +1" like a shitty otome game and then kick us out.

Titania didn't like us, the news we brought or our mere presence but after we helped her she still owed us favors and helped us when we asked.

Honestly Lara and the fairies are more politically intelligent so far, they saw a great power emerging, they saw that it could help with their goals and so they exchanged interests with us and thus we became sort of allies. The irony is that the people who should be our natural allies, the White Council, seem to distrust us more than the damn fairies and vampires did.

I understand them don't trust us right away, but our stated goals are to destroy the Reds, stop the Outsiders, and develop our power in the material world. None of this goes against the WC's goals. We've proven our strength and purpose by saving all of North America, purifying the fairies, destroying a hell, we have direct approval from Heaven, and we're willing to sign a mutually beneficial covenant with them. What more do these bastards want?

 

[Anaja]

Adhoc vote count started by Anaja on Oct 25, 2024 at 1:57 AM, finished with 43 posts and 5 votes.

• ---

  4 people have voted

  [x] Open Calibration's Gate to the Heart of the Labyrinth (-4 Essence)
  -[x][Stunt]As you call the Calibration gate you feel your kingdom shift. Not just a overlay on the Labyrinth, but a claiming of reality. All roads in the Labyrinth now lead to you.

  • fictionfan
  • Sesparra
  • Azais
  • Anaja

  1 people have voted

  [x] Open Calibration's Gate to the Heart of the Labyrinth (-4 Essence)

  • uju32

 

[firefrog600]

1) People cant give you what they dont have. This is the Dresden Files, not DnD.
Dresdenverse wizards are known for hoarding secrets and knowledge, not crafting components.
They dont store corpses of monsters and demons and other things.


2) People are not going to kill themselves to give you rewards. And its unreasonable to expect it.
And frankly a couple banked favors from the White Council are the kind of bankable asset we can add to our stash of Summer and Winter Court favors.


3) You may not think so.
I am more worried about that than Molly talking about motes in front of Langtry.


Goodwill nonsense.
As if goodwill is not one of our greatest assets.


We already have a bunch of physical things.
We looted the body of a Lord of Outer Night in South America, if you recall, which is a reagent second only to Iku Turso's remains in rarity, and I think we looted the Mordite he was throwing around as well.

And we have yet to get done with our dear friend Marcus; I dont expect to kill the Hollow Man this time, but there is an occult library here that I intend to get a look at.
Will be filled with lies, but there's a lie detector in our charmtree that we can buy.

Not to mention we could go back to Australia and loot that demon-hybrid thing in Shaw's basement, assuming noone else gets to it first. We've already turned a tidy profit on this entire affair, and we arent done yet.


But of all that, the goodwill of a significant chunk of the White Council is a lot more valuable to Molly, and critically, Molly's Circle of party members. In the short and longterm.
Just the goodwill of the Gatekeeper alone is a Big Deal.

Click to shrink...

what makes you think the white council will give us favors for this? Their not fey.

 

[Degorium]

M'kay.

As I said, no one said anything about Exalts not being dangerous after being out of motes

Click to shrink...

We're going to have to agree to disagree on the quote. You do realize this conversation was about the vulnerability of the exalted not how dangerous they are right?

That I started that conversation with

We don't have a perfect defense or a perfect attack so we're not anymore vulnerable at two motes than we are at 10 and with the given amount of essence we have we have 10 rounds of combat worth of melee/occult Excellency and superhuman attributes.

Click to shrink...

Which is a complete answer by itself and nothing you have said or bronze tongue have said has refuted that at all.

Again we're just agreeing with each other in long form no one is saying they're not dangerous I'm just saying this situation isn't the same as being a mote tapped. As we literally don't have a defense that is completely reliant on Essence being spent every turn.

So what point are you trying to make here?

 

[uju32]

This "Goodwill" you speak of doesn't seem to be very useful because even forgetting that Mai was totally willing to let Merlin die for politics (and don't tell me that everyone on the Senior Council would support her in this because we had MacCoy on our side and he wasn't happy but realized that fighting with this at the moment wasn't great) the things we need for them, the increase in arms sales, joint attacks on the Reds, them helping the FCF fit into the world economy, better contacts with more friendly factions etc, don't need goodwill but trust, which needs time to grow and the way Molly moves in such short bursts we don't have time to wait, and we were proven in this event that the WC high government may like us but doesn't trust us.

Or do you really think you can keep the interest of the majority of the thread for months IRL by saying "don't worry we may be wasting our precious time with them, but soon they will reward us"? Keeping long-term plans in a quest is very difficult, most players (like me) don't like to wait months for the results of many efforts, and every damn turn a different crisis appears that either threatens the world or makes us rethink all our previous plans (Vegas, Boston and now this).

And GateKeeper appears so busy all the time that he can't even help the organization he belongs to, besides being tied up by many nebulous obligations that we know nothing about. So between him and McCoy, I prefer the second one who has helped us before and trusts us. The first one I pretend doesn't even exist unless he appears in front of us because during the entire quest he didn't interact with us at all.

Click to shrink...

1) Thats over-simplified.
Ancient Mai wasnt willing to let the Merlin die, she just wasnt willing to risk further resources without more information.
This wasnt a situation where she had an army lying around and then refused to send them to help.


2) Goodwill is HUGE.
Has been huge in this quest; Lily's goodwill is why Team Morgan is alive, why there's a Lord of Outer Night and Mordite in our reagent cupboard, and why there's a Peruvian god getting political asylum.


3) Well duh. I like Last Bright Opal, I dont trust her.
I am not surprised the Council as a corporate body doesnt trust us. But the Council is sufficiently decentralized that with sufficient goodwill, we can have people working with us while the rest conspicuously dont ask questions.

Like how Morgan has explicitly been covering for Dresden for the last couple months.
Council wizards dont carry on in public with Demons/Nephilim without someone raising a stink and questions being asked.

Do remember that Harry told the Alphas in Dead Beat that if the presence of Lash in his head was discovered, he'd have gotten his head cut off. And that was as a private citizen.
Now he's a senior Warden officer, and no one has said shit about it to him, with his commanding officers actively hiding it.

There's a reason for that.



4) Mab didnt GIVE us anything physical for freeing Maeve. Just Favors.
What you forget is that it also gave goodwill, which opened doors with people like Odin and Lily as a reputable person to deal with, which has further opened other doors and opportunities like the Jade Court elder who guided us to Yomi Wan.

Odin didnt make that offer of teaching Path of Soulfire out of the blue, either.


5) Given our PC's interests with the Outside, the Gatekeeper's goodwill remains a very big deal.
We dont need him to attend our birthday party.

what makes you think the white council will give us favors for this? Their not fey.

Click to shrink...

Because they are human.

Because they might actually want our help in the future.
Because a reputation for not paying your debts in the supernatural world is noted by everybody else, and affects your subsequent credit score next time you are in the market for external help.

Because owing unacknowledged/unfulfilled debts to a supernatural player often puts you in their power, as Harry can tell you. Molly is human, which the Merlin can attest to, but its not a habit you forget.

 

[BoredMan]

So what point are you trying to make here?

Click to shrink...

Don't worry about it.

[x] Open Calibration's Gate to the Heart of the Labyrinth (-4 Essence)
-[x][Stunt]As you call the Calibration gate you feel your kingdom shift. Not just a overlay on the Labyrinth, but a claiming of reality. All roads in the Labyrinth now lead to you.

 

[firefrog600]

1) Thats over-simplified.
Ancient Mai wasnt willing to let the Merlin die, she just wasnt willing to risk further resources without more information.
This wasnt a situation where she had an army lying around and then refused to send them to help.


2) Goodwill is HUGE.
Has been huge in this quest; Lily's goodwill is why Team Morgan is alive, why there's a Lord of Outer Night and Mordite in our reagent cupboard, and why there's a Peruvian god getting political asylum.


3) Well duh. I like Last Bright Opal, I dont trust her.
I am not surprised the Council as a corporate body doesnt trust us. But the Council is sufficiently decentralized that with sufficient goodwill, we can have people working with us while the rest conspicuously dont ask questions.

Like how Morgan has explicitly been covering for Dresden for the last couple months.
Council wizards dont carry on in public with Demons/Nephilim without someone raising a stink and questions being asked.

Do remember that Harry told the Alphas in Dead Beat that if the presence of Lash in his head was discovered, he'd have gotten his head cut off. And that was as a private citizen.
Now he's a senior Warden officer, and no one has said shit about it to him, with his commanding officers actively hiding it.

There's a reason for that.



4) Mab didnt GIVE us anything physical for freeing Maeve. Just Favors.
What you forget is that it also gave goodwill, which opened doors with people like Odin and Lily as a reputable person to deal with, which has further opened other doors and opportunities like the Jade Court elder who guided us to Yomi Wan.

Odin didnt make that offer of teaching Path of Soulfire out of the blue, either.


5) Given our PC's interests with the Outside, the Gatekeeper's goodwill remains a very big deal.
We dont need him to attend our birthday party.

Because they are human.

Because they might actually want our help in the future.
Because a reputation for not paying your debts in the supernatural world is noted by everybody else, and affects your subsequent credit score next time you are in the market for external help.

Because owing unacknowledged/unfulfilled debts to a supernatural player often puts you in their power, as Harry can tell you. Molly is human, which the Merlin can attest to, but its not a habit you forget.

Click to shrink...

in fairness bit off topic merlin can attest we're human but morgans internal thoughts were that we were no longer human.

Still find it a bit ridiculous the council wouldn't have any corpses lying around. They've been around a while its absurd they wouldn't hold a little bit of everything. Its not gonna be on most of their minds most of the time but never thats ridiculous.

 

[Ivar]

2) Goodwill is HUGE.
Has been huge in this quest; Lily's goodwill is why Team Morgan is alive, why there's a Lord of Outer Night and Mordite in our reagent cupboard, and why there's a Peruvian god getting political asylum.

Click to shrink...

These things mean nothing to us. This is helping the council and saving people at our expense. This is a terrible example.

Next Morgan...Oh how sweet of him to shield Harry from death for which we will kill the council. Lol. No, the reason Morgan does this is because he doesn't want to commit political suicide. Again, he does zero actual things other than handouts. Oh Dresden might not be so bad, I won't try to give him the death sentence. That's not helping.

Mab gave us specific conditions. Because she is not human. Her favor is a magical obligation. Do you think the council will give us something as concrete and valuable?

And helping mab didn't give us goodwill of her faction when you talk about Lily or Odin. Reputation is not goodwill...

As soon as Rashid deigns to show up and do at least something in this quest.. For now I consider him absolutely useless and an overhyped character on your part. For now Archive has made many times bigger impact on the screen that him. And on the screen that's all that matters.

Finally, humas betray their allies and do not pay their debts every damn time they can. Especially in the big politics. And getting away is easy sometimes

Edit: I think I'll be fine with them being 5-6 dot allies for free for this help. I just don't want to get a thank you for this disruption of our unloading arc.

 

[Yog]

Because owing unacknowledged/unfulfilled debts to a supernatural player often puts you in their power, as Harry can tell you. Molly is human, which the Merlin can attest to, but its not a habit you forget.

Click to shrink...

As far as I recall canon, White Council doesn't deal in favors. You don't get stuff like "get out of jail once" or "call upon warden fireteam to hit whoever you want" for services rendered.

1) People cant give you what they dont have. This is the Dresden Files, not DnD.
Dresdenverse wizards are known for hoarding secrets and knowledge, not crafting components.
They dont store corpses of monsters and demons and other things.

Click to shrink...

I'll take "what is finger of St. Roch for 500, Alex" now. Council evidently stores potent magical relics for their own use. The list of splendor reagents has also been expanded beyond body parts in this quest - we have the Greater Akuma sword as a possible basis for a splendor sword, gossamer (which the council can also plausibly have in storage, since it's usable in mortal-ish magics as evidenced by fomor), tears (I think? I don't remember) of Summer Lady. Malfean brass sample we have also almost certainly qualifies.

The council almost certainly has grandmaster alchemists and spirit negotiator specialists. In both those fields the reagents we can use for splendors are valuable.

Not that I consider getting splendor reagents a good recompense. We should be pushing for reforms and political capital. Not goodwill, but actual actionable political reforms, like introducing the familiars and books of laws and whatever mechanics we make for warlock rehabilitation, and for more rights/representation for minor talents.

 

[Yog]

@DragonParadox I am sorry to keep bothering you, but still:
1) Is the Labyrinth tied to anything physical as far as Molly understands? If yes, would Sapphire Ritual of Exorcism work?

2) For treating Lawbreaking and general mental corruption, would IDU work or at least help? Perhaps a temporary IDU application?

 

[BoredMan]

As far as I recall canon, White Council doesn't deal in favors. You don't get stuff like "get out of jail once" or "call upon warden fireteam to hit whoever you want" for services rendered.

Click to shrink...

It's worth keeping in mind in the very least that Morgan says in his interlude that the White Council is in Molly's debt.

They didn't have anyone good enough with mind magic to check without a risk of making things worse... which meant becoming more indebted to the girl. Girls maybe?

Click to shrink...

Make of that what you will I suppose.

 

[DragonParadox]

@DragonParadox I am sorry to keep bothering you, but still:
1) Is the Labyrinth tied to anything physical as far as Molly understands? If yes, would Sapphire Ritual of Exorcism work?

2) For treating Lawbreaking and general mental corruption, would IDU work or at least help? Perhaps a temporary IDU application?

Click to shrink...

No to both. IDU is a power up giving a super-powered Po to someone who is already a lawbreaker is unlikely to work well.

 

[Yog]

It's worth keeping in mind in the very least that Morgan says in his interlude that the White Council is in Molly's debt.

Click to shrink...

I draw a distinction between formal (and/or magically enforced) favors, which are tangible, discrete things, and social debt, which can, and is often ignored in politics.

 

[Nyarky]

Which is a complete answer by itself and nothing you have said or bronze tongue have said has refuted that at all.

Again we're just agreeing with each other in long form no one is saying they're not dangerous I'm just saying this situation isn't the same as being a mote tapped. As we literally don't have a defense that is completely reliant on Essence being spent every turn.

Click to shrink...

Melee excellency.

As of now, our best defense has always been the ultimate crowd control: killing our ennemy before they can act.

Without excellency, we cannot do that, and thus are far more vulnerable to being dead ourself.

Edit:

Being mote tapped may also open us to not being able to have our anima up, and that would remove our surprise negator, another vulnerability.

 

[Degorium]

Melee excellency.

Click to shrink...

That's one Essence every five turns. Not one every turn we've never had a combat longer than 4 rounds ever. So that is still 6 extra turns.

Without excellency, we cannot do that, and thus are far more vulnerable to being dead ourself.

Click to shrink...

We still have aggravated damage and flight and superhuman attributes even without an Excellency we can kill just fine.

Being mote tapped may also open us to not being able to have our anima up, and that would remove our surprise negator, another vulnerability

Click to shrink...

An exalted anima never goes down unless they're dead or they wait for their soul to still from being whipped up(Waiting an hour) being out of Essence wouldn't be enough.

 

[uju32]

These things mean nothing to us. This is helping the council and saving people at our expense. This is a terrible example.

Next Morgan...Oh how sweet of him to shield Harry from death for which we will kill the council. Lol. No, the reason Morgan does this is because he doesn't want to commit political suicide. Again, he does zero actual things other than handouts. Oh Dresden might not be so bad, I won't try to give him the death sentence. That's not helping.

Mab gave us specific conditions. Because she is not human. Her favor is a magical obligation. Do you think the council will give us something as concrete and valuable?

And helping mab didn't give us goodwill of her faction when you talk about Lily or Odin. Reputation is not goodwill...

As soon as Rashid deigns to show up and do at least something in this quest.. For now I consider him absolutely useless and an overhyped character on your part. For now Archive has made many times bigger impact on the screen that him. And on the screen that's all that matters.

Finally, humas betray their allies and do not pay their debts every damn time they can. Especially in the big politics. And getting away is easy sometimes

Edit: I think I'll be fine with them being 5-6 dot allies for free for this help. I just don't want to get a thank you for this disruption of our unloading arc.

Click to shrink...

I dont have the time to address this in-depth as it deserves.
Maybe if I can find time later today and airport wifi works.

I will say that it is a mistake to try to model or address relationships in purely transactional terms.
Especially since Molly in particular would not be here if those were the terms under which others had related to her.

 

[DragonParadox]

Vote closed.

Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Oct 25, 2024 at 1:14 PM, finished with 58 posts and 6 votes.

• ---

  5 people have voted

  [x] Open Calibration's Gate to the Heart of the Labyrinth (-4 Essence)
  -[x][Stunt]As you call the Calibration gate you feel your kingdom shift. Not just a overlay on the Labyrinth, but a claiming of reality. All roads in the Labyrinth now lead to you.

  • fictionfan
  • Sesparra
  • Azais
  • Anaja
  • BoredMan

  1 people have voted

  [x] Open Calibration's Gate to the Heart of the Labyrinth (-4 Essence)

  • uju32

 

[Goldfish]

Oops, thought I voted.

Better late than never!

[X] Open Calibration's Gate to the Heart of the Labyrinth (-4 Essence)

 

[Nyarky]

That's one Essence every five turns. Not one every turn we've never had a combat longer than 4 rounds ever. So that is still 6 extra turns.
We still have aggravated damage and flight and superhuman attributes even without an Excellency we can kill just fine.

Click to shrink...

Being mote tapped means we begin the fight without any possibility of using excellency, the enemy wouldn't give us time to regain the motes for it in a situation where they know we are mote tapped, after all.

Look at our previous fights, without the excellency we can't kill fast enough for ennemies that matter, our dice poll to do that take a serious hit. The longer it last the more we are at risk of being hurt, once penalties for injuries begin kicking in, that's all down from there.

An enemy that knows we are mote tapped would have no reason to relent and all reasons to continue while we are vulnerable. Attack with three or four people, two to attack us and the other(s) to retreat and recoup when they take injuries, heal when we can't stop it, then return to the fight.

Or simply attack with at least four people purely against us and force us to eat those multi actions penalties without the excellency to mitigate it.

That's why giving an exact number is such a problem, particularly when its 2 motes left.

 

[BoredMan]

I draw a distinction between formal (and/or magically enforced) favors, which are tangible, discrete things, and social debt, which can, and is often ignored in politics.

Click to shrink...

I'm fairly sure everyone does. I'm just pointing out that the WC doesn't think they don't owe us for doing this unasked. Which I felt the need to because of what seems to be White Council spite rhetoric going around (not you) which can disillusion people.

 

[Degorium]

That's why giving an exact number is such a problem, particularly when its 2 motes left.

Click to shrink...

Oh I don't disagree that it was dangerous information to give out or anything like that I just didn't think it was particularly actionable or surprising at the moment.

Attack with three or four people, two to attack us and the other(s) to retreat and recoup when they take injuries, heal when we can't stop it, then return to the fight.

Click to shrink...

That's not how that works we have a movement that we can hit every single turn without eating into our actions and that movement is longer than football fields there is nowhere, where a combat is taking place inside of a area that we can't run from that other people could Retreat to avoid being killed by us.

We would still be able to whittle down anyone if we don't kill them in one hit because most beings cannot soak aggravated damage flat out which means being hit by a sword is capable of killing people in one hit with no ability to resist.

There is no combat rotation and our ability that increases our initiative usually means we go first. If we think we're out match there's literally no one that can stop us from moving hundreds of meters away from combat which takes us out of the effective range of most weapons that exist.

All of that assumes that they can hurt us in the first place because we have a resting soak of about 20 some which is directly comparable to car bombs which most handheld weapons just do not deal that of what damage and we can soak aggravated so it being in particular special ammunition doesn't make it more effective.

It's one of those things where if your opponent knows ahead of time that they can mote tap you it's very dangerous if your opponent is hoping for it in the middle of combat or in the middle of a situation where they cannot plan around it they're out of luck because you already have all of your long lasting Buffs active and if they're active you don't need to spend any more on them and they can make you really insanely difficult to kill even if you have very little Essence left.

This situation with two Essence left is essentially that. We already have all of our long-lasting effects up our defenses that actually protect us from shaping magic and mind magic do not rely on essence we ourselves possess a maximum counter magic pool that does not rely on Essence so we can literally catch Fireballs out of the air and dispel them if we so pleased.

Because counter spell successes and regular spell are one for one on successes and if we reduce the amount of successes in a fireball by any amount it might just splash on us without doing any damage.

There's a bunch of things going on system wise that makes dealing with the exalted just insanely dangerous even if they are low on motes down to the same ones that make werewolves dangerous which is to say high dice pools possible regeneration the ability to soak every kind of damage and insanely high damage that is aggravated.

The vulnerability of the exalted is in essentially creating fights they cannot run from. Mote tapping them in combat, if you have mote tapped an exalted in combat you still have a combat with someone who is capable of eating every type of damage in existence who has passive soak benefits who has more Health than any creature on earth who can and will want to take you with them who you cannot transform and cannot change the mind of.

Molly herself is a particularly staggering example of this soaking it difficulty 5 with 20 or more soak most guns just straight up don't have enough damage to deal with that this is before the fact that Molly can just straight up Parry gunshots before soak is even necessary without an Excellency. Molly is so fast that having dexterity 5 and multiple levels of celarity wouldn't let you keep up with her at a light jog.

This is before the fact that she can literally fly and have attributes higher than the human maximum which means her dice pools like I think right now or her dexterity is eight and she has a melee of five so she's got 13 dice on every attack you only need one or more success than another character gets on defense to hit somebody.

If they get hit they take strength + 2 + however many extra successes aggravated damage every time which for most characters in world of Darkness if they're not a Victor or spirit near instant death if they have the ability to eat aggravated damage that still puts you pretty deep into your Seven health level long Health Track and deep into the negatives yourself which considering it took one hit to do that and now you have anywhere from them three to five less dice now than you did before you attempted to fight her you're going to die in the next round.

I wouldn't bet on us with no Essence against a lord of our night or a God or high level spirit but most Supernaturals are just straight up outmatched by everything I just listed.

All of this is on top of the fact that Molly Isn't alone. It's just a lot of the danger is mitigated by the fact that we aren't going in cold with low essence and we're not by ourselves at all.

 

[BronzeTongue]

I honestly just want something physical, none of this goodwill nonsense, as a reward for carrying so out do many incompetents in this event and no, before anyone try to deceive me, just EXP is not enough because it is something that DP gives us and not the WC.

Our plans to finally relax this turn went to hell and I demand compensation.

Click to shrink...

I'll agree to some tangible gains, but there's better things to get than physical items.

For example, I'd like some wizards to help us build a magical doomsday fortress on the portal to the FCF. We'll do our own stuff obviously, but Arthur is the best mortal warder on the planet. The guy specializes in static defensive magic but is good enough to get acknowledged as Merlin by the senior council.

I also think it'd be good to set up a few reciprocal projects. The reds are a problem for both of us, a joint campaign where wizards get embedded in out armies to help them operate in SA would be great. As would assistance with the Paranet in general.

Those are things they benefit from as well, but in agreeing to do them they effectively help us embed ourselves in the power systems of the world.

Very specifically we don't have a perfect physical defense so both of our defenses are capable of running off of willpower so the second statement is wrong.

The difference for us defensively between two motes and 10 is the difference of 40 rounds of combat when we've never even gotten to 10 ever.

The quote from Dragon paradox is that of the quest Runner. As well as being out of context

Click to shrink...

I'm not sure I understand what you're going for here. Fair enough point about willpower, but that is difficult to gain and spending it has its own complications. An exalt with essence can freely respond to situations and apply their full powers as they like where a dry one can't. As an exalt gets lower they have to be more conservative to avoid going dry when they need their power most.

An example here; we don't have our full defenses up right now, and can't turn them on because we don't have the juice for it. If someone counter spells what we do have up then we only have so much ability to do something about it.

Say we spend 1 mote on melee when we arrive through the gate. Now we need to choose between using the second on another melee later, a different excellency now, or second stage Shintai. We can't really use the crown on the fly, or address any number of situations otherwise in our power to resolve.

From the perspective of someone trying to kill an exalt a dry essence pool is basically step one. You can do it other ways, but it's significantly harder.

An exalt without motes is like a tank that's run out of ammunition and diesel. Technically it's still pretty durable - no need to worry the driver will be killed by guys with knives - but anything that was actually a threat to the tank while it was fully operational will have a much easier time pasting the people inside.

 

[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]

Rolls
*not posting everything because it's a lot but...*
Swarm Form HS casts ???
Re-roll from the Labyrinth
...
Good thing he has other tricks to use.

 

[Alectai]

Wow, he just shit himself in his opening gambit while we were as vulnerable as we'd have been. How impressive.