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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Arc 15 Post 13: Swimming in Strange Waters
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    • Swimming in Strange Waters ​

    26st of February 2007 A.D.

    "You asked to call if I find something pertinent to national security. Would allied national security count? Allied as in 'someone might not consider World War Two ended' allied," you say into the phone, a little bit of levity to alleviate the foul news, even as you keep moving towards your next destination, the waters already in sight.

    There's a sort of sharp tick on the other side it takes you a moment to realize it's the sound of a phone hitting a hard surface. Apparently Von Trier invests in resilient technology since the connection is none the worse for hitting a wall, a table or whatever she had to hand. "One ov those...I zee," her accent grows a thicker too and you can easily imagine her eyes flashing in anger. "Vhat do you know? Name, nature, can be be called and bound in a circle?"

    Right... that would be what she'd ask, knowing it's a spirit, if one in league with the Black Court. The honest answer would be yes, one can call Bob by his name and bind him in place, so one might do the same for his other self, the one that isn't Bob, but instead Kemmler's helper, but how to explain all that without leaving any trails that lead back to Harry?

    That's when it hits you...the Corpsetaker Gorfel, both too dead to contradict you did face both, even integrated the latter. He could easily have let slip about something.

    "It is a spirit of the air, a keeper of tainted lore, legacy of the necromancer Kemmler. It is still in contact with some of his would be heirs, though I had hoped that was the worst of it. Given how it escaped I fear there might be a power at play with a far longer arm." You go on to describe the basics of how spirits of knowledge function, of which she knows but listens to politely as well as speculating on how black magic might have changed and empowered him to which she listens to more closely, but still closes out with a weary sigh.

    "Thank you Miss Carpenter, if you need anything else or find anything elese do not hesitate to call."

    "I won't," you answer honestly

    Now to find that ship...

    Essence Restored to Full by Sunrise

    ***​

    27st of February 2007 A.D.

    Breaking into the building of the Port Authority in a sleepy Norwegian town isn't how you imagined a trip to Europe would go, but this is where records of the Kingfisher are so you walk in past the night watchman who's too polite to notice and past the cameras that already belong to you to find the actual physical ledger. Good thing you're planning to use your Crown for this one, the smudged ink on its pages could be a recipe for the mutton and cabbage stew which Lydia had very gravely informed you is the Norwegian national food when you explained where you were going. You're still not sure if shes's pulling your leg, but you don't intend to stick around long enough for lunch.

    Where is the Kingfisher.

    Almost mechanically your Crown spits out a set of coordinates off Island, yep just where Lilly said it would be. Just to be on the safe side you get some binoculars from Sanctuary and manifest a good ten miles from the coordinates, land miles that is. You know they are different at sea, but you aren't sure how.

    Lost 2 Essence (ATP and Question) -> Now at 16/18

    Looking towards the large ship, it's eyes over the water, its voice below the waves casting about for echoes you have to admit you're pretty impressed by the scope of Monoc's operation. Sure you could match it, but only if you didn't mind setting off a UFO scare. Just imagining a Seeker Ship armed with rail guns to see off raiders and a prow ram meant to deal with shirkers, saw-beaks and other leviathans on earth's oceans makes you smile.


    "Where is the thing they seek?" you ask again, a question into the ether cast.

    Without sight you see deeper and deeper, where the stone is black crumbling to depths unheard and rushing sharply in spines obsidian. Wait that's not... An eye half open dull molten red looks up towards the surface, just as the memory of the poem comes back to you transformed:

    'In the belly of the dragon, in the keeping of its kin.'

    Maybe those leviathan-proof boats wouldn't be the worst idea.

    Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 15/18 (Question)
    Regained 2 Essence -> Now at 17/18 (Urge of the Forbidden)

    What do you do next?

    [] Swim up to the ship, ask them if they know they are liable to poke a literal dragon and if they have a plan for that

    [] Call Donar Vadderung, you can speak more frankly with him, though you will also have to watch your words more

    [] Write in

    OOC: Enjoy.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Call Donar Vadderung, you can speak more frankly with him, though you will also have to watch your words more
     
    [x]Put a cyberdevil into the ship's guidance systems

    I want to just keep an eye on this without poking at it.
     
    Didn't the last we spoke to him over the phone he used a spell to get something of the Crown we were trying to keep hidden anyway? I don't see how that wouldn't happen again. The last time we straight up didn't even lie we just stonewalled him.
     
    BoredMan said:
    Didn't the last we spoke to him over the phone he used a spell to get something of the Crown we were trying to keep hidden anyway? I don't see how that wouldn't happen again. The last time we straight up didn't even lie we just stonewalled him.
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    Yep, that is why I mentioned you might want to be careful. For instance not use the crown when his own attention is on you, fire up your excellencies etc...
     
    Why not just go for it? Pop off Eschaton shintai immediately, and all the combat charms, and go for it, combat-wise? Unless we can bargain with the dragon, of course. With BSM, while underwater we'll have a lot of advantages.
     
    Normally would not think that just stealing would allow someone to break ATP, but when stealing from a dragon nothing is going to make them just ignore that.

    I still like the idea of sneaking in and fighting our way out. CCC applies when escaping.
     
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    VOTE
    [X] Call Donar Vadderung, you can speak more frankly with him, though you will also have to watch your words more



    Its still winter.
    Take a dip in the sea and sit outside while making your call, and you activate both Without Honor and Boiling Sea Mastery.
    Then stack an Excellency on it.

    Charisma 4 + Etiquette 5 + Etiquette Excellency 9 + Stunt 2 + Without Honor 2 is 22 dice at -1DC.
     
    Yog said:
    That's not what they did though. They passed a decree and told Lytek: do not exalt those from slave races. Here, citation (Exalted 2E - Dreams of the First Age - Book 2 (Lords of Creation) [revised], page 137):
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    BLESSED MORTALS AND EXALTATION
    As befits their name, blessed mortals can also
    all be blessed with Exaltation. They have exactly the
    same chance as any other mortal to become one of the
    Celestial Exalted. Also, because so many of these beings work in the Deliberative, many have had frequent
    contact with the Dragon-Blooded over the centuries.
    Therefore, the blood of the Terrestrial Exalted runs
    through the veins of many of them. As a result, as many
    as one in 1,000 of the blessed races draws a second breath
    as one of the Terrestrial Exalted. Over the millennia,
    even the diminutive minikins have had two Celestial
    Exalted among their number, as well as many dozens
    of Dragon-Blooded.
    As with any mortal or beastman who possesses
    beneficial mutations, when such beings become Exalted,
    they lose all mutations such as Longevity, Short Life
    and Enlightened Essence and need not pay bonus points
    for them. The remaining mutations function normally
    and must be paid for with the character's bonus points.
    See The Book of Celestial Directions, Vol. II—The
    Wyld, pages 158-160 for further information.
    The fact they have to specify that despite having mutations the Blessed people have the same chance of exalting as a normal human, demonstrates the anti-mutation bias the Exaltation has. And here Lytek
    LYTEK
    Lytek is the Right Hand of Power and God of Exaltation. Because Dragon-Blooded Exaltation is passed
    through the blood, he does not control which Terrestrial
    Exalted will take the Second Breath, but he does control
    the time of their Exaltation. As far as Celestial Exaltation is concerned, while he cannot truly control who
    Exalts, he can manifest discreet and minor influence over the event,
    over the event,
    Lytek cannot control who exalts just influence the event while it is happening. The reason second age decedents of the slave races can exalt however unlikely is because they are more human then their ancestors. If it where that easy the Dragon-Blood would just force all celestial to start on the blessed Island to easily find and kill them
    Yog said:
    Please, please, I beg of you - give me a citation!
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    THE TRIUMPH OF THE WILL
    The mental reconstruction a Yozi forces a Green Sun Prince to undergo is, indeed, quite delicate, for the Green Sun Princes must retain their free will. For all that the Yozis
    alter their Exalts' minds, they must be careful not to break or extinguish that characteristic. At first, however, there was considerable disagreement on the subject of free will. She Who Lives in Her Name objected vociferously and at great length against it, claiming that their original decision to grant the gods even their limited freedom of choice ultimately resulted in tragedy and imprisonment. In her opinion, the Green Sun Princes should have been spiritually shackled to their masters more so even than the akuma are. Malfeas supported this view, fearing treachery from those whose purpose it was to set the Yozis free. As the primary architect of their shared agenda, the

    Ebon Dragon argued against making the Infernal Exalted into simple slaves. His reasoning was threefold. First, he pointed out that a being with free will has greater power to adapt to
    unexpected circumstances and is far more capable of taking initiative when events warrant it. (Such, he added, was the reason they had allowed the gods what free will they had.)
    Second, the Ebon Dragon argued, the nature of the allied co-conspirators had to be considered. Even though they all wanted to achieve the same thing—freedom, followed by conquest and ultimately reclamation of what they'd lost—they all had different ideas about how achieve it. They would work together as well as they could be convinced to, but there would definitely come times when one or more Yozis would want to deploy his assets as he saw fit without
    his peers vetting his strategy. If that happened (and here the Ebon Dragon had to tread carefully), it was just possible that an independent deployment might, in hindsight, turn out to
    have been a rash, ill-conceived flight of fancy. Given what rare and precious assets the Green Sun Princes would be, the Ebon Dragon's plan could not afford any ill-conceived or rash
    use of them. If a Green Sun Prince were an utter slave, he would have no choice but to go forth and work his master's reckless will until either the servants of a different Yozi or some protectors of Creation discovered him and put a stop to his actions. Yet, if a Green Sun Prince retained his free will, he could hesitate to follow rash instructions—at least long enough to bring the matter before the other Yozis. If the instructions did no harm or proved beneficial, so much the better. If they were indeed ill conceived, though, the other Yozis could convince their wayward partner of his error and redirect his efforts in more constructive ways.

    These two arguments did not completely alleviate Malfeas's worry that the Green Sun Princes would work some wretched treachery upon them all, but they did convince him to revoke his objections. She Who Lives in Her Name was not convinced, however, and the Ebon Dragon was forced to resort to his third argument. It made him uncomfortable to do so, for it was a painful reminder of their first failure in the Primordial War. When the war began, the Ebon Dragon
    reminded them, the Primordials had ordered the gods to force their Exalts to stand down and cease all hostilities. The gods rankled as they gave that order, but they had no choice.     Yet
    the Exalted, the gods revealed, were free to do as they chose, and they chose to continue fighting. The other Yozis remembered these events but did not see the significance. The Ebon Dragon revealed it to them. He had been examining the strictures of the surrender oaths
    the victorious gods and Exalts had forced upon the Yozis, and he had detected troubling clauses within them. It was possible, he warned them, to interpret those oaths in such a way that would allow the gods to do to the Yozis' slaves what the Creators had tried to do to the Exalted. That is, the gods might be able to compel the Yozis to order any slaves they controlled to stand down and cease hostilities. The gods would have to phrase such an order almost impossibly
    specifically, and to even realize that they have this authority would require them to be at least as clever as the Ebon Dragon himself. As unlikely as that might seem, the possibility existed
    nonetheless. Therefore, he concluded, the Green Sun Princes must retain their free will. If the gods could force the Yozis to order their generals to quit the battlefield, those generals
    must be able to refuse.
    Taken together, these arguments finally convinced She
    Who Lives in Her Name that free will was a necessary—if
    distasteful—component of the Infernal Exalted psyche. For
    all that the Green Sun Princes retain free will, however, they
    are not exactly free to do whatever they want whenever they
    want to do it. The Yozis aren't fools, after all
    Gods where ordered to cease hostlity and stand down and had to obey the Primordials to give the order. It did nothing because the Gods do not have control or even influence over the exaltation.
    Yog said:
    Opening Scroll of Exalts, let's look at Abyssals. Right from the start:
    The youngest member of her Circle, the Maiden of the
    Mirthless Smile is also its cruelest and, alone among them,
    deliberately sought the unholy power she now wields. The
    Maiden was born in the outskirts of Thorns, the pampered
    youngest daughter of a wealthy plantation owner. Even as a
    toddler, there was something indeterminately wrong about
    Shanku Kenda. She would stare at her slave nanny like she
    stared at her toys. As soon as she could walk, her parents
    began to find small animals she had captured and toyed
    with, often still alive with various
    organs half removed. First
    it was mice and cats. Then her
    brother went missing, only six at
    the time and scarcely a year older
    than her. He was never found.
    But she learned. It wasn't
    that anatomy itself interested her. She wasn't fascinated by
    how things worked. Just by pain.
    Kenda's nanny was the next to disappear when the girl
    was strong enough by age 12 to carry out the murder. All the
    while, Kenda's parents never suspected. They underestimated
    her and bought her pretty dresses that she dutifully wore and
    learned to clean the bloodstains from. Fooling them became
    a game, and she planned a thousand different murders for
    them that she managed to avoid only by venting her growing
    resentment on other prey. In adolescence, she heard stories of
    the conquest of Thorns and the Deathlord who now reigned
    there, and in those stories, she finally found a hope bigger
    than her next kill.
    One night, Kenda decided it was time and butchered
    her family. Her mother was the last to die with a look of
    astonished horror on her face that makes the Maiden giggle
    to this day. After setting fire to her childhood home, the
    gawky teenager set out to find the Deathlord who would
    become her master. He sensed her from afar, of course, and
    was intrigued at this child who strode into darkness unafraid
    and unburdened by conscience. And then he found something
    else, something remarkable. The Neverborn already spoke to
    her. The hissing murmur of their hate echoed in her head,
    faintly but undeniably. Her Essence bore no sign of ghost
    ancestry or necromantic contamination, leaving him at a loss
    to explain her communion, but he was not about to argue
    with an obvious sign from his masters. He met her personally
    before she reached the edge of his domain, ordering her stop
    and speak with him lest she be destroyed.
    In the face of this great and terrible horror that was
    neither so terrible nor great as she had hoped in her dreams,
    Kenda smiled her perfect smile and walked on until his
    glance seized her heart and dropped her in a convulsing
    heap. Marveling at her dedication, if not so much at her
    prudence, the Deathlord rescued her on the brink of her
    last heartbeat with the offer of Exaltation. The tainted
    power slid into her soul as neatly as if it had been crafted
    for the purpose.
    Since that night, she has served as the least subtle
    instrument of the Mask of Winter's will, his mailed fist to
    crush all who would gainsay him. If his Maiden is rash at
    times and seldom sees the long-term benefit in postponing
    her violence, at least he cannot fault her zeal. The time will
    almost certainly come when the Deathlord must punish
    her failure with torments even she cannot imagine, but the
    withered vestiges of his compassion hope that time is yet far
    off. He also fears the Neverborn have plans for the Maiden
    that they have not shared with him, plans that may not even
    involve him. Such plans cannot be good for anyone.
    Mortal girl deliberately thought out and got herself an Abyssal exaltation. The rest are similar. Deathlords can just give those out to whom they want.
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    Anybody can seek exaltation they just have to meet the personality requirements IE be willing to use the power to do great things, and do a heroic task to gain the notice of the exaltation. It can even be task you would fail without getting the Exaltation. Infernal's and Abysmal can be prevented from joining with their chosen host. So the Yozi and Neverborn essentially have infinite rerolls, but the exaltation itself still has to chose a person to exalted.
     
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    DragonParadox said:
    Yep, that is why I mentioned you might want to be careful. For instance not use the crown when his own attention is on you, fire up your excellencies etc...
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    What is being careful even going to do... We can't control his actions so if he thinks we know more than we're letting on, which seems kind of obvious really if we just suddenly mention the Dragon to him out of the blue, he's liable to do what he did last time. Talking to him at all if we want it for ourselves seems like a loose condition. Tattletale flashbacks. The best course of action with her was to not talk to her if you've got things to hide because you don't know when she's going to use her power of you.

    It's not like we didn't try to keep the Crown a secret when talking to him the last time.

    Also are we to take this to mean that the Kingfisher is actually somehow close to its target because the entirety of the ocean is a lot to cover? I thought we'd be well ahead of them because of the Crown.
     
    BoredMan said:
    What is being careful even going to do... We can't control his actions so if he thinks we know more than we're letting on, which seems kind of obvious really if we just suddenly mention the Dragon to him out of the blue, he's liable to do what he did last time. Talking to him at all if we want it for ourselves seems like a loose condition. Tattletale flashbacks. The best course of action with her was to not talk to her if you've got things to hide because you don't know when she's going to use her power of you.

    It's not like we didn't try to keep the Crown a secret when talking to him the last time.

    Also are we to take this to mean that the Kingfisher is actually somehow close to its target because the entirety of the ocean is a lot to cover? I thought we'd be well ahead of them because of the Crown.
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    Oh sure, there is a perfectly good argument for not talking to him too, that is up to the vote.
     
    Given that whatever they are looking for is in the belly of a dragon?
    Dragons can move around. Even assuming they have a diviner on board, it could take months to localize it.
    Or it could happen in the next thirty minutes.

    A little surprised that Molly was asking where, instead of what, but narrative I guess.

    I still dont know how this connects to whatever it was that Sanya discovered on the Norwegian-Russian border.
    Red herring maybe?
    Bad guys are looking for the same thing, but the first thing they dragged up from the sea turned out to be a false lead.
     
    uju32 said:
    Given that whatever they are looking for is in the belly of a dragon?
    Dragons can move around. Even assuming they have a diviner on board, it could take months to localize it.
    Or it could happen in the next thirty minutes.

    A little surprised that Molly was asking where, instead of what, but narrative I guess.

    I still dont know how this connects to whatever it was that Sanya discovered on the Norwegian-Russian border.
    Red herring maybe?
    Bad guys are looking for the same thing, but the first thing they dragged up from the sea turned out to be a false lead.
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    While dragons can move around this one doesn't seem to be.

    The ocean swallows many secrets.
     
    Yog said:
    Why not just go for it? Pop off Eschaton shintai immediately, and all the combat charms, and go for it, combat-wise? Unless we can bargain with the dragon, of course. With BSM, while underwater we'll have a lot of advantages.
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    Because murdering the guardian might activate contingencies, like how the solar getting free is linked to a continent destroying bomb.

    Also because we aren't prepared to put a lid on the lunar spark if we win. It getting loose would be bad.
     
    Earth-Destroyer said:
    The fact they have to specify that despite having mutations the Blessed people have the same chance of exalting as a normal human, demonstrates the anti-mutation bias the Exaltation has.
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    I read it as a *The exaltations don't care about mutations when it comes to choose who exalts* put there because someone was bound to ask.

    Not the exact opposite.
     
    Seems to me that the best move here might be to figure out how to convince the dragon to come to the FCF if at all possible.

    Somehow that thing is keeping the exaltation contained, and putting it in our world gives us time to learn about it.

    That's probably a hard sell though, so we need more information to properly design a pitch.
     
    BronzeTongue said:
    Because murdering the guardian might activate contingencies, like how the solar getting free is linked to a continent destroying bomb.

    Also because we aren't prepared to put a lid on the lunar spark if we win. It getting loose would be bad.
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    Point of order:
    The poem we got from Lily says that its a weapon that was meant to go to a Fae lord.
    That strongly suggests that it isnt a Lunar shard. Since only humans get Exaltations.

    Of course there's always the outside chance that its a Lunar shard being used to power a weapon.
    Kinda like how MCU Loki's Scepter had the Mind Stone inside it. Or how the Tesseract had the Space Stone.
    But thats a stretch IMO.
     
    uju32 said:
    Of course there's always the outside chance that its a Lunar shard being used to power a weapon.
    Kinda like how MCU Loki's Scepter had the Mind Stone inside it. Or how the Tesseract had the Space Stone.
    But thats a stretch IMO.
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    This is literally canon to the quest. True, it was Molly's Exaltation that was used as a weapon until it was captured by Mab.
     
    Ivar said:
    This is literally canon to the quest. True, it was Molly's Exaltation that was used as a weapon until it was captured by Mab.
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    Yes. For Molly/Usum.
    I am not going to relitigate this, since I have done it multiple times, but the effects associated with the return of the cometary shard to Earth dont appear to point at a Lunar shard.
     
    [X] Intercede with the dragon before the Vadderung's men can find it.

    This is partially to see if the dragon can be negotiated with because we know that they're not just beast but it's also partially to gauge whether or not this is going to be a fight.

    If the dragon just out and out attacks us then if anyone finds it the dragon is a distinct danger to them so it is better dispatched now than later.

    If we're capable of negotiating the treasure from it or getting it to move somewhere with the treasure well we can come back for it later whether that be with violence or otherwise.
     
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    uju32 said:
    Point of order:
    The poem we got from Lily says that its a weapon that was meant to go to a Fae lord.
    That strongly suggests that it isnt a Lunar shard. Since only humans get Exaltations.

    Of course there's always the outside chance that its a Lunar shard being used to power a weapon.
    Kinda like how MCU Loki's Scepter had the Mind Stone inside it. Or how the Tesseract had the Space Stone.
    But thats a stretch IMO.
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    Was it? I thought there was something about a Roman in there too.

    In any case, being the power core to another weapon would be reasonably fitting.
     
    uju32 said:
    Point of order:
    The poem we got from Lily says that its a weapon that was meant to go to a Fae lord.
    That strongly suggests that it isnt a Lunar shard. Since only humans get Exaltations.

    Of course there's always the outside chance that its a Lunar shard being used to power a weapon.
    Kinda like how MCU Loki's Scepter had the Mind Stone inside it. Or how the Tesseract had the Space Stone.
    But thats a stretch IMO.
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    I mean, our Exaltation was used by non-humans as a weapon for centuries, so it's not that out there.
     
    Degorium said:
    [X] Intercede with the dragon before the Vadderung's men can find it.
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    Yeah I'm thinking of just doing this. I don't want to talk to discount Tattletale with a motive counter to the majority of the thread's like we did the last time when he got something about our Crown while we were being careful to hide it. We haven't used Eschaton Shintai either yet and we'd be fighting with water. If it turns into a fight anyway.

    Edit: Looking back a Sidhe lord managed to fight the Dragon so I'm sure we could manage.
     
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