Vote seems to be tied.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Not really. The two "What's the answer worth to you?" options are different votes. That's how it's been handled so far, at least for previous votes when there were similar votes with different adders included.
Hmm... it does not seem to be a stunt so much as an addition with the intent to change the direction of the conversation so... yeah OK I guessed has it. Vote closed.
I think we might have to clarify voting rules and put it in the front page though.
Vote closed.
Depends on how his wards are set up. They might be physically incapable of getting into his place.
I hope they are honestly, because a human skull isn't the sketchiest thing he has.
I'm pretty sure one of the descriptions of his lab from around the time Molly starts as an apprentice has stuff like depleted uranium shavings in bins along one wall for example.
Not necessarily anything super dangerous, but stuff that'd make the feds even more unhappy.
You've got a point about Bob, but it's possible that they did this in part to access Harry's lab without knowing about the skull specifically.
Whatever else he is, Harry is a full wizard trained by a senior council member directly. His lab has shit like stacks of binders full of demon names, and the details needed to safely make deals with them.
The whole organization might not benefit much, but a sufficient number of sorcerer grade middle managers could find it useful enough to lean into this approach to shift the society's stance.
That is incredibly dangerous and counterproductive. Beating someone in a fight doesn't mean we can actually win in a more general conflict, especially against enemies who already prefer to fight by other means.
Trying that sort of game with Laura with no leverage beyond our ability to kill things (which is by no means enough to take an arbitrary number of white court vamps yet) is asking to get screwed over.
Indeed. The point is - we need to somehow prevent feds / unfriendly cops from accessing Dresden's inner sanctum. Otherwise, he'd be in a lot of legit trouble, regardless of fabricated murder charges.
We also need to snatch Bob before anyone else does.
I think it's a little late for that; they're going to start bagging evidence now and they're not going to let us back in to clean up.
Even if we could, we need to follow Dresden to make sure he doesn't get vanished by the feds.
We might need to buy some disguise stuff and steal it later on, unless the nazis get it first in which case we can follow our current combat growth scheme and raid wherever they take it to.
- Location
- Earth
Maybe Mouse took care of that?
He is smart.
Winning Vote
Arc 2 Post 15: Daedalus
Daedalus
21st of July 2006 A.D.
Giving the man your most winning smile you reply, loudly "I guessed."
You could swear you heard Harry groaning even as he is ushered into one of the cars and somehow you don't think it was because he hit his head on the roof.
"A word of advice miss be careful with that guessing. Who I work for is public knowledge but the details of ongoing investigations are not publicly available and for good reason. The real world isn't a place for Nancy Drew." As threats go this isn't an particularly harsh one, in fact judging by the tone one could even mistake that for simple advice, albeit one spoken in the kind of tone that is almost guaranteed to get a rise out of any red blooded teenager.
But that is not what interests you, it's the implication. It sounds like Wright he think you have some kind of clairvoyance, which you do of course, but it's not what you used on him.
Apparently your thoughtful expression looks like you are actually considering his 'advice' because he adds: "You're a clever kid and you aren't easy to shake, that's a gift. Make sure you don't waste it getting in trouble."
The word 'gift' rings like a bell in your head. He thinks you are some kind of talent, you are sure about it, but his intentions remain murky.
Maybe his phone will have more answers.
Much to your surprise the cops don't execute a search warrant, the whole cavalcade drives off leaving you in front of the door wondering who to call.
First you try detective Murphy, but her phone goes to voicemail then dad, who thankfully does pick up. "Molly, where are you, do you need a ride back?"
Though you are a little offended that his first thought was that you had gotten stranded somehow you quickly explain what you had seen and a little of what you suspect. For his part dad is sympathetic, but he can't really help. "Go to Saint Mary's. Father Fothi should still be at the church and he knows the law." And he'll keep you from doing anything unwise, his tone says.
Welp you had best get the good Father some evidence to work with.
***
"Clippy do you have space to fully clone Agent Wright's phone?" you ask as you settle down in the back of a small cafe out of hearing of the sparse clientele and the bored looking servers.
"Negative," she replies, "External space required."
"Filter out personal data and pictures," you reply after a moment. It's not like you need the man's family pictures, you would feel weird even having them.
"Query. What is personal?"
It turns out that explaining privacy to a spirit born in no small part though its systematic violation is not an easy nor a fast process. For Clippy and her kindred on the other side data is data, to be classified only by its utility on a moment by moment updating priority.
"Information about close family, important dates and life milestones can help in generating password data, viewing history can be used in advertising and propaganda, 'privacy' is an impediment to the creation of a faithful model."
How much data is harvested from every single person every second of every day? you think, the coffee turning sour in your mouth before you shake it off. You aren't here to ponder violations of privacy on the internet, you just need to explain...
"I don't care about Wright," you try again. "Only about his investigation, he is a cog in the machine, I would like to know whose machine. That information which I designate private is extraneous to my purpose."
"Noted mistress," Clippy sounds relieved to finally understand what you want of her. "Compiling"
Jackpot, looking through his email history you quickly realize that Wright is part of something called 'Project Daedalus', a subgroup within the NSB which is concerned with understanding and countering 'para-terestrial activity'. It's hard to get a hold the group's history from scattered messages, but you harvest quite a lot of agent names and email addresses. And of course there is a lot of jargon to parse through.
PTL stands for para-terestrial lifeforms and as far as you can tell it is a catch all for everything from vampires, to ghouls to the fey. LLE, life-like energy fields are ghosts, though from looking through one three month old message it looks like they lump all spirits into that. Esper, which a quick Google search tells you is a derivative from ESP extra sensory perception, is their name for human talents of which Project Daedalus seems to have access to a small number, less than they would like. It is maddeningly vague how they got them or what powers they have.
One thing is clear, they would like to have more and their researchers working with the the Library of Congress of all things are in the habit of pulling espers off field-work and into the lab, much to the frustration of the NSB agents. You get more from one page-long rant about egg-heads than all the rest of the messages combined. You suspect they only have minor talents, maybe one or two that you would call sorcerer material.
As for the White Council had managed to stay under the radar for however many years Project Daedalus had been working right until the war with the Red Court had blown a lot of wizard's cover in a hail of bullets and bombs. There are a few oblique references to 'New Orleans' where there had been a SNAFU involving a wizard's sanctum and some dead cops, specifically in the context of 'Better lose the target than risk another New Orleans Wright'.
The target... that is where it gets really interesting. It looks like the NSB is aware of the fact that Harry was framed, specifically because they do not think he could have been properly filmed to the fidelity that the recording shows as well as his implication in the 'Harley MacFinn affair'. 'Dresden has been marked as one of the Lawmakers, though his financial and employment conditions to not match any of the rest of the group,' one report said.
Lawmakers is the NSB's name for the White Council you guess, probably because of all it does it is the enforcement of the Laws which is the most likely to filter down to minor practitioners.
"Agent Wright is making a call to Agent Cole, likely superior," flashes across the screen, just long enough for you to read it, interrupting your reading "Intercept Y/N"
You tap Y of course and put the phone to your ear.
"Dresden is safely in custody, he didn't resist just like we had hoped, he's a wiseguy and thinks he's a lot funnier than he is, the sort of guy who went for being a Private Investigator because he saw one too much Magnum PI at an impressionable age."
"Are you sure it's not an act?" comes the question from the other end of the line "I've met espers who could sell you a bridge in Death Valley never mind Brooklyn. Man who just got accused of murder has ever interest to look harmless."
"Oh, he didn't look harmless sir, if I'd left him to the CPD in the car with no cameras he might have had a busted lip before he even came into the station. Dresden does not know when to shut up for his own good . I'll let the locals have a go at him in the interrogation room and when it finally sinks in how deep the shit he's in, I'll come in with the offer of a wipe if he'll work with us"
"Make damn sure he doesn't report us to the Lawmakers, they probably don't take well to snitches, especially from pariahs."
"Understood," Wright replies. "Any leads on what actually killed Greene."
"Class Four Wright, we're still working on containment nevermind investigation. I'll keep you posted."
And with that the conversation clicks off leaving you with a lot of answers and a lot of questions still. You can feel all that you have learned settle into the depths of your soul, kindling for a fire that had been running dangerously low. Enough of it? Only time will tell
Gain 2 Essence
What do you do now?
[] Go to Father Forthil like your dad suggested, see if there is anything he can do for Harry
[] Call Wright with an offer, maybe you can work with him and if not the closer you are to him the easier it will be to deal with him
[] Try to talk to Detective Murphy in person
[] Write in
OOC: Turns out being able to riffle though people's phones for files and passwords is a hell of a investigative tool. To be clear you did not hack anything, but if a password is saved on a computer which is possessed the demon knows the password just inherently.
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- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
Huh.
I expected that a group as rich and old as White Council would have enough people working for them as a support network that they would have long established the influence and pull in various state's governments (in the 'old boys club' style) to prevent various state organisations from trying this sort of thing.
I'm not sure how best to approach this.
I.... am inordinately amused at the thought of bringing this to Harry's teacher, and then watching the state getting a few of it's organs kicked in by the white council.
I expected that a group as rich and old as White Council would have enough people working for them as a support network that they would have long established the influence and pull in various state's governments (in the 'old boys club' style) to prevent various state organisations from trying this sort of thing.
I'm not sure how best to approach this.
I.... am inordinately amused at the thought of bringing this to Harry's teacher, and then watching the state getting a few of it's organs kicked in by the white council.
So. Sweet, salty or buttered popcorn?
One of the main functions of the White Council, almost as important as enforcing the Laws is to keep wizards out of politics, hard to do that if you are manipulating the government on an institutional level.
- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
Ohhh. I did not know that. Yeah.
I feel the their policy of 'no state/governmental politics' means that this is probably not the first time this sort of thing has been attempted over the centuries and won't be the last.
- Location
- Norway
Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. This is a great example of why Masquerade shit is a bad idea: when it starts going wrong, you are suddenly short on diplomatic ways of negotiating an end to it because you don't even know about the right person to talk to. Also, mysteriously lacking in records of what happened last time someone tried that.
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Ok, so I was right. This is Greene gambit 2.0, at higher stakes. I feel that talking to them is actually the right thing. If we explain how by holding Dresden they are playing directly into the hands of magical nazi apocalypse cult, they might well let him go. Yes, they want leverage, and I understand why, but they should have priorities.
[X] Call Wright with an offer, maybe you can work with him and if not the closer you are to him the easier it will be to deal with him
-[X] By holding Dresden, he plays directly into the hands of literal magical nazis. Does he really want to help magical nazis, or does he want to be a part of the team that is catching magical nazis?
[X] Call Wright with an offer, maybe you can work with him and if not the closer you are to him the easier it will be to deal with him
-[X] By holding Dresden, he plays directly into the hands of literal magical nazis. Does he really want to help magical nazis, or does he want to be a part of the team that is catching magical nazis?
They pretty much took Harry for leverage and information. They seem to (generally) be on the side of protecting the public from supernatural. They seem to have very little idea of what is actually going on (speaking of, we should burn a question when looking into the skies, or onto some UFO sighting pictures, to check if aliens are actually a thing that matters to the local setting). They seem to be in the setup stage. Get on the ground floor of the government conspiracy. Get FBI to sponsor us through college and hire us as a special consultant / agent. Rise in power. Get the loyalties of USA government.
This is a golden opportunity.
- Location
- Germany
Okay, I did call that, but as an inlikely option because it's antagonistic and stupid towards a high-value Wizard like Dresden.
They know very little. They don't know about White Council. They are scrambling to catch up and get the grip on the situation. We can get f*ckton of favor by helping them at this stage.
Say, does anyone know if Catholic Church has to uphold the Masquerade? We could go with Father Forthill and establish diplomatic relationships.
So… should we inform the white council about this? I mean we are strong and all but going head to head with the government is a little bit stupid at least right now… can we get a charm that will make the "normal world" like not a problem anymore?
Yzarc
The Spark of Madness
They do not know that and people with several degrees of separation are not going to know the situation on the ground. It is just a case of policy makers on top who do not have touch with what is going on.
Not sire I want Molly TO work with the Government. I am not opposed but do not particularly care for some faceless Bureaucrat, especially one that may order Molly to be disected.
Still a good VEE target when we get that charm.