Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

There's a very good reason not to sneak out: there's a second child in the house. Either Rosie is going to be expected to babysit for them (very unlikely, given how her parents view her), there's going to be a babysitter invited (in which case sneaking out is going to be detected), they are expected to be responsible enough to stay by themselves, but with Rosie at home acting as a mitigating factor / safety check (the most plausible option), or they are going to be taken to the charity event (unlikely). In all but the last case, they are almost certainly expected to tattle on Rosie sneaking out, and are quite likely to do so, if the parents are at all competent (and the child seemed to have good relationship with the parents).

I completely agree that we should take Rosie to meat Harry. However, sneaking out in the proposed way is a bad idea. Either take the second child into account (bribe them, show them magic, or something; ensure that they aren't going to tell the parents), or arrange with Rosie's parents her leave, so there aren't problems later. The second option is what I am going with - using Michael as a chaperone. We could easily sell Rosie on this if we talk about him being literal Knight of the Cross, etc, I feel. If you don't like my vote, which is completely fair, please at least take into account the issues with the vote as presented and do something to mitigate them.
 
DP can we also give her the dream control merit from mage 20 as well as dream magic. At higher levels it would turn her into basically a fairly lord of her dream domain.
 
[X] Refuse, you do not want to risk her getting into trouble with her mother because of something you did. Their relationship feels like it is fragile enough as it is

It seems to me it wouldn't take that long to talk them into going out openly.
Maybe borrow Charity's mompower
 
[X] Refuse, you do not want to risk her getting into trouble with her mother because of something you did. Their relationship feels like it is fragile enough as it is
 
[X] Agree, it will be good for Rosie to meet new people, you can take her around to meet Harry and Mouse or even go looking for Rose of Autumn in real life

This will be better for her than following sense and good reason all the time.
Must be stifeling.
 
[x] Plausible Deniability, Misdirection, and Stacking the Deck
-[x] Agree that doing something of the sort would be a very good idea.
-[x] However, tonight may be too soon to set something like this up.
-[x] There would be a lot of moving parts in such a plan, and a lot of things that could go wrong.
--[x] For one, she may be expected to keep an eye on her younger sibling, or else there would be a babysitter present. Both cases could lead to us getting found out.
--[x] If we get caught, her parents won't want her to be in contact with us in the future.
--[x] They may also be more restrictive of her activities in general.
-[x] Set up something with some plausible deniability that we can sell to her parents as something that would be helpful for her.
--[x] I don't personally know what might be most convincing to her parents, am open to suggestions here.
--[x] Possibly enlist Michael or Charity to help sell it to her parents? They certainly have a more 'respectable' image than we do.
--[x] If Harry must be brought up at all, frame it to her parents as him being a good friend who does some work as a police consultant.
--[x] Am I missing anything?
-[x] Once she is free to go, default to 'agree' plan in terms of itinerary, with the possible inclusion of having Michael chat with her a little bit, and maybe have her meet Lydia at some point? The latter may be something that happens later on, though.
 
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Be not you from a glass house the first to throw a stone.

Whatever else, she seems to need it, and finding a new passion is probably one of the best ways to leave an addiction behind.
 
The new Sorcery book is mostly the same really. If not stronger, not being bound to hard attributes slash abilities. Let you stack paths rolls on your choice of dice pools makes it much easier to get large dice pools for separate paths.
 
Am still reading the comments, slowly moving along, found this:
Yeah, I can actually see Lydia being modeled as something like an Exigent Exalted, given her heritage. Maybe not exactly the same, but given how easy it supposedly used to be to form Exigents, it's something I could see happening. And it would be a convenient way for DP to model her mechanically and set her up as a potential member of our future Circle.

*Look at character sheet, particularly the part with Lydia*

Well, something tells me the reaction to seeing her being an exigent had to be quite funny, looking forward to reaching it.
 
I don't have the book, but that sounds like being unable to use excellencies to boost sorcery. That doesn't feel good.
Well it wasn't all bad the old book fortune path teamwork rules where broken. To the point that even a mid level coven 10-15 members could potentially fire off legendary spells 6dot spells when the highest member only had a 3 dots.

But at the same time the fortune path was always manipulation+Intimidation, while the new book allows for other pairs.
 
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Well it wasn't all bad the old book fortune path teamwork rules where broken. To the point that even a mid level coven 10-15 members could potentially fire off legendary spells 6dot spells when the highest member only had a 3 dots.
Yeah, but that is what Storyteller is for. "This is silly, softcap it at a sane number of dots" is a trivial decision. Paths of Power and Sorcerer's Companion also were more balanced and coherent in general, although I really like the "if you roll goode, you get bonuses" from Revised.

Anyway, homebrewing a charm that would positively interact with the new system is probably also Not Difficult, but I don't have the book.
 
[X] Refuse, you do not want to risk her getting into trouble with her mother because of something you did. Their relationship feels like it is fragile enough as it is
-[X] You could see if Father Forthill has some part-time job? There is always something to help with and any such job could come with ample breaks with time for self-improvement. Sanctuary is a time honored christian tradition.
 
Ok, so, let me rework my stunt and the vote itself a bit.

[X] Agree, it will be good for Rosie to meet new people, you can take her around to meet Harry and Mouse or even go looking for Rose of Autumn in real life
-[X] Use Subterfuge or Etiquette excellency
-[X] Call dad and ask him to cover for you. He should be able to understand that learning one's talent is important, and that Harry is trustworthy.
-[X] STUNT: While the thought of sneaking away is certainly compelling to your teenage spirit, there are more practical ways of doing things available to you. Ones that don't risk younger siblings ruining the whole scheme. You flip open your phone, calling dad, to explain how you want to take Rosie to meet Harry and Mouse, and why. Rosie's parents wouldn't let her out of the house normally. With your dad serving as a chaperone, however? That's another story.


A bit more focused version. Basically, we know that Rosie's parents know Michael. Going out with a parent chaperone is completely different than sneaking out. And it wight do Rosie some good to know that there are figures of authority, namely Knights of the Cross that can be trusted.
 
[X] Yog

Also, I want to note that Rosie is now at 3 Willpower! She was only at 2 in the hospital when we first visited her, so this is a big step up in her recovery! You have to be able to celebrate the little things sometimes.
 
Commentary later.
VOTE
[X] Refuse, you do not want to risk her getting into trouble with her mother because of something you did. Their relationship feels like it si fragile enough as it is


RATIONALE
1)The oldest of Rosie's siblings we have seen is 12 years old.
Under no circumstances is it a responsible thing for Rosie to go out and leave the kids unsupervised when her mother and stepfather are out at a charity dinner. I doubt they'd be hiring a babysitter if they have an adult sibling at home.


2)Molly has a tendency to stumble into potentially kinetic situations.
You do not take a pregnant 18 year old into a potentially kinetic situation.
And its generally good manners to give magic side people warning before introducing them to new people.


3) The only safe local wizard people Molly currently knows are Harry and Lydia.

She hasnt been to Bock's Books or McAnally's. She hasnt met Mortimer Lindqvist or Rose of Autumn or the Alphas.
Alice, Cindy and Old Man Mathews are two hours outside of Chicago, and Gard works for a crime boss, and Thomas is a Raith.
Her rolodex really isnt very deep.

Besides, I'd want Rosie to get that Oneiromancy 1 first before any meetings with people we havent pre-vetted.
And Rosie has met Harry anyway,when she was in the hospital.


4)If/when we choose to take Rosie out, we show up in Black Raider's Mercedes and pick her up.
Part of the point of owning a Mercedes is so we can take advantage of the social cachet of the vehicle, and its likely to impress the Wilson family.

We have enough social skill to persuade her family that its safe to take Rosie out with us.
Sneaking around simply risks damaging her family relationship and our rep.
 
You are completely right, all these are valid. Sneaking out is a non-starter. Going out to meet Harry, however, is. We just need to ask dad for help. I would ask Charity, but that'd trigger her magic issues. And yes, we definitely should take her to meet Harry. No one else.

Mercedes is an interesting idea, but I think that should work later, when we win the lottery / once we start a business in our name.
 
Oneiromancy is a strange path in Revised. A lot of useful things that I think would be in-theme for it are absent - willpower recovery, sleep effects, hallucinations, so on - and it takes annoyingly high dot to get to simple things like "send a clear message through a dream."

A lot of that stuff could be easily added in; paths are spectrums of effects, rather than rigid lists of vancian spells, but still.

Then at 6 dots, it kind of explodes with a "take stuff out of dreams" ability into something that could broadly compete with Enchanting and Alchemy. Maybe even outperform them, occasionally.
 
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[X] Agree, it will be good for Rosie to meet new people, you can take her around to meet Harry and Mouse or even go looking for Rose of Autumn in real life
-[X] Use Subterfuge or Etiquette excellency
-[X] Call dad and ask him to cover for you. He should be able to understand that learning one's talent is important, and that Harry is trustworthy.
-[X] STUNT: While the thought of sneaking away is certainly compelling to your teenage spirit, there are more practical ways of doing things available to you. Ones that don't risk younger siblings ruining the whole scheme. You flip open your phone, calling dad, to explain how you want to take Rosie to meet Harry and Mouse, and why. Rosie's parents wouldn't let her out of the house normally. With your dad serving as a chaperone, however? That's another story.
 
You are completely right, all these are valid. Sneaking out is a non-starter. Going out to meet Harry, however, is. We just need to ask dad for help. I would ask Charity, but that'd trigger her magic issues. And yes, we definitely should take her to meet Harry. No one else.

Mercedes is an interesting idea, but I think that should work later, when we win the lottery / once we start a business in our name.
-Rosie has glaring parent/authority issues.
Inviting Michael along is unlikely to help, not at this stage.

-Harry is a paramilitary commander with a full caseload. He doesnt really have anything in common with Rosie.

Besides, they've already met.
During the events of Proven Guilty. He saved her life from a fetch cosplaying as not!Jason Voerhoeves, held her hand until EMTs came, and diagnosed her at the hospital as being a heroin user and affected by black magic.
came a white-and-cobalt floodlight, driving back the gloom, burning it from my path. It left the large room still coated in shadow, but it was no longer the total occlusion of the magical murk.
It was a long room, about sixty feet, maybe half that wide. At the far end of the room was a very large projection screen. Chairs faced it in two columns. At one point in the aisle between them, a projector sat, running at such a frantic speed that smoke was rising from the reels of celluloid. The projected movie still appeared clearly on the screen, in a frantic fast-motion blur of faces and images from a classic horror film from the early eighties. The soundtrack could only be heard as a single, long, piercing howl.
There were still about twenty people in the room. Immediately beside the door was an old woman, curled on her side on the ground, sobbing in pain. Nearby a wheelchair lay overturned, and a man with braces of some kind on his legs and hips had fallen into an awkward, painful-looking sprawl from which he could not arise. One of his arms was visibly broken, bone pushing at skin. Other people cringed against the walls and beneath chairs. When my wizard light flooded the place, they got up and started staggering away, still screaming in horror.
Straight ahead of me were bodies and blood.
I couldn't see much of them. Three people were down. There was a lot of blood around. A fourth person, a young woman, crawled toward the door making frantic mewling sounds.
A man stood over her. He was nearly seven feet tall and so thick with slabs of muscle that he almost seemed deformed-not pretty bodybuilder muscle, either, but the thick, dull slabs that come from endless physical labor. He wore overalls, a blue shirt, and a hockey mask, and there was a long, curved sickle in his right hand. As I watched, he took a pair of long steps forward, seized the whimpering girl by her hair, and jerked her body into a backward bow. He raised the sickle in his right hand.
Rawlins didn't bother to offer him a chance to surrender. He took a stance not ten feet away, aimed, and put three shots into the masked maniac's head.
The man jerked, twisting a bit, and released the girl's hair abruptly, tossing her aside with a terrible, casual strength. She hit a row of chairs and let out a cry of pain.

Then the maniac turned toward Rawlins and, even though the mask hid his features, the tilt of his head and the tension of his posture showed that he was furious. He went toward Rawlins. The cop shot him four more times, flashes of bright white burning the image of the maniac and the room onto my eyes.
He brought the sickle down on Rawlins. The cop managed to catch the force of it upon his long flashlight. Sparks flew from the steel case, but the light held. The maniac twisted the sickle, so that the tip plowed a furrow across Rawlins's forearm. The cop snarled. The flashlight spun to the ground. The maniac raised the sickle again.
I braced myself, raised my staff and my will, and cried, "Forzare!"
Unseen power lashed from my staff, pure kinetic energy that ripped through the air and hit the maniac like a wrecking ball. The blow drove him back down the aisle, through the air. He hit the projector on its stand. It shattered. He went through it without slowing down. He kept going, the flight of his passage tearing through the large projection screen, and hit the back wall with a thunderous impact.
I sagged in sudden exhaustion, the effort of the spell an enormous drain on me, and had to plant my staff on the ground to keep from falling over. My headache flared up with a vengeance, and the light of my amulet and staff both faded.
There were a few more screams, the quick, light sound of frightened feet, and I whirled. I saw someone flee the room from the corner of my eye, but I didn't get much of a look at them. A second later, the room returned to normal, the lights back, the broken projector still spinning one reel at reduced speed, a loose tongue of film slap-slap-slapping the broken casing.
Rawlins advanced, gun still out, his eyes very wide, down to the far end of the room. He went past the screen and looked behind it, gun in firing position. He looked around for a second, then back at me, his expression baffled.
"He's not here," Rawlins said. "Did you see him go that way?"
I just didn't have enough left in me to speak right at that moment. I shook my head.
"There's a dent in the wall," he reported. "Covered in… I dunno what. Some kind of slime."
"He's gone," I grunted. Then I started forward, toward the downed people. Two of them were young men, the third a young woman. "Help me."
Rawlins holstered his weapon and did. One of the young men was dead. There was a crescent-shaped cut in his thigh that had opened an artery. Another lay mercifully unconscious, a bruise on his head, several hideous inches of bloody innards protruding from a slash across his belly. I was afraid that if we moved him, his guts might come popping out. The girl was alive, but the sickle's tip had drawn a pair of long lines down her back along the spine, and the cuts had been vicious and deep. Bits of bone showed and she lay on her belly, her eyes open and blinking but utterly unfocused, either unwilling or unable to move.
We did what we could for them, which wasn't much more than jerking the tablecloths off the water tables in the corner and improvising soft pads out of them to apply to open wounds. The second girl lay on her side nearby, sobbing hysterically I checked on the old woman, who had just had the wind knocked out of her. I hauled the guy who'd fallen from his wheelchair into a slightly more comfortable position and he nodded thanks at me.
"See to the other victim," Rawlins said. He held the pad against the boy's opened abdomen, putting gentle pressure on it as he jerked out his radio. It squealed with feedback and static when he used it, but he managed to get emergency help headed our way.
I went to the sobbing girl, a tiny little brunette wearing much the same clothes as Molly had been. She'd been bruised up pretty well, and from the way she lay on the floor she could evidently not move without feeling agony. I went to her and felt over her left shoulder gently. "Be still," I told her quietly. "It's your collarbone, I think. I know it hurts like hell, but you're going to be all right."
"It hurts, it hurts, hurts, hurts, hurts," she panted.
I found her hand with mine and squeezed tight. She returned it with a desperate pressure. "You'll be all right," I told her.
"Don't leave me," she whimpered. Her hand was all but crushing mine. "Don't leave."
"It's all right," I said. "I'm right here."

"What the hell is this?" Rawlins said, panting. He looked around him, at the corpse, at the movie screen, at the dent in the wall beyond. "That was the Reaper, the freaking Reaper. From the Suburban Slasher films. What kind of psycho dresses up as the Reaper and starts…" His face twisted in sudden nausea. "What the hell is this?"
"Rawlins," I said, in a sharp voice, to get his attention.
His frightened eyes darted to me.
"Call Murphy," I told him.
He stared at me blankly for a second, then said, "My captain is the one who has to make the call on that one. He'll decide."
"Up to you," I said. "But Murphy and her boys might actually be able to do something with this. Your captain can't." I nodded at the corpse. "And we aren't playing for pennies here."
Rawlins looked at me. Then at the dead boy. Then he nodded once and picked up his radio again.
"Hurts," the girl whimpered, breathless with pain. "Hurts, hurts, hurts."
I held her hand. I patted it awkwardly with my gloved left hand while we heard sirens approach.

"My God," Rawlins said again. He shook his head. "My God, Dresden. What happened here?"
I stared at the enormous rip in the movie screen and at the Reaper-shaped dent in the wooden panels of the wall behind it. Clear gelatin, the physical form of ectoplasm, the matter of the spirit world, gleamed there against the broken wood. In minutes it would evaporate, and there would be nothing left behind.
"My God," Rawlins whispered again, his voice still stunned. "What happened here?"
Yeah.
Good question.


Chapter Thirteen​

The authorities arrived and replaced crisis with aftermath. The EMTs rushed the more badly injured girl and the eviscerated young man to an emergency room, while police officers who arrived on the scene did what they could to take care of the other injured attendees until more medical teams could show up. I stayed with the injured girl, holding her hand. One of the EMTs had examined her briefly, saw that though in considerable pain she was not in immediate danger, and ordered me to stay with her and keep anyone from moving her until the next team could arrive.
That suited me fine. The thought of standing up again was daunting.
I sat with the girl as more police arrived. She had become quiet and listless as her fear faded and her body produced endorphins to dull the pain. I heard a gasp and the sudden sound of pounding feet. I looked up to see Molly slip by a patrolman and fling herself down beside the girl.
"Rosie!" she cried, her face very pale. "Oh my God!"

"Easy, easy," I told her, putting a hand against Molly's shoulder to prevent her from embracing the wounded girl. "Don't jostle her."
"She's hurt," Molly protested. "Why haven't they put her in an ambulance?"
"She's not in immediate danger," I said. "Two other people were. The ambulance took them first. She goes on the next one."
"What happened?" Molly asked.
I shook my head. "I'm not sure yet. I didn't see much of it. They were attacked."
The girl on the floor suddenly stirred and opened her eyes. "Molly?" she said.
"I'm here, Rosie," Molly said. She touched the injured girl's cheek. "I'm right here."
"My God," the girl said. Tears welled from her eyes. "He killed them. He killed them." Her breathing began to come faster, building toward panic.
"Shhhhhhh," Molly said, and stroked Rosie's hair back from her forehead as one might a frightened child. "You're safe now. It's all right."
"The baby," Rosie said. She slid her hand from mine and laid it over her belly. "Is the baby all right?"
Molly bit her lip and looked at me.
"She's pregnant?" I asked.
"Three months," Molly confirmed. "She just found out."
"The baby," Rosie said. "Will the baby be all right?"
"They're going to do everything possible to make sure that you're both all right," I said immediately. "Try not to worry about it too much."
Rosie closed her eyes, tears still streaming. "All right."
"Rosie," Molly asked. "Can you tell me what happened?"
"I'm not sure," she whispered. "I was sitting with Ken and Drea. We'd already seen our favorite scene in the movie and we decided to go. I was bending over to get my purse and Drea was checking her makeup and then the lights went out and she started screaming… And then when I could see again, he was there." She shuddered. "He was there."
"Who?" Molly pressed.
Rosie's eyes opened too wide, showing white all around. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "The Reaper."
Molly frowned. "Like in the movie? Someone in a costume."
"It couldn't be," Rosie said, her trembling growing more pronounced. "It was him. It was really him."
The next medical team arrived and headed right for us. Rosie seemed to be on the verge of another panic attack when she saw them, and started thrashing around. Molly leaned in close, whispering to her and continually touching her head, until the EMTs could get to work.
I stepped back. They got Rosie loaded onto a stretcher. When they laid her arm down by her side, I could see several small, round marks, irregular bruises, and damaged capillaries just under the surface of the skin at the bend of her arm.
Molly stared at me for a second, her eyes wide. Then she helped the EMTs throw a blanket over Rosie and her track marks. The EMTs counted to three and lifted the stretcher, flicked out the wheels underneath, and rolled her toward the doors. The girl stirred and thrashed weakly as they did this, letting out whimpering little cries
Murphy gave him a brief glare, and we went down the hall to visit the first of the victims.
It was a single-bed room. Molly was there, in a chair beside the bed, where she had evidently been asleep while mostly sitting up. By the time I got in the room and shut the door, she was looking around blearily and mopping at the corner of her mouth with her sleeve. In the bed beside her was Rosie, small and pale.
Molly touched the girl's arm and gently roused her. Rosie looked up at us and blinked a few times.

Good morning," Murphy said. "I hope you were able to get some rest."
"A l-little," the girl said, her voice raspy. She looked around, but Molly was already passing her a glass of water with a straw in it. Rosie sipped and then laid her head tiredly back, then murmured a thank you to Molly. "A little," she said again, her voice stronger. "Who are you?"
"My name is Karrin Murphy. I'm a detective for the Chicago Police Department." She gestured at me, and took a pen and a small notebook from her hip pocket. "This is Harry Dresden. He's working with us on the case. Do you mind if he's here?"
Rosie licked her lips and shook her head. Her uninjured hand moved fitfully, stroking over the bandages on the opposite forearm in nervous motions. Murphy engaged the girl in quiet conversation.
"What are you doing here?" Molly asked me in a half whisper.
"Looking into things," I replied as quietly. "There's something spooky going on."
Molly chewed on her lip. "You're sure?"
"Definitely," I said. "Don't worry. I'll find whatever hurt your friend."
"Friends," Molly said, emphasizing the plural. "Have you heard anything about Ken? Rosie's boyfriend? No one will tell us anything."
"He the kid that they took from the scene?"
Molly nodded anxiously. "Yes."
I glanced at Murphy's back and didn't say anything.
Molly got it. Her face went white and she whispered, "Oh, God. She'll be so…" She folded her arms and shook her head several times. Then she said, "I've got to…" She looked around, and in a louder voice said, "I'm dying for coffee. Anyone else need some?"
Nobody did. Molly picked up her purse and turned around to walk for the door. In doing so, she brushed within a foot or two of Mouse. Instead of growling, though, Mouse leaned his head affectionately against her leg as she went by, and cadged a few ear scratches from the girl before she left.
I frowned at Mouse after Molly had gone. "Are you going bipolar on me?"
He settled down again immediately. Murphy went on asking Rosie fairly predictable questions about the attack.
The clock was running. I pushed the question about Mouse's odd behavior aside for the moment, and let Mouse watch the door while I reached for my Sight.
It was a slight effort of concentration to push away the concerns of the material world, like aches and pains and bruises and why my dog was growling at Molly, and then the mere light and shadow and color of the everyday world dissolved into the riot of flowing energy and currents of light and power that lay beneath the surface.
Murphy looked like Murphy had always looked beneath my Sight. She appeared almost as herself, but clearer, somehow, her eyes flashing, and she was garbed in a quasi angelic tunic of white, stained in places with the blood and mud of battle. A short, straight sword, its blade made of almost viciously bright white light, hung beneath her left arm, where I knew her light cotton blazer hid her gun in its shoulder rig. She looked at me and I could see her physical face as a vague shadow beneath the surface of the aspect I saw now. She smiled at me, a sunny light in it, though her body's face remained a neutral mask. I was seeing the life, the emotion behind her face, now.
I shied away from staring at her lest I make eye contact for too long- but that smile, at least, was something I wouldn't mind remembering. Rosie was another story.
The physical Rosie was a small, slight, pale young woman with thin, frail features. The Rosie my Sight revealed to me was entirely different. Pale skin became a pallid, dirty, leathery coating. Large dark eyes looked even bigger, and flicked around with darting, avian jerks. They were furtive eyes, giving her the dangerous aspect of a stray dog or maybe some kind of rat-the eyes of a craven, desperate survivor.
Winding veins of some kind of green-black energy pulsed beneath her skin, particularly around the inside bend of her left arm. The writhing strings of energy ended at the surface of her skin, in dozens of tiny, mindlessly opening and closing little mouths-the needle tracks I'd seen the night before. Her right hand kept darting back and forth over the other arm as if trying to scratch a persistent itch. But her fingers couldn't touch. There was a kind of sheath of sparkling motes around her hands, almost like mittens, and she couldn't actually touch those mindlessly hungry mouths. Worse, there were what looked almost like burn marks on her temples- small, black, neat holes, as if someone had bored a hot needle through the skin and skull beneath. There was a kind of phantom blood around the injuries, but her eyes were wide and vague, as if she didn't even notice them. What the hell? I had seen the victims of spiritual attacks before, and they'd never been pretty. Usually they looked like the victim of a shark attack, or someone who had been mauled by a bear. I hadn't ever seen someone with damage like Rosie's. It looked almost like some kind of demented surgeon had gone after her with a laser scalpel. That pushed the weirdometer a couple of clicks beyond the previous record.
My head started pounding and I pushed the Sight away. I leaned my hip against the wall for a second and rubbed at my temples until the throbbing subsided and I was sure that my normal vision had returned.
"Rosie," I said, cutting into the middle of one of Murphy's questions. "When was your last fix?"
Murphy glanced over her shoulder at me, frowning. Behind her, the girl gave me a guilty look, her eyes shifting to one side. "What do you mean?" Rosie asked.
"I figure it's heroin," I said. I kept my voice pitched to the barest level needed to be audible. "I saw the tracks on you last night."
"I'm diab-" she began.
"Oh please," I said, and let the annoyance show in my voice. "You think I'm that stupid?"
"Harry," Murphy began. There was a warning note in her voice, but my head hurt too much to let it stop me.
"Miss Marcella, I'm trying to help you. Just answer the question."
She was silent for a long moment. Then she said, "Two weeks."
Murphy arched a brow, and her gaze went back to the girl.
"I quit," she said. "Really. I mean, once I heard that I was pregnant… I can't do that anymore."
"Really?" I asked.
She looked up and her eyes were direct, though nothing like confident. "Yes. I'm done with it. I don't even miss it. The baby's more important than that."
I pursed my lips and then nodded. "All right."
"Miss Marcella," Murphy said, "thank you for your time."
"Wait," she said, as Murphy turned away. "Please. No one will tell us anything about Ken. Do you know how he's doing? What room he's in?"
"Ken's your boyfriend?" Murphy asked in a careful tone.
"Yes. I saw them load him in the ambulance last night. I know he's here…" Rosie stared at Murphy for a second, and then her face grew even more pale. "Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no."
I was glad I'd gotten a gotten a look at her before she found out about her boyfriend. My imagination provided me with a nice image of watching the emotional wounds open up as though an invisible sword had begun slicing into her, but at least I didn't have to see it with my Sight, too.
"I'm very sorry," Murphy said quietly. Her voice was steady, her eyes compassionate.
Molly picked that moment to return with a cup of coffee. She took one look at Rosie, put the coffee down, and then hurried to her. Rosie broke down in choking sobs. Molly immediately sat on the bed beside her, and hugged her while she wept.
"We'll be in touch," Murphy said quietly. "Come on, Harry."
Mouse stared at Rosie with a mournful expression, and I had to tug on his leash a couple of times to get him moving. We departed and headed for the nearest stairwell. Murphy headed for ICU, which was in the neighboring building.
"I didn't see the track marks on her last night," she said after a minute. "You pushed her pretty hard."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it might mean something. I don't know what, yet. But we didn't have time to waste listening to her denial."
"She wasn't straight with you," Murphy said. "No one kicks heroin that fast. Two weeks. She should still be feeling some of the withdrawal."
Molly was there both times. Mouse was there the second time.
She'll remember. Dresden is memorable.

Lydia is the only other safe supernatural we know, but Lydia can just as easily visit her at home with us.

-We own the Mercedes outright, legally.
We bought it publicly at auction in our name, and its registered in our name at the DMV.
No reason not to use it at times like this.

Oneiromancy is a strange path in Revised. A lot of useful things that I think would be in-theme for it are absent - willpower recovery, sleep effects, hallucinations, so on - and it takes annoyingly high dot to get to simple things like "send a clear message through a dream."

A lot of that stuff could be easily added in; paths are spectrums of effects, rather than rigid lists of vancian spells, but still.
Then at 6 dots, it kind of explodes with a "take stuff out of dreams" ability into something that could broadly compete with Enchanting and Alchemy. Maybe even outperform them, occasionally.
Honestly thought she was Divination or Scrying primary, not Oneiromancy.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Dec 20, 2022 at 5:05 PM, finished with 50 posts and 19 votes.

  • [X] Agree, it will be good for Rosie to meet new people, you can take her around to meet Harry and Mouse or even go looking for Rose of Autumn in real life
    [X] Refuse, you do not want to risk her getting into trouble with her mother because of something you did. Their relationship feels like it si fragile enough as it is
    [X] Agree, it will be good for Rosie to meet new people, you can take her around to meet Harry and Mouse or even go looking for Rose of Autumn in real life
    -[X] Use Subterfuge or Etiquette excellency
    -[X] Call dad and ask him to cover for you. He should be able to understand that learning one's talent is important, and that Harry is trustworthy.
    -[X] STUNT: While the thought of sneaking away is certainly compelling to your teenage spirit, there are more practical ways of doing things available to you. Ones that don't risk younger siblings ruining the whole scheme. You flip open your phone, calling dad, to explain how you want to take Rosie to meet Harry and Mouse, and why. Rosie's parents wouldn't let her out of the house normally. With your dad serving as a chaperone, however? That's another story.
    [x] Plausible Deniability, Misdirection, and Stacking the Deck
    -[x] Agree that doing something of the sort would be a very good idea.
    -[x] However, tonight may be too soon to set something like this up.
    -[x] There would be a lot of moving parts in such a plan, and a lot of things that could go wrong.
    --[x] For one, she may be expected to keep an eye on her younger sibling, or else there would be a babysitter present. Both cases could lead to us getting found out.
    --[x] If we get caught, her parents won't want her to be in contact with us in the future.
    --[x] They may also be more restrictive of her activities in general.
    -[x] Set up something with some plausible deniability that we can sell to her parents as something that would be helpful for her.
    --[x] I don't personally know what might be most convincing to her parents, am open to suggestions here.
    --[x] Possibly enlist Michael or Charity to help sell it to her parents? They certainly have a more 'respectable' image than we do.
    --[x] If Harry must be brought up at all, frame it to her parents as him being a good friend who does some work as a police consultant.
    --[x] Am I missing anything?
    -[x] Once she is free to go, default to 'agree' plan in terms of itinerary, with the possible inclusion of having Michael chat with her a little bit, and maybe have her meet Lydia at some point? The latter may be something that happens later on, though.
    [X] Refuse, you do not want to risk her getting into trouble with her mother because of something you did. Their relationship feels like it is fragile enough as it is
    -[X] You could see if Father Forthill has some part-time job? There is always something to help with and any such job could come with ample breaks with time for self-improvement. Sanctuary is a time honored christian tradition.
 
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