Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[DragonParadox]

Arcane Insights ​

15th of September 2006 A.D.

As the city rushes by in a blur grey and gold of autumn leaves you consider, seriously consider hanging this Rodney guy out to dry and washing your hands of him. There's just so much to do. If it weren't for Clippy and her lot your might have done just that, let Marcone handle it, but you do have the digital assistance to watch him and the chain of middlemen through witch he got his orders so for now at least his throat stays unslit and you do not have to deal with the guilt of having set the whole thing in motion. At least 'Lictor' does not cause anything near the same unease, immortal fey spirits should know better, even if they are carrion-pickers of blood drenched battle grounds. A bloody tie sounds unhygienic anyway...

"Nearest fast food restaurant please Rider, after that drop me off at the warehouse. I've got something to show Harry...."

***​

Harry opens the door for you, his face falling comically as he recognized the cheerful look on your face. "What now?Its a Saturday" he moans. In reply you raise a Starbucks and a bag from Burger King. "I brought coffee."

Pushing both into his hands, you slip past him to exchange greetings with Mouse, and pay tribute to Mister. "Good news, I have a name and description of the man who was shooting at us...well, Gorfel, but us as well. Better news, I have pictures." And with that you drop a folder of pics on the table. It had taken you two tries to get it right, in no small part because of how weird it was to draw like you are a copying machine. Any attempt to insert feelings or style in the shades and lighting had hit a wall. Magic powers or not you are no artist with a pencil.

Lost 3 Essence -> now at 6/12 Essence 8/9 willpower.

At that Harry stops rummaging through the paper bag, proving once and for all that Mouse can still do puppy dog eyes in the process. "What's the bad news."

"Lictor's a Redcap, only he wears a tie instead of a cap. That means he's been changed fundamntally, take this with a grain of salt, but as I read it, he's no longer one crowned in blood, lord of the unplowed field, he is speaker of the blood, herald of murder. Or maybe he was really bored with his look and wanted an update. Either way I figured Mab needs to know that her monsters are out freelance monstering for Nazis and answering to guys named Speer."

"I'll warn her..." seeing your expectant look he adds. "Once you are gone, no reason to draw even more of Mab's attention to you."

Even though the contrarian part of you wants to object you cannot really think of a good reason to. Instead you ask between sips of coke: "So anything on the Naagloshii?"

"Several things," he recounts with a gratifying lack of hesitation. "It revels in terror, but does not need it to survive, it can devour living things for their shapes and in the case of mortal practitioners for their powers. Only a Navajo Medicine man can drive one away by invoking the oaths it has defiled. Otherwise you are left in a slugging match with hmm... a semidivine being. That's not really the right..."

"It's a little-g-god," you cut him off. "No need to do a run around the thesaurus on my account. I've had experience with that..."

"Experience?" He sounds enough like he's chocking that you wonder if you should pan him on the back.

You would be lying if you said you don't enjoy this. "Made one sort of not-really on accident." With that you proceed to explain Watchful Bane upon the Thirty Sixth Threshold as well as your experiences with the Order of the Cauldron. Motioning with a french fry you add: "You know there's no reason why the White Council can't just take in minor talents. I mean what you're doing is like if the army only took in crack snippers. Sure they'd be able to boast about how high their overall accuracy is but the trenches would be nine tenths empty of all the people just good enough to shoot a riffle."

Alas Harry isn't interested in your thoughts on White Council reformation. "Hold on there let's get back to raised a dark spirit and bound it to protect an apartment."

"An apartment building and I didn't raise him, I made him."

It takes a lot more explaining and even going down to Bob to back you up on the particulars, but in the end you manage to convince Harry that you made a genius loci of your own will and authority.

As Bob puts it "What did you think god-king means, a king who moonlights as a god on the weakened? She's the queen of a spirit court, only one without any subjects."

So far, the words in your mind are so faint you might have imagined them, though Usum assures you that he had heard them too.

In the meantime Harry obviously had been doing his own thinking. "What do you think of trading the information on this Lictor for information, maybe even some help on dealing with the Naagloshii? I know it's a lot better to have Mab in debt to you than the other way around, but if there is one thing Winter is good at it's knowing how to deal with enemies." For once you do not think the small catch in his voice has anything to do with keeping you from danger. He's probably remembering the help his godmother had given him in dealing with his first master.

What do you reply?

[] Yes, trade the information in for whatever you can

[] You are a better negotiator than him, if you are going to do it best do it right (Will Require convincing Harry; Opposed rolls with intimacy on his side)

[] No, you would rather keep the favor for now, there are other places you can find information, other allies you can gather

[] Write in

OOC: Molly is doing a very good job so far impressing her general competence on Harry, it just takes a while since you are pushing directly against his Damsel in Distress intimacy.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Blackest Dreams ​

15th of September 2006 A.D.

"I think..." you pause a moment, considering the virtues of charging on ahead, trying to meet Mab now on your terms and not on Halloween on hers. Nah, too likely to upset Harry. "I'd rather keep the favor for whatever it's worth. I mean we don't even know what help we might want against the Skinwalker or even if we are going to have to fight the thing ourselves."

"That's a lot of wes," Harry notes, though he sounds more wary than intransigent.

"I live here too, I don't want people to get eaten and the most important part I just might be weird enough to hurt it. Isn't that why you became a P.I.?"

"I... Not sure I'd put it that way." He shakes his head and gets back to his drink, but you decide to push a little more.

"Why not, weird is good, some of the best people I know are weird." You look down at the Sisters of Mercy hoodie and the black jeans with the silver buckle you're wearing. "Really didn't think that was something I'd have to say aloud."

"Well you know how it is with us old folks, takes a while to get the message through."

To that you can only reply with an eye-roll. Right he's ancient and definitely not trying to remind himself how old you are. Funny how a preternatural instinct for chinks in other people's mental armor can boost a girl's confidence. You'd say something more but A that would probably lead to him draw back into his shell like a crab in boiling water and B Bob's here. No amount of obscure lore would get him to ignore outright flirting

Speaking of obscure lore though... "There is one other thing I'd like to ask questions of that I'd be more comfortable asking in company. I know things I see through the Crown can't hurt me but better safe than sorry."

"Well that's not ominous." Is weary sarcasm more of less severe than just weariness, you wonder.

"Come on Harry, live a little," Bob encourages slyly... Well it would have been sly if he dialed the innuendo back about five notches. Maybe you had not been as subtle as you thought you were.

"Clippy put up Perfected Principle of Consumption please." you ask and the image burned into the stone of the museum flashes on screen.

"Oh la vache!" Bob exclaims.

"It's a cow?" you ask bemused.

"No it's... that's not important." The skull sort of vibrates like he was trying to shake his head. Then he unhinges his jaw that through it might pour eerie verse, like a recording of something heard long ago:

"Whirlwinds of iron blood and gall frozen evermore in place
Fate is broken time is Not, for those Broken to debase
Black is the Labyrinth, more than gods, less than dust
In the veins of all that lives dwells ever rust" ​

"What does that mean?" you ask, fascinated in spite of yourself.

"Don't know. A Black Court Elder, I think he was from some place in Eastern Europe though that might just have been DuMorne's taunting, said that as he was being tortured to give up his master. He managed to get one hand free of the chains broke it in the process not that it mattered to it and drew that thing on the wall in his.. fluids, not sure if you would call that blood. The stone transmuted to the consistency of one white scales that moved as if alive. Then DuMorne burned it to ash. The wall burned..."

"Like pyre-flame," you finish absently.

"Are you going to tell me what that is?" Poor Harry sounds like he one hundred percent does not want to have this conversation. Maybe you should have put it off until he was done eating.

"Not sure, that's just what came to mind."

"Still want to ask about it?" He sounds like he knows the answer already.

"I pulled it out of somewhere. Not knowing just means not looking down at my own hand to see what's in there." So saying you grab the unopened bottle of fizzy water and pour it over your head. "Don't laugh it works." With one final deep breath you ask: "What is the history behind the name invoked here?"

"Ever-sleeping, Never-Forgotten, Mockery Maker NEVERBORN"

The titles batter at understanding like broken pieces of some cosmic architecture hurled in a mad rage. Were you other than what you are you would have to strive not to see your mind shattered, as it is you are just bewildered trying to read between the pieces. Having asked for 'history' you behold an acausal entity that cannot have a beginning and will not have an end, no matter how much it might beg for it. Yet there is something there., tying in to what Bob had said. Blood, crimson water of mortality...

Lost 1 Essence -> now at 5/12

With a gasp you come through. "It's some kind of creator being still even though it would rather with all its heart and souls to be a destroyer, it made the Black Court to be its priests and heralds, not sure from what, but each of them are of its nightmares-manifest. I think that I would get another question if I pointed the Crown at one of them." Seeing Harry's shocked expression you hasten to add: "Not like I'm going to go looking for it... just you know, just a thought."

There is one thought you do not speak aloud, one feeling you do not know how to express: sorrow, almost a sense of kinship.

What do you do next?

[] Restoring the Last Station: Restoration efforts have been going well and according to Adam some more of the people down in the tunnels have shown interest in their newfound wealth and comfort (2/8)

[] Dreaming True, Rosie is doing great so far, but she still needs more training before she can get a proper hold of her powers (3/10 pogress)

[] Back to School, you want to make sure a certain bunch of idiots are not bullying either their old victim or a new one

[] Ask more questions
-[] Write in

OOC: I figured since you were here it would make sense to ask the Neverborn question in company. Also Bob still has no filter when it comes to horrifying eldritch knowledge

 

[DragonParadox]

Down the Drain ​

16th of September 2006 A.D.

Back to school tests are just as annoying as they have ever been, all the more so when the teachers wait two weeks so that the students will let down their guard. It's almost enough to get you to sharpen your senses the better to anticipate it, but then you would have no way to avoid hearing all the gossip going on not just behind your back but to your left, your right and right in front of God and radar as Izzy comically puts it when she gets fed up with it as well.

Essence Restored to 12/12 Willpower restored to 9/9

"So I got this job at Target and Jeff, he's the manager, totally into me..." a girl you half-recognize, you think her name is Andrea is regaling her posse with dubious tales of her conquests.

Definitely not worth it. So you make it through calculus the old fashioned way, paying attention in class and doing... most of your homework. Would be nice to have some way to contact Clippy without speaking aloud though... some kind of implantable earphones maybe. If I mess it up I can always heal.

As the bell frees you from the demands of school, social and academic alike you have to admit that you do have some unfair advantages on your peers, like the little black card holding Four hundred and fifty thousand dollars after selling the first run of Chicago Synthetics diamonds. Sure as hell beats working at Target.

Gained 450,000 Dollars

Of course you are aware that most people would rather deal with Jeff the amorous manager than a small band of ghouls, but the more fool they for it.

As you wave off Marcone's people for what must be the tenth time just this month you consider the virtues of having your own way down into the depths. The last thing you want is to show up in the middle of a drug deal or something one day, or worse have one of the Jade Dogs be in that position. Maybe you could chase off something else off a passage to the surface, not the malks, you had made peace with those... Or maybe you could just dig your way through, it's not that far from the warehouse as the crown flies, or the mole digs as the case might be. Maybe you could even include it in this month's renovations.

No sooner had you made it into Jade Dog territory that the lookouts find you with news that banishes the thoughts from your mind. "We found some of the Whites like you told us to, " Sarah rises from the habitual crouch of the open tunnels with a bounce in her step like she is about to salute with the news. "Three of 'em"

So as you walk together deeper into the tunnels she explains that all three of them were young and in her words 'skinny as a bone'. Adam had guessed that they must have been slacking their hunger on those they mugged for food. All of them are young, the recent 'failures' among House Malvora's servants, though Sarah and the others had not wanted to risk scaring them away by asking too many questions.

"Gave 'em a bedroll and some tinned beans and peaches as long as they stuck around to meet the boss."

"Tinned beans and peaches?" you raise an eyebrow in askance.

"Cheapest stuff Bones could find to buy, you know in case they don't want to stick with us."

Biting back the instinct to chastise the lack of charity, you had not been living off stray dogs until last month, you ask what else had been going on down here.

"There's talk of someone new out by the Barrels, real unfriendly sort, tore up one of Doc Strange's and sent him back in pieces ."

Doc Strange as you learn is an drug dealer and probable sorcerer who cooks his meth down there to stay off the cops' radar. He;s got a gang of about 'thirty mostly mortals' over by Fire's Pass, a collection of rooms and tunnels left over nearely intact from the Great Fire and buried. Even the fact that you have a meth dealer for a neighbor can't quite beat how the Barrels got their name...

"Radioactive waste, you are telling me there is radioactive waste down here and the section of tunnels they are in is attractive enough that something moved in and is defending it against all comers. Why?"

"Well it's not really a good place for mortals to hang around so it makes it a good hide out from those who are hard enough and don't want to be bothered. Most folk down here are mortals after all." As though to emphasize her words you see the flicker of fire down one of the side tunnels, quickly put out. Distantly you hear a baby crying, though it too is quickly quieted.

Seeing something in your expression Sarah puts in: "You are walking around like you own the place. Not something a regular person wants to meet in the dark. Those that live down here long know they ain't at the top of the food chain."

You take half a step in the direction of the sound then stop, unsure of what you could offer the person with the baby. The companionship of ghouls and vampires? On the other hand it's still better than being pray of those who hunt in the dark. Can you help everyone down here not just the reluctant predators? Almost half a million dollars is a superpower all of its own, especially when you can keep doing it.

Who do you show yourself to?

[] Just the vampires
-[] Write in stunt

[] Vampires and humans, you can help everyone
-[] Write in stunt

[] Write in

OOC: Keep in mind Sarah is one of the most human ghouls and even she said that 'food chain' line without batting an eye. There would be some issues integrating vanilla humans, whether that is still worth it given the risks to the human population in these tunnels is your call.

 

[DragonParadox]

A People Gathering ​

16th of September 2006 A.D.

"Hello, is anyone there? It's OK we're..." The word friendly had been just on the tip of your tongue before instincts born of elder insights substitutes: "People." Down here there are all kinds of 'friendly' folk, those who want to use you, eat you and make strike a bargain for your eyes, your hands, your soul, but people, those are rare.

What you had heard was little Almaz complaining about the dark and the cold. How her mother had managed to get the rickety old stroller all the way down here you do not know but it is clear Deborah is willing to protect it with everything she has. Alas everything she has isn't much and neither do the other four people gathered around the quickly doused barrel fire. At first they shy away from the glare of your flashlight as though expecting blows, only the fear of turning their back on you gets them talking. There's Dean a grizzled man of indeterminate age beneath his layers and layers of ragged vests and jackets who talks looking at his feet, Abel, a boy younger than you brandishing a rusted machete with far more skill than he aught to have, Theodora his older sister who had been in the middle of the cooking before she tries to douse you with salt to ward you off and then there is James, beneath the signs of hunger and the pallor of one whose lived too long in the dark you recognize the manerisms of a soldier and not just because he's got the only proper weapon of the group. For all the good a pistol is going to do them even against even someone like Sarah.

"Hi, my name is Molly Carpenter, I'm just here fixing up a place for my friends..."

Slowly, ever so slowly you get them to relax. You talk about who you are and how long you have been coming down here. There's a bit of a breakthrough when you explain that you are seventeen and Deborah asks why you are not in school. Beeing seen as a kid playing hooky is a lot better than a monster in the dark

"Yeah I'm with the Jade Dogs, I'm in charge."

...and we are right back to being about to bolt. Adam and his fellows had not done anything to hide their nature before you showed up. Down here, away from the lights and cameras of the modern world there is no reason to keep up the pretense of separation. Who is going to believe a young mother without any kind of legal documentation, a former psych patient no longer able to afford his meds or a pair of teenage runaways?

"No, I'm not an Eater, I can help them with the hunger, so I am'

In the end you are not sure if it's the offer of food and shelter that wins them over or the account of what else is around here that gets them to come along. Unlike ghouls malks do not announce themselves to their victims. Those they choose to hunt just vanish one day, maybe they hal left, maybe they had joined up with someone else, maybe you'll find a severed finger belonging to them on your pillow when next you sleep.

So slowly, reluctantly they make their way back to Sarah, the old stroller creaking all the while and from there to the station.

After the darkness of the tunnels the light and sound spilling off the platform is almost shocking. A couple of people are throwing knives at an old darts board that is not long for this world, others are reading dogeared books by the light of the fire cooking sausages and meat patties that will never see the inside of a burger.

Adam looks up from cleaning his gun with a growl of "Orders?" that makes it very clear he would really like the chance to use that gun on something.

"I'm here to look at the new people and talk about some..." You trail off as you notice the vampires Sarah had talked about. For the most part what you had expected, two boys, one girl around your age, they would all be attractive if it weren't for the haggard look on their faces and the deep circles under their eyes... the tattletale marks of needles all the clearer on their pale arms. Shooting up would probably help take the edge off an unsatisfied Hunger at first, you realize, but just joining the Jade dogs isn't going to help with mundane addiction.

"We are willing to serve," the taller of the two guys says and you can feel the shadow of your power wash over them with your approval just as it had with Thomas yet even as all three of them breathe easier, like drowning victims thrown an unexpected lifeline you shudder inwardly at the enormity of what you had taken on. It's not just food shelter and safety you have to assure, some of these people are going to need medication, those with addictions mortal or otherwise are going to keep help managing and overcoming it. All of a sudden the prospect of being responsible for so many people, young and old, mortal and other crashes over you. How can you deal with all this stuff? All the unexpected needs and conflicts that may arise when everyone from neophite vampire to elder ghoul to three month year old baby are crammed together?

Beyond the fears of Molly Carpenter, beyond the whispers of Usum, ver ready to give counsel there is a warm glow of purpose to the thought, as a talent long unused brought into the light.

What rules do you lay down?

[] Write in
Example: Punishments for transgression means of challenging leadership, acceptable ways to feed for vampires

How much of your newly gained wealth do you hand over to the Jade Dogs and in what form?

[] Write in
Example: Means of dealing with addiction, healthcare needs, help reintegrating into the world above

OOC: Welp this is a big one, but it is also one of the things Solar Exaltation were made to do so instead of having you deal with problems as they come up and ending up with a patchwork of solutions Molly's exaltation is pushing her to set up a coherent legal framework.Not to say that you guys have to handle every eventuality, but given that your hold over a significant portion of the people in the gang is Mercy in Servitude it would be a good idea to establish what are the circumstances under which that mercy is withdrawn.

 

[DragonParadox]

Lawgiver ​

16th of September 2006 A.D.

There aren't enough chairs for all the newcomers, but the old stone benches will do in a pinch, once the site of impatient commuters waiting for the next train, now the seat of people listening raptly to hear what the next station of their lives might be, ghoul, vampire, mortal, even the baby had turned her head to face you, as if drawn by the light of flames unseen upon your brow. Firstly you speak aloud of truths Deborah, Dean, Theodora, and James had heard only in whispered rumors that there are more than just humans in these tunnels, hunting in the dark, but then in even tone you make it clear that it does not have to be so, tis not some cruel 'law of nature' that would make God's children make kine of one another, but the malice of those who would give false council and raise themselves upon a throne of cruelty wrought.

"To each of us us given to bear a burden in our lives, some are lighter and some heavier, but none are more than we can bear, not if we have friends to help us carry it along the way. It is in my power to help lift the burden of Hunger and need from the shoulders of those of the ghoul-kin or the White Court." your gaze travels across the three vampires, sitting together almost back to back, as though expecting the axe to fall at any moment. "But that gift is worth nothing if you do not also choose not to give in to the darker instincts of your nature. For making that choice I thank you."

Just as you had intended this is not what they had been expecting, So you take advantage of that surprise ruthlessly, setting down rules for when it one might feed and how, only with permission and without permanent harm...Save in battle, the demon in your mind points out, and you cannot deny the point so you repeat it. On the goes, the formalities of guest right, familiar enough to those of the unseen world, but strange indeed to people born and raised in the modern world, of how breaking those rules would lead to exile, but also of parting freely chosen. Elections you leave as is save that now either a group of three or Sarah can call them.

"Above all else remember the golden rule..." you say in closing.

"Do onto others as you would others do onto you?" Paul, the vampire who had accepted the deal in the name of his fellows interjects.

"Let's just go with don't be an asshole, you guys have better things to worry about than whether it's the positive, the negative or the empathic form. We all know what an asshole looks like right?"

A laugh ripples through the whole company. Of course they do, no one ends up in Undertown by choice.

***​

20th of September 2006 A.D.

Of course being in charge isn't just about sitting speeches, it is also about driving a mother and her baby first to the supermarket to get some warm and sturdy clothes then to a clinic to get some already delayed shots, it is setting up the checking account and debit cards as well as finding out what meds Dean needs and getting them to him. It really shouldn't be that easy to get a pharmacist to hand you those without a doctor's note even at a compounding pharmacy, but in this case you are glad the system is glitching. Getting those who want it reintegrated into society is not going to be a natter of a few days, even a few weeks.

Essence at 9/12

Truth be told you are a little surprised when all three vampires take you up on the offer, though perhaps it shouldn't have. The White Court are fundamentally social beings, they need others to survive. Two hundred dollars a month are more than enough to get them all the movie seats to horror flicks they could want, though it hadn't just been the lack of money that had stopped them before, but a lack of control.

As for the work on the station itself most of the work you do this month is on the electrical grid so people without uncanny senses can walk around unhindered. It costs a good fifteen thousand dollars to fix the wiring, though in exchange you realize what has been powering the sickly lights you had found when you first stumbled over this place... Porter himself. An elemental moving around near a crossing of the Dragon Lines is a bit like a moving a magnet though an electrical field, not that it causes a current exactly, more like it's a proto-spell, a kind of shaped magic that is sensitive to will, in this case to the will of Adam and his gang as well as others who lingered around the station. Since they did not neat more than the poor and flickering lighting that is all they got.

Lost 115,000 Dollars (Jade Dog payment+rewiring the station)

That now raises the question of how you want to power the place, you could let it work off of the ley line as it had, there is more than enough power in here, but you worry about how safe it is to have the inhabitants define the lighting parameters when one of those inhabitants is a baby. On the other hand a generator would provide reliable power without any wibbly wobbly magic, but you would lose the chance to study the pattern which had converted the power to the ley lines to electricity. You could also get Harry in here to see if you can preserve the arcane lighting in some rooms while using a generator in others, but while you have no doubt he'd do it something tells you he would balk at being paid for his time and he already has so much to worry about.

What do you do?

[] Leave the magic-to-electricity connectors in place (can study later; lights and potentially other electrical applications at no cost)

[] Plug in a generator (6,000 Dollars+500 Dollars/month to operate)

[] Fetch Harry for a second opinion

OOC: As Molly does not have a crafting charm or enchanting she does not understand enough about how this works to do more than let it continue working or rip it out, but she got enough successes to understand that the effect is probably mutable and unpredictable given that is arose accidentally

 

[DragonParadox]

Exotic Elements ​

20th of September 2006 A.D.

Trying to track down a medicine man willing and able to take the Ways to Chicago on the strength 'trust me there's a Skinwalker on the loose' was what some wizards might call a Sisyphean task I just call it the most shit luck I'd had all year, well almost. It was coming on October soon so I'd be able to stop counting the Kemlerite Fan Reunion. It would almost be better if they'd just not answer at all, then at least I would not have to read twenty versions of the same excuses for why they can't help, can't tell me anything that will help, all topped off with the same well wishes at the end. I was a Warden after all, responsible for a big swath of the Midwest, just not enough that anyone would risk their skin or their knowledge on my say so. Absently I wadded up the latest note and tossed it in the wastebasket on the other side of the couch.

"Three points," he mock-cheered under his breath.

Being fair, hard as it was in this mood, I was keeping back plenty of things, like the fact that I'd learned about the thing from Molly, Pandora's Box on legs as Bob put it, before commenting too much on the legs in question. It was almost, almost enough for me to take Peabody's offer to pull some strings and get the job done, he'd keep really impressed by the Big Book of Yomi Wan, called it 'a mark of rare courage and skill' and a priceless addition to the Edinburgh Library, but I didn't want to pull some hapless wizard away from home in the middle of a war just because Peabody had them in a vice over not returning a book on time.

As though that weren't enough Murphy needed help with her latest case, a spate of deaths the peppers were calling the Recluse Poisonings, in a play on the spider and the fact that all three of the victims lived alone and as far as anyone could tell hadn't hurt a fly. Toxicology had been able to tell it was a poison, though they didn't have a match on it because there wasn't any natural poison that killed not just the victim but every living thing in them and on them. Sounded to me like a warlock looking for loopholes in the First Law,. Regardless he case it was indirect enough not to leave any traces to follow up with the Sight, like a black smudge on the face of the world. Only lead Murphy had been able to find is that all three had close relatives that went to John C. Haines Elementary. Me looming over them is not what those kids need...

There was a familiar knock on the door, loud but spaced out, Molly. I was barely up from the couch when I heard Mouse unlocking with the rattle of chains. Ever since he's gotten that phone Mouse was a lot more open about being more than your average dog and I wasn't quite sure how to take it. Sometimes it felt like having a roommate, or like how he thought having a roommate would feel from the TV shows he'd seen as a kid.

"So er... do you know anything about Dragon Nests?"

Dragon... I reached for my blasting rod without even thinking, for all the good it would do me if it were the capital D ones.

"Sorry I mean ley line nexuses. I was fixing one up for the spirit who claimed it and there are some people living there..."

The conversation that followed was long enough that it took us all the way across town, though a dodgy warehouse where the people were far too familiar with Molly and down into the depths of Undertown. "Hypothetically if I told your mom what you were doing down here what do you think she'd say?"

"That she's glad there's someone else to help me when she doesn't have the time." Now there was the smirk that said 'I've been waiting for weeks to land that one.' I'd have tipped my hat at it if I had one and if I thought Molly could afford a bigger head.

Instead I just nodded and motioned down the long damp tunnel. "After you."

***​

23rd of September 2006 A.D.

The Jade Dogs, as Molly had called them, were something else. Most of them looked so damn young, like they should be planning spring break, not guarding a place of power in the bowels of Undertown, but then out of the corner of my eye I would catch the mantis-like jerk of a nocturnal predator recoiling from the light atop my staff or the dirty green flash of a ghoul's eyes as the head peered over the shoulder, twisted as no human could.

"They are fine," came the reminder from beside me. More than the enormity of the subtle power hidden behind that 'fine' it was the tone that sent a chill down my spine. It wasn't the bravado of a kid empowered overnight, nor the hardheaded confidence if someone who had a hell's worth of horrors dropped into her head, it was simply a statement of fact. To her eyes there really was no difference between the vampire holding the mug of steaming tea like it is a grenade they are about to toss and the young mother trying to calm her baby.

"And this is Porter, Porter this is Harry Dresden, he's the Warden of Chicago."

The collection of boulders and rebar in roughly draconic shape opened lamplight eyes to consider it. "Hmm... Warden in Chicago."

"What...?" Admittedly not the wisest response, but it wasn't like seeing spirits animate pure elemental matter like this was common. I'd only met one other before and that was in the Ozarks, where there was still plenty of untamed wilderness for them to draw on. What was this a pipes and plutonium elemental?

"Maybe it's hinting you should make like Frederick the Second," one of the older ghouls laughed darkly. Joke's on you buddy I barely scraped a D in history.

"Where's this enchantment and what's it run on?" I ask Molly and the stone dragon.

So she did, even though the jargon was rough to decipher in places, halfway between electrician and Ancient Mai, leaving me scratching my head at the sheer weirdness. It was almost like the reverse of a wizard's natural aura, grounded in stone and bound in lightning, but there was something missing, something that made the power amenable to being manipulated.

Ring after ring of analyses runes blurred into one another, sputtered and sparked, an unnatural order in ten points. Ten's five times two a pentagram doubled, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the duality was. Then as I was metaphorically smashing my head against the wall I looked up at the neon lights, with the serial numbers still on them. Base ten Arabic numerals, like the stamp of man's hand in this part of the world. Beyond the ceiling were the hundred feet of earth and rock and above them the City of Chicago... the city. Of course, an environment that was made by man for the use of man, the elemental shared its nature and so when it passed through the leyline it created a field of...

"Chicagoness," Molly proclaimed it to be when I explain what I had found. "So it should be safe for everyone right?"

"As safe as the abstract idea of a city given magical weight," you shrug. "It's a neat little riddle." Part of me wondered if I could use the newfound understanding of city-wide magic to improve Little Chicago even more, maybe not the fidelity, that was already pretty good, but the safety, being able to ground attacks into it rather than into the model.

It was nearly enough to make me miss that I was not the only one mussing. "I wonder what would happen if you folded it down and down again, if you could focus and give it meaning... voice? It would make a kind of city spirit."

"Whoa there I know the Pistons are getting pissed, but I don't think we should invoke the wrath of Chicago on them just yet," I joked, though my smile may have come off a little forced.

"But it could counter the tech-bane, it would make mortal magic, especially wizard magic no longer short things!"

Something about my expression must have curbed Molly''s excitement a little, because she did not press, instead pointing out. "Or you could try to cast in a urban frame of mind, you know in harmony with the concrete and electrical grid, that should have a similar effect." She stopped, listening to a voice only she could hear. "Or if we could make an artificial ley-line shunt we could at least make your apartment as safe from the techbane as this place and you wouldn't even have to pay the power bill."

The scariest part was just how reasonable 'make your own ley line' sounded when compared to 'lets raise the patron god of Chicago'. "That's an interesting idea," I temporized as one of the girls watching giggled.

Do you try to pay Harry for his work?

[] Yes
-[] Write in with what

[] No, you will find some other way to make it up to him later

OOC: Just to be clear raising a City God would take a hell of a lot more energy than Bane did. Proper Exalted Crafting can do it, but Dresden does not know what that is and so his thoughts immediately go to darker places.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Study in Sorcery ​

23rd of September 2006 A.D.

As nice as the Last Station was starting to look you are still glad to be out in the sun again, the wistful golden light of autumn passing upon changing leaves, it's tshirt weather again, but alas that won't last long. "So how much do I owe you for that?"

"Nothing," he answers, the set of his jaw making it clear that he is more than willing to fight you on this and to be fair 'homeless commune needs you to check if neighboring magic is safe for the baby' is the kind of thing thing you would expect any decent person to help with pro bono, if it is necessary. That was one of the things dad had taught you about charity when you were little, it is not given to the deserving, but to those in need and as deserving as Deborah and Almaz, Sarah and Paul, even Adam and Bones might be, there is nothing wrong with your bank account balance, nor your ability to fill it.

"You know I'm their boss now?" you ask in a flash of insight, seemingly changing the subject, but Harry does not look the least bit fooled by the circuitous route the conversation is taking. "I am in charge of making sure they don't hurt anyone, but also I see to it that they have something to eat, someplace to sleep, I pledged to get those who want it a place in the sun again. If you want to get feudal about the whole thing I am their liege lady offering protection for fealty. You helped me fulfill that duty by taking time out of your own day."

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 8/12

"But that is my time though," he answers, a little taken aback, but still resolved.

You nod seriously. "It is, but what would you be doing with it otherwise? Not lazying around is my guess, I know what your job is like Harry, these days is feels like all I do when I see you is give you more work." With every word you allow sincerity and frustration to seep through "So please is I can't pay Harry Dresden PI for consulting let me pay Warden Dresden that he might better put those funds to good use protecting all of us."

Silence then a sigh, still not quite agreement.

Maybe a joke will help, you reason. "If it makes you feel better think of it as me paying my taxes."

"Woah there you really don't want to be giving the Council those kinds of ideas," he laughs almost despite himself.

"OK then donation in furtherance of your duties it is," you agree, then before he can get another word in you ask. "Do you take cash or credit?"

Finally Harry nods. "Alright then, but if there's anymore trouble you call me."

As you are getting the two thousand dollars out of the ATM after having been haggled down from three Harry says grimly. "Call me if there's trouble down there."

Catching the implication you look up at him, startled: "None of them are looking to make trouble, they just want some place to be safe."

"Ghouls are violent Molly..." he starts, but does not get to finish.

"Of course they are violent, they are demon scions cursed with an unending hunger. You'd have to be a saint not to want to lash out at the world for being born into that. I don't know about all of them but Sarah didn't know what she was, didn't know anything until she found Adam Bones and Lockjaw. Yeah they may not be perfect, but then neither are any of us, they deserve the chance to change and part of that is not being suspected for what they are rather than what they do."

Harry seems to come up short for answers for a moment.

"That'll teach me for forgetting whose daughter you are," he says at last.

Though the words warm you, you cannot help but notice him starring out the window a lot more on the drive back to his apartment. Maybe you are imagining things but... You shake off the urge to meddle, the man has a right to get lost in his own thoughts without you poking at them.

***​

28th of September 2006 A.D.

Thankfully you find Rosie in a much better spirits, last month's resolve had seen her through the nausea the aches and pains and all the other discomforts of pregnancy. It helps that her mother has resigned herself to the fact that she will give birth and is 'biding her time to argue to give up the baby after she's here', at least according to Rose herself. "But I'm not just gonna just get hormonal, post partum it's called I think and and hand off my baby."

"I don't think it works..." you had been about to say 'like mind control' before a sudden wave of guilt washed over you. "Like that," you finish quickly.

In the following days you teach her more than just how to close the windows to her proverbial dream tower, simple exercises of lucid dreaming give way to understanding her own mind, her hopes and, inevitably her fears that she may better defend herself against those who would use them against her. Far more times than you like the attempts end with her crying into a tissue, or on your shoulder from the weight of all-too-sharp understanding, like realizing that one of her greatest fears is not so much being alone in the world but having to crawl back to her parents.

But in the end your friend reaches that fragile plateau balanced upon the points of fear and dread as Usum calls them, enough control to dream true night after night, though you have no way to test it against intrusion

Rosie Gains 3+9 = 12/10 Progress -> Oneiromancy ● Gained

"Finally," she sighs as she takes off the ear-muffs. "No idea how all those zen monks and the Jedi do it I was going crazy from all the sitting still and looking inwards."

"Well the Jedi mostly do it by being fictional, but if you want to talk to an actual Nepalese monk and a teacher of mine I can take you to meet them."

"Er... not sure I'm ready for anyone you take lessons from," she motions vaguely at the small mound of books with Clippy propped against them ready to take dictation.

---

Meta Vote.

Do we change Essence XP mechanics?

[] Yes, 8 XP refunded, use the new rules for Essene raised by total XP spent

[] No, leave things as they are

OOC: I spent way too long trying to think of a vote to end this on that was not 'take Rosie to talk to magicians again', something she does not need because she crit her background roll and then I remembered the meta-vote.

 

[DragonParadox]

Spectral Soiree ​

28th of September 2006 A.D.

When Lydia had told you that she 'took over' Bachelor's Grove Cemetery you are not sure what to say, which from the laugh on the other end of the call seems to be the point. She goes on to explain that the place has been unsettled since last Halloween, the dead walking abroad and troubling the living, a half-healed scar in the spiritual landscape of the city newly torn open and bleeding. "Dad handled it, but he wasn't very gentle about it, swept up those who could leave and sent them on and then she nailed the spirits walking abroad back in their graves. That's one way to impress their own mortality upon them." She pauses. "It's not like the specters were harmless, one lady was possessing sleepwalkers and getting them to walk out into the rain until one of them got pneumonia and another old haunt got one of those paranormal activity cameramen, you know the documentaries, yeah one of them ended up in a psych ward thinking they were 'hearing voices'."

"Wait the cameraman?" you ask intrigued. "Why?"

"Reminded him of an old rival back in the cane and top hat days, and I use that term lightly, similar height and both were redheads. That's all it takes sometimes. Wouldn't even have been strong enough to make noises on the other side of the fence but for the fact that attention is kind of like prayer, you know being mindful of things?"

"Oh... so because a lot of people were watching Fear or something it makes the ghosts stronger, sort of like ancestor worship by proxy. I can see how they would be grouchy." You try not to think too hard where Usum might have had the chance to taste worship and the bitter tang of disrespect.

"That's the name of the show, how do you...?"

"It's on MTV."

Lydia goes quiet a moment. "Not to sound like a party popper..."

"Pooper," you correct.

"That thing, but people used to have a lot more respect for the dead than to dare themselves to intrude on their domain. My father brought down the judgement of iron on the heads of the dead for their misdeeds but they were provoked, sure as stwitching a hound on the snout. Anyway I reversed some of the harsher judgements and got everyone to agree they could have their time under the stars so long as they stopped bedeviling the living, we are doing a square dance tomorrow to celebrate the bargain made, but ah... we've been having trouble with plain old vandalism. If one of them decided to jump the fence tomorrow night some of the dead might do something dramatic." She takes a deep breath. "Most of them are gentle you understand, but there'll be a lot of pathos in the air, a lot of memories floating to the suface. I wanted to have that up front before I invited you since I'm hoping you can keep help me keep things in order. I didn't want you to feel..."

"Lydia," you cut her off. before she can tie herself into more knots "I'd love to come. Who else will be there?"

"Olivia was the only one from the Order who said she wanted to come, she's curious about this stuff and uh..."

"You invited Daniel," you guess, biting back a laugh as you recall how conscientious your brother had been about the yard-work this month and imagine how he'd go about asking for permission to go to a ghost dance in a cemetery.

"It's a dance, it's nice to have a partner you know," the younger girl gets out in a rush.

"Sure," you agree lightly. "So do you need me to patrol the perimeter or..."

"No, then you wouldn't be able to participate, I thought maybe you could have a talk with Warden Dresden or his friends in the police Department, Special Investigations I think they were called, tell them to have some officers on the lookout, that should be enough."

Harry has more than enough on his plate, but would detective Murphy listen to you if you just called with a story about a cost dance? Would she try to shut it down for being too dangerous? There is one other way you can think to have eyes on the fence and all the gates, invest a bunch of security cameras all around the Rubio Woods forest preserve, but you are not sure how the dead would take the presence of dark spirits so near and when you ask her neither does Lydia, she does not have the time or the essence to check with all of them. "It should be fine with most of the folk here, but you never know how much of the faith they had in life they carry into death and or how they might interpret something that does not fit with their understanding of Scripture."

What do you do?

[] Try to talk to Detective Murphy about providing security

[] Use Cyberdevils to keep an eye on the place

[] Write in

OOC: I know Fear never had an episode in Bachelor's Grove Cemetery, but the place is known for haunting and this is an alternative reality

 

[DragonParadox]

Passions of the Dead and the Living ​

28th of September 2006 A.D.

Lieutenant Murphy's desk stretches out like a rampart of lacquered wood all but hidden under neat piles of paperwork between the computer and the twelve ounce coffee cup that looks solid enough to bludgeon a man across the head. As for the officer herself, she takes in the sight of you and Lydia with the sort of weary gaze mom gave last year when she was informed she was in charge of the Christmas pageant at Amanda's school after the teacher in charge somehow got the mumps. The question is does she think of you and Lydia as an untimely blight on her plans or just a pair of seven year olds.

"What's this about Bachelor's Grove? It's still a month to Halloween."

Before you can speak Lydia clears her throat. "Yeah, that's a good part of the reason I want to do it now and no later, besides promising to do it of course. The Dead have a lot of energy behind them thanks to that TV show and vow to be good or not if they take that into Samhain someone's gonna have a visitation they don't want. Plus after all that's happened they deserve to engage with the living properly and not through cold glass."

"Can you take that from the top Ms..."

"Rhi," your friend gives her name, in English 'king' or 'lord', though you gather that Welsh naming conventions do not really work like that. Arwan had never forgotten what he was, what he intended to be again. "You can just call me Lydia." She flashes a shy smile, taking full advantage of those dimples while she can, you note amused.

"My father was a traveling mediator in the ways of death and the dead, keeping the living and the dead safe from each other's worst impulses. Alas I do not think separation works a well as it once did these days " As she speaks her grows not older, but more sober, an image of innocence frozen upon a marble slab. "Modern man has lost much of his fear of death and in many ways it is good that it is so, graveyards are no longer the final internment of whole generations dead to sickness, practitioners of medicine are no longer stigmatized for seeking the secrets still buried in dead flesh, but as fears of earthly maladies fade there is little enough to ward the living away from the spiritual dangers of improper contact. Most of the faiths of this land assume that the living would have a healthy weariness of the places of death and so do not teach as the ancestor worship of old did the propitiation and the bargaining with those who have crossed the Veil. Haloween is a time for handing out candy, for sending out children abroad in the night, content in the belief that it is all good fun, the fascination for the macabre and otherworldly is intemperate. I do not believe is is the dead who should be made to suffer for this lapse."

Much to your surprise the detective does not look the least loss at the manifesto, which you suspect has more to do with Lydia's disagreements with her father than anything. Leaning back in her somewhat battered chair the officer asks: "Right, people are pissing off ghosts because they don't believe ghosts exist anymore, but what do the ghosts want?"

"Pathos," Lydia answers with emphasis that makes it clear she did not just translate it into Latin to sounds cool. "They seek to be, and to be is to feel, desire or duty, love or hate, all ghosts need to feel things they treasured and held close in life in order to linger, to resist the current that would bear them ever onward into the unknown. It can be as simple as a specter with a passion for art lingering in an art gallery, as convoluted as a murder victim appearing only to descendants of witnesses of of their murder on the anniversary of the deed. Where things get complicated is where the living are involved. As one spirit explained it to be the difference between emotion for a place or an idea and emotion provoked by interacting with the living is like the difference between food and drink, you need the former to subsist , but the latter is intoxicating. In that context a 'ghost hunter' show with hundreds of thousands of people watching for the chill down their spine, but with no investment in any particular spirit is like... sending hundreds of bottles of unlabeled vodka in the mail. The recipient does not have to drink them and indeed most would prefer not to, but if there is nothing else to do, no company more enjoyable..."

From the way her eyes darken for just an instant the lieutenant is no stranger to solitary drinking. "So you are giving the ghosts something fun to do so they won't break into the hard liquor. What's to stop them from doing it later?"

"Power unshaped evaporates sooner or later, in this case I would wager sooner because it's so hollow," you reply.

"And you need police officers to keep trespassers out so they don't get mobbed you said over the phone."

Lydia opens her mouth, to argue with the word 'mobbed', you would guess, but in the end she closes it and just nods, the details do not matter as much as making sure no one gets hurt. Instead she asks how much it would cost, offering to pay without hesitation.

"I'm going to need a signature and something to put on the forms and ghost dance isn't going to cut it," the lieutenant says.

"Seance," you offer simply. "It's the truth, but no one has to believe we are actually communing with ghosts, just that we don't want anyone to crash our Ouija Board party."

In response Lieutenant Murphy cracks a smile, unlike most people in her position she'd taken the detailed explanation of how spirits work and why remarkably well, more relaxed for knowing. "Glad it isn't some monster that goes bump in the night on the loose this time."

The words bring you up short, there is such a monster you know, the Skinwalker, but you can't think of anyway Special Investigations would be able to so much as ruffle its fur feathers or scales. Yet you have no doubt Karin Murphy would want to know anyway, this is her city and her area of responsibility and this is the woman who had braved Arctis Tor with a gun loaded with cool iron. "Perhaps it might be in your favor if the detective where to be somewhat upset at the Wizard Dresden for keeping her in the dark..." It takes you a moment to realize what Usum is getting at at which point you are very glad for all the practice you have had not blushing.

Do you tell Murphy about the Skinwalker?

[] Yes, she deserves to know and who knows if those people from the Library of Congress have her back maybe she can do something about it

[] No, it is more likely to get her or one of her officers hurt

[] Write in

OOC: Well here we are, Harry has done a Harry and kept Murphy in the dark again, question is what are you going to do about it?

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Faceless Fear ​

28th of September 2006 A.D.

Glancing at Lydia you find her looking back at you with the same uncomfortable expression. Should we tell her? the look seems to ask, the answer already clear in the gesture. With a sigh you turn back to the detective: "Yeah about that..." She does not say anything, great posture, you are sure she's really good at interrogation, but those skills are not needed here as you continue: "I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there is one in the city right now. Has been for months, it seems. It's called a naagloshii, and it's not something you can deal with by conventional means. Unless you have Navajo medicine men in the force, or can call one from another department that is. Then I'd appreciate backup."

"Like the werewolf?" she asks tightly.

It takes you a moment to realize what she is referring to from Bob's stories, that time a Loup Garou had torn up a police station before Harry killed him.

"If anything worse, as strong and fast and equally impervious to mundane weapons, but also skilled in sorcery as only something that had been practicing it for millennia can be."

"What kind of sorcery?" The notepad practically materializes in her hands, if you did not see the way her knuckles tighten about the pen you would think she is talking this whole thing in stride.

"Shapeshifting and veils are a given, other than that, depends on what magicians it devoured,"

"It's after Harry." The words are markedly not a question. Her forehead creases with well worn lines of stress, making you really wish Usum had kept his suggestions to himself

"Most likely but this thing isn't mindlessly gorging itself, it framed him back in July to get him out of the way when the Red Room murders were taking place."

"It's working for someone else..." She trails off, pen hovering over paper, contemplating perhaps what might be giving orders to something 'like a loup garou with magic' at its beck and call.

"It could just be doing all this for its own entertainment," Lydia cuts in. "As I understand it fear is the coin their breed deals in, Warden Dresden is an important piece on the board of the White Council, removing him would ripple inward across the whole of the conflict, breathing terror into the thoughts of many strong of mind and magic."

"A magical sadist shapeshifter." Setting down the pen with a clink Lieutenant Murphy ponders you and Lydia for a moment. There is more than worry in that look, more than just the concern for what the skinwalker might do, the shadow of old hurts not yet healed. "And you are planning to kill it with a sword."

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 11/12

"And fire, it's traditional," you quip, trying to lighten the mood. Alas it lands with a thud. "If I can find some way to nail its feet to the floor and keep it from veiling I'm betting I can kill it," you add more seriously.

Rather than answer to you the detective turns to Lydia. "You still think the ghost dance is a good idea knowing that thing is out there? If it's after Harry and it likes to terrify its victims it might go after people he knows."

"Everything I said about Bachelor's Grove is still true and short of never passing beyond my own threshold there isn't much I can do to make myself safer from a naagloshii in the short run."

"And in the long run?" She does not entirely sound like she wants the answer, but it too professional not to ask.

"At the right time, in the right place even deathless things may die," your friend replies with cold certainty that needs no artifice of speech. Looks like I found some more of that backup. She licks her lips nervously then decides to add. "My father is in some ways alike in power, though most unalike in character. He's not here right now so I'll have to do my best."

The lieutenant mutters something under her breath, you catch her taking the Lord's name in vain and the word 'children', which is very unfair, you are almost eighteen, three more months to go. At least she does not try to order you to stay out of trouble, perhaps because she understands how counterproductive it is to give an order she knows won't be followed. She promises to be there tomorrow night then bids the both of you a curt goodbye.

The door had not even closed behind you when she picks up her phone.

What do you dress like and who if anyone do you invite to the dance of the dead?

[] Write in

OOC: This is Molly's first chance to dress up in the quest so I thought I'd give you a chance to do a character moment. Also the story works better with a break here.