Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[DragonParadox]

Picking Up the Pieces ​

3nd of October 2006 A.D.

"Wrap that up, it might start to hurt when you are not burning power," you throw Andrea a the cleanest rag you can find which is not to say saying much. "Is everyone alright?"

Abel is trying to look alright, but he is clearly not, covered in cuts and bruises and what you can now see is a swollen knee, his aunt has a nasty bruise on the left side of her face and Dean had clearly been fed upon to judge by the marks on his neck. So you start handing out healing potions as you shed your own aches and pains with the false form of flame and brass.

"Not false," Usum interjects serenely. "A truth too weighty for this world to bear now."

"Are they... are they still alive?" Theodora turns over one of her former torments as he groans in pain

"That depends on how literal you want to be with the term, that one's dead-dead," you motion at the corpse of their master.

Harry starts to smile, maybe it was even going to be a laugh, then the expression freezes over on his face and he gets that faraway look that can only mean one thing. Thanks God Gard is too busy organizing the pull-out to notice. One would think a Fallen Angel would have taught him to keep a poker face by now.

"You are rather sharper of eye than most at present oh Queen in Blood and Ashes Crowned, and your eyes are often upon him," You sigh, not sure if embarrassing is better than ominous.

"Leave the body, I want to learn as much as I can from it, the Yama Kings do not send his like abroad in the world often..." As the wizard turns towards you you notice a wince of pain, how careful he is being to keep his right hand bent at the elbow.

As you hand him the third potion he shakes his head. "There's others than need it more than me."

Click. Gard closes her radio with an aid of professional satisfaction then in the tone of someone who has obviously had to say something like this hundreds of times before. "There is not, unless of course you wish to heal the demon-ridden girl whose unwelcome guest life-linked an infant."

Anger and relief chase each other through your thoughts, but you manage to throttle the former. It's fine, the baby's OK. You are honest enough to know if the baby had not been OK would would have struggled not to send the souls of the lesser Akuma screaming back to their master. But now that you think about it... what are you going to do about them, just send them out to work more evil in the world like you had done to the Red Court vampires on the shore of Lake Erie. At least I would have some place to put them now if I made the offer...

The sight of Dean hands balled into fists, unable to even meet the eyes of his rescuers, of Theodora trying to make herself look small and Abel picking up one of the automatics gives lie to the thought.

Where could I put them? The same place as their victims and tell them all to play nice? Suddenly this whole thing feels too big for you, like you are stumbling around in the dark and knocking things over only every time you break something it's not you that gets hurt it's the people around you.

"J, J is that you?" In the organized chaos of the evacuation you had not noticed Tuzi waking up but even with senses less sharp no one could have missed the sheer joy in those words.

"What are you going to do about him?" you ask Harry.

"Me?" he turns the question back on you. "Nothing, he didn't break the Laws, it's not Warden's work."

"Faking his own death is a crime though," Murphy sounds weary as you feel. "God knows how Butters is going to explain the corpse in the morgue. I don't suppose it will just spontaneously melt now that we have him."

"No, why would it?" you ask, confused.

"I don't know, fairy tale logic." The detective throws her hands in the air, maybe to keep from doing something more violent to the scenery to judge from the look in her eyes. "This whole thing is going to be hell to explain."

Maybe I can help with that, you think. After all what's the point of being the best at something in the room if you are not going to help, even if that thing is lying.

What do you do

[] [AKUMA] Reattach their limbs and let them go back to Lady Eiko
May lessen Eiko's punishment from Emma-O when she returns to his side

[] [AKUMA] Try to recruit them, it's clear they have been tricked into this
Will require some way to break their oaths to the Yama King, if successful would lead to insights into Chi and the disciplines of the Jade Court

[] [AKUMA] Write in

[] [AFTERMATH] Don't meddle, you have enough on your plate already
A poor, or poorly received suggestion could make Murphy think less of you

[] [AFTERMATH] You have a suggestion: Write in:
Good suggestions are likely to earn back some goodwill with Murphy

[] [AFTERMATH] Write in

OOC: For anyone wondering, I thought about putting all this in the last update, but I figured it would have pulled focus away from the duel itself.

 

[DragonParadox]

To Judge and be Judged ​

3nd of October 2006 A.D.

it would be simplest to kill them. Oh how you wish you could blame Usum for that thought, but you cannot really, it is not born of some careless act of malice or desire for vengence against the servants of Emma-O. All akuma are bound to the will of their maker and do his bidding in the world, that bidding is a dark and twisted thing fueled by the blood of their victims, how many more would die if you turned a blind eye? Mon's words come back to you all too clearly: kindness to the guilty can be cruelty to the innocent. Should I be the one who decides guilt and innocence? Looking around at the faces of the people who had helped you fight this battle you wonder what they would say,.

From the frown between his brows you guess dad's guessed you are thinking of something more weighty than what Detective Murphy can put on a report while Gard had turned away to organize her companions for a quick getaway, Harry's busy trying to clean himself up, not that you think there's much hope for that White Sox t-shirt. The only one whose thoughts you can guess at easily are Brother Divisimar from his stories of his order. While they do their best to deal peacefully with shen when they can the servants of the Yama Kings cannot be in harmony with the world for their masters are the world's ruin.

As for sending them to Lady Eiko it risks her plot as well as whoever else might be involved in it. If Emma-O's thoughts would settle on her with suspicion even for a moment their fate would be much worse than death. Is it worth it just to spare torturers dying? Faith would push one to say yes, to trust that for them too there is salvation, but the knowledge of how tight and insidious the chains on them is like a lead anchor to that hope. I should have just killed them in the fight, your thoughts spiral down to helplessness.

You are halfway though marshaling the arguments you are going to use on Detective Murphy, starting with 'they are already dead' and continuing with 'they have to eat people and their master has no reason to command restraint' when the answer comes to you.

"We should call the Library of Congress, maybe they will take the prisoners. Harry you could make circles to keep them in once I stitch them back together right?"

After a moment's thought he nods, but Brother Divisimar speaks up against it: "They are dangerous now, not only fingers on a hand that had been broken. Send them to the heart of another's power and their master might make more of them, toold fit for a subtler, darker purpose."

Remembering Von Trier's cold eyes and whispering aura you shake your head. "I think they can deal with it, I'll... write down some pointers. It's the only way not to..."

As the words trail off dad comes up to you and squeezes your shoulder, managing somehow to make cold metal a comfort. "Surely it is wroth asking," he says looking around, in what is very much not a questioning tome.

"Closest thing to a legal option we have," Karin Murphy sighs. "Jesus Christ," she mutters so low you practically have to read it off her lips, more a prayer than taking the Lord's name in vain that's for sure..

It only takes you about a minute to unceremoniously entomb the body of the lesser Akuma under concrete for later, by the time you are done the lieutenant is still on the phone. "Yeah he's agreed to hold them... He's sure... That's right lesser, I have Harry's conformation and..." she looks over at you and Lydia, not quite sure if she should be giving teenagers as her sources, but eventually she does so.

Whoever is on the other side of the call has to talk to their superiors leaving you to stack the dismembered prisoners in the back of one of the Monoc vans. In the silence that follows you approach the detective. "About J and the body you could just not explain things say J was out of town, the case if just going to be classed with bigfoot and aliens." Both of which exist, you don't add aloud as you manage to invoke the ghost of a smile at least , a very tired ghost from the look of things.

"We know how to make bodies vanish," Bones speaks up from the back, the first words he had spoken since his rescue. The rest of the ghouls had cried and hugged, fretted over the people they had been separated from, but the two elders had not joined in. They had known Adam best you know...Everyone grieves different, you remind yourself and offering professional services is reasonable enough.

It takes Detective Murphy a moment to realize what they had offered. "That will not be necessary." To her credit the tone is well practiced professional courtesy like she gets people offering to eat inconvenient bodies all the time A moment later her phone goes off. The Library of Congress had agreed to take the prisoners off your hands tomorrow, but for the rest of today you have other matters to settle.

***​

As you lead the Jade Dogs back through the tunnels to the last station you ask Lockjaw how Adam had died. It's not good... but then you had not been expecting good, only bad and worse.

"Burned 'im he did, the big bone head you killed with dark fire, or darkness in the shape of fire, don't rightly know I'm not a wizard, but there wasn't nothing left of Adam when he was done. The screams... fuck I thought the screams would go on forever."

"Did Adam have any particular faith or spirituality? What would he have wanted done?"

The old ghoul looks down as though to find some insight in the cracked concrete. "If he was killed in a fair fight by another ghoul he'd have liked the winner to eat him like it's... traditional I guess. With the way he actually went I figured you already did what he would have wanted to have done." At your confused look he snorts and gives a tight-lipped smile. "Revenge."

You nod. Somehow it doesn't feel like it's enough.

"Figure the young 'uns are expecting something more," Lockjaw says after a moment. From his tone it's clear he is not just thinking about the other Jade Dogs and just as clear eh has no idea what to say. Room to grieve is not something that had been afforded to him before and now it yawns before him like an undiscovered land filled with pitfalls.

How do you memorialize Adam?

[] A eulogy, you have not known him long, but for that time it seemed to you he was doing the best he could with what life had dealt him

[] Action, you will make sure something like this cannot happen so easily in the future
-[] Write in measures to make the Last Station more secure, particularly complex changes will add to the number of actions needed to refurbish it

[] Write in

OOC: This is a culture-building moment for the ghouls and, to an extent, for the Jade Dogs as a whole.

 

[DragonParadox]

In Memory, in Hope ​

4nd of October 2006 A.D.

Essence Restored to 12/12
Gain 1 Willpower -> Now at 7/9

There is something daunting about the wall at the back of the armory, smooth concrete laid the better part of a century ago when all these tunnels were still part of the daylight world. the arcane chisel in your hand, unfortunate love-child of a drill and a jackhammer that could only have been designed in the Wicked City hums in eagerness. What kind of font would best suit Adam? After ten whole minutes of looking at pictures of writing you sigh and set Clippy down. That is not the real question is it Molly? It's how big I should make it? How many names am I expecting to fit in these twenty square yards? It is hard not to flinch from the thought, but you cannot deny it. All you can do is live up to it.

***​

Not only war but peace

"I did not know Adam all that well, our first meeting was more than a little rocky, but once we understood each other, we spoke together and made a pact that would help everyone in this room. This..." you pull a chord and light floods in not the sterile while of cheap neon but warm gold that softens the contours of the mismatched furniture makes the colors of plastic tables pop, turns the work of happenstance and cheap Ikea spending binges into something more more, something whole. "Is the place he helped protect, the place he gave his life to bring warning to. Though he might scoff to hear it, he died a hero."

Not death but life

"He lived a hero as well, in the things he did not do as much as those he did," you continue, gaze sweeping the faces of young and old alike, in scores of eyes seeing reflected the fear of what had transpired in these tunnels, but behind it, beside it, a hardening resolve to match your own, to ensure nothing like this ever happens again. "He did not take for himself more power than what was needed to protect the community, keeping discipline with an even hand, fulfilling his duties when he was called and for the rest Adam like all of us was living his life, finding out who he was now, I know I still struggle to answer that question sometimes when I light up and start to fly like a Christmas float with only half the lights turned on."

Laughter ripples though the onlookers, a moment's levity turned bittersweet for the empty chair at the 'big table' where the leadership of the Jade Dogs still sits, even though it had been broken in the fighting. That much at least you can fix

Not alone but together

"I cannot promise you that there will be no more monsters, no more fights in the future, but this I swear for the sake of the fallen as much as the future. We will be better prepared, with each day, with each weak with each year. We will prosper together and grow, together, Adam's sacrifice will not be in vain not will it be forgotten."

Gain 1 Willpower -> Now at 8/9

The clapping is nice, the cheers are two, but most of all you like to see the confidence flowing from you to them, even if you don't have a bottomless well yourself it is enough, it has to be.

For his part Porter has stayed away from the gathering, not out of any dislike for Adam, but simply because he is uneasy in the presence of mortality and fears that he would make others likewise. "It... a mystery... ever... hidden.... from my... sight." When you try to offer an appology for bringing foes to his door he waves it off with a shake of his tail that sounds like grinding boulders. "Storms come, stone endures, better to be in the path of the flood than buried so deep you never feel the rain."

"Do you have any ideas how we might keep something like this from happening in the future?" you ask tentatively, not wanting to put him on the spot.

"The Chained One was greater in will an understanding than I and so he could ward me off even in this place, but.... hmm... If I had a means to strike from afar the ward would have availed him not. Greater powers than he have tried to chain me. Only one succeeded and he is no more."

Even though you are itching to know who that might be, that is not what you are talking about here. "What do you have in mind in terms of striking from a distance?"

"This is a train station yes, not just a delving in the stone. I am all that it is and thus can empower than just as the small shadow in does your portable telephone."

You are not sure what it says about you that the words 'rocket turrets and spider mines' are the first things to come to mind, other than being a Starcraft player. At least you did not get inspired by the Zerg...

Although...

Nope, nope, moving on. "I can do that, the physical bits at least, if you can just slide in."

"If they are a nature part of the station," the stone spirit confirms with a nod.

With that you turn in for the day, time to go home and... explain some things. Some of it is going to be easy. Daniel asking how Lydia did, Mathew looking for an excited story, but do you tell your mom and tad about the reason you let Eiko go or how thoroughly you killed her boss?

[] Tell Molly's parents about aiding the conspiracy against Emma-O

[] Explain Murder is Meat and how you used it

[] Do both

[] Write in

OOC: Next up will be the prisoner transfer since that is today so I could not move on to improving the station directly.

 

[DragonParadox]

The Perils of Power ​

5nd of October 2006 A.D.

Though your dreams are filled with shadows none of them take shape and if you wake a little out of breath, well that can be put down to the fact that you have to admit to your parents that you just ate a soul... spirit, whichever. Something tells you mom and dad's reactions are not going to be dictated by that distinction, no matter how fine Usum decides to split the thread.

Thankfully you do not have to jump right into the lion's den, not with the roar of one of the cubs so near your ear. "Mom! Mom this stupid hairdrier is busted again!"

Leech has been growing out her hair over the last few months, eliciting a brief bout of teasing from Matthew about the supposed desire to attract boys which had been fixed by a few kicks to the shin and constant complaints about the hairdrier which sadly is not amenable to being fixed with judicious application of violence.

"Hold on. I'm coming to help!" you shout back, quickly ducking into her room.

It's only once you had 'fixed' the hairdrier by turning it on properly and had almost finished helping her dry off that your sister asks: "So what are you buttering her up for?"

"What makes you think I'm...?"

"You hate it when I wash my hair in the morning, there's no way you'd be encouraging me if you didn't have some other devious purpose in mind. Do you need to visit the Sunken City R'yleth for a shopping trip or something?"

The question shocks a laugh out of you... and an answer. "It's not something I want to do, it's something I did."

"Well, what was it? Tell!" she commands, with all the imperiousness she could muster. The fluffy Sponge Bob socks do not make for a very impressive stomp

Struggling to keep a smile sure to be poorly received off your face you shake your head. "It'd be dangerous for you to know, I'm not even telling mom half of it."

"But you are telling her the other half right?" she insists. "Come on I told you about falsifying school records. Your secret isn't illegal... it's not illegal is it?" Your sister sounds more excited that worried. Maybe giving her a demon assistant was not the best idea.

As though reading your mind Leech raises her voice in the direction of her phone. "Wraith what's my sister going to tell mom?"

"I am not authorized to provide that information," comes the pleasant but implacable reply.

"Boo," Leech makes a face at the phone and the spirit within then to your surprise she turns around for a quick hug. "Whatever it is I'm sure it'll be fine." With that she splits out of the room, taking the stairs two at a time to breakfast.

Heartened by the vote of confidence you wait until everyone else is out of the house before meeting with mom and dad in the living room. "This is starting to become a habit isn't it?"

Mom briefly struggles with a frown at your tone, but still in a good mood overall from the fact that you had managed to get back home from Southworks without a mark on you. the fact that Harry had gotten hurt might have lead her to believe that he and dad had been taking most of the risks a fact which dad himself had not seen fit to contradict. After all risk was in the eye of the beholder...

As you think back to how relieved she had been you almost hold the secret back. Would she get anymore than Leech out of knowing really? And for what? She so can know just kind of weird powers you have? When it that going to help? You shake the thought off. Mom deserves to know and from you not someone else. Harry isn't going to say anything but the next person who notices might not be so well disposed

"This is about the hotel?" Dad breaks the awkward silence. "Something that vampire said?"

"I... can't talk about that part with mom here." You raise a hand to ward off the angry response. "Please, trust me, it's not safe for... practically anyone given who its a secret from, dad only qualifies because of the Sword."

The two of them exchange a familiar look, the sort all children know and dislike in equal measure parents conspiring. Just this once you are fine with it. Mom will be more at ease knowing that if it is something she has to know dad will tell her anyway "What about the other part?" she asks.

"The mastermind behind all of this, the akuma I dueled that was worse in some ways that the Denarians, they just let something in that given some time, long or short can wrench the wheel away. The vampires of the Jade Court are not so lucky, they are made from those already damned to Yomi Wan, a kind of hell and a kind of test. if you pass the test you can beak out, break back into the world of the living with your corpse as the key, but no matter that this is a test that confers powers upon the one who passes it it is also breaking the rules. Each soul escaped from the Thousand Hells can give itself back to its dark lords for power, for knowledge, for skill and lordship, it matters little in the end. What does matter is that these unfortunates condemned once by divine diktat, twice by their own folly are far more in the hands of their masters than any human could ever sell themselves. The demon does not take the wheel, it makes of them a ship, the Ship of Theseus, cutting, molding, adding as they please."

Mom is watching you like a hawk, so much so that you wonder guiltily if she can somehow see where this is going. No, you realize as you listen to the words that are flowing now through your lips as though of their own accord, it's just that this does not sound quite like you, at least not the you that is Molly Carpenter. Much like when you had written the Big Book, knowledge, insight bubbles up beyond words, only lightly constrained by the grammar and syntax of English.

"The one I killed at the end... my crown called him the Will of Kakrui and it does not lie, that was all that was left, save perhaps some kernel of the man he had been, enough to feel degradation, to know without knowing what it had once been so I... destroyed it."

Seeing the confusion on dad's face you sigh. "I don't mean I killed it, I mean I destroyed it, nothing will return to Kakuri-Wan to be send once more on the errands of the Daimyo of the Dark, the spirit that was once a soul is gone. I tore it to shreds of essence. That is not something I can do with any mortal soul, thank God, only deathless spirits."

Before either of your parents can answer a thought so preposterous comes to mind you almost let out a nervous laugh. Could I do that to one of the Fallen? Yet in that place within deeper than Usum's resting place whence metaphysical certainties come you do not hear a 'no'.

"This power it... came from the same place didn't it?" Mom asks, carefully. The horror you had been half afraid to see in her eyes is not there, just the struggle to understand, to make the pieces fit. Alas you do not think she will have much luck. "Maybe it has power, authority over these things?"

That doesn't seem right, you think, you're sure that you could unravel spirits that are not of Yomi Wan that are not dark at all but bright, but if it helps your mom sleep at night what harm is there in nodding? No, again you close your eyes. I can get through this. "It's broader than that."

Your parents are quiet a long moment, then dad speaks up: "Alright." Not 'be careful' not 'promise not to use it for this or that', just 'alright', an ocean of trust in one word. He always does like to think the best of people, you think. Your smile is more than a little shaky, but it is a smile nonetheless.

Mom reaches out across the table to take your hand. "You shouldn't use it, I don;t know much about spirits and demons, but this much..." she gives a long rattling breath and for one terrifying moment it looks like she might start to cry, you have no idea how to react to mom crying. "Those that can't die fear death more than any mortal man or woman can. If they know you can give it to them they will come after you."

What do you reply?

[] Promise to exercise caution in the use of Murder is Meat

[] Do not make the promise, it is a power like any other, if something is dangerous enough, evil enough it should be destroyed, not for a season, not for a year, not for a century but forevermore

[] Write in

OOC: This was going to move on to the next action, but then I got into Molly's head as she described this and into her parents and it felt like disfavor to all three of them to rush though it.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Straightforward Solutions ​

5nd of October 2006 A.D.

Just how many more restrictions do you expect me to take on mom? you bristle, though the thought never gets spoken, on second thought all the better for it. She's not asking for a promise to never kill something all the way dead again, but to be cautious. What that means is still up to you and you know your mother knows that as well. "I'll be careful," you nod firmly, even though there is a part of you that agrees with Usum's assessment. "When oh Lady of Dark Arising would be be wiser to let a foe return than with vengence in their heart than to drive the dagger fully through. "

"Thanks Molly," Mom answers, breathing a little easier. She does not even grumble at writing and signing off on another bullshit excuse for the school,

In a way you guess it is a 'family emergency', dad is going to be coming with and it is very urgent to get those vampires in some place more secure than lying in pieces in Harry's living room, circles or not.

***​

On a scale of one to Men in Black 2 the agents of the Library of Congress rate a solid seven for how noticeable they are. The trio of vans are powder blue not black and the windows aren't tinted, though they are remarkably thick. As the driver of the lead one rolls his down, you notice the edge glints bluish purple rather than the green of normal glass, alchemically treated

"More's Morning Movers," the man says, looking over his sunglasses at detective Murphy, because of course they have those. "One hundred percent safe delivery."

"This way," she motions towards Harry's place, the door ajar, stacked boxes covered with tarps clearly visible. What better way to pass off a vampire than in a coffin after all? It's traditional.

The lead agent who introduces himself as 'Greg' though you doubt you'd be able to take that one to the bank, seems rather nonplussed at the state his prisoners are in.

"Best wake them up first, procedure is to feed fangs before transfer so they don't act irrationally. I know these aren't your regular fangs but they still need a drink and get cranky if they don't get it for long. That's what the report said."

Lieutenant Murphy just nods, but you are a bit more dubious about the nine agents can handle all the prisoners. "Are you sure...?"

"Oh yeah, More's got the tools for the job," 'Greg' proclaims in a faux-cheerful tone like a late night TV add that hides something darker. "Let's get inside and I'll show you."

Harry is clearly not enthused at letting any kind of spooks past his threshold and the muttered 'sorry about that, it's business' does not help much. These people had clearly not been chosen for their diplomatic skills, though you quickly find out just what they had been chosen for..

The head agent sets a duffel bag on the counter with a clink, half metal, half plastic, your enhanced senses tell you. Out of it he pulls a sleek looking collar, black steel with futuristic looking studs on it, wouldn't look out of place as a accessory in some clubs you've been to. Judging from his frown dad had figured out what they were for before Agent Greg starts talking.

"Mark Two Compliance Collar, it can deliver shocks, but that is just to get a fang's attention if they start to rage out. The important bit is the C4 in them. Enough to blow the head clean off the toughest..." he snorts and seems to unwind a bit. "I'll spare you the marketing shall I? Good enough to blow off the head off anything we'd agree to transport cross country in a van."

"Who has the controls?" You ask, wondering how they got around the obvious flaw.

"Each of them is linked to a different agent, but they don't just work off vocal commands. if the linked agent to have some kind of unusual biochemical reaction, like say if something were to magically induce a feeling of awe, terror, desire, subservience, you name it the collar goes off."

"What if something else happens to make you lose your calm?" dad asks, sounding quite sure he isn't going to like the answer.

"We all have training not to, but in this job it's better to have a false positive than a false negative considering..."

"Judge, jury and executioner," Detective Murphy mutters under her breath, though she sounds more sad than angry

Alas Harry is not as content to be quiet: "Are vampires the only ones you use those on Agent Mulder?"

"My team only deals with vampires," the agent replies evenly. "If you want to talk policy we have a full liaison with Edinburgh, send them a letter, I'm sure he could do with some work in that damn cushy job of his."

One of the other agents, a dark haired woman who had forgone the sunglasses cracks a smile and so do you, though more out of a wish to disarm the situation. Let it go Harry. The enemy of my enemy is... someone you at least want a nonaggression pact with.

To your relief he does and the rest of the transfer goes smoothly. All the prisoners have their limbs after you had spent the better part of two hours stitching them on, the bags of refrigerated blood wake up the prisoners enough for their situation to be explained in detail which is rather remarkable given the fact that, Akuma or not, the Wan Kuei do not feed on blood, but chi. Blood separated from its source should have long since lost the spark of life.

That is when you notice the bowl of Hygeia has rather more symbols around its brim than usual, which is to say any symbols at all and the serpent of Epidaurus also has some oddly shaped scales, a spell of preservation. On its own that would have been mildly impressive, a proper enchantment, but it does not work independently of the function of the portable fridge, rather it enhances it from the realms of the physical into the spiritual. Andrea's Von Trier's disdain for Daedalus aside it is clear that the organization she is part of is more than willing to embrace modern technology and even meld it with sorcery in subtle, unpretentious ways.

Quietly you point it out to Harry. "See, you can totally have working electronics in here."

He gives you a bit of an odd look. "Not really what's on my mind right now Molly."

"They seem to know what they're doing," you say, trying to reassure him. The servants of Emma-O certainly seem to believe in these mortals' willingness to blow their heads off. None of them had even tried to grandstand or to invoke the name of their lord, though that might have to do with you also being in the room.

His next words are so soft you barely catch them sitting next to him on the couch. "Yeah, that's what I'm worried about."

Do you have any questions for the agents of the Library of Congress?

[] Yes
-[] Write in

[] No, continue to Saint Mary's where Father Forthil will try to exorcise that poor girl

[] Write in

OOC: Not the strongest vote to end on, but I feel like this is a good cut off and you are in a position to ask questions

 

[DragonParadox]

Through Tarnished Eyes ​

5nd of October 2006 A.D.

Though the agents and their superiors do not know it you already have nine answers you can draw out when you please, nine faces to set before the eyes that shine upon your crown. So you keep your peace until the last of the vans drives off, an unremarkable convoy bearing a remarkable cargo. "You didn't ask for their number," you say to Harry, carefully not to sound like you are scolding him for it.

"I don't need their number," he counters so quickly you wonder if he's had the argument before. It would not the the first time you agreed with Lasciel, strange as that might be to think.

"You don't want their number," you can't quite keep yourself from correcting him. "It would probably be useful if you ever get arrested by some overzealous cop on a crusade against wizards or something, no offense lieutenant."

In spite of the last bit Karin Murphy cracks a smile at seeing Harry get grilled about this stuff, though that might just be relief at having handed off the last of her strange prisoners.

"I've already got enough people on speed dial kid and I don't even have speed dial," he shakes his head. "There isn't such a thing as a free lunch especially when it comes to the kinds of people who have accountants to keep score."

Surprisingly dad is nodding along, or maybe not so surprisingly if one remembers what he has said about the government meddling in magic. The Library of Congress may not be exactly that, but it's not exactly not that either, a grey middle ground between institution of the United States and secret society infiltrating the United States, but that's neither here nor there.

"You work with what you've got." Like the black steel sword popped up in the back corner of the armory at the Last Station slowly making the pain peel, like the body of the greater akuma laid you had extracted from his temporary tomb last night not laid down on one of those steel tables they use in the morgue, still pristine in its morbidity. It's a good thing no one in the room has senses as sharp as yours had grown else they might have heard the sound of doubts being swallowed. "And do your best to make things better, can't do that from inside a jail cell."

Harry looks... well you don't want to say mulish. Resolute, that's it, he looks resolute in not making use of the good will he had already earned.

"Alright then, guess I'll have to hand on to their contacts extra hard," you say with carefully calculated good cheer. Hoping that...

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 11/12 (Empathy Excellency)

Yup, turns out you were right, the only thing Harry Dresden hates more than the prospect of entangling himself in another bureaucracy is the conviction that you will do it for him if you feel he needs the help. Grumbling something about you having enough on your place with Monoc he takes the card you offer him and writes down the number.

It probably does not help his mood when Mouse gives an approving bark, but it sure helps yours to know Harry now has one more tool to get out of the trouble he is so good at getting himself into. Just a pity it couldn't last.

***​

The stained glass windows filled with the wisdom of Christ, recounting parables and extolling virtues and good words seem muted as though a cloud had passed behind them though the sky is clear. the silence swallows up the sound of the doors being pushed open and even dad's greeting seems only to make the air grow tense and watchful rather than break the sense of being watched, of being judged and found... wanting.

Reflexively you invoke that inner flame that had served you so well since you found your power and it found you, the utter conviction of who you are... and who you are is not apprehensive in the House of the Lord just because a petty demon happened to be transgressing against it and against the poor kid whose life it had stolen.

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 10/12 (IPP)

It's hard to miss the small figure tied to a chair in front of the altar of sacrifice right under the central dome. In a way the chair and the one upon it seem almost as incongruous as the as the plain red oak wood, but where as it celebrates the contrast between the wonder of what is known of God's work and what must remain a mystery, celebrated each mass the chair and its bindings is something that does not belong, that cannot belong... and yet which is even in the House of God, evil.

Raising her head the girl fixes you with eyes black as a lightless pit in her pale face. "Come to help scourge the wickedness out of us? To deliver us through pain?" The demon's voice is not the least transformed, she sounds for all the world like a nine year old kid, though the cold mockery behind it is much older than that. "For you it is to know the weeds from the good seeds or maybe you'd like more meat on that parable, the good flesh from the gristle. Rip and tear away. We can't stop you. We never could."

Spoiler: Possessed Girl

Father Forthil stands beside the statue of Saint Joseph at the left of the altar looking as wan as you have seen him. No doubt he had done exorcisms before, but the empty darkness of the Night Realm is not something he's had to face before. To you it is as familiar as the face you see in the mirror. The demon knows it cannot cling on so it is trying to do as much damage as it can reinforcing the notion that what is to follow is torture inflicted upon a child who has already seen far too many monsters in her short life pretending they want to help her and if it can spread more suffering to those 'stealing' its vessel so much the better will its spite be satisfied. It occurs to you that the life-bond Brother Divisimar had described which would have seen baby Almaz die if the girl herself had been killed might also be another way to prove a twisted point. 'They don't really care about the hostages, just about killing their enemies.'

True the old monk had been wise and experienced enough to avoid that tragedy, but for the child who had let a demon crawl in her soul just so she might have someone on her side it was far too little far too late. No matter how well this goes the scars on her soul will take a lifetime to heal. Unless that is you can persuade it to leave, unhook its claws and open its jaws, leave the girl with as little harm done as it can, the only problem being if you try and fail you will have just reinforced the message that monsters hide behind every king face and malice lurks in every seeming kindness.

As Usum rather bluntly puts it you can's scare just one snake in a tangle

What do you do?

[] Try to intimidate the demon of Kakuri Wan out of the girl
The task would be utterly impossible for an ordinary mortal (Base DC 12 -1 BSM -2 DPE -2 Demonic Guide = 7)

[] Observe the exorcism
From what you know of Father Forthil and given the presence of the Sword it seems very likely to succeed, but it will be quite harrowing

[] Write in

OOC: Just to be clear the thing Molly can attempt above is not magic, it is being so utterly terrifying that the demon voluntarily leaves its host causing the least damage possible. It is not a thing even a Senior Council wizard would get to roll, you either have to be a saint or a bigger meaner demon to do this. The latter is in your case represented by DPE in terms of presence and the Guide in terms of knowing just witch buttons to push. As for Michael, since I know it will be asked, while he is a good and righteous man is not a saint, he is the bearer of the Sword which has its own purpose to which is what is happening here is only tangentially related related, hence why he can't say cut the demon right out of her with angelic might. This is Forthil's job... if it gets that far.

 

[DragonParadox]

Shadows of Fear ​

5nd of October 2006 A.D.

"One moment, I want to talk." As you close your eyes you see dad and Father Forthil looking back with apprehension. A poisoned silence falls as you listen to the voice of your own inner demon, one for whom the Night Realm is familiar torment. At the beat of your heart eyes snap open into eerie silence. "We?" The words drip with malice and inhuman contemplation twined, as might a collector speak to the insect, steel pin in hand "You have tricked a mortal child into believing you part of her soul spirit, but I can see you"

As the girl recoils as far back as her chair will allow you see behind her bloodshot eyes a shadow, a thing that might have been a bird once or something like it, limbs now branching twisting into a web of feathered tendrils, binding and strangling, holding and keeping.

"Where have your wings gone tengu?" you mock cruelly, Usum's counsel and your own voice one. "Did the cold winds break them? Where has your daring gone deceiver? Did terror of Him of the Night Realm freeze it in your heart? Where has your freedom gone slave? Did the chains of Yomi Wan bind it?" Rather than raise your voice you drop it into a whisper so soft the demon would struggle to hear it through mortal ears. "This game ends now. Leave or suffer worse than your wretched perch from whence you cannot escape."

The blood drains from the girl's face, leaving her white as a sheet, eyes wide she screams in awfully familiar terror at what should not be. In spite of yourself you remember Splattercon, the screams, the blood and the dying. For her I'm the fetch.

It does not make you flinch or stutter, from the outside no one would even know the thought crossed your mind, but you do hesitate just as Usum advises you add a drop of honey to the hemlock, tell the once-tengu that if it flees now it might be rewarded by its master. Any emotion that it would feel then: greed at the thought, anger at the insult would be at odds with the primal terror you had invoked in the girl, enough for her to feel it as other to try and struggle against it enough that the demon would give it up as a bad bargain.

A moment wasted is a moment too long. The demon and the girl together, the bakemono laugh, an empty despairing thing that joins them tighter than steel. "Whore of an absent God! Go back to your pimp!" the curses only grow more vile and explicit in spite of anything you might say or do.

"I think it might be best if you leave now!" Father Forthil practically has to shout the words over her.

Feeling smaller than you have in a long time you leave the church. Not even dad's sympathetic look is enough to make you feel better.

"Under slightly more favorable conditions the tactic would have been successful Merciful Herald of Darkness..."

"Shut up," you shoot back tiredly as you lean against the wall of the church. The last thing you want to hear now is him singing your praises. "Unless you have something constructive to add..."

For a long moment he falls silent and all you can hear is the wind through the bare branches of the trees, the distant rumble of traffic. When you hear his voice again it echoes as though from a great depth and yet as clear as if spoken in your ear: "Yours is the power to bind and to loose, yours is the power to conjure and to cast out. Reach out and take it if you will."

What do you do?

[] Reach out for the spark within, let it illuminate your path (-10 XP for this Arc; Gain Sapphire Ritual of Exorcism)
The sorcerer adorns a chamber with ritual implements reflecting the five elements, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the grave, then slowly focuses her Essence into a purifying mandala of absolute reality which splits apart any unnatural joining of matter and spirit.

System: The character enacts an hour-long ritual, then spends 5 Essence and makes an Intelligence + Occult roll against difficulty 8. Success ends any form of possession afflicting the ritual's subject, ejecting the possessing spirit or shade. Because of the ritual's length, its subject must usually be restrained in some way if they don't consent to the exorcism. This spell terminates possession by spirits and ghosts, mind and spirit-riding with powers such as high-level Animalism or Dominate, the Dragon-Blooded Charm Sense-Riding Method, and so on. It immediately evicts demons from their hosts (whether that be mortal flesh or a graven idol), and can even separate the Bane from a fomor – although fomori suffer 10 dice of lethal damage as the Bane rips its way free of their flesh, rolled at a rate of one die per minute over the course of 10
agonizing minutes.

[] No, trust that the exorcism will work
Do not spend XP on Ancient Sorcery for now

OOC: You win some, you lose some, in this case you needed 5 successes because the demon did not really have much to lose of its wretched existence. Even so you almost made it and both Molly and Usum are conscious of the fact so the most Exalted of options is available: 'reach for a bigger hammer', in this case a bigger crowbar.

 

[DragonParadox]

Tower and Trove ​

5nd of October 2006 A.D.

Growing up you were a weird kid sometimes, asking how tall a building would have to be before it upset God again why no one ever put helicopter props on a car since flying cars were so cool why no one liked crows and ravens as much as dogs and cats seeing as they were as clever and one one notable occasion all of five years old five year old Molly had asked mom what it was like to be struck by lighting. Supposedly she had paid extra close attention to you around power sockets for a few months after that, just in case...

It probably feels a little like this.

Spires like spears brass shone under the dead green sky, light without shadow, sight without need, domes of black stone wet as though birthed from the heaving earth shone like shields before a breath of acid and smog, not to house the teaming figures, humanoid and not, scaled, furred, feathered skinless, segmented and quadrupedal, but to keep, to bind to hold. Its canals run with dust finer than matter can be ground, its torches burn with the prayers of the damned. Temples groan and sway not from the weight of impossible construction but from the torrents and delights experienced within such that no mortal mind could parse one from the other.

Shells of stone vast as continents crash against each other like rafts upon an ocean, but when they crash against each other the in numeral layers are only sometimes crushed together among screams of jubilation, at other times new streets, new forges and tenements, pleasure gardens and dungeons bubbled up from the line of impact as though space itself was blood lowing from a new wound.

An old wound being picked at.

Hollow spheres of brass and bone, flayed skin stretched between the gears, the ornery of cosmic doom drawing ever nearer. Had you ears you would be deaf. A great boom tolls, thunder without end picking up dust and smog, ash and acid rain, demon-kin like dust mites in the storm. The hour is late you know without knowing, the time almost at hand.

Here it is not night falling that heralds the end of all things, but day enduring without end, for if He is not here where is he?

You have no heart but still it races.

From the pitiless sun a shaft of green falls, less a ray of light and more a laser beam to bind heaven and earth, though no mortal artifice could ever focus light so perfectly you know, no more than it could grind dust mites smaller than atoms nor craft an concert hall whose acoustics turn screams into symphony. Upon their wings you fly.

Upon His pained breath

So do you reach the ziggurat where the green sun-fire falls amid the countless shadows fleeing along you stroll towards it, accustomed to the reek of rot and smog, deaf the pleas and blind to the fear in inhuman faces. A hand caresses the carving, black gloved with spikes of brass upon... like... the City.

It is pulling at your feet like quicksand, dragging you down into the nameless dark, but there is till a few bells more left to toll. Slowly you read the glyphs upon the wall that no hand had laid down and patterns to memory consign, the black wisdom of the world's bones, a knowing that does not beget power, but is it as sure as flame and light are one.

Inheritance

***​

Chicago appears around you as abruptly as it had vanished, the ground smashing into your feet, the reassuring blare of horns and traffic in your ears, not music just noise. The sun is yellow, the grass is green, as green as it gets in October at least and someone with a taste for Beyoncé is blaring Naughty Girl out of the window of a passing car. You have never been more glad for silly pop music before in your life.

"Usum what the hell was that?" you ask the demon.

"It was as you named it," he answers slowly, as one just woken from a dream and clinging to it. "More than what you have seen I do not know."

"Argh!" you manage, frustration and fear inarticulate even in your own head. Shakily you search around your purse for something to write with, setting phone, keys and makeup jangling until at last you pull out a florescent marker, bright green because of course it would be, to write down a single glyph of those you can remember not on the wall of the church but on a nearby street sign.

It does not burst into flames, turn into a giant snake or melt into a puddle of acid. You knew that, but at the same times you did not know it, a feeling so utterly bizarre it makes even Usum's whispered counsel have a touch of hominess to it by contrast.

Alone it does nothing, means nothing, but strung together it describes the states of mater and the houses of spirit. Fire burns and water drowns, air rages, earth rumbles, moon changes, stars watch. Such is the order of the universe by whose proclamation those who trasngress can be cast out, you are as sure of it as you are of your own name

Gained Sapphire Ritual of Exorcism (Celestial Circle Sorcery)

How do you explain your new revelation to Father Forthil and your father?

[] I know a spell of exorcism, but I am going to need some time to brew the potions necessary for healing
Mention just what is practically relevant to the matter at hand

[] I had a really weird vision.. weirder than normal even
Speak of the living impossible city under a Green Sun

[] Write in

OOC: I've been waiting for you guys to take your first Ancient Sorcery spell for a long time. No rolls in this one.

 

[DragonParadox]

Old Order under New Management ​

5th of October 2006 A.D.

"In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti," you hear the voice of the priest through the door, an echo of something more.

At first it is almost hard to recognize the elderly priest, usually filled with wisdom and good humor both, not transformed as by the ministry he bears into the vessel for a higher power. stern he seems in the vestments benefiting of his rank, the pure white of his surplice pure and without stain and the violet stole seeming in truth like the adornment of imperial authority above all powers earthly and infernal.

"Amen," dad's words are firm, a witness, a reminder that the faithful are more than the church and that every prayer, every ritual.

"Benedictus Deus, Pater omnipotens, qui omnes homines vult salvos fieri, cum omnibus vobis," the prayer continues. In your head years of Sunday School translate Latin to English as easily as other kids do French or Spanish: May God, the almighty Father, who desires that everyone be saved be with you all.

The girl whose name you still have not gotten from the fallen one is still shouting curses down on everyone and everything, accusing the priest of the most foul and horrific intentions.

"Amen," dad repeats, though he cannot keep his eyes from straying back to you. Is something the matter? that look asks.

It feels wrong to interfere, almost blasphemous. Who are you after all to think you can do the job better than God? The thought does not last more than an instant. Latin is not all you learned in Sunday School. the whole point of being a good Christian, a Good Samaritan in this case, is to do all that you can for yourself and for your fellows rather than simply ask of God to carry you though hardship. I made this worse by scaring the demon so I get yo fix it.

"I know a spell to banish the demon, I'm going to need some prep work, but it will work." Aaand you still sound like a conceited asshole, good job Molly, you wince inwardly expecting an argument... which does not come.

There is no divine revelation, not whisper from the Sword, no secret message from Uriel they just take your word for it. In some ways it's more scary than the vision had been

***​

6th of October 2006 A.D.

Mom is not happy when you said you'd be 'working late' and its' probably not just the corny jokes you deployed. She's worried about how safe the Last Station after it had been attacked and, though she would not say so aloud, about how much your power is growing, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But you know her, she wouldn't begrudge a kid getting rid of the demons riding their soul, so you ask her to come along and see with her own eyes what your magic looks like.... and because you need someone who can hook up an IV drip. Unlike the Rite of Major Exorcism you do not need, or for that matter even want the patient to be awake.

Lost 1 Willpower -> Now at 8/9

That is how you end up standing in the middle of a thoroughly scrubbed concrete room that the Jade Dogs have been using as a walk in refrigerator no longer the home of prodigious amounts of meat and instead holding a wheeled hospital bed of uncertain origin but freshly laundered sheets with one unfortunate girl sleeping it hopefully beyond even the power to the demon to wake, though you don't take any chances tying her up as well. Where Bones had learned how to secure people like that is another thing you do not want to know the answers to, but once he's done the elder ghoul leaves with a bow in your direction and a look of weary respect to your dad. Mom hooks up the bag of healing extract, ruby red brighter than blood, seeming almost to pulse like a discorporated above the patient.

"Sorry about the temperature," you say nervously to dad who smiles and waves it off.

"Do what you have to do Molly," your mother adds.

"Ritual chamber sealed at oh nine hundred hours. Do not open until the task is complete," you instruct, the sound of the bolt in the lock like the crack of a starting pistol.

Thus you draw a steel pole sharpened until it can score concrete and draw a circle all 'round the bed, the first of all Tools and Implements now and evermore. A spell like birdsong breaking free passes your lips as you make the first turn. In the north quarter you place a vial of perfume, one more turn and the spell becomes the whispers of leaves up above that lingers with the little bonsai tree set in the east to greet the sun. Faster and faster you move, never losing your place in the chant, never misstepping.

"...In the name of Sapheria by the sign of the South let fire sing...."

A Bunsen Burner flares to life, its flame unearthly blue., somehow eclipsing the neon lights. At last in the west you stop where the sun descends to its rest pouring into a silver bowl rain water as you turn your eyes upwards. Glow-in-the-dark-stars, the kind that might have made cheesy Halloween decorations now shine upon the feeling with nacreous green writ upon them the fate you would inflict upon the demon, the fate you would grant the girl.

For the moon you had gone with one of those toys one might hang over a baby's crib that had been made to change depending on the angle you viewed it from half to full, the backside scraped to black. Someone would find that funny, you cannot shake the strange conviction even as your heart faces faster even than your step.

Stop.

By will alone you deny the roaring power and setting the tinny chip of gravestone Lydia had gotten from you over the girl's heart. It should not be, it must not be. You hate that little piece of stone. All things end, but they need not end like this.

"So is the world ordered and all things in their place," you proclaim, grave as one sitting in judgement must be. The sun-mark between your brows begins to glow, brighter and brighter. "So live the children of the Creation, bearing their sorrows, soaring in their joys, toiling upon tasks, seeking ever secrets, playing out their fates. Renegade..."

For the first time in the ritual the girl moves, but not of her own volition, she jerks upwards as though an unseen cord were attached to her heart. Her limbs shake in their bindings, her eyes weep blood.

"You Do Not Belong." The words echo with inescapable judgement.

Noxious black smoke pours out of the child's eyes, even as the elixir flowing though her veins heals her, it revolves into a vaguely avian monstrosity.

Lost 5 Essence -> Now at 7/12

I may have promised to be cautious about eating spirits

Amoracchius stabs though it like a thunderbolt, the only thing in the room not tinted green from the light of your burning Essence as the demon screeches in pain and breaks apart as your father returns it to its sheath with practiced skill.

...but not that dad wouldn't handle them. Even assuming Emma-O should bother to gather the tatters of such a failure back together it will not be able to remember any details of how it had been pulled out and given that it was stabbed with a Sword the natural assumption is not sorcery.

"Well, what do you think?" you ask, turning to your parents as your voice lowers from the heights of arcane power to plain old Molly Carpenter.

"It was..." dad trails off a moment. He looks back at the girl, fallen back to drugged sleep, but looking a lot less haggard and pale once the blood had been wiped off her cheeks. "Good job pumpkin."

"Daaad," you try for a whine, but it catches into a laugh. "You promised not to call me that anymore four whole years ago."

"I promised not to call you that when there are witnesses," he corrects punctiliously. "Charity did you hear me compare our daughter to a relative of squash?"

"No, no I did not." If mom's laughter is a little more shaky, well who can blame her?

A thought occurs, a knowledge as certain as the words of banishment had been. This would work on a Denarian, even on an unwilling one... or one who just has a shadow upon their soul.

What do you do?

[] Share the good news with Harry, offer to get the 'kind of' Lasciel out of his head

[] Keep this to yourself until you have some place to put a piece of fallen angel

[] Write in

OOC: Hopefully that did Celestial Circle Sorcery justice.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Powers Unseen ​

6th of October 2006 A.D.

Squatting to be at eye level with a kid the better to talk to them is familiar enough, though not the part where you apologize for ripping out the only power Marcy ever had, even if it had been an illusion, sending off the only friend she thought he had and leaving her all alone in the care of strangers, but it turns out there is an another advantage to an encyclopedic knowledge of the things that howl amid the endless blizzard of the Night Realm, knowing what hooks they like to use, what promises they make most often and all the ways in which their company poisons the mind and heart.

If you had tried to be kind from the start she would have mistrusted you, but showing embarrassment at the initial failure, then feigning some interest in the plots of the now banished demon, that at least got her to listen. Then you started bribing her for information which hundred dollar bills as Father Forthil looks on with queasiness, but it does work and as you thought, hoped really the girl finally starts to talk about her last foster family. Marcy wants, needs to tell someone, but the demon had conditioned her not to trust anyone, especially not those in positions of power like a priest or a social worker

She did not get that last bit from the demon alone... As she tells it, and you have no reason to doubt her the last three years of her life have been a horror show of neglect punctuated by abuse great and small to the point where...

"Sometimes I'd break the rules so Mark would beat me 'cause then at least he'd notice I was there."

It is a good thing that you are a sensible and level headed seventeen, because if you were not you might be doing a live impression of the Punisher right now.

By the end of the three hour long conversation the two of you had become... not friends, more drowning person and lifeline, but she had agreed to let you share the recording you had made with both Father Forthil and the police on the condition that she not be send back to her last foster home.

"Marcy will stab someone in their sleep if she is sent back," you quietly inform the priest as Clippy downloads the interview onto his computer. "One does not have a demon curled up inside their soul for weeks without gaining some skills and the inclinations to go with them."

"Thank you, you are doing the Lord's work Molly," he says with a proud smile.

As you nod and take your leave it's hard to think of what you have done as anything more than fixing your own messes, just a pity the guilt over not telling Harry isn't as easy to salve. But there's just no way...

If you tell Harry and he says wait then the 'kind of Lasciel' will know she's on a timer to corrupt him, even more of a one than just the risk of him getting himself killed, which is the one fear she admitted to openly. On the other hand if Harry just wants to go ahead with it then the dark spirit will be loose in the world to work who knows what evil. It feels cold blooded as heck, but the world is probably safer with that thing inside Harry's head than out of it and if you are wrong about that... well you'll cross that bridge when you get to it, even if it does lead to an Alien City under a familiar-strange sun. The memory of that absolute command is its own comfort. Even if I had to do that to one of the Fallen in full it would work, sending them howling back into their Coin.

***​

8th of October 2006 A.D.

Fortunately you have more than just Harry to worry about. The next morning, a foggy Saturday of the sort that makes for D list horror movies and unsolicited advice from moms the world over to 'bundle up' even though it's not cold, it's just wet and and both of those things are boon not a hindrance to you, the perfect time to check in on the Order of the Cauldron, see how they made it though the magical DEFCOM Three .

Shaken, but otherwise fine, Olivia explains as you join her for her morning Grand Park, dodging soggy poodles, overly show off skaters and that one guy who thinks that the middle of a run is the perfect time to pick up girls, girls who are clearly talking to each other.

"Asshole," you mutter, none too softly as the guy in question stomps off to complain to his buddies.

"He probably just didn't notice me," Olivia sighs. "Happens all the time."

"Well lucky for you I'm here to help."

"What? Today?" she asks startled. "Here?"

"Longest journey, first step, fill in the blanks," you wave airily in her general direction. Then in a more serious tone: "Sometimes there really is a simple solution or at least a simple place to start and having a lot of people around should help gouge how well the stuff we can try is going."

Surprise aside she is game, but for the first hour or so all you hit are duds. Breathing exercises, yoga, mindfulness all have no impact on her power and you outright veto Usum's suggestions of 'extreme sensory stimuli', another way of saying 'torture her until she gets it right', but eventually out of sheer boredom you hit on something that works, people watching. When Olivia is focusing on other people, how they are dressed, where they might be going, what they might be thinking she gets more noticeable, at least to one who is looking on though eyes of sin and shadow...

The power to hide, which Olivia had grown so sick of is not the only magic is is capable of, it is one side of a scale and the other is... empathy or telepathy. The thought of revealing that, of having to explain the Laws, especially that one, is enough to make you hesitate. Had some early trauma stuck her power on the defensive?

No, you realize as you consider her earlier struggles with meditation. If it were internal she would at least have gotten some reaction, even if it was negative, the power curling in like a wounded beast. Which just leaves... someone intentionally messing with her magic so that she would not run afoul of the Council's Laws. No mortal wizard could have done it so seamlessly, it must have been a god, a spirit or fey.

I'm sick of this! Hiding and hoping the monsters will take someone else instead of me, never knowing which of my friends are going to have a closed casket funeral because vampire ripped out their throat or a redcap slit their throat, not even knowing if their family knows. I hate it! The words from barely a week ago come back to you full force. Turns out she has a power that isn't hiding, or she could have one at least , not all you have to do is explain the dangers of using it oh and figure out who had bound it this way.

"Earth to Molly. You want to let me in on what you're thinking?" she interrupts your thoughts

What do you do?

[] Explain that her magic has another setting, but also the Laws, the Council and why she is probably better off sticking to mental veils for now

[] Give a full accounting, including the fact that something inhuman must have bound her powers at some point in this state

[] Write in

OOC: I was getting ready to do a school update, even rolled up some background stuff and then I realized the next day was a Saturday so instead here's the Cauldron Bubble action and another wrinkle to the Olivia situation.