Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[DragonParadox]

Brass Falling, Blood Flowing ​

13th of January 2007 A.D.

The problem with taking twenty six people underground to hunt vampires is that the corridors are at most wide enough for four to walk abreast, or four if they are very good friends as Tiffany jokingly puts it... er snuggling up Hand of Gently Falling Ash to the vague confusion of the agent, at least until he figures out she's the designated healer checking him over to see where all the important bits are rather than checking him out. You keep silent on the fact that she's probably teasing Harry as well.

"Vanguard, Rearguard, VIP protect, no scouting, assume prepared and entrenched foe Red One and Red Two Template," the commands ring out in whisper-tongue sending the other agents moving as the gears of a well oiled machine. Cybernetic eyes glare burnt orange and nacreous green, drawing a sigh of fear wonder or both from Harrowmont.

For his part Mr. Adkin does not speak at once, instead seeming to consider his new comrades before drawing the empowered talisman, a little closer... and demonstrating how to trigger it. "Should I die show them the Eye of Ra."

"Understood," something of the confusion regarding what this old man was doing on the mission faded from the face of the agent nearest to him, a tall dusky skinned woman, her elongated features and lack of any hair hinting at spirit blood, perhaps even of an ophidian sort. Such an odd company we make, you think as you pass by the first intersaction, a quick peek around the corner confirming there is no one waiting to ambush you there. So it goes, the second intersection, the third you find colapsed, a mess of broken concrete and rusted rebar.

No one has anything else to say, the only sound passing down the tunnels the sloshing of your own footsteps on bare concrete and broken glass, twisted plastic and other refuse that on closer inspection reveal the remains of lives twice-broken. There is no mistaking the dark streaks on the walls even after all this time and so are the spent casings glinting in the light of gun-mounted lanterns.

On the floor among the tatters that might have once been a shopping bag something moved, ripples in the water drawing every eye. What...?

Every eye bar one.

"Up! Vampires!" Harry's shout comes with a gout of fire aimed at the ceiling where a hidden penned had been silently removed only for four bat-like faces to look on in horror as the fifth of their number is engulfed in flames.

"Contact! Hostile Reds" Electro-Lasers flash poisoned green behind you and the bark of semiautomatic weapons shatters the silence into a million pieces.

You see armored agents moving with inhuman speed, not fast enough to doege bullets true, but enough to turn what would have been a hail of bullets into center mass into grazes and glancing shots, the alchemically tempered armour proving its worth... except for the woman who had been speaking to Mr Adkin, who takes a bullet to the jaw shettering it.

It only seems to piss her off more as she raises her weapon again, eldertich flame in the depths.

One Agent of the Amethyst Hand Takes 3 Damage -> Reflexactivated Adrenal Gland Enhancement Active: 1 Rage Spent: Wound Penalty Negated for the Round

They are trying to pin us in place, the thought flashes through your mind a second before you notice another teltale ripple in the water ahead. Grenades.

Of course they are going to blow up their own people, it's not like they would survive to see sunrise if Sandra has her way.

What do you do?

[] Use Mind Hand Manipulation to grab all the grenades and throw them back at the enemy before they can explode

[] Let Harry handle the Grenades and deal with the four vampires dropping on top of you

[] Call out to the people with guns coming up behind you that they are being lied to and used, maybe your presence will be enough to shock them into listening.

[] Write in

Spoiler: Enemies and Perils

• Four Vampires in their true form above
• Five humanoid (Vampires or Infected) figures behind you straffing the rearguard with automatic fire
• Several Grenades rolled through the water from up ahead

OOC: Everyone but Harry failed their Perception+Alertness rolls, even with the advantages the Amethyst hand agents have they botched so things are pretty touch and go.

 

[DragonParadox]

With Fire and Fury ​

13th of January 2007 A.D.

"Harry, grenades, in the water!" you call and that is all you have time for before they are upon you.

"Vento Servitas!" the he shouts and the wind comes as it is bid, even as a small part of you —Slash, a vampire's head goes flying in a crimson arc— notes that the words actually mean 'slavery to the wind'. First the Ordo now Harry, what is it with magicians using Latin wrong? The Sword-that is Usum continues on through the hand of the next offending vampire slicing the arm lengthwise, the bone barely offering more resistance than flesh. Out of the corner of your eye you see another pair of vampires descend upon Lydia, nightmare beasts against a girl armed only with her fists... only to flail and scramble helplessly against marble hard skin.

You would have laughed if the air did not go out of your lungs from the wave of sound that hitting your eardrums like a hammer.... from the other direction. Head snapping back to where the gunfire had come you realize Harry hadn't just thrown the grenades back along the tunnel, he had picked them up and flung them over everyone on your side and into the gunmen coming up from behind.

How many grenades that had been you have no idea, but the enemy, the infected you realize, are torn to shreds by the blast, the sight so shocking that you almost let your guard down against the one armed vampire.

"No," the word comes out as more of an admonishment than a battle cry as you decapitate this one as well.

Lydia is having a lot more trouble killing the enemy than she did weathering their attack, an attack that would have snapped a human's wrist doing very little to the uncannily flexible anatomy of a vampire. Something tells you those aren't the nice Sicilian words. Hand of Gently Falling Ash raises a gun to the back of the offending vampire briefly illuminating its ribs in a corona of eldritch flames.

Somehow and you are not sure what sins it must have committed for the misfortune beside those common to its kind it does not die instantly. Harrowmont tries to stab it with a sword that looks like it's more suited to challenging the Cardinal's men at high noon than poking monsters in the sewers.

"Fuego!" For all it summons fire there's ice in the word, calculating precision that summons a sheet of flame, white hot and sharp as a guillotine's blade slicing the last remaining uninjured vampire in twain at an angle and rendering the one in the water into so much steaming meat.

"Damn, don't hold it in Harry," Tiffany jokes.

It's only once she speaks and you are halfway though biting back a relieved laugh that you realize what the look in his eye is, guilt. Not at the dead vampires surely? Following his gaze you understand, the infected. They might have been mortal thralls and he had just thrown enough live grenades to blow them to pieces at them.

"That's not..." he starts, but she does not let him pick up steam

"What, impressive? I'm a pretty good judge of what impressive magic looks like I'll have you know."

"You know what I mean," he shoots back wearily.

"Too well. I know all about what you're thinking." The tone goes from joke to innuendo smooth as silk.

You avert your eyes. Seeing someone regrow a jaw is less uncomfortable than this. "Are you alright?" you ask the unfortunate agent, before realizing that she'd have a hard time answering.

Her left hand signs a complex gesture, fingers bent, crossing open. Unless she uses the cant for which her organization is partially named, right. It is still wierd always-having-known-something you had never thought of before, but at least you are relieved at the answer: "Toothache."

Amethyst Hand Agent Healed to full.
SPICE uses Refreshed

All in all the fight had gone well, none of you had spent any Essence and the ambush had been broken, but there was no sign up ahead of whoever had thrown the grenades

"The air tastes like lies soaked to the bone, a touch of sorcery to it," Tiffany scrunches her nose as Lydia touches one of the walls not paying any mind to the vampire blood. "The stone knows its enemy, the mutilator of matter and killer of minds. Something worse than a vampire was here."

"And it used grenades?" you find yourself asking, but you already know the answer, using offensive magic tends to break veils. You wonder if the reason Harry had taken the chance to kill the people behind you and not the thing that might have been in front of you is that he had been unknowingly nudged not to interact with whatever that had been.

"We should breach the first hall soon," Mr. Adkin says. "If our sources are to be trusted."

Perhaps at one point they could have been, but what you actually come to is a wall of collapsed concrete and rebar, in a sense the least of things that Sandra had blown up, but unlike the ambush this one will cost you. Not Essence though, what tools you need you draw forth by will alone.

Lost 1 Willpower -> Now at 7/9(TTC)

"How...?" Harrowmont gives a bewildered look to the diamond tipped drill you are pressing into the stone.

This is what surprises him? You shake your head, but alas there's more important things to concern yourselves with. There's sure to be more foes on the other side, question is how to deal with them:

[] Use Akdin's talisman, that is sure to clear a lot of vampires

[] Try to take prisoners this time, it would be nice to know what's been going on down here

[] Write in

OOC: I took some risks in this fight tactically so that Molly would conserve Essence since I figured you guys would want to, but if you want to set policy for future engagements you are free to do so.

 

[DragonParadox]

What Beats Below ​

13th of January 2007 A.D.

Steeling yourself you press forward, banishing all doubt and compulsion from your mind. Thus the last of the stone gives way and crumbles under the power of the drill, into a opening filled with the first time with light, though not of any kind so wholesome as might advertise forbidden fruit in the city above, it seems to hide more than it reveals, lessening the cone of riffle lanterns, only your own aura untouched. There through the cracks you see it.

Lost 1 Willpower -> Now at 6/9

If the chamber beyond had once been a part of the drainage system your company traipsed though until now there is no sign of it left, Black tendrils—or are those roots?— wrap around and around like a cocoon, already starting to grow into the opening as the old priest steps forward with his talisman. On the opposite side of the room black thins into a kind of red membrane in the midst of which hangs suspended a shape that might perhaps be a tree stump dead and rotting, the body of some squid thing squirming, some kind of naked brain-stem, horribly all and neither. Tiffany was wrong, this thing is a vampire. An eye of red opens to meet eyes of green...

Spoiler: Vampiric Abomination

...and one eye of beaten gold held up by an aged hand. It's gaze is withering flame and the shinning beacon that reveals all, it is judgement beneath which it burns, they burn. Six, eight, nine vampires that had been mortared into this thing go up in black and orange flames, like oiled rags burning, reeking twice as bad. But the thing in the middle does not burn, it merely smokes, it quivers as the agents step in to flank and then advance past Adkin, in step with you, at first you think it quakes in fear. Then it starts to laugh, a sound dreadfully, unspeakably... human.

"Mary Mother of God," in his shock Alexander Harrowmont had entirely lost his accent. It is to his credit that this is all he lost. He is still staring down the thing, dueling sword in hand.

"Definitely not her," Tiffany's voice echoes strangely as the stone the air all around, the shape and substance of the every day seems to warp and twist like cheap plastic under a lighter. Harry opens his mouth, Lydia raises her hand to hurl a bolt of silver, guns are shifted to target with inhuman precision and yet none of them fast enough. You must one chance to contest it before it works its will upon the world.

What do you do?

[] Flying charge right into the center mass and try to hack it apart
-[] Write in charms and stunt

[] Trigger Shintai to contest it, sure it will mean you might not be able to use it against Sandra, but you'll deal with that when the time comes
-[] Write in charms and stunt

[] Try to talk to it, if it can laugh, maybe you can get it to reveal something about what's going on down here
-[] Write in charms and stunt

[] Write in

OOC: To be clear, this thing is attempting wide area shaping magic, Molly cannot tell what kind, but it is unlikely to be friendly. Also it like all the other vampires took 8 wounds. It does not seem overly wounded.

 

[DragonParadox]

Unbending Space ​

13th of January 2007 A.D.

As you surge forward, it is not quite with the swiftness of lightning. Even a speeding bullet would outpace you. Yet, it is more than enough that you are within the swinging distance of your sword from the monstrosity in front of you before the fastest of your subordinates can as much as raise their weapons. The thing is definitely made of meat, minced meat covered in scales shells and fingernails growing at random from its oily pores, but as you try to cut it is as it the sword in your hand, the sword that had slain a once-god is a blunt metal club that you have to force in among clouds of putrid steam.

Lost 2 Essence -> Now at 7/15

"You are not welcome, you were not invited blood bags," the words are everywhere, commonplace insult made dreadful curse, giving you just enough time to contemplate the horror of blood bursting into internal cavities, stomachs, eyes, lungs and cast it away with a flexing of will before you hear a familiar voice speaking an unfamiliar word behind you: "Expello!"

Lost 1 Willpower -> Now at 6/9

Harry Loses 1 Willpower -> Now at 7/8

The world untwists with a sharp crack, more felt than heard, the curse of blood made stillborn even as a spear of light flashes from Lydia's up-swept palm striking the thing right in the blazing red eye, though it does not seem overly troubled at being doomed to die.

Then the electro-lasers open up only a handful but going all out. There is no rattle of bullets being fired of course, just a line of continuous plasma connecting the barrel to target and the artificial thunder which it brings. Too much, it is too much even for whatever this is.

Even in death the creature does not burn or detonate or suffer any other fate that might have been expected of organic matter exposed to flaming ruin, instead it peels back, layer upon layer like an ear of corn being shucked to reveal leathery cysts that burst into a weird collection of stuff: marbles scattering to and fro, dice and even a mid-sized stone. You see something flashing and think it's a knife, but as it falls among the pile of steaming meat that had once been a vampire and worse than a vampire you realize that it's a steel pen of all things

"Divine Majesty, is the target terminated?" Hand of Gently Falling Ash asks as he steps not in but back, allowing agents with still fully charged guns to take the lead, smart.

"Yeah, it's very gone, excellently done," you hesitate to call the creature dead as it would be hard to think of it as having been alive. The only reason it was ever even animate was not playing by the rules of biology or chemistry, as demonstrated by how rapidly it it falling apart now that its tortured mind is no longer holding it together, now that it is of no further use to the Things Beyond.

"What do we have here?" Tiffany is the next to step into the room and look down at the bric-a-brac that had been inside the core of the vampire thing. "Harry you are the detective, any idea what that is?"

"Hard to stomach?" he tries for a quip, but his heart isn't in it. "Huh... does Rock look like...? I think that is a Pet Rock, look you can see the eyes and that's a Sheaffer pen, before your time, they used to make really good pens." He sounds a bit shaky, maybe using the talk of old pens to ground himself after the fight. Maybe that's why Tiffany even brought it up, you think.

The once-demon in question picks up the pen, the thoughtful look in her eye giving lie to the notion. "That still does not answer what all this is doing in the stomach of a vampire. I would not put it past the lunatics who made this crass failure in biology to have omitted giving it a gag reflex, but even if it fed by full body absorption it would have learned to separate its meals from their indigestible possessions after the first time. If it is clever enough to try to kill thematically it's clever enough not to swallow rocks."

"Does it matter?" Lydia asks hesitantly. "I mean it's dead now we can keep going." She motions to the passage beyond where the veiny back of the flesh-room had been.

"Maybe not, but a lot of power was invested in this particular vampire to make it an amplifier of sorts for an Outsider spirit," you answer, catching on to what Tiffany meant.

You could ask, if the answer is meaningful enough it might even give you another mote of essence over over what you spend... but if it is not it will cost you half as much as the fight did.

What do you do?

[] Ask how the odd collection got in the vampire

[] Do not ask, move on

[] Write in

OOC: And what is what an electro-laser on full-auto looks like, also a Starborn counter-spelling something Outsider related. Incidentally the shaping targeted everyone and would have started the process of drowsing targets in their own blood as it... migrated to places it should not be in the body. Lydia did not use the Agg version of Hunter's Bolt since she wanted to conserve essence, alas that meant the thing soaked the damage.

 

[DragonParadox]

Turnaround's Unfair Play ​

13th of January 2007 A.D.

For a moment you hesitate, wondering if curiosity will serve you ill when there is yet battle to fight, but this is weird enough to count surely? It can't all just be more random, pointless murder? You feel a catch in the back of your throat, the horror you had not been allowing yourself to feel so you can keep moving forward, one step in front of the other. How did this get here?

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 6/15

A short pale fellow, his blond hair receding at an uneven peace stands on a rickety chair in the middle of a cavernous chamber, twirling a familiar steel pen between his fingers... The same man on the stage at an Opera House watching a story inside a story unfold: It is Hannibal, tale of the hated and admired general of Carthage, it is the tragedy of Christine Daaé turned prima donna and her Phantom of the Opera, it is the last play he will ever see, figures more twisted than playwright's imagination burst through the glamor... The man lashes out with all the power and the passion of his dream, it is not enough.

"I think he was a sorcerer of some kind," you say slowly explaining: "The man who became a vampire who became, that. Those are all the pieces of who he used to be. He was here and at a rendition of the Phantom of the Opera somehow. "

Harry concentrates on the first part: "Makes sense, he still had magic, twisted and a lot more of it, they probably kidnapped him because he could serve as a basis for that thing,"

"Those f...fuckers!" There is no trace of England in Harrowmont's tone nor of his habitual decorum. "That is... was Orpheus. Bastards! What did they do to you? Why?"

Regained 2 Essence -> Now at 8/15

You have never been less happy at the flash of revelation spun into new Essence. While the transformation into one of the Red Court was certainly dying it was, on some level at least, self inflicted. Orpheus could not have cast a death curse upon the Dragon in the midst of it which means the Dragon was incapacitated some other way maybe by Sandra's magic or... he was never incapacitated at all. The Dragon might be in on the whole thing.

"There are some questions," Tiffany puts a hand on Harrowmont's shoulder, "that one is not meant to answer, not because knowing the answer is morally wrong, but because doing so will harm you, sure as if you had pressed your palm to a razor's blade. Take solace in knowing that was never your friend, he died to make the vampire that served as the soil in which abomination was planted."

"I think the Dragon might be in on it, the whole thing," you interrupt urgently.

"Then he's not the one holding the gate as much as it is still being held at least," Harry says, not missing a beat. If anything he looks more energized than he had a moment before. Harry Dresden, you realize, thrives in crises even more than you do. "We could try to contact it before we burst in on the Cthulhu Appreaciation Society. It has to be paying attemtion. It has to be paying attention."

"But how... we do not have any kind of ritual focus to draw its attention," Lydia points out. "I could try to peek over thevVeil, but something tells me there are worse things lurking there now."

"It's a Sin Eater, any instance of vice should do, if Molly's right it has to be desperate for any kind of help," Tiffany points out with a meainngful look towards Harry that he thankfully misses.

What do you do?

[] Press on

[] Try to contact the Sin Eater before confronting Sandra and potentially the Dragon

[] Write in

OOC: Man you guys are lucky you had more than just the party in here, Harry actually botched the roll to figure out that was Orpheus and Molly and Lydia both failed.

 

[DragonParadox]

Dicing with the Devil, Supping with a Spirit ​

13th of January 2007 A.D.

"I think we should look for the spirit..."

The words are barely out of your mouth when Oliver Adkin takes the still faintly glowing golden eye out of his pocket and in a clear voice says: "I'll wager this on a throw of the dice."

Tiffany gives him the stink-eye which given where you are and what you're doing is pretty inappropriate, and not a little troubling that you have to think about it to find it so.

"Why hold guilt clutched so closely to one's chest oh Eternal Arbiter of the Wheel?" Usum's questions.

The answer that comes to mind is glib, but then you guess this is the city for it: "Without guilt there is no sin and sin is useful." Turning to the old priest you add aloud: "Do you actually have dice?"

He does, dice and cup as well, choosing to wager the holy talisman against Tiffany after a moment of hesitation which seems to mollify her "A hundred dollars. You call it."

"Six," he calls after a moment.

The die tumbles onto the stone floor among the blood, viscera and the ruin of the vampire Orpheus, a two. So Tiffany picks up her prize, careful to only touch the chain upon which it hangs and flips it over her shoulder for Harry. "He probably likes you more."

"That's not..." Harry starts. Before he can do more than roll his eyes a gust of warm air passes through, scented like cigarettes and perfume, like fine wine and sweeter more perilous things, it leaves a taste of bile in the back of the throat like you'd had too much to drink. It is the clink of slot machines and the shadow of debts coming due.

"Why 're you here? Who are you? What are you? What'll you be having? What do you crave? When're you heading out? Why do you wager? What's your poison?" Each phrase comes in a different voice, soft and loud, world-weary and frantic, the voices of Vegas echoing across time, you realize.

It doesn't really want nine questions answered you'd bet, and betting is the point. "You can't speak in your own voice can you, not to us?"

"That'll be one on the house for the little lady," the tone is as sleazy as the words but you take it for assent.

"As he betrayed you, your servant in this city? Your... Dragon?" it always felt weird to hand that name out to one of the Red Court, no matter how powerful, all the more so now.

"Snake eyes, snake eyes, all in a row. How low can you roll?" the voice breaks a little on the last word, as though the original speaker had been on the verge of tears.

"Can you help us?" Harry asks, getting the hang of this.

"Gotta stay with him. If I divorce him how the fucker'll burn down the house." A woman's voice this time, not hard to guess the context either original or present. If the Sin Eater withdraws its mantle from the Dragon it will just release whatever it had been set to guard so long ago.

"What can you tell us about all this, old one?" Lydia is the next one to ask a question.

"If you can pick 'em up I can keep putting 'em down, but we have to be quick, it's coming up closing time." These words are backed by distant sirens, police or ambulance it's hard to tell.

"And afterward?" you press. If you win, when you win there is going to be a hell of a power vacuum here in Vegas.

"Find a new dealer, the party never ends," comes the answer, brittle and sharp.

What do you do?

[] Question the Sin Eater
-[] Write in up to Five (5) questions

[] Ask it to help you some other way
-[] Write in

[] Write in

OOC: Alas poor Lash, foiled by a priest yet again, some things never change.

 

[DragonParadox]

Lies in Blood Written ​

13th of January 2007 A.D.

"What forces are arrayed against us?"

"The rat you know is the rat you get, more rats in the walls too, little ones but they're bad enough." The 'borrowed' voice changes to a deeper and more accented one, a tourist maybe. "You can be anything you vant in Vegas as long as your pockets they hold, then it will spit you out and and let you rot." Next a woman's voice. "Well doc my name's Helen, do I look like a Helen of Troy to you. Yeah, that's right, that's what I'm aiming for."

'Rats in the walls', that is probably lesser Outsiders, can't be too many of them, but you will have to be careful about positioning. What was that about the name? Sandra from Alexandra, well it certainly fits her ambitions for the city, even though she's planning it the way he left Persepolis. Wait... fear passes down your spine like a jolt of electricity. I want to be like my name. Dragon? Could someone warp a vampire into something like a dragon? Before today you would have said no, but the Orpheus-Vampire had put paid to commonplace notions of form-permanence.

The second question is all the more urgent then. "How does the Dragon fight?"

"The things he does with his body doll and with your body too if you'll let him." Note to self: when this is over take a long shower

"Are they going to run is this turns against them?" you press. It's all too easy to imagine a situation where you and Lydia exhaust yourselves fighting lesser servants and then Sandra and the Fake Dragon run away needing to be dug out of another burrow.

"I ain't no mind reader. How am I to know what women want?" A pause, a stutter, almost as informative as the words themselves and then. "It's his land and he won't leave it gents, see to it that he's buried 'neath it."

"Is there anything we can do to disrupt their plans beside putting them to fire and sword?"

"No." The syllable comes out as a scream like someone being stabbed, making everyone except you and Tiffany start or jump. Even the Hand Agents react... granted by aiming their guns in the direction it had come from.

"What are you holding back?"

"So many things... so little time..." With a deranged giggle the presence fades, though not entirely, you can still catch a whiff of spoiled perfume and vomit from time to time.

"Do you guys have all that that?" you ask, looking back at a shaken Harry, a faintly revolted Tiffany and Lydia looking solemn as she did ministering to the dead.

"Just them and some puppets left, the Emissary of the Beyond might run but the Dragon won't. What was that about names? I'm good enough with English when it's plain to hear, but not riddles in the dark." Lydia says and you can practically see the sparkle in Harry's eyes as he thinks of a certain chapter in a certain book and then thinks the better of mentioning it... so you do. Screw 'going nobly into battle', you are going to make jokes if you feel like it.

"Golum's not here, but I'm afraid Smaug might be." She does not get it, guess you know what book you're getting her for her birthday this year. "The Dragon's skilled in warping flesh, Duchess Arianna could do something like that, though it was just a worse a bat thing for her. If he's responsible for the thing we just killed... don't let him touch you. Tiffany can you fix flesh-warping?"

"Assuming the results are not instantly fatal, or lead to ego-death I should," she answers after a moment though she sweeps her gaze over the rest of the company until it lands on Harry "The advice stands though, just because I can untwist you if you become a screaming spiral does not mean it's something to aspire to." The words 'screaming spiral' sound way too much like a proper thing she has seen before.

As you move deeper into the complex the rooms become more lived in, filled with the shell lives of vampires, chairs and tables scattered two and fro, clothes that do not fit their true form, a second false skin upon the first, someone had even brought in a fridge stocked with an ungodly amount of pop tarts. You had expected it to look ghoulish, you did not expect it to look kind of sad like a stack of old Archie Comics propper up on a table, one of them still open to a well creased page.

Finally you come to it, the final stretch into the reservoir. There are lights on ahead. Not even hiding it.

What do you do?

[] Ask Oliver Adkin and Alexander Harrowmont to stay here, they have done well to get this far, but this battle will be beyond them

[] Drawing upon your Essence you armor yourself in stone and brass and fiery purpose, a crown upon your head (Enter Shintai)

[] Write in

OOC: I will admit I was chuckling to myself when @Artemis1992 mentioned Vicissitude 9: The Last Dracul. I mean here we have a vampire who claims the title Dragon and I had already decided to give Reds the discipline a long time ago, it was just to perfect.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Powers Unveiled ​

13th of January 2007 A.D.

A few quick words are enough to establish the plan, such as it was and what there was of it. Throw everything you have into the fight and made an end of this abomination.

It is harder than it's ever been, reaching for yourself, a strain upon the soul to reach so far and spill so wide so soon after the last time, the last battle, and yet it is familiar. Memories not your own tell you that such is the way of war against immortal implacable foes. Brass and obsidian groan and shift, winds howl, the tunnels warp and shift from straight lines to curves and spirals, flickering green crystals glow in eerily organic alcoves like eyes peeking from beyond. A Labyrinth still, your labyrinth.

Distantly you hear the words that Tiffany MecNeil whisper to herself:

"You did request and so thou may not complain the molding nor am I now a hypocrite."

Thus she proves herself as skillful as her boasts, essence-infused flesh as clay under her fingers. It doesn't hurt, you almost wish it would, then you might be able to focus on the pain not on the feeling that your own body no longer answers to your will alone, nerves pulled taunt like a pianist's wires, almost to breaking point.

The flash of a sympathetic smile is the only sign on her too perfect face that Tiffany realizes what this feels like, she does not speak, moving on to getting Adkin moving like a man in his prime, Harry and the all but frozen in place Harromont moving with inhuman grace. Something moves at the end of the corridor, a shadow vast and ragged.

Green eyes like emeralds shinning, fair skin like marble gleaming, great wings like crystals chinning, you had seen this all before, but upon the face of the Once-Fallen is no look of wonder or joy, but wrath. In she breathes, a long slow breath and out comes mist, two thousand years of lies and illusions given form and fit to befuddle even the sharpest of minds. Do the eyes behind the veil shine still or do they glow like distant flames?

Spoiler: Mechanics

Lose 4 Essence -> Now at 3/15 (Shintai VLE; Steel Skin)
Lost 3 Willpower -> Now at 2/9 (Shintai ATB)

Molly Gains

• 6 DEX (+2 Manipulate Nerves +4 Shintai) -
• 4 STAMINA ( +1 Shintai +3 Steel Skin)
• 1 STRENGTH (+1 Shintai)
• +8 Soak (VLE)
• -3 to all Perception Rolls (ATB)

Tiffany Gains

• +2 Torment -> Now at 2/10
• 7 DEX (+5 Manipulate Flesh +2 Apocalyptic Flesh)
• 2 Charisma, 1 Manipulation, 2 Appearance
• Flight (x3 Speed)
• 2 Perception
• +2 Difficulty on ranged attacks, +1 on melee attacks

Harry Gains 5 DEX
Lydia Gains 5 DEX
Adkin Gains 4 DEX
Harrowmont Gains 4 DEX

The agents of the Hand are steady, no less than is expected, but you look over the three most likely to be shaken at the sight only to find to your relief that they are not, wizard sorcerer and priest are all clear eyed for all the light's rising and the world changing. A roar sounds down the tunnel ahead, a beast asnwering a challange and more and worse. the echoes degenerate to sharp painful screetches, sounds broken into pieces. No time for more boons from Lash, no time for anything but blood.

The room ahead is enormous, Orpheus' reservoir a hundred feet high and twice that across, lit under the sharp glare of industrial lights that that twist and warp into hover-lights as they come under your power, but the thing in the middle of the room, that you know you will not change.

At first glance it looks like a an hourglass, all of a piece and black as night, but looking closely one can see the lower 'lobe' is a cast iron cauldron large enough for six people to sit in and the rest of it is... just blackness. It does not really have a shape in the conventional sense, be it the sharp edge of a solid or the glimmer of surface tension and certainly it does not mingle at the edges like a cloud of gas might. It just has a place where it ends and reality starts existing again. A glimpse only you catch of a woman on the other side of the whirling darkness when another roar rings out and the False Dragon descends.

Whatever his other failings well had he wrought, the art of flesh-craft, almost a dragon, winged and dreadful, eyes of forgefire, claws like swords its shadow falls upon your like landslide in the mountains. Only the mouth full of blood gives the lie away.

Spoiler: The Dragon

In some other place, some other time, an army might have broken beneath that shadow, but this is not that place, that time for lights pallid and nacreous green rise to meet it and the voices of men and women not of this earth born rise in battle prayer a hundred times a hundred spoken beneath alien skies as they scatter.

All Characters regain 1 Point of Willpower

How do you fight?

[] Have Lash fly around to try to tackle Sandra behind the pillar

[] The Agents do not fire this turn as they round the eldritch hourglass to shoot the person hiding behind it

[] Write in

OOC: There are two reasons I paused this now, one that Sandra is presently hiding behind something that makes shooting her from the entrance impossible and two, out of all the ones I made this update there is one roll in particular you guys have to see.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Blight on Being ​

13th of January 2007 A.D.

The world almost seems to be standing still, a grim tableau illuminated by the shifting light of Harry's staff as though words had frozen upon lips, fingers upon triggers stayed, even shadows petrified in terror of what had here come to pass, only you Lash and the Dragon itself moving. You see him turn and catch the glint of malice in its flaming eye, he knows you for a warrior and Tiffany as not. Yet the moment of surprise in the face of such uncommon courage had cost it. Fast though it be, the stale air tearing in the wake of its wings you are faster. turning a tight arc to come behind it

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 2/15
Lydia loses 1 Essence -> Now at 3/7

"Oath-breaker!" you scream as brazen sword turns to spear the foe in the back under the wings, to carve a path to the place where you know whatever remnant of its heart must be in this mockery-guise. Alas it too can twist more fluid than any beast beholden to the demands of flesh, a serpent of the air yet more than serpent. Ash-grey talons lash out fast enough to blur even in your sight you had not claimed this place, it water were not still flowing though your hair, it might have caught the blade entirely, but at the last moment you twist and flick drawing a line of blood into the palm of its scaly hand. Lo the blood bursts into dirty flame orange and black and scores the chest of your armor.

Dragon takes 2 Damage -> Now at 21/23 Wounds

"Oath-breaker, is that what you would name a slave shattering his chains?" You had expected a growling voice, it could yet speak, something to match the roar, not these urbane tones and not these words, showing not even a trace of pain than it opens its mouth and all is fire, blinding choking and devouring.

The outer layers of the stone turn white hot and start to boil away, but underneath that stone is no mortal flesh, but living brass as much just as infused with your will. When the exhalation ends you are left wearing armor smoking cracked and pitted like the earth after a volcano eruption, but you find yourself unharmed, much to the shock of the False Dragon under the light of mercurial star held in the hand of a woman named after the Epiphany.

Sandra takes 1 Bashing Damage -> Now at 6/7

Below the floor shakes and shatters as Lydia tears away a piece of concrete and rides it across the reservoir, death's daughter in his chariot, with four borrowed arms men at her side.

Nameless cacophonies like the sounds of tearing metal and tortured souls echo from the back of the room, hell's own orchestra ending in a ragged cough, then you hear your old friend speak, sweetly, for all the world as though she means it: "I'm sorry Molly."

For the first time since you had learned to cast vistas of Sanctuary around you where your soul touched you feel that part of you recoil from the touch of dreadful Wyld energies, the mutilation of the reason made manifest. The ground is still down and the ceiling is still up but the faces forming in the smoke curling off your armor can bite, the updrafts might with malice send you tumbling or the fire from the dragon's maw might curl like a serpent around your armor now.

Sandra uses Sphere of Chaos -> All those not Sworn to the Old Ones take +4 DC to all actions while in the Area of Effect except Angelic Lore Rolls (Area of Effect a Sphere 8 ft in Diameter)
Sandra takes 1 Bashing Damage -> Now at 5/7
Sandra loses 1 Permanent Willpower -> Now at ??? Willpower

Thus the Dragon emboldened twists and pulls away curling in fouled sanctuary, riding the madness. Yet the light of the hand-star is steady and by that light perhaps as much as by centuries of skill two shots find their mark, one in the wing another halfway down the serpentine neck.

The Dragon Takes 5 Damage -> Now at 16/21

Alas you do not have the chance to cheer as masses of black tendrils like foul flowers bloom along the sides of the hourglass, the least of Those Beyond and yet more deadly than words can tell. Thirteen they are split three and three and four: the first group to cut off Lydia's path, the second clawing their way into the air to meet you, the third and largest heading right to Harry only to be met with a blast of sorcerous fire that erases the lead one.

12 Lesser Outsiders Remaining ​

"I am sorry Molly," Sandra says again, her voice reaching you somehow. Of course it would reach you, it makes a better story that way, the thought it filled with venom not-quite-your-own and yet it feels true as a memory from childhood.

Though the shards of broken-air —air really shouldn't be breaking like that— you see Lydia rip one of the things lengthwise down the middle and drink its essence, death to the deathless gifted

Lydia loses 1 Essence -> Now at 2/7 (Dexterity Excellency)
Lydia regains 3 Essence -> Now at 5/7 (Rest Granting Strike)

11 Lesser Outsiders Remaining ​

What do you do?

[] Kill the False Dragon, Wyld-Curse or no you are going to rip his head off and throw it at the feet of his masters

[] Make Sandra really sorry, that curse doesn't cover her

[] Help kill the Lesser Outsiders, unlike Sandra or even the Dragon those things will not die when shot

[] Write in

OOC: Yep, that is an Earthbound Lore in the hand of a mortal, investitures are a hell of a thing. And you might notice there is a bit of... historical bleed-over here. Lets just say there are a lot of things in this reservoir right now that are an offense to the Celestial Exalted, no matter their ultimate nature.

 

[DragonParadox]

Tidebreakers ​

13th of January 2007 A.D.

After a moment of shock you begin to laugh, and if it sounds a little hollow with exhaustion what of it? They are all going to be in pieces anyway. With a wrench of will assert yourself, no shadow upon the wall but form and thus and your skill, cutting through the chaos and the false Dragon's flesh beneath with with ease. A mortal dares bring the Wyld into this world you are defending? A mortal thinks they will fare better in the primordial chaos than you, who are inviolate by the laws of gods and and nature and the will of the dreaming Unshaped alike?

Lost 1 Willpower -> Now at 2/9 (Ego-Infused Pattern Primacy)

Again and again the blade falls, in his shock the Dragon's unearthly might availing him little, but still his hide is hard as bedrock and his blood burning tar.

The Dragon Takes 5 Damage -> Now at 11/21

Out of the corner of your eye you see Tiffany dive like a silver heron after some particularly juicy fish... right on top of a shocked Sandra and slam her head into the ground with the full force of her landing.

Sandra takes 3 Damage -> Now at 2/7 (Mauled)

Tendrils whip through the air with unnatural speed, not to lash though the armor as they had last summer when you had helped Harry's master, but to grasp, to hold. Rage breaks the first grapple wrapping around your neck with contemptuous ease, but the second one is less bloodthirsty, or maybe just more clever, it wraps its tendrils around your shoulders pilling your arms and then links/sticks/eats its limbs together. As you turn sword and fire upon it to slash your way free the third puppet opens a mouth it did not have moments ago at the center of its mass and and with a voice far off defiles the tongues of men:

"TakE FLIgHT OuR CHAmPIOn! tHIS BaTtLE iS BEyONd YOU!"

You are in a Hold

Spoiler: Mechanics

Hold: This attack inflicts no damage, as the intent is to immobilize rather than injure the subject. On a successful roll, the attacker holds the target until the subject's next action. At that time, both combatants roll resisted Strength + Brawl actions; the subject remains immobilized (able to take no other action) until she rolls more successes than the attacker does.

Traits: Strength + Brawl
Difficulty: Normal
Accuracy: Normal
Damage: None

In horror you watch as the corrupted vampire rises into the air at a speed no greater than its wings can take it, for all of its will and all of its malice, all of its desire to break free even if it be the world's breaking it puts into words of sorcery. If stones could scream in agony these would be their words. Higher and higher it spirals, the guardian made wrecker , perverting its bond to the land. The walls crack and and spew over the battle noxious fumes that had been locked in the depths of the earth far far below.

On a scale vast beyond grasping... Familiar as breathing... the plates tectonic begin to shift

Into that dreadful din rings a word a word of Latin, a mortal's voice daring against monstrous strength:

"Expello!"​

Not to hold, not to bind, for no mortal mage, be they ever so willful could hope to match might against might with a monster so dreadful:

"Expello!"​

But reminding the earth that it must be still, not give in to the enemy and the enemy onto the breaking of her children:

"Expello!"​

Thrice spoke the wizard, the Warden magic-sworn thrice the world answered, an echo out of time, an an earthquake stilled before it could be born.

And then the four are upon him, ignoring the blasts of electro-lasers as much as they do bullets, the first rakes towards his face but it met with the flash of a shield sputtering from his bracelet. Adkin is praying, but no one is listening. As the shield fails the second monster rakes his neck.

Harry Takes 1 Aggravated Damage -> Now at 6/8

"Fear no Suffering! Unmoved is the Hand of the End!" the words echo proudly, only by you understood as, unable to harm the creature with their weapons and aware the wizard can four of the agents with Harry hurl themselves into the claws of the remaining Outsiders, pushing them away with sheer mass as the things flail in what might be shock.

Hand of Gently Falling Ash takes 3 Damage -> Now at 4/7

A trapezoidal chunk of concrete as wide as you are tall and twice as long breaks off from the cracked ceiling crashes down to fall among the horrors that are encircling Lydia. One tries to pin her, but she slips the noose as another tries to shove its horrid mass through her mouth, nose and ears though all it manages to is graze is cheek.

Lydia takes 2 Damage -> Now at 10/12

Scrambling to her feet, voice ragged with and yet still heard, of course she is heard Sandra manages: "You poor blind fools! This world is a prison, a lie of the Demiurge! Again and again you hear the story and never understand what you are!"

To you, still in the grip of the living net the Outsider had become it sounds like gibberish, but from on high you can see Lydia flinch and shake her head wordless almost feverish denial. Her katas seem almost clumsy as she rips off one of the many limbs that had tried to suffocate her.

Outsider takes Damage -> Now at 5/7

Twisting in place faster and faster, hurling light and shadow all across the room, you tear though the one binding you, then the one who had spoken leaving only puppet between you and the dragon or Sandra... but Harry is wounded and brave as they may be your subjects can only hold so long.

You are Free

Nine Lesser Outsiders Remaining ​

As you look up towards the Dragon you see that in the chaos plasma had scored his hide from neck to belly, like the mark of a vengeful sky god.

The Dragon takes 8 Damage -> Now at 3/21 (Maimed)

What do you do?

[] Harry and the others need your help

[] Finish the Dragon, he's on his last legs

[] Time to make Sandra shut up

[] Write in

OOC: Remember how those agents are all religious fanatics serving their goddess... yeah, those four spent Rage to get an extra action(s) since they were dispersed and then did a reverse dodge into the claw of Outsiders to protect Harry. Not that Harry was in any way less impresive than this. That was the fifth level power of Koldunic Sorcery... the one that makes Earthquakes at 5+ successes. That counterspell was clutch.