Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[DragonParadox]

Wizard Before a Hollow Star ​

7th of February 2007 A.D.

"Would an offering be appropriate?" you wonder, all manner of spiritual dealings crowding into your mind, from the humble gift of salt and pond-loaf that a family on the edge of the Eastern Jungle Belt might offer to the harvest spirits, to the great festivals of the City of Laws, each of them synchronized to perfection that they might appeal to whole choruses of related benevolent spirits while warding off those less welcome. Granted the latter might be a bit much to manage on your own or just with Harry's help. Lydia is busy with her new friends, not that you can blame her for it.

"Offering?" the stone head shakes with a faint grinding of boulders. "No, no I am all that is there... for the longest time I was all that is here... but that is changing... my thanks."

"What about neighbors, do you have any of those on the other side?"

"Since the time... the River People came visiting this has been a crossing of stone to the south, air to the north and water to the east, fire to the west... though things change... the fire came out of the west and the air fanned it and they called it the Great Fire... and the water could not quench it. The water was elsewhere. Tricky element water is."

"My thanks for the insight." Looks like I'll be having that conversation with Harry soon after all.

***​

Harry still isn't comfortable in your palace and it's not just the gleaming furniture, the sharp arches and brass cameras. Just like Porter he too can feel the elements, the world and know that these are not quite them, though that goes out the window when you explain what you had done and what you're planning.

"So let me get this straight, you went to merry old England and the first thing you did was find some of King Arthur's knights in Arawn's dungeon from trying to un-kill him and you decided to spring them and help?"

"All of us decided, Olivia, Daniel, Tiffany and of course Lydia she was the only one who could open the door," you point out.

"Glad you kids had such a moderating influence." By the sounds of that Tiffany isn't going to have a fun homecoming. You do your best to squish the part of you that's glad of that fact.

"Well then," you cut him off brightly sliding a gold fern smoothie over the table to him. "I'm sure you'll be glad to provide the moderation this time around." After a pause you add more seriously. "It's your city too I figured you'd want to know, especially with how all kinds of things react to me coming around."

He rubs either tiredness or a headache from his eyes before accepting. "S'alright. You've done well by Chicago," he yawns for good measure.

"You know I've got something for that right?" you ask.

"Asked Bob, he said 'only' about one dose in fifty is likely to cause hallucinations..."

"And then he implied that you might want that to loosen up once in a while?" you finish making him start and smile. "Bob isn't what you'd call hard to cold read." For some reason that little addition wipes the smile off his face, makes him look almost... guilty. Why would he feel guilty of anything Bob chooses to do, especially when he had been the but of the joke?

"I could just make you some malcoffee, I've got more time now that I have more hands," you offer, but Harry's not having it, the moment of camaraderie fading into awkwardness. This is about the point where most people would give up and move on. You're not most people.

Focusing your attention down to a blazing point of essence you realize from the stiffness of his posture, the way he's trying to control his breathing he's worried about how well you could read him. Now is that because he's not quite as resistant to your charms as he'd like to pretend? Short of opening the Crown's eyes you can't tell but that feels over the line.

"Come on," you finish your drink and offer him your hand to travel back to the Last Station.

One moment of disorientation later you're back among the odd industry of your... underground lair you guess. Already familiar to some of the Jade Dogs, if not a common guest he asks if there's been any trouble with all the banging and the bright magic being drawn along the leyline to get the furnace ready for Porter's new body.

So far nothing had been bold enough, which is either a good sign... or a very bad one if some of the more unwholesome denizens of the tunnels have decided now is the time to muster.

"Call..."

"...the others if there's trouble while you're away," Miru finishes with a huff. "You know we think the same right?"

"Oh yeah. It's a good thing..."

"I have lots of siblings already so I had some practice when it comes to dealing with you lot. Or us lot I guess depending on how you're minded to mangle grammar."

"What?" Both of you turn to Harry who had been trying to keep back a smile with what could at best be described as mixed results.

"Nothing, nothing." He really needs to learn how to lie better if he's going to play White Council politics.

Maybe it's the distraction of the Station, maybe it's the way Maker of Immaculate Relics Untarnished keeps asking leading questions: 'Are you sure that strand goes there?'; 'Have you considered tying off that weave at the top instead of the bottom so it won't echo?'; 'Maybe it's worth putting less power on the down-stroke?' but it takes Harry a good while to open a passage to Porter's Sanctum.

At first glance it seems an ordinary enough cave, larger than any cave you'd ever been inside in the flesh, but not unduly so. There's light to one side and where the light strikes the cave floor jade-green moss grows. The walls are covered with pictograms and signs taken right from the graffiti above and water drips through channels straight like railway lines beckoning one to follow along eastward. As good a place as any to start exploring. Faintly at first then clearer and clearer you start seeing filaments of paler stone, crystal in the walls, jade, though it's not pure enough to extract and bring into the the world of form you know,

Spoiler: Sanctum

Then you turn a corner...

"Stars and Stones!" Harry's voice rises in distorted echoes. The chamber is vast, easily two hundred feet tall if not taller at its highest point widening rather than narrowing towards the top where the stone had been worn smooth like a vault with an enormous seam of jade like a bolt of lighting or the knotted branch of an ancient tree running through it. Or at least that is what it once had been. In the center of the formation where the jade would have been purest someone had carved out a pentagonal plug of grey jade some seven feet across. That is not a talisman of the sort the Wan Kuei bear to hold Chi, it's an Essence sink, for a truly massive structure... Towers of crystal and cities in flight wander ghostly-pale, too thin to grasp before the mind's eye.

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 17/18 (Occult Excellency)

"Any idea what you would use that for?" you turn to Harry in place of chasing phantasms.

"A keystone, a very, very big keystone for something the builder wants to last forever," comes the reply that grows more confident as he says it.

"Forever's a very long time," you shake your head. "Isn't it weird that nothing lives in here? We aren't in Porter's place anymore, but there's nothing here but echoes. You'd think some lesser power would have staked a claim."

"I could have a look," he offers after a moment. "If no one's been around here since they carved the wall it should give me a pretty good idea of what it was for."

"Or I could just ask," you point out.

"Your way might get a deeper answer, mine would be a wider one," Harry says. Truth be told he has a point. Another reason to sharpen your own Sight if you can. You would feel a lot better about imprinting the history of this room on your memory that Harry's.

What do you do?

[] Use a Crown Question

[] Harry uses the Sight

[] Leave it be for later

[] Write in

OOC: Since I know it is going to be asked you only get one question since the carved place is part of the literal wall and thus the scene. It's been too long since it was carved for it to count as its own object.

 

[DragonParadox]

Secret Keepers ​

7th of February 2007 A.D.

"Hmm..." you muse aloud. "Right now I don't know what I don't know, who carved that out and how are obvious questions but I only get the one. You take a look and then I'll work with what you get."

"Right, this will take a while. I'd say get comfortable, but there's rock, more rock and of course dirt." Joke aside Harry exhales a long breath, grounding himself as you had stumblingly recounted the technique him before the soul-gaze when you were still new to all this power. Maybe it's thinking much of yourself, but this hole in the wall shouldn't be as big of a pitfall as that.

There's no outward sign of a wizard opening their Sight, that is what makes it all the more dangerous, to people other than the wizard that is, one never knows when one of the wise is reading histories and meanings right out of empty air.

"What the...!" Harry calls in sudden alarm, then to something that's definitely not you: "Nescio quid vis." After all the Latin you'd spoken over the last few days your brain processes it instantly: I don't know what you mean.

Harry's next word unfortunately doesn't need a translation: "Duck!"

A trio of creatures, each an elegant disturbing chimera of honey-bee and spider, their bands not gold and black but gemstone bright appear one behind you and one in front, that one hurling a spike of crystal from where it's stinger aught to be straight at Harry. the familiar shield flashes in front of him catching the blow, though its light fades almost to nothing.

Shield now at 3/10 HL

"What's happening?" you shout, sword already in hand.

"Wizard magic! Asked me for the secret handshake or password and I don't know it!" The answer is as clear as it is unhelpful. The room had been occupied by guardians set here to hold old secrets but what are you supposed to do with these things now? There's nothing dark about them, no malice or gnawing hunger. A pity almost seeing as those are the kinds of spirits most likely to heed your words.

On the one hand beating them should be doable. They look fast and strong, but you are both those things in spades and have a wizardly backup, but is just doing the task for which they had been set a reason to consume these spirits? Your stomach tightens at the prospect. Maybe you should just attack without striking the final blow, though that would warn any Otherworld allies they have when they manage to pull themselves together.

"Tell them we don't mean any harm," you offer.

"I don't think they're attacking because of how much we scare them, Molly." Harry answers darkly as the spider-bees start to grow brighter and brighter, colors more vivid, contours more distinct, reinforcing the pattern of their being for the duel to come. "Someone charged them to keep anyone who doesn't know the secret handshake from seeing that carving."

"And you saw it...?"

As he nods the spirits start to draw in one of them seaming to expand as it breathes in the magic all around it, bulling at your essence with the relentless fury of the desert wind. No. With slice of your will, sharp as steel, you cut the thickening thread before it can start to drain you, leaving the strange spirit hovering in confusion... though not for long you're sure.

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 17/18 (EIPP)
Drain Gnosis... Blocked

What do you do?

[] Fight the Spirits
-[] Use Murder is Meat
-[] Do not use Murder is Meat

[] Try to talk the spirits down
-[] Write in how

[] Write in

OOC: Who better than a wizard to leave guards against someone in the future using the Sight on a place you mined something important?

 

[DragonParadox]

Riddle in the Middle ​

7th of February 2007 A.D.

Taking the moment of confusion for your own, peering through gem-bright eyes down the corridors of ages you hear a riddle in Latin, the same one Harry must have heard: "Ego sum principium mundi et finis saeculorum attamen non sum deus/I am the beginning of the world and the end of the ages, but I am not God."

With it comes the answer and it is in that moment surrounded by spirits still resolved to skewer you to death on crystal barbs, drain you to a husk or God knows what else that you realize one fundamental truth: Wizards are dorks, they have always been dorks, every single one of them.

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 16/18 (Crown Question)

"Litterae M," you sound out confidently a split second after Harry's luck runs out. A web unseen, a spell of stasis falls over him and though he manages to blunt the worst of it still it starts to petrify the fingers of his right hand as it clutches his staff.

Harry takes 2 Dexterity Damage -> Now at 2/4

Three pairs of alien eyes are affixed to you and so you do what comes naturally, lie hard and fast: "Pardon gracious guardians, we were not expecting to make your acquaintance so soon after diving under the skin of the world, our failing of course and none of yours, merely stealth without peer."

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 15/18 (Subterfuge Excellency)

"We have many peers," the spirit in front buzzes, half a warning and half boast.

"Understood," you answer in like tongue before turning to Harry with a put-upon expression. "And that Warden is why you don't just skim the security briefing..." At least you hope that 'litterae' can stand in for briefing. For all their reputation the Romans have nothing on modern English when it comes to the ins and outs of bureaucracy.

Lost 2 Essence -> Now at 13/18 (Etiquette and Occult Excellency)

No sense tripping over my own tongue, you reason and thus invoke the Language in which no confusion is possible: "[Hail to thee Inspiration's Children/Shape Keepers, bound to the weft of the world.]" Even as you speak the greeting so you know them true, spirits born not of the timeless cycles of the world or even of man's changing habits. These are the shards and reflections of a moment of transcendent inspiration, bound to guard the secret of their birth for should it ever be repeated even once they would cease to be.

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 12/18 (SCCP)
Regained 2 Essence -> Now at 14/18 (Urge of the Forbidden)

For this Usum would name them 'Daemons of Genius', though you do not think they are deserving of that. As spirits of creation they oppose most of the beings and creatures that would deal mortals untimely ends before they can fufill their potential and nurture young minds when they can, for only thus can more of their kind come to be. Alas the thing you are investigating is likely... it, the reason for their existence and not just theirs. Daemons of Genius do not as a rule lie, if they say there are more of them around it is almost certainly so.

"[Seeking Identity, singular, plural? Seeking purpose?]" One of them asks as the trio of spirits, no longer to strange slowly relaxes their stingers away from you.

"[To guard/know the bounds of the shape-in-shadow-of-self]" Harry answers more slowly than usual, as though he does not quite trust this strange code with his thoughts.

"[Admirable to seek insight beyond. Beyond present locus in seeking fly]."

You had, you just realized, been politely invited to leave, but there are still so many questions, who had told them to deliver a riddle in Latin to wizards attempting to use the Sight instead of just attacking? Was it the same person who had been responsible for their creation, the one who mined the jade? Most delicately of all, what had that wizard made? That last question is a bit like asking someone which poison they are most susceptible to admittedly, but maybe if asked obliquely enough.

What do you do?

[] Try to ask more questions
-[] Who had bound them to offer that riddle to wizards?
-[] How long had they been around?
-[] Where was the jade taken from this chamber taken
-[] What other spirits are around beside Porter
-[] Write in

[] Ask your one question of the chamber, they do not seem to notice that unlike Harry's Sight

[] Harry already got hurt doing this, no sense pushing your luck, leave them be and continue further east

[] Write in

OOC: I know that is a lot of essence to burn through but you guys had 18 total, I figured going down to 14 would not be that bad, especially since in the Nevernever you get one more back every three hours. For anyone wondering yes that is a legitimate Latin riddle that they included in medieval gramar books.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Elements Occluded​

7th of February 2007 A.D.

After explaining that you are Porter's new liege, no sense lying on that one, you frame the meeting as something like 'meeting the neighbors'. Sorry Harry, you wince inwardly thinking of his poor hands, but unless one's willing to fight there's no point in being adversarial. Inspiration's Children don't have much interest in empathy, or community, only in the work of brilliant minds. Thus you present the possibility, plucked whole from pure guesswork as it might be, that their chamber could be a path by which the Last Station might be attacked.

"[Null Presence/Stable event diffusion probable]" they counter as firm as the Language will allow. It is not a boast, for such is not their way, but a statement of intent. They will guard as they have ever done. One gets the sense that the years and centuries lie very lightly in this place where naught is spoken but the whispering of the stream. The Internet is new here, but so perhaps is the printed word and mayhap even the written.

"[Particulate/Motonic alterations actualizing]." Maybe you are exaggerating a bit, Porter's new line isn't going to alter the physical constants along it if you understand what Miru is planning, more like lean into some edge cases. Quantum tunneling does happen in nature after all.

"[State purpose?]" The buzzing sounds a little alarmed, enough that Harry is starting to give you worried looks.

But you've got this "[Joy in becoming of the Earth-Dragon-Kin]." Just because something isn't made for empathy, doesn't mean they don't understand kindness, much like those quantum tunnels one just has to know how to tip the board

"[Light-in-light carried, how may we join-in-circle?]" comes the rather hesitant question, still not entirely sure what you are, but caught up in the vision of Porter fulfilling his dream or racing swift as the wind though he is stone.

"[Reveal the hidden bright unburning flame,]" you entreat.

As much as cardinal directions matter: north of here, in the place Porter identified as 'Wind' is the Hollow Bread Roost, or the 'Place of the Fleshless Ones' for the memory of murdered things now roosted there darkening the sky while to the west there still lurked the Embermane, a patron of wild fire and misfortune that had only once been loosed upon the mortal world, but still hungered for the screams of men. Of what which lies further east of here, following the thread of the stream to the lake-that-should be-sea they can speak but a little, but the shape of their silence draws a rough outline in your mind. There had been taken the star that was mined here, something had been made on the lake, something even Embermane fears and not just as fire deeply fears water. Lastly there is the possibility of going south, though you will have to dig your own path through solid rock to do so... and once you do so whatever you find will have a path back here. Harry unsurprisingly votes to deal with what seems to be the most unambiguous problem of the fire spirit, he'd have probably done so already if he knew it was there.

Before making the choice you sneak another look at the place the star of Jade is not and ask, peering with bright eyes through the ages: "What arcane craft took place here?"

With chisel carved of Age and Entropy
Fate was spun for those of lost identity
For broken gods and shattered principalities
A recapitulation of Creation's abnormalities ​

A prison, you shiver, for things that no longer fit.

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 13/18

Where does Moly want to head to next?

[] North to the Empty Roost, the spirits dwelling there are described as being gripped by the sorrow than wrath, maybe there's something you can do to help or at least some agreement you can reach with them on borders in the Nevernever

[] West to deal with Embermane, that sounds like it's going to have a straightforward if violent solution

[] East onto the water, to find the frightful thing Unnamed

[] South, carve a new path

[] Write in

OOC: Healing Harry is also a bit of a concern since none of your potions work on Atribute damage from spirit charms, but Harry being Harry he is more than willing to soldier on for now.

 

[DragonParadox]

Whispers in Ash​

7th of February 2007 A.D.

With Harry at your side you meander west as the tunnels quickly give way to arches of stone that reveal patches of sky then to a petrified wood quiet and still, inhabited only by a tribe of slate grey serpents that you discover only thanks to Harry just as you are about to use one of them as a handhold to get a better look up ahead. It opens sulfurous eyes bright as lanterns among a rain of ash, 'alchemist' it names you and by its twisting coils shows you honor. Still it would have bitten you for that is simply its nature you know, yet you cannot help but be charmed by its listing of local alchemical supplies 'so that you would not have to go so far afield for answers, for wisdom'. You bow and give thanks, where else could once have learned that rubber scraped off hot concrete can be used in potions to ward off fever.

"You are just going to take a strange snake's word for something? Didn't your parents teach you about stranger danger?" Harry asks, the smile hiding serious concern.

"There's no way I could make something to poison myself by accident and I'm not sure I could do it on purpose either," you shrug.

The silence returns then, under the blanketing ash, not as easy as before though. "What?"

"You really are built different," Harry finally says, not looking at you.

"So you just compared me to Mab in your head then?" you let out a giggle. "I know I shouldn't, but I'm a tiny bit flattered."

Still quiet on the Harry front.

"Maeve?" you guess, still smiling. While you might not approve of Maeve's... everything, you have to admit she has style.

"Ayup," he looks around, maybe for something to distract with. Unluckily for him the present vista is the most boring shade outside of some of those 'modern apartments' you saw last week. "Reminded me of the first time my teacher brought me into the Nevernever as well. You just broke rules one through three: If something looks at you like you're lunch keep walking, don't stop to chat until you can tell how beasties are around you and don't take unsolicited advice."

Tapping your chin, because it looks cool not because you need it, you posit: "Sounds to me like wizards don't know their neighbors very well, on the magic side as much as the mundane."

"If they wanted visitors they shouldn't live in a place that's like if the Cretan Labyrinth was built by M.C. Escher," he counters as, seemingly to further illustrate his point he reaches for the door of the cast iron industrial refrigerator half buried in the ash and scorched black that is your next transition point.

"Ever wonder how it came to that? Before the Accords, before the modern Fey Courts and the White Council. The worlds used to be a lot closer and people, not just magicians, but kings, heroes and tricksters used to walk between them. What changed?"

"People just didn't want to deal with all this nonsense, so they stopped poking at it," he answers slowly. "I think the spread of Christianity had something to do with it. You're not supposed to test the big G..."

What in the name of... You cannot help yourself, you laugh. "Big G? Harry are you trying to rap?"

"Sorry force of habit, don't name powers you don't want looking your way," he mumbles.

"Is there anything in particular you don't want God to see?" The question's lighthearted, but the quiet that follows it is not. And then it hits you, the other thing Maeve is besides stylish and a bitch, hot enough to make you doubt her title.

Some part of arguing with talking bees and talking snakes had done what hunting necromancers and warlocks, dealing with mad vampires and Nazi berserkers had not done, gotten Harry to think of you as an adult. Or maybe those other things had done it as well, but you'd just been too busy to notice with all the mortal peril.

Alas your memory is still good in other matters, Tiffany's warning two months ago... Had it really only been two months? It seems more like an age. You still want Harry, in fact you are quite sure that if you put it to a vote every facet of you wants him, if anything his problems had only multiplied, but he's with Tiffany now, it's not hard to tell. Granted ethics have as much of a hold on her as the instruction to work inside the lines of a coloring book, but Harry is not like that.

Some portion of him is, Usum offers rational as ever, else the Lady Broken Mirror could not have arisen from his mind and soul.

What do you do?

[] Walk along, see where this goes

[] Sigh... time to remove temptation, at least you can make yourself feel better by punching a fire monster in the face

[] Write in

OOC: Not a good day to be Harry Dresden rolling subterfuge dice.

 

[DragonParadox]

When Mountains Move ​

7th of February 2007 A.D.

Squeezing into the blasted fridge is a special kind of hell given your recent insight, but it is at least brief. When you open the door again it is to a domain that had traded in the trees for pools of bubbling liquid that looks like pure blue water and smells like death warmed over. The ash is still falling just as thick, though you have a feeling there's a drop off not far behind you, the air whistling up from some secret depth.

"Darn it!" you bite back the impulse to say something a lot stronger. "Can't see anything in this damn ash. I'll fly up to see if it gets any better. Wait for my signal. Three flashes, alright." There is no masking the disappointment in Harry's upturned face as you zoom off, nor that other emotion you'd been hopping to see there for so long. Too bad it came a heavy helping of guilt like plastic wrap on a birthday cake. God damn it! Go to confessional or something Harry! Alas that's not something you can shout in parting no matter how much he needs to hear it.

Lost 1 Essence (BRR) -> Now at 12/18

Intimacy Harry Dresden (Crush) changes to Intimacy Harry Dresden (Frustrated Crush)

The ash does in fact get thinner, enough that you can see Harry is currently on the edge of a winding jagged canyon which cuts across a blasted moonscape where the air is ash, the water poison and at first at least you think there is no life. That is until you realize that those hillocks in the distance, all arrayed in a line are crawling across the face of the blasted land occasionally letting out a loud wailing bungle, heavy with alien sorrows.

There's very little here that looks like the Earth you're familiar with, you realize suddenly. This place is either a lot deeper in the Spirit World than all of its neighbors or something from the deeper reaches had clawed its way up here and established a presence. Given the Fey Courts' presence in the city it can't be too disruptive. Then again, given your suspicions that it may be responsible for the Great Chicago Fire, one would do well to remember that the standards of the fey are not those of men.

Looking around for more... 'hill herds' for lack of a better term, you spot what might be another smaller one on the other side of Harry, you had given up on cardinality by now, and a single jagged mountain looking lonely to the right. As you watch it starts to shift, to rumble and then explode in a shower of hot smoke and molten stone like a mane flowing over the dark stone.

"Good news, I found the troublemaker, bad news, he's about two thousand feet high and a volcano," you inform Harry on your descent, feeling a little better. "Do you want to introduce yourself first or should I?"

"It's not bothering anyone, we could just leave well enough alone," he points out, though he does not sound like he means it, more like it's the responsible thing, the 'adult' thing to say. And just like that the good mood's gone.

"It looked pretty upset, I don't know about you but when something that big looks upset, I think it is a good idea to at least ask what the problem is. Plus you like fire right? Imagine if you could cut some kind of deal how useful it might be to enchanting or large scale warding. Fire purifies and that's a lot of fire." You consider your next words with care... it's the safest way to do this. "Come on, I'll carry you."

And that is how you end up playing Superman to his Lois Lane as you approach the enormous elemental crowned with a mane of fire.

What do you do?

[] Take the lead, claim Porter told you a lot about him and so did all the spirits of genius, try to butter it up (Charisma+Subterfuge)

[] Ask what ails this domain, you would help if you can (Charisma Etiquette)

[] Write in

OOC: Molly is convinced that if Harry went to confess his perceived sins to say Father Forthil the priest would dispel the motion that he has anything to feel guilty over. This may not entirely reflect the position of the character, you're inside her head not his.

 

[DragonParadox]

Fire's Depths ​

7th of February 2007 A.D.

"We just ask him what the problem is," you offer after a moment. "I'm sure we can work something out."

Harry looks at you funny before asking, though a mouthful of thickening ash "You are going to break out the reverse-Babel again?"

"No need," you counter, burning the flames of Essence just a little brighter for nimbleness of speech. No sense lying when you don't have to after all.

"You're telling me that speaks English," he motions at the mountain looming larger and darker by the second, close enough that one can see the lines on its flank like old wounds, or the gullies of tears.

"Yeah." Now it's your turn to blink at him since you ironically aren't sure how to put this conviction into words. After half a minute or so you settle on. "Language shapes meaning, permeating the narratives of the otherworld. Spanish has a more developed or at least more common passive voice than English."

"That's not really a big deal..." he starts to answer.

"Oh?" you raise an eyebrow. "In the Aymara language of the Andes Mountains the past is conceptualized as in front of the speaker since one can freely take it out and study it, the future is unknown behind. I bet..." you had been about to make a prediction about Andean wizards ability to divine the past and their relationship to the local spirits, until you remember that is deep in the domain of the Red Court. If those magicians still live at all they are unlikely to be known to the White Council. "Embermane speaks English," you finish lamely.

"The bug spirits spoke Latin," he points out, not unreasonably.

"They were bound to do so, probably by their creator at the moment of their creation." Which would now that you think of give something of a timeline for when that act must have taken place. After all Latin could only have been spoken in this part of the world starting in the seventeenth century. There have to be members of the White Council alive who had seen it happen with their own eyes or if not them their masters one generation up... which begs the question of why Harry the Warden of Chicago did not know about the major wizardly working on Lake Michigan. Was this just distrust over his past, or something more sinister? That list of Council traitors itches at the back of your mind, but for now at least it's going to have to stay there.

Sixteen eyes, pools of white hot lava open on the flank of the mountain glaring at you and a voice that was like the rattling chains of the Titans said to cause Mount Etna to erupt into flame spoke: "Who comes before me shrouded in hellfire and reeking of pride?"

Not this again. As you open your mouth to defend your honor for what feels like the hundredth time against those who would judge the proverbial book by its cover... you realize that Embername isn't scrutinizing with the bulk of his displeasure, but Harry. That would leave marks on the soul wouldn't it, marks that a spirit of fire would be uniquely capable of reading.

"Before you stands Harry Dresden and I can assure you he is no creature of hell. Indeed he has dealt the Fallen their greatest blow in many a year by no other weapon but unwavering virtue. Hardest is the stone by flame tested, and sharpest when broken upon the right plane."

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 11/18 (Etiquette Excellency)

"Oh?" The syllable is so deep you almost hear it more in your teeth than your ears. "And what does that sharpness foretell?"

"Aid in whatever troubles these lands," you answer instantly.

"Are you certain you wish to offer that before you know what the task would be?" It's clear the question isn't for you alas.

"We're not desperate, fools or desperate fools if that's what you're asking," Harry answers with a shrug. "But you seem to not like Nickleheads which is a good sign in my book for hearing you out. Then we'll decide what to do about it."

Though you half-expect the spirit to ask what a 'Nicklehead' is he seems to have picked it up from context. "Very well then wizard you may know of my woes. I was called to this place, summoned from slumber with blood and with fire willfully set by one such as that which gifted you flame, called in two pieces with fel intent. There is to the east a place with no name where many are bound who would bring ruin to the realm of man. My Cup, my desire, called to the world of fixed form with the specific intent to be bound in that prison so that I-Before-You might serve as a way opener into the prison for the servant of Hell."

"That obviously didn't work...?" You half-ask suddenly very conscious of how close you are to the flame spirit and how not-fireproof Harry is.

"The one who was fed to the flames at the heart of the rites was stronger in spirit, in faith than the Warlock knew. On the door of death he stopped to speak with Me-Which-Was-Waking and warn me of what I might unleash if I broke the seals of the Nameless Isle, even just a few. In seeking to be whole I would make myself a tool and likely bring my own ruin, just as the ruin of man. I will not be a tool's tool!"

It's a good thing you are not flying with wings or else this... kin of Iku-Turso you are beginning to suspect would have blown you half a mile into the air with the strength of his barely leashed rage. He claims that he's missing his Cup... something nudges at the edge of your thoughts, that would be his desire yes, but also compassion. Before you stands a being utterly bereft of empathy for all his pain. Of course the warlock thought he would burn and burn without end. Only the sacrifice whoever he had been had been clever enough to make an argument not of the Cup, but the Sword, an argument for valor.

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 10/18 (Occult Excellency)
Regained 2 Essence -> Now at 12/18 (Urge of the Forbidden)

What do you do?

[] Offer to go to the Nameless Place and get his Cup back. You seem to be making a habit of springing people who do not belong in jail recently, not to mention you are good with talking

[] Thank the spirit for sharing his story, you have much to think about, take your leave

[] Ask more questions. What was the name of the Denarian? The sacrifice who communed with Embermane? (Charisma+Etiquette DC 9)
-[] Write in more questions

[] Write in

OOC: That could have gone better, but also a lot worse.

 

[DragonParadox]

Names Old and New​

7th of February 2007 A.D.

This is dangerous, you know. This is very, very dangerous and not just for the obvious face-melting reasons. Any place, nameless or otherwise that needs a battering ram this powerful to break into is liable to be harder by far to enter than Caer Sindi and God alone knows what's in there that the Denarians would want to loose. Yet you cannot just turn your face away, for all the dangers there's a right thing to do here, not just for Embermane's broken self, but for your friends, your family, Harry and the whole city of Chicago. While he is here and in this state he might still be taken advantage of by those who would do evil. "I will seek your cup Ancient One, east we will travel, but to find all ends we will need more than one direction."

"Directions are illusion, a trick of perspective," the fire crackles waspishly, you'll take that over incandescent rage any day. "Ask your questions herald."

Herald? Oh, you had just introduced Harry hadn't you? For one who's struggling to keep others in mind the title would seem as good as any other. Each word weighed carefully to rouse his remaining graces you ask: "What was the name of the tool and the one who used it? Which of the Thirty has transgressed so flagrantly against you?"

"I did not hear the Name, but the flame-given gifted it to me for the undoing of his foes." Lines of fire drip upwards from its many eyes, like molten lead into an invisible mold, an unfamiliar angelic seal.

Tilting your head back and affixing your mind to the almost-Enochian you speak you're able to read it plain as day: Eschtamidel.

"I will give you the name of the mortal, though it will serve you not at all," the spirit continues, his thickening breath a cloud of noxious vapors that forces Harry to conjue wind to shield himself. "Samuel Maskelyne."

"Why is that no good?" the wizard in question asks.

"He did not outlive becoming the epicenter of my rage. The vessel of his master was beyond my power to disturb so I hurled it as far and as fast as I could to at least inflict upon him the inconvenience of distance."

"What of the sacrificed, bringer of valued tidings? What name bore he?" you press, even though that first name gives you a bit of a hint. That is a name for someone who lived in Chicago, the city, though that still gives you centuries to work with it's less than the two thousand years the involvement of the Denarians would imply.

"A... priest... a servant of the One in White. Murphy... yes that was it, Father Murphy, though not just for his own children."

"Is there anything left of either of them?" Harry asks the question one might expect of both a wizard and a detective.

"No," The mountain shakes, restive in its struggles to recall the hour of its maiming, but vengeance and perhaps hope animate it. "The flesh was given to the fire and each was taken: the first dragged down, the second greeted by the One in White and taken Beyond. Of those fates I can say no more."

"When did this happen, when the city was still much of wood or when it was stone?" you adjust the question to what the names already reveal.

"Of wood it was and wood burns bright." Odds of it being the Great Fire are only getting better... or at least more likely, you're not sure if 'better' is the word.

The next obvious question comes to mind. "What do you know of the island?"

"Only what I have told you, only what I have been told. I dare not go near lest my desire to be whole overtakes me," the fire crackles low, the eyes begin to close, as the will that had driven it first to rage then conviction is starting to fade. "Mayhap the wind in the North knows more."

Where do you head to now?

[] East to the prison right away

[] Back to mortal Chicago, you know where the Great Fire was said to have started and you have at least one name that must have belonged to a local, check that information

[] North to the Empty Roost, the spirits dwelling there are described as being gripped by the sorrow than wrath, maybe there's something you can do to help or at least some agreement you can reach with them on borders in the Nevernever

[] Write in

OOC: Enjoy

 

[DragonParadox]

Gathering War Stories ​

7th of February 2007 A.D.

"Our thanks ancient one, we will return to the world of form that we might learn more of the nameless isle and that which guards it." Bowing while flying is one of those things that will never escape being at least a little silly, but it's a small price to pay for leaving here not just unburnt but enlightened.

On the way back you fix Harry in your sight and wonder: What does the White Council know of the Nameless Island?

Its place, its purpose, the name of its Maker.

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 11/18

"Huh... that last M tastes strange." You only realize you're speaking aloud when Harry gives you an amused look, but you are too caught up in the mystery to do more than scowl at him. The answer to the riddle was 'M' as well... "Harry when did Merlin die, the original I mean?"

There's a brief embarrassed silence. "I never thought to ask, it's not the kind of thing that feels relevant, has to have been a long time ago for the name to have become a title. Long before the White Council got to Chicago that's for sure."

"Why?" you wave your hand at the air below you. "What's to stop a wizard from flying over the Atlantic even before Columbus, before the vikings even?"

"Flying's hard," he snorts. "You're basically throwing yourself up by your own bootstraps and you have to catch every time."

"OK? So make a magic broom, heck make a magic boat that always has just the right wind in its sails. One of the greatest wizards to have ever lived could have done that right?"

Harry does not seem convinced. "Maybe but why would he? As far as he knew the ocean to the west was all open water until you hit China and Japan around the other side. Making a boat that can go against wind and wave? Doable. Making that boat and some kind of magic stew bowl that can feed you for months? That doesn't sit as well, in the stomach. "

You keep looking at him in silence as though that joke didn't make you want to groan.

Seeing as he's not getting a rise out of you Harry continues: "And then getting all the way up to the Chicago portage. Sometimes an M is just an M. I think finding those knights just has you seeing Camelot all over the place."

A reasonable enough point, but it can't quite erode the certainty in your gut.

***​

Either way you ask both your dad and Tiffany about Eschtamidel and what he might have been doing one hundred and thirty six years ago around Chicago. What you find is not a little alarming. According to Tiffany Eschtamidel is one of the more cooperative Denarians, giving his hosts a long lead, but only because he is a genuine believer in the capacity of mortal ingenuity to immolate itself, thus his affinity with fire. This reflection of a dark Promethean inclination sees him choose hosts of particularly sharp intellect who though circumstances or the machinations of their peers have been denied their chance to burn bright. He is distasteful of Nicodemus' preferred tongueless servants, seeing them as a waste of potential human resources. The particulars of his past hosts, much less when he might have lost them are however beyond her knowledge which leads you to Dad.

Samuel Maskelyne was a stage magician, inventor and alienist obsessed with the concept of biological evolution, not in the way you first guess given the eugenics was growing all the more popular at the time. No, from what Dad recalls old Samuel wanted to 'accelerate human evolution', improve upon man and wipe away his blemishes and imperfections, the needs and frailties of mortality. The whole thing reminds you far too much of Pathfinder Pharmaceuticals. That the drive might have been sincere, on the part of the warlock at least if not his Fallen companion does not make you any less worried. A passionate madman is worth more than any number of self-interested slave-makers. The Knights had clashed with him in Spain before he had vanished, later discovered to have taken ship to America after he had blown himself and a good part of the City of Chicago up.

The church might have some more records on Eschtamidel's later appearances, but he had just phoned his contacts to get more general information on the Denarians, calling back to ask for one in particular would probably just slow things down with checks over this odd behavior. Thankfully Dad isn't your only contact when it comes to the Church. There's always father Forthill. But how much to tell him about the ancient hungering flame thing just under the skin of West Chicago that you are hoping to complete?

[] Tell him some of the truth (Charima+Subterfuge DC 6 opposed roll)
-[] Just say you need information about a Denarian incursion into the city in 1871
-[] Explain that you need it to give peace to a restless spiirt

[] Tell the whole truth, complex and ocasionally terrifying as it may be

[] Write in

OOC: When Harry brings up the Original Merlin in Changes it's to ask about his fate of Ebenezer so he would not know anything at this point

 

[DragonParadox]

Answers Given, Answers Sought​

8th of February 2007 A.D.

Recovered All Essence -> Now at 18/18

You decide to meet with Father Forthil in his office again the heavy desk and carefully sorted shelves giving the whole thing the air near familiarity that's ruined as soon as you lay eyes on the priest. He looks like he's aged ten years inside the five weeks since last you saw him, stooped and blue the eyes behind those spectacles are shadowed with exhaustion. Maybe he doesn't need this right now...

"Molly, come in, come in, I meant what I said about my door being open to you," he says looking up from his work.

"I don't want to interrupt," you start, still hesitating in the doorway.

"You are not," the priest answers firmly. "God gives everyone their work at the time it is needed. It's just human nature that we'd all rather start on it three days before."

Maybe your nature Father, you might be a bit too generous with most of mankind, Lash might be rubbing off on you, but you greet him and make some small talk, ask how things have been going and what he's been involved with since the new year. 'Not well' about summarizes it, there's been a blood shortage among a lot of the charities linked to the Catholic Church throughout the Midwest made worse by a series of just-this-side-of-defamatory articles implying that the blood had been tainted. The AIDS Epidemic may be something you know mostly from stories of your parents and half understood news pieces when you were a kid, but people have a long memory especially when fear and supposed scandal are mixed in.

Lost 2 Essence -> Now at 16/18 (Subterfuge and Empathy Excellencies)
Lost 1 Willpower -> Now at 8/9 (ATB)

"There's no way to tell if it's just poor reporting compounding itself or something worse," he concludes sadly.

In response you look over the papers in front of him. Who is behind the campaign against Church sponsored blood drives?

Reliable as ever the answer comes: The Lords of Outer Night move their hand and their pawns dance

Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 15/18 (Question)
Restored 2 Essence -> Now at 17/18 (Urge of the Forbidden)

"It's probably the Red Court," you spin half a lie to dress up the truth almost as fast. "Some of Duchess Arianna's underlings, the ones I caught heard about the order coming down from on high to do something about the pressure the Church was putting on them and another one mentioned a media campaign, I figured it would be in South America, but if they are going to act this indirectly starting it up somewhere else makes sense. Afterwards they can 'discover' connections to the places they really want swept."

"A few of my colegues were leaning that way but..." he sighs, closing his eyes as though to banish a migraine. "This is going to be messy. I'm sorry I didn't even ask what you wanted to talk to me about."

That's not all that troubles him, but he is obviously not inclined, maybe even not allowed to share the rest.

Still having thus made yourself useful you explain what you had found in the Spirit World, a spirit of fire, long lingering in a domain just under the skin of west Chicago, called at the behest of one of the Denarians who had come to a fiery end, though he'd shared his doom with far too many innocents. A prison to the east on the lake that contains a portion of his innermost self that you would recover if you could, but you are going to need more information than you have on the fire, the incursion by the Fallen on Halloween 1871 and if possible a Father Murphy who had spared the city worse devastation even in death.

Father Forthill waits until you'd laid out the whole thing before asking the obvious question. "How confident are you that this entity won't cause more harm if you recover the piece he has lost?"

[] As confident as you have to be, this is the right thing to do. Embermane did not deserve to be mutilated in the plots of the Fallen

[] More confident than not, and if it turns out you are wrong you can deal with him by force

[] Write in

OOC: Seen in this chapter, the Crown continues to be terrifying and a reminder that the War is still raging.