Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[DragonParadox]

In Strange Springtime ​

1st of March 2007 A.D.

The first day of March catches you out on the piers that arc towards Lake Michigan the arguments of seagulls and the buzz of engines mixing with the the voices of people perhaps a bit too enthusiastic about warmer weather. There's a joke about midwesterners and the getting back into shorts in there somewhere in there, but alas you aren't here to people watch, you're here to people-talk, specifically to one John Marcone, the sound of a car starting to slow as it draws near causes you to look back one eyebrow raised. Subconsciously you'd have expected some kind of big black car like... well like you drive, which probably says a whole bunch of interesting things that aren't the best to unpack here, not an admiral-blue Chrysler straight out of the 80s.

Spoiler: Limo

"Nice ride," you call to the driver whom you vaguely recall had helped out with the whole Gorfel debacle this spring before turning your attention to the man coming out of the backseat. Having already seen pictures of him, including some of his mugshots in the papers you are less struck by John Marcone than you might have been, though you have to admit he is striking, not so much the black hair just starting to grey or the five o'clock shadow or the eyes green as dollar bills, but the way it's all put together, the confidence with which he offers his hand.

Spoiler: Marcone

"Ms Carpenter, good to see you in the flesh after hearing so much about you."

"I'd ask who from, if only to test just how you'd avoid answering, but alas we have more important things to talk about." With a smile you tip your head in the direction of the lake. "One of the major leyline nexuses in North America is out there you know, this city is important for reasons most of the people living here can't see, but it's even more important because of those people.If I can be blunt...?"

"Please," he motions as he walks alongside you with the easy smile of a man who's used to hearing others monologue. One might almost confuse him for the kind of high-powered CEO he's dressed at if it weren't for outline of a gun hidden in his jacket.

"I have no interest in subsidizing their misery, even if the alternative is worse mystery, but it need not be. The things you asked for my help in fighting do need to be fought, but it need not be done from a position of criminal enterprise. You know the players and the game, there's no need to be seated at the table to figure out when someone's pulling cards from under the table. What this city needs is policing..."

Marcone laughs and that's OK, you'd intentionally chosen the word to be provocative. People don't decide to upped their lives without provocation.

"Policing that reaches deeper than SI can, broader than the White Council can encompass. I won't deny I am impressed Mr Marcone, very few people have crossed wits and weapons with Nicodemus Archleone and lived to tell the tale. It seems a waste of your man Hendricks back there, of your entire organization to make things just a bit more shit," you drop the word with calculated venom before smiling, adding: "When you could make them better."

"Ah, there seems to be some confusion," the echoes of his earlier laugh deepen the lines on his face, casting them int a web of shadows. "When my business extends beyond the boundaries of the law it's not because I enjoy criminality for its own sake, it is like any other business a means to turn a profit. How do you imagine that policing Chicago would keep my organization together?" And me in tailored suits and luxury cars, he doesn't add, but it's in there as well.

You are not sure what the gross revenue of a criminal empire is, but you have little doubt that you could cover it. Unfortunately you are just as sure Marcone would refuse outright. He's asking for support in the name of mutual benefit not offering his vassalage, after all he hardly knows you.

What do you offer?

[] Your support to become a Freeholding Lord

[] Cut him in on technology trade from Sanctuary
-[] Local production of alchemical goods
-[] Exotic animals and plants
-[] Write in

[] Write in

OOC: Interdimensional smuggling and the raising of alien fauna on US soil is also illegal, but it's not the same kind of illegal as being a mob boss, that's why it's an option.

 

[DragonParadox]

Red Star at Morning ​

1st of March 2007 A.D.

Fucking suits, the thought passed through Philip's mind with a sort of tired malaise, a spite that had run its course almost to the quick, but which like the zombies and ghouls that his lanky build and pallid complexion had him play couldn't quite give up the ghost. He liked acting not so much for the pay, wasn't much, or the fame, even less of that, but for the chance to tell stories that stuck in people's heads. Seeing some fan zine gush about how they managed to make that big spider puppet in Arachnophobia dance on wires or a messaging board argue good naturally on if the voodoo hex of the scarecrow had finally been broken at the end of Harvest or if it had passed back into the grass with the blood, even one guy who was arguing it had passed on to the lawnmower, that made his day. And what ruined his day one might ask? Suits. Ever since Darby had up and died in some poorly explained accident his estate had been taken over by his 'family' and his family were assholes. Jenny said they were also part of the mob, but Jenny had a real good imagination. Yeah that was the polite way to put it.

"Phil, for fuck's sake Phil open up! Have you been drinking again?" Speaking of Jenny it sounded like she wouldn't take 'no' for an answer her bashing on the trailer door like some kind of tin drum that echoed all the louder in his, yes, hungover skull. But what was he supposed to do with all this money and no work to keep the drink from his hand? Put it in a bank account? Invest it? Hah, as soon expect a fox to go into building hen-houses.

"Phil!"

Somewhat despondently he shuffled to the front of the trailer and opened the door into a cascade of early morning light of the kind the hills of southern California saw way too much of in his opinion. "Yeah, where's the fuckn' fire?" he managed to get out before Jenny, a woman a foot shorter looking like she weighed about half as much as him from pink stripped-hair to sticker studded sneakers, grabbed him by the hand and dragged him across the lot.

"The papers got signed, we're getting new management at last!"

"Oh, are they done using us for a tax write off then?" he asked cynically. Once, in another life, Phill had been a law student and he knew enough about failing businesses to be aware of all the ways they could be kept in a state of limbo, a sort of corporate undeath where they might drain the life out of the state.

"Heya Phil, Jenny," Old Gordon waved at them from the back of the old moving van the others had named 'the Ark' for all the times it had to transport live animals in defiance law and common sense alike. "Off to see the new boss lady?"

"Not like I have a choice," he grumbled

"Phill you're the only reason half the crew stuck around," Jenny insisted with seeming sincerity.

The actor shook his head. "The fact the pay checks didn't bounce is the reason everyone stuck around, me included."

"Liar, liar pants on fire!" a gremlin of a girl popped up from behind some old tires to proclaim. Tina insisted she was nineteen when she joined the crew three years ago, the fact that Darby paid her in cash for the first two of those years indicated that she might not have been entirely honest, but child acting laws being what they were hiring practices were kind of like what Phill imagined the military was like in his dad's day: don't check out the volunteers too closely. "You're here 'cause you love it!"

I'm here because I'll drown at the bottom of a bottle if I don't, Philip thought despondently. And that is when he laid eyes on the new boss, a twenty something college kid with a history in ballet named Olivia.

Ballet was kind of like directing right?

Fuck his life

OOC: A glipse of Red Star Productions, you guys have been paying their salaries, but things have not been going well from the lack of work.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Pledge of Health ​

1st of March 2007 A.D.

"Mr Marcone I am empowered to..." you stop, tilt your head and judge the look in his eyes. "Do you know what Sanctuary is?"

"I am not entirely unfamiliar with the locale nor with some of the more obvious implications," he presses, fishing for implications that are not obvious though he gives you plenty of time to consider it, stopping for an overpriced 'Big Chicago Dawg', the kind of relish and celery construction that seems to have an identity crises between being a hot dog and a salad.

"From?" The emphasis makes it clear you're willing to play games if that's what he wants. There's a full six hours marked down in your schedule for just this meeting. Not needing to sleep has its advantages.

"Ms McNeil," he admits and all of a sudden the missing piece of the puzzle falls into place. Not to say that your other selves are unskilled at getting people to the negotiating table, but people like Marcone generally test for weakness before assuming strength. Nothing to gauche as violence of course, but something, a prod at your companies, an attempt to get Thomas away from him. All the while you had forgotten he'd spent time in the company of a Fallen Angel and one who did him a great service beside. You make a mental note to get Tiffany something nice when next you see her. "I will admit the... magical details are not my forte, but I don't need to get into that. Numbers will tell all on their own. Right now you're being careful not to step on the toes of the other Accord Signatories, but if you really needed to bring down an iron fist, there's nothing most of them could do to stop you is there?"

"There are reasons beyond courtesy why that is a bad idea, ones that I hope to have a chance to explain later, but in essence yes I do posess considerably more military power than I have shown so far and considerably more economic power beside. Are you familiar with post-War history?"

"Passably," those dollar-green eyes follow you with almost disconcerting intensity, food already forgotten.

"Then consider me an admirer of the Marshal Plan. Chicago has been the target of all too many unfriendly eyes and though so far it has managed to weather the storm without catastrophic loss that doesn't mean there are no scars. You can do more than simply protect it against those same malignancies, aid in its restoration... and of course profit thereby."

"Give me names, numbers." Though he tries to be hard edged, there's a chip in his defenses, a sign you had struck the mark. It's not that Marcone thinks he's the hero, indeed he had long since accustomed himself to being one of the villains, but he had either read or intuited Machiavelli's famous saying, in proper context, it is better to be both feared and loved.

"You'd still be in the drug trade, just the other kind." A small wry smile is all you allow yourself before flipping Clippy towards him, a medical report on which Sanctuary medicines would be most effective on earth. There's simple stuff like a cure for the flu or weight loss pills that actually do what they claim and don't ruin your health in the process, then there's the serious stuff anti viral and anti fungal medications even cancer treatments, the presence of the guvel had ensured that the Five Cities had plenty of experience in that regard, though adaptations would have to be made to account for unaltered human biology and the lack of access to cloned or cybernetic organs. Still the irony of literally using life-saving medications as a bribe to a criminal kingpin doesn't escape you.. nor from the look of him does it escape Marcone.

"I can also provide what can be thought of as spells-made-solid, ones you can hold in the hand and count wholly your own, luck in business and in battle though I will require arcane materials to work with..."

"Materials...?" It doesn't take essence sharpened sight to see the wheels turning behind his eyes. Fate manipulation magic is rare and while Gard might be able to provide some of that Odin's price is unlikely to be cheap.

"Red Court and Black Court Vampires, old ones though, demons assuming they don't melt away," you enumerate not entirely without hesitation at the thought of Marcone sending out gangsters with Tommy Guns on a hunt though Red Court territory, but he has more sense than that you are pretty sure. So you continue: "Certain enchanted metals and rare herbs."

"A fair trade assuming all this plays out as you've said." A firm nod marks the point at which most people would metaphorically bow out of his presence, but you have one more offer to make.

"There is one more thing I can offer." Clippy's screen flares with an image of Olivia fighting, Boston Edinburgh, Paris shots taken at extreme range, at impossible angles, all finding their mark only for her to vanish in a hiss of displaced air and appear on another perch, taking another shot.

"What's the cost?" No beating around the bush here, he knows why you would have offered this last rather than first.

"Service, I can awaken the Po without asking for anything in return, but absent my mediating influence the empowerment it would come with unpredictable flaws on the scale of White Court vampirism. Indeed said mediation works on the White Court too even though I didn't make them."

He relaxes a little, looks like you'd guessed right, he does know about Thomas, enough at least that this corroborates your story, enough that this looks less like a trap.

"I will keep that under advisement for a later date if things go as planned Ms Carpenter..." he stops himself as he reaches out a hand. "Or do you prefer Margret."

Truth be told you would prefer not to have to deal with the likes of Marcone, but that's not the world you live in. "Molly." you shake on it.

Agreement Reached: Alchemical Medicines and an offer to forge Splendors for an exit from the Drug Trade and protection rackets for Marcone's organization. He is open to IDU in the future if things work out.

What do you want to do next?
(Plan Vote Here)

[] Write in

OOC: Welp that went pretty well, you may have to explain why you are helping the Chicago 'Made Guys' smuggle magical medicines into the US, but at least it's not heroin.

 

[DragonParadox]

Where Worlds Join​

3rd of March 2007 A.D.

You might be cool, but as you return to the Tres Fronteras you discover you're not that cool, literally, the sun beats down hard enough to make your shirt stick to your skin unpleasantly and whatever he might think Usum isn't helping by claiming that your glorious self could do without wearing clothes at all. "Well Majesty you did insist on working in the sun," the demon chides, though you almost can't 'hear' from from the teeth-jarring noise of yellow and black construction SUTRAs laying down the foundations of the gateway fortress. Looking to all the world like a twenty foot tall amalgamations of crane and spider with all manner of shovels drills and gaping excavator buckets they are engaging in what looks to all the world to be ecological devastation, ripping though the giants of the jungle. In truth they are protecting the the local biosphere as much as building up protections against attack.

Even with the other side being barren of most life Regina's panel of xeno-biologists, which you guess makes them your pannel of xeno-biologists though it still feels strange even inside your own head, had been estimated that micro organisms from Sanctuary can and eventually will breach into quarantine and get to Earth at which point 'estimates become naked guesswork' unless the very land and spirits are tasked with holding fast the sanctity of separate micro-biota. The phraze that feels entirely natural even elegant in Seeker Tongue, the product of a society for which the use of spirits in civil engineering makes as much sense as the use of concrete does on Earth. Thankfully your presence rendered what would otherwise have been grueling process of trial and error in swaying the spirits of fire and stone to pass though the Gate and clear the ground far more straightforward, if still time consuming.

As it turns out simply having an instinctive knowledge of the proper rites and forms doesn't mean they are any faster to do.

"Hey me!" Regina shouts over the thundering cacophony of the build site. There really aren't very many good things to call yourself in a hurry. "We've got contacts!"

"Reds?" you;ve been half expecting half anticipating another Red Court attempt to push to push the interlopers off its 'rightful' territory. Air superiority has a way of groing confidence. Drones from the size of a human hand all the way up to robotic claw-mag bombers had been passed though the gate in preparation for the counter-attack.

"I don't think so, they don't look like mercenaries either, it looks like a trio of military helicopters, Colombian judging from their coms, though they could still have been sent."

"Any idea what they're looking for?" you ask sharply, confidence curdling to worry. Rumors of aliens would be awkward, a diplomatic incident potentially much worse.

She shakes her head. "They aren't talking much, but it's clear they are looking for something on the ground, flying a grid pattern. They will be in sight of the build sight in about an hur at this rate. We can get all the equipment out of the way in time, but there's still the fortifications, there is no way they would miss them from the air..."

"What if there was?" you muse. "You said they are in a search pattern, limited by fuel. All it would take is a wizard holding a basic veil and they would pass us right by."

"Assuming all that's up there is regular soldiers using mundane senses yeah, but what about next time?"

"The one we rescued here last should be able to hold it longer term once we set up the infrastructure, the spirits of the jungle shouldn't object, not like they want the vampires back."

"Or we could apporach the soldiers, figure out if they are on the level and if not who sent them," Regina sugests resonably.

"If they are just regular soldiers and they see more than they should...?"

"You convince them to lie, you're good at that."

What do you do?

[] Fetch a Carlos to hold a veil for you in the hopes that you can set up something more long lasting in the days ahead

[] Talk to the soldiers
-[] Write in how

[] Write in

OOC: Enjoy.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Whirling Prod ​

3rd of March 2007 A.D.

'Who are you?' you ask of the green speck in the sky, barely seen from the branch one of the forest giants still dozens of miles out from the gate, expecting a simple answer, mundane or not, legitimate transport or vampire's thrall. As it happens the answer is neither. These are helicopters of the Colombian Air Force, the same kind that sometimes payroll these skies looking for the clandestine runways of drug dealers, but they are also not in this corner of the jungle by accident. 'Who sent you?' you ask the second question and are struck again by that same sickening scent of rancid blood that you had first felt in Marin's presence, the Red King. This is a canary in a coal mine, you are being poked and prodded to see how you will react.... and not simply from the flyby. There aren't any vampires aboard, nor any loyal halfbloods, just mortals whose blood won't be missed from the vampires' feast even though there's just a bomb on each of them.

Lost 3 Essence -> Now at 12/18 (Two Questions and Excellency+ATP)
Regained 2 Essence -> Now at 14/18

"Fuck!" you curse, mind whirring with the implications. The Red Court knows where the gate is they are planning to explode one of more of the helicopters remotely as close to the site as they can... which means it doesn't matter if they can see it or not. The point would be just to cause an incident, a media firestorm following the physical one.

Steady on, you I this, you steady yourself. This just means that cyber-spirit you had been planning to put on each of the choppers if they were normal humans needs to go in a slightly different place. Not like they can notice me. Just have to get a closer look at the bombs and turn off whatever remote mechanism they are using to give the signal.

And then what? the question intrudes. You can't stay here 24/7 just to ensure there won't be any more. Regina and the garrison are going to need some way to... God, disarm unwitting Kamikaze.

"This comes near the line of the Winter Queen's patience Majesty," Usum says with something like anticipation. "Perhaps crosses it."

He...has a point. There's nothing magical about a helicopter explosion or even three, but setting them off in the hope of forcing an enemy to depart or reveal themselves, you would say that goes against the spirit of the Accords. Alas as the design of faerie folk it does not have a spirit, only the letter.

You need some advice on how Mab would rule this from someone who knows her, someone well disposed enough not to try to trade on the information....

"Hi Maeve, how's life treating you?"

"Better than it is that bitch Sandra that's for sure," a laugh like jagged icicles falling from the stopper of a silver bell comes though on the other side. "What about you, still fucking up the Unwelcome Ones and their puppets?"

"Red Court so yeah," you nod. "Listen if one of them is planning to blow up military helicopters on top of one of my outposts how would that go Accord-wise?"

"You're territory or theirs?" she asks, somehow managing to give the impression she's blowing bubblegum even though her voice didn't get any less clear.

"Used to be theirs until two weeks ago or so..."

"Used to as in...?"

"Killed a bunch of them, they stopped coming and are now sending... this."

She laughs, Maeve may or may not find the prospect of helicopters exploding generally funny, but she's mostly laughing with you not at you, senses still twinging from when you had lipped out of sight it's pretty easy to read her, especially since she isn't even half trying to hide her feelings.

"That'll do it. You're within your rights to just vanish every mortal they send at you. Make a brand new Bermuda Triangle and no I don't know if that's what made the Bermuda Triangle come out like that, it was just an example."

"What if I'm not a member of the Accords?" you press.

"You're not but..." she trails off, thinking. "Behave like you are and you should be fine. Wouldn't be the first time."

On the one hand Maeve is trying to help in her own way, on the other: "Listen, what if I don't want to vanish people until the Red King gets bored runs out of proxies or bombs?"

"I'm really not the one to ask about how not to kill," there's something just for the barest flash of an instant that sounds like regret. "I'd wish you good luck, but I don't want to summon Tyche into your business, she's a mess. Good... lying I guess, bomb defusing?"

"Same here," you answer, not hiding the smile in your voice in spite of the worry. Maeve seems to have gotten a little better at least. Thus you bid the lady of the Winter Court farewell and consider your next move.

What do you do?

[] Keep to the plan now with added stealth bomb difussal

[] Call Mab for arbitraton, the Red Court is causing exposure just to grief you

[] Write in

OOC: I thought about breaking this before the conversation with Maeve, but that would have made for a very short update and this way at least you get some more information.

 

[DragonParadox]

The Storm and the Stillness ​

3rd of March 2007 A.D.

Rain in a rainforest shouldn't be too suspicious, you reason, darting back to the Gate, from there to Sanctuary and back to the Station and from there where you find Sophia engaged in getting a... moderately hyper Maggie Dresden into grade K next year, partly just from the excitement of starting a new school in a new place with a new language and partly because Harry had come along 'to help' bearing a chocolate bar sized more for him than a four year old which said four year old proceeded to devour.

"Are you twins? Where are you going? Are you doing spy stuff again?"

"Why do you think I'm doing... spy stuff?" you ask, a little perturbed at how close to the mark she is.

"Well duh, we left the whole country in a hurry and no one's telling me why and now there's all sort of new people and new stuff that probably costs a whole lot. The little girl jabs a finger in the direction of a bemused Harry. " He looks like a spy too."

You open your mouth, consider how long it would take to come up with a convincing lie versus how close those helicopters are, grab Sophia and go.

***​

Thankfully there's no need to summon a hurricane, just enough of a storm to ground the helicopters, thirty knots should do it according to a quick search from Clippy, which is about thirty four miles per hour.

"Make it forty just in case," you tell your other self as she turns her gaze to the sky weaving her will though the air like an unseen current, a sound without words that draws the ear of every tapir shuffling, every jaguar stalking. Up in the trees monkeys turn their head to listen in a gesture startlingly human, or maybe humans are like them.

Then just as the calling reaches its crescendo, sending waves of silent pressure though standing water and drawing clouds closer together Sophia flinches like something had struck her and rubs her chest above her heart. "What the...?"

A few of the workers who had not stopped their construction efforts all the while eye her nervously, unused to any of you failing at something.

"The locals didn't like that. I think they might be a bit twitchy from the last time."

"When we got rid of Bat Boy and his backup dancers you mean?" you scoff. "Funny how they weren't upset about that."

"The Red Court may be unnatural, but it's much more disruptive to mankind than to the land. Their usurping of the gods was long ago even as spirits count time, they had grown used to it I think, but us..." She gives a sheepish smile you see often in the mirror. "We're not really quiet are we? I think what they can sense of the essence of Sanctuary beyond the Gate perturbs them as well..."

"Is this the Hell thing again?" You sigh, knowing the answer. "It's the Hell thing again. Are they willing to ground those helicopters themselves. I don't really want to fight any kin of Mallko if we can help it. This isn't an invasion..." And I'm going to do my best to make sure it stays that way. It was one thing to rule over those who accepted that distant stewardship willingly, who asked for it, quite another to be a tyrant over beings material or ethereal.

"Nature spirits mostly just want nature to be left alone..."

"Well that's fine, we were planning to acquire some of the land," you breathe a sigh of relief.

Her lips tighten. "They want four hundred square miles that's a lot more land than we were planning to acquire and assurances that we won't kill by 'claw or by poison', I think that last one means pollution anything that lives in the area and that we will keep others away. That is a lot to patrol given our assets don't really look local and we'd still have to explain them to the authorities, the same ones that have been infiltrated by the Red Court."

Do you take the deal?

[] Yes, it's fair enough

[] Try to negociate them down
-[] Write in

[] Ask Sophia to try again, if any of the local spirts push scare them fof
-[] Write in

[] Write in

OOC: Edits done.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Spirits and Spies ​

3rd of March 2007 A.D.

It is going to be hard enough getting land rights in what some sources call 'the greatest concentration of isolated groups in the Amazon and the world' without trying to claim several hundred square miles worth of land around the site. On the other hand you remember the pigeons. Land spirits want someone to protect them from the the dangers of encroaching humanity yes, but they also remember what they have lost. "I will restore those who-re not. Safety in obscurity..." From the scurrying mouse to the crouching jaguar all know when it is time to hide, so that is what you send them though your other self, the understanding that the more you guard openly the more hunters come, but here in the land at the edge of the known where green shadows still fall thickest there are many fallen who may yet be restored.

Unseen figures, some so small you might step on some so large as to look you almost in the eye and one, just one so large it looks above move on the other side of the veils, ripples in the mundane skein of the world.

From the moment you came up with this the worry that it might prove a gap too far to explain, but what you had forgotten is that for the people of Sanctuary genetics isn't a thing of bright white laboratories and spotless vials, of droppers and bio-reactive fluids. To the world you rule genetics is a branch of sorcery with shamanic shapeshifting and the fertility rites that assures rights to water and hunting grounds though lost ages.

To restore life through life, that is known, that is accepted, that they understand from Sophia's open mind and so they rise into the air like kites woven of gossamer dreaming only to grow and grow in physicality, sighs to thunder songs to rain. It doesn't take long for the wind you had hoped for to start wiping about.

"Er... wouldn't someone notice if we started bringing back extinct animals?" Sophia asks, already needing to raise her voice by the question's end.

"They will just think there was a relict population somewhere, I think that is what they're called," you answer.

"We'll have them all found in December and have them called a Christmas miracle, it's hardly the strangest thing that people have learned to ignore."

As the helicopters land you focus inward again, your eye upon a different one and ask: "Why gave the order?"

One name and one Internet search later you have your next link, unfortunately it's a general in the Colombian Army and the brother of head of the Administrative Department of Security, a very mild sort of name for what is as far as you are able to tell at a glance a combination of the CIA, FBI, NSA and Secret Service, four tastes that do not go great together.

Later that day over a large cup of magic laced coffee you find that the director of the DSA, Augustin, is already mired in a scandal linking him to dealings with paramilitary forces and drug dealers. The later of which no doubt deal in a rather exotic drug. On the one hand it should be fertile ground for inserting your own fabricated evidence, on the other thing looks disturbingly like a powder keg that could go off if you aren't careful. Journalists are already going missing and there is talk of protesters and activists being silenced.

Fortunately you don't have to walk into this blind. "Hi, Martin I need some advice on Colombian politics..."

"Coup?" A syllable that sends a shiver down your spine.

"What, no I just need two people removed so they won't interfere with my operations."

"It's never just two people, the Reds aren't stupid," you can hear something like sympathy in his words, but it's so faint only the way your mind is still hyper-aware of every inflection picks it up. "They'll have compromised their likely successors as well. Military, police and secret service is where they like to get their hooks in. Their usual cover is cartels, the signs are similar enough so that if someone does get caught they'll just 'vanish abroad' or in cases where the thrall is already in mundane custody they'll get to them and push them to suicide. So the question is how many people are you willing to kill for this?"

[] As many as it takes (Continue with the plan, expand it to include all back ups)

[] Why kill them when I can cure them, I refuse to believe that most of them want to work for the Red Court knowing what they are (Use FSB)

[] Write in

OOC: Enjoy.

 

[DragonParadox]

Against the Blood​

3rd of March 2007 A.D.

Deciding you are going to cure dozens of people of a supernatural addiction that has plagued this part of the world since time immemorial is the easy part, the hard part... well according to Martin the hard part is everything else. Getting into a room with the target without any listening devices or other compromised personnel, convincing them that you are on the level, actually curing them...

"I can handle those two, I'm convincing."

A tired laugh echoes from the other side "You don't say? That still leaves keeping them from getting re-addicted as soon as their handler realizes whatever you did to ween them off it."

"They'll be immune," you clarify.

It's clear he had started off humoring you. The idea of sparing Red Court assets just because killing is wrong painfully naive to his ears. It is not that the Fellowship never tries to turn them, but the process is long term and varies wildly in success.

Grimy steel rooms wit narrow windows piercing rays of sunlight upon a face drawn with pain and nameless hunger... You shake away the memory, part of you wishing that you hadn't asked for a video recording of their methods.

He is not humoring you now. "That still leaves the problem that you'd have to walk up to each decision maker to make your pitch. If Duke Emiliano notices you moving in he is going to start removing your new assets and he has more bullets to spend than you do hours in the day to spend on this. I'm going to have to figure out a way to draw them in one place to make the change over, some kind of retreat or a religious occasion, something important enough for so many to attend, but which no true vampire could observe in person."

"You don't have to do this. I was just asking for advice," you insist, but Martin is adamant.

"It would be a good demonstration of both your power and your intentions to the leaders of the Fellowship. I'm going to need some operatives, preferably ones that speak Spanish but I can make due as long as they have good discipline."

I'm not actually helping enact a coup, you tell yourself as you order the transdimensional intelligence agency to send people over for stake out and infiltration purposes. It is going to be a week or two before Martin's arranged the meeting , though at least that means once this goes off, if it goes off well you should have no problem securing land rights for the Gate.

In a sense the jungle spirits being active on your side has also solved the problem of more military encounters. It's the rain forest. There is never a time of year when heavy rain and winds aren't at least vaguely within the purview of the some spirit drawing its power from the waters of the amazon and the rain shadow of the Andes.

While Martin is attempting to organize the meeting you asked of him what do you do?

[] Continue with the Fortress action
-[] Write in how

[] Move on to another of your plans this week, you will return to this one when the plan is right
-[] Write in which

[] Write in

OOC: Just having Molly try to to a one person plot here would risk the reds getting wise to you. This way you can talk to all of them at once. leveraging your charms and it has the added benefit of usng one of the people you recruited last month. No rolls for this one

 

[DragonParadox]

To Move Mountains ​

8th of March 2007 A.D.

In your mind, gears whirl, a multidimensional fractal mosaic of interlocking details coming together in a union of magic and technology, of half-remembered flashes of ancient insight and the vision of a future yet to come.

Far above the Great Ring flared, waves of cascading plasma singing a song of creation.

Projected into mortally comprehensible dimensions it is a body of a titan writ in stone and fire, the ancient magma channels below the Caldera opening up a fortress for those manning it, a logistics hub for the products moved in and out, a weapon to be aimed at invaders, a Labyrinth.

It would have taken days to even begin explaining the plan to those assembled before you, brilliant as they are, called from all corners of your soul for a chance to work directly under their queen. But that is not needed, when they are, in effect, also part of the design, as it stretches in one more not just spatial, but temporal direction. Still, bolstered by your leadership, and equipped with the best tools possible, you speak of what you are bringing into being.

The channels of the ancient volcano are near perfect geomantic conduits, selected for the purpose. Formed for it? A part of you wonders, still shuddering a bit at the implications yet nothing of it shows upon the face beneath the Crown, only the smile of focused intent, eyes closed as one who listens to distant melodies, Eyes open and ever-searching.

Days pass almost unsleeping marked only by the slow turning of the moon's pale face as construction crews in pressurized suits, some with four limbs, some with eight, some with prosthetic enchancements some with burdens borne by magnetic levitation do their own part in the dance. From above the entire volcanic creator is lit by inner fire, revealing a labyrinth of stone, gnarled paths and tunnels forming strange patterns and defensive architecture from a coincidence of nature. At the center the portal hangs like a pupil, embedded in an iris of lava and bridged by jagged iron overhangs.

Thus it takes shape to those watchers technological and organic who buzz above an enormous eye filled with teeth. Threaded through it like nerves the maze and lines of magma form a name in the oldest language of an entity that doesn't yet exist, each line in turn a ward against harm for the defenders.

The deeper you sink into the great work the more that question keeps coming back: Am I doing this all now or is some of it work that was forever-always-done? That that there is a tense for that in the the Language is almost an answer in itself.

For her part Olivia has not been iddle shaping the power that wells up from below into a usable state, building delicate screens of sorcerous power to befuddle and decieve any invaders, carving ward-lines deep into stone that no demon or other horror may dare tresspass this way into Sanctuary.

What Ritual did Olivia learn over the past few days?

[] [Mana Manipulation] ••• Core Tap: Allows the Sorcerer to directly convert mana into energy in the form of flame (2 Successes) Ionized plasma (3 successes) or gravitation (5 successes). The ward must be connected to a leyline to function. +1 Success is required for every 10 miles distance from a ley line in which it is set up. It does Caster's Mana Manipulation Rating+Rating of the Nearest Dragon's Nest in damage die/round of contact. The Caster may choose to add extra successes to damage at a rate of 1 Success/1 Die of Damage.The size of the ward is 50 ft +50 ft/extra success.

[] [Psychic Invisibility] •••• Anchor Veil: Allows the Sorcerer to anchor an effect of similar strength to her Invisibility power to an area that hides a specific class of object: Innanimate object (1 Success); Non-Sentient living things (2 Successes); Sentient Beings (3 Successes); Sophonts (4 Successes). The size of the veil is 50 ft +50 ft/extra success

[] [Mind Shields] ••• Expand Shield: Allows the Sorcerer to exted the protection of her mind shield to 1 willing companion/success for up to 5 hours. During this time her Mind Shield does not apply against any person she has included in the protection

[] [Pcychoportation] •••• Skip-Gate: For the following 5 hours confers upon the Sorcerer the ability create a 'wake' of distorted space behind her when she teleports by spending 1 Mana which permits one other character to join her on by standing where she stood. Duration of each individual 'wake' is 1 Turn/2 Ritual successes. These can be chained together if the Sorcerer keeps spending extra Mana.

OOC: Enjoy.

 

[DragonParadox]

Scounting for Talent ​

8th of March 2007 A.D.

"Damn this is cool," Olivia laughs as she edits thousands of wall mounted laser emitters vanish from perception with a snap of her fingers... well really with several hours of work painstakingly painting runes of focus and control all over the wall in tree-stalker blood, but you of all people can't fault her for being dramatic. "I can't believe you actually have tree octopi for the record," she adds looking over her shoulder.

"I mean they aren't technically..." Briefly you consider going into details about how tree stalkers have five arms and not eight, but really the only other thing one could compare a banded tree stalker to is a facehugger, so maybe Internet memes are the better comparison. "That's not the 'forget you ever saw me' trick you can pull is it?" you ask instead.

She shakes her head. "I can just barely do that do that myself, edge of my abilities... You know if you're planning to break the Reds power maybe making more people like me's a good idea. Sure you can send some in from Sanctuary, but they aren't used to operating on Earth and they all need to have their history electronically inserted into the system. Don't get me wrong the Amethyst hand people are getting scary-good at that, but there is a limit on what you can do with computers. Earth isn't as wired in as over here. On the other hand if you empower people in the community and with a stake in it..."

"Er... Olivia, you do realize it's going to look like replacing one Court with another. When I awaken someone's Po it feels dark, almost but not quite like one of the Hungry Dead."

"So?" she shrugs. "We're not trying to look like, the cookie girls... 'girl scouts'? I've never been one, just saw them on TV."

You laugh, thinking back to less hectic time. "I have and trust me, if harnesing inner darkness would help them sell more cookies most of those girls would be on it in a flash."

"So what do you think?" your friend asks after a moment. "I could help..."

"No... you've got college and..."

"Fuck college," she cuts you off, the space around her crackling with black hairline fractures. "The Council is bad, its not representative it's opaque and it gives no appeal, but it's getting better, I've seen that. The Red Court, they're just monsters, they treat people like food, like toys, pretend they're gods. I've talked to Susan Rodrriguez since she came back to Chicago and it's bad over there. That's why I wanted to help set up the gate, it's a chance to help, but there are plenty of sorcerers in Sanctuary who can do this stuff. I am a very, very good shot."

There's something almost haunted to the looks she gives you, but no less determined for all that.

What do you do?

[] Agree with Olivia's idea that she should liaise with the Fellowship in efforts to fight the Red Court,the first of a new kind of agent, taking advantage of your ability to awaken the Po
(Olivia will still be availibile for actions during turn plans, but she will be in more danger at a baseline)

[] Argue against it, she can do more good helping set up organizations like the Order of the Cauldron, getting minor talents the information and connections they need to stay safe
(Olivia will work organizing minor talents, focusing on improving her social and networking skills)

[] Write in

OOC: No rolls for this one.