Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[DragonParadox]

Speaking True ​

13th of March 2007 A.D.

"Exaltation a tool, an instrument of the soul given to mortals long ago that they may overcome not merely what is difficult but what is impossible."

"That should be impossible," Harry corrects with wizardly precision almost despite himself. He meets Tiffany's amused look. "What? If you are doing then it's possible."

Before he had even finished speaking you shake your head, the words coming in bursts from your lips as they do in your mind, the shape of something known that had never before needed to be said: "Not necessarily, fate does not bend to the actions of the Exalted, accommodating them within itself, it breaks, it requires and enforces free will. None who do not possess it can ever bear it though they might try to grasp some small use, like someone warning themselves on the exhaust of an idling car."

"It breaks fate," Inari breathes, so softly even you almost do not hear it. "So it really was my fate to die. Like the mirror..."

"Phones work," Lara says, her ears as sharp as yours and unlike you catching the meaning.

"Not that. I mean the symmetry, I get to live so that I can kill more things and never, ever save them. Black fire that lives forever in a world that burns." The final syllable catches in her throat a little.

"What happened?" Thomas asks urgently.

"That is really not important right now," Lara waves it off, though she does glance towards the bedroom. "You said this power was given, by who, by what?" And what do they expect in return? That last wasn't asked aloud, but from the way it hangs unspoken in the room it might as well have been shouted.

You sigh. "Probably best to take this from the start..." You explain in as few words as you can manage, time is still going, the descent into the necropolis, the conversation with Other Bob, though you only name him 'dread spirit', the underworld, the consciousness at the root of the Black Court and your offer to it.

"So just to be clear, you found some antediluvian monstrosity and decided that the thing to do was try to talk it around?" Lara asks in what you would like to think is feigned horror, trying to get concessions, but you are pretty sure is genuine. She's fought in the Oblivion War after all. "And then you woke up something even worse and had to run for your life?"

"Nothing gave chase, not even more of those mad ghosts. Truth be told I think they confused me for something else," Deep breath Molly, might as well start as you mean to go on. "If anything the presence that send out the Exaltation was thankful." Probably not what your parents meant when they taught you 'honesty is the best policy', but damn it you aren't going to play games with someone who doesn't know what what's is going on and is scared of herself. I know what that's like.

Listens to the Wind looks at you with an almost unblinking intensity and Tiffany's face just seems to ask 'Why' while it's hard to read more than shock on Harry's face. Thomas is just about the only one not paying attention, having walked over to the open bedroom door.

"They still think you're the confused one," Inari cuts in as every other pair of eyes in the room snaps to her face. "The Whispers... I can hear them... they're trying to ne nice I think... or maybe they are just too happy to be nasty."

"You can hear the Neverborn?" No reason not to name them now, you think with just a smidge of panic if only because more of it won't help.

Regained 2 Essence (Urge of the Forbidden)

Even though both Lara and Thomas look like they'd like nothing better than to sush their little sister she ignores them, looking almost relieved at the confession. "One I think. Offering help, sugestions, advice... can't tune it out, but I don't feel like I have strings on." She looks at her hands as though checking for actual black threads on her fingers. "I'm still me, just not the girl I used to be."

"Hells bells, we've got to get rid of it, get back her Name..." Harry is already making a list.

For his part Joseph Listens to the Wind keeps his own counsel, though you do not doubt said counsel has grown dark.

Lydia Essence 7/7 (0/3 Jade Talisman)
Molly Essence 9/18
Molly Willpower 6/9

What do you say?

[] No, the point of an Exaltation is free will and she has it, she will have it regardless of how the Neverborn might rage (Molly does not know if this is true; though if she says it it will be in the sincere belief it is)

[] There is... one place she could be safe while we find out more (Your thoughts go to Daemonreach; May initiate combat)

[] Write in

OOC Mecahnically Inari has Whispers 5 as a background which means once per night she can replace any ability with the black insights of dead gods dreaming (up to broadly peak human abilities). In this case she used it to roll to 'remember' your encounter down at the black ocean. If you had lied she would have known and treated you appropriately. So on the one hand good job on being honest, on the other hand you now have a pair of very worried wizards on your hands and a pair of even more on edge White Court Vampires.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Lambent Legacy ​

13th of March 2007 A.D.

Why do I feel like I'm paying Russian Roulette? you look into the eyes of the pale girl swirling with the essence of death. Oh right, that's why. Is this what other people felt looking at me nine months ago? "An exaltation is not the sponsorship of some other power, it is not faerie mantle, of queen, lady or knight. It is a part of the soul her soul. She has done nothing to warrant suspicion."

"How did you kill the people to attacked you?" Listens to the Wind's voice is deceptively calm.

"I drank Mr. Lin's blood and then, the cold parts. I needed it. I needed the power so I let it fill me before... dealing with the other one, the sniper with her own gun. Do you think I'm the first one she shot at? Do you think I'm the first one Mr. Lin or whoever he was lied to get close to, the first one he betrayed? They should be dead."

"Maybe," the old wizard shakes his head undaunted. "But I would be careful handing out death sentences to anyone who has ever killed."

"Is that a threat?" In contrast to her sister's Lara's voice is pleasant, if more neutral than usual, more 'business friendly' than the throaty timber of her usual dealings. "I can assure you my sister will not transgress against the secret that keeps us all safe again. It was an extraordinary moment with all the trauma of dying and more."

"Merely a statement." The old wizard says, though he continues in a tone unhappy as it is implacable. "The Council is older than the Accords, it wasn't founded to keep the secret, but keep the world of the every day safe from evil things. Highest among that charge is to guard against Those of Hell and Those Beyond the Gates and Those Below. What guarantee do we have here and now? Your word Mrs Raith?"

For a moment you wonder why he's pressing her on this... and then you realize, he's asking what Lara would do if her sister proves to be a threat she cannot contain. After all the Council had seen what you can do and this is the heir of a power even more destructive. What would her world be like? A vast necropolis of eternally bound to her will?

"Have you burned every book on necromancy already?" Lydia asks then, unexpectedly. Even you had forgotten she was there. "Send to their death or stripped of the power every necromancer? Definitely not that last one, I'm still alive. The dead come when I call and the bodies of the fallen answer my will. I don't have to use mannequins you know I simply choose to."

"Lydia Rhys your heart's in the right place, but I've heard this talk from too many others. We stand now knowing little even you and Mrs Carpenter, even her..." He tilts his head in diffany's direction, one of the bags on his belt jingles faintly. "Though it might be better that knowledge isn't relevant. All we have not is a guess, a gamble. Your power we know..."

Her brows furrow, in anger, in thought? Both? You could not say.

"Truly? Did you know Lamentations of the Void recognized me, the work of Kemmler's arts? Do I require a sword hung over my head?"

No one answers, though you can hear Harry draw in a harsh breath and you can only imagine what Arawn is saying if he can hear this.

"They are creatures of Oblivion, they feed on fatalism like fire feeds on kindling. You're not preparing for the worst, you're encouraging the worst." She rounds on Harry. "And you? Signore 'let's fish her name out of the Void'? Do you understand the depth of that sacrifice? I certainly do not, but I know that it is matched by the regret that she might feel. If you succeed, if such a thing can be done, congratulations you get the gold star for wizardry, if you fail you might as well push her in after it yourself."

"Lydia...?" you start, not entirely sure if you want to stop her or congratulate her

"'All the trauma of dying Molly', she's like a ghost!"

"Oh..." Inari looks up over Thomas' shoulder. He was holding her hands you notice. "That is a good thing to be called, the Silver Ghost.... no the Silver Phantom. It almost sounds like a superhero. Bobby... Bobby will probably like it." Blood starts to drip from the corners of her eyes, the only tears she will ever shed.

"Right, I think we are done here," Lara says, her tone challanging.

What do you say?

[] Agree, Inari... Silver Phantom could use some rest

[] You could use her help finding the others if she's up to it

[] Write in

OOC: Sorry this took so long, it was rather intense and I wanted to make sure everyone would be true to themselves. Also yes Lydia tends to get more formal and either more Sicilian or more Welsh as she gets pissed off.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Hand in Hope Extended ​

13th of March 2007 A.D.

The sigh almost slips though, instead you maintain a smile as you offer. "Look I'm not here to threaten or interrogate or God forbid draft you into a war you don't want to fight. I am afraid of what the potential for harm this power bears, my first day was basically hyperventilating about a different thing I could technically do every two hours, but I don't think anyone here is going to deny our ability to do good." At least they had damn better not after all I did for the Council. You understand the concern, but that is not the same thing as agreeing with the way it's addressed.

"I don't do that anymore," Silver, yeah Silver sounds good, says after a moment. "I still need to breathe and blink and all the rest, but it's like I'm stuck in neutral unless I'm trying, unless I'm putting on a mask."

"Everyone's acting, you're just better at it," Thomas shrugs, earning a hard to decipher look from Lara, but now's not the time to get lost in that.

Shadows Revealed: Shattering Mirrors and Eerie Stilness

"I don't know what all of this means, but I believe it makes us something to each other". A dry sort of smile darts across her face "If nothing else, we're going to be sharing this world for a very long time and I'd like it to be as friends."

"I... don't think I'd make a good friend." She looks like she wants to say more, but her eyes keep going to Listens to the Wind and Harry. She's still talking about the Exaltation and its curse, but about what she might do or wish to, you're sure of it.

"People who make shitty friends rarely signpost it," you shrug. "Trust me I've been through Middle School in an all-girls Catholic school." That last you say in the same tone as 'I've been in 'Nam' and that gets a smile, more even, a chuckle.

"You just don't give a damn do you?"

There's other reasons for this, coldly rational ones, she seems stable, Silver is the sister of one of your employees as much as the sister of the de facto White Queen, it makes sense to keep her under observation so you can maybe figure out something about the others, but right here, right now this is true too: "Not really, no."

"So the part where you aren't recruiting my sister to go look for her highly dangerous and most emotionally compromised peers...?" Lara frowns at you, deliberately unamused, the very picture of a reasonable authority figure. It's easy to forget sometimes that she isn't just good at playing the temptress or the ruthless queen, she's good at people, able to don and set aside roles as needed.

"Draft, the thing I'm not doing is drafting her. If she wants to come along I'd certainly welcome the help." You raise an eyebrow in silent question.

In response Silver Phantom does nothing for a few seconds then her lips move, though no sound comes out. Still you can read on her pale lips: 'Something's better than nothing.'

"Sometimes," Lara grumbles looking between her siblings present. "I wonder how the hell two of you came out this way? Did they put something in the water?"

Harry seems to find her exasperation funny despite himself, Tiffany has no such conflict, she just smiles.

Despite your relief at the end of the stand off you have little reason to share in the good cheer. Titck tock... another 23 minutes. You could do the ritual again, but would that even give you enough information to dind the newly Exalted before they go to ground? Or... or you could ask a question of Inari, her Exaltation and theres was released at the same time, but there's a chance that she might notice. How much do I trust her really?

What do you do?

[] Perform the Ritual again

[] Use your crown with Inari as a focus

[] Write in

OOC: Some trully ludicrious social rolls here. I'm not going to show you Lara's roll because it'a a minor spoiler, but dear god by Exalted standards you rolled well.

 

[DragonParadox]

Measuring the Last Step ​

10th of March 2007 A.D.

The night hummed with the voices of a dozen insects drawn by the water, restless energy, they said New York never sleeps, but the same thing could be said more rightly of New Orleans. Old gas lamps still flickered like watchful eyes over the narrow alleys of the French Quarter and when the tourists had their fill and moved with raucous merriment from one distraction to another, the memories remain. Where once the lost and banished scions of distant aristocracy and armies marched to the beat of a dozen drums, poets declaimed their verse to the soft and winding Mississippi, wide as it is deep and deep as it is secretive now a single figure walked with a limp, dressed in what one could call goth-ware, though more velvet than leather with a bit of rubber and PVC to fill in the corners. A hypothetical observer, maybe a proprietor of one of the nearby shops looking out might find his slinking suspicious, his lack of company foreboding, so at least the man hoped. Maybe my ghost will wander here too, following in my last living footsteps.

He'd heard from his father that's what ghosts did, though Lukas Thomson had never seen a ghost, nor a goblin nor faerie, nor any of the dozen, hundred other things he knew were there, beyond the heavy curtain of the heavy fleshy eyelids he wished he could peel back. The summoning had failed and he was fresh out, out of ideas, out of energy, out of the will to keep on trudging through a world that seemed to have no interest in him except as a hunk of meat going though the motions.

For a while as he meandered south by Crescent Bridge he wondered if he'd at least end up in the news 'promising young man with his whole life ahead of him dead at twenty three'... 'senseless suicide of unknown young man...' All he could really bring to mind was a collage of all his neighbors saying he'd been a quiet boy, but that was serial killers not, not suicides. Some serial killer I would make, can't even curse one annoying old woman.

He wondered for a moment if he would even leave a ghost or if his soul was so utterly mundane as to be washed away. He looked down at the water, then from his pocket he took out a handwritten business card, paper not plastic, like something from a hundred years ago, subtle and understated 'The Hellfire Club.' Maybe I should just go, see what they have to say, the voice of fear in the back of his brain sounded suspiciously like Garry. But Garry didn't want anything to do with him since three days ago, wouldn't take his calls, wouldn't open the door... wouldn't listen.
That's when he hatched a daring plan, to be perhaps remembered by more than the local papers.

OOC: I've been trying to do the second half of this for hours and it's just not coming together. You guys will just have to wait to see the rest tomorrow. I will note here this is happening three days in the past, the rest of it will be in the present.

 

[DragonParadox]

When the Dragon Sheds Its Skin​

13th of March 2007 A.D.

Knowledge is power, that was the truth of magic that superseded all other truths. Cut the right deal, speak the right ritual and you too could have powers unimaginable... Lukas slowly painted the symbols onto his flesh, oak and ash, salt and brimstone that ticketed the back of his throat. Like Sisyphus on his mountain unable to reach the top, like Tantalus standing in water under the tree so bright.

The answering machine went off, shrill and loud in the silence of the cramped apartment looking down over the crowded streets of the Lower Garden District "Lukas this is your final warning, if the money isn't paid by Sunday I will have you evicted!"

If only she knew, oh if only she knew, the man thought gingerly putting on a trenchcoat, unwilling to risk disturbing the symbols of binding. He left the copy of the Lesser Key of Solomon on the table, after tonight he wouldn't need it. On his way out the door he smashed the answering machine off the table, never hearing the next message. In another life maybe he would have, maybe he'd have listened to reason, maybe he'd have just stayed Lukas Thomson, a man with dreams hundredfold greater than his power.

This was not that life.

***​

Cigar smoke wafted out of the club like the breath of some subterranean dragon and the light inside pulsed reds and purples and blues, like the colors behind his eyes when he passed out in a haze. The doorman, almost as broad as he was tall looked down with hooded eyes and opened his mouth in time with the bass behind him to reveal a creased stump where his tongue used to be before closing it in an uneven smile, the first time Lukas had seen a smile on the man's face.

Almost he stopped again, maybe he would have after all if at that precise moment an elderly woman, greying hair up up a French braid and rhymestone purse in hand, hadn't given him a dirty look, not even as one might a dangerous character, more like dog piss on the side of a building. Without once looking back he hastened inside.

Scenes of horror and desire assailed his senses, stuff you'd find in the grimiest, grainiest porn in the darkest corners of the Internet mixed with other stuff that was just plain weird that all the rest almost seemed to be framed around. Distantly he wondered if there was something magical about it or if they were just... like that. Once or twice he was almost pulled in to the embrace of carnal dissolution less from desire and more from the sense of being too... clean... too ill fitting to this place, like he had stepped into a fun-house mirror where filth was normal and purity itself was foul. But no... he had to... talk to... Him.

"Oh... no Mr. N. is busy, come on now you know the rules..." There was a sting in the back of his neck, he didn't know from what and before he knew it he'd been pushed down onto his kees. Through foggy eyes he saw a pair of club employees forcing him to his knees in the middle of a pentagram as the music turned to chanting. Echoes stretched out in the hollow room and through the haze he could see another man and next to him a woman, rows of people going through the same rite.

None of them had his protection, he would, he would...The man who had pushed Lukas to his knees laughed, a hollow speechless thing, in mockery.

A rusted blade was pressed to the palm of his right hand and though it the poison flowed, wholly untroubled by the marks copied and copied again, spells long since reft of power. Lukas dreams of binding the demon inside of himself, of using its power against the Hellfire Club were ash, no less than ash for that might once had had substance, they were burning smoke in the hand. Just another pawn... nameless... nothing.

Taking...You...With... ME

Lunging for the knife in his left hand he grabbed it poorly cutting his finger on the jagged edge and slashed is across his throat.

There was no pain, long deadened by the smoke, there was only a vague feeling of warmth that faded to cold darkness. The demon inside of him recoiled like a worm under a dragon's gaze, trying desperately to rip itself free, spilling out like tar though his ruined throat, but that cold voiceless thing paid it no mind and made instead to him, to him, a terrible offer.

Reach out, embrace the grave and live. Through cold and timeless passage it had forgotten most of what made humans humans, all but one that still it clung on like oil on a winding sheet: spite.

Lukas Thomson hurled that name into the Mouth of the Void without a second thought and Azhi Dahaka, rose from death, winding the petty demon that had had tried to wear his flesh around one hand.

OOC: Daybreak... has come. Incidentally this is a a canon character if a very minor one, a internet cookie to anyone who figures out which one.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Glimpse of Daybreak ​

13th of March 2007 A.D.

"So what do you think of her?" you ask Harry as the night air whistles past your ear. Harry isn't quite as fast as you are in flight, but he doesn't have to be. All he has to do is float, which yes does mean you are arm in arm, but for once that is an equidistant sort of observation, the same as counting the streets below to make sure you're heading in the right direction.

"She's a good kid," he answers stoutly. After you let silence speak for your doubts he sighs. "I'd like to think we dodged a bullet, though only time will tell if that's because it ended up in the fuel tack right behind us. I don't like that Lara has her hooks in her already and the stuff with the Name..." He shivers, though not from the cold of the brisk spring evening. "How does that even work?"

"The same way even empty space, a void can have shape. Her exaltation gives that void substance too. You can feel it can't you?"

"Kind of," his other hand moves to his blasting rod. "Makes the Black Court seem cuddly."

"Well good, I might bring it over for a talk, the Black Court that is."

Now it's his turn to be silent. "You're serious."

"I'm thinking of bringing him to church. Lamentations of the Void wants to be human, always did and humans are pretty cool when you come right down to it. Sure we can br dreadful, but we can be good too. That's the core of what we're doing here."

Yellow tape bars the way down the narrow street, a bike had been left leaning on a wall just beyond it and you can just see the harried traffic cops on the other side making sure traffic doesn't come this way. Even though you can't see any blood splatter from here, the shop's window had been broken by the bullet that would have killed Silver Phantom, still feels a little weird on the tongue, ponder your question.

On the one hand it would be nice to ask about all three of the others, but the weight of their fates forbids it. For all they had risen at the same time each are more distinct from the others than they are alike, the faces of the blackened sun.

"Where might I find another?"

Lost 1 Essence (Question)

Hellfire Club. The name slashes contemptuously across your senses, like rusted iron wrapped in silk, like magnolia and brimstone. The room is large and lit blood red, to hide the stains maybe and it looks to have been a club once, though the dance floor had been put to a far darker purpose, scared with dozens of infernal symbols by the same hand that had summoned gaggle of thugs half in street clothes and half in the sort of leather one shouldn't be wearing in public. Far from seeming sensual something about the contrast makes your gorge rise. Meat wrapped and unwrapped that's all these people are to the balding man wielding the syringe among victims the cultists had forced to their knees looking for all the world bored, like he had drawn the short straw to do the scutt work.

As the carved in the floor begins to smoke and the lights begin to flicker you recognize what this is: a mass summoning of minor fiends into the bodies of people too worn out or beaten down to resist properly. It reminds you of some of the horrors the Will of Kakuri had made use of in Chicago: Bakemono. But this was no work of the Yama Kings...

As the master of ceremonies slices open the palm of the first victim, a fellow in a trenchcoat to allow the demon to slip into his flesh he miscalculates as the knife is torn from his hand and raked across the throat.

God have mercy, you think horrified. Surely if ever there is a time to take one's life.

But it is no merciful God that brings succor to the dying as blood slashes red across the floor and onto the polished shoes of the recoiling master of ceremonies, but something far darker. A circle of bloody black light bursts upon his brow and the demon screams as it is slain and reshaped by rampant necrotic essence. Madness coiling like the body of a great serpent with a head aflame seeps into the world, a soul transofmed, as cultist and victim both scream and beg and fall to their knees in aw and horror before the newborn Champion of the Bleeding Sun.

At first it seems the master of ceremonies is caught in the same spell, but then an inhuman voice tears itself from his lips:

"You are mine welp!"

The command is not to the deathknight, but instead to the body it wears, bulging muscle and tearing flesh. Where once there had been a rather unassuming man now a creature that holds all the most unlovely aspects of man snake and wolf crouches among the mandness, an angelic seal smoking into his brow.

Yet even upon the face the fallen had taken there is fear.

Regained 2 Essence (Urge)

You come back to yourself with a shocking suddenness. "Clippy... get Tiff on the phone!"

Thankfully your assistent is nothing if not efficient and Tiffany answers on the first ring.

So just as fast you ask, ignoring Harry's worried look. "Black snake-wolf thing, which Denarian?"

"Akariel, why?"

"I saw him trying to make Bakemono in New Orleans. He failed, one of the victims tried to kill himself, but Exalted and then everyone but the Denarian went mad." You swallow at the memory. You'd be able to ignore it and Harry might be able to fight it off, but for a most it would be unspeakable.

"Well he can't be all bad if he made Akariel flinch," Tiffany says thoughtfully. "Any idea when?"

"About fourty five minutes after Inari, hour and a half ago or thereabouts. Didn't see what happened afterwards." While it had certainly been no friendly introduction you could imagine the kind of blanishments one of the Fallen might offer.

As it happens there is no Warden in New Orleans, but according to Thomas there are plenty of White Court members. Do I want to owe Lara the favor?

Lydia Essence 7/7 (0/3 Jade Talisman)
Molly Essence 10/18
Molly Willpower 6/9
Harry Essence 1/5

What do you do?

[] Ask a favor of Lara to have one of the local White Court Vampires play your song

[] Travel to Saint Luis, the nearest city with a Warden and then go by car

[] Use the Ways

[] Write in

OOC: What happened here mechanically is the Daybreak make the petty demon they were going to shove into him a familiar with Spirit Tied Pet so it's a part of his anima and Bestial Traits Technique which allows him to take one Special Advantage the demon has... that advantage is an aura of insanity RAW that should just work on everyone but the exalted, but that is a little too strong so eveyone of wizard talent and over (including of course the Fallen) get to contest it with willpower. Don't be a mook around this guy.

 

[DragonParadox]

Electronic Passage ​

13th of March 2007 A.D.

You send out a call though the Order of the Cauldron and get an answer almost instantly. You raise an eyebrow at the name of the establishment, but try not to judge.

Tiffany on the other hand is not as polite, though you doubt anyone else can read the faint amusement behind her half-hooded eyes. Still most of your attention is on Silver Phantom, she is nervous, though doing a disturbingly good job hiding it balancing from foot to foot with a squeak of long used tennis shoes of the kind Lara wouldn't be caught dead in, doing her darnest not to look towards the clamshell phone Lara had left with Thomas.

"We are going to have to pass though another place to get to Saint Luis in time, my place, there's a lot more to say about that, but now's not the time, not with the Denarians involved. Akariel may not be the worst of them, but he's a follower..."

"What I said was that he's a blood gorged tick hanging off the asses of greater power," Tiffany interjects, to Lydia's amusement and Harry's worry.

Tiffany might know Nicodemus from memories not entirely her own, but Harry is the only one there who has ever crossed the master of the Order of the Blackened Denarius and even with all the power you can bring to bear he's not feeling comfortable. Not even accounting for the fact that you may have to fight the Dead Dragon.

"We go in force master wizard." A voice which had been strangely absent from the counsels so for how naturally talkative its bearer is. Llyr Half-Speech he was and the whisper of wind given the breath of stone about him and at the feet of Mabon son of Modron while Gwair son of Geirioedd breathed deep and with each exhalation sent shivers of life though each living thing.

"Lesser are we than than his death knight but age and wisdom may yet overcome youth and elan," the thind in that company said softly.

"We would say age and treachery," Thomas puts in, his voice growing thin as you focus on opening the way.

Mabon looks to Tiffany who raises a hand in front of her face as though to bat away the suspicion. "I had nothing to do with it. Humans can be cynical all on their own."

"Well let's hope he's not too badly off," Silver half whispers, more than half to herself.

More by will than by Essence you open the way, the layers of reality flowing like smoke and oil instead of steel opened at a touch. There.

Lost 2 Essence (King and Kingdom, taking others with you)

***​

Nine people barely fit in the back of the Witch's Wish between the scented candles and the books on Yoga and meditation. Bock Ordered Books this place is not... or at least it doesn't seem to be at first glamce. The lady looking wearily back at you from behind a pair of heavy square glasses that take up more than half her face looks less like she's had a mataphysical sparker thrown in her face and more like she's trying to work out meaning from the twisting essence.

"Oh I wasn't..."

The computer whose speakers you had used for safe passage thakes that moment to give up the electronic ghost with a piercing whine and a smell of melting plastic.

"Harry!" you grumble, but Silver frowns.

"That's me, don't worry. I'll make it right." And just like that all worries had been assuaged or killed maybe. Where your essence overawes with brillience hers smothers all doubts.

"Ah... Dangerous." Tiffany might have said that last bit in French but the shape of the words close enough to English that all you hear is an accent.

"What's dangerous?" Silver asks.

"Being persuasive. It's very easy to persuade yourself you see."

Thomas is either too polite to roll his eyes at a lady or too focused on the hunt but you can feel his dissagrement in the set of his shoulders.

First thing's first, you check the news... and find that the Hellfire Club was the scene of a 'gass explosion' earlier today, the kind of gas explosion that gets dozens of FBI agents called it and a couple of people in plain clothes that might be from a certain Library.

Lydia Essence 7/7 (0/3 Jade Talisman)
Molly Essence 8/18
Molly Willpower 6/9
Harry Essence 1/5
Silver Essence 7/10

What do you do?

[] Go down to the Club

[] Call the library to inform them of.... some part of what went down
-[] Write in how much

[] Write in

OOC: This feels like it didn't move us along as much as I would have liked, but we have a lot of people here and they need to get some time to interact or the scene becomes unmoored from the people in it.

 

[DragonParadox]

Tape Yellow and Red ​

13th of March 2007 A.D.

You try to get on the line to the Library and for the first time since you got that number there is no answer forthcoming. Von Trier is picking up the phone, you almost wish that you could convince yourself it's a snub. Fuck. That sentiment doesn't get any better when you roll up to the front of the club and find not only enough police officers to take over a small European country, but FBI agents, lots of FBI agents looking all square and besuited. While you are listening with your ears Clippy has been listening with her own electromagnetic senses and found... Daedalus. Double fuck.

If ever there was someone you did not want within a thousand miles of Denarians, deathknighs or anything more supernatural than a box of Lucky Charms it's that lot. It is at this point, looking through the tinted window of the rented white Chevy van, built in 1995 and musty enough to prove it that you get an incoming call... from a harried sounding Von Trier.

"Ve vere informed ov the nature ov the danger," Von Trier's accent, accent a good bit thicker than it usually is. She already got a call from the Wardens, as did other agencies in the know worldwide, that cat was out of the bag the moment you told the Council and they knew it. A necrotic threat, a legacy of Kemmler, that people will be empowered at the edge of death, most likely violent and that they will most likely make use of their new powers with little concern for secrecy. All in all the kind of thing you tell the governments so they won't jump the gun

It really is a pity you have to be the bearer of even more bad news. Guns had been jumped, or at the very least some very jumpy folks are crouching over them

"I'm in New Orleans..." you rattle off the coordinates Clippy gives you as well as the address. "It's definitely the site of one of the events which from present intelligence involved at least one member of the Order Blackened Denarius. My team may end up confronting them alongside the newly empowered." You pause, trying to think of a way to say the next part politely before deciding that there's enough trust here to just say it. "Certain federal agents won't make this any easier."

The hiss of an in-drawn breath is all you hear from the other side then what might have been a muttered curse in German."We have nothing to do with this... misfortune. Daedalus has a team in New Orleans to study and counter the 'sanguphages'. I assume that is who got re-routed there. I can have them stand down, but it's going to take several calls. Do you have the time to hold?"

More is communicated in what's not said than what is. She did not ask you how you planned to deal with the agents if you're not holding, most likely because she doesn't want to know.

A police dog pulls at the leash and whines in the direction of the van. One officer looks in your direction, then another. Whatever you're going to do it has to be soon.

[] Sneak in until you are close enough to the site of the Exaltation to use your Crown

[] Hold until Von Trier can clear your path (20-30 minutes estimate)

[] Talk your way past the authorities
-[] Write in stunt

[] Write in

OOC: Not the best background rolls, but not the worst either. You guys did not have to roll anything this time.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Torment of Light ​

13th of March 2007 A.D.

"Hypothetically if someone not from another agency were to walk up to those agents flashing a badge... what kind would it be?" Generally speaking it's not a good idea to ask someone who works for the government how to impersonate another federal agent.

In response there's a sort of hiss from the back of the room that might have been a warning, Harry looks worried, Tiffany amused while everyone else is in various states of 'game face to fight Denarians', but the answer you are looking for is from the other side of the line.

"What do you have in mind?" Short and to the point.

"A U.N. agency," Like X-COM for hell instead of aliens, you don't add. Something tells you Von Trier didn't play the game, no matter how great it was.

"Either it works precisely as you intended or they will attempt to detail you." Not a 'no', but her tone's just as clipped.

"I'm good at making sure I get the former over the latter," you say, hoping it doesn't sound like you're tooting your own horn. It's just the truth. Not to mention you are in the company of at least four others who could match it: Lydia, Tiffany, Lyr Half-Tongue and the newly Exalted Silver Phantom.

"Ware how you thread the needle, Project Daedalus has been making use of techo-sorcerous dousing devices, a poor replica for even the most crude arcane senses, but even such eyes as those can see a bonfire."

"What...?" you recall the saw made to cut the veil between world, gathering dust for more than a month in the Last Station for lack of time to prod oddities. "How?"

"Time passes and those who have known no other world, but that bound in steel and crackling lightning have now come into their power. Your peers Ms Carpenter. It is a pity when one is given blindness alongside brilliance, but such is fate. For the sake of secrecy do not allow your power to shine too bright."

That at least I have plenty of practice in.

Silver is startled when the a sleek black shape set with silver studs and brass wires appears under your hand, halfway between photocopier and pianette. , cold blues and purples flashing under the hood.

"Tis an uncommon thing?" you hear Gwair ask Harry, and you swear there's a teasing edge to it, though he himself doesn't catch it and he does his best to explain how most such devices aren't magic.

One, two, thee forged IDs slip out, still a little warm to the touch then, flanked by Lyr and to one side and Tiffany on the other most convincing in skill and age to play the part of other agents, you exit the van and make a beeline for the nearest Daedalus agent. When she tries to bar the way inside you drone out trying to strike a balance between sympathetic and in a hurry: "Sorry for startling you Agent Karlson we really had to get here as quickly as possible, and commandeered the first vehicle available - thank god for discretionary spending fund. Now, let me inspect the scene, please, before the trail grows too cold, and we have to start following the trail of bodies in the next several days."

Lost 1 Willpower (TTC)

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to..."

Your tone grows irate, though not seemingly with her. "If you still haven't received a call from our liaison by the time we are finished, you'll be free to detain me, and I will be free to arrange someone getting fired."

Her dark blue eyes grow a little less narrow, her face almost relaxed enough to be called sympathetic as she looks down at the ID and contemplates perhaps familiar troubles. "This is a crime scene, there are a dozen bodies inside at least, a full on mass induced psychotic break and that the Geiger counters are going crazy. Do you three have radiation protection? No, then it's probably best to stay up here. God damn it the last thing we need is rumors that it was some kind of dirty bomb. "

"And you're sure it wasn't that?" Tiffany asks, feigning worry. Only feigning because she can fix radiation sickness and the people she cares about not getting it can be counted on the fingers of both hands.

"We're sure it wasn't some guy with the wrong kind of backpack, wrong kind of rads according to the boffins on the line. As if that's not enough many of the victims are showing signs of both lesions and overdosing. Esper with the wrong kind of power? Hell if I know." Her voice drops with a mix of revulsiona and yes fear, though it's clear she won't let it stop her from doing her job. "Several were found to be missing their tongues. If there's something we need to know right now I'll be happy to pass it up the chain and then I'll get one of you suited up..."

Lyr clicks his tongue in sympathy and motions for her to follow you a little further along and away from the rest of the officers working the scene. "Day late and a pound short we are eh? West assured we're not as short of protection as you think, it's just not what you'd call obvious to the unaided eye." That his accent while not particularly thick is entirely impossible to guess must have helped sell the story.

"So you knew or suspected at least that something this could happen? What are we looking at?"

Lyr just gives you a look that reads 'how much do you want me to bullshit them?'.

Now there's something you didn't expect to meet, a reasonable Daedauls agent. Trouble is you have no idea why there would be radiation. Insanity and a lack of tongues sure, you'd heard enough stories from Dad, the rest of it is as much of a mystery to you as it is to the woman in front of you. Though that can be changed.

"Can I see the counter?"

To her credit she manages to procurer a device.

Tiffany looks down, then back at the facade of the club frowning. She experimentally raises the bulky detector up. "Hawking radiation, congruent with the last dying gasp of a Black Hole. An echo ringing backwards of last thing that will ever be." Then the once-Fallen Angel shakes her head. "The concentration of Gama rays isn't high enough to be fatal unless you decide to lick the epicenter."

The nice part about radiation now that you know it's there —should I be thinking of radiation of something that has a good part?— is that it expands the scene of the exaltation beyond the walls of the club. You do not even have to go inside to ask what caused this. On the other hand Daedalus and the police here have a lot of the evidence, all of which would allow for more methodical and less essence-intensive ways to track both Akariel and the newly Exalted Abyssal.

What do you do?

[] Use your crown to pick up the trail and continue

[] Ask to see the evidence they collected and some of the people they arrested

[] Write in

OOC: To be clear I am not a physicist, I'm not sure if you would be able to read the difference between a small burst of Hawking radiation and any other source with a normal Geiger Counter but A) this is the device of magic curious spooks and B) the person reading it is a Fallen Angel, she has a Science score because an aspect of her was there when the laws of this universe were written.

 

[DragonParadox]

Marks in Steel, Signs of Flame ​

13th of March 2007 A.D.

Inside it looks like a war-zone, blown out lights and pockmarks in the walls and floor where pieces of molten glass or metal had burned though drywall like paper and gouged out pieces of anything more solid and there's bodies, lots of bodies, enough so that even the EMTs who must be used to this kind of thing are moving with the sort of deliberate slowness of people forcing themselves to go through the motions. Tiffany's nose scrunches at the touch of brimstone, but she doesn't comment, all of you can tell it's hellfire. What's harder to read is the room itself. It looks like the Denarian went hog wild, trying to kill everyone, or maybe just an enemy who proved particularly elusive. Looking up you see the supports of a mirror that used to hang from the ceiling for decor or occult purposes, but it had been torn down, broken now, but the frame was oddly intact, as though it didn't land full force...

"That was a weapon," you mutter under your breath. "Maybe a shield as well."

"An ordinary mirror?" Lyr sounds as dubious as you would have been in his place, but that's how it looks right now. A moment later you find about six feet of wiring torn out of one of the lighting fixtures covered with blood patterns that make no sense for splatter. "Correction, this is the weapon." You snap it out, used like a whip. "Not much good against most things but you could take out an eye...?" You tilt your head Tiffany-ward for the question you can't ask aloud so as not to tell the agent at your heels more than she should know: Would that work on a Denarian, on Akariel specifically?

"Given enough skill, a temporary impediment," she equivocates.

"And the likely reaction?"

"The cable, the molten glass or the..." she waves her hand around at the body. "Call for back up."

"Wouldn't that be showing weakness?" You can't imagine needing help dealing with what had moments before been a helpless sacrifice would win the wolf-snake Denarian any brownie points with their fellows.

"I think they swung up and through the gantry up there!" Lyr calls your attention to a walkway around the east side of the room, about nine feet up. Maybe that's what they used for a stage. You see the bent bar he means, but that's a hell of a jump especially since he would've had to swing up and over. The more you see the more the scene speaks to either extreme conmpetence or someone burning essence like like it's going out of style to get away. Good news on two counts: that he's running from the Denarians and that when you find him he'll be low on motes.

"Do you have any reports of someone running out of the club after all this happened?"

"Someone?" Agent Karlson shakes her head and taps the heel of her sensibile flats on the discarded glass. "We have we have seven distinct reports of people running out, all of them from people I wouldn't trust to remember what color a drunken mall Santa was dressed in on Boxing Day."

You snort at the picture she's painting in your head, something tells you she's speaking from experience. "Can't give you copies in a hurry, but if you want to snap some pictures... paperwork gets around."

"Much appreciated," you answer and she must have seen the surprise in your eyes because she continues.

"I know that look, you have a lead and a plan. Fuck do we need a lead and a plan."

Where is he now?

You ask inwardly of the man who had been 'reborn' of a sort here and in exchange receive flash of grey steel passing between the blue of the Gulf and the tan of the cliffs. A train racing east, yet to turn north. Its destination Montgomery Alabama. Through a window you catch a glimpse of a man in ill fitting clothes. Stolen maybe?

Spoiler: Vision

Now you know where one of the missing Exalts is and likely where he'll stay for a little while at least, but two others are in the wind. Maybe we should split up? Even in your own head it sounds dangerous, but it's a dangerous kind of day.

What do you do?

[] Intercept the train (It left New Orleans about an hour ago)
-[] Write in how

[] Use the council's ritual again to find another Abyssal

[] Write in

OOC: Enjoy.