Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[DragonParadox]

Taking Wing​

13th of March 2007 A.D.

"Tiff, I'm counting on you to be..." Back in the van you spin what plans the moment allows. Better to come into a confrontation with less than your full strength than to allow the newly Exalted to slip out of all knowing. Should be easy for you to catch up to the train.

"Ruthless," she flashes a sharp edged smile.

"Reasonable," you temporize with a quelling look. "Sir Knights I do not know you as much as the rest of our company, but I trust your valor and your discretion."

"Your courtesy does you credit my lady," Gwair answers with a seriousness undermined only by the glimmer in the depths of his forest green eyes.

Listens to the Wind hesitates a long moment, weighting Harry with his eyes, though in what scale you could not say. "Warden Dresden," he nods and steps over to stand by you and Silver. There's a ripple of greenish light, like the haze of early morning on the horizon over the lake and where a man had stood there's now an eagle with bands of silver along the sides of his head alongside a resigned-looking racoon sitting down on the floor next to him. Little Brother doesn't speak, not that you can hear him at least, but 'must we?' comes across loud and clear.

For about forty minutes as the hawk flies you make your way along the coast where low green marshland gives way to the roaring waves. Old but still stately bridges span the slow meandering courses where fresh water meets the salt. For all the rushing of the trees crane and heron and pelican seem more troubled by your strange areal trespass than they are at the steel road that had long since worn groves through the land. But as soon as you spy the right train from afar the eagle gives a shriek of warning.

"What's the matter?" Silver asks, worried, but of course a bird's voice isn't meant for human speech..

After you catch up to the train and under glamor slip inside, startling a thankfully drowsy old fellow smoking there with a quick opening of the door the old wizard takes back his shape and answers: "We haven't left the dark ones as far back as we might have hoped, whole train reeks of devilry as bad as Packingtown pork as Ebeneezer would say."

"W...what's it doing?" you catch your breath, speaking as softly as you can so as not to alert the passengers, though even those few on their feet don't seem overly curious sorts.

"Far as I can tell nothing, it's like the string pulled back but not yet loosed... waiting."

"An attack on the... what title did you say he took?" Lydia asks.

"Azhi Dahaka," you try not to sound too judgemental of the pretension. After all you're soon going to meet its bearer, hopefully pacefully.

"If it's an attack on one man it's well aimed as buckshot," Listens to the Wind says. "I'd say it's not the way the Fallen do things, but... strange times."

"Or in other words they might be scared," Silver's voice is soft enough for you to wonder if the fallen angels are the only ones who are, but now's not the time to get into that. She said she wanted to help and she can. That's how everyone starts, me included.

"Is it focused...?"

"Locomotive," comes the half expected response. Of course it would be, where else would a spell meant to attack a train be focused?

What do you do?

[] Track down the Abyssal

[] Head right towards the front of the train

[] Write in

OOC: Since Listens to the Wind can fly he decided to come with you and allow Harry to represent the Council on the other team, quite a bit of trust, but then he's earned it.

 

[DragonParadox]

At World's End ​

13th of March 2007 A.D.

Ice crackled under a dim sky, uncaring of the motions and emotions of the handful of upright apes who had dared come so far from the grasslands of the birth onto jagged black shore. Come to squabble far from home. Two figures moved against the breath of nearing Polar Night, the orange of their outer layers like flames against the gloom, but they did not move together in the spirit of cooperation upon which the Wilkins-Reed Station had been founded, not even the simple common survival instinct that had seen mankind stretch out from pole to pole. One of the figures was chasing the other, shouts loud and commanding, then pleading.

Spoiler: Wilkins-Reed Station

More than half a world away Harry was listening, but knew not the shape of the words.

Broad shoulders made broader still by all the layers of insulating clothing shrugged in a gesture of weary annoyance. He'll come back when he comes back, it seemed to say. Not like there was anything out here for him to run towards unless it was the company of penguins. But there was something about the runner's stride... a man with a purpose... a man whose purpose was done.

Hard to imagine a place less likely to be the target of theft and yet with the insight that comes from arcane senses and mundane experiences both he knew the man had stolen something of great worth, perhaps the greatest of worth: knowledge and now all that remained was to ensure that he could not be taken back and interrogated by the 'superiors' who would discover his true purpose.

Now all that remained was to walk out onto the fractured ice and let the cold sea take him. Another accident in inhospitable conditions, another newcomer broken by the harsh conditions.

Disjointed images of half remembered things passed though his mind: strange geometric patterns under the ice, chambers that had not known light since before the oldest genera of slime mold had dragged itself onto the land, great circular vents breathing out steam over the swirling ice fields. Valentin Romero wouldn't be the first to die for the mystery in the ice, but he would be the first to go willing.

Willing?

Without once looking back towards the station he stepped into the water. Hypothermia would be quick... Then the waters to turned black and another voice reached out offering him life, power, but he did not wish for life and power. Almost he refused as two others had refused the shard before. But then the voiceless call offered him the one thing he could not refuse, an understanding of the things in the ice. What he had stolen, what the researchers even knew to be stolen was mere scraps of scraps of understanding. Traitor... thief... spy and now... Exalted as the cold Antarctic sun looked on, the birds having long since fled.

OOC: This was bound to happen eventually, not like all the shards would land in the US, though admittedly Antarctica is a bit father afield than most. Even though Harry doesn't speak any other language than English and Latin Tiffany was able to recognize the laguage being shouted at him as Jamapese. Before you guys google the base is as fictional as the artifacts under the ice which the future Abyssal spied on the station to find. Giving that he was willing to kill himself to keep his cover it's a fair bet this is serious buisness, but Harry can tell no more from the flash the ritual gave him. He does have the coordinates though.

 

[DragonParadox]

Through the Window Racing By​

13th of March 2007 A.D.

Unfortunately you soon learn that trains are very simple machines even these days, there is no real reason why any part of the machine concerned in driving would be in this or any other passenger cart so it isn't. People shift in their seats, the pages of books turn too fast, here a boy barely six or seven taps it against the wall of the car nervously as his mother looks up amused. But you know the distress in those tired eyes, you can taste it in the air, like rust and bile. He might not be able to name it but you can.

"Need to get a look at the electronics in the locomotive," you whisper to your companions.

"Electronics... that's why you don't trust machines to do your thinking, never know who has their ear," Listens to the Wind says sagely, but you catch the edge of a smile on his weatherworn angular features as he concentrates on his veil to make sure it's still holding then with a thrum of displaced air takes on a winged shape again.

There's no dignified way to get through an open train window, which is probably because there wasn't supposed to be any way at all, you think as the rusk of air clears the cobwebs from the corners of your vision. Swift as you are able you catch up to the locomotive, the rounded head of this steel serpent winding along the edge of the continent where it meets the blue of the Gulf.

Familiar as breathing is the gesture that once seemed so strange: 'Be Incarnate'. This time the spirit you choose is one used to the swift Wyrm lines of sanctuary where electricity and magic run though the same wires.

"Priority Alert!" Clippy's voice is sharp and mechanical in your ear. "Systems contaminated with entropic purpose in excess of what can be compensated with available means. Diagnostic: 54.4% chance the train can be brought to a safe stop...@#$^^" A burst of static fills your ears, leaving your cursing in worry, wondering if you are about to dive that locomotive... then the connection reestablishes through the hiss of signal decay. "Unknown malware designed to collapse probabilities of all within into null state. External trigger. No...@#$^^"

That is when you notice the conductor slumped over the control... you hope just unconscious and standing in the doorway the man from the vision: Azhi Dahaka. You can't see his face from this angle, but his body language seems frozen with shock. You might not be able to hear though the window, but your friend on the inside can and relays it to you.

Unknown Thaumic Source, flesh-puppet transmission: "I told you you would have a chance to prove your boasts. Herald of Death if thy be so then do your masters' will, consign these souls to their fate. It will cost you not one bare morsel of thine power, indeed by this sacrifice you will earn my respect and the gifts that come with it... or you can prove your weakness, save their miserable lives and see yourself twice accursed."

'I can't save lives,' Silver's voice echoes though your mind from memory.

I thought the Denarians would attack him, but of course they are trying to corrupt, it is what they do. It's the kind of offer they make. True Azhi Dahaka wouldn't be able to take up one of the coind, but the blandishments of hell are many and all he has to do is pull a trigger for a gun already cocked.

Or he can do nothing, allow all the passangers to die at the hand of the Fallen... but they would be just as dead either way so why not profit the voice of temptation would whsiper?

It's just to bad for them that he's not the only one listening.

What do you do?

[] Have the cyberdevil stop the train at once as best he can

[] Burst into the cabin to stop this

[] Ask Listens to the Wind to break the curse

[] Write in

OOC: Enjoy.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Card Half-drawn​

13th of March 2007 A.D.

A spell is magic come alive, or so Lydia chooses to treat it today as, at your warning she spins her essence into a needle of silver to drive into the heart of the pulsing taint, or perhaps to lance a boil crawling on the face of the earth. At first it seems to work, a single clean strike, then it blooms again, waves of fire racing through the steel casting every reflective surface with images of damnation.

Inside your headphones even as you're diving the demon laugh. "Did you think you could sunder such work with a flicker of newborn power boy?" Of course Lydia's power would feel like Azhi Dahaka wouldn't it.

Now above and to your right the hawk that is a wizard screeches in anger, in frustration, maybe in fear of the horrors below, of all the things the people down there oughtn't to have been forced to witness. Wind blows at fire and the order of the world against infernal hatred set, but the demons had wrought too well though stolen and befuddled hands, with the powers profane.

There's no reaction that you you can hear from the locomotive. Maybe surprise to feel a wizard's magic against the spell. You do not give them the time to recover.

Blade held perfectly in line with the center of your body you dive at an angle steep enough that any winged flyer would stall and at the last moment swing, Usum's blade alight with flame as the remains of Listens to the Wind's veil parts like smoke around you and steel lives way like corkwood. The edge burns... molten green the color of your sword.

Molly uses 1 Essence (Melee Excellency)

But the edge of your triumph doesn't even last an instant as you hear softly, almost bored: "Ah, well, draw again."

Then your head is filled with screams and the screech of tearing metal. Thoughts of knocking dramatically forgotten you burst into the cabin to find a Denarian perched on the side of the wall to your left, this one a chimera of dust grey vulture and something like a spider able to rotate its limbs backwards and the man you had come all this way to speak to looking less like a man and more like some kind of hideous artistic project Eyes ears, mouth and nose, every organ every joint pierced with shards of rusted steel. Your brain insists he should be dead.

Regain 1 Essence (Violence is Worship)

Death apparently disagrees. He's still standing, gun in hand. There's a sharp retort as he shoots it upwards, fingers spamming from the pain maybe... at least that is what you think before the Denarian yowls in obvious pain as the bullet drills into its skull from behind between exockeletal plates.

Bullshit.

You have just enough time to resister and the fact that it's bullshit in your side before you hear the thump of someone else jumping from the slowing front cart. You swing Silver around and push her inside for lack of anywhere else to put her, not that she seems unready for battle, fangs barred, eyes burning with gravelight.

Silver uses 1 Essence (Brawl Excellency)

The shaggy demon takes one look at you and starts to fade to smoke as he with a spiteful parting: "Now why would you leave all those delicious mortals for Akariel to enjoy?"

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

What do you do?

[] Rush back to help protect Lydia, you are the only one who can make it back across the gap in time

[] Lydia and Listens to the Wind have this, kill the one in front of you

[] Write in

OOC: And here we see the absolute bullshit that is All According to Plan otherwise known as 'I am so smart I can use smarts for everything.'