There's always something.

Beta'd by Sesparra

I was more than a little bit curious how much leeway the Church gave Father Forthill with regards to the masquerade as I walked out of Mass, sandwiched solidly between Dad and Sanya.

On one hand, there was the way that, as far as I was aware, he hadn't really started explicitly talking about the supernatural in his homilies until after the Fomor had made their big run at Chicago in a decade and change, but on the other hand… well, even if it was on the liturgical calendar and that had been set in stone before Mom had been more than a twinkle in Grandma and Grandpa's eyes, he sure made a big deal about the way that a lot of the situations that one could get themselves into could be solved by standing up, picking up their mat, and going home, which certainly sounded like it could be a stand-in for setting aside one of the Coins.

All that aside, it was nice to be back at Saint Mary of the Angels. I'd been to mass since the Fomor had destroyed the building, granted, but there was something about the grand old building that had been lacking in every other church I'd ever heard someone serving mass in, and it wasn't just Father Forthill, since I'd had the fortune to attend mass he'd been giving in the refugee camps.

Sanya gave me a questioning look as he, Dad, and Shiro split off, as if inviting me to come with them, but I shook my head. Mom was likely to go off and talk to Mrs. Capelli or someone else in that crowd, so I needed to be on hand so I could watch the rest of the kids, plus the fact that I wasn't quite ready to talk to Dad about getting involved with the situation at hand.

He shrugged, then waved, and as he walked off, the pedestals glimmered.

When nothing came of it, I sighed, more than a little grateful that I wasn't having to deal with another complication at the moment, then turned back to Mom and the rest of the Jawas. True to form, she was heading off to the corner of the parking lot that Mrs. Capelli had taken over years ago with little Harry on her hip like he hadn't been getting a bit old for that, so I was left to herd the cats into something resembling an ordered charge towards the Sandcrawler and the stuff that Mom always kept in the back before they started invading other cars in search of mischief.

Thankfully, I managed to get them all to the Sandcrawler with a minimum of distractions, the most egregious instance being Hobbit picking up a chunk of asphalt off the ground and trying to chew on it.

I'd managed to pry the thing out of her grubby little hands before she started slobbering on it with the help of her favorite teddy bear and a pocket bottle of hand sanitizer (thankfully- the last time that she'd gotten Captain Paws dirty, she'd spend half an hour giving her lungs a real workout, and it was only the fact that Mom had managed to scrub it clean with the wipes she kept in the Sandcrawler at all times that kept it from going on longer), so once Amanda and Alicia had managed to occupy each other with whatever schoolyard games were in nowadays and Matthew and Daniel had gotten their books out, I was relatively safe to grab my datapad and start perusing the database I'd gotten yesterday.

It was really impressive, too. Wherever it was from, they'd done a good job of integrating magical energies into their technologies, being able to use them as alternative power sources or, in some cases, being able to directly store magical energy in batteries, which… how the fuck?

Just from looking at the batteries, it was obvious that the stuff called magic in the files was a far cry from what passed for proper magic in the real world, but if I had enough time, I could probably adapt the principles into something that could work with the White Council's style of magic, and then I would really start cooking with gas.

I put the datapad down for a moment, rubbing at my eyes frustratedly before turning to the rest of the Jawas.

If all went well, I'd be making their lives a lot safer, but at the same time, before I really got established, I could very well be bringing down all kinds of heat on their heads. Pretty much every supernatural faction short of the White Council, the Fellowship, and maybe Odin and his PMC, preferred humanity docile, fat, and happy, defenseless sheep for the slaughter, and the minute that they got wind of someone trying to change that by adding magic to technology was the minute that my head would be sought after by everyone from Drakul to Kukulkan, and even living under the same roof as a Knight of the Cross with all the protections that that brought with it wouldn't be enough to cover my ass.

So, before I really started experimenting, I needed both somewhere safe to hole up and, more importantly, a sponsor who was willing to go to the mattresses for me.

The White Council was out. Even if I didn't know that they were currently compromised by everyone from the Unseelie to the Adversary, they wouldn't understand enough of what I could do for them thanks to their inability to really grok technology. When combined to the fact that I wasn't at least eighty, I wouldn't be able to get anyone this side of maybe some of the younger Wardens to listen to me, and they wouldn't be able to arrange the kind of protection that I'd need even if the Council was willing to break their dumbass turtling shtick that they'd tried to use to just wait out the Red Court.

Speaking of the war with the Red Court, I couldn't afford to rely on the Fellowship or any of the other smaller organizations thanks to all their effort being devoted to standing against the vampires, if they would even have access to enough resources to prevent me from getting assassinated in my sleep if they weren't all tied up in the war.

I could, maybe, count on someone like Vadderung, if I was willing to submit myself to his authority, but-

Something about the way that Hope was moving drew my attention, and I looked down at her toddling towards the street. After a moment to open my senses, I heard a sussurus that seemed almost hypnotic, and had to bite down hard on the inside of my cheek to not immediately start following where it beckoned.

Following the meandering path that Hope was taking with my eyes even as I jogged over to catch up with her, I saw a big black SUV idling on top of the speed bump just outside the parking lot like a jackass, the kind that they always used in the movies for government agencies. One of the back windows was rolled down, and in it…

In the window, I could see the head of a snake about the size of a human's, dull gray scales flecked with what looked unnervingly like blood, tongue flickering and the stench of hellfire all but radiating off of him, with four baleful eyes following Hope toddling her way towards him and a baleful sigil glowing a sickly green above both sets.

"Fuck," I said, speeding up to try and get out in front of Hope. I pulled the amulet I'd managed to pull together out of my pocket with one hand, then wheezed to a stop ten feet in front of her. Two of my fingers rose, making the classic "I'm watching you" gesture towards the lower set of eyes, and I spat out "mabushii" accompanied with an effort of will and an image.

Immediately, the snake-headed man flinched back, screwing all four of his eyes shut as I turned all the psychedelic fury of my one-woman rave spell on him, and the spell faded out as he found himself very distracted. After a moment, the driver gunned the engine, screeching out of the crosswalk like I was going to try and kill the whole car… which, in retrospect, it could have seemed that way, what with the snake-headed Denarian writhing in pain and sensory overload.

I raised my hand to cast another spell, but before I could, the workshop's pedestals glimmered. One of them glowed more intensely before, as if in fast-forward, a model of a house resembling a dollhouse that seemed to be made out of solid silver, glowing in the moonlight, was assembled. On lower pedestals nearby, a silver statue of someone who vaguely resembled me, a sword raised over her head in a dramatic moment, poured itself into reality, and a small silver amulet inscribed with a cross (which I could feel materializing around my neck, hidden beneath my blouse) and, on the other side, a hole for a jewel of some sort ready to slot in appeared in a shower of moonlight. Leaned up against the taller pedestal with the house was an outline of a sword in silver, one that I could feel my magic flowing through somehow.

I shoved both the workshop and the knowledge of geomantic energy manipulation into the back of my mind- I couldn't afford to spend time on them in the middle of a crisis, facing down at least one Denarian.

While I'd been distracted, the passenger window had been cycled down, and without the tinted glass in the way, I could recognize Nicodemus' sneering face looking out at us as his arm fell. "Best of luck with the child," he said, ugly sneer twisting up into a smirk, and my heart rose into my throat.

I turned around to see Hope, eyes unfocused, stumbling forward with her hand out, and, closer to her than to me, a tarnished silver coin lying on the sidewalk with all the innocence of a schoolyard bully pretending that no, ma'am, I didn't just push her over, she's doing it to get me in trouble, would I ever lie to you ma'am?

There was no time to cast a spell even if I wasn't sure it would interfere with whatever had enchanted Hope, and I wasn't nearly fast enough to get to her before she got to the coin, so there was only one thing that I could do that had even a chance to save her from the coin.

I pushed off into the best standing jump I could with no warning, all but throwing my torso forwards to try and get to the coin before Hope. I flopped forwards, flat on my stomach, but I managed to cup my left hand and slap it down, covering the coin without touching it, and I gave thanks to whoever was watching out for me that I didn't end up marking up my face.

Hope tripped forwards, the dazed shamble she'd been doing finally betraying her, and she landed squarely on top of my hand, flattening it out and forcing my skin in contact with the coin.

I could feel something reaching out from the coin, something that made the Soulfire inside me roil uncomfortably, but I couldn't pay attention to that since Hope had snapped out of whatever trance she was in and was now starting to cry.

I closed my now-sore left hand around the coin, then lifted Hope up, setting her back on her feet so I could slip the coin into my pocket without touching it to her. "Hope, are you okay? What happened?"

"B-big snake man!" she sniffled, one hand clenching on thin air. "No Captain Paws!"

Thankfully, the teddy bear wasn't too far away, and with a muttered "fukukaze" I managed to call up enough of a gust to toss it into the air, landing neatly in my hand. "Yes Captain Paws," I said, pulling it back around her to show the scruffy little plush to her. "See? He's A-okay!"

That was enough to get Hope to stop crying- she'd scraped up her knee a little bit, but thankfully, the sidewalk wasn't rough enough to draw blood, so the only issue that came of us both eating dirt was my blouse and pants got a little bit dusty, which wasn't something that Mom would make a big deal about. It was hardly the dirtiest I'd gotten wrangling the Jawas, and it didn't require dry cleaning, so she would probably let things slide.

"Yeah, now, come on, let's go back over to the Sandcrawler and go wait for Mom with the rest of the Jawas, okay?" I pushed myself up, flexing my left arm to try and get it to stop stinging from the contact with the sidewalk, and then offered Hope my hand.

"Okay!" She took my hand and allowed me to lead her back to the rest, thankfully just ahead of Mom.

"Perfect timing, Molly," she said. "Your father, Shiro, and Sanya are going to be coming home after they have a conversation with Father Forthill, but we'll be going now."

"Sounds like a plan, Stan," I said, reaching down for Hope.

She obligingly raised her arms, and even if she was heavier than I thought she would be, I managed to hold her up long enough for Daniel to open the side door of the Sandcrawler so I could let her flop into her car seat like a cat, all languid limbs and frustrating inability to sit still when I needed her to. Still, I managed to secure her, and once I'd gotten into the front seat, I could zone out to actually handle the implications of everything that had happened since mass had let out.

Okay, the less pressing issue was the new knowledge of energy flows. It was a lot more like what I remembered of the interactions of ley lines from back when I was still learning under Klaus, combined with the nebulous discussion of areas of power and prepared ground, although I wanted to call them manses for some reason. On the whole, it was probably going to be helpful for fortifying locations once I could afford to pony up for the materials it would take to make one manifest itself, which was nice since I'd already been thinking about that, although my spellwork would probably be a bit more efficient once I properly internalized all the arcane knowledge.

The more pressing issue was that I had, intentionally or otherwise, opened myself up to one of the Fallen.

And that's that!

Perks Earned:

Eight-Fold Geomantic Mastery (Generic Exalted, 200CP): You possess the inherent understanding and skill with geomancy and the manipulation of natural energies such that you may now create manses in any area where such a thing could conceivably be created. The stronger the mystic or magical significance of a given place the more powerful the manse that can be built there, but even in the barest and most mystically barren areas you will still be capable of producing, given some time, a manse of the least(1-dot)power. The process of creating a Manse is tremendously faster for you than it would be for others, the necessary geomantic arrays and arrangements seeming to simply leap to your mind with a clarity of insight few if any could match. The Eight-Fold part of it is that you understand the methods for creating manses aspected towards all five of the elemental essences of fire, earth, wind, water, and wood as well as manses aspected towards solar, lunar, and stellar(sidereal)energies. Given time and effort you may discern methods for creating other types of manse, twisted mockeries of what nature intended, but such insights will take considerable effort, time, and resources to bear fruit. Taking this perk explicitly allows you to create manses even outside of Creation and, indeed, is the only way to create manses outside of Creation.

Stunt Master (Generic Exalted, Free): You are a master of stunting. Any time you try to do something amazing the world will conspire to make your attempted stunt just that little bit more dramatic and incredible. Maybe there just happens to be a rope to let you swing across the ballroom dramatically as you make off with the nobles treasure, or maybe there's just the right amount of handholds and footholds on two opposing walls, at just the right distance from each other, that would allow you to dramatically wall jump your way up. So long as you strive to do things in an amazing and/or over the top fashion you will be slightly rewarded for doing so, Fate conspiring to make you that little bit better at whatever you're doing because apparently Fate is really fond of over-the-top action sequences. You can still fail when you're doing over the top stuff though, so don't get too out of hand, this just represents a slight-to-moderate increase when you're purposely trying to be amazing.

A Simple Amulet (Generic Exalted, Free): A hearthstone amulet, your choice of magical material to be made out of. It has a single socket which can have a single hearthstone placed into it. Hearthstones provide all sorts of different magical benefits as well as increasing regeneration of Essence when a heartstone is placed within. These hearthstone amulets you purchase here do not require Essence to attune them. Your first hearthstone amulet is free, and additional amulets can be purchased for 50cp each. Does not actually come with a hearthstone.

A Storied Blade (Generic Exalted, Free): You receive an average Daiklave, roughly a '2 dot' artifact weapon, for free. It comes in the magical material of your choice. Daiklaves are swords that are really huge because screw you physics huge swords are cool. For an extra 50cp you can upgrade it to a Grand Daiklave which is basically a super-huge greatsword. If you're thinking of a massive eight foot long slab of metal heavier than two fully grown men then you're on the right track. Unlike regular artifact weapons that you would normally find ones purchased here have no Essence requirement. You can attune to them, and keep them attuned, for absolutely free. Additionally, also unlike normal magical weapons (of this low a level at least) these Daiklaves are completely indestructible. Comes with 1 hearthstone socket, just because.

I have Plans for the Daiklave, so no immediate Sword Shenaniganry.

If you want to support me as a writer, I've got me a Ko-fi ( /lucifra) and a ( Lucifra), and if you become a patron, you can see my chapters a week early, plus for this fic see two chapters not available on other platforms yet.

If you want to support me as a writer, I got me a Ko (fi) (https (:/) (/) ko (-) fi (/) lucifra) and a Pa tre on (https (:/) pa tre on .com (/) Lucifra), and you can see chapters a week early if you become a patron. (remove spaces and parentheses)

Speaking of which, my thanks to NotableRonin, Mtron, AntaeusTheGiant, Starfall20, Danielle, Ultama Omega, Asuran Fun, KOOLAID, Journeyman_Mike, Josef Haerle, Freddie Capps, James, Allen Baker, Bailey Matutine, Mr Phantom, Thomas Vernet, Conor Cooney and Ember for being patrons!

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That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!