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Ooh. And Cait Sith would absolutely threaten to do awful things to Justine and the baby if the favor isn't returned.Especially since Maeve had all her fae abilities but could break the rules. Meaning Sith could enter their domicile and possibly break guest law.
I'm not saying your idea is unworkable, but I suspect a wizard; and maybe more than one, would have to set it up for them and that's not terribly likely.A wizard seems most likely, but I think there are others capable. Monoc, the Summer Court, and the Svartalves are all good at different types of magic and enchantments. And the Svartalves trade in sex and craft items. So there would be options.
In a more practical sense, wasn't Club Zero set up for exactly the same reason? It's a place any House Raith White Court vamp can go to fill up the tank when they don't want to waste time finding new victims.
It was only used once and I think Jim did his best to forget about it.The same could be said about a bunch of things, until they come back around.
I think knowing the average lot size in Chicago is useless. They were probably pretty small before zoning laws mandated them be a certain size. (250 by 1000 feet is huge for a residential lot).Sorry, my bad, it's actually 25x125 feet. Don't know where my head was at. That's 3,125 square feet edge to edge, or 6,250 square feet if there were two lots.
Thanks for the number of stories. I must have forgotten or missed that.
How big the castle is doesn't really answer the question of whether the lot was too small to hold it. My point is mostly that we don't have enough information to tell us that the lot wasn't big enough to hold it either, so we can conclude that it was.
It seethed with negative energy, anger and pride and lust. Especially lust. Lust for wealth, lust for power, more than physical desire.It seems like the lust was mostly Sells' own desire for power, but the text suggests that there was physical desire as well. Debatable, though.
I touched my left hand to my belt buckle and whispered, “Fortius.” Power rushed into the pit of my stomach, a sudden tide of hot, living energy, nitrous for the body, mind, and soul. Raw life radiated out into my bones, running riot through my limbs. My confusion and weariness and pain vanished as swiftly as darkness before the sunrise. This was no simple adrenaline boost, either, though that was a part of it. Call it chi or mana or one of thousand other names for it—it was pure magic, the very essence of life energy itself. It poured into me from the reservoir I’d created in the silver of the buckle. My heart suddenly overflowed with excitement, my thoughts with hope, confidence, and eager anticipation, and if I had a personal soundtrack to my life it would have been playing Ode to Joy while a stadium of Harry fans did the wave. It was all I could do to stop myself from bursting into laughter or song.Raw spirit can be stored, and it can induce an emotional reaction in the bearer.
The lot of the house I grew up in would definitely be big enough for a small castle or a pretty large tower castle. Castles were a lot smaller than people think. Harry's boarding house was never described with enough specificity for us to know. What were the setbacks, what was the footprint of the boarding house, how many floors does the castle have? We don't really have enough information to say the castle is too big for the lot.We know the boarding house was two stories plus the basement. We know it had an empty gravel parking lot next to it, possibly doubling the lot. We know the average lot size in Chicago is 250 ft by 1000 feet (thanks internet!).
Trading favors is one thing, the Fae do that all the time. Hiring mercenaries likewise. But the only ways we've seen to get a big power upgrade beyond your "basic type of supernatural being" involve a lot deeper commitment or transform you - becoming Summer or Winter Knight, taking up a Denarian coin, performing an ascension rite/Darkhallow. That sort of thing.In SF Harry describes the lake house as being saturated in lust and fear and hate due to the magics worked there, because of the method used to empower the drug. Even unintentionally, emotional energy is imbued in a thing.
Lord Raith probably did something of this sort, making some kind of Outsider pact with HWWB to get his anti-magic shield. Obviously we don't have any details though...
I don't think that this is a limitation that could be gotten around with equipment, or Harry would have done something like it for Thomas. The White Court's need to feed on life force is pretty fundamental. It would take a radical transformation of Lara's nature IMO.
Only if "lust energy" can be stored in that way. I don't think it can.
Or, rather, I think there isn't really any such thing as "lust energy" in the Dresdenverse. I think the White Court are using emotions as a conduit to draw life force energy. (The Houses can switch over -- Madrigal Raith learned to feed from fear. So it's not locked specifically into lust, despair, or whatever.)
It seems to be a more general process in the Dresdenverse - the phobophages/fetches from PG do something similar, for example.
I think the problem isn't the kind of energy. It's the access to it, the "conduit", which requires emotions. An enchanted item doesn't have emotions, so I don't think the White Court's Hunger could access energy from it.
It's only "allowing" herself if she has a choice. I doubt if she does. She can't just give herself new powers without paying a cost that would be unacceptable to her - Lara wants to be in charge, not to be in debt/in thrall to some other power (like a Fallen in a Denarian coin). Working with Odin/Monoc Securities is just a business relationship, she can still be in charge of her own.She wouldn't have to sell her soul. She'd have to trade like she did with Mab, or buy like she did with Monoc.
Thomas was really damaged, enough to be non-functional/near-death.
If Thomas's Hunger is at least as strong as hers, she probably couldn't transfer enough energy to get him back to normal without reducing herself to non-functional/near-death, even if it was a 100% efficient transfer.
And it might not be efficient, because Thomas was too out of it to really feed - and the White Court probably aren't set up to give energy away (as somebody else pointed out).
Do we know that this would actually work?
The kind of energy the White Court feed on seems more personal and less "magic physics" than what Harry uses, it might not be able to just be stored in an inanimate battery.
Otherwise Harry could just have done a spell to "top up" Thomas... with time to do thaumaturgy, he could probably draw much more energy than Lara could provide. Since Lara didn't suggest that, I think it probably takes feeding on a living being.
I don't think the Whampires can just get out of their inherent limitations that way, any more than the most powerful Rampires or Blampires could avoid drinking blood.
I touched my left hand to my belt buckle and whispered, “Fortius.”If Harry, an amateur wizard in his twenties with little to no formal training, can manage to do that, then I don't see a problem with an older, wiser with wizard or mage or Monoc contractor doing something similar, but with a focus on storing a supply of lust energy. It could just take a little from each feeding to keep it topped off.
Power rushed into the pit of my stomach, a sudden tide of hot, living energy, nitrous for the body, mind, and soul. Raw life radiated out into my bones, running riot through my limbs. My confusion and weariness and pain vanished as swiftly as darkness before the sunrise.
This was no simple adrenaline boost, either, though that was a part of it. Call it chi or mana or one of thousand other names for it—it was pure magic, the very essence of life energy itself. It poured into me from the reservoir I’d created in the silver of the buckle. My heart suddenly overflowed with excitement, my thoughts with hope, confidence, and eager anticipation, and if I had a personal soundtrack to my life it would have been playing Ode to Joy while a stadium of Harry fans did the wave. It was all I could do to stop myself from bursting into laughter or song.
I'm sure she's well-fed, and at about 100% of her upper-limit potential, but I don't think she can really increase it past that.But that's what I'm saying. Her allowing herself to have a weak spot is surprising to me.
Just like human physical strength. People can get stronger by working out, but eventually they hit an upper limit.
She doesn't really need it. She took down Lord Raith when he was vastly weakened, and a few years later basically all the potential challengers got killed (in WN and TC).
She's the strongest living Whampire, except maybe Thomas, who won't challenge her for leadership.
And Lara is really enormously powerful. If she can move mortal military forces around and hire Valkyries, her relative *personal* weakness (compared to say PT-era Harry or a powerful Blampire; she's still superhuman) isn't that relevant.
Just... charging somebody with a knife is about her weakest area. That's why it seemed so odd.
My hope would be Mordred.Here here! I could see Butcher doing a decent Mordred storyline as a tragic hero that's misunderstood but forced by fate and destiny to play a role he does not wish for.
Arthur's heir. Born of a sin he's not responsible for, but by right of birth and debatably conquest, Pendragon.
Lara doesn't know Harry as well as we doBut she's supposed to understand humans. She's been around for centuries, and knew his mother. She saw his defend Thomas as his brother in Blood Rites, she saw him protect herself in White Night, she saw him protect the innocent in Turn Coat, and she has to know a lot about him from spying and keeping tabs on Thomas's involvement in pretty much every book since Blood Rites. And yet she's still completely baffled by him. Her inability to recognize him for what he is any how he acts is a mark against her.
We interpret Harry's actions based on that insight in his head we get. Lara looks at the effects his actions have on others and sees someone who can manipulate people quite cleverly. She does not have the Harry has good intentions monologue on her radio.
Besides she wouldn't be alive now if she wasn't a bit paranoid.
Have you considered that the no shows were largely tipped off not to attend because their sympathies lay with the Fomor?, the LaChaise clan too small and not important enough to tip off, besides they are Ghouls, expendable rent a muscle. Some wouldn’t attend as a snub to Marcone, or for a host of other reasons. Not all powers or nations in the Supernatural world are members of the Accords, it’s a bit like NATOSeems more likely that it was a regional thing. Rivers was there because it's in his region and wanted to show interest in the accords. Ferro has some tie to the region because he was invited along with other locals to Bianca's party. LaChaise has interests in the region (South more than Midwest but still fairly close). Vadderung stays involved and sponsored Marcone. And the Sidhe because it's their party.
