<Rimblade> Hello!
<Rimblade> The good news is that we are now the proud owners of what used to be the moon!
<Gayo> did we get in trouble for that or was it acceptable
<Gayo> if nothing else we may have to do some spin control so people aren't mad at us
<Rimblade> Maybe nobody noticed.
<Elliott> Can I germinate a new moon
<Rimblade> We would need to remove the black hole first, I think.
<Rimblade> Unless you can make those bloom into gravatonic flowers?
<Gayo> Since the moon was repossessed as taxes, it probably falls under the Taxes Domain
<Gayo> but there is that black hole there.
- DukeGod (ksmh.rb.828d6ac6.pselet.lsd.53e657c|tahcbew#ksmh.rb.828d6ac6.pselet.lsd.53e657c|tahcbew) has joined
<Elliott> I seriously think we might benefit from a flowchart
<Elliott> Outlining when black holes are a necessary and appropriate reaction
<MorkaisChosen> lo
<Rimblade> We were hoist of our own petard there, I'm afraid.
<Gayo> It is getting a bit excessive.
<Gayo> We got the taxes that time, though!
<Rimblade> When we said there could be no black holes unless giant apes, we more-or-less guaranteed giant apes.
<Elliott> I'm going to go make myself an ill-advised drink
<Gayo> is it just the fact that it's a drink that makes it ill-advised, or does the ill-advisedness come from its contents
- You are now known as Hollyhock God
<Hollyhock God> So… the moon.
<Hollyhock God> You appear to has it.
- MorkaisChosen is now known as Sarabande
- Gayo is now known as Vauncey
<Vauncey> I count and document the moon for record-keeping purposes.
<Vauncey> We should decide what to do with it, though.
- Rimblade is now known as Darryl Collins
- Elliott is now known as Idleness
<Sarabande> We have no particular need for a moon, so we should probably get it back into circulation.
<Hollyhock God> You could throw it at the army.
- DukeGod is now known as Nomen
<Darryl Collins> We should probably call a Stockholder's Meeting.
<Vauncey> Is there anyone who specifically needs a moon?
<Nomen> Eh, it's sortof related to my estate. makes for a nice trinket
<Hollyhock God> The army I refer to is the one besieging your gates.
<Darryl Collins> Do we have gates?
<Darryl Collins> I was under the impression that we were in the vein of an enormous hanging potted plant.
<Hollyhock God> If you don't have gates, how do you get in?
<Hollyhock God> Fine, they are besieging your stem.
<Nomen> Nomen won't stand for such a wastefuil use of the moon. He's willing to let you throw 10% of it
<Darryl Collins> Has the army issued any sort of ultimatums?
<Sarabande> or any other form of communication?
<Hollyhock God> No, they're just surrounding you and cutting off all points of escape or resupply.
<Hollyhock God> It's those playing-card guys again.
<Sarabande> ah.
<Hollyhock God> (to be fair, they do need a new home)
<Hollyhock God> Meanwhile, did you ever get out of being locked in your own vaults?
<Nomen> Hmm
<Sarabande> An army is, of course, a large number of people working together - I use a Lesser Divination of Cooperation to get an idea of how many of them there are!
<Sarabande> oh yeah we're in the vaults
<Sarabande> I still do that :-P
<Darryl Collins> No, the vaults are the safest part of our… I'll call it a 'stronghold'. We have us exactly where we want us!
<Hollyhock God> Oh, a few millions.
<Nomen> Nonsense>** i'll just black hole a wall through the vault doors
<Nomen> IN our Chancel I don't even need to spend MP to do it
<Vauncey> Oh, hm.
<Vauncey> Are they allowed to do that?
<Nomen> Let's go wiht a small one. Like, 1km across only
<Hollyhock God> You could probably complain to somebody. Although you're sort of stuck here.
<Nomen> I suggest the oldest of uys go out and tell all the playing cards to go out of your yard, or they'll find out it's bridge night
<Darryl Collins> That's ridiculous.
<Darryl Collins> We don't have a bridge night.
<Vauncey> Are we still in the vaults? Troublesome.
<Nomen> Of course we do
<Hollyhock God> You just made them too secure!
<Nomen> I'm the Power of Nights here, are you really gonna argue?
<Vauncey> hahah
<Hollyhock God> I'm not even sure how you know about the army.
<Hollyhock God> Maybe you're just guessing.
<Hollyhock God> Oh god.
<Vauncey> hm
<Hollyhock God> I thought Nomen was just going to abuse his black hole power for the rest of the campaign.
<Hollyhock God> Instead he got creative.
<Darryl Collins> Okay, fine, it's bridge night.
<Vauncey> Who has a getting-out-of-the-vault power? I don't suppose we can use black holes to get out without destroying more things
<Nomen> If that doesn't work tell them to stay out. Tomorrow is "Amateur Magick Trick Night" *evil face*
<Vauncey> (brb getting laundry)
<Sarabande> I could blow some MPs on incarnating in the army's cooperation, but I'm not sure that helps. :-P
<Darryl Collins> I send audit gnomes to fetch an ancient antique table from the depths of the vaults. We long-ago confiscated it from vampires, and it will serve us both as an impromptu conference table and for the bridge which we are apparently playing.
<Hollyhock God> That's very thoughtful of you.
<Nomen> I'm gonna create a "Bridge Night" them
<Hollyhock God> It appears… that it is now bridge night.
<Hollyhock God> A sign falls from the ceiling and mounts itself above the large locked doors.
<Hollyhock God> The conference table sprouts decks of cards and little trays of peanuts.
<Nomen> Oh
<Nomen> I was hoping to appeal to the Card nature of the army and have them be the deck but okay
<Hollyhock God> Or… I guess you should try that?
<Hollyhock God> They're like, person-sized, though.
<Hollyhock God> I guess the vault is pretty big?
<Darryl Collins> Won't they just attack us?
<Darryl Collins> This plan is impetuous!
<Nomen> They can't. Cards can't attakc if theuy're being used to play
<Nomen> Unless it's paper cuts
<Sarabande> that would be against the rules!
<Nomen> If necessary we can call the Power of Playing Cards. I'm sure he hides some illegal debt from gambling that we don't tax. He probably owes us favors
<Hollyhock God> I suppose Sarabande is capable of forcing people to play by the rules.
<Darryl Collins> Alright, this strategy seems sound.
<Hollyhock God> There's no phone in the vault! That would be insecure!
<Nomen> Phone? I'm a magician harry!
<Hollyhock God> Also you are thirsty.
<Nomen> Well it's bridge night. And we have peanuts. Usually beer goes wiht them, but i think some mead could do too. Can Sarabande provide that?
<Sarabande> I can provide honey!
<Sarabande> We'd need a brewer to make mead.
<Sarabande> Honey is /like/ mead.
<Idleness> No, we simply need to help the honey mature into fermentation.
<Sarabande> Indeed! Beyond my powers, though.
<Darryl Collins> But will it? Our vault is very secure. Can the fermentation-fairies get in?
<Idleness> But not mine.
<Nomen> Gotta love us. We use of extreme force to deal with small stuff but when there's an army? Bridge night!
<Idleness> Fermentation is just another part of the blossoming process.
<Idleness> A further ripening, if you will
<Sarabande> Seems legit!
<Hollyhock God> You also have some expensive food in the vault.
<Sarabande> We gather nectar from some of the flowers in the vault to make honey.
<Hollyhock God> What was it, again?
<Nomen> Does bridge use betm oney? we can use some of that cursed gold from teh first session
<Vauncey> (Okay, back)
<Hollyhock God> It does if you're playing high-stakes bridge.
<Hollyhock God> But what was the food you'd been keeping down here? I seem to remember it was delicious.
<Sarabande> There was a six-course vegan banquet, wasn't there?
<Darryl Collins> I hope there was baklava.
<Hollyhock God> Why would you confiscate a vegan banquet?
<Hollyhock God> I was thinking of something more like thousand-year swan eggs or something.
<Vauncey> It could have thousand-year tubers
<Vauncey> or rare truffles!
<Darryl Collins> Yeah, I don't think we'd keep swan eggs that long.
<Vauncey> Vauncey takes stock of the repossessed goods from the moon incident, as well as whatever else we keep down here. Is there anything that might be useful for getting out of the vault and/or dissuading an army of card soldiers?
<Darryl Collins> If a swan egg goes a few centuries without hatching, it might later break out as an immortal swan kaiju.
<Hollyhock God> You find a valuable painting! And another valuable painting. And a sword.
<Hollyhock God> Honestly there's an awful lot of stuff here. And the vault is kind of a mess on account of an unexpected moon landing in it.
<Hollyhock God> Things are a bit disorganized.
<Hollyhock God> You find the truffles, though.
<Hollyhock God> …well.
<Hollyhock God> You find the box.
<Hollyhock God> It's empty except for wrappers and crumbs.
<Vauncey> Well, it's all taxes, right?
- Vauncey asks the taxes in the vault whether any of them might be useful for escaping the vault or turning away the army. (Domain 2 or 5, I guess, it's all the same in the chancel)
- Vauncey compliments the taxes on their liquidity as an icebreaker.
<Sarabande> (Remind me what the Chancel does to MP costs?)
<Hollyhock God> The tax money considers.
<Hollyhock God> I believe it reduces them all by 3.
<Vauncey> (-3 MP to costs, I believe)
<Sarabande> oh, so I think I could incarnate in the army's cooperation
<Vauncey> «ooc: so you can get up to a +2 bonus for free, or spend 1 for +4 or 5 for +8) »
<Hollyhock God> The tax money suggests using the Evil Light Cannon to bust out.
<Nomen> …I'd like to stat a project to remodel my new moon into a space station
<Hollyhock God> Very well. Draw the circles.
<Vauncey> It's not your moon! it belongs to the government
<Vauncey> probably you need to write reports and stuff
<Nomen> It's payment for services due
<Vauncey> We already get paid! somehow, I assume
<Vauncey> I imagine we're on a salary.
<Nomen> I provided instant transport of several priceless art. And a moon to our vaults
<Nomen> Also, you destroy it you keep it.
<Vauncey> Following the taxes' advice, Vauncey fishes out the Evil Light Cannon. "Ah, there we go. It's been quite a while…how did this work, again?"
<Hollyhock God> Alas, it is not so.
<Hollyhock God> The Evil Light Cannon is not where you left it.,
<Vauncey> Gasp!
<Darryl Collins> Something is *going on*
<Hollyhock God> This room is in disarray, much like everywhere in the vaults that wasn't moonproofed.
- Sarabande go forth and search the vaults!
<Hollyhock God> But you definitely can't find the Evil Light Cannon.
- Vauncey calls out from amidst a pile of chrome widgets. "Has anyone seen the Evil Light Cannon? I thought it was over here, but it's been rather a while."
<Hollyhock God> Bees power, activate!
<Sarabande> Aspect 3, the usual :-)
- Vauncey gestures toward the pile by way of illustration to some of the bees as they pass by.
<Hollyhock God> You do not find anything suspicious, except for a bunch of stuff that wasn't there yesterday and a certain amount of other stuff that isn't here today.
- Vauncey sighs and moseys on back to the six-course vegan dinner. He eats a few of the finger-food items, out of the proper course order.
- Idleness has quit (Quit: Leaving)
<Sarabande> "Some of our taxes are missing!"
<Vauncey> With the right spices, quinoa tastes a lot like thousand-year swan eggs.
<Hollyhock God> Vauncey continues to know how to make a party lively!
<Hollyhock God> …but did you really bring your own spices to the moon soiree?
<Hollyhock God> I guess it's okay to be a bit impolite if you weren't actually invited.
<Vauncey> One assumes the spices were put into the food when it was made.
<Vauncey> If not, a mystery is afoot!
<Darryl Collins> Hm. There's only one thing to do. I'd like to use a Lesser Creation of Audits to summon up a great cloud of auditing to search our vaults for stowaways, breaches and ISO 9000 noncompliance.
- Vauncey frowns darkly, more troubled by missing taxes than by the invading army. "What, they aren't anywhere?" He walks back to the pile of ancient superweapons, carrying a tiny sandwich quarter. "Which things are we missing?"
<Hollyhock God> That is what the audit is intended to determine! Hmmmm….
<Hollyhock God> Well, there's a mystical doubloon that's been lifted from the Gold Room, and the decanter of endless water is gone, and so is the statue of Ananda (although honestly that thing is more trouble than it's worth).
<Hollyhock God> You can't find Excalibur, or the ghost of Elvis, or the original keystone of the Washington Monument.
<Hollyhock God> It seems like most of the missing stuff is both small and unique.
<Hollyhock God> Or useful in blowing open the door.
<Sarabande> That's suspicious!
<Hollyhock God> You need to find the person who did this and hire them as an assessor!
<Sarabande> (Who was the power in charge of the moon again?)
<Hollyhock God> You met Perspective. His siblings are Mystery and Madness.
<Darryl Collins> "This is bad, fellows. Whoever did this is much better at steathily repossessing things than we are."
<Hollyhock God> You are not aware of a specific Power of the Moon.
<Darryl Collins> "If word of this gets out, they might establish their own tax service!"
<Hollyhock God> Which is probably just as well.
<Hollyhock God> If there was a moon god these moon rocks would probably be eating you.
<Vauncey> "Let me see what I can do," says Vauncey, and he gathers his Mantle about himself, smouldering with fiduciary intent.
<Vauncey> (2 TMP to divine mantle.)
<Nomen> (Wait. Does that mean we need to put the moon back where it was?)
<Darryl Collins> Ideally we'd see it returned to circulation after someone bought it at a fire sale.
<Darryl Collins> NASA has confirmed that the moon has low liquidity.
<Hollyhock God> :|
- Vauncey puts one hand to his temple (the other hand is holding the tiny sandwich) and closes his eyes, casting his consciousness outward in search of the missing taxes that complete it.
- Vauncey uses a Persona 2 miracle to incarnate into the Ghost of Elvis, who is apparently taxes. 2 divine mantle.
<Vauncey> «ooc: I can probably rustle up a bond someplace as needed also »
<Hollyhock God> You are contested by a hostile force!
<Hollyhock God> A veil of criminality is drawn in the way of your intention.
<Vauncey> Sinister!
<Hollyhock God> "This isn't taxes," says somebody in the ether. "It's spoils now!"
- Vauncey snaps back to consciousness, reeling. He drops the tiny sandwich on the floor of the vault, but it holds together because it had a toothpick in it. "The Ghost of Elvis has been despoiled!" he murmurs, seeming unusually disturbed.
<Vauncey> Did I recognize anything about that voice or criminal feeling?
<Darryl Collins> "What? But even illegal gains are taxed at the average rate with standard deductables! How can this be?"
<Hollyhock God> No, but it reeked of the vilest of tax evaders!
<Sarabande> The bees buzz in shock and surprise.
<Nomen> "I'm sure that's serious"
<Hollyhock God> Also there's a booming in the distance.
<Hollyhock God> It's possible that somebody has started using siege weapons.
<Vauncey> This is so totally unacceptable! If Vauncey can't evade taxes, no one else should be able to.
<Vauncey> Will seige weapons penetrate the vault?
<Hollyhock God> Maybe, but they'll penetrate the Chancel first.
<Hollyhock God> Soon, playing card men will trample your beehives and paint all the roses red!
<Hollyhock God> Not blue, not green, not aquamarine; that's all that can be said.
<Nomen> Don't worry
<Nomen> I can make those roses into other flowers!
<Sarabande> Well, it's time for the big guns.
<Vauncey> People keep stealing our big guns!
<Sarabande> Can I use a Lesser Destruction of Cooperation to take out the cooperation between the members of the siege weapon crews?
<Sarabande> it's be 1mp but Chancel…
<Hollyhock God> You can!
<Sarabande> I do that!
<Hollyhock God> You hear another boom, and then a sort of kerfluffle, as though a siege engine had fallen over.
<Sarabande> It won't solve the problems, but it'll delay them for a while!
<Hollyhock God> You turn back to the… someone has stolen your mead.
<Hollyhock God> This is getting serious.
<Nomen> "THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!"
<Sarabande> You get the impression the bees would be blinking, if they could blink.
<Nomen> "WHOEVER YOU ARE! YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS WITH EVERYTHING YOU OWN!"
<Darryl Collins> "UNLESS THAT WOULD EXCEED THE STANDARD RATE TAXABLE!"
<Nomen> "UNLESS I HAVE TO DESTROY THE BOOK AGAIN!"
<Vauncey> "All right, you blighter, that's quite enough. If you won't come out and settle this like gentlemen, then…" Vauncey braces himself and casts his arms outward, whipping his Divine Mantle outward in a storm of glowing light that settles gently over the contents of the vault, making it financially secure.
<Hollyhock God> How does that work, exactly?
<Vauncey> (Greater Preservation of Taxes to ensure that those things stay where they are and are not turned into non-taxes inadvertently. Mantle 2, Bond 2, maintaining it for now)
<Hollyhock God> I don't believe you can stack Strike and Mantle.
<Vauncey> No bond, then!
<Vauncey> (ah you're right, it's strike /or/ miraculous edge but not both)
<Nomen> (Probably cause Miraculous Edge just beats Strike)
<Hollyhock God> Okay, so you achieve total fiduciary lockdown.
- Vauncey furrows his brow and looks around suspiciously, spying for enemies in the shadow. "That should pin things down here for now…Nomen, do you think you can figure a trick to get us out of here without destroying anything overmuch?"
<Nomen> "I can summon a demon maybe?"
<Hollyhock God> I kind of wonder how the thief got in.
<Nomen> "One that can open locks"
<Nomen> "Possibly any lock"
<Hollyhock God> Meanwhile, the booming starts again.
<Nomen> "i'm just not sure it'd accept…my payment"
<Darryl Collins> Hm. I may have a solution which could buy us some time.
- Sarabande buzzes a sigh and Divines about cooperation involving siege engines - have they rotated in some other crews?
<Hollyhock God> It looks like somebody new has taken charge of the siege engine crews.
<Hollyhock God> He appears to be behind your mystical perspective, so, that's probably him.
<Darryl Collins> But first- do we have any monsters of terrible destructive power in our vaults?
<Darryl Collins> Or maybe thousand-year swan eggs?
<Hollyhock God> Just Nomen.
<Hollyhock God> Oh, and the egg thing.
<Nomen> "Now if you want me to get us OUT of here regardless of destruction inflicted? Easy peasy"
<Nomen> "I can thinkj of like, 5 different ways"
<Vauncey> "No, I think we should…regard the destruction, probably. But thank you."
<Nomen> "One of those MIGHT be lethal"
<Vauncey> Do we have staff?
<Darryl Collins> Right, I'd like to spend 1 PMP to cast a Greater Binding upon our chancel, such that anyone within the pot who violates the Regulations causes a gigantic holy swan to hatch within the vault and come audit them for their wrongdoings.
<Nomen> "How much radiation can your mortal bodies handle?"
<Darryl Collins> Then I shall promulgate a rule forbidding the use of seige weapons within the chancel!
<Hollyhock God> Apparently there are audit gnomes.
<Hollyhock God> Within the pot?
<Vauncey> Let's hold off on the radiation for now. Can the audit gnomes open the vault?
<Darryl Collins> I think our chancel is inside a giant pot.
<Darryl Collins> But I could be misremembering.
<Hollyhock God> Only you can open the vault!
<Hollyhock God> And only from the outside.
<Hollyhock God> That was a really terrible security feature.
<Hollyhock God> Now that you really think about it.
<Sarabande> when you incarnate and then disincarnate, do you return to your original location or pop out where you were incarnated?
<Nomen> (He's pushing us towards destruction. He thinks UI'm gonna open a black hole. He's wrooong hehehehehe)
<Darryl Collins> When you incarnate, your body remains behind
<Sarabande> curses
<Hollyhock God> Hm, okay, so… I guess the Binding is sound. You lay a mighty geas upon the Chancel that summons holy audit swans to punish breakers of the tax code.
<Sarabande> one second…
<Hollyhock God> Does the tax code prohibit using siege weaponry on your Chancel walls?
<Darryl Collins> Not, uh. yet.
<Sarabande> so uh
<Darryl Collins> We need to amend it.
<Nomen> I'm amaze it doesn't. Yet
<Sarabande> 4-3=1 DMP would let me do a Lesser Motion of Bees
<Sarabande> on myself
<Sarabande> to be outside
<Sarabande> and unlock the vault
<Sarabande> I wish to do that. :-)
<Nomen> I mean, no one tried to attack the Chancel ever since we became tax men?
<Hollyhock God> Sarabande used TELEPORT.
<Hollyhock God> It's super effective!
<Hollyhock God> Sarabande is now outside the vault.
<Darryl Collins> The other Powers have much greater respect for the privacy of Chancels than we do, I think.
<Hollyhock God> Sarabande discovers that the Chancel is on fire!
<Sarabande> Oh dear.
<Nomen> We just need to remove all the oxygen!
<Hollyhock God> Your servants are all dead, and terrifying monsters roam the ruins, eating the rubble.
<Sarabande> First things first I'll unlock the vault! Aspect 3 to do it quickly enough!
<Hollyhock God> Horrible faces leer down at you out of the sky.
<Vauncey> This is so totally unacceptable.
<Darryl Collins> Alright. I'd like to amend the tax code to make assaults on our Chancel illegal! All in favor?
<Hollyhock God> The vault is guarded by a beast with the head of a goat, the head of a lion, and the head of a lobster.
<Vauncey> I was expecting that was already the case.
<Hollyhock God> And the head of something that eats bees.
<Hollyhock God> Like, a wasp.
<Sarabande> Oh no!
<Nomen> Can Sarabande communicate with us?
<Hollyhock God> Hm, badgers, birds, and spiders seem to be the biggest.
<Hollyhock God> So, a beast with a bird head, a badger head, and a spider head!
<Sarabande> I can communicate with the cooperation between you!
<Sarabande> That's /like/ the same thing.
<Hollyhock God> …so, no, then.
<Nomen> OPh well that sucks. I had a totes awesome plan
<Darryl Collins> C'mon guys! I need three votes in favor!
<Nomen> "I'm in favor that one one but us may inflict destruction upon the Chancel"
<Darryl Collins> I'm counting that as 'aye'
<Sarabande> We use the Chancel's power to imbue our flight skills with Legendary Mastery to evade the beast for long enough to open the vault!
<Sarabande> Aspect 5 because MPs :-)
<Hollyhock God> You do this thing.
<Nomen> (ehm-bees?)
<Hollyhock God> Meanwhile, you hear the beast whispering to you, about how it ate your parents and your parent's parent's and your children and so forth.
<Nomen> Is the door open?
<Hollyhock God> You find yourself being driven mad!
<Darryl Collins> I'll count Vauncy's earlier statement as an aye too.
<Hollyhock God> But yeah the door is open
<Nomen> Can I see the thing?
<Hollyhock God> ….no.
<Sarabande> hmm.
<Nomen> Damnit!
<Hollyhock God> ….oh wait, now you can.
<Darryl Collins> So I hereby amend the tax code to make it illegal to attack the chancel, steal from the vaults or wantonly destroy copies of the tax code.
<Nomen> Oh excellent
<Nomen> Lemme just check the book
<Hollyhock God> That was weird. First the Chancel wasn't on fire; then it was.
<Sarabande> I claim that because we are bees, the idea of our parents being dead is less horrific than it might be?
<Sarabande> as our parents are actually part of the same Hive. The Hive continues.
<Nomen> "Darryl? I think I need the regulations book"
<Vauncey> (if we spend 8 MP with the discount, do we take a wound?)
<Darryl Collins> "Hey, sure thing."
<Hollyhock God> That is logical.
<Nomen> "Really?"
<Hollyhock God> Therefore, instead of being driven mad, you take the Deadly Wound, "extremely concerned about not having parents."
- Darryl Collins offers the tax code, smiling.
<Hollyhock God> You do take a wound.
<Nomen> "Hmm…."
<Sarabande> Fair enough!
<Nomen> "You know what, I don't need it that much, you can keep it"
- Vauncey marches out of the vault, taking off his jacket and hanging it on a rack of weapons on his way out. He stabs a finger at the monster with all the heads. "I told you I didn't want to see you around here again!"
<Nomen> I'd like to cast a spell!
- Sarabande splits up and hides throughout the Chancel to attempt to reconcile with being a sentient being but not being able to point to any entities as our progenitors or the people who raised us.
<Hollyhock God> The beast transforms itself, taking the form of a void filled with a billion years of unpaid back taxes.
<Darryl Collins> That's super-illegal!
<Nomen> GODDAMNIT
<Sarabande> We'll still be watching, but not really sure what to do in the context of not fully understanding our place in the world.
<Vauncey> Do the back taxes constitute the form, or are they just inside it?
<Nomen> Is there still an army at the gates?
<Hollyhock God> Probably!
<Nomen> Good, Nomen is stillp issed
<Hollyhock God> I dunno about the beast's form. How would you tell?
<Nomen> Back to the spell
<Vauncey> Hmm. Lesser Divination?
<Hollyhock God> You use your incomparable assessor's eye!
<Nomen> Nomen casts a Metamorph spell. He's using 8 Will and combining it with his Skill of SUPREME SORCERY 3 to get an Intention 11 of "I AM A DRAGON"
<Hollyhock God> It's not a real tax. It's the shape of your own fears and regrets attempting to drive you insane!
<Hollyhock God> Meanwhile Nomen draws forth an impossible effort of will and turns himself into a dragon.
<Nomen> YEEEEEEESSSS
<Hollyhock God> Also, he takes a Deadly Wound. I'm thinking "stuck in dragon form."
<Nomen> I go rain down fire and doom upon the army
<Vauncey> Like Narnia!
<Hollyhock God> Thus, your sorcery skill is replaced by Superior Dragon 3.
<Nomen> OhoHOHOHOHO this is getting beter and better
<Nomen> All this rain of fire is even better cause they're playing cards
<Hollyhock God> Meanwhile, Vauncey is having a mental breakdown, or something.
<Hollyhock God> The thought of spending eternity in tax-based servitude gnaws at your sanity!
- Vauncey rolls up his sleeves and loosens his tie, taking a step forward. Fortunately, he is already insane! "You've got some nerve," he mutters, "But so do I!" He jabs a finger accusingly into the void, bidding it go, and the tax-nature vanishes from it, revealing it as the petty sham it is.
<Hollyhock God> nom nom nom
<Vauncey> (I have Elusive, so I'm hoping that buys me enough time to use a Destruction)
<Hollyhock God> The beast's nature is stripped!
<Hollyhock God> You find yourself facing a beast made from your darkest fears, but with no fears to be!
<Hollyhock God> It explodes in a brief existential crisis.
<Darryl Collins> Oh no, I just realized something.
<Darryl Collins> Did someone steal all our swan eggs?
- Vauncey shields his face with his hand and grits his teeth. He's mostly fine, but he has some existential crisis on him. He takes a drink from his hip flask.
<Hollyhock God> As Nomen takes to the air, the front gate bursts open to reveal an army of playing cards battling against holy swans.
<Darryl Collins> Oh, phew.
<Nomen> Nomen's feeling kind. He'll try not to burn the swans
<Nomen> Unless they're the non-burning kind in which kind it's indiscriminate fire and doom
<Hollyhock God> So, Nomen is preparing to rain down fire and destruction!
<Hollyhock God> Sarabande is attempting to reconcile their feelings about life and existence.
<Vauncey> Normally I'd be against it, but things are already pretty destroyed.
<Vauncey> This is so illegal!
<Hollyhock God> Meanwhile, Vauncey's tax-senses are tingling!
<Hollyhock God> Somebody is taking advantage of this distraction to get around the magic you worked and steal more stuff.
<Vauncey> Are they succeeding? The nerve.
<Vauncey> I suppose it keeps us in work.
<Hollyhock God> Hm, it looks like they were able to steal an ancient book on alchemy written by the Trismegistus.
<Nomen> (So far I calll this session a sucess for me.)
<Darryl Collins> No! That's the recipe for our award-winning coffee blend!
<Hollyhock God> They wrote out an official valuation that stated it was worth $5, and exchanged it for a five-dollar bill.
<Darryl Collins> Without it the bees will be lackluster!
<Vauncey> Fiendish.
<Hollyhock God> You really have got to get this person working for you.
<Vauncey> Are the monsters in the sky part of the attacking force, or is it just because they're wrecking the chancel?
<Hollyhock God> …you aren't sure!
<Vauncey> Hm. Well, I'm displeased about the thief, but there are more important things at stake!
<Sarabande> We /cannot/ be having with this. Using the fact that I can Aspect 5 without spending MP still, Sarabande uses the spectacular mastery given by Aspect 5 to /simultaneously/ worry about life and so on /and/ make a search pattern over the vaults with complete coverage, at least one pair of bee eyes on everything at all times!
<Darryl Collins> Alright. I will try a last-ditch miracle to defeat this genius who plagues our vaults.
<Hollyhock God> Sarabande locates a fiendishly wicked presence in the Dinosaur Room!
<Hollyhock God> But, you can't pin it down.
<Hollyhock God> You do find a dropped expert opinion valuing your T-Rex skeletion at 50 cents.
<Hollyhock God> But it looks like the thief had to leave it before they could notarize it.
<Sarabande> can I surround and track it?
<Sarabande> *we
<Vauncey> Did they notarize the other one? Maybe we can find out their identity!
<Darryl Collins> I will take a detail of audit-gnomes weilding powerful Valuating Blades to the vault doors.
<Hollyhock God> At present you are unable to pin the skulking presence down, but you've got all the room's exits blockaded with angry bees.
<Hollyhock God> The other form is signed "Leonardo da Vinci."
<Hollyhock God> You don't think he became a god or anything. It is probably an impudent imposture!
<Sarabande> some other bees tell the others!
- Vauncey marches to confront the card soldiers, then points up to the draconic form of Nomen, circling above. Also, there's weird monster faces in the sky. "Look what you've done! I have half a mind to show you a thing or two, but you've broken so much of the Chancel that if you just get out of here now, I'll let you go."
<Vauncey> (This is not specifically an action. though if they do what I say they get +1 shine I guess!)
<Hollyhock God> The card soldiers loom menacingly.
<Hollyhock God> The mysterious presence looms, also menacingly!
<Hollyhock God> …then there is a small clinking noise.
<Vauncey> Let's see where this is going!
<Hollyhock God> In the vault, I mean.
<Hollyhock God> Sarabande feels the hidden presence vanish from sight, and sees a small metal object hitting the floor.
<Sarabande> !
<Hollyhock God> The card soldiers vanish.
<Sarabande> We examine the object!
<Hollyhock God> The monsters vanish!
<Sarabande> it's mystery, innit
<Sarabande> :-P
<Darryl Collins> Did they just steal themselves.
<Hollyhock God> The destroy Chancel's destroyed-ness vanishes!
<Sarabande> :-O
<Hollyhock God> Except the part Nomen set on fire.
<Nomen> …I put the fire out
<Nomen> Like, now
<Hollyhock God> The object is a small silver brooch depicting a raven clutching a sprig of onion in its beak.
<Nomen> I'm like a dragon. I just stomp the fire
<Hollyhock God> I'm going to allow this.
- Vauncey harrumphs. "And stay out!" He takes another swig from his flask and paces back to the vault, mumbling under his breath.
<Nomen> Oh good. My next option would break decorum
<Vauncey> Did the audit gnomes un-die?
<Vauncey> I mean
<Vauncey> become not dead, not become undead
<Vauncey> though I guess it's all relative.
<Hollyhock God> They appear to be alive.
<Hollyhock God> And wondering what all the fuss was about.
<Darryl Collins> Curses! We were befuddled by some terrible power!
<Hollyhock God> Plus a bunch of your stuff is gone.
<Sarabande> How did this happen?
<Hollyhock God> On the bright side, now that Nomen has a flamethrower maybe he'll destroy fewer planets with black holes.
<Sarabande> It's a mystery!
<Vauncey> Hmmm. Can I sense using divination whether all the taxes we associated with invading the Chancel and breaking everything have been assessed, or whether the actual invasion was retroactively undone or illusory?
<Hollyhock God> It seems like all your stuff is actually gone, yeah.
- Darryl Collins sits down at the ancient vampire conference table and slumps somewhat. "Well, chums, I do believe we've been thoroughly bamboozled."
<Nomen> I don't suppose I'm one of those dragons that can take a human form?
<Sarabande> I believe the fact that you're /stuck/ in dragon form suggests you aren't :-P
<Nomen> The type that changes sizes then?
<Hollyhock God> Nope!
- Vauncey pulls up a chair beside Darryl and pats him on the back, offering him his flask. "Don't let it get you down. Just think of the levies we can assess when we catch this blighter!"
<Nomen> Okay,. I just stick my dragon nozzle thnrough the vault doors
- Sarabande lapses back into introspection.
<Hollyhock God> This looks as dignified as you would expect.
<Nomen> I'm a dragon, everythjing I do is dignified. Or has witness who disagree subjected to be burned
- Darryl Collins takes a deep swig, swishing it around a bit before handing it back to Vauncey. "I suppose that's true. But how will we catch them?"
<Nomen> "Well. We no longer have money that is true"
<Nomen> "But what we have? We have a very specific set of skills"
<Nomen> "Skills that I'm sure, will make us nightmares to thieves"
<Nomen> "They will not let go of your hoard now. So we will look for them. We will find them. And WE. Will. TAX THEM"
<Vauncey> "Well, that is a bit of a sticky wicket," he admits. "Let's have a look at those assessments." He fetches the form signed by Leonardo Da Vinci and sets it down on the conference table, pulling a pair of half-glasses from his pocket to look it over.
<Hollyhock God> The form is extremely official and realistic.
<Hollyhock God> Except for being signed by a dead guy and all.
<Hollyhock God> And being an absurd undervaluation!
<Sarabande> ((afk briefly, back in a min))
<Nomen> I use my Soul Carving Sword to oppose any miracles being used on the form
<Hollyhock God> You succeed in slicing the form in half!
<Darryl Collins> "Hum. They stole Excalibur, didn't they?"
<Hollyhock God> I guess it wasn't miraculous. Just notarized!
<Hollyhock God> They totally stole Excalibur.
<Hollyhock God> You should have replevined the scabbard instead. Then this sort of thing couldn't happen.
<Darryl Collins> "Where's Arthur's sleeping body stashed, again? Avalon?"
<Sarabande> "The middle of the lake, yes."
<Hollyhock God> iunno
<Darryl Collins> "That might be a little too hard. But Elvis is buried in Graceland."
<Nomen> "Ah. We can go get him"
<Vauncey> It's only the Ghost of Elvis that was taken as taxes, though.
<Darryl Collins> "I have a hunch that if we could send his shambling corpse after his ghost, he might be able to find where our stuff is held."
<Vauncey> Ah, good thinking!
<Nomen> "Well…I can't really do necromancy anymore"
<Nomen> "So, we need someone who can reanimate corpses"
<Hollyhock God> Make it cooperate!
- Vauncey strokes his beard. "Sarabande, what do you think about getting the corpse of Elvis to help us track down his ghost? That seems like it might be up your alley."
- Sarabande buzzes.
<Sarabande> "Yes, we suppose we might…
<Sarabande> "
- Nomen has quit (Ping timeout: 272 seconds)
<Hollyhock God> First, you must reanimate Nomen!
- DukeGod (ksmi.57.781.45a55041.b3de5ac6|tahcbew#ksmi.57.781.45a55041.b3de5ac6|tahcbew) has joined
- DukeGod is now known as Nomen
<Nomen> (What happened^?)
<Darryl Collins> "Then it is settled. We shall call forth the body of the King of Rock n' Roll, and place in him an urge to be reunited with his soul. Then we shall prepare a great and terrible assault and levy such dire taxes that no power of Earth or Heaven will ever again dare to claim what we have repossessed."
- Darryl Collins brings his gavel down upon the antique vampire table with a terrible, echoing 'BOOM'
<Hollyhock God> The table falls to bits.
<Hollyhock God> ….you discover upon examination that someone stole the screws.
<Hollyhock God> Anyway!
<Hollyhock God> There are some details to arrange, and some hijinx where you try to fit Nomen into your bee-powered airship.
<Hollyhock God> This effort fails.
<Nomen> I can fly under my own power now U-u
<Nomen> I'm a Superior Dragon 3!
<Hollyhock God> But somehow you manage to arrive in Memphis anyway with only minor intervention by the US Army and their anti-aircraft missiles.
<Hollyhock God> And you prepare to do necromantic things at the grave of the King of Rock!
<Nomen> (Tjhjis should probably involve some DEATH METAL by the waY)
<Nomen> (probably from Sepultura!)
<Darryl Collins> Well, I don't know about death metal, but I'll have our deathly ceremony catered by one of the local sandwich shops.
<Vauncey> What's fun to do while you're in Memphis? We should try to make the best of it.
<Hollyhock God> All I know about Memphis comes from "Walking in Memphis."
<Hollyhock God> So I assume that there's a pretty little thing, waiting on the King, down in the Jungle Room.
<Sarabande> Hmm. Can I lesser-animate the cooperation between body and soul to guide us, or do I need to go all the way to Greater?
<Hollyhock God> And they've got catfish on the table, and gospel in the air.
<Nomen> Sepultura has an album called "Beneath the Remains"
<Hollyhock God> Let's go with lesser.
<Nomen> The album has a song called "Hungry"
<Hollyhock God> You raise up the shambling, soulless corpse of one E. Presley.
<Nomen> That soundsa appropriate for the occasion
<Sarabande> Cool, that means no MP spend here. ;-)
<Nomen> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySLguHUjlKo THE KING OF ROCK LIVES AGAIN!)
<Vauncey> Apparently they have America's third-largest planetarium.
<Nomen> (My moon is bigger >.<)
<Darryl Collins> Alright. I wish to use a Lesser Enchantment of Audits to infuse Zombie Elvis with audit-nature and make his search for completion inevitable.
<Vauncey> Nobilis is weird.
<Vauncey> That is both in and out of character.
<Hollyhock God> The mindless corpse receives purpose from this auditory infusion!
<Nomen> What is?
<Hollyhock God> It attempts to dive pelvis-first (driven by ancient instinct) into Darryl's pocket.
<Vauncey> My comment!
<Nomen> Ah
<Hollyhock God> You remove the contents of said pocket (the raven brooch) and the zombie attempts to dive into it.
<Darryl Collins> "!"
<Hollyhock God> This does not work, because it is a piece of jewelry and not a swimming pool.
- Vauncey frowns, arms crossed. "Do you think the brooch is a gate, or is he just out of whack?"
<Nomen> "Who knows?"
<Darryl Collins> "Sarabande!"
<Sarabande> hmmm?
<Darryl Collins> "Auditor Presley and this amulet's inability to be leapt-into are working at cross-purposes!"
- Sarabande buzzes!
<Sarabande> "We understand!"
- Sarabande does the thing!
<Hollyhock God> No matter how much they want to dive in, it still doesn't happen!
<Darryl Collins> "Hm. This would be an excellent time to have a powerful sorcerer instead of a dragon."
- Vauncey squints at the brooch. Is there, like, a breadcrumb trail of tax fraud leading into it?
<Hollyhock God> Nope! It's pure theft!
<Nomen> "Sorcery doesn't gbo well with miracles"
<Vauncey> "Hmph! Well, it gives us something to go on anyway." He claps the corpse of Elvis on the shoulder. "Good work, man."
<Nomen> (afkgettingp pizza)
<Darryl Collins> "But how do we get in? Shrinking? A portal?"
<Vauncey> "Does anyone recognize this image on the brooch? Maybe it's some sort of clue."
<Hollyhock God> Well, it's a Raven, so it could have something to do with the Raven's Order.
<Hollyhock God> Or with their shady subset, the Robber's Order!
<Sarabande> !
- Vauncey strokes his beard. "The raven has onions in its mouth…maybe we need to eat onions to get inside." He points to an Outback Steakhouse in the distance. "Let's give that a try while we think it over."
- Sarabande buzzes disconsolately. "Are there any onion flowers around?"
<Hollyhock God> Hm. Maybe it isn't a raven… it's a Farfetch'd!
<Darryl Collins> Very well! I order the Blooming Onion.
<Darryl Collins> If only Idleness were here.
- Vauncey gets a booth at the outback steakhouse and orders a beer while they wait for the onion to arrive. He also orders water for Elvis' corpse.
<Hollyhock God> Sadly, this delicious… thing… does not serve to open the brooch.
<Vauncey> The beer is like six dollars.
<Sarabande> hmm.
<Hollyhock God> Water does not soothe the zombie's pain.
<Sarabande> I don't think Sarabande knows about pokemon. :-P
<Vauncey> He can have some of the beer, but it's mostly water.
<Hollyhock God> For a short period in life, or whatever, he knew his purpose.
<Hollyhock God> And then he failed at it.
- Vauncey puts an arm around the corpse's shoulder. "Don't look so hangdog, man. We'll get it sorted out."
<Hollyhock God> When you finish doing this, you find your tab in front of you.
<Hollyhock God> Wait, this isn't a tab, it's an accounting form!
<Hollyhock God> One the debit side, you find a destroyed palace, a destroyed moon, and damage to countless art treasures!
<Hollyhock God> On the credit side there is a handwritten note, reading "SFA."
<Hollyhock God> The barman is polishing a glass. I don't think he left that there!
<Vauncey> I rather consider those things a credit! We repossessed them for the good of the universe.
<Hollyhock God> You didn't repossess the palace! You destroyed it!
<Vauncey> Well, anything that was taxable got pulled into the vault.
<Hollyhock God> Although you're unable to make that argument because you've forgotten the North Sea incident because it didn't happen.
<Vauncey> It might not be quite in the same shape as before.
<Vauncey> Oh, that. Right.
<Hollyhock God> Except, apparently, in this person's paperwork.
<Vauncey> Well, we got the moon, anyway.
<Vauncey> I should hope the moon is worth more than the palace!
<Darryl Collins> We did leave a placeholder!
- Vauncey makes a note to run the numbers later and file a correction if necessary.
<Vauncey> For now, though—!
<Darryl Collins> Anyway, they should have waited for their tax returns to see if we reimbursed them.
<Darryl Collins> This sort of vigilantism is uncalled-for.
<Hollyhock God> Anyway, I need to wrap up for now, so I'll direct you to the section in the rulebook on the Ravens and the Robbers.
<Hollyhock God> Sadly there is no section in the rules about mysterious people who audit the auditors.
<Darryl Collins> Very well.
- Sarabande is now known as MorkaisChosen
<Darryl Collins> They'll soon find out whom they've messed with.
<Vauncey> I'll pay the bill, but I'm tipping on the pre-tax amount.
- Vauncey is now known as Gayo
<Darryl Collins> Although actually I guess they do know exactly whom they've messed with.
<Darryl Collins> So I suppose they wouldn't be terribly impressed by that threat.
- Darryl Collins is now known as Rimblade
<Hollyhock God> If people start sassing you, just start working moon references into the conversation.
<Gayo> I could try using Persona to imbue us with the tax-nature in order to make us like the valuable proceeds of taxation, I suppose, and maybe the thief would come and steal us
<MorkaisChosen> :-D
<Gayo> but that seems more likely to go wrong in a ridiculous way than to work.
<MorkaisChosen> sounds like fun!
<Gayo> I'm mad that the secret double auditors don't count all the stuff we took from the moon in our favour. There's artwork and everything!
<Gayo> unless this guy stole it
<Gayo> I guess that is possible.
<Hollyhock God> Maybe it's a morals audit.
<Rimblade> We cannot possibly pass one of those with Nomen around.
<Nomen> (i'm back)
<Nomen> (just in time it seems)
- Nomen is now known as DukeGod
<Rimblade> But I'm not too worried about the secret auditors auditing us.
<Rimblade> I'm more concerned about the Robbers and their flagrant disregard for the important policies which led to us destroying everyone's stuff.