Chancel Aleph

<RandBrittain> So, what were we talking about?

<RandBrittain> I think someone was making some kind of invisible soup on a bee lake.

<Elliott> Creating a whole new set Beige Arcs set

<DukeGod> Last think I remember we were in Fand's castle…and either Taxes or Audit had declared something

<MorkaisChosen> I have scrollback :-P

<MorkaisChosen> Fand was telling us that the records are in storage and will need to be extracted, I think?

<MorkaisChosen> And we were offered rooms for the night and roast dragon.

<Gayo> It wasn't invisible!

<DukeGod> What color is that dragon?

<MorkaisChosen> Roast coloured.

<DukeGod> Before death I mean

<RandBrittain> Red.

<HollyhockGod> So, you're invited into the spooky castle.

<HollyhockGod> Okay, it isn't terribly spooky.

<HollyhockGod> More of a violation of the Noble building code than of the laws of nature.

<Darryl_Collins> The two are not as distinguishable as you represent!

<HollyhockGod> And really, if violating the building code was illegal we'd all be criminals, wouldn't we?

<HollyhockGod> Fand has offered you a place to stay and a ride back to your Chancel in the morning. It's very sweet.

<HollyhockGod> I'm sure you're all going to accept her offer and sleep peacefully through the night.

<Sarabande> I'm… hmm.

<Sarabande> I don't know if bees need to sleep.

<Sarabande> More accurately, I don't know if swarms of bees need to all sleep at the same time.

<HollyhockGod> Let's find out!

<HollyhockGod> It appears that bees don't sleep, but do remain still for periods of repose.

• Sarabande does that, as appropriate.

<Darryl_Collins> I'm concerned that accepting these services will violate gift limitation and disclosure regulations.

<Nomen> I'm not sure the Power of Nights should sleep at Night, so I'm gonna stay awake.

<Sarabande> oh yes

<HollyhockGod> Will sneaking around surrepetitiously make you feel more ethical?

<Darryl_Collins> Yes!

• Sarabande politely demurs the dragon, explaining that meat is not in fact part of a healthy balanced diet for apiforms.

<Love-in-Idleness> Idleness doesn't much sleep. I think she just kind of goes Persona trancey and explores Blossoming.

<Vauncey> We need them to pay taxes on this place, right?

<Vauncey> Well, I'll eat their food anyway. Possibly we can arrange a deduction.

<HollyhockGod> So, once you've been tucked in, you'll do some searching. How will you go about it?

<Nomen> Can I sortof "Darken" myself with a persona miracle and go invisibkle?

<HollyhockGod> Well, hard to see.

<Nomen> Good enough, that's a Persona 3?

<HollyhockGod> Yeah.

<Nomen> Okay, and if I were to Incarnate myselçf into the Night, would I see only the outside?

<HollyhockGod> I guess that's up to you?

<HollyhockGod> Is it Night inside a lighted building at night?

<HollyhockGod> What makes it night or not night?

<Nomen> Probably not the inside

<Nomen> I made Night really more of an "outside" thing

<Sarabande> I would claim that that depends partly on the actions of people? like, a supermarket where the restocking people are in but there are no customers? probably Night

<Vauncey> While Nomen sneaks around, Vauncey refills his wineglass and continues chatting with Fand, while the fireplace gradually burns down and the night drags on. Vauncey is distracting her with entertaining stories so the others can perform reconnaissance! He is such a team player. He refills his wineglass again.

<Sarabande> ah, didn't see the outside bit :-)

<Vauncey> (Showing others a good time +5 from aspect.)

<HollyhockGod> That sounds like a pretty good time.

<Nomen> Yeah, I'll burn 2 MP to make myself Darker and thsui harder tos ee then sneak around. Nomen will go take a look at those records

<HollyhockGod> Which records?

<Nomen> The ones in storage that's gonna take time to bring

• Sarabande keeps watch - most of the bees are dormant, but when you live in a Chancel with someone who makes flowers bloom at night, you learn to have a few workers on the night shift.

<HollyhockGod> Oh, right. You sneak down and find them.

<HollyhockGod> They're at the bottom of a filing cabinet stuffed up the chimney of a forge. EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM IS TOTALLY OKAY AND THERE'S NO NEED TO WORRY. Oh, and there's a box of chocolates marked "for the auditor."

<HollyhockGod> Meanwhile, Sarabande is keeping eyes out for gnomes.

• Nomen checks if the chocolate melted

<Vauncey> Is it good chocolate?

<Vauncey> I'm not there so I can't tell, I'm just a concerned party.

<HollyhockGod> It's not melted, and it's caramel, which is the best chocolate.

<Nomen> Nomen isn't the auditor, so he can eat without viiolating the gift limtation, so he's gonna eat half of them while grabbing all the files

<Vauncey> After recounting the well-known story of how he defeated the dragon that ate him by eating it back from the inside, Vauncey demurs. "Ah, but enough about me." Of course, he's just being polite. You could never hear enough about him. "Tell me; what brings you to settle in a place like this? I must say we happened upon it quite by chance."

<HollyhockGod> "Oh, I was led here by dreams," says Fand. "That happens to me quite a lot, as you might imagine. And my husband primarily works through his agents, so hiding in this isolated spot wasn't so terrible for him."

<HollyhockGod> "I dreamed that I would build my house at the bottom of the sea, where I would find a feathered serpent coiled around a platypus egg.

<Nomen> Also, Nomen is gonna check through the records. He isn't as good as his partners, but he can see some wrong stuff with taxes

<HollyhockGod> THE RECORDS ARE COMPLETELY NORMAL AND ABOVE-BOARD.

<HollyhockGod> "…so, that's pretty much what happened. Actually I found the platypus egg a lot sooner than I expected. And as you've seen the feathered serpent was delicious."

<Love-in-Idleness> This far underwater, nothing is above board.

<Nomen> (Oh, I thought that was just am essage she left or something)

<HollyhockGod> No, I was telling you that THERE IS NOTHING ODD ABOUT THE RECORDS in a perfectly normal way.

<Nomen> Okay

• Nomen satisfied, he places the records back in their place. But takes the box with him, that was amoral

<HollyhockGod> Hm, maybe it would have been better if I'd said there is nothing odd about the records.

<Nomen> …

<Nomen> I spend a Treasure MP and use mty Soul Carving Sword to slash at it and oppose any miracles

<HollyhockGod> I mean, assuming that other people actually see the blue text.

<Sarabande> so I was going to suggest removing the concealingness from it

<Sarabande> but that works too :-P

<HollyhockGod> You cut the records in half. Then you examine them again!

<HollyhockGod> Examined in halves, they look significantly more fake.

<Love-in-Idleness> Hey, quit slashing their taxes!

<HollyhockGod> Not sure how you missed that the first time.

<Nomen> I only cut the miracle

<HollyhockGod> Actually, this is just a receipt for pizza delivery.

• Vauncey juggles numbers in the back of his mind, trying to work out whether capital gains taxes might apply to the platypus egg under salvage law. It rather depends on whether it was some sort of magic platypus, but that's a matter for the auditor. "It's nice to see people following their dreams," he says, lifting his glass in a toast. "I must say, I haven't seen a platypus in some time.

• Vauncey Has the egg hatched yet?"

<Nomen> …

• Vauncey is doing very important recon here.

<Nomen> So, we have several halves of a pizza delivery receipt?

<HollyhockGod> "…not as such. But it made a delicious omelette."

<HollyhockGod> That's correct. Not a business record at all. I'm not sure what you were thinking.

<Nomen> Time to mean business I guess

• Vauncey smiles lopsidedly, and takes a drink. Well, that one can be a write-off.

• Nomen goes to any random wing, dismisses his miracle to be clearly seen once more and yells at everyone until the place is empty

<Nomen> One of my bonds makes me "Feared by most" so that should help

<Vauncey> Can we hear Nomen yelling, or is he too far away?

<Nomen> That's just not going to matter in a few seconds

<Nomen> So, don't worry too much

<Vauncey> I had better spend those seconds wisely, then!

• Vauncey tilts his chair.

<Nomen> Lemme just get confirmation it's empty

<HollyhockGod> Sure, why not?

• Nomen Creates a Black Hole and let's the whole wing get sucked into oblivion

<Nomen> eeerm, ignore that apostrophe

<Nomen> (that costs me 1 Domain MP by the way)

<Nomen> Oh,a n d he's gonna hold on to the pizza recepit

<Darryl_Collins> This seems a little bit untoward.

<Nomen> I like extreme actions

<HollyhockGod> This thing happens.

<Vauncey> You're a loose cannon, Nomen! I'm taking away your badge! No, that's mean. You can keep it.

<HollyhockGod> There is a… I have no idea what kind of noise a black hole makes.

<HollyhockGod> There's an earth-shattering kaboom.

<HollyhockGod> Then you all fall to the ground.

<HollyhockGod> Thump!

<HollyhockGod> Except those of you who fly.

<Sarabande> :3

<HollyhockGod> The palace seems to have disappeared.

<Vauncey> Vauncey's chair tips over backwards, thus demonstrating why your teacher told you not to do that.

<Nomen> Right. I politely ask the black hole not to suck us

<Nomen> or anyone else for that matter. Only the palace

<HollyhockGod> This happens! But there seems to be more palace missing than you meant to suck up.

<Darryl_Collins> Well now how are we going to tax that?

• Love-in-Idleness flits across bits of debris and settled neatly on the ground.

• Vauncey rights himself and brushes off his sport coat. "Unfortunate," he mumbles to himself, looking around. Who all is about?

<HollyhockGod> Just ya'll.

<Nomen> Nomen's method of taxing involves instant expending it into Military budget. That is, it makes the black hole stronger cause it gets more mass

<HollyhockGod> So, you plan to tax the entire Earth?

<Love-in-Idleness> "Nomen," Idleness says, and it's kind of exasperated, like she's just watched a dear friend choose the wrong pants for a fancy party.

• Sarabande busily investigates the loud noise. The "There is a black hole!" waggledance is rarely seen in the wild, but all hives do know it.

<HollyhockGod> If you aren't careful soon the entire North Sea is going to come pouring down.

<Love-in-Idleness> "Perhaps we could develop some kind of chart," Idleness says to…probably Vauncey? "A chart for what sort of situations do and do not require the condensation of matter into a super-dense singularity."

<Nomen> Eeeh, fine. I exintguish it

<Darryl_Collins> Vauncey, you're the tax expert, how do we handle this?

<Nomen> That's another 2 MP, but whatevs

<Sarabande> Wax is good for many things. Holding up the mass of an entire sea is… not one of them.

<Nomen> Domain 5, Estate Destruction. I get rid of the black hole. Everyone's happy

• Vauncey strokes his beard thoughtfully, squinting at the place where the black hole was a moment ago. A burning aura of taxation smoulders in the air around him.

<Nomen> "Ahem. You do not have the proper files for this castle"

<HollyhockGod> Fand pops out of the air.

<Vauncey> (Activating Divine Mantle 4 from TMP and investigating with a Domain 2 miracle — is there anything left to tax here that hasn't been "squared away" by the black hole?)

<HollyhockGod> There is not.

<HollyhockGod> Fand appears out of nowhere, wearing rather fancy armor and armed with sword and rocket launcher.

<HollyhockGod> "What was that?" she yells. "Are we under attack?"

<Nomen> "No. As I was saying, you don't have the proper files to own the castle. Don't worry, that problem is fixed now"

<Nomen> (I'm the bogeyman of Tax evaders!)

<Nomen> "By which I mean, most of the castle is gone. You don't need to file the papers for that part. I'm being kind here

<HollyhockGod> Fand's face takes on the expression that faces take on when the person they are attached to is told that one of their houseguests has just vaporized the north wing for taxation reasons.

<HollyhockGod> You know, that expression.

<Vauncey> "This is somewhat irregular," Vauncey explains, sounding a bit apologetic.

<Nomen> (1 minute break for laughing purposes)

• Sarabande buzzes agreement with Vauncey.

<Darryl_Collins> I'm worried that this breach of protocol might *very well* give her a legitimate grievance.

<Darryl_Collins> May I check the regulations?

<HollyhockGod> Sure.

<Love-in-Idleness> "We have left the realm of mild irregularity," Idleness says. "We do not even have the proper paperwork to visit there anymore. We have been deported."

<Darryl_Collins> I check my copy of the regulations to determine whether or not we have done something wrong!

<Sarabande> Whether or not /Nomen/ has done something wrong. ;-)

<Nomen> "Back on topic? All that existed in your records were a receipt for Pizza delivery, that was miraculously disguised as actual proper documents. The receipt is slashed in half by the way. Also, a box of chocolates labeled "To the auditor" of which I ate half. Bribery is wrong you know"

<Vauncey> "May I have a look at the receipt?"

<HollyhockGod> The regulations don't actually *say* that you're forbidden to destroy a taxpayer's residence. Not even in part!

• Nomen hands the halves to Vauncey. He makes sure to keep opposing the disguising miracle, just in case

<HollyhockGod> In retrospect you probably shouldn't have let Nomen write the regulations.

<Nomen> (I wrote the regulations? That's called "Foresight" in that case)

<Darryl_Collins> Alright, I am reluctantly forced to conclude that we're doing the moral thing here.

<Sarabande> A note of reproach enters Sarabande's voice. "It would have been helpful to confer with the rest of us before taking action."

<HollyhockGod> Fand attempts to think of a sensible response. It turns out there isn't one.

<HollyhockGod> This is so totally out of her genre.

<HollyhockGod> So instead she disappears.

<HollyhockGod> As does the cavern roof.

<HollyhockGod> The North Sea pours in.

<Vauncey> Ah, that's—-problematic.

<Nomen> …

<Nomen> Yeah kinda

<Sarabande> "Oh dear. We cannot fix this on our own. Repair the roof together or small wax escape pod?"

<HollyhockGod> You are hit by the North Sea!

<Nomen> "We need to send a message to the Power of Justice or something. I think we should consider Fand a convict on the run"

<HollyhockGod> The spirit of the North Sea takes a moment to say "That is really not the point, Nomen."

<Sarabande> IN THE NICK OF ASPECT 3 Sarabande whips together a sealed wax diving bell to give us some breathing space.

<HollyhockGod> Then, it drowns you!

<Nomen> Thankfully, I'm immortal

<Love-in-Idleness> Same.

<Darryl_Collins> Blurble blurble blurble

<Darryl_Collins> Can you drown an audit?

<Vauncey> I can hold my breath for quite a while. You'd be surprised how often this comes up.

<HollyhockGod> In that case, you remain suffering at the bottom of the sea for eternity.

<HollyhockGod> Or at least until you wake up.

<HollyhockGod> It is now yesterday.

<HollyhockGod> It is a beautiful day in your Chancel, although you've had troubled dreams.

<Nomen> (Does that mean I regain my MP?)

<HollyhockGod> Yes.

<Sarabande> Is it yesterday after it was today?

<HollyhockGod> (The spirit of yesterday takes a moment to say "NOT THE POINT, NOMEN."

<Sarabande> or is it yesterday after a premonition of today, by which we mean tomorrow?

<HollyhockGod> You're supposed to pick up a payment today from the sisters of time.

<HollyhockGod> You have a feeling that that's just going to end badly, though.

• Love-in-Idleness seems somewhat surprised at how lax Time is getting in her old age.

<HollyhockGod> Sarabande: Good question!

<Vauncey> I do my morning rituals, which are necessary to prevent the universe from ending. Or, at least, I assume so. I haven't tried not to do them to check.

<Nomen> (Oh come on, you KNEW I was gonna destroy something like that from the moment I took the "Black Hole" domain)

<Love-in-Idleness> "Okay," Idleness says. "We are not going Groundhog Day on this."

<HollyhockGod> The rituals appear to be a success.

<HollyhockGod> Idleness: So, back to bed?

<Love-in-Idleness> For someone with the fashion sense of an 18th century Chiniese imperial courtier, Idleness is well versed in the cinematic ouvre of Bill Murry.

• Sarabande has a delicious breakfast of nectar!

• Nomen checks himself for caramel chocolate

<Vauncey> Where do we eat here, again?

<HollyhockGod> You tell me!

<Vauncey> You would think I would know this, but in my defense, I drank an awful lot last night.

<HollyhockGod> No, no chocolate. That was all a dream, apparently.

<Nomen> "Damnit!"

• Love-in-Idleness DOES, however, go and check her garden, in which are buds and blossoms from every world on the Ash…and a few not yet there, to boot.

<HollyhockGod> The garden has not been singularity'd… yet.

<Darryl_Collins> I go to my favorite nectar cafe, which is located inside a gigantic flower and built out of wax.

<HollyhockGod> So, what about that tax pickup?

<HollyhockGod> It's late, so I guess I was assuming everybody would just go back to bed.

• Love-in-Idleness sits down among the flowers and starts making notes in messy Chinese vis-a-vis a flowchart for the appropriateness of singularities as a solution to problems.

<HollyhockGod> Or I guess it isn't late; I am just getting a cold and the dog is making a fuss.

<Vauncey> How meta.

<Sarabande> If we're talking the OOC flavour, it is super double late for me and this is a fact I have accepted for this game, but does mean I'll basically never object to an early wrap. ;-)

<HollyhockGod> Still, I think you can call this audit a success.

<Vauncey> I bump into Nomen, perhaps — I posit that it is so! — and mention kind of offhandedly that I had a dream that we were trying to tax this house we found and he sucked it into a black hole, ha ha, isn't that funny.

<HollyhockGod> Just think of all the bad things that could have happened!

<HollyhockGod> So you can take credit for preventing them all. It's basically a net plus.

<Vauncey> A net plus, after taxes!

<Darryl_Collins> …do we pay taxes?

<Vauncey> Everything pays taxes! It's the circle of life.

<Nomen> "In my dream it was a castle. Anyway, it wasn't entirely obliterated."

<Vauncey> (Life is a metaphor for taxes, here.)

<Nomen> (I should probably have killed the gnomes and stuff. I mean, there's that "Death" in the title we're failing to uphold)

<Vauncey> I don't know, the gnomes were pretty nice.

<Vauncey> They had those spears and they didn't even TRY to stab us.

<Sarabande> "Were a situation like that dream to occur, we would appreciate being consulted before any singularity-related activities are enacted."

<Darryl_Collins> Also if you kill gnomes on the job, we're obligated to increase the payout to the audit gnomes.

• Vauncey darkens dramatically upon hearing that they both had the same dream. "This must mean something," he says, sounding very much like he must know what he is talking about.

<Nomen> "I guess so"

• Vauncey disappears into his own thoughts, staring out the window. "Perhaps it was a portentous dream, warning us. In that case, we must be sure to do things differently this time."

<HollyhockGod> And that, I guess is all, except for the message in Vauncey's inbox.

<HollyhockGod> Somebody has sent you an assessment!

<Sarabande> "Maybe the Sisters of Time will know something about this - dreams of the future being a Time phenomenon and all. Fortunately we should be seeing them soon."

• Nomen asks his Estate wether or not a Black Hole was generated…eeerm wherever that place we were was

• Vauncey has toast instead of eggs for breakfast, thus precipitating a completely different timeline.

<HollyhockGod> Nomen: Only in your dreams.

• Vauncey checks his messages!

<HollyhockGod> How bizarre, somebody assessing you!

<HollyhockGod> There's a plus column and a minus column.

<Nomen> Nomen is gonna eat a rose or something like that. Whatever flower acn be eaten

<HollyhockGod> The minus column reads "one (1) destroyed castle wing, one (1) forced Chancel relocation".

<HollyhockGod> The plus column just shows a question mark.

• Vauncey thinks back to whether or not he destroyed any other castle wings in the recent past, aside from the dream.

<Sarabande> As usual, Sarabande just happens to read Vauncey's email over his shoulder.

<Sarabande> (message, even"

<Sarabande> "From whom is that?"

<Nomen> "We should find out what this Question Mark means"

<HollyhockGod> There is a portentous sting of music, and then the HG goes in search of hot soup.

<Vauncey> There was some soup in the dream.

<Vauncey> Perhaps it was a portent!

<Darryl_Collins> Or an omen

<HollyhockGod> I guess that's not a perfect conclusion to our first story but it does set the tone for future audits.

<HollyhockGod> The tone of explosions.

<Sarabande> implosions!

<HollyhockGod> And of taxpayers fearing you.

<Vauncey> It IS going to be difficult if Nomen annihilates everything we mean to tax.

<Nomen> Mission Accomplished! I put the fear of us into taxpayers

<Vauncey> I suppose it's TECHNICALLY compliant but it doesn't entirely sit right with me.

<Darryl_Collins> We might need to re-write the regulations.

<Nomen> That one was just to send a message

<Darryl_Collins> I hope we don't have to go through a full notice-and-comment process.

<Nomen> He's only gonna do it if it seems like they're getting soft

<Nomen> Also, it was only one wing, come on

<Nomen> There's like, still 3 of them

<Nomen> or 7 if we're using extra directions

<Nomen> #justnomenthings

<Sarabande> it definitely can't have been a one-winged castle, as there wasn't enough organ music

<Sarabande> or buildup to the Terrifying Final Form

<Vauncey> Ultimately I'm not sure destroying and relocating things should count against us

<Vauncey> That sort of thing stimulates the economy!

<Sarabande> right. Is that us done for tonight? 'cause if so I need to rapidly become unconscious.

<Nomen> Also, it was Rand's fault. Using Fand after Shattered came out.

<Nomen> I kinda hate Fand right now

<Vauncey> She seemed pretty nice.

<Vauncey> We should try not to destroy her house if we meet her again, probably.

<Nomen> She's Affably Evil

<Nomen> Though I hate her incarnation in Iron Druid only, I think. Still, this is revenge by proxy

<HollyhockGod> I think we're done for now.