Twelfth Story - Depression

<Hollyhock God> No Dreams! Hm, should we go on with Actuals or skip to some unknown time and place to do a sidestory?

<Cyrus> Either way works for me

<Miranda> Hm. I was looking forward to the Actual stuff on account of: clearly defined world-driven plot. But Dreams is not here.

  • Immanuel looks up from Dragon Weekly.

<Immanuel> Are we going to the beach

<Miranda> No, dammit.

<Miranda> No more beach.

  • Immanuel turns back to his magazine.

<Hollyhock God> Speaking as someone who is at the beach, the beach is full.

  • Miranda raises an eyebrow.

<Cyrus> We should find the Power of Beach and get him to make more.

<Miranda> "Immanuel?"

<Hollyhock God> You could always rope the Familia in to steal that book from Remus.

  • Immanuel makes a grunting sound in Miranda's direction.

<Miranda> The book plot is problematic, because that's exactly when Secrets chose to disappear.

<Hollyhock God> Life is always full of problems!

<Hollyhock God> Let us tacitly ignore them.

<Hollyhock God> Unless you think Miranda wouldn't rob a sweet old man.

<Cyrus> Heh.

<Miranda> Yeah, kinda the thing.

<Immanuel> Miranda would beat an orphan to death with another orphan, if she thought it would bring our Imperator back.

<Hollyhock God> Ideas, then?

<Immanuel> Well, we're running out of orphans…

<Miranda> Yes. But the thing is, it doesn't make sense. Why try to sell secrets to someone in a familia with Secrets?

<Dan> Orphans are easy to make more of

<Miranda> Except, then Secrets disappeared.

<Immanuel> Orphans don't grow on trees, you know.

<Hollyhock God> Aha!

<Cyrus> Do they actually have to be child orphans? Cause otherwise you can just raid retirement homes and such

<Hollyhock God> I think we could go with 'tacitly ignore.'

<Miranda> What are we tacitly ignoring?

<Immanuel> Hmm. Interesting question.

<Immanuel> Miranda, what exactly is your orphan beating policy?

<Miranda> I think I may literally embody laws against beating orphans….

<Immanuel> That's what makes it so nasty.

<Hollyhock God> That Secrets is absent.

<Miranda> Or, at any rate, intervention betweem the vulnerable and harm.

<Dan> But it hurts us more than it hurts them.

<Miranda> Well, yes, but ignoring that secrets is absent makes it hard to proceed with issues where he'd be the next step.

<Dan> So really, you should be intervening to help us.

<Immanuel> It's for their own good.

<Hollyhock God> Well, now he's not!

<Hollyhock God> Do your own divinations, Mrs. Domain 5.

<Miranda> Yes. Which leaves me ignoring what to do next, you see?

<Hollyhock God> So do Step 3 instead,

<Miranda> Step 3 was "Visit Maxiel"

<Hollyhock God> And 4?

  • Hollyhock God thinks 4 should be a heist story.

<Hollyhock God> But I guess I can't force you.

<Immanuel> With balloons?

<Miranda> …sigh… If I have to. But I can't rationalize that.

<Immanuel> You're just not trying hard enough.

<Hollyhock God> If he doesn't come back, you won't have an option!

<Hollyhock God> So I confess I don't really see the problem.

<Miranda> Miranda's a cop. B&E is so far outside her motif….

<Hollyhock God> Think of it as being a SWAT team. :) That commits crimes.

<Hollyhock God> Or we could do something else?

<Hollyhock God> Like….

  • Hollyhock God thinks.

<Miranda> OK. So. What's everybody's story?

<Miranda> What's Cyrus' story? What's Dan's? What's Immanuel's?

<Immanuel> I'm trying to re-orient my hoard to be more video game based.

<Hollyhock God> Well, setting Miranda aside, Cyrus is an angel ascendant, Immanuel is becoming a ferocious beast, and Dan is accustoming himself to godhood.

<Hollyhock God> Admittedly the quality of Immanuel's mayhem isn't quite as terrifying as it once was.

<Hollyhock God> He's less efreet and more NEET.

<Immanuel> There's nothing wrong with being neat.

<Cyrus> heh

<Miranda> What's going on in the larger world?

  • Immanuel trims his talons.

<Cyrus> Cyrus wants monsters as pets, because the Cammorae probably isn't going to let him keep his old pets.

<Immanuel> Immanuel finds this notion odious.

<Miranda> Why not?

<Cyrus> Because they were the Cammorae's

<Hollyhock God> For a start, because they own the old pets, I'd bet.

<Immanuel> Immanuel also finds himself speaking in the third person, and does not care.

<Miranda> Oh.

<Hollyhock God> Demand them for your divine panoply!

<Hollyhock God> We'll send in the Cammoran negotiators.

<Cyrus> I could just demand stuff from the Cammorae. No way that could backfire. :D

  • Hollyhock God nods.

<Hollyhock God> So, you write a letter or pay a visit?

<Immanuel> I could do some research on this thing in my gullet.

<Immanuel> And the no doubt vast ecosystem congealing in it.

<Cyrus> heh, true

<Cyrus> Magic Schoolbus time!

<Hollyhock God> Which do you want to do! Which?

<Immanuel> Gee, was there any backlash from my Inklord Offensive?

<Hollyhock God> Probably, but I got the impressive nobody cared about poor old Vesperius.

<Immanuel> Hah!

<Hollyhock God> Seriously, though, somebody pick a plot.

<Dan> I think I was interested in punking his shit.

<Dan> Let's beat up Vesperius

<Hollyhock God> Sold!

<Cyrus> Alright.

<Hollyhock God> Miranda, the Chancel is under assault again and you don't know why.

<Hollyhock God> Bikers and ink-golems have been harassing the gates for several days now and making it hard to get things in and out without your intervention.

<Miranda> Eh. Probably just the Ink Lord.

<Hollyhock God> ….maybe.

<Cyrus> "Don't we need the gates? Shouldn't we do something about them?"

<Miranda> "He's a sad old man, who couldn't get the book when he was in the chancel alone, undefended and backed up by a small army and hired noble goons— and STILL couldn't even use it, if he actually managed to get it."

<Hollyhock God> Use the power of friendship!

<Miranda> "… to be honest, I feel too bad for him to really do anything nasty to him, even if it would be in our best interest to stick his severed head on a damned spike."

<Dan> "That kind of sympathy is only going to get us in trouble in the long run."

<Miranda> Does he have a familia or an imperator?

<Hollyhock God> Some Imperator of the Wyld. Supposedly, a one-Power Familia.

<Hollyhock God> I mean, the Wild.

<Hollyhock God> Sorry, wrong game.

<Immanuel> Make his Imperator The Wyrm.

<Cyrus> heh

<Hollyhock God> Perhaps he's lashing out because he's lonely?

<Cyrus> (yeah switching between Exalted and Nobilis is tricky)

<Cyrus> We can make him some family members!

<Cyrus> …somehow

<Immanuel> No, he was kicking it old school with oWoD.

<Cyrus> We could set him up on a date

<Cyrus> ah my mistake

<Cyrus> I've done the Exalted thing though

<Miranda> "…. and then sic the Cammora on him?"

<Dan> "Sounds fun to me!"

<Hollyhock God> Kill him, feed his Estate to somebody you like, and jack his Imperator.

<Cyrus> (what was that in response to?)

<Dan> "You know, I bet Seeds would know someone…"

<Immanuel> "Too bad our brother isn't here, we could make them and make a child named Stain."

<Dan> (you.)

  • Miranda looks from Immanuel, to Dan, to Cyrus.

<Cyrus> (oh right, windflower law, missed the connection)

<Miranda> "… children, honestly, I'm surrounded by children."

<Immanuel> "I suppose just complaining about it would be the mature thing? I'm bored, let's burn something."

<Hollyhock God> Even when you're alone, a child is somehow there!

<Dan> In that case, kick off your mothering instinct and help us ruin this guy!

<Miranda> "How could he possibly be more ruined than he already is?"

<Cyrus> "Maybe you should go on a date with him!"

  • Miranda glares at Cyrus.

<Miranda> "I'll ignore that, because you're new."

  • Miranda actually just realized that probably none of the nobles present was born before 1980, and finds that kind of disturbing.

<Cyrus> (heh)

<Dan> (Dan was born in the mid 70's)

<Miranda> ooc Can we get some context next week about what's happening in the wider universe?

<Hollyhock God> Context is always lovely, although in Nobilis the answer is likely to be fiendishly complicated.

<Hollyhock God> So anyway rabbits have always been aquatic now.

<Cyrus> Of course!

<Miranda> (As long as it's epic.)

<Cyrus> (The World-Ash has gained sentience and is rampaging!)

<Hollyhock God> The Duchess finally killed the last reality TV show, ending her decade-long duel with the Marchesa of Vulgarity.

<Miranda> (I miss metaplot so bad)

<Miranda> Send her a basket of flowers.

<Hollyhock God> I'm sure she'll appreciate them once she gets out of traction.

  • Miranda sighs.

<Miranda> "Fine. You want to confront the ink lord, let's confront the ink lord."

<Immanuel> "Been there, done that."

  • Miranda storms to the gate, and steps out.

<Immanuel> "I mentioned I attacked him in his chancel, right?"

<Miranda> "You know, some would ask, why build a gate around an aquatic city…."

<Immanuel> "Might've forgot to mention it."

  • Miranda is going to totally miss that part.

<Immanuel> "The gate is to keep out pirates."

  • Miranda walks up to whomever seems to be in charge of the bikers.

<Hollyhock God> I presume it's a portal rather than a hole in the wall.

<Cyrus> (I've been assuming there was some sort of Chancel-wide force-field. Admittedly I don't know why I was assuming that)

<Hollyhock God> They lack a leader. It's a stand-alone complex!

<Hollyhock God> Or possibly a herd of drones.

<Miranda> Doesn't matter, whomever's largest and has a chest most exposed for poking.

<Miranda> For this is what she is intent upon doing.

<Hollyhock God> You poke the largest ruffian.

  • Miranda pokes.

<Hollyhock God> The ruffians quickly surround you in a tight circle.

<Miranda> "You. Anchor. Get your master on the line. Now."

<Hollyhock God> "Won't!" says the biker in a snippy voice that probably isn't his own.

<Hollyhock God> They shoot you.

<Hollyhock God> It doesn't work very well.

<Miranda> "Unfortunately, you no longer constitute innocents, and I'm well within my rights to do away with you," she points over to Immanuel "Now, I'm going to count to three. And if, by the count of three, I don't have an inklord here to talk to, I'm going to ask my brother to do what he does best. Have I made myself understood?"

<Dan> "What he does best is eat things and light them on fire. In various orders."

  • Immanuel crochets best. You'd know this if you ever asked about HIS interests.

<Dan> (hush you.)

<Hollyhock God> "The Ink-Lord is too busy to involve himself in these petty matters personally!" says the Ink-Lord's voice. "Surrender the document peacefully or be drowned in darkness eternal!"

<Cyrus> (also plays guitar!)

  • Immanuel sighs and puts aside his hoard cosy.

<Hollyhock God> snerk

<Dan> "Immanuel, eat one of them."

<Miranda> "One."

  • Miranda counts on her fingers, seeming exasperated.
  • Immanuel yawns

<Hollyhock God> The minions begin shooting at Dan, evidently for variety.

  • Immanuel eats whichever one has the most piercings.

<Hollyhock God> Chomp!

<Immanuel> Or gold teeth.

  • Cyrus makes their guns flowy like mercury. "That was getting annoying."

<Hollyhock God> "Our numbers are endless!" claims another. (You doubt this.)

  • Dan is shielded from the bullets by convenient bridges.

<Hollyhock God> Sure, why not?

  • Miranda rolls her eyes.

<Miranda> "Two.

<Hollyhock God> "This foolishness will be your undoing!" foretells the Ink-Lord, dramatically.

<Immanuel> "What foolishness, exactly?"

<Miranda> "Two and a half."

<Hollyhock God> The Ink-Lord shoots at you instead of answering that question, possibly because he doesn't have an answer.

<Hollyhock God> Oh, just eat them if you're going to.

<Miranda> "Listen, BUDDY, I'm trying to be polite and have a civil conversation rather than going to your chancel and razing the damned thing to the ground, and you along with it. I am trying to be civil."

<Hollyhock God> This is easily the lamest attack on your Chancel ever.

  • Immanuel sighs. Really?

<Miranda> "…Seriously?"

  • Immanuel begins snacking on minions.

<Hollyhock God> Immanuel eats everybody.

  • Cyrus melts more of their guns.

<Cyrus> (or just lets Immanuel handle it)

<Dan> "You know, his last attacks were much better than this. Either he's very weakened, or this is a trap."

<Immanuel> "He's weakened. He's an idiot."

<Hollyhock God> "You will suffer!" promises the Ink-Lord. "You and everyone you care about!"

<Hollyhock God> Then the last couple of minions explode in Immanuel's stomach. Looks like they were mined.

<Immanuel> "HAH! I only care about myself!"

<Immanuel> Oh gee, an explosion. Heat. In my stomach. How eventful.

<Hollyhock God> Yeah, I said it was kind of lam.e

<Hollyhock God> Having such a pathetic archenemy isn't really going to do your reputation much good.

<Hollyhock God> How did this guy get to be a thousand years old?

<Cyrus> "I almost feel like we should give him lessons."

  • Hollyhock God is intrigued by letting the plot be "Our worst enemy is incompetent. We must remedy this for the sake of appearances."

<Dan> "Hmm, he would owe us a favor then. That we could call in if he ever got too competent."

<Miranda> "Three."

<Immanuel> I think we'd be doing the Valde Bellum a favor by replacing him, frankly.

<Dan> "There is that."

<Dan> "And quite frankly, I've never liked Ink."

<Cyrus> "He could just be playing us. I don't know why he would though."

<Hollyhock God> "Pretending to be lame" is not a gambit Nobles use very often. Or ever.

<Hollyhock God> We're talking about the most egotistical people on the planet.

<Miranda> "Alright. Give me options, people. We can't kill him; there's no way it'd stand up in court. Even the Locust Court has rules."

<Cyrus> It could be a very deep game!

<Hollyhock God> He tried to kill you!

<Cyrus> Badly!

<Miranda> Did he?

<Hollyhock God> Sevenfold vengeance permits you to kill him seven times.

<Miranda> I didn't notice any attempted murder.

<Hollyhock God> Well, he shot at you. That's good even to put in your amended answer.

<Cyrus> I'm not sure shooting at Nobles counts as attempted murder.

<Miranda> I suppose we could fail to wreck his stuff seven times.

<Cyrus> We could shoot him sevenfold times

<Immanuel> Maybe we're only allowed to attempted murder him 7 times.

<Hollyhock God> I'm pretty sure the sevenfold rule depends on mens rea and not actus reas.

<Hollyhock God> I mean, so long as you replace him and make sure his replacement is competent, you might well be good.

<Dan> "Can we replace him with another Estate entirely?"

<Miranda> "No."

<Miranda> "That's not how it works."

<Miranda> "There's a quantity of Spiritus Dei which represents the capacity for Ink to exist in the world."

<Dan> "Whoever designed the universe should really have taken into account planned upgrades."

<Miranda> "Give it to someone else, it still means the same thing."

<Dan> "I mean, this is basic level infrastructure stuff."

<Immanuel> Well

<Miranda> "Nobles are kind of, how would you put it, a patch?"

<Hollyhock God> You should just find your monster-baby and make him the ink-god.

<Immanuel> "Murder or train? The great dilemma."

<Hollyhock God> Nobles are more like a firewall.

<Dan> "Time crunches are no excuse."

  • Immanuel harrumphs.

<Immanuel> Those are rarely made of fire.

  • Dan imagines Dan chewing out C'neph for poor design. <_<

<Hollyhock God> Someone decide on a plan and put it into motion before everybody dies of boredom!

<Hollyhock God> I don't care what you do, just do it good and hard.

<Immanuel> "VESPERIUS!"

<Dan> "Let's off him."

<Immanuel> "You are too pathetic for words! I am going to enlighten you so we can have a proper foe!"

<Dan> "Or that works. I suppose an archaic concept deserves an archaic noble."

<Cyrus> "I hope he's thought this through…"

<Immanuel> I'm gonna put a level 9 greater enchantment on him, 2 strike, for 4 pmp

<Dan> "You obviously don't know Immanuel very well. He hasn't."

<Immanuel> I'm going to give him the terrible majesty of fire.

<Miranda> "… what?"

<Miranda> "No."

<Miranda> "Don't you even think about…"

<Miranda> "Oh, god, you just already did it, didn't you?"

<Hollyhock God> Hm. How would you expect that to alter him, exactly?

<Hollyhock God> Anger? Wisdom? Better special effects?

<Immanuel> Instead of being utterly pathetic in every conceivable way, it will make a creature of ineffable darkness and might.

<Dan> (It won't make him competent, but it will make him look really good even when he's being lame? XD)

<Immanuel> Yes, that.

<Immanuel> People will dread him and his works no matter how shitty.

<Dan> (Sort of like post-war Malfeas <_< )

<Hollyhock God> So basically, you're trying to transform him into a competent being who hates and envies you.

<Cyrus> (so you just gave him a really good PR agent)

<Immanuel> Or an incompetent one.

<Immanuel> This is more about looks than ability.

<Dan> (Majesty doesn't equal competance.)

<Miranda>

<Miranda> "This is hopeless."

<Immanuel> People will praise our name for even daring to contend with this, this Cadillac of men!

<Hollyhock God> I guess… that makes a kind of sense?

  • Miranda storms off.
  • Miranda goes to her room to go play with the blood of god.

<Cyrus> "That's… something."

<Miranda> I assume I have to take a wound to ignore that?

<Immanuel> We're granting him the shining quality, essentially.

<Hollyhock God> No, it's an enchantment that makes him scary, not one that makes you scared.

<Hollyhock God> But, what the hell.

<Hollyhock God> Miranda peers into the Reliquary of Life and sees something new.

<Miranda> Yay!

<Miranda> What?

<Immanuel> He shines with malevolence, and the darkness in the heart of the void.

<Miranda> Now I want to ignore him even more than ever.

<Hollyhock God> The Ink-Lord's body lies broken on the black-and-white tiles, in a spreading pool of his own blood.

<Miranda> "Oh. Well. That's…"

  • Miranda sighs.
  • Miranda storms back.

<Hollyhock God> He is a creature of infinite darkness and hatred, and he gasps out his last breath.

<Miranda> "OK, WHO KILLED THE INK LORD?"

  • Miranda demands of her Familia.

<Cyrus> "Wasn't me!"

<Dan> "I haven't done anything today. At all."

  • Miranda glares at Immanuel.

<Hollyhock God> His body appeared suspiciously unscorched.

<Hollyhock God> More, stabbed.

<Hollyhock God> I blame Miranda.

<Hollyhock God> She's been acting kind of crazy lately.

<Cyrus> "Do we know someone who likes to stab people?"

<Immanuel> "Miranda is more of a bludgeoner, I think."

<Hollyhock God> Meanwhile, Miranda gets a text from Rinne: "OMG you killed him? I know he was kind of a pain but was he that bad?"

  • Miranda texts back If I'd killed him, I'd have advertised it.

<Hollyhock God> "If you say so!" says Rinne.

<Cyrus> Where's the body?

<Hollyhock God> I guess it's in his Chancel?

<Miranda> "The body's in his chancel."

<Hollyhock God> Somewhere with tiles!

<Hollyhock God> Don't look at me; you guys murdered him.

<Immanuel> I didn't murder anyone.

<Miranda> "Immanuel took action against him; now he's dead."

<Immanuel> I did the opposite!

<Immanuel> "I buffed him, damnit!"

<Miranda> "Lethally."

<Hollyhock God> Peering into a shield's shiny surface and hoping to get a glimpse of the future, Miranda sees her Familia being carried away in chains by ogres.

<Cyrus> "Maybe because he was worth killing now, someone did it?"

  • Miranda sighs.

<Immanuel> I guess he just couldn't handle the awesome.

<Miranda>

<Hollyhock God> At this point I think it is seriously worth considering the possibility that this is a frame-up.

<Cyrus> No really? :P

<Hollyhock God> It's certainly going to be a delightful excuse to feed your Estates to some other Imperator and just replace you after the Will tears you apart.

<Cyrus> "Are we sure he's really dead? Not like, living in an ink golem or something?

<Miranda> … now, my instinct is for Miranda to fly off the handle and just say fuck all y'all, I'm bringing Prax back because there's no way I can stop you getting yourselves killed much longer.

  • Hollyhock God advises investigation.

<Immanuel> Hmm

<Miranda> If we investigate, we contaminate the crime scene and put ourselves at the scene.

<Immanuel> If Rinne knows, that means it's uncertain.

<Immanuel> Can we get a hold of his thought-record?

<Miranda> But we also need to investigate.

<Miranda> Because that's plot.

<Miranda> OK, so, plot. We're being framed for murder we assume Immanuel didn't commit.

<Cyrus> Presumably none of us committed

<Cyrus> Probably

<Miranda> So, how can we ensure that we get to look at the crime scene without someone accusing us of tampering with/being at the crime scene?

<Hollyhock God> The fact that the corpse wasn't eaten seems good enough to prove that Immanuel isn't guilty, at least for you.

<Hollyhock God> Bring witnesses?

<Cyrus> Someone could incarnate in something near the scene?

<Miranda> Anything we do at the scene needs to be witnessed.

<Hollyhock God> Call on Surolam to send a Power or something.

<Miranda> Annoyingly, the only people we can actually trust are Max's powers.

<Miranda> And Fine's in traction, apparenrtly.

<Immanuel> We need to shed some Light on this?

<Hollyhock God> The Bachelorette turned out to be a little bit quicker than she'd anticipated. But she got it in the end.

<Miranda> (Hee.)

<Hollyhock God> I mean, Surolam runs the Locust Court, so her Powers are probably pretty reliable as witnesses.

<Miranda> I don't trust the Locust Court at all right now. If this is a frame-job, then the likely setup is someone angling for annexation.

<Cyrus> Can we use our veto power on our own trial? >_>

<Miranda> The people outside the family who have been angling for annexation to date: Ananda and Joktan.

<Hollyhock God> Surolam is a creature of precedent, though.

<Miranda> And the precedent is a corrupt court system.

<Hollyhock God> You could call on Noel, but he's obviously biased in your favor.

<Hollyhock God> The Locust Court isn't really corrupt in 3e.

<Hollyhock God> I mean, the laws are awful, but they're enforced even-handedly.

<Miranda> Of course it is.

<Miranda> It's run by Lord Entropy.

<Hollyhock God> No, it isn't.

<Cyrus> It's run by Surolam now

<Hollyhock God> It's run by Surolam.

<Miranda> Run-ish.

<Immanuel> And she's adorable.

<Cyrus> The adorable dog-headed lady.

<Dan> Hah.

<Hollyhock God> How dare you distrust the dog-headed god of ordinary things?

<Dan> I distrust everything ordinary

<Hollyhock God> And you could also call on Rhys, but he's a terrible witness because he believes whatever he's told.

<Miranda> I'm still going with Noel, because I want an investigator biased in my favor; I'd do it personally, but I don't think we can dare go there. Our best chance of proving our innocence is not having been at the scene.

<Miranda> Or Rhys. Which do you guys prefer?

<Dan> Weren't we allowed to kill him anyway?

<Immanuel> What about Illumination?

<Immanuel> This seems like the sort of thing she might handle.

<Hollyhock God> I'm sure whoever framed you will argue that it's a rules violation!

<Dan> I mean, obviously we want to find who framed us, but is the crime really an issue for us.

<Miranda> Illumination isn't in an allied Chancel, is she?

<Hollyhock God> She's Remus' Sibling, so that depends on your definition.

<Hollyhock God> You could ask Remus!

<Hollyhock God> Hoo hoo hoo.

<Miranda> OK, so we call up Rhys….

<Immanuel> "We'll get right on that."

<Hollyhock God> Rhys jumps off the moon and drops in to say hello.

<Hollyhock God> "Hello!"

<Hollyhock God> But you can't hear him say that because of the enormous splash.

<Miranda> "Hi, Rhys. We appear to be being framed for a crime we didn't commit; would you mind lending a hand?"

<Hollyhock God> "Oh, I wouldn't mind at all. Does this mean you didn't kill the Ink-Lord?"

<Cyrus> "We're pretty sure we didn't."

<Hollyhock God> "Okay," Rhys nods, "If you say so."

<Cyrus> How is word spreading so quickly? It could be suspicious

<Cyrus> Or just speed-of-plot

<Miranda> "But we can't go investigate without contaminating the crime scene. Would you mind being out eyes on this one?"

<Hollyhock God> It is the speed of plot.

<Hollyhock God> "That's easy," says Rhys. "I'll find everything there is to see."

<Hollyhock God> He jumps away again.

<Miranda> "Fantastic! I was hoping you could shed some light on the situation!"

  • Miranda occasionally indulges puns, OK? Back off! Sunlight is the best disinfectant!

<Hollyhock God> You find you are saying this to his posterior as he ascends.

<Hollyhock God> Some minutes later, he lands again.

<Miranda> "Can you confirm that there were no traces of our miraculous action at the scene?"

<Immanuel> I already made a shed some light pun.

<Hollyhock God> "Baalhermon and a bunch of domicelli are sniffing around the crime scene examining everything with Caravan. He's definitely dead."

<Immanuel> Day late and a dollar short, Miranda.

<Cyrus> (domicelli?)

<Miranda> "Dan, Cyrus— if we didn't kill the Inklord, someone is setting us up. Can you start looking into who would want to frame us, and why?"

<Hollyhock God> "I'm afraid I examined everything very carefully, and your imprint is present in several places."

<Miranda> "MY imprint?"

<Hollyhock God> Rhys tilts his head slightly to one side and begins relaying details in efficient police fashion:

<Cyrus> "Sure. Is there like, a Noble Google I could use?"

<Cyrus> "Or do you have a list of people who'd want to screw with us at least?"

<Miranda> "Yes. Secrets. Or dreams. But failing that, I'm sure Dan can make a connection."

<Hollyhock God> The Ink-Lord's body showed traces of miraculous energy that had been used to weaken his defenses and make his inky body susceptible to physical assault, so that he couldn't become inky as a defense."

<Cyrus> (oops)

<Hollyhock God> Divinations into the past by Baalhermon showed that the final blow was dealt by Dan, who made his weapon into a bridge between life and death.

  • Dan , from the safety of the chancel, busts out a Greater Diviniation (1 DMP)

<Miranda> "Interesting. Which means that Baalhermon may be — wait, Destruction is doing the investigation? Seriously?"

<Hollyhock God> The investigation of the Chancel has found evidence of fire damage in the past several weeks that bears Immanuel's mark.

<Dan> "I didn't do that, but I'll have to keep that in mind in the future if I do want to kill someone."

<Immanuel> Well, yes. But I didn't attack him.

<Hollyhock God> And all the servants and guards were found enspelled in peaceful sleep.

<Miranda> Calling Baalhermon.

<Cyrus> "Wait, weren't you telling me about Excrucians that could fake miracles?"

<Hollyhock God> "Whoever wants to frame you must really want you gone," says Rhys.

<Dan> (I should shift my Bond about not thinking I'm suited for this job.)

<Hollyhock God> "Wanted to talk to you," says the Destruction's-Regal.

<Hollyhock God> "Going to want you to pay a visit."

<Cyrus> "Ah, hello."

<Miranda> "I imagine you do. We're being framed; I want permission to conduct my own investigation, once you've completed canvassing the scene. As a show of good faith I've taken some pains not to interfere."

<Hollyhock God> "Won't save you," says Baalhermon evenly.

<Miranda> "Be that as it may."

<Miranda> (DAMMIT. now this is what Henry would have been awesome at.)

<Cyrus> "Seriously, what if it was one of those Deceiver things?"

<Cyrus> (Aye. Oh well!)

<Miranda> "It's entirely possible, Cyrus."

<Cyrus> "Can we track it or something?"

<Hollyhock God> Baalhermon permits you to make your own investigation and tells you to stay in touch.

<Miranda> "Immanuel, I suggest you begin Illunimating the situation and/or purifying the misleading evidence."

<Dan> (My divination turn up anything?)

<Hollyhock God> I'm not quite sure what you're divining.

<Dan> (Who would want to frame us)

<Immanuel> ….

<Immanuel> Does my alteration of fire persist?

<Dan> (Or rather, who did.)

<Hollyhock God> I don't think that's a valid Divination of Bridges.

<Hollyhock God> Unless somebody announced their intention to frame you while standing on a bridge.

<Hollyhock God> I presume the Chancel's flames are still black, yeah.

<Dan> (Yeah, if no one related has been anywhere near a bridge, it won't get me anything.)

<Miranda> (Don't you mean 'how'?)

<Hollyhock God> You don't get anything!

<Immanuel> Is my alteration of the qualities of fire in his chancel still active?

<Hollyhock God> Yes, they're still black.

<Immanuel> Well, I grab a torch, and enchant it with Illumination.

<Hollyhock God> Okay.

<Immanuel> It only shines on things that are relevant to me.

<Hollyhock God> ….I guess that works.

<Hollyhock God> It's dark here all of a sudden.

<Dan> (Hmm. I will do a greater enchantment on a bridge, and use it to connect me and whoever framed us.)

<Dan> (1 PMP)

<Miranda> … that's awesome.

<Cyrus> (nice)

<Miranda> So it's like a video-game where you click on the glowies?

<Immanuel> Exactly.

<Hollyhock God> I don't think you can do that. The miracle can't tell you who its target is.

<Dan> No pixel bitching for us!

<Hollyhock God> Unless that's part of the miracle.

<Dan> The target is the bridge.

<Hollyhock God> The bridge doesn't know who framed you.

<Immanuel> I begin carefully, carefully snooping around in the dark.

<Hollyhock God> I guess you go to the Ink-Lord's Chancel first? Are you bringing Rhys?

<Immanuel> I assume he's already there, and yes

<Cyrus> Makes as much sense as anything

<Dan> I seem to recall doing this before, but ah well. Consistent this sytem is not necessarily.

<Hollyhock God> Meanwhile, Caravan, Power of Willpower, is also hanging around as secondary witness to prevent trouble later.

<Hollyhock God> Immanuel prowls about with his torch of relevance!

<Hollyhock God> Hey, you found a dead body!

<Hollyhock God> Looks like this is Vesperius. He dead.

<Immanuel> The same one, I hope.

<Hollyhock God> Stabbed, looks like.

<Immanuel> Well, I'd say it's pretty clear I didn't do it.

<Hollyhock God> Incidentally, what are you holding the torch with?

<Dan> (I mean, in the past you let a bridge take me to someone I didn't know where they were.)

<Dan> (Though I suppose I knew who they were, so maybe that's the distinction)

<Immanuel> I guised upon entering.

<Immanuel> And am using a hand

<Hollyhock God> Yeah, you can connect two things, but the connection can't be used to tell you what to connect to, as it were.

<Dan> (Fair enough.)

<Hollyhock God> Anyway, here is a body.

<Hollyhock God> Do science to it.

<Immanuel> I don't DO science. I burn things.

<Immanuel> Is the murder weapon apparent?

<Hollyhock God> A spear!]

<Immanuel> Is it still in him?

<Hollyhock God> It's covered in blood.

<Hollyhock God> Sure, why not? He's pinned to the floor.

  • Immanuel looks at Rhys.

<Cyrus> (What level is to shift into the mythic?)

<Cyrus> (of Aspect)

<Immanuel> "Someone nailed him."

<Hollyhock God> You just can.

<Cyrus> (quickly)

<Miranda> Wait, he can connect two things, right?

<Dan> (3)

<Miranda> Can we use that connection like a hyperlink?

  • Dan logs into the spear with his laptop just to see if there's any interesting information hiding in it's properties.

<Cyrus> (I'll do it at Aspect 1 speed unless someone can beat me to it)

<Dan> (probably just shows me as the last user, but we'll see.)

<Hollyhock God> You are indeed the last user.

<Dan> (Any other users?)

<Immanuel> Hmm.

<Hollyhock God> The spear was enhanced with bridge-like connecting qualities.

<Hollyhock God> No, no other users.

<Immanuel> Nothing else glowing in the room?

<Hollyhock God> A hyperlink like what?

<Hollyhock God> Well, there's the spear, and the body.

<Immanuel> That's two things!

<Hollyhock God> And a hole in the roof.

<Immanuel> The evidence is growing exponentially.

<Dan> linearly

<Hollyhock God> Perhaps the murderer's entrance.

<Immanuel> Can I still fly when guised?

<Immanuel> Or shoot ink if I'm a squidthing and pretending to be a person? Or purr if I'm a cat turned into a person?

<Hollyhock God> Meanwhile, your initial examination is showing you that Rhys's claims about the traces of all your miracles being on the body and weapon is true.

<Hollyhock God> Do you have a Gift for it?

<Miranda> I'm going to use a greater divination on his defenses to figure out how they were weakened.

<Immanuel> I have the superiority of Dragoning

<Hollyhock God> You used a Lesser Sacrifice of Shields to stop his inky form from being a protection against stabbing.

<Hollyhock God> I'm not sure if that should work in a guise or not but I'm not going to worry about it right now.

<Immanuel> If not, I made Dan bridge me up there.

<Immanuel> I always have a contingency.

<Hollyhock God> Suspects! Always looking for suspects.

<Cyrus> (When I get to the Border Mythic, I'll ask the spear and body what happened. Though they'll probably give the same story.)

<Immanuel> Anyway

<Immanuel> I'm above the hole in the ceiling now

<Hollyhock God> They give you the same story.

<Immanuel> Examining it.

<Hollyhock God> It looks rather like somebody tossed a spear with Aspect to create a convenient entrance point.

<Immanuel> Must be a very narrow hole

<Immanuel> Unless it caved in with the force of it or was made of glass etc

<Hollyhock God> Aspect says the hole is nice and wide!

<Immanuel> Hmm, well, none of us are high aspect, although we could always have miracled it….

<Miranda> Why would it show that we did it?

<Immanuel> Yes. This seems like an orgy of evidence all pointing at us.

<Hollyhock God> I guess you must be guilty.

<Miranda> Ah. Well, then.

<Hollyhock God> Or I guess it could be an illusion.

<Cyrus> I suppose the simple answer is that we did do it and someone erased our memory

<Hollyhock God> Or an Enchantment of Guilt.

<Immanuel> That's the simple answer?

<Cyrus> I disbelieve!

<Hollyhock God> Oh, or that.

<Cyrus> Relatively

<Hollyhock God> Or a Greater Motion of History.

<Cyrus> Mmm, true.

<Immanuel> A Greation Creation of Framing?

<Hollyhock God> Or Dreams dreamed you did it and Sacrificed it.

<Cyrus> Or Secrets masked it

<Hollyhock God> I think the simple answer is probably "it's an illusion."

<Immanuel> Or I drugged Dan and just rubbed him all over the scene after throwing the spear.

<Dan> (Hrm. I can't lead to our framer, can I enchant a bridge us to something to help us proove our innocence? )

<Miranda> Why can't you take us to our framer?

<Dan> (I'm uncertain exactly what I'm allowed to set as endpoints.)

<Dan> (Because I don't know who it is, apparently.)

<Cyrus> (and neither does the bridge)

<Immanuel> Anything glowy at the hole?

<Cyrus> (Can we find an omniscient bridge?)

<Hollyhock God> Bridges can connect things, but creating a connection is only two parts of the equation.

<Hollyhock God> You have you, and you have a connection.

<Immanuel> And anything useful to be figured out from the direction?

<Dan> (Could I divine which bridge would lead to us proving our innocence?)

<Hollyhock God> But you don't have the thing to connect to.

<Hollyhock God> And a Creation of Bridges doesn't find or create that third thing.

<Hollyhock God> The hole is relevant, but you don't see anything else.

<Miranda> We have "the person who killed the Ink-Lord".

<Hollyhock God> Clearly you don't have him, or you wouldn't need a bridge to tell you who it is.

<Hollyhock God> You don't know who he is, and it isn't a property of bridges to know who committed crimes.

<Immanuel> Anything noteable about the spear?

<Miranda> …We have a pointer to him.

<Immanuel> Make?

<Dan> (…if I got here first, I could have sacrificed the property of the crime scene that connects it to us >_> )

<Hollyhock God> The spear is vaguely Venetian, but doesn't seem especially damning either way.

<Hollyhock God> I maintain that you can't skip steps with miracles.

<Immanuel> Hmm.

<Hollyhock God> If you want to use a miracle to find the murderer, it has to be a miracle that can tell you who the murderer is.

<Immanuel> Did my enchantment resolve?

<Hollyhock God> Which?

<Cyrus> (at least not without unleashing Actuals)

<Miranda> …. ?

<Immanuel> I mean he's dead, but do people think he's badass?

<Miranda> Of course you can skip steps with miracles.

<Hollyhock God> He seems moderately more intimidating than you previously remembered him as.

<Immanuel> For a dead guy that's not bad.

<Miranda> You could, for example, sent a thunderbolt out to unerringly strike the killer. And then weap as it stabs your loved one.

<Hollyhock God> I mean, you can roll a Divination effect into the Creation if you want to.

<Hollyhock God> But a Divination of Bridges is unhelpful in this case.

<Hollyhock God> So I don't think your thunderbolt example is workable either.

<Dan> Huh, I thought I was allowed to divine things that threaten my Estate. Doesn't this count?

<Dan> Or do threats to me not qualify.

<Hollyhock God> No, this is just a thing that threatens you.

<Miranda> Bridges Connect Separated Things.

<Miranda> Being able to connect the bridge to whomever threw it is intrinsic in the nature of bridges.

<Dan> … I establish a connection between myself and my Estate, then divine what's threatening my Estate.

<Dan> <_<

<Cyrus> Heh.

<Cyrus> Can Miranda destroy whatever's shielding the murderer?

<Dan> "I am seriously out of ideas if that doesn't work."

<Hollyhock God> If something is standing between you and the truth, that kind of makes it a shield.

<Cyrus> (Same problem I suppose.)

  • Hollyhock God searches for canonical confirmation of his stance which he is pretty sure he exists.
  • Miranda searches for the Monarda Law.

<Immanuel> I think that's valid, but the catch is if he gets injured or something it's doing to strike at the very heart of his Estate.

<Miranda> OK. So. Um. Investigation is fruitless, solving the problem with miracles is fruitless.

<Immanuel> Indeed, maybe this whole thing was a setup to get that to happen!

<Immanuel> Huh.

<Immanuel> Maybe a deceiver was one of us?

<Hollyhock God> http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?544032-Nobilis-Third-Edition-Anticipation-Discussion-Thread-volume-2&p=13298189#post13298189

<Hollyhock God> Ahah!

<Hollyhock God> "You can't target a miracle using the effects of that miracle as a targeting system unless you're the Power of Paradox, and even then it's sketchy."

<Dan> Immanuel: I'd just drop the first miracle once I did my diviniation

<Hollyhock God> But to go further, here's a thought.

<Miranda> That's insane.

<Hollyhock God> Assume that what you see isn't what happened.

<Miranda> Jenna's wrong.

<Hollyhock God> Wouldn't you be able to see the truth with some kind of truth-seeing miracle and hella Strike?

<Miranda> …which isn't possible.

<Immanuel> Presumably.

<Miranda> …which confuses me.

<Hollyhock God> Dammit Dan, your stupid miracle broke ADamiani.

<Immanuel> Hell, maybe it is Paradox.

<Miranda> …I mean, the effect of the miracle is targeting.

  • Immanuel power cycles Miranda.

<Miranda> That's like denying miracles the possibility of acting.

<Hollyhock God> The effect of the miracle is to create a connection.

<Hollyhock God> The miracle doesn't include a way to know who to connect to.

<Hollyhock God> You would need a Divination of Murderers for that.

<Hollyhock God> Or something like that.

<Miranda> Ah.

<Cyrus> Do any of us have a good truth-seeking miracle?

<Miranda> No.

<Hollyhock God> But a Creation of Bridges doesn't include any kind of divination effect.

  • Immanuel is getting bored!

<Miranda> You would need a mechanism.

<Immanuel> Enchantment of Purity and Illumination on the torch.

<Hollyhock God> Strike?

<Cyrus> Immanuel, eat the illusion! >_>

<Immanuel> To scour untruthiness from my sight.

<Cyrus> or that

<Miranda> (" explicitly come up with a mechanism for targeting the Estate of Lies, and quite probably ask you to break it down to a process, e.g., dishonesty as the heat source and factually false statements as flammable, or just creating a transient rising heat in everything that is being stated right then that differs from fact. ")

<Miranda> So you COULD do it, you just have to explain it.

<Immanuel> Well, not like I ever use domain, soooo

<Immanuel> 4 strike

<Immanuel> with 4 dmp

<Hollyhock God> There is a crackling, and a smell of burning.

<Dan> I create a (small) bridge made out of apples, and eat it.

<Hollyhock God> Reality goes up in flames like old paper and the castle burns away.

  • Immanuel likes playing detective.

<Hollyhock God> Leaving behind it a similar but slightly different castle.

<Miranda> Aha.

<Miranda> Damn you for making me do Threadomancy.

<Hollyhock God> The spear you saw is different now: it seems melted and slightly damaged as though by great heat.

<Immanuel> So. Are we still plus an Ink kabob?

<Miranda> But this was something we addressed six months ago.

<Hollyhock God> Oh, he's still dead.

  • Dan connects to melted spear and looks at the user log now.

<Hollyhock God> But the signs of your involvement are now clearly visible as fakes.

<Miranda> … because I was objecting that Jenna's workaround let anyone divine anything.

<Miranda> To which she responded: Wound system.

<Immanuel> I examine the spear

<Immanuel> I'm assuming I melted it just now

<Hollyhock God> Fakes, moreover, made possible by the power of an Imperial miracle.

<Hollyhock God> No, it was melted before.

<Hollyhock God> Evidently whatever miracle sent it into the heart of the Ink-Lord, it wasn't an Enchantment of Bridges.

<Cyrus> "Bugger."

<Hollyhock God> Caravan, although apparently uninterested, looks carefully over the newly revealed evidence.

<Hollyhock God> It looks as though the spear was hurled straight through the ceiling and into the Ink-Lord's heart.

<Hollyhock God> As a single action, I mean.

<Hollyhock God> Then the false images of your involvement were placed over the top, possibly from afar.

<Cyrus> (Do we know a Power of Illusions?)

<Dan> (Does the user log reveal anything now?)

<Hollyhock God> You don't, and the log is fragmentary owing to time elapsed and having been overwritten.

<Hollyhock God> But it seems like someone used an Enchantment to make the spear into a deadly weapon (deadlier) and tossed it into the castle.

<Immanuel> Any chance we could speak to his Imperator?

<Miranda> Um. Can I use Aspect 1 with Skill Cop and some Willpower and just… investigate?

<Hollyhock God> "Well, this is kind of interesting," says Caravan, uninterested.

<Miranda> Like, fingerptints?

<Hollyhock God> You find a set of fingerprints on the spear.

<Hollyhock God> You don't know whose they are!

<Hollyhock God> (Not anyone present.)

<Immanuel> Now to just fingerprint every noble and excrucian in creation!

<Cyrus> (quick, let's magnify something!)

  • Dan runs them through law enforcement databases

<Miranda> Excellent. THat helps in establishing our innocence.

<Dan> (Not that I'm expecting anything.)

<Cyrus> (can we look and see where the spear would have been hurled from?)

<Hollyhock God> "I'll go tell everybody you're innocent," agrees Rhys.

<Hollyhock God> No results from law enforcement, I fear.

<Cyrus> (Success!)

<Hollyhock God> It looks as though the spear came out of the sky, apparently across the Chancel boundary.

<Cyrus> (Sorta)

<Immanuel> Anything we can determine about the spear?

<Miranda> (Cyrus, your sheet is not on the Wiki)

<Hollyhock God> Whatever magic got it here deformed it, as if by great heat.

<Hollyhock God> It came from the sky.

<Hollyhock God> It's long and thin and silver.

<Immanuel> I want to use a Lesser Divination to find out where it was forged.

<Immanuel> 2 DMP.

<Cyrus> (I thought I put a link up to the mindmap, which has the sheet. Though looking at it I've noticed I'm missing Skills/Passions and 4 points of Gifts I never assigned)

  • Hollyhock God considers this, both in terms of whether the murderer thought to use a countermeasure and what the answer actually is.

<Miranda> (He'll just take a wound, surely?)

<Hollyhock God> It was created in a single though along with the miracle that tossed it out of the sky.

<Hollyhock God>
*thought

<Cyrus> (Power of Spears!)

<Cyrus> (or Weapons. Or Missiles. Or Murders. Or Odins!)

<Hollyhock God> Note that there was an Imperial miracle behind the attempt to frame you, so creating spears with a thought is pretty simple.

<Miranda> There was a what?

<Immanuel> Imperial miracle.

<Immanuel> The whole castle? Murder? Spear? Imperial.

<Hollyhock God> I mentioned that some time ago.

<Cyrus> Attacks still require your own resources, they just get a discount

<Cyrus> Unless Vesperius agreed to get killed

<Hollyhock God> Basically a miracle saying "The orphans of Praxael will be punished for the murder of the Ink-Lord."

<Hollyhock God> Yeah, but you can just say a spear happens.

<Immanuel> Dear God. WE'RE the orphans being beaten!

<Hollyhock God> This hell is of your own making.

<Cyrus> :(

<Hollyhock God> The Imperial miracle would mean that normal actions, like making a spear to throw, just happen.

<Immanuel> Man. I hope my miracle didn't make him cunning enough to kill himself in an attempt to frame us.

<Hollyhock God> I'm sure he couldn't have gotten off an Imperial miracle that fast even if he did have that capability.

<Dan> Well, we could dodge it by no longer being orphans.

<Miranda> "No."

<Miranda> "If there's an imperial miracle, it narrows our suspect list considerably."

<Dan> (What do you mean no?)

<Cyrus> (is the miracle still active?)

<Miranda> (stuff does just happen, but it's still causal)

  • Miranda cracks her knuckles.

<Hollyhock God> It's probably spent after the truth was revealed.

<Dan> (Huh, thought it was harder to counter imperial miracles than that.)

<Hollyhock God> Given that the outcome it specified is now incredibly unlikely I think its power is effectively broken.

<Hollyhock God> It occurs to me that the sad aimlessness of the first half of the session qualifies this one to be Depression.

<Miranda> (Ha.)

<Cyrus> :D

<Cyrus> (I enjoyed session overall though)

<Miranda> (I'm… apparently confused about Imperial miracles, though)

<Hollyhock God> An Imperial miracle demands that something happen.

<Miranda> (Because I didn't think they could do any of that stuff, OR that they'd be broken that easily. )

<Hollyhock God> You can declare anything that isn't an attack that will bring it about and have it happen.

<Hollyhock God> Like having a spear appear if you need one.

<Hollyhock God> Attacks get 3 Strike for free, which is convenient if you need to chuck a spear through a Chancel Auctoritas.

<Miranda> Yeah, but why'd our divinations all go funky?

<Hollyhock God> Because the murderer used miracles to create illusions, using the aforementioned 3 free Strike.

<Immanuel> That was the entire point.

<Dan> Wait.

<Immanuel> It was a set-up.

<Hollyhock God> A sufficiently powerful miracle, such as Immanuel's saw through the illusion.

<Dan> Strike doesn't do anything for shields though.

<Dan> I don't think you can be "I'm putting up a defensive miracle with three strike"

<Hollyhock God> There never was any Sacrifice of Shields. It was all hax.

<Dan> I don't mean Shields.

<Dan> I just mean defensive miracles.

<Miranda> I see.

<Hollyhock God> I don't see why not!

<Hollyhock God> It was an attack on your senses!

<Dan> Oh hrm

<Dan> I guess it was functioning as Mirraculous Edge

<Dan> I didn't think strike granted that, but it apparently does.

<Hollyhock God> I maintain that it was an attack!

<Hollyhock God> In any case, the attempt to frame you seems to be effectively thwarted.

<Hollyhock God> Which is why the miracle is ended, since there's no real way it can come to fruition.

<Dan> As an attack we should have been aware of it explicitly, as players, if not characters.

<Hollyhock God> If I had to tell you things were illusions you'd just see through them!

<Hollyhock God> All the time!

<Hollyhock God> And then I'd never get to fool you.

<Hollyhock God> Not that it took you that long to figure out the evidence that you'd killed the Ink-Lord was fake.

<Hollyhock God> Only like half an hour :)

<Hollyhock God> Anyway, your non-archenemy problem is also dealt with!

<Hollyhock God> Yay murderer!

<Miranda> OK. Well. So. Like. This session was ad-hoc. I don't agree with some of the ruling bits, but Rand was really put on the spot.

<Dan> "You as a player always have the opportunity to use the action system to do something about anything that happens in play", p. 314.

<Hollyhock God> And that's exactly what happened!

<Immanuel> I got to play detective, which is good.

<Dan> We didn't though. We got successfully attacked with no opportunity to defend until after we'd been attacked.

<Hollyhock God> I just don't see a meaningful distinction between me showing you a thing that couldn't possibly be true, and me telling you "OH BTW THIS IS AN ILLUSION."

<Immanuel> Hmm. You could argue the framing is the attack.

<Dan> At which point we were successfully framed for a while.

<Hollyhock God> If it were a miracle designed to kill you or something, I might be more exacting about the rules, but as it is I'm indifferent.

<Hollyhock God> And anyway I had to think up the mechanical aspects of the whole thing on the fly.

<Dan> I mean, if someone frames me (in real life, not the noble) for pedophilia, the fact that the accusation even got leveled is damaging to me.

<Dan> Were I a character, my player should have the option to stop the accusation from ever happening (though obviously not necessarily the capacity to succeed.)

<Hollyhock God> That is a function of Domain (History).

<Hollyhock God> Or possibly of lots of Lesser Sacrifices about an hour ago.

<Hollyhock God> I mean, you could have just used miracles to stop anybody from finding out he was dead.

<Immanuel> It seems like that's the equivalent of stopping someone from speaking.

<Hollyhock God> I'm just saying that being reactive to my plot is kind of a function of the medium.

<Hollyhock God> I apologize for not having a plot on hand in the event of Dreamslessness.

<Dan> Immanuel: That's covered in the rules.

<Miranda> Dan, you're probably right. But I'm not going to get after Rand for doing something after we sat on our asses for an hour and a half dithering.

<Dan> "Suppose that it's not enough to squeeze in a viable defense against an action. You need to stop them from taking it. How does this work? You'll want to implement on of four preventative approaches"

<Miranda> Basically tonight's plot depended on Dreams.

<Dan> (And then they go on to describe methods to stop someone from ever having acted.)

<Hollyhock God> I'm not sure that those are intended to work on actions that somebody took an hour ago while you were somewhere else.

<Dan> Oh, there might have been nothing I could have done about it, by virtue of being somewhere else when it happened.

<Dan> But if, as you're saying, it's an attack on me. I should learn and be able to take any action I'm capable of.

<Miranda> I want to go to the store before it closes. Can we just sweep this under the rug?

<Dan> (Things that aren't attacks on me, I am of course fine with not learning about.)

<Hollyhock God> I declare with my authority as HG that Dan is right but that it happened anyway and that the matter is closed, and the subject is now pancakes.

<Dan> I'm cool with that.

<Immanuel> I prefer crepes.

<Hollyhock God> Or you can talk about waffles.

<Dan> As long as either syrup or whipped cream is available.

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