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[lawastooshort]

"Euh. Whoops. Don't like druggies, eh. Look Larry, I mostly agree that if we can't enslave them we should totally, as you say, bust them out, but uh. Shit. Listen to me. Enslave them. Oh well - raining dinosaurs, I guess. Anyway. Look, we don't know how many are in there, and I don't know if we even know any spells that can bust people out. I certainly can't bust anyone out magically without turning part of the surrounding area into goddamn potato. Hmm. I need a sit down and a... a think."

[Toaster]

"Can't you just turn them all into potatoes?  I can shoot those fans out, but hobos probably don't care about other stinky things."

[lawastooshort]

"Well, I think I can... But did you see how the whole wall started turning into potatoes back where we met up? We want this building intact, I'd guess. My other idea was to get a whole bunch of beans, practice for, say, half an hour at displacing them, and then displace the crap out of a bunch of beans into people's eyes. Or brains, if they get all uppity about the blindness thing."

Halesey pauses.

"Or we could set a bunch of racist beavers on them."

[Toaster]

Larry cocks his head.  "What, beavers that don't like different-color beavers?  I dunno, aren't beavers nasty things or something?  Give it a shot, I say."

[lawastooshort]

"Look. This is weird. I'm all for going and busting them out so we can take what's ours and all that. But we don't know anything about what's going on, do we. I reckon we should take a minute to think about this - find somewhere where we can watch'em from, stake it out for an hour or two, and practice displacing beans into people's eyes and that kind of thing. Hey Larry, you know, you spend another five minutes with your face in that book imagine the other shit you might discover. You might be able to summon dinosaurs that you can actually control, you know what I mean? It would be so fecking dumb to come this close to ultimate power and then lose it because there were a hundred hobos in some crappy old factory. Seriously dude. And you know, Kat, if we display great enough power, we can do this without any actual violence."

Vote for finding an empty building nearby where we can learn another spell or two each, practice what we got, and observe the factory long enough to make sure there isn't already a sect of mages inside. If this happens then read my book until I get two more spell choices.

Spoiler: Sheet (click to show/hide)

Current Name: Halesey
Inventory: Magic Binder, mobile phone, expensive watch, clothes (jeans, grey hoodie, white tshirt, white trainers), keys, cards and cash in his back pocket. Loose change. Half pack of chewing gum.
Stats:

• Body: 1
• Finesse: 2
• Mind: 3
• Affinity: 0

Spell List:

• Displace Beans
• Potato Vortex

[Toaster]

Larry grinned.  The thought of more power did appeal.  "Well, I suppose I could grab another spell or two, if the others are okay with waiting."

Appeal to majority.  Also rub face in book more assuming we have the time and peace and quiet.

Spoiler: Sheet (click to show/hide)

Current Name:  Larry Malone
Inventory: Magic Binder
Stats:

• Body: 0
• Finesse: 1
• Mind: 2
• Affinity: 3

Spell List:

• Storm of Filthy Fans
• Calm Videotape Demon Knight

[Errol]

"Whatever keeps you from starting violence now. But, yes, I suppose a racist beaver infestation could be a relatively... discrete way to evacuate the building. Move them out with the plagues... Perhaps there's a rear entrance somewhere?"

Also vote for Plan Halesey, i. e: Prepare some more. Enact the Ink Experiment if we have the time and space: Attempt to retrieve a spell from the binder which has the word 'Ink' (or derivations of it) in its name.

Spoiler: Elizabeth's Character Sheet (click to show/hide)

Current Name: Elizabeth Blanc
Inventory: Magic Binder, clothing (trenchcoat, long-sleeved blouse, cotton pants, shoes), fancy headphones + music player, portemonnaie with keys, $50 and cards, scrapbook, black ink pen, a pulp fantasy novel, cell phone.
Stats:

• Body: 0
• Finesse: 0
• Mind: 3
• Affinity: 3

Spell List:

• Bountiful Portal of Fragrant Licorice
• Conjure Fragrant Lottery Tickets
• Bolt of Alcoholic Beans
• Vortex of Racist Beavers

The contents of Elizabeth Blanc's scrapbook...

Observation: The fat man needs competent wizards for some purpose.
Hypothesis: The fat man is faking incompetence through appearing like an amicable nerd.
Conjecture: The book may be the brains behind the fat man, or both work together united in ambition.
Priority: Find out the goal of the fat man.
Experiment: Ask an ally for permission to peruse his/her binder. Ask them whether the entity in their book is similar in 'personality' to mine. Compare individual pages with the ones in my book. Test whether I can still commute with the entity linked to me through their book.
Experiment: Copy the binder's pages, put them into a new binder. Test whether a single page, or the new binder still have spellbook properties.
Experiment: Attempt to retrieve a specific spell from the binder, or at least one involving one key word, like 'Ink'.

[Dwarmin]

Kat rubbed her brows. She seriously reconsidered joining this club. Why was she trucking with these fools? The World of magic was opening up, and these people were going to get themselves killed before they could learn anything.

They still had no idea about the situation. If they were really bums, or maybe street magicians who only looked like bums to fool stupid people-maybe they used 'magic'? Huh?

Either way, they could be dangerous. A fireball to the face, or a pipe to the head amounted to the same thing. And now, of course, they were warned and likely hostile...and she still had no way to defend herself, aside from destroying the block around her in a rain of theropods.

Action: Look through the book some more while we have time, sigh

[lawastooshort]

"Whatever keeps you from starting violence now. But, yes, I suppose a racist beaver infestation could be a relatively... discrete way to evacuate the building. Move them out with the plagues... Perhaps there's a rear entrance somewhere?"

"I don't want to start violence - now or at all, unless someone starts it at me... I just got carried away with the whole infinite potato power thing, and I think we need to think about this."

[Harry Baldman]

After a brief yet doubtlessly taxing planning session the gang decide to go and look for an empty building in the vicinity - unfortunately, all the ones that look empty are either locked rather tightly or filled with the notoriously territorial homeless as well, who seem rather intent on swinging blunt objects their way and threaten with something unintelligible should they approach. After casing the neighborhood, the crew find that it is shockingly inhabited, even if it is mostly by crazy vagrants. In a way, this is premium housing for them, one might guess.

All together, the habitation levels of the area and the rather deserted nature of the streets lead the expedition to do what they've been remarkably successful at so far - giving off the impression that they are either extremely crazy or extremely stoned. Sneaking off into slightly darker corners of the area, mostly behind or inside of dumpsters, they go on magical journeys of personal discovery.

Halesey, who had hoped for a safer place to do magic in, elects to keep watch. As in, not look at his companions and how far they've fallen. Larry, Kat and Elizabeth, though, don't have such high standards.

[Larry's mind roll: 3]

Larry, upon burying his face in the book, finds himself host to the usual bunch of strange and unusual mental impressions, followed by a booming something giving him bits of power. All in all, little is unusual in his fairly diseased mind.

Spoiler: Larry's Spell Not-Exactly-Choice (click to show/hide)

1. Bless Sausage Angel Golem

THIS IS YOUR NEW SPELL, MORTAL! ARE YOU NOT ENRICHED?

[Elizabeth's mind roll: 1-->1+1]

Elizabeth, meanwhile, looks into the book, concentrating on the word "Ink", wishing power of some kind relating to that sort of thing. She feels the book react rather negatively to such a suggestion, as though it has been gravely offended in some manner.

~look, that is not how it works, dear. you don't tell me what to do. you ask me kindly and i give you things i feel like giving you. speaking of, have some spells. have them all. they're yours.~

There's not even any mind vortex or crap like that, it's like somebody just plopped some spells into Elizabeth's brain, refusing to put any effort into the action on sheer principle.

Spoiler: Elizabeth's New Spells - Now With Severely Less Choice Involved! (click to show/hide)

1. Swankify Hat
2. Blessing of Sour Cream
3. Evoke Deadly Dihydroxyacetone Troll
4. Bountiful Portal of Frozen Napkins.

now, you have three spells already. throw one of those out. these are your new spells. i insist.

[Kat's mind roll: 1-->6]

Kat, supposing she has time, goes on and tries to get more magic as well. The book, however, doesn't seem terribly inclined to help her. It seems to look back at her with its sad, probably extradimensional and totally invisible eyes, as if judging her and finding her wanting. It kind of reminds her of a disapproving parent in a way.

~You know, baby, I'd love to help you, I really would, but I can't help but feel that I'm being exploited here, y'know? Where's the love? Where'd the passion go? Is that all y'can manage, one o' yer bored sighs?~

Larry, meanwhile, emits a tiny giggle at what may be a small revelation from his book just a few steps away.

~See, he gets it, baby. He knows how to treat his one an' only. I'm only askin' for some input here, y'know?~

[Toaster]

((Har har har))

Larry smiled, and spoke into the book.  "Oh yes, I feel the enrichment.  Oh baby."

Now this seemed an oddball- did it summon a blessed golem or bless and existing one?  Maybe he could ask and find out.

"Hey magic talking book of unbelievable power, how do I use those last two spells you gave me?  If you can't tell me, you can always just lay more power on me.  You're cool like that."

Attempt to ask book how those spells work.  If no answer or an answer of no, just try to get more power/spells.

Spoiler: Sheet (click to show/hide)

Current Name:  Larry Malone
Inventory: Magic Binder
Stats:

• Body: 0
• Finesse: 1
• Mind: 2
• Affinity: 3

Spell List:

• Storm of Filthy Fans
• Calm Videotape Demon Knight
• Bless Sausage Angel Golem

[Dwarmin]

((Ugh, I hate failing rolls I can just repeat immediately, and when I have nothing to do but do the same action again.
Or maybe I autofailed. This game is screwy with the rules. I don't know if I rolled a 1 or 6. I don't understand anything. :I ))

~Well, don't expect me to get take off my clothes and dance, you stupid book.~ She thought. ~You're clearly some malicious force from beyond the stars that enjoys sowing chaos. So, it's not like you'll be able to resist giving me some stupidly explosive food based magic to entertain you, sooner or later.~

Action: SAY

[Harry Baldman]

((Ugh, I hate failing rolls I can just repeat immediately, and when I have nothing to do but do the same action again.
Or maybe I autofailed. This game is screwy with the rules. I don't know if I rolled a 1 or 6. I don't understand anything. :I ))

Actually, there are no rolls you can just repeat immediately. Here's How It Works, my rather late attempt at informing my players of how certain things that I normally do not show or repeat actually work.

Spoiler: How It Works: Retrying Things (click to show/hide)

Whenever you fail an action and wish to retry, there are 2 (two) things that you can do.

Option 1: You take a slightly different approach (within some realm of sensibility, mind you), allowing you to do the same thing slightly differently, at no bonus, penalty or anything of the sort. This is how one usually reacts to failure.
Option 2: You haven't got any clue on what to do or don't feel like coming up with anything more interesting, so you just go for a do-over. It is at this point that you get a Mind roll to determine whether you have achieved enlightenment of some kind or whether you really are intellectually bankrupt at the moment. These are the meanings of said roll.
Less than 1: -2 to retry
1: -1 to retry.
2 or 3: You can't retry for several hours.
4 or 5: +1 to retry.
6: +2 to retry.
More than 6: +3 to retry

Tip: when you take a turn to prepare to do something, a Mind roll obeying similar rules applies.

Spoiler: How It Works: Exploding Dice (click to show/hide)

When you roll a 6 or 1, the die explodes or, if you prefer, is exploded. It means that I roll another d6 to find out what exactly happened there, with 1 being rather unfortunate consequences (to both success and failure) to say the least and a 6 being a not insignificant amount of divine favor (also in regards to success and failure), and everything else in between being, well, everything else in between.

I also wrote this in the first post, but hey, a reminder never hurts, and research works in a manner differently from most rolls, so your confusion is understandable. Rest assured that you only autofail when you roll a 2 or 3 in a Mind roll.

Spoiler: How It Works: My Rules (click to show/hide)

My rules are quite oblique, mostly known only to me and I hide rolls liberally (well, mostly just mental rolls on if you see a particular thing or find this and that). This is the way I do things, and I quite enjoy the results. If you don't, feel free to inform me.

In addition, internal dialogue.

~Well, don't expect me to get take off my clothes and dance, you stupid book.~ She thought. ~You're clearly some malicious force from beyond the stars that enjoys sowing chaos. So, it's not like you'll be able to resist giving me some stupidly explosive food based magic to entertain you, sooner or later.~

~Oh, hey, that's totally uncalled for. Why would I ever want ya to take yer clothes off? You'd be, like, naked. In the rain. If anything, I want ya to get some kind of... cool robe or something, baby. Long, flowing garments are great for wizards, y'know.~

[Toaster]

((He uses exploding dice with 1 and 6, so 1->X uses X to see how badly you failed, while 6->X uses X to see how much the overshoot is in your favor. 1->6 is (I think) pretty much equal to a 2, while a 1->1 is world-class failure.  6->1 is "you did what you want but now everyone hates you" and 6->6 is "you did what you want and way more, probably way too much more, but still way more."  Or something like that.))

((Or ninja by mod.))

[Dwarmin]

~Oh, hey, that's totally uncalled for. Why would I ever want ya to take yer clothes off? You'd be, like, naked. In the rain. If anything, I want ya to get some kind of... cool robe or something, baby. Long, flowing garments are great for wizards, y'know.~

~Oh, I admit, that would be very...wizard.~ She thought. ~So-how about you teach me, very simply, how to enchant an item of clothing? In return, I promise you one-just one-very wizardly cackle. I'm fickle and hard and please, like you, so let's move forward on that fact, right?~