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[Maximum Spin]

E

[The_Two_Eternities]

E

[Rockeater]

E

[Fniff]

C. All those voice classes can't have been for nothing!

[mightymushroom]

E

[Harry Baldman]

4

Holding the mirror in one hand, you take a deep breath as your dad's face resolves itself on the surface, his orange dinnerplate eyes widening as he barely makes out your shape in the dark of the apartment-plane.

"Hello there!" he says, seemingly surprised as he tries to make out what's behind you.

"Hey."

"Where are you right now? Looks quite cozy!"

"Beth's place."

"Oh! Grenfell's girl, right?"

It goes on for a bit like this, friendly and familiar as you catch your dad up on the happenings of the last couple of days. He worries about your missing hand (it's okay, that's how they do things up here, you'll get it back), you ask him about how the mortals are coming along (quite good, this breed is unusually hardy and takes well to the depths), he mentions how he went up out of the water the other day (there's less water now as it's begun boiling away), and you ask after your siblings (gone, gone, you're the last one who left, left him alone you piece of garbage), and he says amicably that he talked to Grenfell the other day (talking is a strong word, he probably talked and Grenfell listened, they're the only two still left in the abyss, still living the outer universal life). He's putting on a brave face and it hurts the both of you, maybe you more than him, and at some point you're finally done and you collapse into the couch exhausted, and wake up no better.

* * *

At gray and silent the Theater of Judgment has packed a modest crowd for the show of the day, a dance battle for the fate of a humble miscreant under the watchful eyes of an owlish court of seven seraph sisters, huddled together on the judges' stands as they hum and haw over the massive pain in the ass this day is shaping up to be.

The defendant is what the judges describe with complete impartiality as a "trickster ooze" with a previous record of several misdemeanors, and this time it's no different - the Ooze is charged with aggravated nudity and bodily pollution of the environment, charges which the Ooze vehemently denies even understanding the meaning of in the context of a harmless dip in a public fountain. The prosecution's dance is to be performed by a small troupe of lesser goblinoid gods of glorious punishment known as the Nine Tails. The defense is to be represented by the honorable public defender Dr. Fune, your skeleton friend from yesterday, accompanied by two backup dancers: you and a slight young shining thing by the name of Wran.

Dr. Fune for his part appears to have gone completely missing. The Theater has checked his home, the local drinking establishments and the alleys and refuse piles behind both to no avail. After some deliberation, the judges have decided that in the absence of a qualified public defense dancer on the premises, the task must unfortunately be delegated to a slightly more public set of individuals, which is to say you and Wran.

All of this has happened in the past ten minutes. The Nine Tails look to each other after sizing you up, grinning. You didn't ask for this.

The Ooze looks excited to be watching the dance battle. The crowd goes quiet. The Nine Tails step forward in unison. Lacking any obvious alternatives, you step forward yourself, with Wran following close behind.

A) Watch what Wran does, you figure they know more about this than you do.
B) Take the lead and do your level best! (stake Sanity)
C) Add a little godly pizzazz to the performance! (use 1 Power)
D) Show 'em how it's meant to be done! (stake Sanity and use 1 Power)

Queh, Goddess of the Dark

Power: 3
Goodwill: 6
Sanity: 2
Time: 3

Missing right hand.

Spoiler: God Tips (click to show/hide)

When you stake Sanity on an action, you throw yourself into a task so completely that you receive a +1 to the roll on a 4-6, but also run the risk of taking a -1 on a 1-3 and, should you fail, take a Sanity hit in addition to what might be normally appropriate for the situation. However, the rewards for success on an action where Sanity is staked may also be substantially higher.

If your Sanity runs out, you don't die or anything, but rest assured that bad things will happen.

Power by comparison is much more straightforward. Using Power on an action gives a +1 per point used, with the downside of spending that Power you spent so much time earning.

[Maximum Spin]

B

[randomgenericusername]

D

[crazyabe]

D.

[Doomblade187]

D

[mightymushroom]

B

We're trying to earn power, not spend it.

[The_Two_Eternities]

B

[Iris]

ptw

[Harry Baldman]

B, 3

The Nine Tails are nothing if not suckers for tradition, so what they've whipped up is an inescapably classic war dance for law and order that encompasses the many forms of severe judgment reserved for all manner of debased lawbreakers within the multifaceted justice system of the many goblin pantheons. They frolic and leap in the aggressive dance of Heads-Must-Roll and Someone-Must-Pay - way back where they're from you'd meet this kind of thing with only the finest in punitive violence! It's fairly grim stuff, but they can do the Guillotine like nobody else in the business, you can confidently say from your long experience of watching courtroom dance battle highlights back home.

What you decide to go with is a questioning of the fundamental nature of the charges - aggravated nudity, for example! Everyone knows that tasteful nudity is well provided for in most kinds of divine statutes, as you demonstrate through an improvised dance of seven veils that manages to get the court's attention for the minor novelty of seeing lengths like this gone to over a misdemeanor. Left standing slightly over half-naked by the end of your impassioned defense, you receive your clothing back from Wran, your faithful and wildly embarrassed assistant in this endeavor, and get some weird looks from the Nine Tails while all of you await the court's ultimate decision.

Eventually the seraphs, having assigned discrete point values to relevance, novelty, theory and execution, decide that while your point about public nudity being highly context-dependent and also unfairly arbitrated in the past is entirely valid, it wouldn't really do to set a precedent of letting oozes slide around naked into public fountains lest the council cause a fuss. As such, the customary penalty for such disruptive behavior will be levied upon the troublesome ooze in full without taking into account previous offenses (of which there are quite a few, albeit of a generally similar nature). This is to be a fairly humble fine, perhaps a week's service to the Theater, cleaning up the remains after the more colorful cases. Oozes should be quite good at that, yes?

The ooze wiggles - one week of unpaid labor! Just what it needed in life! Hooray! It slides off, escorted by a cadre of winged bailiffs. The afternoon crowd shuffles off shortly afterward, leaving just you seated in the arena, the Nine Tails getting out of their elaborate costumes, Wran standing impassively and looking around, all of you waiting to be paid.

Suddenly your mirror hums - it's Acter. You open the connection, and get a small glimpse of his disgustingly clean home.

"Um, hi!" he says. "I was just calling to say I hadn't forgotten about paying you today, it's just that, well, my bonus hasn't quite come in yet so there may be a bit of a delay there. That's all right, isn't it?"

A) "Good news! You're fired!"
B) "Hang in there, bud, I'm sure it'll come through any day now."
C) "So disintegrate your blender or whatever, don't call me unless you can pay up!"
D) "Hahaha!" *hang up*

Queh, Goddess of the Dark

Power: 3
Goodwill: 6
Sanity: 1
Time: 3

Missing right hand.

[Maximum Spin]

B