It's on the spread sheet, under the workshop tab. Which brings up two thing. One, we are out of holy stuff in addition to gubbins now. Unfortunate, but still not a huge worry.
Two, the misc items column has something called scales. The items go S1, S2, S3 and so on and so forth. It also has a pay out scale. I don't under any of it. The IOU for witchy and demonic stuff says it pays out at 3/week and 5/week respectively, but we get the three of each every week, so it doesn'tfeel like turn count or amount per turn. Joselyn's body pays out at 2/week, which I guess might be how many turns we need to work on her to fix her up? But then the Kolobok has 10/week, which is insane if that's turn count, so that can't be right.
@7734, can you explain what this means? I'm sure I'm misunderstanding something here, but it's not clear to me at all what this all means.
[X] [WORK] No, you want to work on your building instead
[X] [ROOMS] Pack 'em in the hallways if you have to; turn nobody away. Tensions will spike, but you can handle it.
Two, the misc items column has something called scales. The items go S1, S2, S3 and so on and so forth. It also has a pay out scale. I don't under any of it. The IOU for witchy and demonic stuff says it pays out at 3/week and 5/week respectively, but we get the three of each every week, so it doesn'tfeel like turn count or amount per turn. Joselyn's body pays out at 2/week, which I guess might be how many turns we need to work on her to fix her up? But then the Kolobok has 10/week, which is insane if that's turn count, so that can't be right.
That's because the misc item column and Scales aren't directly connected, they're just almost next each other in the sheet (it is hard to notice, but there is a column between them). The only items that have scales on them are the IOUs, the S3 in brackets, meaning we get 3 of each per week until they're all payed.
That's because the misc item column and Scales aren't directly connected, they're just almost next each other in the sheet (it is hard to notice, but there is a column between them). The only items that have scales on them are the IOUs, the S3 in brackets, meaning we get 3 of each per week until they're all payed.
[X] [WORK] No, you want to research an item instead.
-[X] Kolobok
[X] [ROOMS] Get new girls off the street for the duration of the emergency, and double them up due to housing limitations.
As I understand it we are giving these newbies free accommodation. Some of them might provide labor but I doubt it since that would have probably been mentioned. So essentially we are taking in a bunch of freeloaders. Thus it is understandable that the existing girls, who are paying for their rooms, would be quite miffed at being forced to share. Establishing separate double bunk rooms for freebies helps reassure them they are getting fair value for their money.
[X] [WORK] No, you want to work on your building instead
[X] [ROOMS] Get new girls off the street for the duration of the emergency, and double them up due to housing limitations.
So work you did, heading over to room 4 to get to work. Chalkboard paint quickly covered one wall, and you knew enough carpentry to let you bang together a few tables and cabinets to store files in. Chris' first job working for you turned into an Office Max run, and as you got a series of chairs out of storage for anyone else operating the facility and a few abacuses knocked together to let the math flow. Calypso managed to kick in a mimeograph machine, which quickly had stencils made for forms, and things seemed to be pretty much online when you finished hanging a corkboard with a map of the city.
Then Jocelyn started maniaclly cackling and you had to remove her bodily from the room as she screamed about her precious data. Gentle stroking of her felt coat alternating with bops on the head when she complained about having so much to do finally got her to calm down, and she could go to work without disturbing the other residents. You expected great things.
[X] [WORK] No, you want to work on your building instead
[X] [ROOMS] Pack 'em in the hallways if you have to; turn nobody away. Tensions will spike, but you can handle it.
Due to my day job (produce handler at a grocery) and the current Pressing Circumstances, I've been getting piles of hours, including some overtime. This has been affecting my update schedule, and equally importantly my commissions schedule. My current goal is one Quest update per week, and one Commission per week, with the Commissions being cut if I get called in on one of the days off I normally write on. This week looks good for an update, but I can't guarantee anything as certain new disease vectors open up in my area.
Adhoc vote count started by 7734 on May 3, 2020 at 3:47 PM, finished with 97 posts and 38 votes.
[X] [WORK] No, you want to work on your building instead
[X] [ROOMS] Everyone gets a roommate for the duration; this disaster will prompt mass magical girl generations. May prompt some issues with senior magical girls.
Sitting in your armchair in the lobby, you poured over the reams of paper and composition notebooks that were your ledgers. Magical crafting material was holding consistent, fungible cash was a tad low, exotic currencies were skyrocketing as more and more of Caim's coins showed up, and you were starting to run low on burnables for your oven at the moment. The new girls from last week were sorta-kinda settling in, even if they did spend too much time in the rec room and tended to move en bloc out of constant nerves. Eh, that could be someone else's job to handle, though: you had just finished up building a bunkroom and were seriously considering how to actually get stuff up to the second and higher floors.
Part of the problem was that you didn't have an elevator. There was an elevator shaft, sure, but the actual systems were twenty years past their last cert date and you were not fucking around with cables rated for several tons of strain. Building a cable lift or something for the outside of the building might be practical, or developing a magical lift system, but something in your gut told you that you either needed a hell of a lot more ingredients or expertise before trying something that complex.
Focusing back in on your ledgers, you blinked when you felt something familiar and heavy climb on top of your head.
"Hello, Jocelyn." You said idly.
"Medicine Boy." She said calmly, perched up there with two legs messing around your hair as normal. "Anything coming up in your books?"
"Yeah." You grumbled. "We're scheduled to take it up the ass next week."
"Food costs?"
"Food costs." You agreed. "Chris has been a massive help getting the kitchen operation, and now that we don't have a literal blind man in there we can run it at about triple capacity as previous, but we've had eleven new girls in and out of here. That's double our standard load and then some."
"We need a way to liquidate the silver." Jocelyn muttered. "Preferably after treating it to prevent any lingering ill effects from moving around."
"Pretty much. At the rate things are going, we're going to have to start dumpster diving." You groused. "I hate dumpster diving."
"Well, in better news, I think I've isolated the centers of demonic activity and have a short primer on demonic activity." Jocelyn chuckled. "Come into my web and I'll show you."
"You're going to creep out the new girls you know."
"Counterpoint, I'm a spider now. I can call it what I want."
Walking over to the Mission Control Center, you whistled at the impressive display of documents covering nearly every flat surface, strings hanging from the walls, ceiling, and tied to things on the floor.
"Sorry about the clutter. I tend to think kinematically." Jocelyn apoligised slightly. "Also, move your right foot two centimeters left or you'll step on my conclusions for last Tuesday."
"Right, right." You said, finding a clear spot to plant yourself in. "Anyway, map wizard, what do you have for us?"
"You entirely lack the gravitas to use the royal We, you know." Jocelyn griped. "As for the map, well, this is partially on Homer too for figuring out the demonology behind it."
"I'll buy him muffins."
Jocelyn rolled two of her eight spidery eyes. "Anyway, we determined that two things could have possibly happened here. Option one, this is a summoning operation that went horribly wrong. Happens more often than you'd think with cultists, and this area is riddled with 'em apparently. If that's what happened, our game plan is pretty simple."
"Define 'simple' for me please." You said, itching for a smoke. You didn't know why you were itching for a smoke since you didn't do it at all, but something in the back of your head was demanding you dictate the atmosphere here.
"We need to find the arcane anchor points that the Presidential Demon is using to anchor himself more firmly in the world are, and destroy 'em. This cuts off his flow of reinforcements, stops him from building a way to summon in anything bigger than the imps, hastati, and velites that he's currently pulling in. Then we find el presidente himself, break his personal anchor, and shoot him in the face until he goes home."
"Hold up a minute." You said, waving hands like a used car salesman. "Hastai? Velites? I speak magic, not Latin!"
"Old types of Roman legionaries." Calypso replied. "Velites were skirmishers and local auxileries; hastate were the first ranks of the legion and were usually the youngest. For this, the velites are what appear to be people who have sold their souls out and are just going after our girls under compulsion, aside from the ones with guns, not terribly threatening. Hastati are the actual demons and generally pretty freaking annoying. They travel in packs of eight with one leader, and are generally equipped with mundane weapons like swords and magical shields. Most of the girls have a lot of trouble with them: they charge in with shields and numbers to eat the attacks, then start stabbing."
"And you have written summaries of all this for the girls?"
"I have a freaking primer document in here. Somewhere." Jocelyn said, waving a leg around amicably. "I'll probably just move the mimeograph to the lounge and start having one of the off-duty girls bang out copies."
You nodded. "And option two? You did mention a second one."
"Option two, and this is the worse one, is that we're dealing with the Hellmouth in Cleavland opening up extra wide and letting this guy slip through."
"If you're telling me we have to go to Cleveland, I'm reserving the right to call up Ouroboros, tell her it's not our problem, and go bunker through this."
"Nah, it's not that hard. We just have to find where he is and skip to the 'shoot him in the face' step with the caveat we're going to be blasting through whatever triarii- that is, very seasoned and well-equipped demons- forming his honor guard."
You pursed your lips and started thinking. "Do you have any indication which is the situation?"
Jocelyn sighed, returning to your head. "To be honest? No. My mapping isn't conclusive enough yet. If it's the first, I could maybe get you neighborhoods, but no real precision on their areas of operations. If it's the second, then I can't figure out how the Presidential Demon's shell game is running right now and what his goals are. In either case, we need to wait and watch."
"I hate that, you know." You mentioned.
"So do I. So do I."
-/-/-/-/
Finishing up the bunkroom, you looked at the three girls who were staring in. Shrugging, you looked at the bunkroom too. Two bunks- about what you had scrap wood for- a mess of cheap Goodwill blankets, and a pile of milk crates on their side. The bathroom had been done first, thank heavens, and now you could shrug in done-ness at the room.
"Well, it's yours now." You pronounced. "Remember, no magical discharges in the building, showers on Tuesday and Thursday are required, laundry on Wednesday, and remember to pay for meals."
The girls didn't say anything, just stumbling into the room and falling all over themselves to get to sleep. Leaving, you saw Rose in the hall, glaring at you.
"Yes?"
Rose stared at you harder, shaking her head towards the lobby. It didn't take much to figure out there were still seven magical girls there, taking fitful naps on the furnature in between cups of weakass Folgers you kept on the counter.
"It's getting bad, Medicine Boy." Rose said, looking out the doors of the lobby into the inky blackness. "They're talking about sneaking upstairs and crashing in the cleaned-out rooms there, using them as squats."
"I'm cramming them in as hard as I can without creating a massive health and safety hazard." You replied. "As it is, I'm going to have to figure out how to install brown-water plumbing at some point, and I'm going to need a new waste disposal point soon."
"I could help with the second point, but you'd owe me." Rose said, twirling her wand in her fingers.
"I'll think about it." You grumped. "As it stands, I need to figure out how they're supposed to all, you know, not die."
"Oh, I don't know, give them to us?" Rose suggested caustically. "It's not like we're going to feed them to the demons or anything. Besides, we're mowing through these knockoffs like it's a shooting gallery."
You squinted at her. "Really?"
"Oh no, magical shields!" Rose fake-screamed as you walked to the mess. "Whatever shall I do? Maybe I'll trick them into running into a wall, or countercharge their puny shields? Maybe I'll trip them up in vines or literally stop time? Maybe, just maybe, I'll shoot them... twice. That might work!"
As you reached the mess, Trompdoy glared at Rose gently nursing a cup of coffee and some aspirin. "I could hear you from out there, you know. That said, yeah. Assholes with swords, not the largest threat in the world. Assholes with guns and cars, now? Yeah."
"What, you get hit?" Rose joked.
"Yeah, by a Pinto with a grudge." Trompdoy muttered. "I was going to the 7-11 on Allen and BAM! Right out of the parking lot, next thing I know he's pulling an iron and I'm throwing a fucking magic missile and that sets off his fuel tank."
"I'll warn the younger ones." You said seriously.
"Good." Trompdoy muttered. "Fucking tragedy, those kids. Most of 'em are only twelve."
Your blood ran cold. Twelve? "Then how old are you?"
"Took this on... eight months ago?" Trompdoy asked herself, sighing. "I was fifteen. Worst mistake I ever made. Word of advice, Medicine Boy?"
"Yeah?"
"There is no power of friendship." Trompdoy spat. "The only thing there is are friends with power- and if the little bastards tell you otherwise, kill them. Who knows? Someone like you might be able to make it stick."
/-/-/-/-
VOTES
Build a Tool
[] [WORK] Trinket
-[] Write in Level, between 1 and 3.
[] [WORK] Wand
-[] Write in Level, between 1 and 2.
[] [WORK] Bomb
-[] Write in Level, between 1 and 1.
[] [WORK] Costume
-[] Write in Level, between 1 and 1.
[] [WORK] No, you want to work on your building instead
[] [WORK] No, you want to improve your workshop instead.
[] [WORK] No, you want to research an item instead.
-[] Write in Item in inventory to Research
Magical Girl Direction
[] [GIRLS]: Partner the junior girls up with the senior magical girls; it'll probably increase their odds of survival.
[] [GIRLS]: Start fishing for information- you want to get this threat over and done with as soon as possible, and that means knowing thy enemy.
[] [GIRLS]: Bunker down for a week, and try to use the time to drill the newbies into some basic skills like 'how to stop charging foe' and 'signs of demonic possession' and 'how to pay rent when all you have is a fistful of silver'
AN: Welcome to crisis time. Medicine Boy, being of limited time, can't really control his Magical Girls with any real degree of finesse, but setting a direction for them to operate in is within his purview. Mechanically, there will be Information rolls, and 3x normal spawn rate of Magical Girls for the duration as well as a +50% range of returning magical girls.
