Lol, people advocating avoiding talking to Kyubey like that's going to be fucking possible at all. Kinematics has the right idea.

[x] Bandwagon.
We don't exactly have a bandwagon right now. Krecart's vote is winning, barely.
Vote tally:
##### 3.19
[x] Telepathy Mami and Homura. Warn them, you're going to do something with your grief really quick. If their witch senses go off. That's just you.
[x] Find a remote location. Restore Aurora to an 'unused' state. Call for Coobs.
[x] Will all grief you're disposing into two or so grief seed sized orbs. Find out if coobs can accept grief in this state.
-[x] Grief disposal. All but 800 or so marbles in your sling bag. Keep all your seeds.
-[x] Just treat it like a business transaction. You're not interested in answering any of the furballs questions.
[x] Head back and wait for everyone.
-[x] Light conversation.
--[x] Ask Mami about the archery club she used to attend.
-[x] Ask Mami if it's alright to invite everyone to her apartment. Nagisa too.
--[x] Call Momoe Shin if Mami gives the OK. Ask how Nagisa is doing. Ask to invite her over.
No. of votes: 3
Muramasa, Cannongerbil, moonstne

[x] Telepathy Mami and Homura. Warn them, you're going to do something with your grief really quick. If their witch senses go off. That's just you.
[x] Find a remote location. Call for Coobs.
[x] Will all grief you're disposing into two or so grief seed sized orbs. Find out if coobs can accept grief in this state.
-[x] Grief disposal. All but 800 or so marbles in your sling bag. Keep all your seeds.
-[x] Just treat it like a business transaction. You're not interested in answering any of the furball's questions.
[x] Head back and wait for everyone.
-[x] Light conversation.
--[x] Ask Mami about the archery club she used to attend.
-[x] Ask Mami if it's alright to invite everyone to her apartment. Nagisa too.
--[x] Call Momoe Shin if Mami gives the OK. Ask how Nagisa is doing. Ask to invite her over.
No. of votes: 1
Ugolino

[x] Telepathy Mami and Homura. Warn them you're going to do something with your grief really quick. If their witch senses go off, that's just you.
[x] Find an unobserved location. Refill Aurora to an 'unused' state, and store a spare 800 marbles in the sling bag. Call for Kyuubey.
[x] Ask him to verify whether he can process a supercompressed version of the grief you're holding, using a small sample.
-[x] If so, compress the remainder and deposit in Kyuubey. Possibly ask a couple of the questions below, based on Kyuubey's behavior.
-[x] If not, deposit as much as is feasible in the time you have remaining before school lets out.
[x] If we have to take the time to do the slow deposit, ask some questions while waiting. Be evasive in answering questions it poses back.
-[x] How many marbles does it take to equate to the energy you'd gain from one grief seed? (Only a numeric answer is valid.)
-[x] How do you get the energy from a grief seed? Do you extract the grief, and is the extraction destructive? Is that why you need to keep collecting more? (Only the question of whether the process is destructive is of any interest.)
-[x] How many grief seeds do you collect per day, worldwide? (Only a numeric answer is valid.)
[x] Head back and wait for everyone.
-[x] Light conversation.
--[x] Ask Mami about the archery club she used to attend.
-[x] Ask Mami if it's alright to invite everyone to her apartment. Nagisa too.
--[x] Call Momoe Shin if Mami gives the OK. Ask how Nagisa is doing. Ask to invite her over.
No. of votes: 3
Kinematics, cmwatford, linkhyrule5

[X] Telepathy Mami and Homura. Warn them you're going to do something with your grief really quick. If their witch senses go off, that's just you.
[x] Find an unobserved location. Store a spare 800 marbles in the sling bag. Call for Kyuubey.
[x] Ask him to verify whether he can process a supercompressed version of the grief you're holding, using a small sample.
-[x] If so, compress the remainder and deposit in Kyuubey.
-[x] If not, deposit as much as is feasible in the time you have remaining before school lets out.
[x] Don't interact more than necessary.
[x] Make sure it leaves, head back and wait for everyone.
-[x] Light conversation.
--[x] Ask Mami about the archery club she used to attend.
-[x] Ask Mami if it's alright to invite everyone to her apartment. Nagisa too.
--[x] Call Momoe Shin if Mami gives the OK. Ask how Nagisa is doing. Ask to invite her over.
No. of votes: 4
Krecart, aeqnai, Gadjo, landcollector

[x] Bandwagon.
No. of votes: 1
AuraTwilight
 
Huh, I really can't see the difference between the votes other than the presence or absence of the suicidal [q]Trust the bunnycat between the votes and something about Aurora. Changing to the Kre vote since...they're pretty much the same thing? :confused:
 
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Even if Kyubey can't manipulate us with the answers to those questions, we would basically give him a strong, STRONG hint about what we are doing and how far along we are. Not good.

Yea, he probably already has a decent idea about what we are doing now, but let's not give him pretty much free evidence on a silver platter.

So, let's not grill QB for questions, please?
 
Somebody pointed out Shin's likely at work right now. Might want to change. Call their home and talk directly with Nagisa if she's there?
 
The Grief flows like wax under a flame, runnels sliding around your left hand to form a smooth, golden gauntlet reaching past your wrist, flaring out mid-arm. Sockets sit on the back of the gauntlet, one over every first knuckle. A single blue crystal gleams at the base of your index finger. It also feels... odd, as if crackling fire were sheathed in wire and wrapped around your hand.
Interesting, I'm half-tempted to say it is a reference to Gilgamesh, but no, this time it reminds me of another magic-amplifying item entirely.

Also, now I have a desire to socket some grief seeds/soul gems in that gauntlet. Everyone knows that leaving your 5-socketed gauntlet empty is a waste!
You take the gauntlet off, the faux-metal shifting easily to let your hand out, and you pass it over. Oriko nearly drops it when her hand makes contact with it, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise.
Metal weights? Or effect?
"This works better, but it isn't... perfect? The effects still don't persist fully." She sets the glove down on the table.

"That's... interesting,"
Very much so. I'm guessing that it uses grief to support our magic - and when we leave the range, our magic effects persist but grief does not. This implies annoying things about magic items we create in general.
"Yeah, but I read lots of magical girl manga," Kirika chirps.
You...Heh, Kirika. That seems likely.
"You... of course you did," you say.
Hivemind is hivemind.
"Sabrina?" Mami's voice, traces of anxiety evident,
Hm, hm, what to do. Matchmake with Kyosuke? I initially think the anxiety is because "Sabrina will have other things to do than be with me and then I'll be all alone", buuut. That's not quite correct, is it?
"Ah, you're right," Mami says. "We'll be making okonomiakyi, right?"
Right.
"Yes?" The seer gives you a regal, questioning look. How she manages to look regal while down an arm and having her girlfriend half sprawled across her lap is beyond you, but she manages it with aplomb and unparalleled poise.
Black KiriCat on white-suite villain's lap.
Kirika peers at the models curiously. "They need pants," she observes sagely.
But Mami's concerns are justified. We have briefly debated going after these girls while she's in school, and even the cutest Kirika is right there.
"Them," Oriko says, an annoyed tone in her voice. "They may come through Mitakihara in... two weeks."
In the year 2018, war was beginning.
"Yes... yes, thank you, dear." Oriko manages a gentle smile.
PainOff, apply directly to the head!
The Pleaides are still alive.
This...May actually make Asunaro a regular city, or as regular as it can be with that cast. Although they have some BS capabilities still, they only beget their witch research due Kasumi dying.
"Thanks for the information, Oriko," you say at last, sighing. "And I'm sorry for the pain it causes you."
I'm happy this got said.
You blow out an annoyed breath, and let the conversation lapse into silence for a while. You and Kirika heal, the progress agonizingly slow. It'll take days to even finish the elbow joint at this pace, you think.
Hm, somewhat slower than expected. I expected days for whole thing.
"Golden," you reply. Kirika looks up at you, and her citrine eyes crinkle into a grin. She mouths a few words at you. 'Your oujo?'
HOW? Kirika can detect when somebody is using magic?
And promptly starts laughing, the orange luminance of her magic fading from her shaking hands.
Pro: Cute Kirika. Con: Not healing Kirika.
"No," Oriko says, lowering her hand from her face. "Sabrina, it's time for you to go, right? My arm can wait a day or two."
That's...fascinating. We'll be sure to (not) abuse this knowledge!
"Saving the world, I guess," you say. Saving one broken little girl. Really, it's the same thing.
Saving Homura? From killing Oriko?

A difficult quest.
You detransform before walking out, joining the sparse midday crowds as you walk to school, strolling alongside the little ornamental stream beside the path. You're still a little early, maybe ten minutes before school ends.

[] Write-in

=====​

With special thanks to @Mister Bad Guy for helping me figure out a few things!
Thanks to MBG. Is there anybody we haven't telepathed yet? Maybe ask people to the gathering?
 
-[] Ask Mami if it's alright to invite everyone to her apartment.
--[] Call Momoe Shin. Ask how Nagisa is doing. Ask when might be a good time to invite her over again.

Something like this for the Nagisa bit, maybe?
 
Hildegard isn't normal. Aurora is showing the same behavior as Hildegard. Therefore, Aurora is not normal.

Seems pretty simple to me.

I have no idea if it's "torture" or not. I just think if we're avoiding filling or handing out Hildy, for whatever reason, those same reasons should apply to Aurora now.

Since Aurora now looks the same as Hildegarde and behaves similar it could very well be the normal reaction when the grief seed is emptied completely. If a third seed shows the same behaviour once we empty it completely that would confirm it. I am hoping that we can find a seed that shows a different behaviour on emptying.

As to the torture thing:
If we ever want to make any more progress on reversing witchification, we don't have much choice but to mess with the seeds. We will only find out if the witch/girl even noticed us messing around with their soul, when we get o a point were we can communicate.
 
I'm all for a reasonable bandwagon. Not sure we should invite Nagisa right now- might be better to get the unpleasantness of the lichbomb out of the way first- but I'm happy with the votes that don't involve chatting with bunnycat.

[X] Muramasa
 
The only winning move is not to play. Minimize interaction and don't give it any openings to make things worse or learn what makes us tick.
Except that there's jack all stopping it from just observing us and our magic with the level of surveillance it has to have in order to keep up the Masquerade.

I've said this before on other topics, but sometimes the best option isn't actually an option, and you can only choose between "bad" and "worse."
 
Kinematics' pointed out, Oriko reacted not quite at lifting the gauntlet, but at touching it. It might be that it was enhacing her precog skills or something

Everybody who knows about telepathy can, when they see you stopping whatever you're doing and concentrating on staring blankly into space.
Didn't the update say that having it on kind of felt like being on fire or something similar? It probably surprised her.
 
Except that there's jack all stopping it from just observing us and our magic with the level of surveillance it has to have in order to keep up the Masquerade.

I've said this before on other topics, but sometimes the best option isn't actually an option, and you can only choose between "bad" and "worse."
Observation is going to be an unpleasant fact of life. What isn't necessary is willingly volunteering to answer its questions, questions which are going to be bad news for us. Ignore it, give it non-answers or better yet blanket silence when it tries to get information from us, and generally give it as little to work with as humanly possible.
 
Didn't the update say that having it on kind of felt like being on fire or something similar? It probably surprised her.
Not quite.
The Grief flows like wax under a flame, runnels sliding around your left hand to form a smooth, golden gauntlet reaching past your wrist, flaring out mid-arm. Sockets sit on the back of the gauntlet, one over every first knuckle. A single blue crystal gleams at the base of your index finger. It also feels... odd, as if crackling fire were sheathed in wire and wrapped around your hand.
That's just the grief moving.

This one's interesting, but it's likely just Sabrina's senses. EDIT: Actually, you might be right.
 
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The only winning move is not to play. Minimize interaction and don't give it any openings to make things worse or learn what makes us tick.
The problem is that that's not an option. We're already playing, and Kyuubey has an entire world of openings to work with (though for the moment it's likely limiting itself to a subset of one country).
Better to let it win by not knowing what we're doing than giving it something it can use against us... or people near us.

You remember what happened during the lichbomb, right?
Yes, I was just rereading that. Kyuubey only made a few comments, mostly just confirming what we were saying. The vast majority of the breakdown was existing emotional pressures. Sort of like, say, Homura, and the situation about Madoka, and how Oriko told us Kyuubey already knows, and can break Homura any time it wants.
 
Then we don't engage the bunnycat, don't answer the bunnycat's leading questions, and don't VOLUNTEER to stick our metaphorical hand into a wood chipper by bringing it up.

That's like saying that because a house is on fire, we should pour gasoline on the blaze.

Also Mami/Kyousuke seems like a bad idea on every level and not just because of shipping tendencies. :confused:
 
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Observation is going to be an unpleasant fact of life. What isn't necessary is willingly volunteering to answer its questions, questions which are going to be bad news for us. Ignore it, give it non-answers or better yet blanket silence when it tries to get information from us, and generally give it as little to work with as humanly possible.
Note that I did edit mine to not be as forthcoming with information on its questions.
 
I like Ugo's slight expansions, but I want to make sure the "QB questions" version of the vote doesn't win, so

[X] Muramasa
Nah, my old vote's a slightly stripped down version of one of the others anyway. :)

Note that I did edit mine to not be as forthcoming with information on its questions.
That still doesn't change that it can get just as much information from a non-answer to a specific question as from an answer. Any kind of Q&A session with Kyubey will not end in our favor. It is smarter than we are, and definitely has a better poker face. :p
 
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