09:10 <Crion> Time is starting to lose some of its meaning as you drive inland. You don't need to be a Baron to understand why: this is an effect of the Hedge-ification of Central Florida. The clock says its 7:48 PM, but it's been dawdling around sunset for quite some time now. There are fireworks in the sky as you head down the Beachline Express into the city proper...or what's left? Or was it always like 09:10 <Crion> this? There's so much water everywhere as you cross the 417 juncture and enter something called "Randall/Johnson" on the Google maps. 09:13 <Crion> You're a bit south of downtown Orlando proper; your route, straight as the roads go, doesn't seem to take you into it. There's a warm glow coming up from the central business district, among the high rises. No smoke. 09:13 <VoxPVoxD> That's no good. 09:14 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's got nothing to do besides stare out the window and... is the radio still working? 09:15 <Crion> For the most part. Sometimes it cuts in with broadcasts of the Mickey Mouse March, with indistinct chatter underneath it. Like the Combine from Half-Life 2, which he should have as a referent. 09:16 <trenchfoot> I don't much care for that. 09:17 <Crion> Tony and Stewart both know it's coming, and it's actually the louder fluctuations of that very chatter that tip you off and allow you to tell Maggie to cut the lights and slow the engine before you drive into the range of an actual, honest-to-god roadblock checkpoint, not a weird abortive traffic stop like the one you left in the rear view. It's way down the road, and it's like...has Stewart 09:17 <Crion> streamed any XCOM2? Or watched any? 09:17 <VoxPVoxD> A little bit. It's kind of slow for him. Lot of Overwatching. 09:19 <Crion> You know how all the ADVENT architecture -- the basic bad guys -- is prefab stuff that looks completely out of place in its suburban environments, like it was just dropped in there overnight, these weird black contiguous guard towers and tarmacs and sliding future-doors, complete with anonymous not-quite-right military troops? It's a lot like that, except the mouse ears are everywhere. 09:19 <Crion> There are in fact two great autocannon turrets trained on the road -- the gun is Mickey's face, and the two great spotlights above each gun illuminating their targets are the ears. 09:20 <banana> Melanie's still looking at her phone. Which Google is this? How is GPS altered by- ah 09:20 <trenchfoot> That's. Um. Not okay? 09:20 <dammitwho> Maggie: "...the sam hell..." 09:21 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart into the radio: "Contact confirm. South of downtown. We've got gun placements guarding the road, prefabricated, brand-compliant." 09:21 <Crion> Is that to Lauren? 09:22 <VoxPVoxD> Unless someone else is on the radio. 09:23 <Crion> Nope, it's her: "Aaaallright. That's...how far in are you? The transponder's jumping around. It looks like you're somewhere near the Hoffner Avenue interchange...?" 09:23 <Crion> That does indeed seem to be what this roadblock is roadblocking. 09:23 <VoxPVoxD> "Roger that." 09:24 <Crion> Lauren: "Let me run that over to Orr and Taggart." 09:25 <VoxPVoxD> To the motley: "So, uh... what's the plan, here?" 09:25 <Crion> You'll presumably have a few minutes to strategize here while she does that. 09:26 <banana> Melanie: "The last group of these guys shot at us, and they had smaller guns. We'll have to consciously fight, or talk to them, or go off-road." 09:26 <CBN> Tony: "I don't really want to fight them, but I don't know how talkative they're gonna be either..." 09:26 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Fighting is pretty much off limits, and I don't know if we can dodge..." 09:27 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I think we gotta fight or juke. I don't think the Mouseketeers are going to want to parlay." 09:27 <trenchfoot> "Maybe we can dodge? It seems better than trying to fight." 09:28 <Crion> Here's some good news: they're not blocking the front neck of the exchange, but the back. If you're quiet, or loud and fast, you can take the interchange north onto Hoffner without ditching your ride. Or south, but that's taking you off the state roads... 09:28 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Going off-road even in sort of shallow Hedge like this sounds risky." 09:28 <VoxPVoxD> Can we see how many, like, people there are? 09:29 <banana> Melanie: "Well, what do they represent in the narrative of this.. place? Are they here to monitor, or to prevent? If the Hedge wants us to fight it gets easier, paradoxically." 09:29 <Crion> Sure. Both Stewart and Tony picked up a half-dozen of the Mouseketteers roaming the walls, which is honestly a bit low for an operation like this, and there isn't THAT much distinct comm chatter on the radio. No sign of a Mickey-headed squad leader...but that doesn't mean one isn't there. 09:30 <Crion> If you're lucky, the guy(?) in charge of these guys(?) is the one out there on the road behind you, since it means he's not here. Or maybe that means you're not lucky, since that'd mean he's on his way back. 09:30 <CBN> Tony: "I think you're onto something with that Melanie, if they're just there to be like...hey don't go this way...maybe we don't go that way, really? Just drive like...normal boring wise, and try to safely and quietly get on the interchanges and keep on rolling. Like a commute!" 09:30 <Crion> Still, no sign of anything coming up behind you on the Beachline Express. 09:31 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "If we can get in under the guns we definitely *can* take them. Might not be fast enough to avoid reinforcements. Going north means they get shots at us we can't answer, but maybe not that many." 09:32 <Crion> The radio will crackle. "Hey, kiddos." It's Orr. 09:32 <banana> Melanie: "Modification of that proposition: drop storms and weather on them to cover us going through. Maybe it prevents them getting set up and shooting." 09:33 <VoxPVoxD> "I like that." That was to Melanie. "Mr. Orr." That wasn't. 09:35 <Crion> Orr: "Okay so I took a little look. If you check the map, I think what you've run into is their security picket for Orlando International Airport. As you keep going down the 528, you run into one or two more of these. Now the good news is, that one in front of you is about as bad as they get. The bad news is, those two guns still look pretty mean. Might not be great against a tank, but, well, 09:35 <Crion> unless you've got some bullshit up your sleeves, you ain't in one." 09:36 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Right now tentative plan is to evade with weather cover." 09:36 <trenchfoot> We do have some bullshit up our sleeves but probably not that level of bullshit. 09:38 <Crion> Orr: "Could work, if you've got a way through those big doors they've slabbed across the road. Or if your Maggie wants to hop 'em or something. But if you detour around the airport, that level of risky business stops at the South Conway interchange. Not sure what you'd run into going into the city proper instead, but..." 09:42 <banana> More to the van than to Orr: "I can probably break the doors. I could do it from here, but I assume they'll get mad." 09:43 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Weren't we aiming for the Neverending Queen?" 09:45 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah, do you remember the heading? I don't have a map in front of me." 09:46 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Thought that was the plan." 09:49 <banana> Melanie's straight up undoing her seatbelt and opening a door. "Hang on a sec, I want to get a little closer to look at the fortification." 09:50 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Uh..." 09:50 <VoxPVoxD> Well. Okay. Stewart's not gonna let her go alone. 09:50 <banana> ? "Hey, what are you doing? It's dangerous." 09:51 <VoxPVoxD> "Yeah?" 09:53 <banana> "Well... thank you. But please don't all get out, I'm just going to the shoulder of the road here so I can see how the barricade is anchored." 09:54 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "...if you're sure." 09:55 <Crion> They look extremely sturdy. Impossible to tell from here if they're stone or metal... 09:56 <banana> Melanie does creep a little closer, then returns after just a moment, frustrated. "Yeah, look, I can break it without getting any closer but I don't know how long it would take. Maybe just a moment, maybe ten or twenty seconds..." 09:58 <dammitwho> Maggie grunts. "I can punch through inanimate stuff pretty good. Would it work better with two of us?" 09:59 <trenchfoot> "Um." She's not 100% sure. "I think I know...?" 10:00 <banana> Melanie: "Oh, if we have to go up to it it's going down. What I mean is-" She needs a demonstration. "Steal something from me?" 10:00 <banana> Melanie roots around in the van and picks up one of the extremely tactical soldierly plastic crate things they had, holding it out toward Maggie. "Oh no, this is mine and I'm jealous of it. It'd be completely illegal if someone were to take it away." 10:02 <dammitwho> Uncertainly, Maggie attempts to pluck the video game supply crate from her. 10:03 <banana> Melanie, performatively: "Omg, you bitch. You've stolen from me." 10:05 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart peers over Nels's shoulder at the map. "From what we're seeing and what Orr's saying, I don't think there's an 'around'. They're locking down the airport, they're fortifying the theme park into a green zone. This is— they're occupying territory. Orlando by way of Baghdad." 10:05 <banana> She glares at the offending (offended?) box - which fragments into shards that dissolve into something more like powder. 10:05 <VoxPVoxD> "So we can go past or through. But not 'around'." 10:06 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Um. What is 'omg?'" 10:06 <banana> "Oh my God, Nels." 10:06 <trenchfoot> "I've been gone for a hundred years!!" 10:06 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It's a world of laughter, a world of tears~" 10:07 <banana> Melanie: "Rimshot, please." 10:07 <banana> "Or wait, that guy from the Simpsons. The that's the joke guy." 10:07 <VoxPVoxD> "Ranier Wolfcastle." 10:08 <CBN> Tony shares a blank, non-comprehending look with Nels. These kids, sometimes. 10:09 <trenchfoot> What even are they saying? 10:12 <VoxPVoxD> While Stewart's laying out the land, everyone using magic feels a chilly, nervous tingle in their extremities, and orange sparks trail from their fingertips and fade out like embers from a bonfire. 10:14 <banana> In other circumstances, Melanie would be alarmed by particle effects coming out of her eye sockets as she gives the plastic file box a death glare, but everything's wyrd already anyway. 10:14 <VoxPVoxD> Yeah; wyrd. 10:32 <banana> Melanie: "Okay. If everyone's ready? Omg is ohemgee.. o for oh, m for my, g for god." 10:33 <dammitwho> Maggie slaps a fist into an open palm. "Let's do 'er." 10:33 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Oh my god. Why didn't you just say that?" 10:37 <banana> Melanie twists uncomfortably in her seat, takes a deep breath, then faces out the front window. She points at the checkpoint ahead using both arms, index fingers extended toward the gates and thumbs connected at the tips. 10:38 <banana> "I will not be stayed from my course. My hold is under danger and my loved ones are under geas. I call upon this.. fucked up metal stuff... to recognise its fundamental error: it is a mere thing, and may not bar our way." 10:40 <banana> The whole structure judders, from doors to pillbox to turret mounts, and bits of paint flake off in a cloud of dust. The central doors begin crumple under a series of invisible giants' blows, dents larger than the van twisting it out of shape and straining the architecture. They're being forced apart and off their mighty hinges. 10:40 <Crion> The material of the checkpoint's gate weirdly crumples and twists -- it acts less like metal and more like strangely-resilient putty -- and there's a shriek that doesn't sound entirely like straining steel as it begins to yield...but the whole of the work isn't done yet. 10:42 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's got to slide the door open and lean out as it moves. The motion of drawing his sword is very deliberate; both because the weight and ritual is what underpins the invocation and because he doesn't want to put Nels's eye out. Even if she would look insanely cool with an eyepatch. 10:43 <trenchfoot> She... would. And also not be obviously Nels Foulke. 10:45 <VoxPVoxD> With intense focus, Stewart traces a profane sigil with the tip of his blade, that leaves glittering sparks in its wake: https://i.imgur.com/wIxnukk.png 10:46 <VoxPVoxD> The sky turns green behind the fireworks. Above the explosions, thunder rolls. 10:46 <banana> If Orr is still on the line, he's going to wonder what the hell he is hearing. 10:46 <VoxPVoxD> The wind whips his hair around. He really needs a cut, but when are barbershops ever going to open again? The first drops of rain patter on the windshield. 10:50 <CBN> Tony guns it! Or, he tries to, anyway. But the sun was in his eyes and the wind is against them and the van's really blocky so it really catches that crossbreeze like a sail and innumerable other excuses conspire for it to be totally not Tony's fault that they just kind of putter along here. Even if to Tony it feels like the world is, in fact, conspiring against him (it is). 10:51 <banana> Melanie continues to focus, pouring wrath into this unnatural thing. This CGI martial excrudescence. Disney is supposed to be for children. 10:56 <banana> Another blow (somehow, from somewhere) to the structure and the gates smash apart. One of them is blown entirely off its anchoring and arcs out across the intersection, coming to rest in a parking lot. The other crumples into a kind of ooze, sloughing over the road barriers and melting them away. 10:58 <Crion> The Mouseketeer grunts spray and pray into the howling wind and rain; all they managed to do is plink off the van. 11:02 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart slides the door shut just as gunfire begins to mingle with the hail. "You know what happens if we can't stick this? You know what happens if we skid out, we hit the wall, whatever? We're not going to die." 11:02 <VoxPVoxD> "We're going to become brand advocates." 11:03 <VoxPVoxD> "With Jaws eyes and Ned Flanders smiles. Looking Photoshopped into wherever we're standing." 11:03 <VoxPVoxD> "M-I-C... K-E-Y... M-O-U-S-E..." 11:04 <VoxPVoxD> Somehow Tony finds this helpful. 11:04 <Crion> The turrets finally swivel in, the floodlight-ears creating a four-way shadow, and suddenly the face of the Mouse opens up in .50 caliber. Or something real damn big. The windshield spiderwebs but holds; none of the tires are hit. But something punches through the hood -- doesn't hit the engine, thank god, but Tony can feel the steering loosen up. 11:07 <CBN> Inspired? by that horrible thought that he only kind of half comprehends from Stewart, Tony guns it again. This time, he does feel this horrible land-boat surge forward. But holy shit this would be so much easier on water, god's highway. 11:08 <dammitwho> Crud. This is a military vehicle - is there a toolbox or something in here? 11:09 <Crion> The radio suddenly kicks to life again. The Mickey Mouse March is louder now. And a new face looms over the parapets... 11:09 <Crion> Yep, there's one in the back. 11:09 <Crion> Has all your standards. 11:10 <banana> Christ on a crutch those are big guns. It's daunting- everyone's moving now, the van is too slow; Melanie's breaking out in sap. She focuses on the left gun and smash. Out of the way. Be smithereens. 11:10 <Crion> There's also a spare tire in a well in the floor with a panel over it. 11:10 <banana> Christ on a crutch those are big guns. It's daunting- everyone's moving now, the van is too slow; Melanie's breaking out in sap. She focuses on the left gun and smash. Out of the way. Be smithereens. 11:32 <trenchfoot> Nels whips out her revolver and just blasts away. It's -- golly. She's not about to do that again. 11:34 <Crion> The shot wings one of the grunts and it screams is its shots go wide, but the scattered fire from before is now tight and disciplined -- and it's tearing through the van. Holes punch through the siding, not hitting any of you but letting in the whistling rain. You careen towards the checkpoint... 11:42 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's ranting is cut off by a fusillade against the door. In frustration, Stewart kicks it open himself, It practically hangs off the track now. Wind and rain blow in and he leans into the storm, "YOU ARE BEYOND YOUR BORDERS! THIS IS NOT YOUR PROPERTY! CEASE! DESIST! AVERT YOUR EYES!" 11:43 <Crion> And just like that, the turret wheels away, the grunts lower their guns and begin wandering back to the half-broken checkpoint building, forgetting the careening van -- all except the Mouseketeer Commander, whose head tilts sideways in confusion, the grunts no longer obeying its commands. It has not lowered its weapon. 11:44 <Crion> Stewart may be the master of this demesne for this very moment, but he feels it might not be a good idea to linger. 11:45 <VoxPVoxD> The green-white witch-light of Stewart's mantle spills inside the van as he turns back towards the motley, making everyone look sort of ghostly and irradiated. "We gotta move." 11:47 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Um. Yes." 11:57 <CBN> As Stewart's speech makes most of the checkpoint stand down, Tony grips the steering wheel tighter. This isn't getting any easier for him is it? They keep shooting the van, everyone else gets to throw lightning bolts and blow holes in walls and here he is driving and it's not even a boat, it's this shitty van. He's gripping the wheel tighter and tighter, chunks of the already-thin padding flaking off and fluttering out into the cabin proper. 11:57 <CBN> He glares at the only thing still milling around looking hostile, and he meets its confusion with a brick wall of the kind of anger and resentment he never lets anyone else see. 11:58 <CBN> Sparks fly from his eye sockets as the air itself just...goes dark around the commander, for a second. When the natural lighting comes back on, the commander does not look like it had a good time. 11:59 <Crion> The Commander recoils -- no, ripples backward on the parapet, not even stumbling so much as semi-stuttering out and back into existence, and the gun in its hand completely vanishes. The face shows no emotion, is capable of no change, but it begins to vibrate and shiver. There is no more fight here, not with the van and certainly not with the creatures of the Wyrd piloting it. 11:59 <Crion> But Stewart feels it. 12:00 <VoxPVoxD> ... 12:01 <Crion> Something changes. Something -- it's like Hedgespinning but worse, and more upsetting. And he knows, through his mastery of this demense -- as paltry as it is -- that he and Tony grabbed its attention. Some baleful eye has had a place it owned taken from it, had a thing it owned frightened by the new masters, and it is displeased. 12:01 <Crion> But it's not here yet. 12:01 <VoxPVoxD> "Oh fuck." 12:01 <VoxPVoxD> "Red exclamation mark. Red exclamation mark!!" 12:02 <dammitwho> Maggie, yelling: "Christ almighty!" More quietly: "Once we're at a safe distance mebbe we should pull over so I can have a look at the engine." 12:02 <Crion> The good news: the road is free and clear for you to get into the distance before whatever that is comes home. 12:03 <Crion> But as you leave it in the rear view, Stewart feels his mastery of the place definitively severed. 12:03 <CBN> Tony, through gritted teeth like old stones kicked over tilling a field: "You're welcome to the whole thing." 12:03 <VoxPVoxD> Grimly: "We are definitively in the House of Mouse now." 12:04 <trenchfoot> Nels: "That's - that's bad, right? Like, really bad?" 12:04 <banana> Melanie's slumped over the passenger side of the dashboard, looking ordinary. She can still fight if she has to, but that was.. effortful. It's the first time she's used her contract with threats-to-objects deliberately; it feels a lot better than lashing out in anxious resentment, but asserting that mandated brokenness is costly in stolen glamour. 12:05 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It means we're making progress." 12:05 <Crion> You're heading north, up towards the city center, if you reckon your progress right. And it takes a block or two -- where you might want to stop to effect some repairs -- but...there's actually some people here. 12:05 <banana> Without actually looking up: "The area within the checkpoints is His intellectual property?" 12:05 <Crion> Like normal-ass people. 12:06 <Crion> Top-40-radio-hits-as-their-songs people. 12:06 <trenchfoot> Uh. Are they okay? 12:06 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah. He might not be able to be everywhere at once, but he's seen us." 12:07 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Great work everyone. I shoulda been more focused, sorry. Is anyone hurt?" 12:08 <banana> Melanie gathers herself up and looks around to assess this independent of whether her friends say they're hurt. We can be bad at this. 12:09 <CBN> Tony's white-knuckling the visible frame of the steering wheel as they putter along looking for a spot to pull over. "It's fine." 12:13 <dammitwho> Maggie: "I don't think anyone got hit, excepting the van..." 12:16 <Crion> The van...really got hit. 12:16 <Crion> Maggie's really good with cars though, right? Hell, she's practically half-car herself now. 12:17 <dammitwho> She's half engine, which is the soul of the car. 12:17 <dammitwho> She's half engine, which is the soul of the car. 12:17 <CBN> As soon as they can pull over and get out, Tony does so. The steering wheel is down to the metal at 10 and 2. He's muttering to himself and pacing before anyone else can even get unbuckled or otherwise make egress. 12:18 <trenchfoot> Is everyone okay? Nels is like... not a doctor, but she can try? 12:23 <Crion> Some of these people will wander over to see if you're okay once you stop! And they'll see that you're fine, wish you well, and go on with their day. It's quite strange. These are people -- they're not Hedge creations, they're not hobs, and they're not illusions or dreams. You can even get Glamour off of them; it's just the only emotion they have to harvest, it seems, is joy. And they're 12:23 <Crion> always welcoming you to Orlando...the Happiest Place on Earth. 12:26 <dammitwho> "Aw, jeezum petes, look at this poor thing..." Maggie hems and haws with the military toolbox as she looks over the multiply-punctured hood and thankfully still functioning engine. Fortunately, the military includes a small supply of repair patches as well as tools in their kit, so Maggie's able to put it all more-or-less back together after a brief spell of bustling around and muttering 12:26 <dammitwho> to herself, calling down luck from the Wyrd. 12:27 <dammitwho> "That oughta do 'er," She says, finally. "I tightened up the steering and suspension too. Should handle a little better now. Better than new." 12:27 <banana> Melanie doesn't know what to say to the greeters. There's probably no way to fix them without fixing this whole thing... 12:29 <CBN> Tony would take a long sulky stalk around the block if he didn't think it would end with a Hedge abduction, so while Maggie works he just paces back and forth on the sidewalk, deliberately, head down, arms crossed but gesturing in an internal monologue he's letting bleed out a little. Anyone who has ever gone on a road trip will recognize this as the I Know We Took A Wrong Turn, What Do You Want Me To Do About It Dad Walk. 12:30 <Crion> Maggie's even able to find sufficient sheet metal to patch the holes good as new, thanks to the friendly workers at the nearby auto shop, who don't seem to have any actual work to do and are willing to give their patch kits away for free. Living the carefree life! 12:34 <banana> Once everyone's back together Melanie's apologetic. It was mostly her plan, and it barely worked. "We can't do that again safely." 12:39 <CBN> Tony, tersely and standing still on the sidewalk: "Well if we do it again you can drive if you think you can do it better." 12:40 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart just kind of mingles and people-watches. Tony's not doing great, but only progress is gonna help. So we need to be as efficient here as possible. 12:41 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Let's not fight? It was - fraught." 12:42 <Crion> Everyone who feeds on the Glamour of the people of Orlando will notice it; Stewart's simply the first: they drain like usual, but the drowsy or dull period where they need to recharge -- that ends almost immediately. You won't get any real Glamour from them again for awhile; it has to build back like with everyone else. But there's something in the air here. More than a mood, Stewart can 12:42 <Crion> tell; a faerie compact. An oath, maybe? The humans aren't themselves under a geas. It's more as if...well, yes. This is what it would feel like if an exceptionally powerful Wyrd creature -- like, say, a Gentry -- made a deal with the very concept of Orlando itself, the land its on but more importantly the American city, for...something. 12:42 <Crion> And in return, it demanded happiness and provision for its people. To actually be the happiest place on Earth. 12:42 <banana> Melanie: "All that gunfire was... having all those people trying to kill you with powerful weapons. They really meant it." 12:43 <banana> "I mean, not people, but-" she glances at Tony "little guys. Mean little guys." 12:43 <Crion> Obviously, the deal doesn't seem to extend to you. But it doesn't seem like the humans are hurt. The joy isn't fake or forced; they're not secretly starving. 12:43 <CBN> Tony: "It sucked, it all sucks, every step we take further from our boat has been a deeper step into stupid crap with idiots who don't count into adventures that aren't real with crap that I only have to care about because of this stupid hat! And look at them, they're all so, look at this." He gestures at the passerby expansively. "Why shouldn't the hobs just eat them! They're barely even alive like this! I dunno if even even were to 12:43 <CBN> start!" 12:43 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart thinks aloud: "So that's the squeeze. What's the juice?" People are, like, doing okay, right? They're not hurt or suffering or starving or anything? 12:44 <trenchfoot> Nels: "They were definitely trying to kill us though. Like, Jiminy Christmas." 12:44 <Crion> There's a bit of boredom, but it's the boredom of sitting out on the stoop after work, relaxing. 12:44 <CBN> Tony: "And we help people out of their jams and what do we get, Mutt tries to kill us, the army men give us a shitty van, we deal with hobs so bad that I wanted to run them over with the shitty van but couldn't even do that." 12:44 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Like... the ultimate company town?" 12:44 <Crion> Orlando clearly extracted a significant litany of actual protections and boons for the people it viewed as its own. What did it give up in return? 12:44 <CBN> Tony: "And for what? For what!" 12:45 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Nobody's criticizing your driving, there, Ton'. Any blockade run where you make it through is a good one." 12:46 <banana> Melanie: "For because we're here. Because we might be able to fix this and apparently nobody else fucking can." 12:46 <CBN> Tony: "You know what? No. I hope, ooohhhh I hope we see those stupid mouseketeers again, I'm gonna make a whole mess of their stupid little hats into something beautiful for the Wild Goose." 12:46 <banana> "Not the army wizards and not the Freehold in town who admittedly must have been very, very surprised." 12:46 <Crion> And as for why it did it, who knows. Maybe Orlando simply got sick and tired of Florida Men and Republican governors. 12:46 <CBN> Tony points emphatically at Melanie. "See? See! Fucking, it's wizard bullshit everywhere! You can't even escape it on vacation." 12:47 <Crion> Thankfully for all of the current conversations, the Mouseketeers are not patrolling these streets. 12:47 <CBN> Tony crosses his arms. "When we leave I hope there isn't even a Florida behind us." 12:47 <VoxPVoxD> "The Mouse made them an offer... and they took it." 12:48 <VoxPVoxD> "Safety? Freedom-from?" 12:48 <VoxPVoxD> "Just, fuckin, jobs?" 12:48 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Blech. I don't even wanna take glamour off these guys." 12:49 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It tastes like a Dole Whip." 12:49 <CBN> Tony gestures at Stewart with a wave of a hand. "And what're we trying to fix of that even? If they made a deal, and they're benefitting, this is the exact kind of thing I should just loooove." He takes off his hat for a second and hiss-whispers at it. "Oh I bet you fucking love this don't you." 12:49 <banana> Melanie: "It's ok if you talk them up first, get them ruminating on something.. normal. They can get happy about things that are reasonable to get happy about, as well as the other stuff." 12:51 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "We had a very narrow remit. Get the skull, deal with Montgomery and Franklin." 12:51 <VoxPVoxD> "It's just, very very obvious that in order to do that we're going to have to roll up all this bullshit." 12:51 <Crion> Or let the United States military do it! 12:52 <VoxPVoxD> "Or, you know, let the Seers impose martial law on Florida." 12:52 <VoxPVoxD> "Which isn't ALL cons." 12:52 <banana> "Do they have a move that isn't giving people cancer?" 12:52 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I think that's bad?" 12:52 <CBN> Tony: "I say we do the absolute bare minimum that we have to, scoot out of here with our middle fingers up at the stupid pointy-hat crowd on our way, and hope that the land returns to the manatees and the hob pirates." 12:52 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "There's always white phosphorous." 12:52 <trenchfoot> "There is not white phospherous." 12:53 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Are you thinking about phosphates? You're thinking about phosphates aren't you." 12:54 <trenchfoot> "I don't... think so?" 12:54 <CBN> Tony looks around. "At least we're close to, whatever stupid crap we have to do now to hustle this along and get back to places that aren't Florida, right?" 12:54 <trenchfoot> "It's the fire thing, right?" 12:54 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Getting closer all the time, Tony. Let's go!" 12:57 <CBN> Tony: "Whatever it takes to get this over with." It's not chipper but the ice is a little less thick.