AMEN XI: Raiders of the Lost Pie

[PirateMonk]

PM appears in a seat.

"Well, I made a fair amount off 'misappropriations,' my war profiteering business has gotten into the trillions this year, the lemonade stand is doing well, and oh yes, we have that AMEN treasury that constantly produces an infinite amount of wealth."

[Uberblah]

Uber appears non-dramatically. Then the voice of his player is heard.
Sorry I haven't been here in awhile. Time has only permitted me with a post or two a day. I started a new job and need some sleep and time to work it.

[Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins]

"There are a few issues in the expenses area. The sheer volume of baking and pastry ingredients used is taking a heavy toll on some of our smaller treasuries. As is the production cost of steel and concrete, and let's not forget those diamonds Fus and a couple others use so very often. Forest conservation has increased the price of lumber. And the price of a decent, mildly decomposed corpse has skyrocketed recently.

With our current surplus, none of these are a problem. However a drop in interest and people online has begun to lower our production on pies, robots, undead, and weaponry. If we aren't careful, we'll go down the economic drain."

Fullbladder pulls out an unlabeled pie chart to help demonstrate his point.

[Rex Idiotarum]

"Hm... It also seems the power drain for robots and clones, as well as a large expenditure for books, new telescope equipment, and the transplaner conquest campaigns.

Although, the Dungeon Initiative that I've started has gone a dual purpose, the lower, monster infested levels I've opened to adventurers, for a price. Not only do we clean out some of the harsher areas of this place, we also keep the corpses and equipment of the TPKs. So, it's now some of yours jobs to finish off parties after they become wounded, and make sure no one gets out alive. It's win, win, win, win!"

[Vespe Ratavo]

Vespe walks in with a few Orc Peons.
Hey guys, check it out. I found great workers for us. They never need to be paid, they only take a bit of food, and when you poke them they say funny stuff.
Vespe pokes one.
Stop poking me.
And they can mine stuff forever. I've found a huge vein of pie ingredients outside. Get to work you lazy slobs.
The peons walk outside, mine some pie ingredients, and walks back in to put the bags of ingredients into the kitchen portal. Unless someone interrupts, they'll be doing this for quite some time.

[Saurous]

"A vein of-...Vespe, I'm pretty sure pie ingredients aren't mined.

You know what? I might as well not try. Nothing makes sense around here, anyways."

[Vespe Ratavo]

Saurous, just roll with it. I didn't know pie ingredients were mined either, but evidently they are.

Oh, and that reminds me. There's a lake of chocolate milk not twenty miles from here. I think I'm gonna go bottle some up.

Vespe teleports away.

[Tostada]

Chocolate lake you say? I think I'll take a gander at that.

[Saurous]

"Chocolate milk? Huh. I didn't know we moved the base to a country between Candy Land and the Kingdom of Sweets."

Saurous shakes his head.

[CurlyKitGirl]

Curly sidles in and says, [sarcasm]"And I bet there's a lagoon of [insert name of favourite drink] only three doors down on the right. Just behind the bookcase."[/sarcasm] She places a bag full of miscellaneous wealth on the table. She then sits down to daydream...and wait...but mostly read.

"I curse the weather of Britain. Rain, rain, rain, floods of nigh-Biblical proportions. More rain to come." In a fit of annoyance Curly makes it rain, to see how other people like it. The rain builds up quickly. 1ft of floodwater and rising.

Curly goes to sit on the table.

[Saurous]

Saurous whistles, hops up onto the table, and then jumps up into the rafters.

"I find your player annoying, Curly."

[Lord Magtok]

Magtok finally returns from his week-long absence, and shakes his head as he observes all that happened without him.

*Sigh* Wow. I'm amazed that just a week without me was enough to make you all believe AMEN was dead.

Moments after he says this, a time portal opens up and a Magtok in purple robes and a cowboy hat steps out of it. He pulls out a revolver, aims it at Magtok, and coldly glares at him.

The player thought he could rewrite the backstory, get you some new robes, and ditch the old avatar, and get rid of me. He was wrong. Dead wrong. Since I can't make him pay for what he did, I'll just kill you instead.

[Saurous]

Saurous lowers himself from the ceiling in a Spider-Manesque fashion.

"Well, you're one of the few people who actually keep this place active.

Oh, and Fullbladder sold most of your equipment while you were gone."

The necromancer then retreats back into the rafters, to let Magtok deal with Magtok.

[Rex Idiotarum]

"Okay, so our budget seems to be straight up, we have company production and reasonable investments. And since the base is self-sufficient and isolated as far as internet, cable, and power. I like the fact that we run off of Geothermal Energy, which, for some reason isn't as evil as fossil fuels, but it is evil mastermind's power of choice, with Solar in a close second place. Hm....

Okay, next up is Recruitment, as seen lately, we have had many new members, as well as persistent posting from old ones. So, that brings us to our problem, if there is so many new members, how do we account for the massive amount of deadtime? How do we fix it?"

[CurlyKitGirl]

Saurous whistles, hops up onto the table, and then jumps up into the rafters.

"I find your player annoying, Curly."

"Tell me about it. If we're lucky she'll get bored soon. Her place only got virtually continous rain for four days. She didn't get flooded. Noone near her did." The floodwater levels off at four and a half ft. "I think the table's floating now. But it's not raining any more. Which is good. Swim anyone?" To emphasise the supposed summer weather a beahball aimlessly floats on the water. "Just be glad she's forgotten umm..." she looks around and whispers almost silently "AMEN the Soap Opera. That was scary."

She's shouting most of this at the rafters BTW. She them leaps into the water to avoid the wrath of Magtok.

[Saurous]

"This place needs a drain of some sort."

Saurous then comes back out of the rafters, standing upside-down on the ceiling. He redirects his attention to Rex.

"When you say deadtime, you mean the amount of time members are not around, correct? Well, we can't really do anything about that, as most players actually have something of lives away from the computer. Those of us that are around can keep this place running fairly well while others are away, but otherwise there really isn't anything we can do about time away.

If that isn't quite what you mean, could you elaborate? It's hard to understand you sometimes."

[Lord Magtok]

The past Magtok pulls the trigger, and fires a piece of lead at the current Magtok's head. The bullet is caught in his left hand, and tossed into the water.

Hehehehe. I can't believe you actually went to all the trouble of coming here. Didn't it ever occur to you that we've upgraded since your time period?

Yeah, but I saw you lost most of your gun obsession and spent most of your time with worms, so I assumed this would be easy.

I also spent some time water-proofing my circuits. Did you do that?

Oh ****.

The old Magtok dies, and the current one twists off the arm of the old one, and puts it away in his robes.

There. The five-post plot is over.

[Saurous]

"Magtok, the old Magtok isn't connected to you in the future, is he? Because if he had just died, would that not mean that you would die, also?"

Saurous drops down from the ceiling and onto a Necron tomb spyder. It hovers there a few inches above the water.

[CurlyKitGirl]

"Hooray for short plot!" The water changes colour to orange and Curly suddenly learns to do synchronised swimming with 3 NPCs and 2 Magtok clones.
Any good aligned person who touches this person turns a rather strange octarine colour- a sort of greeny-purple. God, I hope it's octarine anyway.

Cue collection by a certain cybernetic-humanoid head of someting-or-other of AMEN

[Lord Magtok]

Magtok scoops up a bucket of the stuff, and then takes it away to the labs. He comes back, and turns to Saurous.

The answer to your question is no, Saur. After being rewritten, given a new physical form, and several other changes I don't like to talk about, the old Magtok was locked away in my player's mind, and I came into existence, the new and (arguably) improved Magtok. The heroic son thing was sent into oblivion, as well as several other things, including the gunslinger avatar, which was eventually replaced with my player's Worms obsession.

[Saurous]

"Ah, I see."

Saurous glances down at the water, wondering why it had suddenly turned orange.

"Unholy orange water of doom, Batman!"

[CurlyKitGirl]

Having accomplished it's possible plotish person the water suddenly disappears. Curly and all the other swimmers drop to the floor. The Necron tomb spider spins wildly in a circle. "Oh, plot. How strange that thou dost venture unto this abode of villains most lazy and moon-crazed. Why shouldst thou vex those who wish that this most abhorrent cause...Inner thoughts: why am I speaking Shakespearian-stlye English? Why are my thoughts visible to all and sundry? Don't think of anything now... a tumble blows past accompanied by a whistling wind.

"'Zounds, by all that is true I wish most ferverebtly that this verbose archaic frame of thoughts would become banished from me. But O! My frame of mind refuses to be removed from this most potent off orders by the aactor known as CP...Curses!"

[Lord Magtok]

Magtok pulls out a Shakespeare to Modern English translator, and holds it upside-down as he transates Curly's post.

Hmm...it seems she wants you to hit her over the head with a frying pan, Saur.

[Saurous]

Saurous spins around with the Spyder for a few moments, before jumping off of it.

"Oh, dear. On from one crazy plot point, and unto another. Why can there not ever be a plot that is not utterly insane.

Wait, moon-crazed? She's making even less sense than normal."

Saurous glances over at Magtok, and hits him over the head with a frying pan.

"For some reason, hitting you over the head with a frying pan does not seem as threatening to my life."

[Lord Magtok]

Magtok rubs his head for a moment, and then turns to Saur.

Hmm...I was reading through the garbage posts that occured while I was gone, and someone mentioned D'anna was coming back. Are the rumors true?

[Rex Idiotarum]

Rex loads his shotgun.

"When he comes, I'll take care of him. 1-Up'd godmodding, you can't beat that. So, yes, I guess we need to recruit later night members, presumably Australians, since they can cover the night shift."

[CurlyKitGirl]

Moon-crazed: back in Shakespeares time it meant crazy; actually I think it was touched by the moon. It could be some knid of pun too. Lunar-loony. So, talking loony basically.

Translata-matic:
"There's a plot. Here in AMEN place of lazy and crazy villains. Why is it here to annoy those who hate plot."
"Damn! I wish that I wasn't talking like this. Why won't CP stop this?!"

"Yeah, I saw that. It was the last post MC made. Where is she anyway? How about some insomniacs or people who don't have jobs. Or school. That way they won't have anything to do at night." She looks around puzzled. One NPC has a heart attack and dies. "An NPC suffered a natural death. Odd."

[Saurous]

Magtok rubs his head for a moment, and then turns to Saur.

Hmm...I was reading through the garbage posts that occured while I was gone, and someone mentioned D'anna was coming back. Are the rumors true?

"Dear gods, I hope not. He seems to have lost interest in AMEN a long time ago. I don't think he's going to come back.
But, just in case, we should probably make sure all the defensive systems are still online."

[Lord Magtok]

Magtok heads to his room for a while, and comes back without any visible prostetics, a white lab coat, and a cliche mad scientist hairdo.

If D'anna shows up, just tell him Magtok is on vacation and let some mad scientist act as his substitute for a while.

[Saurous]

Saurous gives Magtok a mock salute.

"Will do."

Meanwhile, a group of large, scarab-like creatures float in, and begin repairing and upgrading the defensive systems of the base.