Author: self_composed	[Hey,] says Stella to all three mints. [I wanna talk to all of you. You busy?]
Author: lookingforwardtoit	[Nah, what's up?]
Author: guiltless	[What she said.]
Author: edgeofyourseat	[Me either.]
Author: self_composed	[Guess who made nine-pointed coins.]
Author: edgeofyourseat	[Not you!]
Author: self_composed	[Not me! It was the Joker. Shell Bell has them. There is an afterlife, she went there and deems it shit, and it's got admins of unknown power running it so we want to storm the place - only with several of us on the job, and interdimensional travel under our control more than Milliways, and big coins with which to present an overwhelming force behind our platform of stop-torturing-everybody-please-you-horrible-afterlife.]
Author: edgeofyourseat	[Well, sign me up,] says Alice.
Author: lookingforwardtoit	[What he said,] says Anna.
Author: self_composed	[Not you, Sandy?]
Author: guiltless	[Well, I'll help,] he says. [But I'm already not keen on evils.]
Author: self_composed	[All right, no big deal. FYI, I really don't know if it's possible to do the trick without agony-beaming, although maybe you and your inside friends and Anna can work something out. The agony-beam threshold is just what you'd expect - one million triangles.]
Author: lookingforwardtoit	[Bet you we caaaaan,] says Anna.
Author: edgeofyourseat	[I want to be at this party,] says Alice.
Author: self_composed	[Heheheh. You guys have fun,] laughs Stella.
Author: guiltless	[You bet we will,] says Sandy.
Author: edgeofyourseat	Alice arrives on Sandy's moon. [Ooooooooh,] he says. [Pretty! Love the giant chess set.]
Author: self_composed	[Giant chess set? Is it about time I came and had a look at Amalthea, or should I save that for when the party's over?]
Author: edgeofyourseat	[Nobody's partying now,] says Alice. [You're safe.]
Author: self_composed	To Amalthea!
Author: guiltless	Sandy's been busy. There is indeed a giant chess set - one side's pieces made of brass, the other's of obsidian, with squares the size of city blocks. The pieces are intricately shaped and very beautiful. Apart from that, there are... buildings. Buildings of every shape and size, dotted across the landscape. Sandy, Alice, and Anna are standing on a glass courtyard floating in the air above the middle of the chess set.
Author: self_composed	Huh. Bella teleports about for a closer look at some buildings. And then back to the courtyard. "Damn. You want some design input when Olympus gets a sibling, Sandy?"
Author: guiltless	"Sure, yeah!"
Author: self_composed	"Great! You have nice design sense and they shouldn't all look the same anyway. I'm probably going to add a new city soon. Maybe a bunch of them, or just a really really big one. Olympus isn't full, but of all the Bells I'm probably in the best position to take an immigration influx when we conquer the afterlife."
Author: guiltless	He laughs. "Never a dull moment with you, man."
Author: self_composed	"I am a magic space empress. It comes with the territory." And she lifts off into the air and zooms around, looking at more of the buildings. [Lemme know when it's time for me to clear out.]
Author: guiltless	[Never, unless you have something against group napping,] laughs Sandy.
Author: self_composed	[Well, let me know when I should quit reading Alice's mind, then.]
Author: edgeofyourseat	[Sure thing!] Not yet - they're all cuddling up in Sandy's enormous bed. Mmm, snuggly.
Author: self_composed	Stella beholds Sandy's architectural handiwork, contentedly flying about and peering into Alice's happythoughts.
Author: edgeofyourseat	His happythoughts are happy and cuddly! And now he is visiting Sandy's brain, and Stella should probably stop looking now unless she wants to watch Anna try for a niner.
Author: self_composed	Doesn't especially. Bella backs off and continues touring Amalthea.
Author: guiltless	Sandy hasn't managed to cover the whole moon with his various projects, but at the scales he sometimes works in, it won't be long. And he is really good at designing three-dimensional objects.
Author: self_composed	Cool. Bella starts debating names for a city of the undead. She'll probably put it on a different continent from Olympus. The Downsiders might have a hard time integrating and should be allowed to do it at a comfortable pace for everyone. Maybe she'll call it "Brightside" or something like that. Is that too twee? Maybe it's too twee.
Author: lookingforwardtoit	A few hours later, Anna crows over brainphone, [I diiiiiiiiiid it!]
Author: self_composed	[Congratulations! Please never tell me how!]
Author: lookingforwardtoit	[But it was so much fun!]
Author: self_composed	[Well, if you really must, I suppose I'll live. And I might want to be able to explain it to my counterparts' assorted minty helpers.]
Author: lookingforwardtoit	[I think the methodology is pretty much 'intensify your pain processing by a factor of ten or so and then tell six sadists to go to town'.]
Author: self_composed	[Oh, is that all. Thank you for the protective layer of abstraction.]
Author: lookingforwardtoit	[You're welcome!]
Author: self_composed	[Just the one?]
Author: lookingforwardtoit	[Gearing up for a repeat as soon as I catch my breath!]
Author: self_composed	[I shall claim you as a point of pride in my portfolio the next time a bunch of Bells all get together and compare empires.]
Author: lookingforwardtoit	[Ooh, you're makin' me blush.]
Author: self_composed	[I'm actually surprised we haven't started explicitly holding contests yet. I guess that wouldn't be fair to the ones who are just starting out.]
Author: lookingforwardtoit	[You're kind of great, you know that?]
Author: self_composed	[I do know that! I am glad that it is clear.]
Author: lookingforwardtoit	She laughs. [Okay, round two!]
Author: self_composed	[Enjoy!] And that's the end of that conversation. [You gonna try one, Alice?]
Author: edgeofyourseat	[Mmm, remind me later,] he says. [Busy with Anna now.]
Author: self_composed	[Okay.] Stella finishes her tour of Amalthea and goes to hang out on Mars and catch up with email.
Author: edgeofyourseat	A while later, Alice teleports to her and - assuming she is not doing anything that absolutely can't be interrupted - scoops her into a hug.
Author: self_composed	Oooh, hugs! She's quite interruptable. Email is an asynchronous form of communication. "Hey, you!"
Author: edgeofyourseat	"Anna made three before she decided to take an actual nap," he says. "She's cuddling Sandy, it's adorable. You wanna make arrows off me now?"
Author: self_composed	"That could be arranged. You want me to stomp on your off-switch out of nowhere or ramp up from someplace?"
Author: edgeofyourseat	"Mm, ramp up," he decides.
Author: self_composed	"From...? Shell Bell started at minimum evil and spent three minutes getting to minimum - 'arrow', why arrow? - will that work for you?"
Author: edgeofyourseat	"They look like three arrowheads cuddling," he explains. "Kinda, anyway. Sure, go for it."
Author: self_composed	Aaaaand evil. One hundred thousand. And up, up, up.
Author: edgeofyourseat	He kisses her cheek, which turns into aimless nuzzling, which turns into forgetting how to move.
Author: self_composed	She peers at his thoughts, ready to abort if necessary.
Author: edgeofyourseat	Nope. Loving it.
Author: self_composed	Oh, good. Lord, he makes such faces. And on up. Five thousand triangles a second.
Author: edgeofyourseat	He does, he does make faces! There is not a lot of leftover room in his head, but with what there is, he loves her intensely.
Author: self_composed	Oh good. Three minutes can seem like such a long time when she's trying to keep up with her vampire boyfriend's cognition. Even extremely simple cognition. But eventually it does pass.
Author: edgeofyourseat	And the line of evils acquires a nine-pointed 'coin', which does indeed look like three arrowheads stabbing outward from a single centre. Alice manages one more after that, and then—no, no, this is not where he wants to be anymore.
Author: self_composed	Half-half-half-half till she's in squares and quits outright, she knows how to gentle him down. Hugs. "I love you."
Author: edgeofyourseat	He hugs her back. "I love you too. Mmm, that was pretty nice, but I don't wanna do it again anytime soon."
Author: self_composed	"Okay. I don't expect to need a lot of these anyway." She collects and declaws them, and the preceding evils.
Author: edgeofyourseat	Alice kisses her.
Author: self_composed	Oooh! Kisses! Bella approves.
Author: edgeofyourseat	He's in that mood that Bella's agony beam always puts him in. It is a snuggly mood, and also full of kisses.
Author: self_composed	Ah, one of many beneficial side effects, along with fascinating facial expressions and the coins themselves.
Author: edgeofyourseat	Mmmm. Kisses.