Ah, but Younger Goddess of what?

If I had to guess? Cuteness.

Does the corps of runners supply paper and pens, or do the guests have to bring their own?

Pens (and inkwells to dip them into) are common throughout the tables. Paper is found on many of the tables; it's notable that there's no paper in an area around the Primate's table, but a lot of paper on his table, as if he'd spent a bit of time before you got here going and getting paper from several nearby tables to put on his table, perhaps in anticipation of writing a lot of notes.

If he comes up with enough notes, maybe we can get Piper to play it.

I wonder if we should text our friend working on the press to see if he can nudge folks into finding some of the hiding patriarchs...sounds like we may need one or two.

Can I spend a couple fate points? One to say Raven has overextended himself financially and his bribe funds are limited. Another to say we hit a huge pocket of gold in the mine and have enough disposable currency to bribe people ourselves.

If you were to try this, you would still need to head back to the Ship to pick up this gold, which would allow Raven a couple of days to work unopposed.

But yes, attempting to outbid Raven is a strategy that you can attempt. (Don't tell Ortzel).

Running low on fate points. Can someone else spend one to say a Terran courier dropped us off a package of gold last night? Would that work, CCC?

I think that'll require Piper's help. I wonder if she, or our neighborhood arch-mage, know how to teleport things?

Nah. We spend the fate point and they'll have left several days ago, having arrived when we needed to receive the gold last night.

You're going to have to provide at least a vague justification as to why the Terran courier left the Ship several days ago, well before your chat with Dolmant and Ortzel last night.

Gold buys things, and having a lot of it would give us the ability to buy all sorts of things that could be useful for the ship. Like food. Or strengthened relationships with our allies.

We can't really depend on our allies footing the bill for our shenanigans forever, and there are things they can't or won't buy for us that we may really need.

Nah, just say the gold is a tax return from the church. Turns out we just brought too much.

Or alternately it's just the first installment of our tithe, which we opted to pay in cash in order to keep the goods for ourselves. Granted, we don't technically owe any yet, but there's no reason not to build up a credit.

...I can work with that. The Church Knights did manage to argue for your tithe to go direct to Chyrellos, right? And Captain Argent is the sort to prefer to build up a credit, where it doesn't hurt him to do so.

...yeah, we'll go with that.

One FATE point to say that the Terrans have hit on far more gold than anyone had any right to expect. (Let's say that one of the original miners had been quietly stashing a supply near the mine; only he got caught in a collapse one day, which also hid his hidden stash, and the Terran miners discovered said stash). One FATE point to have a substantial portion of this supply delivered as an advance tithe, with the courier arriving at the gates of Chyrellos right now (i.e. while you're in the Basilica). And one FATE point to have some event (temporarily) cut off Raven's access to the Elene treasury.

Are all three FATE points coming from Kajin, or would someone else like to pick up the tab on one or more of those points?