Arkady looks at Dolmant thoughtfully. "How many Patriarchs vote for Raven who don't vote for 'every last proposal', your Grace?"

After that, he nods to Talen. "I am thinking we could use both of those guys; we will be needing our handbills to get to people who don't come to the basilica every day." Then he blinks and looks at the local gentry. "Forgive me, but who will be coming up with the cash for these 'guys'?"

Felix continues his work on the printing press in the background as the conversations continue.

"Talen, when do the local farmers start coming in to town to buy and sell things? I assume it's fairly early."

"We can expect one hundred and twenty-nine Patriarchs to be present at the next meeting, including those in this room. Sixty-seven seem to be voting for anything and everything Raven suggests, and I believe they have been bribed to the extent where they would support his election. There are eleven more who sometimes vote in favour of Raven's proposals, but only when the proposal is something trivial - like a proposal to light more candles in the Basilica. These eleven solidly vote against Raven on anything substantial, and I believe they're signalling that they would vote in favour of Raven if offered a sufficiently large bribe. Everyone else has been voting against all of Raven's proposals," explains Dolmant. "With one hundred and twenty-nine Patriarchs present, to elect an Arch-Prelate would take one hundred votes if all one hundred and sixty-eight Patriarchs were present, but with only one hundred and twenty-nine present it would need a like proportion, so we'd need to work out exactly how many votes it would take in order to -"

"Seventy-seven," says Talen promptly. "With one hundred and twenty-nine Patriarchs you'd need seventy-seven votes to win the election. Your Grace."

There's a moment of stunned silence from all the Patriarchs present. Then Dolmant speaks. "Do you know how much paper we went through trying to work that out previously?"

"An' now you can send what's left o' that paper downstairs, Your Grace," points out Talen.



"Given that it's a matter of the defense of the church -" Vanire says, reaching for his belt pouch.

"Don't bother," says Talen. "Little things like this? They'll do it for free. Or they'll have to explain to Platime why they didn't. Um. Your Grace."

He hands over the sketch he's been working on for the last several minutes. It's a picture of Raven's face, looking angry and more than a little demonic, with huge ram's horns attached to his skull. "Think you folk can find a use for this?"



"How should I know?" asks Talen. "Prob'ly when the gates open, I guess?"

"The gates open at dawn," says Dolmant, "and there are almost always a few farmers waiting outside by the time dawn arrives."

"Then that's your deadline, cause the farmers are the ones the majority of the city are going to see, and they take news and gossip home."

Arkady thinks for a second, then says "I am thinking you need to tell the story of the trial very quickly, or we need to find at least two of the hiding Patriarchs by morning. If he gave those 11 the bribes they want then Raven will be elected on the first vote."

"And wherever those Patriarchs are hiding," muses Vanire, "they still need to eat. Which means that they have an ally providing them with food, which means that someone is buying from the farmers. If a rumour goes with the food every time it changes hands, that rumour will eventually reach the Patriarchs in hiding."

"Hopefully," says Dolmant, "if Raven meets their price too quickly those last Patriarchs will just assume he has access to even more money and push their price up. But you're right, we do have very limited time to work with here."

Current plan: Create printing press overnight.
Produce as many pamphlets as can be made using paper available in the city.
Have these pamphlets distributed throughout the city by dawn, and especially distributed to the farmers as they come in through the gate (using Talen's contacts as distribution agents).
Turn the mood of the city against Raven.

Have I got that right, or am I missing anything? Is there anything further that should be added?

Felix is okay with this plan, and is standing ready to help write the most inflammatory expose on Raven's actions and crimes as he's able to. He'll issue a call-to-arms to rally people around keeping Raven from being elected. He'll spend as many fate points as he needs to boost associated rolls.

Arkady looks at Talen's drawing. "If you can be carefully going over those lines with a stick of wax, I think we can. And if any of the guys who are spreading our message around town happen to hear of a patriarch laying low, well, we would want to hear that as well.

Felix: Engineering: +5 Roll: +2 Total: +7

No-one but Felix can quite understand how he got from a pile of supplies to a fully functional printing press in a mere half an hour. Admittedly, it wasn't a particularly pretty printing press, nor a brilliantly robust one, but it worked, and the necessary mid-print repairs were easily handled.

It took longer to typeset the page than to create the press.

Talen heads out to find late-night paper...

Talen: Contacting: +4 Roll: +0 Total: +4

He arrives back in an hour or so (just about when Felix had finished printing pamphlets on all the blank paper Dolmant had in his estate) with a pile of paper about whose origin no-one enquires too deeply into. He then heads straight back out again with a pile of finished pamphets to handle the distribution...

Talen: Contacting: +4 Roll: +3 Total: +7

...and in remarkably quick time, is coming back for more and more pamphlets. Apparently, the seamier side of Chyrellos includes a number of people who were quite taken with the idea of putting one over on the Primate (perhaps due to the fact that all his soldiers on the streets made thievery difficult).

With Talen so busy finding paper and distributing manuscripts, though, he is entirely unable to trace over his sketch in wax; instead, Piper takes over that duty.

Talen's original sketch: Art: +3 Roll: +0 Total: +3
Constrained by Piper's art skill: -1 Total: +2

The result is still recognisibly the Primate with ram's horns, but something of the ferocity of the the original sketch is lost in the process.

Felix works himself to the brink printing out as many pamphlets as possible. He'll continue until they run out of paper or need to head to the streets to meet the people they're hopefully enraging.

Arkady is going to take the drawing, a bit of acid, and a metal plate (preferably copper) to turn the picture into a printable image; he can use his metal working skill to clean up the image a bit. Once he's done the pamphlets can be illustrated.

Roger volunteers to take some pamphlets and put them up around town.

Midnight passes, and Felix's bashed-together printing press is still holding. Arkady transfers Talen's sketch onto a copper plate:

Sketch: +2
Constrained by Arkady's Engineering skill: Engineering>2, no change

Though the first batches of the explanatory pamphlet are unillustrated, later batches show the Primate looking particularly demonic, which would presumably increase their impact.

Roger heads out to put up some posters, and barely dodges a patrol of the Primate's church soldiers, who are going around and tearing the posters back down again. (Talen politely requests that Roger not do that again, on the basis that Roger stands out in a crowd of Elenes like a sore thumb, and he would probably not particularly enjoy being arrested.)

--------------

Eventually, dawn arrives. The farmers coming in to market are quickly met by a few of Talen's contacts and given the illustrated versions of the pamphlets - which are read out to them because few of the farmers are literate. Talen is convinced that the rumours must have by now reached virtually everyone in town; he is, however, going to take a few hours to catch up on all the sleep he missed distributing the posters

Dolmant, Vanire and Ortzel will of course go to the Basilica shortly before dawn, so that they're there and ready in case Raven arranges for a vote ten seconds after the sun rises. They offer to let the party accompany them, if you want to see the effects of your efforts on the Patriarchs first-hand.

All of the characters who were up all night will gain the temporary Aspect 'Exhausted'. The city as a whole has also gained an Aspect to describe the reaction of the population to the pamphlets full of revelations; I have yet to think of a suitably pithy name for that Aspect, though.