DRAFT Run log for 970429 Present: Barb - Cathryn Kevin - Zack/Zacharias Dave R - Malachai Dave K - Ilk, logging Rich - Ferro Ken - Norton (dead guy/boy) Tia - Cassandra, Damia Chris - Auricle Jody - Cyndia ---------------- Named NPCs: Oaine - non-present PC Rivka - non-present PC Mikail - non-present PC Benedict Blaze Natasha Random Martin Jesby Cara/REN Vlad Caine Sethra Verra Morrolan Tazik Trialla Corwin Oberon Gillian - add to list! ---------------- Events: Everyone Goes To Amber Except For the Regent. Almost Everyone Walks the Pattern. ---------------- When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes Ferro has just completed walking the Pattern, and is filled with power. He searches his memory, but finds no further instructions. He's not sure how to leave, so waits for someone to show up and tell him what to do. Zack and Auricle are walking through shadow to lose Dead Boy, passing through a flat, bright, featureless plain, doing appropriate things to avoid problems with the light. The marsipan hand had wandered back into Zack's pouch after the battle on the walls, and before Zack and Auricle left for Tremere. ---------------- Partings Ilk takes his leave of the AD&D run, bowing appropriately to Damia as a high-ranking noble from shadow, to Cyndia as the daughter of the head of the Warriors' Guild, to Benedict as Benedict, and gives a wink to Blaze, a wave to the rest, and teleports back to House Cara. Benedict tells his newfound daughter that he will stay behind in Chaos - he's persona non grata in Amber. Damia, Cyndia, and family take their birds to Random's, where Damia finds a note from the majordomo, Francis. She goes to his room to chat. He says that a load is going through the transfer point to Amber RSN, Random included, and shows them to the transfer point. They go through the transfer point, with Damia in the lead. ------------- Beginnings Martin and Malachai are chatting on the walls of Castle Amber when Martin gets a distant look, says, "I'll check", and asks Malachai if he's free - Random wants to talk. Sure.... Martin relays, breaks the trump contact, and wanders off. Malachai is trumped by Random, and can see lots of stuff and a bunch of people behind him. "Hi" "Hi. Sanctuary? We're up to our necks in demons" "Sure" Random's got a hundred, maybe a hundred or fifty cart-loads of stuff at the transfer point in the city; Malachai agrees to send someone down for them. Malachai pulls Random through the contact and asks him where all of the demons are from. Random replies that he doesn't know about the demons, and asks if Malachai has heard about Paulette. Yup. "I'm not sure if she really is my mother." "But she's the queen, yah? I'm tired of being in charge here..." Malachai offers Random the castle, he refuses it after some consideration. They decide that Random was actually temporarily recalled and didn't flee like the coward that he is. Malachai explains the current situation in Amber, and notices that Random is randomized. ---------------- The Trojan Zombie Pig Norton arrives at a hill with a stairway leading up the face. His shambling guide indicates that it is Amber. Norton sends the roast ahead to scout. A guard approaches Malachai and says that he doesn't think that they're under attack again, but isn't sure. Someone's lunch is wallking up the stairs of Kolvir. It's a dead, cooked, and partially carved boar-like-thing. They shot guns at it, and nothing happened. They shot a few arrows at it, and they just kinda stuck in it. They haven't sent anyone down to chop it in half yet - it might be dangerous. Norton circles around the hill looking for a more subtle way in, using the roast as a distraction. When Malachai goes to the battlements, he sees the pig about half-way up the face of Kolvir. He tells the guards to wait until it reaches the wall, then push it off the mountain. The guards start drawing straws to see who gets to push the pig off the hill. After walking around the hill for a while, the dead guy sees a line of carts heading uphill. He follows them. Damia and Cyndia emerge from the transfer point and see a line of porters heading up the hill towards the castle. They climb onto their birds and head up to the castle. Damia directs them towards the stables. As Malachai heads back inside the castle, a guard taps him on the shoulder and reports that there are some specks up there, with riders. Malachai takes a look. The specks are about half the size of a roc. There are seven mounted birds and one unmounted bird. They're flying in a very neat formation, an attack formation, actually, and are heading right at him. He sends for some archers, but tells them not to fire before he gives them the order. The archers start grumbling because they're out of the pig poking pool. --------------------- Cleaning Up in Chaos Ilkandacian arrives in the entryway of House Cara. There is barely enough room to fit a couple of people in the foyer - the rest of the space is filled with Ilk's troops. All hundred-thousand plus of them. They say that the demons stopped appearing in the corners, so the House members chased them out here. The members were polite about it, but didn't want them rounding every edge, corner, and flat surface in the House any more. Ilk's troops ask if some of them can go home now - they're compressed 3-4 molecules thick, and vibrating the air for speech is a collaborative effort. Ilk asks them to hang tight for another moment, and heads into the House proper to acquire a status report. The members of the House are cleaning things up after the recent unpleasantness - repairing the holes, cleaning up the scorch marks, and generally getting everything back into order. The House is running smoothly again. Unfortunately, the house members also seem to think that Ilk is House head now, staged the invasion, brought in his own private army, and disposed of REN and Vlad without a trace of evidence against him. Ilk considers disillusioning them, but decides that if he expresses his lack of desire for the post, or exhibits any weakness, someone else might press a claim. Ilk sends most of his troops back, keeping about a batallion's worth, just to make sure that nobody decides to try to depose him, and orders them to guard the door against the demons that are filling the Courts, and leaves a message with them for Cara, should he return. Ilk heads Amber-ways in search of Zacharias. --------------------- Dragaera: the Staging Grounds Cathryn and Jesby are in Random's empty ambassadorial house. Jesby is going to wait there while Cathryn takes Sethra back to Dragaera. She does so, but when they arrive in Castle Black, she thinks that she might have just seen Zack and Auricle go through those doors. Sethra mentions seeing them, and Cathryn follows them, trying to be stealthy. Sethra walks with her, not being stealthy. Teldra bows to Cathryn as heir of House, not head of House. Zack and Auricle are still being paranoid about the dead guy following them. Auricle is in the form of an Issola lady. Morrolan approaches them, greets "Lord Zachnefaen", and asks why he is visiting them on such an occasion. Zack asks if they can chat in private, but then Morrolan notices Sethra, and crosses to greet her. Cathryn blends into the wall, and Sethra says that she has just returned from a most intriguing journey with Cathryn... Cathryn? Cathryn? Zack - "Ah, so Cathryn is visiting the castle with you?" Sethra - "She delivered me here. She didn't teleport out - I would have noticed." Auricle notices that a patch of the wall doesn't quite match the rest, and goes to play wall games with Cathryn. Cathryn, seeing Auricle meld with the wall, considers trumping out, but then decides to Logrus-pull out to avoid breaking the wall motif, then trumps to Amber from the next shadow over. Sethra, seeing Auricle change shape, says, "Wow - can you teach me how to do that?" "I can give you the patented Rivka shapeshifting lesson, but you'd look like Mikail." "Eew - he's ugly, and easterner." Zack introduces Sethra and Auricle to each other, and Sethra says that Zack should take her travelling with him more often. Sethra tells Zack that they were looking for two people, but she only had a token for one of them - Cart? Cara? Zack responds that Cara is the head of House Cara, and that he (Zack) has been looking for him. There was another person with her and she describes Ilk's Hawklord form. Sethra says that Cathryn must have cut a sweet deal - she got her goddess involved. Zack and Sethra continue to chat. -------------- Party In Castle Amber As malachai is turning from the archers who are talking about shooting the birds, one of the ones that is still complaining about the birds says, "Hey Malachai - should that be there?" There's a dapple-colored blur on the horizon, approaching at high speed. It looks like a Sha'um. as it grows closer, it starts to resemble Trialla. She's heading right for the castle. Malachai decides to wait for Trialla here, and heads over to the wall. The birds are approaching, the pig is approaching, Trialla is approaching, ... Trialla gets there first, climbing right up the side of the hill, passing the pig. The AD&D run sees Trialla. The birds put some more air between them and the cats, approaching the sky. Trialla is now facing Malachai, and is purring. "Hi, Trialla. What's up?" Trialla brushes him with a whisker. He scritches her chin. Someone comes from inside the castle, yelling, "I'm coming, I'm coning". Tt's Tazik. A moment later, bouncing over the top of the castle comes Jillian, Tazik's cat. Jillian and Trialla chat, with Tazik translating. "The pet of her pet doesn't know who she is, who he is, ... and you have to come with her now." Malachai gets ready to trump Zack so he can abandon Amber with a clear conscience. Cathryn trumps into the courtyard and sees the managerie. She shifts wings and flies up to the wall near Malachai. They chat. Trialla greets Cathryn, calling her a slowpoke. Cathryn blames her lack of speed on a side trip. Cathryn tells Malachai that she was just from Pearl... Cassandra's lost her memory, and Corwin is lying in state. Cathryn complains that one of Cassandra's cats stole two of her trumps, and asks for replacements. Malachai gives her free rein to loot the castle in search of more trumps. They chat about recent events. Damia sees the cats, and notices Cathryn on the castle wall. There are lots of distance weapons pointing at them. She says, "Cathryn got here before us. smile, dear, smile" to Cyndia, who is considering dropping something on her. Blaze produces an illusion of a banner, displaying Amber's arms on one half, and Paulette's arms on the other half. Cyndia starts conjuring some solidity behind the banner. Cathryn says that it might be best if she wasn't officially here, and expresses her lack of regard for her grandmother. Cathryn trumps Random and Malachai trumps Zack. Cathryn's shape melts off of her, and she has the most amazing images going through her head. Malachai is highly revolted and moves away from her. Malachai's trump attempt is blocked, and he continues moving away from Cathryn. Cathryn asks Random to pull her through to him. He does so, and Cathryn disappears from the wall. Random eats and raves. Cathryn is revolted. Cathryn tells Random that Paulette followed him here, and that demons invaded Amber. Random says that he is going to hide under his bed until the demons go away. Cathryn says that there aren't any demons here, and then sees a little black demon on a wall, out of Random's sight. Cathryn tries to squish it with a Logrus tendril, it multiplies, and both of the demons flee in opposite directions. "Shit!" Cathryn tries to trump Malachai. --------------- Caine Plays Diplomat Malachai trumps Caine and tells him that Paulette is back, and he has to go to Pearl with Trialla, so Caine should return and take over in Amber. The Sha'um leave the walls and head towards the caravan of porters and carts lugging Random's gear to the castle. With the departure of the cats, the AD&D run begins their decent. Norton greets the Sha'um; the first Sha'um tries to bury him. When Norton talks, the cat stops burying him, and sniffs him. Norton sends his dead cat over to talk with the Sha'um. The cat says they're saying he smells dead. Dead guy changes so he no longer smells dead. One Sha'um nibbles on him and reports that he still tastes dead. The cats ask if the little cat is the son of the Big Cat. Norton doesn't know, and isn't sure who the Big Cat is. He then makes another cat identical to the first dead cat, and the big Sha'um grabs him, says, "Let's play!", and runs off. Caine steps through the trump. Malachai tries to take off with Trialla, but Caine insists that Malachai stays long enough to greet Paulette. The AD&D run lands on the castle walls. Caine yells, "Ah, good! Just in time to meet Malachai, heir apparent!", while keeping his arm around Malachai's shoulders to prevent him from fleeing. Damia - "Hello, Caine" Caine - "Hi, this is my brother Corwin's eldest son. He's heir apparent now that Corwin is dead" Damia is distressed at the news of Corwin's death. Malachai and Damia chat. Malachai - "Welcome to castle Amber" Damia - "I trust that all is well?" Malachai - "Not really" Natasha - "That's one hell of an animated pig!" Blaze - "Why don't you do something about it?" Natasha - "I just tried - I couldn't." Damia - "So, Oberon is missing in shadow, Corwin is dead, and you are sitting as regent?" Caine - "Yes!" Malachai - "No!" Caine - "...unlike some people, I didn't sleep my way to the top." Damia and Caine flame at each other. Caine tries to get into a duel with "Damia's guard-dog", Cyndia. Malachai tries to trump Zack again. Still blocked. Damia introduces Cyndia as Benedict's daughter, in an attempt to inimidate him. "Really? I've always wanted to kill one of Benedict's get". After a particularly nasty insult, both Damia and Cyndia try to slap Caine. They both fail. Malachai tries to trump Oberon. Cathryn Logrus-pulls to the wall and exchanges greetings with Caine. Malachai, after some delay while the trumps negotiate to compensate for time differential, trumps out. The Wand of Not Yet falls to the ground. Caine is staring at the spot from which Malachai left. "Excuse me." Caine disappears. No trump trace, no magical trace, just gone. Cathryn saw a small burst of Logrus energy when he left, but reveals nothing. Caine picked up the Wand before he left. Cathryn and Damia exchange pleasantries, and then Cathryn Logrus-pulls back to the dining room. Random's not there, but there is a trail of food heading down towards the dungeons. Cathryn Logruses to the guard station outside the personal chambers. There's horrendous music. It sounds like Martin. As Celeste is sitting locked inside the Pattern room contemplating her navel, she hears horrendous music blasts down at her from above. Damia asks the guards if anyone else if left in charge of the household. "Nobody - they all left" Damia sends a guard off to the kitchens to have a meal prepared and sent to one of the smaller dining rooms, and orders that Oberon's suite and some nearby suites be prepared for her and her party. -------- Brief Stopover in Dragaera Ilk finds Zack and tosses a bug through the Logrus tendril. A blast of Dragaeran energy comes back through the tendril; Ilk teleports to Castle Black. Ilk spots Zack and heads towards him. He's chatting with Sethra. Ilk joins into the conversation, and they decide to wander off to chat, possibly to Amber. Auricle, Zack, Ilk, and Sethra find an alcove. Zack and Ilk put up thin wards; Ilk notices that the wards are penetrated almost immediately. Zack drops his Dragaeran disguise and warns Sethra that, where they are going, most people look like that, and that he customarily assumes that form. Sethra expresses horror at the idea of looking like an easterner, and then Ilkandacian asks her if she, being more familiar with the local mages, would like to deal with the eavesdropper, and she raises a massive ward that blocks all external power sources, including Logrus and Pattern, as well as magic. Auricle is still glowing with Pattern energy, but she's heavily damped. Zack tries to trump Malachai, and the contact is blocked by Sethra's ward. She lowers the ward, and he tries again, but he's blocked. He uses his Castle Trump, which connects, and asks Sethra to raise her ward as a test. She does so, and the contact breaks. She drops the ward again, Zack trumps the Castle again, and passes Auricle through. There are lots of guns almost pointing at her, but turn away when they recognize her. Ilk goes through next, and the guns are re-leveled in their direction. Sethra goes through. Damia, who has been standing on the castle walls, tells the guards to stop pointing their guns at that man - he is known and not hostile. Zack goes through last. Gillian shows up and drops Dead boy next to the undead roast. Natasha offers him a slice. Ilkandacian notices that Sethra and dead guy are both generating Logrus energy - it seems to be random noise, feedback between them. He also notices that the dead cat looks like a little, dead, Snarsht. A strange not-really-conversation occurs. Dead guy summons his shambling guide. Auricle sluices off to look for marsipan man. She disappears from the courtyard. Auricle, looking for marsipan man, finds the Pattern room, is fascinated, drops her contact with Zack, and coalesces in front of the Pattern, which just happens to be directly in front of Celeste, who has been trapped in the Pattern room for hours. They chat briefly. Celeste tells Auricle to tell Clarissa to call if she sees her. Auricle melts onto the Pattern, and emerges twenty minutes later in the center. She goes to Ferro. --------------- Amber Cathryn had an unconfortable moment of something vaguely shapeshifterish passing her, going thataway towards the Pattern room. She continues trying to track down the guard that was whammied, and is distracted by loud noise. She tracks it down - Martin and Oaine are jamming. She sends them off to the castle roof to entertain their grandmother, and they trump out. Celeste notices that the noise just stopped. Cathryn tries to Logrus search for that guard, and gets a headache from her proximity to the Pattern. --------- Still in Amber The conversation in the courtyard continues. Ilk tries to draw Zack to discuss House business and fails. Damia invites Zack and Ilk to dine with them. --------- Guess What? Cathryn is still trying to find the guard. Random comes running past her. Cathryn stops him. Random is carrying armloads of food, and says that he really needs to walk the Pattern, or else they won't stop coming out of the corners. Cathryn takes his hand to drag him upstairs, and is shocked by Pattern-energy. They head up farther, and pressure gets more intense the farther they travel from the Pattern. Cathryn becomes nervous and Logruses Ilk a note. Ilk absorbs the note, reads it, and tries to grab Zack and wander to the dungeons, but Sethra and Norton come as well. There's lots of Logrus interference between the two of them, making them both very silly. Ilk hasn't mentioned the interference to anyone yet. Ilk fills Zack in on some details of the little demons as they walk. --------- Auricle and Ferro Traverse the Primal Pattern Auricle and Ferro are at the Primal Pattern. Auricle is drunk, and emerges ten minutes after they start, and Ferro walks bow-legged, straddling the lines, and finishes thirty minutes after they start. Auricle tells Ferro that she was looking for him so he could set up the AD&D run with rooms. They both go to Zack. ------------ Again? But You Just Walked the Pattern Five Minues Ago! Zack sees two Pattern-batteries arrive, one on either side of him. Ilk gets a headache. Cathryn and Random arrive, heading up the stairs. Random turns and runs towards the Pattern; Ferro follows him. The other Pattern-weenies head quickly down the stairs; Ilk and Cathryn follow more slowly. Norton and Sethra remain upstairs. Celeste opens the door and is hit with waves of Pattern-energy which knock her to the backwards to the edge of the Pattern. Random and Ferro charge in, and the door closes and locks behind them. Random says that he needs to walk the Pattern, steps onto it, and winks out. Zack reaches the Pattern room, and notices that the key isn't where it normally is. Ferro opens the door from the inside and chats with Zack. Celeste asks him to hold the door open so she can leave. Auricle reaches out with a tentacle and slams the door shut. Ferro opens the door again. Auricle pops her and Celeste into the center of the Primal Pattern. Celeste won't tell Auricle what she wants to know, [the logger missed this bit - anyone want to enlighten me?] so Auricle sends Celeste into one of her labs. She arrives strapped down to a vivisectinist's bench. She is annoyed. Auricle pops into the Pattern room next to the others. Cathryn interrogates her about Random's location; Auricle is not helpful. Cathryn goes off on a paranoid rant for a while. Zack brings up Random's trump, and it bursts into flame. Auricle and Ferro start walking the Pattern again. Auricle finishes walking the Pattern and pulls Zack and Cathryn to her. Cathryn thinks go to Random, and they all disappear in a puff of smoke and fire, actually leaving scorch-marks on the Pattern. Ferro reaches the center of the Pattern and starts cleaning the scorch marks. He then goes to Damia. --------- Drooling Undead Vapids Sethra and Norton are tearing into the vapids and making more undead out of them, comparing notes as they go. The vapids' servant is jumping up and down cheering them on. ------- Somebody immediately appears in front of Damia, inside the rooks' exclusion zone. Several rooks attack, and they stick to their target. "Are you Damia? ... Oh - Auricle said that you needed stuff set up." "Who are you?" "Ferro" They chat. Damia and Ferro argue over who gets to sleep in the king's chambers. Damia claims to be queen; Ferro claims to have been told to stay there by Dworkin. -------------- As Cyndia walks back from the stables, she sees the two dead ones ripping apart the vapids and making more like them, and there's this little misshapen guy jumping up and down cheering them on. She continues walking. ----- A guy wanders over to the vivisectionist's bench and asks Celeste if she is the next subject. She declines. He shows her a form. Her name is apparently Gwen, and she's scheduled for vivisection. They chat. The guy won't feed her unless she's the subject. ----- Damia sends Sam, a clueful guard they acquired, off to deal with the mess in one of the dining halls, and Ferro goes mosquito to find Dworkin. Some of the mosquitoes are eaten by rooks, who are dragged laterally until they spit the mosquitoes back out. Damia, Cyndia, Blaze, Natasha, and Maria go off to see that the rooms are prepared for them. ------------ Ferro finds Dworkin. Dworkin is staring at the key to the Pattern room, and is muttering that it is out of place. They go to the Pattern room and chat. Dworkin drains Ferro of his accumulated Pattern-energy, and tells him that he should probably walk the Pattern now. Ferro starts walking, and Dworkin appears directly in the center. ------------ Ilk and dead guy chat. ------------ Celeste escapes from Auricle's lab, with some help from Darkstar and a weak-minded technician. Darkstar takes her to Ygg, where they play silly trump tricks. --EORun--