ROUGH DRAFT Run Log for 970513 Present: Chris - Auricle Dave R - Malachai Kevin - Zack Tia - Cassandra, Damia Jody - Cyndia Dave K - Ilkandacian, logging Barb - Cathryn Rich - Ferro Laori - Celeste ------------------- Named NPCs: ------------------- "I Am What Tir Dreams Of" Zack and Auricle travel from the Pattern room in the wrong Amber to Tir. Strangeness in Tir ensues. Auricle is surrouinded by worshippers in robes. One of them slits the throat of another and leaves him at Auricle's feet as a sacrifice. Seventeen Sidhe warriors crowd around Zack, but no communication is possible and they soon go elsewhere. Auricle and Zack wander around, ending up at the throne room. They see lots of elders standing around, cheering and saluting the person on the throne. K'rin is among the elders. Zack, appearing to be in his early twenties, is on the throne. Benedict turns towards them, and they can see Oberon, throat slit, lying at the foot of the throne. Hilarity ensues. Apparently, everyone here can hear and see Auricle, but not Zack. Auricle explains to Zack. They think he's married to her, but they also think that she is Fiona. She (Fiona) saved him from being beaten by Julian in Arden when he was little, so she was his favorite aunt. A silver cup filled with green liquid is handed to Zack. The Tir-ghosts were handling it, so it's real to both the Tir ghosts and him, but it has no magical properties that are visible to him. The conversation becomes confusing, as Zack can only hear Auricle's half, but both Zacks answer her independently. The Tir ghosts think that Auricle is unwell. The cup supposedly contains the antidote for the poison that Oberon poisoned Fiona with, and it was that poisoning that triggered the coup. They leave in search of the Pattern. Auricle stops and chats with a Caine that Zack can't see. He calls her his child, presumably thinking that she is K'rin. After that, Zack notices a magical conduit in her shoulder where Caine touched her. By staring up and down the conduit, it looks sorta Pattern-ish, but more like the Pattern in the flames than his Pattern. Then he sees someone who looks like Benedict in his twenties and someone who looks like a snot-nosed kid, and Auricle stops and has a conversation with them. They seem to think that she is their mother. Oberon pops out, thinks Auricle is Eric, and tells her to stop picking on Corwin - it's distracting their mother, who is pregnant. The Real Dworkin, not a Tir ghost, shows up, and comes out of a space in the wall. Zack can see the space in the wall behind him. Dworkin looks at them, mutters, "damn tourist season", and slams the wall behind him. They spot the Pattern. Zack walks directly into the room, but there's a wall there to Auricle, so she wanders around until she finds the door. There's a Pattern there. It's glowing, but there's no power there. Auricle eggs Zack onto it on a point that isn't the start. Nothing happens. Zack wanders around being amused. The lines are actually on the floor, not in the floor. Zack rearranges the lines, and writes "Zack was here" in Pattern. They start reshaping the lines into the shape of their Pattern, and Zack ends up getting stuck in the middle. They get superstitious about the now-correct-looking Pattern; Zack doesn't really want to walk over it again. Auricle walks the Pattern normally along the floor, and behind her it gains Pattern power. When she reaches the center they can't leave normally - neither of them actually walked the Pattern. Auricle gets the idea to trump to Amber. Zack pulls out a trump of Amber, and they attempt this. It hurts a lot. Auricle ends up in the courtyard of Tir. She looks around, doesn't see Zack, and there are clouds moving in quickly. She books back to the Pattern, tries to trump Zack, and fails - he's out of range. She is slurped by the Pattern normally, concentrates on going home, and wakes up in a mansion. Zack wakes up. He's not in Amber, and he's not with Auricle. --------------------------- Blood Rituals at Corwin's Pattern Darkstar, the guide, Malachai, Celeste, and Cassandra are near Corwin's Pattern. Corwin's body lying on a bier at the edge of the Pattern. The sunlight pouring down upon the Pattern gets brighter as they approach Corwin. Malachai asks Darkstar what they should do now, and Darkstar says that he needs some of Corwin's blood. Malachai pulls out a knife. Cassandra - "This isn;t going to hurt him, is it?" Darkstar - "Probably very much." Malachai tries to prick Corwin with a dagger, but it scrapes off his flesh. Galantine scrapes off his flesh. Malachai asks after Greyswandir. The guide doesn't know where Greyswandir is - his daughter was carrying it. Cassandra draws one of her daggers, and it scrapes off Corwin's flesh. It doesn't even indent the skin. [conversation ensues regarding using a Morganti to prick Corwin's flesh. No soul - low calorie body?] Attempts to find Greyswandir - who can find it? Celeste asks Darkstar, "Can't you find it?" "No. it's got Pattern in it." ... "where I come from, we don't like things with Pattern in them." Celeste starts working on locating Greyswandir. Cassandra sends fast kitty off for the kitty who finds things. Fast kitty blurs out, and comes back. "She's busy." "It's important." Blurs out again. Blurs back. "She's coming." "Where is she?" "She's slow." "Can't you help her?" "She bites too hard." Cassandra starts laughing. Darkstar uncurls an eyebrow. Malachai shows Corwin's trump to Celeste - it has the image of Greyswandir on it. Malachai describes Greyswandir in exacting detail. Cassandra is impressed. Fast kitty blurs in. "She here yet?" "No." "She's slow." Blurs out. Cassandra starts laughing again. Celeste continues doing mystical shit. She locates it - it appears to be in a backet, in a castle cross shadow. She describes. Cass and Malachai start laughing. Cass calls back the fast kitty, and asks for a ride to her room, grabs on, and they blur off. Cassandra arrives in her room. Gypsy is sitting there looking very smug. Cassandra thanks her and scritches her. Looks through the basket, finds Greyswandir, and takes it, passing it through her belt. She returns. Elapsed time, two minutes, max. Darkstar reminds her that it should be precisely six drops. no more, no less. She pricks Corwin with Greyswandir, and collects the blood in a cup. Cass puts her thumb over the cut. A tingle begins spreading in her thumb. She complains to Darkstar. Malachai tries it, with the same effect. No tingle anywhere else. The guide tries it, and encourages Celeste to do the same. Celeste declines. Darkstar borrows a dagger and starts inscribing things in the sand, facing Corwin. The lines in the sand stop the sourceless light, producing the only dark place around. Celeste watches; Cass and Malachai chat. There is a large humming noise, an interaction between ambient power and Darkstar's drawing. Only Celeste notices. Celeste starts questioning Darkstar about what he is doing - Darkstar is annoyed at existance of humming - it seems to be feedback. He can't hear it. Celeste starts listening in the way that her grandmother taught her. Major disharmony - tyro playing harmonica, howling cats, etc. Cassandra asks Darkstar if she can help. He looks her up and down, and grills her briefly. He asks her if she has access to the psychic output of six or seven entire shadows. She declines. Malachai asks if someone could walk the Pattern over there and channel him power - Darkstar says probably not. Darkstar asks if Celeste has any non-local power sources - he's already tapping the three local ones. Probably not here. They discuss ways to acquire more power. The guide reaches back, unclasps something from her hair, and tosses it to Darkstar. He starts looking polite, then looks surprised, and says thanks. The discord is getting louder. The Wand of Not Yet is still saying not yet, and doesn't seem likely to be useful. The discord is still growing louder, and the sky is tearing open over them. "Cover Corwin!" Malachai starts putting his jacket over Corwin. Cass starts kicking sand over the lines Darkstar drew in the sand. Darkstar says "Catch!" and throws something to Celeste; it's non-physical, lines of power. Darkstar boils upward, and does something in three dimensions making Cassandra nauseous. It looks like a design someone showed Celeste once, something about controlling everything. He collapses back to earth, mostly shapeless. The tear in the sky is gone. ------------------------ Ferro leaves his rooms around dinnertime, planning on heading downstairs to do a samba line as gnat-sized bits across the Pattern. ------------------------- Zack has a brief moment of consciousness. It doesn't feel like he's entirely there, and then he doesn't exist again, but for a moment it looks like he's in Dalcontyr. He comes to again rocketing across the skies of what looks like Chaos. He's not entirely sure that it's Chaos - it's underwater, covered in dark water up to the third story. Zack keeps rocketing and looks for where House Cara would be. He heads downward, and manages to control his flight. Impressive, considering he's not sure what gave him the velocity in the first place. He comes to a somewhat bumpy landing, skids to a stop, and realizes that he's in House Cara. Now that he's up close, he realizes that it's not actually water, it's demons. He trumps Benedict, who receives him. Benedict standing on what looks like a very strange boat, sailing over demons. "Hello uncle, lovely day for a sea cruise". "I have a strange question - are you currently the head of the Warriors' Guild after the Patternfall War... ?" "Yes, why do you ask?" "I've been dimension hopping again." They chat. Zack asks for a lift to Amber; Benedict suggests that Zack take the transfer point. Zack tries to fill Benedict in on relevant matters, and Benedict says that there is a 100% chance that their conversation is being eavesdropped on so they shouldn't go into too many details. Zack asks if he could do Benedict a favor; Benedict asks Zack to tell Cathryn that the demons are also staying away from the blasted hole that used to be her house. She asked him to look in on it when he got the chance... Zack asks Benedict what caused the demons. Benedict isn't sure, but says they seem intractable. To demonstrate, he skewers one with his pole. The demon dies messily, and another appears in its place. They chat. Zack breaks contact and heads to the transfer point, flying over the demons. --------------- Hi, Mom, I'm in Jail Cathryn finally locates the guard. There is a crowd watching him; he's raving about this being a ghost town, and stealing things. Nobody is getting in his way. She grabs him and Logruses the both of them into a convenient dungeon room. He looks around, "Damn, that was a bad dream. What am I doing in one of these cells?" He doesn't see Cathryn. He runs full-tilt into the door. It reverberates, but doesn't let him out. Cathryn struggles with him for a bit and finally locks him into some convenient chains. She tries to reach into shadow get a small marquee with which to communicate with the guy, and finds that she can't reach outside the cell. She tries to shapeshift and ooze out through the grill, and half-way through the grill she encounters something that forces her into her normal form. She tries to smash the door, and rebounds. She goes into a drill shape and tries to cut through the wall, but skitters off it. ----------------- Post-Dinner Conversation Dinner is over. Sethra and Norton have wandered off. Ilk asks Random what happened to the others that walked the Pattern, and Random denies having walked the Pattern recently. Ilk mutters about multiple Randoms and alternate Realities briefly, not particularly enlightening any of those listening. Random argues that he always knows who he is -- himself, and that's what's important. Ilk admits to Damia and Cyndia that he can't tell the difference between Amberites and their alternates. Actually, he doesn't know - he hasn't really stared at any Amberites in general, let alone ones from other realities. Damia - "You don't normally stare at Amberites?" Ilk - "Few Amberites are nearly as comely as you, dear lady" They chat. Damia offers to give Ilk some rooms in the castle so he can stay for a while. Ilk waffles between staying in Amber and returning to Chaos, and finally agrees to stay for a while, on the caveat that he might be called away to deal with problems in Chaos. Damia tries to arrange for rooms for Ilk. However, she can't find a servant, and can't even find a guard - all of the ones in this area are trailing along behind Norton and Sethra. Ilk volunteers to find a guard for her and Damia accepts, so Ilk Logrus-finds a guard and teleports him in, creating a gate beneath the guard's feet so he falls, landing on his feet in front of Damia. He looks at Damia, looks at Ilk, looks at Cyndia, looks at Cyndia again, and then asks Damia if he can help her. Damia and the guard chat. The guard considers Ferro to be Dworkin's son, hence higher rank than her. She argues with him for a while, and finally offers Ilk the sitting room of her current rooms. Cyndia and Damia head to find Prospero, the only person who appears to be in direct control over anyone here, and the guard's immediate supervisor. ----- A guard comes up to Ferro and says that Prospero needs his help; there's been a disturbance of sorts. Guards are just disappearing from their posts. ----- Cyndia orders two rooks to assume permanent guard duty on Damia until further notice. Cyndia and Damia arrive at Prospero's. There is a grey guy out front, the scheduler. Damia remembers him, he's been there forever. Flora didn't take him with her - he came with the castle. He tells her that Prospero is in conference. They enter anyway. ----------------------------- Ferro dissolves and buzzes off in search of disappearing servants. One of the flies discovers that one of the dungeon cells is occupied unexpectedly. He coalesces and looks inside. There's a guy chained to the wall and a drill trying to burrow through the walls. Ferro decides that this is strange and that they probably don't belong there, so he opens the door. Cathryn shifts into her normal form, grabs the guard and tries to Logrus pull cross-shadow. She fails - it's too close to the Pattern. She pulls the guard out of the chains leaving his hands behind, and storms up the stairs. Ferro grabs the hands and starts following Cathryn, calling "you forgot these..." Ferro sees Norton, Sethra, and a congo line of guards heading down the stairs as he chases Cathryn upwards. Cathryn reaches the top of the stairs and Logrus-pulls out. Ferro disposes of the hands neatly and heads back down to deal with the missing guards. ------------------------------ Damia asks Prospero if he is in charge, and says that she's Queen Paulette, and in charge. "No, Malachai is in charge." "Well, he left and left me in charge." "He left? Nobody tells me anything." He complains briefly, then asks her for some id. Damia says that Cyndia has it, and Cyndia replies that she left it back with the ornithalls. Damia mentions the vampiric vapids. Prospero takes notes, and sticks them in a thick file labeled, "Things for Oberon to fix" Cyndia asks if she can help. Prospero asks for some guards and gives specs; she takes notes. Prospero insists that anyone working in Castle Amber swear loyalty to him personally, at least until Malachai returns. Prospero says that he'd like to replace the guards; they're cracking. Some of them even reported having seen a dead pig climbing up the stairs of Kolvir, and later walking around inside the castle itself. Damia and Cyndia confirm the story. [Castle Amber - the wildlife preserve] They chat. ----- Ilk sees some Logrus activity downstairs - someone just pulled out. He tracks it down - it's Cathryn. She went to a place where torture is considered a high art - both physical and mental torture. Cathryn cauterizes the bleeding wrists of the guard. Ilk puts a bug on Cathryn. ------- Torture for Fun and Science There are lots of people wearing business suits wandering around here. Cathryn shifts appropriately. Someone approaches her. "What are you here to sign up here for?" "Oh, your standard torture, of course." " All of the programmers call it that, of course." The greeter leads her down to the lab - it's a fairly clean-looking surgical room, with lots of nasty-looking torture instruments. "Don't you want to tie him down?" "No, we use anasthetic." "Doesn't he have to be at least semi-conscious?" "Not at first, but he needs to be conscious for the final adjustments." The technician is describing an experimental cybernetics program; Cathryn is describing torture. They are each completely oblivious to the other's true meaning. Cathryn gladly signs forms signing away all of the guard's rights. The greeter jams a huge needle up into the guy's brain. They chat. Cathryn tries to get him to torture the guard, he keeps insisting that it doesn't hurt _that_ much... The greeter plucks out the guard's eye to install a cybernetic replacement. They put baffles around the guard to dampen the screams. This continues for some time. --------------- Ilk, listening to Cathryn's session from the castle Amber courtyard, laughs out loud while reaching towards Home to get a status report and acquiring furnishings from nearby shadows and placing them into the sitting room given to him by Damia. ------------------------------ Will Malachai Actually Walk Corwin's Pattern? Cassandra, Celeste and Malachai have been chatting while they wait for Darkstar to recover. Celeste is contemplating trying to fix Cassandra and wondering if she can reach her grandmother from here. Darkstar pulls himself mostly together and joins them. Cassandra offers Darkstar a small stick - Celeste and Darkstar recognize it as one of Clarissa's calling cards. "Here, let me help," Darkstar says, and Cassandra receives a trump call. it's Darkstar. He walks through her mind repairing the links relating to that stick. She now knows that it's Clarissa's. Celeste tries to reach Clarissa via a channel - the closest thing to Clarissa's pattern that she touches are a few dragons. They contemplate trying to reach Zack, but nobody has anything that belonged to him. Darkstar says that he would need Cassandra to open up Corwin's chest cavity - that's the last chance. Celeste and Darkstar talk about healing the physical damage to Cassandra's brain. Celeste thinks that Faythe might do a better job of it than her. Cassandra, Darkstar, and Malachai chat about finding witnesses to Corwin's wounding. Darkstar gets a trumpish look, and says that there is another way. Someone must walk Corwin's Pattern while carrying him. And you (looking at Malachai) are the best candidate. "He may have more time than I initially anticipated. He got unmade.... according to Trialla, the only thing that kept him in some semblance of life was this Pattern." Malachai asks about walking Amber's pattern carrying him. "I believe that Amber's pattern will now reject him, as that piece of him was unmade." Cassandra offers to walk it, but Celeste and Malachai refuse, telling her that she should not walk any Pattern before she regains her memory. Darkstar thinks that things are likely stable, such that Corwin will probably not degenerate farther. Darkstar says that Titania could almost certainly find Corwin's straying soul, and then Darkstar could put it back into his body. The unmaking means that Corwin can probably not leave Pearl safely. They decide to leave Pearl to find Titania. Darkstar trumps Trialla... -------------------------- Ferro is following the zombies to find out if they are the missing guards. Sethra and Norton are going looking for demons, and the guards are following them because they just like them. Ferro feels this pull, but it's resistable. He resists it. He goes to the pattern room, and goes marsipan centipede. It gets harder and harder as he goes farther along. ------ Ilk is still pulling things through shadow. ------ Cathryn is trying to get regret or repentence out of the guard. No luck there, but lots and lots of pain. After a while, he passes out due to sensory overload. They offer to put him up for the night to start again tomorrow morning. They say that she doesn't need to be there - they can just replay those messages of confidence she was sending them in a language they can't understand automatically. They offer to sign him up for the standard program - six months, automatic renewal is an option... Cathryn offers to give a donation to their fabulous organization, and the guy writes down his personal routing number. They flatter each other. Cathryn notes it as a training ground for future torturers and heads to the ambassador's place to meet up with her mother. She arrives in time to hear Jesby have an argument with a member of the staff that Cathryn hired for her father. She listens... it seems like Jesby's complaining that the staff member is allowing any Amberite to come through here. Apparently one of the younger Amberites just passed through here and took advantage of the transfer point. Finally Jesby gets fed up with him and conjures him up somewhere else. Jesby asks if Cathryn has any leads or information regarding the whereabouts of her House, and Cathryn says that Mandor had some leads. They decide to head to House Sawall. "Last time I was there, Mandor's personal house was on fire and the rest of House Sawall was rubble" Jesby is surprised - House Sawall's ways were built specifically to be difficult to assault. She notices this black wall about a fifteen minute walk from the door of Random's embassy. It's made out of demons. "I thought we took care of this" "We?" "Ilkandacian... " Lower-ladder in House Cara? "A very good place to form an alliance, just don't get caught at it. They're very good at some things." "No, no, it's not that at all - Suhuy arranged it - it was a tutoring arrangement in Logrus." "That's usually how it begins... they're very good at those things. It runs in the family." They decide to go over the demons. Jesby reaches cross-shadow with Logrus and acquires a barge-like device. Jesby pulls them over the top of the demons and they arrive at Mandorways. It's not on fire. There is an entrance carved into the house at the current sea level, and another one above that, and another one above that. An old demon servant greets them at the door and says that Mandor is currently in a private conference with a guest, but he can show them into a private room. "Who is the guest?" "It's the current guildmaster of the Warriors' Guild." Cathryn asks if they could join Mandor and his guest. The servant shows them to the dining room. Benedict rises and greets them. --EORun--