DRAFT Run Log for 970930 Present: Dave R - Malachai Andrew - Osric Tia - Cassandra, Damia Lori - Celeste Dave K - Ilk, logging Ken - Norton --------------- Major Events: * White Out * Finally Inside Suhuy's Realm * More Questing for Serena * Celeste has Family Problems --------------- White Out Malachai is in the middle of a snowstorm, trying unsuccessfully to trump Benedict. He continues trying to follow Serena's trump, modified by Merlin to serve as a homing device. When he puts Benedict's trump away, the movement awakens the little girl in his hood, who starts crying. He tries to comfort her. Beucephalus suddenly plants all four feet and stops. The card only says that Serena isn't in a few degrees of arc, directly behind him. Malachai dismounts, moving carefully forward, and encounters a white wall, possibly made of snow. He punches at it, and it dents. Malachai remounts, turns Beucephalus, and has Beucephalus kick a hole in the wall. They enter. It's a whiteish chamber, and there are a couple of wolf corpses in here. The chamber is lit with a sourceless blue-white light. The chamber is about sixty feet square and has a fifteen foot high ceiling. The wolves were killed by weapons, and are no longer steaming. There are a few bloody arrows lying on the floor. Malachai tries trumping Corwin, and seems to get a strange kind of electrical feeling when he concentrates on the card. He tries a magic-negation power word, and pushes harder. He reaches out momentarily, and then the effect resumes. Malachai pulls out Serena's trump, and it now has a definite direction - through that door there. Malachai goes up to the door and checks for traps. Another chamber - this one is occupied by a large bear, which is now attacking. Malachai stands on his saddle, and strikes at the the back of the bear's neck as it passes. Malachai hears the scrambling of claws approaching, and climbs the bear, using it as a defensive position. It's a bloody fight. He's not advancing very far - there are about ten wolves present, with several dead and more arriving. They are much tougher to kill than normal. Malachai tries to whittle them down. Although he doesn't notice more arriving, the number attacking him seems to remain constant, although the corpse count keeps increasing. Malachai draws the gun he borrowed from Benedict, along with three kinds of bullets - 'A', 'O', 'C'. The 'O' ones look golden, and the others look silvery. Malachai tries to fire a 'C', but the bullet fizzles. Malachai mounts Beucephalus, and they jump off the bear and out through the door. They charge through a few rooms and head up a spiral staircase. The jostling wakes the little girl, who finishes pushing the hood back, turns, sees the wolves, calls, "Puppy!" and points. The wolves burst on fire. "Good girl!" The walls, ceiling, and floor starts melting, revealing some greenish veins running through the walls. The flaming wolves are continuing to chase them. -------------------- Finally Inside Suhuy's Realm Ilk has arrived at the entry point to Suhuy's realm with Clarissa. He asks her to stay here for a few moments, and heads in. It's an order of magnitude harder than it was the last time, but it seems to be automated. Norton, Osric, and Merlin chat about their situation with the cards. Merlin claims that he was confronted by two guys dressed in long trenchcoats and shades who demanded that he come with him. He refused, and woke up here. Merlin turns to Andron and demands to know what he has done with his brother. Norton turns back into Norton, and briefly explains his choice of forms. Norton asks how safe it is to talk here, and Rainbow turns to him and says, "Not at all." Rainbow explains that they could be observed by the enemy, not observed at all, or observed by the enemy who is lying low and waiting for them to make an escape. Osric - "So, why are we here?" Rainbow - "To rescue a damsel in distress. His wife." Andron - "My wife." Andron waves. Merlin says that his mother once lied to Benedict, and claimed to be his great-great granddaughter. Ilk pops in. They chat. Osric is quite distressed to find out exactly what he has gotten himself into. Ilk finishes unlocking the door and departs. Merlin suggests a game of cards, and then thumbs out Corwin's trump. Norton convinces Merlin to stop. He puts them away, does something, a glowing sphere appears, and he drops the trump into it. He looks into the sphere and says, "Does anyone want a sandwich?" Merlin pulls out a corned beef sandwich, and then forces a tureen of turtle soup on Norton. Osric acquires a grilled cheese sandwich. Merlin is amused to hear that Osric actually volunteered for this shendig. Ilk returns. Norton asks after the reinforcements. There is a feeling of contentment that waves across everyone in the room and then Clarissa appears. Clarissa delightedly greets Rainbow, declaring that she has been trying to chase him for ages. Rainbow pales. Ilk looks at Merlin at Norton's behest, and asks him to put his Pattern-blade away. They begin. Merlin pulls out an easel and starts painting a trump of Jenoir, with advice from Andron. Ilk Logrus-drags him and his easel along behind them. Ilk asks Osric if he would mind shielding the group as they enter Suhuy's work room. Clarissa volunteers to stay with Ilk. Ilk asks if anyone could contact him from there. Rainbow sighs and hands Ilk a butterfly so they can remain in contact. Norton reminds Ilk that the butterflies are not to be mauled. Ilk tells Rainbow that he would not even consider mauling his butterfly. "Good - I'd hate to see you end up like Flora. Clarissa chips in. "Rainbow... you're with Flora. That's so nice. She's such a nice lady." "Yes. and we're monogamous!" "How old fashioned and stodgy of you." Osric puts up a shield around everyone but Ilk and Clarissa, and Ilk pushes them through into Suhuy's work room. -------------------------------- Dinner in Cobalt Celeste, Damia, Brandt, and Vialle are going to a dinner party in Cobalt. Dana, Aurelia, Erika, Coral, Cynthia, Carlton, Alia, Finndo, Francesca, Hadrian, Llewellen, Flavius, Catherine, Freya, Gwenevere, Alric, Sasha, Collunbine, Terrence, Althea, Aurora, and Bast. It's an amazing dinner party. There is saliva being shared all over the place. Damia has a dance card to fill. Brandt has a bevy of followers. Word makes it back to Damia that although the blind guest is polite, the redhead is standoffish. She soothes his ego. Celeste notices a nice portrait of Benedict on the wall. The artist, Erika, comes by to chat, and says that another person made a sculpture of a subset of Benedict. She keeps the sculpture in her chambers, but is willing to schedule ... private showings. The sculptor stops by to chat, and says that her piece by Benedict is over there, and Carlton waves. She says that Aurelia (?) cannot show off - Beau isn't around. She notices that Brandt is busy - he seems to have been mobbed by the younger generation. Erika asks Celeste how old Brandt is. "He's my eldest." "And how old are you?" "Old enough." Erika says that she is six hundred, and Coral is only five hundred. Erika says that Dana has given her nod to Damia's. "Damia's relationship with Brandt?" "Damia's baby by Brandt." They have a confused conversation, which drifts through eugenics at one point. She asks if she could visit Darkover at some point to see about sending some people over to improve the breed. Carlton wanders over and bows over Celeste's hand. All of the snakes that are currently his hair are looking at her, and grinning. Carlton ditches the snakes and shifts more like Brehndyn. Celeste shows him a trump of Brendan, and Carlton looks exactly like Brehndyn. Celeste flips through her trumps looking for more. Erika stares at Celeste. She has become very quiet. Erika questions her, and seems intrigued to learn that Benedict is Celeste's uncle. Erika expresses Trump envy. Celeste looks at Erika's trumps. They're based on something ordered, but not Pattern, and some magic, and they hold charges. Celeste hands Erika her trump of Benedict. The party continues. ------------------------------- The Quest for Serena Continues Malachai asks the little girl if she can extinguish the wolves. "I don't know" She points and yells, "Go away!" and a wolf is thrown against the wall. "Keep doing that." They've gone several hundred turns on the staircase, with still no end in sight. Malachai bursts through the wall, and discovers what those green veins are - they're snakes. They cut and splatter nicely, but the chunks that splatter start burning through the snowsuits. They're on a low roof, it looks like a castle roof. There is a tall tower next to them that is slowly turning into snakes and coming after them. There is a wolf in the sky chasing a winged pig. Serena is up the tower that is turning into snakes. The land around the castle is crawling with snakes and wolves and bears. The pig in the sky is fleeing and squealing. The wolf in the sky has the sun in its mouth, and its hindquarters are hidden in a snowstorm. Both the pig and the wolf are heading towards Malachai. Malachai has the little girl play snake and wolf repellent. Bits of the castle underneath them are coalescing into snake, which are then being hurled off the roof by the kid. Malachai hits one of the snakes with a magic disrupt, and it splatters all over him. Malachai climbs out of his snowsuit and pulls Beucephalus's off as well. Malachai tries another magic disrupt on a snake that is farther away. and the snake is fine, but parts of the castle around it go away. The top of the tower is riddled with windows. He yells, "Hey Serena!" and a kid pokes his head out of the window. He's fairly pale. He yells, "Invade my castle, will you?" and throws an ice bolt at him. Malachai sidesteps. "I'm not invading your castle, I'm rescuing my lady fair." "You're good. Who are you?" "Malachai. Who are you?" "I must destroy you! Zombies, get him!" Two zombies exit the other two towers and start shambling towards him. He says that his name is Kieron, and that his mother, Lovitar, told him to destroy all scions of the house of Amber. She gave him a note with pictures of all of them and everything. [Do you know when your mom is coming home, kid?] "Is there anybody else up there with you?" "Why do you ask?" They chat, and the kid keeps dropping ice bolts at Malachai. The kid sulks. The little girl looks up at him and says, "What a spoiled child." The little girl tries to throw Malachai onto the tower, and he impacts about two-thirds of the way up. He's above the melt point, so there aren't any snakes bothering him. Malachai drives Galantine into the ice and stops sliding down. The snakes are converging on Beucephalus and the kid. Malachai starts chipping footholds with a knife and working his way up the tower. Malachai hears from the tower, "Oof! Back, demonspawn! Back!" He works his way up the tower. The little girl is jumping up and down on Beucephalus's back. A wolf gets thrown out the window and falls past Malachai. The melting is working up the tower towards Malachai and towards where Beucephalus was. Malachai hears a familiar-sounding voice in the tower. It's Tazik. "Come back here, you little creep!" There is a scream, and she is thrown out of the tower. She pulls a couple of knives out and throws them at the wall. They seem to have cords attached to them, and she swings to the wall and starts climbing upwards with a pair of knives. Malachai notices that Tazik has two scars from her forehead to the cheek, over the eyes. Malachai climbs above the window, shouts, "Tally-ho!", and throws himself through. He spots the ghostly outlines of the boy and a device on which Serena is, both disappearing. He throws himself on it, and passes through it. Beneath him the castle starts to collapse. The pig seems to have landed on the back end of the castle, and the wolf is almost at the front of the castle. The room is filled with mystical stuff, and there are no visible exits. Tazik is about to enter the tower room. -------------------------------------------- And They Aren't Even at Full Power The Ilk-part of Norton's mind sees the sign of the Logrus everywhere. There doesn't appear to be a Suhuy around. He doesn't know if there's anything else there - too busy coping. The shield, which used to be transparent, is crawling with black, writhing tendrils. Osric says that he thinks that he can gate them out, and Andron turns to him and said that he just tried. Andron tries to help reinforce Osric's shield, but can't reach Osric's power source. Norton puts a hand on Osric trying to help, but can't even get into Osric's mind. Clarissa asks Ilk how they are faring. Ilk asks the butterfly - it's black and shriveled. Clarissa says, "Allow me... I would hate to lose a potential lover." and flows into the butterfly. The shield shrinks, such that it is just around Osric. Clarissa comes out of Rainbow's hand. He says, "Don't do that!" They go *splut*. Norton tries to escape. An Ilk appears next to Ilk, outside the room. "It's nasty in there." "Was it Suhuy, the enemy, or automated defenses?" "Probably automated defenses." "I'll be right back." Ilk wanders around a few corners, Logrus-pulls into a different part of the lab, and ducks. There is Osric in his shell, beset. There are a whole hell of a lot of butterflies being chased by Logrus tendrils. There are two blue spheres, and two cocoons. The spheres are sparking as tendrils strike them, the shell is covered with tendrils, and the butterflies are running for their lives. The defenses are not at full power, causing Ilk to suspect that someone has tampered with them. Ilk searches for a way to deactivate the defenses. He spots a magical seal that is definitely not Suhuy's and redirects the defenses towards it. The defenses retarget, and the seal goes down. In its place now is standing the guildmaster of the mages' guild. ---------------------------------------- Celeste has Family Problems Celeste and Damia chat regarding Damia's kid with Brandt. Celeste claims to like this place. "So, despite your marriage, you've never brought him here?" "We don't discuss that here." "So they don't know?" Celeste seems amused when Damia says that it's not normally approved of to have children outside the family without permission. Damia explains to Celeste that she became known in Amber as Paulette, although Paulette is one of her family members. [The GM is a sick boy] Celeste trumps Brehndyn. He's at a party but he's not entirely sure where. He's not sure where - Faythe took him. Faythe said that she would be back with Brandt. She tells him to find Faythe then call back in ten minutes. About fifteen or twenty seconds later, a significantly battered child calls her back. Brehndyn says that he had to fight his way out of their kidnapping, and is very disappointed that she didn't call back and rescue them. She wants to call Faythe, and he says that he'll trump back. Damia goes off and comes back with Brandt. She tries to trump Faythe, and gets the barest touch of an unconscious mind. Brandt shows up, and Celeste tells him that his sister was kidnaped. "I was with you! It's not my fault!" Brehndyn trumps back and chats. They hang up. They chat. Celeste gets another trump call. He's missing an arm from the elbow down. He's not about to fall down - he's definitely hopped up on something. "I've found them. There are thirty or forty of them camped in the building below me. I killed the rest of them. She's alive." Brehndyn complains that when you stick them, they burst into flames. Celeste asks Damia if anyone here would be willing to consider a rescue party. Damia acquires a mob - Althea, Catherine, Hadrian, Derek, and Cynthia. It takes a minute, maybe a minute and a half. Celeste orders Brandt to stay here, with Damia. Celeste trumps Brehndyn back. The stump of his arm has begun to fester. He's somewhat wild-eyed. "Update on the situation - they have reinforcements. I only killed a company - there are seven or eight hundred of them." "I got reinforcements, too." Cynthia borrows Aurelia's sword, and Derek unlimbers his axe. They daisy-chain through the trump. Celeste chats with Brehndyn, then trumps Brandt and shoves Brehndyn through the contact. Damia starts healing Brehndyn. Celeste shows Faythe's trump around the group. Cynthia and Derek start at the bottom, taking opposite sides, and work their way up, and the others work their way down. Catherine and Hadrian are arguing over who gets to be her bodyguard. "You are our link back, right? If you die, we're stuck?" As they argue, they continue to kick the shit out of the black-masked guys. They're not as good as Caine or Corwin, but have Julian beat hollow, and are probably better then Random. They're better than Zack, and are doing better than the stuff that she's seen Malachai doing. Celeste notices a buildup of magical energy beneath them, and says that they need to go down. Hadrian looks chops a hole in the floor, and they jump down. They kill those, and go down another floor. Celeste tries to contact Faythe, and fails. One of them is keeping someone at bay with one hand while chopping a hole with another. Celeste blasts a hole in the floor. All of the magic detectors glom onto her, and she has to parry a large number of fairly crude attacks. She hears a voice from below, "Hey - where did all of those fuckers go?" The front wall of the building falls out. "Watch where you swing that thing!" "Oops." They continue to head down. Catherine jumps down first, but catches herself on the edge, and rapidly climbs back up. "You ain't going down there - at least not yet. It's wall to wall." Celeste looks down, and sees the room filled with black masked guys. There's a floating chamber in the center of the room. Derek is at one side of the room, fighting like a grain harvester. The axe never leaves his hands, yet everyone to the sides of him die, even those out of the apparent range of the axe. Cynthia is fighting more humanly, actually crossing swords with and taking out the enemy. However, her sword is passing right through the enemies' swords. There are more black-robed guys popping out of the box. Celeste concentrates on the box - Faythe is definitely in the box. There is more power in it than anything she has ever seen before except for a power sink. It looks like an altar, and she thinks that the easiest way to stop it is to kill all of the worshipers. "Can we grab one of them?" Catherine and Hadrian grab the next one that attacks them. Celeste forces a mind link and interrogates the guy. She gets some panic, a lot of fear, an overwhelming desire to kill, and the focus of such death is anything of Clarissa's line, and there's not much else of his mind. Celeste shuts his mind off. He throws himself at her and tried to rip her throat out as she dies. Celeste yells for Clarissa on the channel. A feminine, powerful voice comes on. "You again? What do you want?" "I'm trying to contact Clarissa." "She hasn't been around much recently." "Who are you?" "I'm Verra, the demon goddess." They chat. Verra is snide. "I'm from Darkover." "Oh, that backwater?" Verra says that one of Clarissa's children is around - Selena, the fish goddess. Celeste bargains with Verra for her services in freeing Faythe. Verra seems most interesting in acquiring a number of new worshipers, preferably including Celeste and all of her descendants. Regarding Celeste's line: "They're willful." "So blast them to cinders and make some more." "I rather like this batch." "Oh, you're soft-hearted. That's why they don't respect you." Verra mentions that she has several Chaos Lords worshiping her, and says that Clarissa once sent Ilkandacian and Cathryn to her for help. Verra continues to mock Celeste and Clarissa, until Celeste flees the channel. Celeste trumps Darkstar - nothing. Celeste trumps Zack - nothing. Celeste asks her companions if they can help her unravel that box. They start talking magic. Catherine pulls out a charged trump of Thessaly. Celeste is certain that it won't reach back to where they were, puts a hand on her shoulder, and boosts the contact. Thessaly looks up at them and says, "A very interesting application. Perhaps we could upgrade all of our trumps that way." They have a very disjointed conversation. She decides that a magical anomaly is worth studying, and comes through the contact, after acquiring a few Things. Thessaly pulls some of those Things out of her pockets and drops them down on the fighting. They unfold into huge black gibbering things that grab and gnaw and drag black robed critters back into the nether hells. Derek clears a space for Thessaly, who jumps, pulls a handkerchief, and parachutes down. Celeste jumps, hits, and rolls. Catherine and Hadrian follow. Thessaly throws a Thing back up at the hole which starts eating the nasties that try to follow them down. They examine the box. There is a mage standing at each of the eight corners of the cube doing things. Two of them are gating in more of the enemy, four of them are attacking her, and two of them are maintaining the cube. Thessaly helps with the attack somehow, and the magical attacks coming in die before they reach her, turning into coffee grounds. Unfortunately, her magic turns into coffee grounds, too. "Oh, I only did it against the low-level magics. I wasn't sure that you were using those." She switches over to the god channels. "Why don't you use these? ... Oh, you don't know how." Celeste reaches Faythe through her trump. She's definitely unconscious, and there are bits of programming in her mind. Celeste tries to get into the heads of the brainwashers. The person she reaches is a high priest, and he's just a conduit for the vastly more powerful mind on the other side of him. It's vastly more powerful, and isn't really paying attention to this. Celeste brings Thessaly into the contact and points out the brainwashers. Thessaly starts rifling through Celeste's knowledge of trump. Celeste tries to shut down the priest, and something follows her flipping the switches back on behind her. Thessaly asks Celeste to shield the person on the other side of the connection. Celeste shields Faythe. Thessaly does something, and the priest starts shapeshifting wildly. Celeste tries to pull Faythe out through the trump contact. All that she has trump contact with is in her arms. Thessaly makes a new hole back up, and levitates them up. There are black cloaks attacking them. Thessaly throws a few more Things at the attackers. They wake Faythe. Faythe wakes up, realizes whose arms she is in, and tries to kill her mother with all of her might. --EORun--