DRAFT Run Log for 980317

Present:

Tia	- Cassandra, Damia
Dave R	- Malachai
Andrew	- Osric
Sam	- Jean
Dave K	- Ilk, logging
Lori	- Celeste
Ken	- Norton

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

Major Events:

* Norton Evicts His Head People
* Battle in Garnath, the Sequel

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

Near Amber


Osric, Malachai, Chen, Cassandra, and most of Ilk's tendri are near the
three stone steps that lead to Tir.  Cassandra is wearing Darhyse
sheathed at her side.  Darhyse is trying to convince Cassandra to kill
everyone, starting with Malachai, because they all try to separate
them. Osric talks about getting past the teleport block, so he can get
back to the Fringe.
 
The Jean in the giant in Garnath notices that Gillian is no longer
swatting at him - she's swatting at the guys that are coming out of the
ground and attacking the blockage in the by-pass with hammers. Jean the
Giant joins Gillian.

Tazik is just waking up. She's a bit up the pass, but still below the
barricade.  Coming down through the pass towards the barricade are the
troops that Prospero left at the top of the pass.  Jean the Giant throws
himself on his back and flings his arms and legs around, making bad-guy
angels.

Ilk decides to solidify most of his tendri, while leaving the remote
tendrils where they are. He summons some props from shadow. From nowhere
appears two golden-colored rings about five feet in diameter, floating
about seven feet off the ground. They are close together, and there
appears to be a silvery cloth bunched between them. The bottom ring
begins to drop, and the cloth unfolds between the two rings.

Malachai and Cassandra warily watch the ring fall. As the cloth unfolds
between the rings, letters are slowly revealed. The bottom ring hits the
ground, and they can see the entire phrase, "The Amazing Gonzo", and a
picture of a bird's head.  The top ring starts falling, revealing Ilk
behind the cloth.  "Flashy entrance" "Thanks." "Who is Gonzo?" Ilk looks
at the cloth. "Next time, I conjure the cloth." Ilk feels very tired.

Ilk sends a tendril out and hits a Logrus block on the far side of the
teleport block.  Osric says his farewells, and Ilk Logrus-pushes him to
the far side of the teleport block. Osric is standing on a narrow
beam. On one side of him, it looks like someone turned the ground into a
sheet of glass, and on his other side is a wall of fire.

Osric's shapeshifting kicks in and makes him thin. He doesn't feel well,
and gates to a Fringe gate. The gate spell succeeds. Osric enters the
Fringe, but still feels unwell. He checks himself out - there seems to
be something inside him that wasn't there before. He exudes everything
that isn't him from his body, and reveals a dressed stone or brick with
a picture drawn on it in a child's hand. The picture is of Osric's
combat form, and has "daddy" written beneath it. Osric examines the
rock warily, but discovers nothing else of note. 

Ilk, Cassandra, and Malachai are heading towards the castle.  On the
way, they see Random, Celeste, and a young redhead riding towards them
on horses. Malachai and Cassandra recognize the redhead as Brandt. Ilk
notices a distinct similarity between "Brandt" and the Brand he saw in
Tir, as well as lots of very well-contained Pattern. Ilk notices that
Random also has an unusually large amount of Pattern around him, as if
he just walked the Pattern.

Ilk realizes that Cassandra and himself are the only two present
currently on foot, and acquires two horses from the city via Logrus. Two
horses, wearing Caine's barding, appear.  Celeste and Malachai comment
on the horses, focusing on their barding. Cassandra notices that these
are good horses.  Cassandra and Ilk mount, and the group continues
riding towards the castle.  Random and Malachai chat as they ride.


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

Norton Evicts His Head People


Norton and Norton are still being shot at in the skies over Amber
castle, even after one of them turned into a Corwin and drew
Greyswandir. They leave the area of the castle and begin circling each
other warily in mid-air. They each grow swords and hands to hold the
swords, and swoop at each other. Each vulture swings, and decapitates
the other.

The Ilk simulacrae both eject. The Ilk simulacrum in the head with Corwin
and Celeste takes Corwin, Celeste, and Jean along with him. The Jean in
that head buds, and sends one with Ilk and has one stay in Norton's
body.  The other simulacrum goes solo. 

Celeste, Corwin, Ilk, and a Jean are now in a head that is plummeting
downward.  Ilk is alone in a head that is plummeting downward. When
Nortons try to move into the backup brains in his torsos, he discovers
that Mandors are there, using them. The Mandors graciously decide to let
Norton in.

There is a Jean in each of the bodies. They try to grow their own
brains, and succeed. The Nortons kill themselves and go undead. The
Jeans are squirted out of Norton's bodies are now falling brains. Jean
tries to learn shapeshifting, very quickly. He fails. The brains
splat. Jean experiences death, twice. He loses the memories that those
Jeans were accessing at the time.

[The Pattern reacted with sadness and sorrow when Jean died while
walking the Pattern.]
[Jean wasn't happy about this, either.]
[Death sucks.]

Mandor and the screaming thing are in there with Norton in both cases.
Norton tries to destroy the heads by lighting them on fire. The heads
burn, with no noticeable effect on the inhabitants.

Ilk in the full head notices that the tendrils he is using to hold the
escape pod are under attack, and decides to flee.  The Celeste in that
escape pod is screaming.

Two flaming vulture-heads are heading in the direction of the mounted
people.  They're taking evasive maneuvers.

Ilk shapeshifts the heads into flaming flying plasmatic saucers, and
absorbs the energy from the flames. 

The mounted group sees the approaching heads turn into flying saucers. 

Celeste and "Brandt" are looking at each other. Celeste silently
convinces "Brandt" not to blast the heads. 

Random is freaking out over the heads.  He throws things shaped like
toothpicks with wire-figures wrapped around them into the air and they
fly towards the heads. The heads dodge, and are pursued. The head with
Celeste in it notices that the toothpicks are Pattern-laced trump traps.

Random says he got the devices from Fiona, and that they are supposed to
deal with things that disturb him. Random offers one to Ilk, who
declines the offer, not being certain what would qualify as disturbing
Random. 

Coming into view are two entwined flying headless vampiric echolocating
vultures.  

Celeste turns to Ilk, and asks if he has any popcorn on him.  Ilk hands
over a bag of popcorn.

Norton sends a note to Ilk prime saying that the heads are what was
possessing him. Ilk disbelieves, but doesn't bother telling Norton. 

The flying headless vultures turn into flying headless dragons, with
flames licking around the edges of their severed necks.  

The heads go cross-shadow to avoid the toothpicks, but the toothpicks
follow. The heads try to lose the toothpicks at the Pattern block, and
discover a glassy, radioactive area between the Pattern block and the
Logrus block. The toothpicks stay on the Amber side of the Pattern-block
and match the movements of the heads.

Norton considers following the heads, and starts Logrus-searching for
them. The Mandor simulacrum claims that is clumsy, and opens a magical
scrying gate to the heads. Norton wants to destroy the heads, but
decides that the radiation will finish them off and just watches. Norton
describes popcorn to Mandor, and Mandor provides something similar to
multicolored popcorn that has more of an after-taste than a taste. They
sit back and watch the heads through the scrying, until the scrying goes
down.  Mandor tells Norton that the heads must have been destroyed.

The heads, which merely passed through a null-magic area, toss a note
back to Ilk prime mentioning the glassy radioactive zone and the new
wave of invaders in Garnath.  Ilk prime receives the note, relays the
contents to the Amberites present, and asks Malachai if he would like to
return to Garnath to deal with the attackers.

Ilk opens a gate to the vantage point from which Norton watched the last
battle in Garnath. In doing so, he draws power from Celeste until she
points that fact out to him. The entire mob goes through the gate.
Nortons dive at the gate and Ilk shuts it before they arrive, but not
before they recognize the location on the far side of the gate.

Norton schemes paranoidly. He considers raising an army, but decides not
to raid Amber city for recruits because it would annoy Benedict. 


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

Purina Mellor Chow


Osric examines himself for contamination, then starts examining the
caged Mellor. The psychic measuring device pegs at the top of the range
when inspecting the Mellor.  It's very powerful, very self-aware, and very
psychically aware.

Osric tries to destroy the Mellor and fails - his tools just skitter off
them and leave white powder behind.  Eventually, Osric just throws them
off the Fringe and the meter slowly goes down.

He goes to check out the six uninfected Mellor. There are only five of
them present. They say that one of them left. The meter registers these
as sentient, not infected, self-aware, and powerful but not too
powerful. One of them raves. That one is a bit low on the self-aware
scale.

There is a knock at the door. Osric opens the door, holding the psychic
device. It's Osric. Well, it looks like Osric. It must be the Mellor. It
registers like the other uninfected Mellor on the device.  Osric chats
with the Mellor.

Osric returns to the control center and checks it with the device. On
the way over, he encounters a bearded guy with an axe who starts
worshiping him. The guy says that his people are being invaded by a
strange religion about a winged one. Osric agrees to come along and help
when he has time, gives the man, who names himself as Rathor, a
tourist-level crystal, and tells him not to come here again.

The areas that Osric closed off earlier are still closed off. Osric
starts interfacing the psych-o-meter with the Fringe's sensors.


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

Battle in Garnath, the Sequel


The Nortons separate and head towards Garnath. 

The barrier Ilk created out of the stoned corpses of the Jade people
reaches the top of the pass and is manned by Prospero's troops, who are
on the uphill side of the barrier.

The giant and Gillian are on the downhill side of the barrier. 

Ilk tosses a bug over the barrier and sets up a viewscreen.

In the distance they can see Tazik, circled by corpses. Gillian is not
doing too well - her attackers are too small. The giant is rolling
around and jumping on the enemy. The attackers haven't figured out yet
that the giant isn't on their side and appear startled when the giant
lands on them.

Ilk pulls Tazik to the top of the barrier. She is startled and
curses. Malachai waves to her. She makes as if to jump, and Ilk pulls
her down to them.  She says that she was napping, and was woken by the
attack. 

Malachai asks for a hole in the barrier.

Ilk tries to bring up darkness to tendri out and has difficulty doing
so.  He reacquires the rings, throws a chicken caught between them back,
disappears, then returns the rings.

Celeste and "Brandt" discuss the disappearing act. "Brandt" offers,
"Not magical".

Ilk leaves a voder behind and goes to re-block the by-pass. He pulls the
jade out of the attackers trying to re-open the bypass, and starts
working his way outwards.  Jean notices a stone arrowhead growing away
from the mountain, and starts throwing some more raw materials over to
Ilk. 

Celeste starts working on a burning a tunnel through the barrier. It
would take her twenty or thirty minutes. She asks for some help from
"Brandt". He takes over, and she feeds him power.

Norton notices that a bobbing Jean is following him. He
obfuscates. Still following. He goes mist. Still following. Norton
notices a Logrus-tag with the untainted Ilk's Logrus signature on
him. Norton tries to send Ilk a note, asking him to knock it off, but
can't find Ilk. He moves Pattern-laced areas of his body towards the
tag, and the tag dodges.

Ilk notices Pattern energy building up in the Jean he is pulling around,
and accelerates it towards Garnath so he can put it down before the
Pattern content becomes too high.

Norton watches the Jean pass him and becomes suspicious, but continues
towards Garnath. 

A guy lands next to the group and says, "Norton killed me. Death sucks."
in Jean's voice.  Celeste replies, "What are you doing in there?"
"Nobody was using it, so I moved in."

Jean chats with Celeste and "Brandt". He tells them that he is
currently walking the Pattern, and that Celeste is in the escape pod
from Norton's head, along with Corwin, Ilk, and Jean.  Celeste tries to
get her head around the multiple-Jean thing.

The mist arrives. "You killed me!"  Jean unracks something violent at
Norton.  Norton notices a lightning bolt inside him.  Norton tries to
telepathically project thoughts into Celeste, and hits shields several
feet away from her head.  Norton solidifies words in the mist in front
of Celeste. Celeste is irritated in Norton's direction. "You copied me!"

Ilk offers Jean some advice on the kind of spells that would have an
minor but noticeable effect on Norton's mist form. Jean unracks a
massive whirlwind, and Norton is sucked up into it.  Norton turns into a
red-headed hasturish humanoid and breaks out of the tornado. Celeste
jumps.  "Brandt" is looking back and forth between Norton and Celeste
inquisitively. Celeste yells at Norton and orders him out of that
shape. The Nortons shift into Brands.  "Brandt" looks at Celeste and
asks her if she asked Norton to take this shape as well. "Brandt" is
jealous in Celeste's direction. Celeste yells at Norton again.  Norton
tries to shift into a humanoid Snarsht-like form, and has difficulty
doing so. He shifts into a non-Snarsht-like humanoid cat-form. "Brandt"
modulates the spell that he is weaving with Celeste, passing information
to her.  "Did you sleep with that, too?"

Norton declares that he should leave. "Now I have to go head-hunting."
The whirlwind has petered out, but it has worn a hole in the rock.

Celeste notices that Jean is starting to leak magic. "You're leaking."
Jean pats himself, and finds nothing. "Nope." "Energy, dear." Jean
checks, and closes the lid on the jar of spells he was playing with. 
"Brandt" looks startled and starts again from scratch. 

[Jean grounded all of the magic near him]

Norton talks about having forgotten to unbury his fish.  Ilk tendri
notice that Norton's insanity level is rather high, and try to damp
it. The insanity level drops slightly, and Norton remembers that he has
forgotten the fish in Tir.

Norton starts flipping between dead and alive rapidly. Celeste hides
behind "Brandt". Norton stops cycling, while on the dead side.

Norton:  "Everyone's got to die someday."
Celeste: "Not around me." 

[When he's all dead, there's just one thing to do -- go through his
pockets and look for loose fish.]

One of the Nortons demonstrated the dead thing for "Brandt", going
into full vampire mode.  The other Norton examines the first looking for
the wrongness that Celeste kept mentioning. "Brandt" examines him, and
is fascinated. 

[Sick and wrong, rude and vile, and dead]

"Brandt" speculates.  "If you can bring someone back to alive, you
should be able to bring him back from brain-dead to alive."  Celeste is
shocked. 

Ilk starts tossing the stoned guys back to Jean, lobbing them far enough
up that they can be seen from the other side of the barrier. Jean starts
arcing the fleshed guys higher as well.  The people at the top of the
pass see a fountain at the base of the mountain, made of living jade
folks heading in one direction and stoned jade folks heading in the
other.

"Brandt": "What <em>is</em> going on over there?"
Celeste: "It used to be a battle, but it's turned into performance art."

Jean asks Ilk for a big hacky-slashy thingy. Ilk cuts a granite sword
out of the rock and passes it to Jean.  Jean hacks things, then starts
flying around about four feet off the ground and playing lawnmower. 

The group watches the battle on Ilk-TV. 

Jean draws in big letters in the bodies, "Norton killed me!!!"  Norton
disclaims responsibility for killing anyone over there recently.

Celeste conjures a big chocolate ice-cream cone with sprinkles on
it. Jean takes it. It looks like it is bleeding. He eats it, but it
isn't moving as much as food normally does so.  There is ice-cream all
over his arm and face - he's chasing the drips as if they were living
creatures running away from him.

Ilk starts swatting the people of the jade with stoned corpses, then
starts welding the corpses together into a big stone roller and using
that. 

Celeste conjures a dead bunny for Norton. "Is that food, too?" "It's a
pet" "Does 'pet' taste like chocolate?" "You don't eat it - it's a
little friend."  "Is it like a frog?"

Norton animates the bunny. It starts hopping around. Celeste hands it to
Jean in horror.  Norton fixes the bunny and gets everything in the
proper order.  Norton tries to make the bunny alive, and fails. Celeste
is amazed at the perfection of the bunny - it would take her ten or
fifteen years to create something that close to the real thing. She
concentrates on the bunny with her matrix crystal. It's definitely dead.

Celeste interrogates Norton on how he made that. Norton turns his hand
into a rabbit and then cuts it off him. It hops away. Celeste picks it
up and looks at it. It's almost perfect, but not quite as true as the
last one. 

Norton starts budding a new hand, has difficulty, then takes the dead
rabbit and turns it into his hand.

Ilk tosses a living jade guy at the group for raw materials.  Malachai
and Cassandra dice it at the same time. Many pieces hit the ground, and
Norton turns them into a lot of bunnies, puts the imprinting mechanism
of ducklings into them and makes them imprint on Jean.

Norton and Jean talk about life, death, and Celeste. Celeste is crying
into her horse's flank. Jean is actively paranoid about the bunnies. 

Celeste pulls "Brandt" aside for a chat. 


--EORun--