DRAFT Run Log for 980407 Present: Dave R - Malachai Andrew - Osric Tia - Cassandra Sam - Jean Dave K - Ilk, logging Ken - Norton ------------------------------ Major Events: * Norton Turns Garnath into Spam * Celeste: Death Goddess of Darkover? * Jean Found Suhuy. Now We Just Need to Find Jean... * Make a Little Fish Bowl in Toram's Soul ------------------------------ Norton Turns Garnath into Spam The Jolly Jean Giant, some of Ilk's tendrils, and Gillian are making pretty patterns by squishing the enemy as they collect on the downhill side of the barrier in the pass over Garnath. Malachai, Cassandra, the Jean inhabiting the body of a magic-based Logrus user, some of Ilk's tendrils, both Nortons, a number of white bunnies chasing around Jean and blinking in unison, Tazik, Celeste, and "Brandt" are on the uphill side of the barrier, watching the battle on Ilk-TV. Osric is on the Fringe. Celeste and her companion finish their spell, and there is now a small hole about two people wide in the barricade blocking the pass. Ilk and Celeste converse, and prepare to depart. Cassandra and Malachai are setting up a defensive arrangement around the hole. The Nortons are forming a network of fibers under the ground in front of the hole. Jean prepares to toss something violent in front of the hole. Celeste notices that Jean is tapping her, and that he's about to cast a chaos-storm down that hole. Celeste feeds him power, and hears an "ah" in the back of her head. Ilk notices the shadow-storm, and realizes that he will have to control it. He yells, "Jean, knock it off!" and pushes the storm down the hole. Malachai notices an explosion within the hole, and sees a flaming wheel roll out. "Brandt" comes up to Celeste and puts his arm around her. The little presence in the back of her mind goes away. Ilk notices that the hole is no longer continuous, and tells Malachai that things going through the hole from the other side won't reach this side. Norton puts a few tendrils through the wall and tries to turn some of the rock into organic material. After he does so, the things aren't coming through it any more. Norton continues to shift the rock, and gets very hungry. He looks around. There's not much to eat here. Norton notices that Celeste is a wonderful power source. Celeste notices something growing out of the ground in front of her and steps back. Cassandra points her sword at it. It grows up and adds eyes, a mouth, and a head. It is perfectly positioned such that Celeste and Cassandra's bodies block Malachai's view of the stalk. Norton asks Celeste for power, and she passes him some. The stalk blossoms into a rose, then withers and dies. Celeste kicks it, and the withered seed pods drift away. She winces and avoids the spores. Jean does not notice the spores. Jean wants to test the rabbits to see if they regenerate like the frogs. He's hoping that they don't. Cassandra nods and smiles to Celeste's companion. "I don't believe we've met." Malachai notices that there is no more enemy pouring through the other side. All that is left is just cleanup. The mountain looks like it is on the verge of a landslide, and it is holding itself up through the sheer force of spam. Malachai asks Ilk, "If the the hole is not contiguous, and the stone guys are still pouring through it, where are they going?" Ilk sends a small bundle of tendrils through the hole. It survives with minimal attrition. The tendrils are in Amber city, and one out of every two hundred of the stone guys entering the hole are making it through as well. "Hey, Malachai - about one in two hundred of the stone guys are making it through to Amber city." "Where?" "Right outside the Skunk and Paddle." "Oh, how nice." "Want me to block up the hole again?" "Sure." Ilk blocks up Celeste's painstakingly-drilled hole again. Cassandra trumps Malachai, and tells him mentally that she needs to leave but may need to contact him soonest. Celeste tries to make a shadow gate to Darkover. It's on the far side of the teleport barrier, so she needs help. She asks her companion for help nonverbally. "Brandt" replies, asking her if she wants to leave those fingerprints all over that gate. They discuss the matter, then she takes power from him. Tendri'd Ilk flees the vicinity of the Pattern-laced gate and tosses a paper airplane back. "Ow. Ow. Lots of Pattern." Celeste asks her companion for non-Pattern energy. "It's what I have" "But Ilk will blow up." The Mandor in Norton's head is appalled by Norton's culinary efforts. All of that flesh will go bad eventually - it's spam. Celeste taps Cassandra on the shoulder and asks for some power. Ilk reaches out to some of his sources in shadow and offers Celeste power. Celeste notes the convenience in being able to reach out that way for power, and accepts the feed. Celeste tweaks the gate to prevent anyone other than Cassandra, Ilk, she, and her companion from passing through it. Celeste, Cassandra, "Brandt", and Ilk go through Celeste's gate. Nortons try to follow, and fail. Norton asks Mandor for aid. Mandor traces the teleport and tells the Nortons that he knows where the group went. Mandor and Norton argue about their preferred disposition of the former heads. Mandor argues in favor of ignoring the heads instead of tracking them down and destroying them. Norton decides that they should figure out what was making the buzzing noise, then punts and decides to stay with Malachai until Benedict is found. -------------- Celeste: Death Goddess of Darkover? Celeste and company step through the gate and are standing in a desert. There is a band of free amazons running away from their position. There is a band of drytowners running towards their position. There are six pairs of amazons and at least forty drytowners. Celeste is sure that at least some of the amazons are related to her. The drytowners are now charging more directly towards the new arrivals. Celeste pipes up. "Smush them" Cassandra draws Darhyse. Ilk sends a number of tendrils towards the onrushing drytowners. For some reason, all of the drytowners seem to have hearts hovering in front of their chests and then replaced, backwards. "Thank you, Ilk" Celeste's companion is completely horrified, both at the brutal deaths and at Celeste's casual acceptance of them. "Bury them?" Ilk lifts up the sand, slides the bodies beneath it, and replaces the sand. The renunciates are looking at Celeste, horrified, with swords drawn. Cassandra takes a half-step towards them, sword still in hand. Celeste mutters quietly to the group, "No." Celeste handles the amazons adeptly. "I do not know what your quarrel was with them this time, but go in peace." Some discussion happens among the amazons, then one of them shouts, "Two of ours were with them!" "For what reason?" "Captured." Ilk offers to re-reverse the hearts, if someone would tell him which of them to save. Celeste checks the god channels. Grandma's there, and so is the guy standing next to her. Clarissa - "Um - excuse me dear, who is that standing next to you?" Celeste - "You know." Clarissa - "He's dead." Celeste - "No, he's not ... can we discuss that after we deal with a minor thing?" Celeste tells Clarissa that there are two dead amazons along with a whole bunch of dead drytowners. "That sounds like a good exchange. You mucking with the gene pool again?" Celeste asks Clarissa what to do about the dead amazons. Clarissa tells Celeste that she will see to it that they are reincarnated well, but is a trifle busy now. "But what do I tell the others?" Clarissa passes religious text to Celeste, chapter and verse. Celeste spouts it to the amazons. A few break down into tears, but most are unmoved. Ilk searches for the two under the sand that are different from the others. It's easy - there are only two females. Ilk re-reverses their hearts and restarts them. The women attempt to breath under the sand, and choke. "Umm... Celeste? They're alive again. Where should I put them?" "Far away." Ilk pushes them into another shadow. Celeste tells Ilk to put the resuscitated amazons in a guild house, and eventually, after many attempts, Ilk receives a sufficiently accurate description to find an acceptable guild house, and displays a mini-Ilk-TV for Celeste's approval. The amazons in the guild house are clustering around their bloodied and sand-covered comrades. They are muttering something about "Celeste". Celeste continues proselytizing with the local amazons, implying that the possibility of a miracle should not be excluded. One of the amazons breaks down and charges them. Cassandra disarms her. Weapon goes flying, person goes flying. Celeste puts her to sleep. Ilk returns her to her companions. The sleeping amazon wafts off the ground and drifts over to the free amazons. Celeste specifies, "Weapon, too." The weapon gets up and floats over as well. The amazons mutter something about demons, and flee, taking the sleeping one with them. ---------------- Poking Around Castle Amber Malachai has decided to turn command over to Prospero and go to sleep. Norton, Malachai, and Logrus-Jean decide to go look for Benedict. As they enter the castle, they notice Janus. "Well, I'm well rested. Where's our charge?" There is some confusion back and forth regarding Cassandra's location, and Janus says that Gil and he will wait. Janus is not pleased. Jean notices that Janus is imbued with that thing that he just walked. [Janus has just walked a Pattern] Currently, there is a crowd of sylph-like females cheering Caine. The Jolly Jean Giant is being led off by a giant claiming to be his mother to a place with more giants. Jean is okay with this. Tazik, mounted on Gillian, catches up to the group. Tazik whispers to Malachai that she is going to go tell Serena to make sure that his bed is ready for him and takes off. Malachai gives her a half smile. They reach the back of the castle. The end of the locusts is indeed in sight. Caine has put down his egg-beater and is accepting skewers from the sylphs, impaling exactly eleven locusts on each skewer, and handing them back. He appears to have been run ragged. Norton looks at the bugs. They don't look Chaosian. Norton takes a bug-bit. The pieces of shredded bug stretch seven-eights of the way down the face of Kolvir. Norton tries to play with the piece. It resists his manipulations considerably, so he makes a bag, puts the piece in the bag, then puts the bag in him. Norton notices that the last set of bugs has a slight glow to them, similar to a radioactive glow. They look like they have a glow around them, like hard radiation. They enter the castle. Malachai is greeted by a beautiful young woman who takes him away. Norton asks her where her guardian gargoyles are, and Serena says that they are still on the roof. Jean goes up to Flora's rooms. Flora is napping there. The person who claimed to be one of Flora's bodyguards is sitting at the foot of Flora's bed, cleaning weapons. Jean plays with Theraat's Minbari fighting pike, but can't get it to open. Theraat opens it for him. Jean decides that it is a good smacky thingy, a better one than the granite sword Ilk gave him. He wanders off, and wanders around. He avoids Norton's undead pig. Norton greets his pig. Norton tries to search for Benedict, and finds that he can't travel through the walls. He looks through the corridors, and looks at the bodies on racks near the top of the walls. The buzzing is in the castle, over that way. Norton triangulates, and observes that it is coming towards him. ["Rainbow said run..." "...and then left the multiverse"] Norton comes up with the plan to split up, in the hope that the buzzing shadow will be stuck between the two of them. Norton temporarily animates the corpses of servants in order to stack them in out-of-the-way places, and leaves a message for Snarsht saying that he chopped off his heads to get rid of the things possessing him. ---------------- Jean Found Suhuy. Now We Just Need to Find Jean... Ilk mentions the existence of a giant Jewel of Judgment enclosing a Suhuy to Celeste and her companion, with some trepidation. The two floating ex-Norton ex-heads arrive. Celeste looks disturbed. Ilk offers an explanation. "The door was open." "How do you know?" "I brought the amazons into a different shadow." Celeste checks, and discovers that the door is open. She contemplates shutting it, but realizes that she would need to be in the overworld in order to do so. Celeste goes up. She successfully arrives in the tower, despite the significant barriers around it. The barriers are up there because her grandmother is in the middle of a battle with that malevolent presence that trapped Celeste and put her in a box. The battle is fairly evenly balanced. Celeste joins in to help her grandmother. Celeste tries to reach Brand mentally, but he's not being receptive. She drops a note from the overworld. Cassandra turns to "Brandt". "So, what should I call you?" "Brandt" inches away from Cassandra. Ilk reads Celeste's note as it falls, and relays the comments, with some additions. Ilk, "Brandt", and Cassandra chat. Ilk finishes searching the shadow, and confirms that Jean prime and the Giant Jewel of Judgment are not there. Jean asks his host where he is. "Safe." "In a tower." "In the sky." Ilk relays that to Brand and Cassandra. Clarissa has subsumed Celeste into her. Celeste sends another note down, "Help?" Ilk tries to communicate with Celeste by writing on her note, but Celeste cannot perceive the change in her note. Ilk tries to acquire aid from the Celeste in the flying saucer. Jean asks his host who owns this tower. "Master Taerr'n" Celeste in the head doesn't recognize the name, but mentions that it isn't even a Darkoven title. Jean asks what the land is below this tower. Augral launches into a spiel about the boring naming of home places. "Well, they call my home place Chaos." "It fits the pattern." "There is no Pattern there" "What do the people call themselves, Augral?" Augral says that the people here are just as boring in the naming of themselves. Augral liquids the cat talk at them. Ilk and Celeste commiserate about alternate realities. ----------------- Make a Little Fish Bowl in Toram's Soul Nortons chat with Gil, and decide to head off. Mandor in Norton makes a magical gate to Darkover. Ilks notice the opening gate. Brand and the flying saucers prepare magical defenses. Ilk prime prepares to yank Cassandra out of the way of trouble. Norton and Norton and Gil come through the gate. Gil complains to Cassandra about being left behind. Cassandra tells Gil in code that this [Brand] is someone she doesn't trust, and wants to bring back to Pearl with her. Gil tosses Cassandra a dagger. Cassandra catches it and tucks it into her belt. Norton pointedly ignores the flying saucers. They go invisible. Norton echo-locates for them and fails. Norton starts raising the thirty-eight dead bodies. Brand tells Norton that is inappropriate. Norton has the bodies take up a defensive ring around him beneath the sand, and goes undead. Celeste asks Ilk in the flying saucer to create an illusion of the spaceships to zip off and leave the shadow, leading the Nortons away. Ilk does so. Norton's forehead opens and a stream of butterflies pour out to follow the saucers. Cassandra applauds. "Hey Augral - you know about rifts in realities?" "There are many realities." Augral says that he has not heard of Darkover, or Chaos, but has heard of Amber, and that they're not near Amber. Augral - "Interesting sets of questions... You sound like you are talking with someone before asking them." Jean - "I'm just talking to myself" Augral not only interprets that statement correctly, but mentions that he is multi-homed as well. "I am in Amber, and I am here, and I am in many other places..." Augral says that there is one of him in a specific tree in Amber. Jean says that others are looking for him to help, and asks for directions to where he is. Augral has problems with directions. "Most of the others tend to move about - I tend to stay still." "Can you give directions?" Cassandra tries her trump of Brand, and it doesn't go anywhere. Brand pulls out a pad, licks a pencil, and draws a sketch of Cassandra. He tries it. Cassandra pushes the contact away. He looks puzzled, and tries again. He fails again, and hands the sketch to Cassandra. He does a sketch of Norton and tries it. Norton takes the contact. It is clean and clear, with no added distractions and no personality that Norton could latch onto. Brand does a face-to-face sketch, both figures of him, rips the sheet in half and hands one to the Nortons and one to Cassandra. They each test their trump. Both sketches work. "You're in a three-way with Brand and Norton" "My father would not approve" Brand steps back, raises his hands into a deific summoning, and fades out. Cassandra fails to take advantage of the exposed target. Nortons raise their hands. Nothing happens. Norton shifts into what looks like an offspring of the two of Celeste and Brand. One stays behind, and the other shifts into Faythe. The Celeste in the flying saucer tries to faint, and fails. She tries to catatonic, but would need the whole brain to do so. She goes into a corner and whimpers. Jean thinks that is really cool. He takes notes. The Norton in the shape of Faythe tries to follow Brand and Celeste, and fades out. Ilk realizes that he knows a shape that should be able to do that, and mentions Mikail to the Celeste in the saucer. Celeste offers a better shape, and puts up an image of Brendhyn. Corwin says, "Isn't that one dead?" Corwin says that both Brendhyn and Brandt died in the Spiral explosion. Celeste is not okay. The ex-head with only Ilk shifts into Brandt then into Mikail. Neither form successfully enters the overworld. Cassandra sticks Darhyse point-down in the sand. Darhyse is outraged. "You're sticking me in the toilet!" Cassandra is amused. Norton tries to trump Brand. Celeste, in the tower, notices Brand shows up. He screams for a moment, then is sucked into the opposition. Celeste grabs for him, and is sucked in as well. Celeste's quote for the campaign: "Oops" Brand's last free thought before he was subsumed into the opposition was, "I'm sorry. I love you." and with the last of his efforts he insulates a bit of Celeste from the enemy. The next thing that she is aware of is Faythe showing up over there. Celeste can't communicate with her, and she's not in the enemy. Norton arrives in what appears to be a stone tower. Nobody seems to be here - it's empty. He trumps Cassandra. She takes the call. It sounds like Norton but looks like Faythe. They chat, and decide to leave the trump contact open. As far as Celeste can tell, the enemy is composed of pure hatred and the power he is drawing upon is life itself. Norton goes up the next floor of the tower, and sees what looks like a meeting room. He continues to explore, and near the top of the tower is what looks like a shriveled, dessicated corpse staring into a blue gem. There is a Morganti great weapon lying next to the gem. The corpse has red hair. "I have a Pattern blade. We always have choice." Ilk joins into the trump contact by touching Cassandra. Norton tries to put the Jewels of Judgment in Clarissa's hands, but her hands are clasped around grey spheres. Norton tries to activate the Jewels, but fails. Norton complains to Cassandra over the trump contact. Ilk suggests that a Pattern-weenie might be useful. There is the bridge of a trump contact. Gil sticks out her hand, and pulls Janus through. Ilk notices lots of Pattern pouring through, around, and out of Janus. [Gil had bugged Cassandra via the dagger, which Cassandra had placed next to her skin.] Janus goes through the trump contact to Norton. Norton hands a Jewel of Judgment to Janus, and the Jewel starts glowing brightly. "Now, how does this work?" Janus, staring into the Jewel, backs up into the blue gem and disappears. Celeste can see that her enemy's enemy just got joined by a powerful ally. Cassandra hands the trump sketch of herself to Corwin in the flying saucer. The Corwin trumps and fails - blocked. Cassandra drops the contact with Norton. Cassandra gets a trump call. It's Corwin. They chat. Corwin suggests that they convince Norton to give the Greyswandir and the rest of the Jewels to Norton to go through the blue gem and give them to Janus. Corwin drops the contact with Cassandra. Cassandra broaches the idea to Norton on the ground. "You're not a psychiatrist, are you?" "No." "Good, then I don't have to lock you in the closet upstairs." Norton in the tower trumps Cassandra back. Norton joins the trump contact between Cassandra and Norton, has his suspicions about himself alleviated, and hands three Jewels up. Norton in the tower salutes with Greyswandir and jumps into the blue gem. The trump contact goes down. Celeste sees Faythe jump through the gem, wearing five Jewels of Judgment and brandishing Greyswandir. She calmly walks over to Janus, the other place of Pattern emanations, and starts handing over Pattern artifacts. As soon as all of the objects of power are out of Faythe's control, she is sucked in by the enemy. Celeste grabs Faythe. Norton reflexively dies. A dead Norton is now in the bubble with Celeste. Norton hands over Brand's trump to Celeste. Celeste trumps Brand, and Norton is forced into Brand-shape. There is now a Brand-soul in Norton. Brand commiserates with Norton and hands Norton his favorite book, "Ethyl the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying". "What a great book!" Norton starts reading. Norton asks Brand if either of them is using magic. Brand says that all of his magic was burnt out by their magic-using enemy, and that Celeste is using psi. Norton releases the fish. Brand - "I thought I was dead." Norton - "That happens a lot around me." Brand tells Celeste that he is glad that he could give his all to save her and still see the results afterwards. Brand - "I suggest that we figure out how to jettison ourselves from this soon to be churning mass of fish" They discuss escape plans, then realize that Toram is exceedingly distracted right now because of the fish, and that a very simple plan would probably work. They try to run. Brand and Celeste pop out of the blue gem. There are fish swimming around inside the blue gem and Blackwand. Celeste can now see Clarissa's dessicated corpse, clutching a grey sphere in each hand. They discuss whether they gave Clarissa enough power to win. Cassandra gets a trump call. She takes it. It's Norton. Ilk in contact with Cassandra, and notices a Brand in Norton. They chat. Norton thinks that Clarissa's body looks like it has been dead for millennia. Celeste contacts Clarissa over the god channels. Celeste - "Is there anything that we can do for you out here?" Clarissa - "What do I look like?" Celeste - "Really bad." Clarissa - "Is the keeper from Arilinn Tower still here?" Celeste - "Nobody is with you." Clarissa - "... I might have consumed her completely." Clarissa tells Celeste not to burn herself out - she can come back. It would take her a thousand years, but she isn't sure that Celeste can do it. Norton tries to fix up Clarissa. It's harder than Corwin, but do-able. Norton requests and receives another Norton. Brand in Norton monitors for Celeste as Nortons work on fixing Clarissa. The ex-head solo Ilk shifts into Ilk. He's a real, breathing, Ilk. Ilk goes through the contact. Ilk routes power from shadow through Cassandra to Ilk, who feeds Nortons and Celeste. --EORun--