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Corwin is in the Warriors' Guild. He and Benedict are in negotiation with various other people. For a while, the Warriors' Guild had been saying, "If you have a problem with what we are doing, take it up with our Guildmaster". Benedict found out about a number of the issues, and are actively settling them. Corwin has been keeping a boba-Jean (wearing Frogalorian armor) with him.
Boba-Jean turns to Corwin, who is in negotiation with Qrelon, and tells him about the search for Ingold and their need for a Void-capable tracker. Corwin says that he is busy and suggests Verra.
Jean tells Verra that Cassandra is searching for Ingold, and that he was missing some parts.
Jean whales in Verra, who makes a dramatic entrance. Mecha-Jean greets her as prophet to goddess, Osric greets her as highly-ranked member of a House to an Old Lord, Cassandra greets her as apprentice to Old Lord to Old Lord, and Ilk bows over her hand. Verra and Ilk discuss a future liason.
Verra determines the exact location of Ingold's rift and opens a rift there. Osric steps through, one gunship and two saucers go through, and Verra follows and the rift closes. Verra casts about inside the Void. Verra is the only point of light here - even Jean's running lights are nonfunctional.
Osric asks Verra if it would be safe for someone to survive her for an extended period of time. She replies that one could survive, but would probably go insane. Verra says, "He went this way", and starts walking. The others find that no matter which way they walk, they are following her. Eventually Verra stops, looks confused, and says, "I need to check my bearings." She opens a rift, and they are in shadow. Osric has access to his power, and he notices a Fringe gate about 30 feet away. Osric remembers that there was a darker spot in the Void about where the gate was, relative to him. The shadow is a lush junglish place. Jean does a weapons system test on a descending tendril, and cooks a snake.
Osric asks Verra if they could take a closer look at the dark spot when they re-enter the void. Verra opens another rift, and they re-enter the void.
Verra steps closer to the dark spot, and Osric examines it. Verra tells him that the one who taught her warned her to not to approach the dark spots too closely, because she would get stuck.
The dark spot seems to be drawing power from the Fringe. Osric expresses an interest in learning how to enter the Void on his own, and Verra tells him that she would be glad to teach him, for a price.
Verra walks a bit farther, opens another rift, and they're in a high-tech shadow. In front of them is a building with a large red cross on the front. They enter the building, and run into language problems. Osric tries numerous languages, none of which work, but Thari is taken for cursing. Jean writes down a few symbols and asks the Dancers' Guild what language it is. They're not sure.
Jean asks Ilk what languages he knows, and Ilk tells him about his translation spell. Ilk racks a translation spell on Jean. Jean casts it, and can now read the sign overhead ("Admissions"), and can hear them talking about the strange people talking in weird languages who just started out by cursing them out. Jean displays the messages on the front of the saucer, and the translation on the back. He is taken as a translator droid.
Ingold is in the psychiatric wing being treated for Turets syndrome as well as a missing hand.
They claim to be there to pick him up, and are escorted to the outside of a one-way mirror by the receptionist and a guard.
[The guard is practically useless. Yeah, big burly guy in white pajamas... one hit from the wave motion gun is all it will take.]
Ingold is sitting in a room with an IV drip of blood, his hand bandaged, and a psychiatrist showing him pictures and Ingold "cursing" back in Thari.
The psychiatrist finishes, leaves the room, and tells them that he can apparently only speak in curses, and has spoken some of the most revolting that he has ever heard. He agrees to release Ingold to their sanetarium.
The Jean-saucer drifts into the room. "Jean! We're leaving?"
...
"You mind if I take this IV drip with me? I'm kinda low on blood."
Ingold tells Verra that he didn't leave because he wasn't sure that he could take the IV with him. Jean brings the whale out, and a bunch of security robots attack it. Jean mostly ignores them.
There are a few bets made, and money changes hands. One spectator pulls out an energy blade and throws it at the whale. Jean tractors it and passes it off to Osric. It looks to Osric as a fairly standard psi-saber, except it is still on. Osric tries to buy the saber from him, but loses interest when it turns off when he enters the whale.
When the whale disappears, the security droids all attack Jean. Jean tries to distract them by pointing, and fails. He then distracts them by blowing up something elsewhere and running. There are spectators shouting at him, and he hears a electromagnetic broadcast sending out an APB for a bunch of droids and maybe a whale, too.
Jean receives a tight-beam from someone asking for a tech-trade. Jean follows the beam back. They have a lot of neat stuff, including a holographic projector that they used to make the appearance of lots of saucers across the planet. They discuss trading tech toys.
On Cailin's way back to Random's place, there is a major magical explosion in front of him. The magical signature is familiar to him, but not completely - he's not sure whose it is. Bits of processed meat product and some corn starch were scattered about by the explosion.
The bodyguards are backing away from it subtly, and trying to pull him with them. Cailin thinks that it is his grandmother, yetis, and heads in the opposite direction at high speed. For a moment he feels a touch on him as if someone was riding along with him, and that terrifies him even more.
Cailin runs out of ground, and finds himself on a promentary. He turns around. Closing on him is a young woman who is throwing exploding things at his grandmother, who is following her closely, looking displeased at him.
Cailin leaps off the cliff, allowing the vines to break his fall. He dents the ground, and a chinese guy strapped to a rock rolls towards him. A few moments later, the young woman plummets off the cliff. Cailin catches her, after much interference from the guy strapped to the rock.
She tells him that she didn't see a woman, she saw a complex assemblage involving a number of her relatives and a pig.
They head off. Cailin looks back, sees his grandmother fighting the guy strapped to a rock, yetis, and takes off, still carrying the woman.
Eventually, he notices that she is beating on his chest. He stops, puts her down, tries to greet her, and then de-yetis and tries more successfully.
"... by the way, who are you?" "Natasha. Pleasure to meet you."
"I was en-route to Random's place..." "Random - I know Random. Random's Damia's son, and Damia's my aunt."
"Very non-local." "As in Sea of Chance non-local?" "Not that non-local."
Natasha claims that all great mages visit Cobalt, because it is the home of the Spiral, which is the center of all magic.
Natasha and Cailin discuss how the creature appeared to each of them, and family issues.
"Issues... family issues... it happens when you're grandmother is an Assassin."
They decide to head of to Cobalt. Cailin pauses to try to summon his bodyguards, and finds the corpse of one being eaten by something black and formless. He places a hand on her shoulder and makes a psychic contact. She verifies that the thing is about the size of what attacked her. He fails to find any other bodyguards along their path.
After a while, she starts glancing over her shoulder. "Something is following the path of shadow that we're shifting along. It hasn't caught up to us yet... Beauregard knew how to make gates from one place to another - can you do that?"
Cailin gates them to a nice scenic location, which they then thoroughly booby-trap in strange and obscure ways. She then starts shadow-shifting them again. Cailin is delighted to learn that she shadow-shifts using the Spiral, not any Pattern. She says that those who have Benedict as an ancestor tend to do it better than others.
After a while, she says that they're getting close to the Fractal Zone. "Fractal Zone?"
"As far as I can tell, it is the interface between the area close to Cobalt and the rest of shadow. Those who are not of the blood of Benedict have difficulty passing it in the outwards-direction.
Guard-birds meet them at one point, she greets the guard birds.
When they reach Cobalt, Natasha introduces him to the family as a hero and savior.
He becomes familiar with the story of Paulette, the story of Merlin, the baby with four parents, the monthly orgies, and so on. They seem to have a cult based around Benedict.
Malachai, Merlin, Norton, Brandt, Brendhyn, and Faythe are all mentioned as having visited.
Natasha introduces him to the Spiral and tries to convince him to become an initiate. He doesn't want to take the year or so all at once, but thinks that her belief that it is the source of magic might be accurate.
He is introduced to the birds. Natasha is told of Beauregard's death, and asks Cailin to accompany her to his grave.
Damia is delighted to hear of Cathryne's death and meet a decendent returned home, and gleefully greets Cailin. Unfortunately, he can't see her, so she can't greet him properly.