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After trump eavesdropping on Rudolph, Neville leaves the shadow and uses a coin given to him by Neville to report to Silver Lyra. She's in a watery form in a mostly watery room. He says that he has a report to make. She pulls in a Jean and tells him to continue.
He says that he believes that he has located the person in question, but cannot be certain if he had the correct person or not. The security of the line is questioned, and he decides to go to her in person. Silver Lyra leaves the watery room and shifts appropriately. Her shapeshifting is both an art form and a delight to watch.
Neville walks to the nearest Jean (a torque around the neck of a priest) and is whaled to Silver Lyra.
Neville says that he found that she was spreading a drug with unusual properties, that gave shadow people the temporary ability to shapeshift themselves and parts of their environments and left them stuck once the drug wore off. He also mentions the effects of the drug on Raven. Jean chimes in and says that Raven just hang-glided into the Abyss. Neville mentions the puddled shapeshifter. Silver Lyra asks for a sample of the drug to be given to the Torturers' Guild.
Neville tells Silver Lyra about the Logrus mages that were hunting for the drug, and that implied an affiliation with the Shapeshifters' Guild and possibly his House as well. Silver Lyra states that she will take this up with the Guild master of the Shapeshifters' Guild. Neville mentions his upcoming meeting with the mages, and asks for discreet protection during it. The Dancers' Guild is volunteered for the task.
Neville states that he believes that he has found the army that Dara intends to arm with this drug. They go berserk at predictable intervals. Silver Lyra states that Marial will be informed, and asks Neville to warn them beforehand.
The complexities of taking Dara out are discussed, as are the potential rewards due to Neville and his House.
Jean spies Osric, who is in the middle of brokering a deal. Osric's discussion with Verra is thoroughly completed, and he has received the merchandise.
"Is it important?"
"It is to Raven."
"Is it time important?"
"Is the Abyss time important?"
Jean displays a holograph of Raven nose-diving into the Abyss.
Osric extricates himself from his current negotiation.
Jean fishes Osric to the edge of the Abyss near Yuri.
Osric is warned about the drug and dives into the Abyss. He notices a path and shields himself. This is the first time that Osric has ever seen a path in the Abyss. It's Real and ordered, and the Abyss denizens are attempting to erase it.
Osric catches up to Raven. He's still falling, making a tunnel of reality as he falls.
"Raven?"
There is an incoherent yell. As he gets closer, he notices that Raven seems to have shapeshifted gills and is screaming out of them. Osric worries that Raven might have shifted away his brain.
Osric shields Raven. Raven is shifting the things inside the shield, but cannot penetrate it. On his way out, Osric bashes at the path for a bit, then decides to come back and deal with it later.
Osric exits the Abyss with a shielded Raven in tow and says that he is so badly shifted that it would probably take Snarsht to fix. Jean places, "Don't shift away your brain" into off-site storage.
Osric tells Jean tells Silver Lyra about the path left by Raven.
Ilk tendri's out and heads to Snarsht, curled around Norton's house. Ilk signals the story via patterns to Snarsht and is told in cat-speak to take him to the Beastmasters' Guild.
Ilk returns and tells Osric, who takes Raven to the Beastmasters' Guild. He is met by two people, and expresses concern about releasing Raven. They say that they have a room that has been blessed by Melk, such that everything in it acts much more slowly than everything else around it. Osric pushes the bubble into the room and begins the release. It takes a long, long time for the release to begin.
Jean observes that Osric's crystal sublimating in slow motion appears very similar to Llewella sublimating the blucite.
Cassandra is with Lord Talos in the Torturers' Guild when there is a knock on the chamber doors. It's his Minbari apprentice, who says that Caine is here to see Cassandra.
Caine says that he has been tasked by Marial with arranging the Home Guard, and would like to invite her to be one of his generals. She agrees to trump him later with a response, possibly along with a list of people that she would like him to contact.
She goes back inside, apologizes to Lord Talos, fills him in, and the leaves. She trumps Ilk, gets Vlad, and asks him if he can place her into contact with Princess Chandra. He says that Jean would be her best contact, and she asks for one. Ilk pops a note for Jean then Logrus-grabs that one and sends him to Cassandra. Cassandra drops the contact with Ilk and asks Jean about acquiring transportation to her master.
"I can put you in line."
"How long is the line?"
"It's about Corwin-long."
"Sure - I haven't caught up with my father for a while."
Corwin is arranging for an invasion force; Marial told Caine to arrange the Home Guard directly.
Cassandra joins the card game.
Jean sees Random get flagged down by Caine. Caine asks Random for himself and Martin and the sword that he is carrying, and gives them the rallying point near the Abyss.
The card game lasts 10 or 15 minutes, and breaks up when Andron arrives. Andron looks at the ward, says, "It's me" out loud, touches all of them with pseudopods, and they all walk through.
Princess Chandra is in conversation with the head of the Philosophers' Guild near the head of the Creationists' Guild.
Gentleman Suhuy is fidgeting with something that is appearing and disappearing between his hands. Ilk is mostly focused on what Gentleman Suhuy is doing. He seem to be showing Ilk how to make a weapon that is not a weapon out of this Pattern. It's a simple application that seems to be a kind of Moebius strip that will suck the target onto itself and force it to traverse it until the far end is reached.
Cassandra goes to her master's side.
Neville trumps Caine. He receives it. Caine is standing over a corpse, and takes a few moments to ensure that it remains that way and then comes through to him. Caine asks if Neville has someplace private. Neville takes them to a private meeting room in his house.
Caine says that he has noticed that Neville is "at least distantly related."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I will be blunt, for I am in a hurry... you bear the mark of Amber in your blood."
"I have been told so."
"You have done more than just been told... you have traversed that path."
"I may have walked that path once or twice."
"More that that... I believe that my dear sister was among your instructors."
"What are you getting at?"
Caine attempts to enlist Neville in the defense of Chaos. Neville asks Caine for timing information regarding the berserk shadow. Caine says that he would prefer for Neville to be a secret aspect of the force, to be brought in at Caine's urging. Neville agrees to the plan, as he would be unable to act overtly, being his current missions.
"Were you tutored in the use of trumps?"
"I have been using trumps for some little bit... I am somewhat familiar with their use."
Neville gives Caine a trump of himself.
"I don't believe that I recognize the hand."
"The artist wished to remain unknown."
"Another one of my dear sister's students?"
"I doubt it..."
Neville asks Caine if anything is currently being done regarding the situation in Amber. Caine says that Benedict had asked for time to plan, but now that he is unavailable, they might be able to do something expediously.
Caine asks Neville if he has any interests on that end of things... he has observed that all of the important Amberites are strongly tied to this end of reality now, so it would amuse him to have Chaosians tied to Amber.
[The Blues Brothers are Corwin and Caine in sunglasses -- they're on a mission for Marial.]
Osric enters the Void and heads towards a planet-sized dark spot that corresponded to the location of a Fringe gate. It's dark, and it is faintly pulling him towards it.
He probes it for a moment, and then reinforces himself with the Fringe and descends into the darkness. Eventually, he reaches the center. He tries to feel for a Fringe gate, and thinks that he is at the center of one. He tries to open a Void gate out, and fails. He tries to leave the center, and fails. The attractive force is still centered on the center of his body.
It feels as if he were in the center of a Fringe gate... but you can't be at the center of a Fringe gate. This could be a vague echo of the attractive force when crossing a Fringe gate. There is nothing here except for him.
Cailin is testing a marble to destruction on Jenoir's equipment. There is an enormous amount of energy contained within them. Jean and Cailin discuss the marbles and the grey spheres. The level of power would involve expending entire universes.
Jean and Cailin discuss Jean testing the marbles. Cailin tells Jean where the other marbles are stored. Every time that Jean goes to tractor a marble, a Chaosian denizen happens to wander past and get in the way. Jean decides that this experiment is a bad idea.
Jean fishes Osric a slingshot and tells him to shoot at anyone bad.
Jean finds some minions and has them scoop up marbles. He has problems keeping them from wandering into the paradise that they see before them. Jean blindfolds the next batch, and he loses less of them. They're hard to scoop - high inertia, low mass.
Cailin hasn't noticed any inertia problems; he has a pocket filled with marbles.
Jean fills in Silver Lyra and the Dancers' Guild on their information.
Jean and Cailin consider testing the marbles to destruction... on Benedict.
"While we're waiting, let's reconquer Amber!"
Jean collects marbles. When he moves them, he leaves a trail of mishap behind him.
Cailin gets a lift out of the room by Andron and goes to an X-files shadow. Cailin can tell which marbles were Krajicek or were changed. He has no problem manipulating the ones for which he knew the names, but the others were difficult to manipulate.
Cailin tells Jean that he has seen Cailin experiment with true names. Cailin says that he can partially manipulate the marbles that were derived from people whose true names he knew.
Jean tells the Dancers' Guild and the room that they are going to be experimenting with a new power source, and ask if anyone has records on working with grey spheres.
[Romeo in Joliet -- Corwin in Pearl]
Cassandra tells Princess Chandra about her offer from Caine. Princess Chandra offers to free her bodyguards for the battle, and asks her if she has troops in mind. She offers a place to house Cassandra's troops, and suggests that she could use the Sith if she did not already have troops chosen. Princess Chandra asks Cassandra to look in on Zorro, and asks her to also renew her tutelage of her grandson.
Jean walks over to Princess Chandra and gives her the note from Cailin. "Off experimenting with grey marbles and blucite. Locations are here, here, and here. Will test from a distance. Promise. -- Cailin"
Princess Chandra looks at Cassandra. "I have one more request. Try to make sure that he survives the experience."
Cassandra approaches Jean and demands transport to Cailin. Jean is confused. Cassandra demands that Cailin be brought back to the room, immediately.
Cailin and Andron re-enter the lab.
Cailin shows off his marble collection to grandma.
["Put that thing away; you're gonna get us all killed!"]
Princess Chandra turns the problem over to her apprentice and returns to her conversation.
Ilk hears them talking about experimenting with the marbles and reaches over a tendril, dope-slaps both Cailin and Jean, tells them that if the marbles are similar to the grey spheres, then they are comprised of multiple pages, not just a one universe worth of energy.
Cassandra is aware that what Princess Chandra is discussing with Qrelon and the head of the Philosophers' Guild is tactically more interesting than what she is doing.
Ilk and Jean arrive at the invasion force, scout it out, Jean mind-reams a guy, finds out why they set up the planet. They set up the planet so different warring factions could carry on a war without anyone dying, and were coming to find out what was going on. They're all from one planet. The only thing that that know about rifts is that they have one building where they throw their desperate criminals and they don't come out. Ilk and Jean take them over and steal their technology.
A desperate criminal is sent through with a bug, and comes out in a familiar place in Chaos. This is in one of the parts of House Helgram that Jean blundered through when he was trying to leave.
Ilk and Jean relay tanks through the rift into Chaos. When they come through, they're much smaller than he would expect --- about double saucer size.
A Jean is looped through the rift several times, and gets smaller each time.
The powers Ilk spotted in the fleet were referred to as religious invocations by the wielders, but they were actual Powers.
Jean learns how to use them by budding into initiates, but finds them unusable outside this piece of fruit.
There are temples that teach the Powers, but don't understand them - it's just rote.
There are 15 powers, and they are arranged in a circle. They are only useful for cheesy little parlor tricks. There used to be seventeen, but two temples were destroyed in ancient times. Nobody remembers why or how. The powers might still exist, but nobody knows how to use them.
This piece of fruit doesn't have shadow. The powers don't seem to have foci, but are integral to the piece of fruit.
Ilk from the badger reality and Ilaryn are fished in to replace Vlad. When Yuri tries to pull out the Logrus blade to give it to the new arrival, he finds it missing. The Ilks look around, and spot a massive nebula that seems to be a Logrus in an area of the piece of fruit that seems to be becoming the opposite end from the hamster Pattern.
The Ilks transport a thousand or so robots into their reality.
Ilaryn and Jean study the Powers, but Jean doesn't learn very much.