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NOTE: Information is being passed freely between realities via Jean.
Cailin is training. He tries chucking marbles at his instructor, who avoids them. He tries to weave the marbles around his body defensively, and has more luck. He works on shields and dancing swords.
Norton and head-Ilk continuing their discussion on the possible correlation between the new/foreign powers and the rifts. The pedestals are still present and hooked to the Gwen machine, and Toram's pyramid has started disgorging insects again.
Ilk notifies the Realms Lords, and is told to head the investigation.
Norton converts some of his undead demons into varied and assorted scouts to check out the surface world. The bats are blinded instantly and crisp quickly. The insects survive longer, but roast in the inferno. The mice burn quickly. Norton creates a few phoenixes. The mouth of the cave seems to be a solar-level environment that extends for a few hundred yards in either direction directly up to a wall. There are a few small holes in the roof, through which things are occasionally dropped. The fire seems to be self-sustaining, probably nuclear.
Jean is asked for water, and whales in a fire truck. The fire goes out. Jean goes forwards to investigate, and finds the area to be highly radioactive. It's more concentrated than the radiation zone around Amber, but there is less of it. He tries to go through the hole, but it was closed.
Norton creates a radiation-eating plant-zilla and send it into the radiation zone. Jean scouts around and notices that the people upstairs are dying and putting on funny suits.
"Norton? I think that the people upstairs have an allergy."
Jean is sent to acquire a couple of radiation suits for the fragile Amberites present. He brings in an occupied suit. Norton looks at the frothing guy, fixes him, gives him an immunity to radiation, and makes him loyal.
The guy in the suit didn't know about the existence of the tunnels, and thinks that he's in the afterlife. Norton is declared to be Beelzebub. The leader is dead.
"What was causing the problems?"
"The reactor blew up! And a giant plant came out!"
He says that years and years ago demons used to pour out of a hole and take little children and turn them into coal. The guy says that the plant monster is radiating too, off the scale. Jean tells them that the plant is eating the radiation.
Norton shapes a demon into a radiation-absorbing suit, and Flora dons it. Flora gradually changes the color and shape of the suit as she walks to make it less unstylish. They walk through the reactor.
Norton's latest minion drags over another guy who is still alive; Norton fixes him and talks with him.
"I was a shift manager."
"They can shift here?"
...
"So you are him!"
"Are who?"
"The one who is foretold by the old stories!"
"Do you have a copy of these old stories?"
Apparently Norton is supposed to take over, and to be fought by things with white wings. The guy isn't sure if the angels have sunglasses. People are disturbed. A copy of the book is found, and the Gwen connection seems to fit.
Jean finds the center of their religion; he and Verra go to make some converts. Norton goes to the library, and finds a chained book in the old book section. Ilk can spot a blob of the power that Bronelle was using right there. The book is open to the page that Norton was reading, and there is a trail leading off to a wall. Norton follows the trail, tossing things in front of him. Near the wall, one of them disappears. Lettering appears on the wall.
"Welcome, Norton. We've been expecting you."
People are squicked. Experimentation happens, and the far side of the rift/gate is determined to be the inside of Three Mile Island. The new book is in more ornate language, and describes Gwen more accurately. People continue to get more worried.
Benedict says that this seems to be very formulaic, as if someone is trying to bring about the conditions for the return of our enemy.
Norton, Ilk, and Jean work on how to counteract it. Verra's advice is solicited. The pope is down on his knees kissing Verra's ring.
Verra goes and looks at the original holy book, which is in a locked room beneath the Vatican. The original is written in Thari. It's obviously written by Gwen in blood on extremely white material, not quite paper. The cry of "Don't touch the book!" goes up. The pope says that people who are especially holy and touch the book get visions; those who are not worthy disappear in a puff of white smoke. The book seems to be sitting on a pedestal. Ilk tells Shiryu; Jean asks Neville to check it out.
Neville hasn't run across that before. He goes to check it out the Gwen machine in her lair beneath the mountain, and the place is different than it was before, almost as if someone was searching for something there and didn't put everything back just right. He can't find any traces of tampering with the computer. Neville goes searching for that thing in the computer. It's emergency backup plan number three, currently active and in process. No details are present. Completion time, 50 years. Emergency backup plan number one was destroyed; emergency backup plan number two was not responding to telltales. A crucial circuit is missing from emergency backup plan number four. Number five is the top of a branching tree of n-way possibilities. As Neville is tracing five, somewhere along the line he missed a keyword or something and parts of the machine are shutting down. Then he notices that things are shutting down in his brain. He doesn't have the headset on any more. Neville leaves the shadow and heads off for a walk of the Primal Pattern.
Neville appears on Primal Kolvir, on the hillside above the Pattern. There's a large Wixer there, that looks like the critter from the centipede video game. He approaches. Something starts squirting him with a liquid that smells like beer, and a little blue light starts whirling around on one of the nodules. Neville switches to the Pattern in Rebma, and walks that one.
Jean reports a successful test of the Wixer system to Ilk.
Neville has the Pattern take him back to the place where he first met Jean for this incident. Neville tells Jean that he tripped some automated defense mechanism, and that burning the place to the ground will not help. Information about the emergency backup plans is distributed.
Neville goes off to talk to the library's archivist; Benedict stays to watch the gate.
Jean goes looking for Rainbow to brief. Rainbow is backtracking the drug and the two people. REN is pretending to be Rainbow pretending to be Jean in the Dancers' Guild. Jean briefs REN. Three Dancers who owe dues are sent to merge with the room and watch for intruders.
Neville continues to frotz with the machine.
When Norton reaches the archivist's room, he is held off by a spherical field of some kind circling the desk. He notices that there are words written on the floor in ball-point pen. Norton chats with the archivist. The archivist been studying this thing for about five hundred years, and has lived this long because he knows things. The archivist insists that Norton is the beast and that he has released the first herald. He insists that his things have been written for years, and that nothing can effect him here. The grand grimoir is the thing on the table downstairs, he's here to guard it because the first manifestation was supposed to happen here.
Norton and the archivist continue to chat. Neither of them want the angel to come. Allegedly, the chained book was divinely inspired. The grand grimoir was designed for those with free will to read and be inspired, so it shouldn't influence him. The archivist claims that any who touch the original are absorbed by the celestial powers.
"Doesn't the tree of darkness grow between the celestial spheres?"
"Is that what the original book is resting upon?"
The archivist is horrified when he finds out that the original book isn't just an allegory.
Jean tells the assorted folks about the tree of darkness and the power that is holding off Norton. A Norton-blocking power is generally agreed to be a useful thing.
The archivist claims that the Pope is an evil man who killed people who disagreed with his policies.
The archivist tells Norton where a drawer is with sketches. There is a tree of darkness and a tree of light. The books and scrolls don't photocopy well. Jean checks out the portfolio that contains the sketches.
The tree of darkness looks like what would happen if you had Dali, the blue period of Picasso, and a few other depressionist artists got together and decided to paint starry starry night by Van Gogh. The map-ness of the sketch cannot be verified. The Celeste in her head says that it might be very useful if it was brought to someplace trumpish.
Norton asks if he can borrow the sketches. The archivist tells him that he can, as long as he doesn't take away anyone else's free will. Norton agrees not to take away anyone's free will.
The demons pouring out of the hole in the ground is a portent. A great lady being trapped is another portent.
Norton continues to talk with the archivist. When the archivist was told that someone trying to make the portents come true was recently seated in front of the book, he starts trying to figure out who. The person who last touched the grimoire was ... Norton. The person who touched it before that who wasn't the archivist did it almost exactly seven years ago. Flora thinks that she had been there for years; she had dessicated and killed three demons by sex and was working on the fourth and fifth.
Norton and the archivist consider calling back the archivist's teacher. Norton tries to request the teacher to come back from the dead, but he doesn't show up.
The archivist is very worried when he is told that the book is staying open - it means that someone is tampering with it.
Norton has one of his minions try to close the book - it really wants to be open. Norton has a minion hammer a board over the book to hold it closed. The archivist had last seen the book about two weeks ago and it was closed.
"I don't think that she's taking away their free will... she's just very persuasive."
Jean talks to Verra. Verra found the Pope useless, and turned him into a ferret. Verra shows up.
The archivist claims that his power is bibliomancy - the power of words. It's not tied in with the grimoir. Jean suggests that this place might have been picked because the
Norton's not sure if his base form would survive in this radiation - it was fairly fragile.
[A dragon form is why he got House Hendrake. Norton is the original Hendrake?]
The line of words holding off anything "evil" is examined. Norton and Jean can't cross it, but Verra can. Various quibbling happens over the definition of evil, as neither Jean nor Norton feel that it is applicable to them. Norton is the Lord of Evil and Jean is his minion, so sez the bibliomancer, although both Jean and Norton disagree.
Norton rants about the archivist's insistence about his evil nature. "Snarsht! I'm not a Lord of Evil."
Snarsht looks down at Norton. "No ambition."
Snarsht jumps off Norton's head, wanders across the line, and rubs up against the archivist's legs. The archivist scritches the cat.
"You have a nice pet."
Jean pipes up. "Actually, he's the cat's minion."
The cat looks at the archivist, grins, and walks back.
The archivist is disbelieving.
Verra has now realized who the cat is and is flabbergasted. She leaves the circle and goes to have a sit down.
The archivist is thrilled at the idea of getting Norton married off - it would break the prophecy.
Verra wanders over to scritch the cat. The cat climbs into her arms and is petted.
[Norton chortles about all of the people that he has modified and/or scanned.]
Jean fills in the Guildmaster of the Philosophers' Guild about the archivist. The Guildmaster is interested and wants to send someone.
Norton agrees to go talk to his plant while the archivist does his summoning thing.
Verra picks up the ferret and pushes it against the shield. It doesn't go through.
Norton is gleeful. "Ah-ah - so it is your interpretation. The pope isn't one of my minions."
"That's the pope? Congratulations, lady!"
A report comes to Norton that his plant disappeared. Norton goes to where it was. Ilk doesn't spot any traces of Bronelle's power, but speculates that someone might have gated the plant to Three Mile Island to finish the foretelling. Norton flips out and heads down to the gate. Benedict tells Norton to go outside Three Mile Island, not through the trapped gate. Jean brings him there.
The plant is found breaking out of three mile island. Norton tries to lead it off before it can do too much more damage, and determines that it has been modified or has modified itself after being created. The radioactive circle around Amber is deemed to be only shadow, and the plant is whaled through to eat that circle.
One of Norton's minions gets his attention. "Right on the outside of the place where the wall burst there was a painting of the tree of darkness." The security guard arrested the guy who was doing the drawing. They locked him in a cell, but then he disappeared.
The description sounds like one of the people who grabbed Flora.
No traces of that power in the cell, but a few marbles uncover another gate or rift that is slowly getting smaller. Norton tosses a blood beasty through to scout. Jean tries to flag this to Shiryu's attention. He gets Andron instead. Andron finds it interesting, and re-opens it. The blood beasty comes back. The far side looks like somebody's study. Jean tells Benedict about it. Benedict asks for transport. Benedict notices that there is tiny lettering in the air. Jean takes a Polaroid, which is sent to the bibliomancer.
"That lettering is the whitest of the white, would lead you straight to the angels." The archivist says that the black stuff would leave to Norton, and that he uses the grey stuff. The archivist promises to teach Norton bibliomancy in seventy years if everything works out here.
Jean tells Marial that they might have a destination for the army. When she finds out that Benedict is there, she hands Jean a dagger to send to him, along with orders to go through.
The dagger is whaled to Benedict. He draws it. Norton and Jean don't see a blade. Benedict carefully sheaths it and turns towards first Norton, then Jean.
"If I am not back in ... oh, you don't understand time. If I am not back in ... oh, you're worse. See that? That's a clock. If that hand points there and that hand points there, and you haven't changed it, tell Marial."
Benedict goes through and comes back. He searched the some room and has some idea of the shape of the mind of their enemy. He believes that there is an army involved and that one of his blood is involved as well. He thinks that Julian might be involved in this, and he does not believe that it was a different reality than the one they are currently in.
Jean tells Flora that they've possibly found Julian. Benedict tells Jean to make sure that everyone knows that Julian might be involved.
The person they were following appeared to have stepped through and left. Benedict left the dagger there, so Marial can probably tell what is going on in that room.
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