![[previous]](gu-prev.gif){kind=small}
![[next]](gu-next.gif){kind=small}
Back to the index.
Jean has noticed that a whole lot of his flying saucers are bumping into things a lot more. He passes word to the Dancers' Guild that other realities seem to be losing their shadows, then passes that along to the Dworkins, et. al. in Ferethyn's antechamber.
Jean informs people in the various realities that their reality seems to be shrinking. "This is not a test of the Jean broadcast system." The Jean saucers tries the traditional "Take me to your leader" line, and is shot at, shouted at, and fed cows. Jean mutilates the cattle.
There is a knock at the door of House Moonlight. Cailin opens the door - it's a guy in a hat carrying a large box and a clipboard. "Special delivery, from the Healers' Guild".
Cailin argues with the guy briefly, realizes that the box is coffin-sized, that the outside is one solid piece of wood, tries to figure out how to open the box, and then gives up and signs for the box. The delivery boy leaves.
Cailin tries to figure out how to open the box, and talks with Laetatio about visiting the Healers' Guild. Tate suggests paying his bill. Cailin tells Tate to suggest that the founder of House Moonlight might be displeased if the Guild doesn't tell him how to open the box. Tate heads out. Cailin takes the coffin inside.
When Neville puts the note with Darkstar's trump on it back in his pocket, there's another note folded neatly next to it. It's from Hamster Gerard, telling him that Good Titania has won the fight and they've started on the cleanup.
He has an odd sensation in his stomach, and there are a number of worms on the floor. The Healers are done. They say that it's safe to go near the Pattern, but that he should probably put his armor back on.
There's something missing in his mind. He checks it out. A connection is broken -- he's been logged out of Gwen's machine.
Neville trumps Hamster Gerard and has his Pattern armor passed through the connection.
All of Neville's swords are accounted for and in his living room. Neville works on administrative duties.
Calla is working on leading an army and being trained by Janus. Janus is spending most of his time lying around and griping about the lack of food that doesn't move here.
A member of the Etiquette Guild approaches Calla, bows to her, and announces Lord Timbal. A very dapper, elegant-looking gentleman coalesces out of a spinning mist. He gives her a half-bow. Calla returns an equivalent bow. Lord Timbal seems annoyed at her, but visibly writes her off as too ignorant to matter.
He asks Calla to move her encampment off these lands. She tells him that he would need to talk to Marial about it. He taunts and insults Calla.
Calla - "I just see no reason to help you."
Lord Timbal - "You are on my lands... I could just order you off of them."
He demands to see her commanding officer, or have her move the troops. He continues to insult her. She fails to kill him.
Calla can see Gil casually flipping a knife out of the corner of her eye. Gil is out of Timbal's line of view. Calla indicates to Gil that she should get Janus.
The insults continue for a while longer.
A really, scruffy, smelly, beaten-looking individual comes into range. It takes a moment for Calla to realize that it's Janus. No uniform, no rank insignia. He approaches her. "Pardon me, ma'am. Is this gentleman giving you any problems?"
Calla replies. "Yes - could you eject him from the encampment?"
Janus turns towards Lord Timbal. "I believe that the two-bit whore of your daughter would not be good enough for these troops."
Lord Timbal challenges Janus. Janus is delighted, and picks the time, place, and weapon -- two turnings after the camp decamps, on this very spot, and Pattern-blades. Lord Timbal finally seems to realize that he is out of his depth.
"Unless you want to withdraw, of course."
"No, I have honor." Lord Timbal stalks off.
Calla - "Good one, dad."
Janus - "Hoist on his own petard."
Calla - "That's the sort of thing that we're supposed to avoid?"
...
Calla - "Do you have any idea how to contact [Marial]?"
Janus - "Nope."
Cailin receives a trump call from Tate. He says that the Healers' Guild denies ever having sent him anything. Cailin evacuates the House. Tate is standing in front of Natasha right now. She's not conscious - she's still in stasis.
The Healers' Guild wants to send Tate to the Assassins' Guild along with an emissary to say that this wasn't their doing, and emphatically so. Cailin says that he'll meet Tate there. Tate asks Cailin to bring him some food - he hasn't eaten in a while. He's not sure what "food" in the larder was edible. Tate says that his restaurant trump isn't working currently. Cailin has Tate trump to somewhere else near Amber, and it works.
Everything is blamed on Mikail, including Tate's favorite restaurants consistently burning down.
Cailin changes into yeti form and runs to the Assassins Guild. He arrives before Tate. One of the Assassins is out front telling a group of wandering tentacular things to stay away from the Savior of Chaos tape. They don't seem to get it.
Tate arrives along with a full delegation from the Healers' Guild. The delegation is told not to cross the Savior of Chaos tape. They are less persistent than the tentacular things, and enter the Assassins Guild.
Princess Chandra is not present. Cailin leaves a note for her explaining the mystery of the box.
Princess Chandra pulls a note out of her pocket and tells the Serpent's Apprentice that she needs to leave - House business. She leaves the Serpent's antechamber.
When Cailin walks back out of the Guild, he finds Princess Chandra standing in front of him. She walks over to the beings trying to get inside the Savior of Chaos tape, shakes her head, and goes back to Cailin. Kieron greets the "Princess" with a big hug.
[Princess and the Bodiless Voice - yet another band name]
Cailin fills Princess Chandra in. Tate passes around a picture of the coffin-type thing.
Princess Chandra tries to decide whether to take this as a personal attack or just House politics.
Princess Chandra steps sideways, then returns a few moments later with the coffin.
Suhuy notices a bit of Serpent power flickering in and out.
Princess Chandra tells the Healers Guild contingent to follow her, since this is an insult to them as well. She leads the mob into the gym.
Cailin asks Princess Chandra about clearing House invitations past her - she says that if he chooses anyone she doesn't like, she'll tell him. Beyond that, well, that's why it's called delegation. Cailin thrashes, then sighs.
Princess Chandra looks back and forth, then flicks something past the shielded Jean. It doesn't disappear.
She chases everyone out of the gym, and tests the area using something that looks like a yo-yo with teeth. The rift is not located. Princess Chandra is not pleased.
[Insert here Jean's reaction]
Princess Chandra nods to the space near Jean that leads to Ferethyn's place. She pulls an ax off of something, and starts shaving very thin slivers off the wood of the coffin. She shaves the wood down to transparency, looks through it, shakes her head, and tells an assassin to throw it in the Pit.
It's not nice, and it was designed to implicate Pharaban if it were to wipe Cailin out. Princess Chandra says that she's going to go tell Pharaban. "I don't suggest that you join me."
Cailin looks at the Healers, and speculates about that god on House Moonlight's tab. They are noncommittal in response.
Suhuy notices a polite tab at one of his public entrances. It seems to be one of Paraban's tendrils. He opens the door, and the tendrils pass him a curdled bit of Logrus containing information.
"Current politics seem to wish to involve me. You might want to take a look."
Suhuy looks around, realizes that he doesn't have anything urgent to do at the moment, and heads out. He notices Pharaban and Princess Chandra outside House Moonlight.
Pharaban wants to trace the movements of his spoor. Pharaban and Princess Chandra are communicating peaceably.
Pharaban notices Suhuy's presence slightly before Princess Chandra. They each bow to him, one as House Head to Realms Lord, and one as Guild Head to Realms Lord.
A young gentleman also approaches House Moonlight and bows to Savior of Chaos (who has been primarily watching House Moonlight to keep the snow contained) and Suhuy as Apprentice to Realms Lord to Realms Lords. They return the bow. He turns to Princess Chandra and Pharaban, and, without indicating which one, says, "Summoned, I obey."
They both describe fairly concisely their object and its alleged trailings to Pharaban. Obviously someone old and powerful who has run into Pharaban's trailings before and has managed to associate the device with them.
They both walk off, in each others company. As soon as they are out of overt ear shot, the apprentice turns towards the Ilks and says, "Boy, am I out of my depth here." Ilk returns the impression along the lines of, "Tell me about it."
Ilks follow discreetly. Pharaban and Princess Chandra are following some kind of trail. It seems to be leading towards the Beastmasters' Guild.
Ilk sees something that looks very much like one of Snarsht's forms on top of the Beastmasters' Guild. There's something not quite right about it. It almost wants to be noticed up there. Very unlike Snarsht, who usually doesn't care if he is noticed or not. The Logrus doesn't think that it's Snarsht, either - Snarsht is still in Suhuy's ways.
Suhuy goes to Suhuy's ways, bows to both Corwin and Snarsht, and tells Snarsht of the trap designed to implicate Pharaban and possibly designed to implicate Snarsht, as well as the thing on the roof apparently pretending to be Snarsht.
Ilk conveys to Princess Chandra and Pharaban that Lord Snarsht is in Suhuy's ways, fixing the head of the Warriors' Guild, and is not aware of any authorized entity on the Beastmasters' Guild. Princess Chandra does the opposite of moving with Serpent Power, and two or three assassins appear just long enough for Ilk to see that they are there, and then they are gone.
Cailin is about to leave the Assassins' Guild. Tate looks momentarily confused, says hang on for a moment, sits down, gets that look for taking a trump call, screams, reaches for his sword, and disappears.
Cailin leaves a note for Princess Chandra.
Neville hears a knock at his door. A messenger says that there is a fairly frantic individual at the door demanding to see him. He describes Martin to Neville. Martin is apparently raving.
Neville walks to the front gate. "You, who are you?" Martin says that he's looking for the head of this House. Martin says that someone in Helgramite House colors appeared behind his father, garroted him, and disappeared. Martin tried to grab Random, but failed. Martin throws down Random's pouch - it's filled with trumps of Neville. They're not in Neville's hand.
Neville ducks around a corner and pulls out a trump of Random. It's cold, but he doesn't get anything. He pushes, but doesn't contact anything. Neville returns.
"Well, there does seem to be a problem here, Martin. Would you be willing to work with me to help resolve it?"
"You killed my father - fuck no!"
...
"If you aren't afraid of me, why are you in armor?"
"Because I was told that there was a lunatic at my front door screaming for my blood!"
"Oh."
Neville raises his visor. "Is that better?"
"Hey - I know you. You've been around before."
Neville is getting a trump call. It's not one of his trumps. Neville takes the call. His Pattern-armor bursts into flames, Martin takes a huge step back, and the trump contact goes away.
"Well, it seems that I'm under attack now."
"I carry this around for Laetatio." Martin pulls out a fire extinguisher and puts out the fire.
Martin clarifies that the trumps came from the attacker's pouch, not Martin's. It was too fast... the guy had too many arms, and had a black spiderish face.
Neville turns to the door guard, tells him to continue the administrative things - basically, don't let anyone in, and take careful notes.
Neville and Martin head to the Amberite embassy. When they get just beyond the range of his grounds, a flight of harpies descends and attacks. Martin pulls out Werewindle and beats them off. Neville grabs one of them and says, "What the hell is going on?" Martin says that this happens all the time to him. Neville realizes that they're just attacking an Amberite, squishes the harpy, and burns the goop off his hands.
They get back to the embassy, and it's on fire. Big, raging, fire. "Hey, Jean! Do you have anything that can put out this fire?"
Neville tries to explain the concept of extinguishing fires to Jean. A horde of Jean-saucers fly in carrying a lake, drop it on the embassy, pick up the bits of water, and fly off with them. That's not quite what Neville had in mind.
Neville and Martin approach the smoking, water-logged building. "My instruments!"
"Your father was just murdered, and you're worried about your instruments?"
"That, too."
Martin takes Neville to the spot where Random disappeared. Neville can sense the faint residue of a place trump here. He thinks about making a trump of this trump, but needs the trump itself to do that.
When Neville deliberately turns his back on the spot of trump energy, he sees a person, fairly muscular, dressed in Helgramite House colors modified by Neville's personal colors, with too many arms and a vague spiderish demeanors appear and wrap a garrote around his armored throat.
Neville turns around. When the guy realizes that his garrote isn't working, he steps back through the trump. Neville follows him. Neville can hear Martin call out behind him, "No, not again!"
Cailin turns into a yeti and runs towards House Moonlight. Mid-run, he feels a very disconcerting moment and he is now alone in a long blue cavern. The air here seems to be breathable, at least by a yeti. There is a feeling of impending doom. Cailin turns into a human, pulls out the bibliomancy token, reads it, and he's still in the cavern. He turns back into a yeti. He continues running. It's completely featureless - if he wasn't a yeti he wouldn't be able to tell that he was actually moving.
Cailin is about to release a massive surge of magic and blast a hole through the wall and nothing happens. The magic doesn't make it past the edge of his skin. Yes, the air is breathable here. He turns back into a yeti.
Serpent's apprentice sees Kieron appear in the antechamber in tears, shouting for the bodiless voice and the Princess. Someone stole his daddy. He's got a scrape along one side of his face and tears running down his face.
Ilk solicits an explanation. The not-daddy with the hole in his belly fell, too. Ilk tells Kieron to stay here, and heads out.
Ilk finds undead Cailin fairly easily. There's a big hanging spell over there that is keyed to the yeti-shape, directly on the path between the Assassins' Guild and House Moonlight. The signature on the spell is not one that he recognizes.
Ilk swaps with Savior of Chaos and goes to Ferethyn. Ferethyn goes through Ilk's memories for the signature, and says that it's one of the Beastmasters' Guild's mages. They discuss the situation briefly. Cailin is determined to be capable of getting himself out of his current situation, since he got out of the cold thing himself.
Ilk swaps for Serpent's Apprentice, goes back to the Serpent's antechamber, and asks Kieron what happened to Tate. Kieron says that Tate screamed and disappeared earlier.
Cailin doesn't feel the sense of impending doom when he's in human form. He notices that the cavern seems to be made out of blucite. He can't levitate any marbles. Cailin tries to suck power out of this place, fails, and feels nauseated.
Cailin touches the wall with a finger and tries to channel power through it. His finger gets warm, but he doesn't get through the blucite.
Cailin accelerates greatly with magic and slams into the wall. He bounces, and abates some skin and fur cells. When he continues running, he sees that mark on the wall periodically. He stops near the mark.
He experiments. There doesn't seem to be any magic here.
Cailin forms a sling, and fires a marble at the wall at an angle. The marble hits and rolls along the wall. It rolls back around, and Cailin catches it in a handkerchief and puts it back in his pocket.
Cailin steps onto the wall, and it is down. He steps onto the original ceiling, and it is down.
Cailin backtracks his movements and determines his arrival point. He experiments there, and magic doesn't seem to work there, either.
Cailin takes out the hat and inverts it. Some milk pours out.
Cailin pokes his sword at the blucite. It just goes clang.
Serpent's apprentice's Logrus doesn't find Cailin. He tries Serpent power, and doesn't get anything. Tate is also not findable.
Cailin stabs a chunk of Osric's Fringe power at the wall. He makes a divot, and proceeds to hammer a hole into the wall, expending all of his Fringe shards in the process. He gets a hole about nine inches in diameter through the blucite. There's stone on the other side.
Cailin still can't summon magic, but he turns into a yeti and pounds a hole into the stone as far as his arm can reach.
Cailin turns into a small bird, crawls into the hole in the stone, changes back into a human, and finds that he can summon magic. He teleports back to House Moonlight.
Cailin shows up on Serpent's apprentice's radar. Kieron wants to stay in the Serpent's antechamber - he got hurt out there.
Cailin gates back to the snow place. It starts snowing in House Moonlight, until Cailin erases it from this side.
Cailin sees lots of clouds here. There's too much power here for him to drain.
While he is there, he sees the tendrils of a questing spell looking for him. Cailin doesn't let the spell find him.
Serpent's apprentice looks around where Tate disappeared. There's a hint of Logrus there, as if there might have been a Logrus trump used, and there are a few drops of blood on the ground. Ilk can't tell if Tate is dead or not - he's probably not in a scale.
He tracks down House Barimen's trail. He circles around a few non-Logrus places, passes through a couple more relay points, and goes through a place that Bleys filled with Pattern ages ago. Eventually, the trail goes through a place where a promontory used to be, and he can't pick up the trail again.
Ilk decides that he needs an Amberite to help track, and goes to look for Random. He's also nowhere to be found, and the ambassador's building is a smoking wreck. The information (attacks with misdirection, attacks on Random's line) is noted to the King. The King expresses some concern, and offers to join the search. Pharaban and Princess Chandra agree that the King's presence would be acceptable. Flora will be going along with the King, and will be providing transport for them both.
Ilk looks for Random's kin, to warn them of a potential threat.
Martin is chained to a rock and starting to fall into the Abyss. He's leaking, his breathing is a bit labored, and he's unconscious. Ilk grabs Martin and the rock. It feels like starcore. Ilk doesn't really care.
There's a rough touch on the starcore. Ilk notices a Logrus tendril unwinding, and tracks it. The impression came from the Beastmasters' Guild. Ilk taps Pharaban on the shoulder and points out the wake of the tendril to him.
Ilk passes Martin off to Snarsht, rock still attached. Snarsht was just finishing up with Corwin. Snarsht is impressed by Martin's ability to survive this, finds some latent shapeshifting in him, and commends it. The only thing that would have let him survive these wounds is shapeshifting - his heart cavity is empty, and his neck, groin, and wrists have been slashed. Snarsht quickly fixes Martin by manipulating his shapeshifting.
Snarsht, along with Corwin who is wielding the stone sword, and Martin who is wielding Werewindle, go to join the party. Snarsht turns into a form that is not a cat, for the first time in Ilk's knowledge. It's a very lizardish shape, with a slight implied threat implicit in the form. The lizard is missing one eye. Snarsht crawls into the folds of Corwin's cloak.
Ferethyn sucks up lots of Amberite blood. He's now holding three jars - a large one labeled Martin, a smaller one labeled Laetatio, and an even smaller one labeled Random. Ferethyn puts them on a shelf in Suhuy's ways; Suhuy wards it up such that only Ferethyn can see through it.
Ilk pays some pit-divers that he's worked with before to go look for Random and Laetatio in the Abyss. He also grabs and binds lots of mid-level demons and sends them to join the search as well.
To normal perceptions, even to most good perceptions, there are only two people approaching the Beastmasters' Guild. They are Princess Chandra, and Shiryu's apprentice.
The Serpent's apprentice goes off looking for Caine, to resume his search for House Barimen.
Back to the index.