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After Jean discovers that the gate in the basement of the Assassins' Guild is missing, he starts throwing rocks through gates. The gate in the Dancers' Guild is missing. The gate from the Hamsterverse into Vanir's Wrath is still there. Jean conjures fish and throws them through all of the gates that he is marking. There are only two rifts left in our Reality. The one in the sky over Arden, and the pie rift in Chaos. All of the rifts in other realities are still there.
Jean is only bumping into things in places in this Reality, with the exception of Amber and Chaos. None of the Jeans in Tir can see other Jeans.
Jean tries to checks with Ferethyn, and can't find him. He tries for Jenoir and finds her in the Mages Guild. Jenoir and Amaranth wrap up the interview that they are having with someone for Guild Second and head over to Jean. He tells them that most of the gates in this reality aren't there any more. Jenoir agrees to kick off her rift location spell again. Jean asks if he should change marks, or if it would tip someones hand. Jenoir tells him that it should be a good idea.
The Jeans that were formerly marking rifts change to hunter orange.
Jenoir and Amaranth go off to kick off their search for rift spell.
Ilk manifests voders near Gil, Janus, and Calla. He tells them that "Timbal" is a renegade member of the Warriors' Guild.
There is nobody still alive still in House Hendrake; most of those still alive are trying to pull themselves back together. There are no dead redhead bits, although there are pajamas bits scattered around. There are Logrus trails and blood splatters everywhere. No werewolf or werewolf bits are around. Ilk notices that the effigy of the Beastmaster that was installed above the gates of the House has been deliberately defaced.
Gil is slowly going through the mess, and asks if Ilk could grab someone of an appropriate level to help. Ilk swaps with an Ilk near Snarsht and company, and tells Snarsht about the attack.
Ilk heads out to find Caine. Caine is in shadow, and is currently embattled. He is grinning like a maniac, and is fighting with a belaying pin against people using edged weapons. He is crippling and not killing them. Ilk fills Caine in. Caine wonders if the matter should be spoken of in front of possible enemies of Chaos. Ilk destroys all of the enemy in that shadow. Caine is put out. Caine suggests that the attack might have been coordinated by Evil Benedict to occur simultaneously with his invasion.
Jenoir gets back in touch with Jean and tells him that there are no longer any other gates in Chaos. Jean stands down at the former rift sites. Jean goes through the sole remaining rift. It's the pie rift in Random's place. Jean sends an hour through to explore.
Ilk looks for Brandt, Brendhyn, Faythe, and Felice. Only Brandt can be found, and he's hell-riding towards where Darkover used to be. Ilk tells Gil, then tells the King.
Swayville is under attack. It's been happening for some time, but Jean has just noticed. There are folks outside that have been targeting saucers and using entropic fields to drain them. Jean opens up on them. Ilk notices his magical signature being used, and goes over to look. Jean claims to be "hunting bad guys". They look like a concerted group of guild mages, fairly openly attacking House Swayville. The spells being used are fairly intelligently designed to incapacitate Jean without attracting his attention.
Ilk goes to tell Ferethyn, and leaves a note for Jenoir with her apprentice. Ferethyn has cast a spell and then hung himself in the spell. Ilk decides to tell him when he materializes.
Ilk tells Janus and Calla why Gil hasn't rejoined them yet. Janus says that he's going to go help Gil by tracking Brandt, and leaves Calla in charge of the army. A few minutes after Janus leaves, one of the cooks comes up to Calla and tells her that the food-stuffs recently delivered have been poisoned with a shapeshifter virus. Calla calls out for Ilk, who responds. She fills him in, and he drops a hollowed out mountain on the shipment. Ilk ends up putting the cook into a side-lobe of the mountain.
Jean notices a large army moving towards Chaos. They're wearing the same colors as Corwin's army. He reports to the Dancers' Guild. Someone in the Dancers' Guild tells him that he was going to open a door in Hendrake and he wanted to be reminded. Jean sends a horde of tanks towards House Hendrake.
Jean checks in on the Hamsterverse. They're okay. Hamsters Deirdre and Osric go with Jean to give him pointers in his battle against the attackers. Jean asks Hamster Dworkin to help look for the missing King of Amber. Hamster Dworkin starts at the Amber end of things.
Neville has just stepped through the trump contact in pursuit of the guy who tried to garrote him, and the trump contact closed behind him. He realizes that his armor is no longer burning. He can no longer feel the Pattern. He's in what appears to be a stone tower room, with chains hanging from the walls. Some of the chains still have hands stuck in them.
The spidery thing has a trump in its hand, and it's grinning maliciously. Neville tries to grab the trump out of its hand, and it evades him. Neville draws his large Morganti sword and attacks. The sword rips itself out of his hand and goes chasing the spidery thing. The chase is short and brutal. Neville scoops up the trump when the spidery thing drops it. Neville checks the corpse's pockets - they're empty. There are no other perceptible entrances to or exits from this place.
Neville looks at the trump. There's something in the back of his mind that warns him that it's not that simple. Neville checks - this is only one trump. Neville tries his bedroom trump. It's not working.
Neville examines the room some more. It's round, and there are no windows. He rips out a stone. The thickness is at least two deep. Neville keeps digging. The wall is three stones deep, and outside is air. Neville doesn't see a horizon, or a bottom - it's kinda cloudy. Up goes up until the atmosphere runs out. The tower appears to extend past the edge of the atmosphere. Neville climbs along the outside of the tower and punches his way into another room. It's the same size as the first, but there aren't any chains or hands.
Neville overrides his warfare and uses the trump. He's falling through the abyss.
Ilk notices a flash of Pattern in the Abyss. He fishes out the target. It's Neville. Neville's on fire. Again.
Neville extinguishes the fire and fills Ilk in on his recent history. Ilk throws voders near Martin (and Corwin and Snarsht) and near Neville, and passes info back and forth. Martin denies having talked to Neville recently or having been angry at him. They discuss the situation. Ilk asks Neville to contact Faythe - she's missing, along with the other redheads. Neville tries to trump her, but fails. Neville trumps Hamster Gerard, and is handed a note saying that the King of Amber is missing. The rangers in Arden have also said that they can't find any of the native animals. Titania also left a note. It's one word long -- it says "Thanks".
Neville tells Ilk about the duel with a guy from House Timbal.
Jean has mostly repelled the attack on his House -- at least the physical part of it.
Neville asks Ilk to tell Flora once this crisis is over that, as steward of Amber, he is making a formal request for her to return to the castle and help with the redecorating. Flora passes Ilk a crystal ball; he hands it to Neville. Neville stares into the crystal ball. It warms from the heat of his burning armor and there is an image of Flora within it, which apologizes to him for not participating in any events in Amber without proof that Oberon will never return.
Ilk tells Flora that Llewella is also not within House Hendrake. She is annoyed, and asks Ilk to ask Jean if he sees Llewella. Jean doesn't see her.
Neville heads to the Assassins' Guild. There's Savior of Chaos tape around the entire Guild. He asks Ilk about the tape. Ilk looks, and is highly annoyed. He places new tape around the actual rift, upgrades the tape with massive amounts of Logrus power, and severs the tape placed around the Assassins' Guild.
Neville delivers the list of the undesirable members within his House to the front desk. The desk clerk says that they will have an internal affairs negotiating team get in touch with him -- their main negotiator is currently dealing with the matters of another House.
They discuss terms. Neville wants one contract carried out for each attempt on his life, and the general terms will be published. The desk clerk gives Neville a pass to the archives, so he can find out if there are any published contracts on his life. Neville starts flipping through the stacks.
Cailin is in the shadow with the snow clouds. Suddenly, hundreds of clouds start forming with Ilk's signature. Cailin opens a gate to the place where he was transported into the blue place.
It is now snowing in Chaos.
Cailin opens a gate to the place near the Faerie gate near House Cara. He can't tell if the Faerie gate is still there. He tries to open a gate to Faerie, and fails.
Cailin investigates the blucite place. He can't move the terminus of his gate around. He closes the gate and opens it elsewhere, but the gate appears in the same place. Cailin opens a gate to near the Faerie gate in Chaos, goes through, and enters Faerie.
Osric leaves the Fringe to look for Shiryu. En-route, Titania approaches him. Actually, he has the impression that he walked into her, but he knows that he wasn't coincidental with her.
Titania tells him that she has a tendency to keep track of things that populate the dreams of people, and says that Osric's favorite method of transit has stopped haunting people's nightmares. She asks him to notify her when it is back on-line - it made excellent nightmare fodder.
Osric asks her about the crystal sphere, but she fails to pass him any useful information.
Titania asks Osric to tell Cailin thanks for her -- she found an artifact he gave her very useful, although she is not currently able to return it.
Osric travels to Chaos and finds something that reminds him of Shiryu. Osric greets him, and is told by the person that he is but one of Shiryu's apprentices. Osric asks about the Fringe. This apprentice isn't familiar with the Fringe, but he concentrates briefly and then another well-turned out gentleman appears.
Osric reluctantly accepts the apprentice in lieu of Shiryu and takes him to a nearby Fringe gate. The gate looks ancient, even though Osric knows that it has only been there momentarily.
Osric fills in the apprentice on the Fringe reboot. They have a terminology disconnect. The apprentice disappears to go tell Shiryu.
Cailin goes through the Faerie gate, and Titania is standing next to him. Cailin asks for a place to vent excess power. Titania takes him to a dry lake that used to be a lake of fire. After some more discussion, she gives Cailin a locket that he can use to go to the place in Faerie that needs power the most. Titania asks him not to lose it - the last time that it was lost, it created a major power imbalance in Faerie. She warns him not to use it while in Faerie.
Cailin dumps 85% of his power into the lake and returns to the snowy place.
Ilk's signature is very, very rich. Cailin can only eat one or two clouds before filling up again. He iterates.
Cailin receives a trump contact. He creates another pouch, places the locket in it, fills up with power to ~85%-90%, then takes the call. It's Darkstar. Darkstar says that he cannot find Cailin's House second. Anywhere. In any reality.
Darkstar began looking for Laetatio as a step of looking for Kieron, who is also cannot be found anywhere.
Cailin opens a gate and makes a note to the Assassins' Guild telling them that Kieron is missing as well.
Cailin tries to open a gate to the area of House Moonlight, and fails. He throws more power into it, but fails to punch through.
Cailin fills up again and opens a gate into an area in-between House Moonlight and the Assassins' Guild.
Cailin gates to a point between the Assassins' Guild and House Moonlight. Cailin feels the trump contact snap. Cailin yetis and runs towards his House. He makes it forty feet, finds himself in the blucite, crawls back into the hole, and gates back to the snowy shadow.
Neville is in the Assassins' Guild archives when a nicely built young lady walks in and introduces herself as the contractual expert for internal affairs.
She shows him a few sample contracts. There is a writ that the current King in Chaos stating that Neville is to clean up the difficulties left over in his House. Therefore, the King will bear the cost of the contacts. Neville is pleased.
Some of their best operatives are currently busy, so it may be longer than usual before any progress is seen.
Neville will contact them when it is appropriate to activate a random contract from the pile.
The lady states that there is a contract on Neville, but there are no currently active contracts on him. She is not at liberty to say whether or not the contact is public, but she will say that Neville will not find it in this archive.
Neville has one of the contracts activated immediately.
On Neville's way out the door, he notices a small altercation. Somebody seems to have started running in his direction and has fallen in his tracks. The lady doesn't know if that was an attack directed at Neville - it was someone with hostile intent outside the Assassins' Guild.
Neville loots the body. There is a Morganti dagger on the corpse. Neville's sentient daggers mock the stupid one. The corpse didn't fall on his own Morganti -- he has neat holes through each of his major organs.
Cailin finds a number of new signatures that aren't his or Ilk's. He works on draining them. He gets another trump call from Darkstar.
Darkstar is currently in House Moonlight. Laetatio and Kieron aren't there. Cailin states that this place was created by the former head of the Mages Guild to spy on all of the non-Guild mages.
Cailin scans for more presences in this shadow, and finds a bunch of them. Cailin pulls Darkstar through. Darkstar buds wings.
Cailin points out the presences to Darkstar, and grabs one who is in the middle of opening a gate somewhere.
For a moment, Neville sees a gate opening right in front of him to a place like where he was imprisoned, then a gate to a snowy place, and then the gate is gone.
Cailin shields the mage with raw power. The mage drains the power of the shield and attacks him.
They start blasting at each other with raw power. Darkstar shrinks into a tiny shape, flies over to the mage, lands on his head, and crawls up his nose. The mage stops attacking Cailin and is whacking at his own head.
Cailin places his hand on the mage's shoulder and initiates mental contact. The guy has a huge psyche, but he's also very distracted. Cailin rummages around the mage's head. He doesn't know anything about true names, and doesn't know his own true name. He's staging an attack on House Helgram from here. Cailin gets his name. He's a fairly high-ranked non-Guild mage. He was transported to this place by the consortium. The consortium doesn't know each other's names, but Cailin finds their recognition codes. Neville was the top of their hit list. Others include the heads of Swayville, Hendrake, Moonlight, Cara, and so on.
Cailin pushes into the guy's head that Darkstar should kill this one. The guy focuses on Cailin and attacks. Cailin shifts into a yeti and physically shreds the mage.
Cailin looks around. There are only two mages left. "Darkstar - we waited too long."
Now there's only one left. Cailin grabs him. They repeat the previous plan. This one's brain is a lot more guarded. Cailin takes notes.
Neville gets back to his House. The gentleman that he left at the front door bows and says that all has been quiet here. There was a note delivered to Neville. It's a vitriolic threat that House Timbal and its army will overrun Helgram if he doesn't step down. The army is encamped at the unchanging spot.
Neville finds a member of the Etiquette Guild and prepares a note for to the head of House Timbal, asking what their problem is and who they would rather see instead.
Neville asks Jean to take a look at that army over there and display it on a screen here. Jean tells Neville that it's Marial's army.
Neville sends Jean to recall the Etiquette Guild member and has the note modified. "What - you mean that army of my allies over there?"
One of the watchdogs hits a self destruct and blows up the mage while Cailin is mind-reaming it. Cailin has a headache. Darkstar pulls himself out of the gore.
[What's the matter, Cailin - hit some black ice?]
Cailin checks for other presences. Nobody. Well, except for one of his birds there. Cailin does another true name destroy on the birds and re-absorbs his signature.
Cailin trumps Neville. Neville powers up, draws his sword, and takes the contact. Cailin tells Neville that he just wiped out a few people that were trying to kill a bunch of the allied House heads. Cailin fills Neville in about the consortium.
Darkstar refuses to go to Chaos, so Neville comes through the trump to Darkstar and Cailin.
Before Neville goes through, he asks Jean if anyone that he knows is with Marial's army. Nope. Neville tries to work out the logistics of the note delivery, to try to determine if the note was legitimate. Neville writes a note to House Timbal, asking them to confirm that they sent the note, and attaches a copy, phrasing it in such a way to give the head of House Timbal an out if appropriate.
Ilk delivers Logrus-based contacting devices to various people around Chaos.
Verra contacts Ilkandacian. Ilk fills her in on Ingold's disappearance, and warns her about the movement of the promontories.
Verra heads off into the Void.
One Ilk goes off to Castle Amber to warn Zack about the recent series of attacks. Another looks for Caine to resume the search for House Barimen, and two remain near the Beastmasters' Guild.
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