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Ilk is collecting undead Cailin into a barrel near Cailin outside the Beastmasters' Guild. Cailin asks Ilk if he has a visual confirmation on Tate. "I haven't seen him."
Jean complains to REN that someone has figured out how to kill him without him noticing. Jean asks for a new body design, one without any vulnerable spots and that is indistinguishable from his shields.
Osric checks in on Johnny to see if he has made any progress working on the computer. Johnny is dead -- torn apart, as are the two uninfected Mellor in the control room. Their spinal cords are missing along with part of their brains. Osric is annoyed - that Tremellorin must have been a Mellor.
Osric scoops Johnny into a container and heads to Norton's house. The House has been trashed, the cat visage on the outside has been maimed, and there is nothing inside. There is one foot of a footy-pajamas left behind. Osric heads to House Swayville to look for Jean.
Most of the saucers around Swayville are moving in Jean-ish (random) patterns; two of them are moving more subtly, and seem to be doing a more effective job of stopping people that are trying to shoot at the other saucers.
Jean parks some tanks outside House Swayville with UN stickers on them.
Osric gates back to his gate. Jean sees snow start to fall in Chaos. Osric races to his control center and turns the Fringe defenses back on. A site two disks away suddenly lights up on his panel. "Got him!" Osric resets his user preferences and re-codes all of the locks. The Mellor had turned off the Fringe defenses, unlocked all of the gates, and (?)
Osric notices that the two top crystal levels are missing from the computer - they were apparently patched in after the Fringe was created. Osric starts programming them back in. He finds a gullible population near a Fringe gate and convinces them to throw stuff over.
Calla receives a trump call. She doesn't recognize the sensation. She worried to Jean. Jean looks around for Andron in himself, and finds Shiryu. Jean tells Shiryu that Calla has a problem. Shiryu agrees to look into the problem.
An old, wizened man wearing half-armor pours out of Jean in front of Calla. She bows to him, and tells him that she's feeling weird. Shiryu takes off a glove and places a hand on her shoulder. Calla achieves mental contact for the first time. It feels like countless butterfly winds buffeting her. She tries to panic, but discovers that she cannot. Shiryu pulls out, and Calla finds that she now has an encyclopedic knowledge of Trump. Shiryu turns and pours himself back into Jean.
Calla accepts the trump contact. It turns out to be Gil. "Good. You're still alive." She has caught up with Brandt, the King of Amber's brother. The King of Amber and her sister are in enemy plans.
Gil wants Calla to check with Marial to find out if she can move the army, in case they need it.
Calla calls out for Ilk. No response -- he's all busy elsewhere. She turns to Jean, and asks for Ilk or Marial. Marial is watching Evil Benedict. Jean says that Marial is busy, but that he can probably relay a message. Calla tells Jean that they need to rescue the King of Amber.
Calla trumps Gil and asks where the King is. "No, but I know in whose company she is." Jean chats with Hamster Dworkin and fishes him in to help. Calla is startled.
Hamster Dworkin suggests a swap - he goes to try to be nice to Evil Benedict, and Marial goes off to find the King of Amber.
Jean explains the deal to Marial, who is concerned, and suggests a modification - Marial sends her apprentice and Calla to Gil, instead of herself.
The apprentice turns into a tiny little ornate dagger, and has a cork placed over her tip. Jean fishes her to Calla.
Jean updates Silver Lyra on the missing King of Amber situation. Silver Lyra turns to Neville and says that, according to Chaos, he is now King in Amber. Jean adds another sticky note into the log book in Amber. Neville considers passing the post off to Hamster Gerard, and is told by Silver Lyra that he is stuck -- he can only pass it off to someone else in his blood line.
Silver Lyra suggesting going up a layer, and mentions Brendhyn, Felice, and Faythe. Since they're out of redheads, they go up one more level, and find Malachai, then Cassandra. One more layer, and Benedict and the elders are brought up. Flora starts repeatedly opening up a bag mathematician-style, and it eventually unfolds into the tapestry of Amberite inheritance.
Flora looks at the tapestry, and starts in. Benedict's been ab-initio'd, so his line is out. Finndo and Osric never managed to have children, so they're out. Eric was bastard, so none of his children make it.... (Neville, behind a darkened faceplate, fails to comment on Flora's pause.) Corwin is eldest... Malachai is a bit of a difficulty, but he's not available to us, ... Flora digs out a trump of Malachai, and asks for Royal dispensation to try it. She fails to connect to Malachai, then fails to reach Cassandra. Jean tries, and fails.
Jean finds one of him that is holding a lightsaber - but that one is in Chaos, not Pearl. Jean concludes that Corwin must have fixed his border problems.
Neville contemplates passing it off to Caine, then reluctantly decides to keep the position. When Flora puts away her tapestry, the "Eric the Second" label, hanging beneath Eric, glows slightly.
There is a disturbance next to Neville. A small, grayish man appears next to Neville and hands him a crown. Neville takes off his helmet, takes the crown, places it on his head, and announces:
"I crown myself Eric the Second, King of Amber"
The ink on Jean's post-it notes flows into the log book in Amber. The post-it notes burst into flames. Jean does the happy dance to find out that Evil Benedict's declaration is not in the book.
In a moment, Neville sees a sequence of brief images, as if through a Pattern lens. Malachai in a trader's uniform apparently training someone. He sees briefly the cenotaph that was erected for all of the red heads. He catches a quick glimpse of something watery, as if it was blucite.
The Warlord's Apprentice pours out of the fish and is bouncy. Calla is annoyed. Jean volunteers tanks. Gil accepts four or five.
[Some math is performed, and the population of Earth is determined to be about two centuries.]
The Warlord's apprentice puts a hand on Calla's shoulder. It's like thousands of sharp pointy things.
Ilk notices a huge surge of Logrus power over on the flat spot. It's Marial's apprentice. She needs some work - she just wrapped one huge tendril around the entire bare spot and took everyone, including the army.
Ilk goes along to mop up and damp her trail. Suhuy goes off to tell Marial that her apprentice needs some training, and to warn her that the apprentice also took the defending army. Marial sighs, and asks for Caine. She'll have to deal with the army herself.
"Llewella was probably taking her to Rebma."
Jean - "Does anyone know how to undo blucite?"
Ilk finds Osric in shadow, and asks him to help. Osric makes some preparations. Ilk rolls his starcore into a long thin snake and sends it onto the Fringe at Osric's prompting. Osric's power level goes up to an acceptable level, and he joins the others.
The apprentice lays out troop positions around Rebma.
Ilk pokes Cailin and asks if he wants to come help invade Rebma. Cailin turns to the newly-crowned King of Amber and asks him if he can recall his swords.
Cailin bibliomances the bucket of undead Cailin into House Moonlight. Cailin turns into a yeti and runs back out of his House, hits the blucite tunnel, escapes, and heads back to the group.
Neville trumps Hamster Gerard and tells him of the change in succession, the impending attack on Rebma, and gives Hamster Gerard a formal writ of authority.
Ilk grabs Cailin and Neville, and brings them to join the fun.
Neville contemplates charging with Pattern or Pattern teleporting into the Rebman Pattern. He considers trumping to the Primal Pattern, walking that one, and then teleporting to the Rebman Pattern. Neville asks Calla if the plan can be delayed by an hour or so; Calla talks with Janus and they determine that it wouldn't be a problem.
Neville tells his plan to the Warlord's Apprentice.
Neville walks the Primal Pattern. The Pattern armor makes it harder.
Cailin gets a trump call. He takes it. It's Darkstar. "Where the hell have you been?"
"I'm four feet away from you. Don't blow my cover."
Cailin makes a pocket for Darkstar, who crawls into it.
Cailin gets another trump call. It's Neville. He's ready.
Neville asks the Pattern to place him safely near Faythe. He's in front of a block of blucite with Faythe in it. Next to him is another block of blucite with Brendhyn in it. Neville draws his two swords, releases one of them, and starts eating the mages.
Ilk drops the mob and associated mob into Rebma. The mob is set upon by armies.
Ilk spots a plume of Pattern, as if someone transferred to Tremere, not Rebma. He tells Jean, who asks Cailin to trump Neville. Neville rejects the trump contact. Cailin doesn't get through.
Neville has taken out a good quarter of the mages arrayed against him, when Llewella encases him in blucite. Neville finds that he cannot move. He tries walking the Pattern in his mind, and finds the power limited to the confines of his armor. The swords continue eating the mages. Neville trumps himself out of his armor into the Primal Pattern. Llewella encases the two blades in blucite.
Neville appears in front of the Primal Pattern. Jean deactivates Officer Wixer. Neville walks the Primal Pattern again, and trumps Cailin. Neville fills Cailin in. He tries to trump his swords, and fails.
Llewella shifts over to "the other place", dragging three of her suitcases with her, leaving one sword and Neville ('s armor) behind. She magically leaves behind the signature of her presence.
About half-way through his trump contact with Cailin, Neville finds the crown on his brow. He looks at it, and finds that Oberon built lots of stuff into it. Neville tries to mentally contact the crown, and it hurts.
Jean, in the wall of Rebma's Pattern, sees Cailin appear next to the Pattern. Cailin tries to contact Neville again and fails.
Neville tries to figure out how to access the crown, and memories -- the crown's -- flash quickly in front of his eyes.
Neville thinks about a weapon, and his waist becomes heavy. The State Sword of Amber -- a Pattern Blade -- appears on his lap. Neville thinks about armor, but doesn't get any armor.
[Oberon's currently wearing the State Armor of Amber!]
Cailin tries to gate out, and fails, and it's now snowing, underwater.
Jean, in the wall, writes on a pad: "Cailin - go to
Cailin asks Darkstar for help. Darkstar's trumps can't get outside the
room, either.
Darkstar pours himself into his normal
form and walks towards the door. He hits something hard three feet away
from the door. Darkstar traces the
invisible wall around the circumference of the room.
--EORun--
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