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Jean is eating lunch in Marial's ways. Ecto-Ilk and Ecto-Suhuy are there, but aren't tangible enough to eat. Hamster Dworkin is talking with Evil Benedict, and has been for some time.
At one point, Evil Benedict struggles upright in his bonds. Hamster Dworkin says, "If you want to get out, just ask." Evil Benedict demands to be released, Dworkin gestures, and the bonds fall free. Marial reaches for her weapon, Gentleman Suhuy is not comfortable. Ecto-Ilk fences the area about with Logrus.
Dworkin keeps talking. At one point Evil Benedict swats Hamster Dworkin. Hamster Dworkin doesn't bother to duck, and is unmoved by the blow. Dworkin keeps talking. Their conversation is mostly inaudible.
Finally, Dworkin turns to Marial and says, "Do you have a practice room?" Evil Benedict has asked to vent some aggression, and wants to use a practice room. Marial indicates a room. They enter.
Hamster Dworkin bows to as to a worthy adversary. Evil Benedict interprets the bow as a sign of weakness, and attacks immediately. Hamster Dworkin stops him, and says, "We bow first". Dworkin starts instructing Evil Benedict on courtesy.
Benedict stops, steps back, and bows to Dworkin. Dworkin returns the bow, and says, "Are we ready to begin now?"
Benedict looks shaken, and says that he had stopped to rest. He asks for something to eat.
Marial is sitting there, watching in shock, but brings Evil Benedict some food.
They eat and rest, then fight again. This time Evil Benedict is no longer berserking, but is fighting cleanly.
After a while, Hamster Dworkin bows out of the fight, and Evil Benedict doesn't try to stop him. The conversation continues, and the tone is one of redemption. After a while, Benedict agrees that he feels better than he did in years -- he's actually happy.
Evil Benedict says that he needs to find some people to talk to. Hamster Dworkin leaves the room and asks if some average people can be brought by to talk to Benedict. Jean and Ilk import some people from the black zone. Benedict talks with them, then goes off to meditate.
One quarter of the unexpected soldiers, believed to be members of the former Guild of Poisoners, have just died after being cut by their own blades. Some of the surviving Poisoners are trying to look startled; many are just gating out.
Calla sees Princess Chandra appear out of nowhere and start attacking the Poisoners. Gil follows suit; Calla follows Gil's lead. Princess Chandra is working to incapacitate instead of kill.
After about twenty seconds, Ilk notices a concentration of Bronelle's power nearby. He informs Princess Chandra via Serpent power, and steers Gil and Calla away from that spot while they fight.
After a minute or two, all of the Poisoners are either down or fled.
Ilk notices that something is coming through the center of the power. Ilk warns Princess Chandra. Princess Chandra turns and starts launching sharp things at that point. Calla notices, and follows suit, throwing weapons taken off of downed enemies. Gil starts dragging off the bodies of prisoners. Most of the weapons are melting or otherwise disappearing when they hit the power. At one point Princess Chandra throws something that looks like a crystalline icicle and it goes right in.
Ilk asks Jean to take a look at the center of Bronelle's power. The monolith is throbbing with power and pulsing. There are three people ritualizing around it. Ilk tells Princess Chandra who suggests telling the King. Ilk does so; Cailin is volunteered to investigate.
Suhuy offers to give Cailin a lift; Pharaban volunteers to come along.
Suhuy notices an impressive amount of magical power here. Cailin notices an impressive amount of magical power here, and announces that fact. Ilk tells Princess Chandra of the expedition. Suhuy puts up a view screen for the King. It is clearly designed in a fashion similar to Ilk's, but relies entirely on Logrus.
Cailin brings up magical sight. Suhuy offers Cailin a Logrus-based magical ground. Cailin is around 60% full.
Suhuy maintains an information feed to Ilk who keeps Princess Chandra filled in.
A chunk of Fringe power comes barreling out and sticks out of the monolith. Cailin says that someone should tell Osric. Jean tells Osric, who is still waiting for Shiryu. Information is relayed back and forth; Osric is unmoved.
Cailin suggests eliminating some of the magical noise so they can see what is going on more accurately. Cailin creates a magical bird, which makes it past the magic, hits the monolith, and disappears.
Princess Chandra grabs a magical bird out of the air, looks at it, says, "He's fucking nuts", and throws it back.
Cailin's bird returns to him at speed. It has the words "go home" carved on it, in Princess Chandra's hand.
Cailin starts sweeping up magical power from the edge of the magical maelstrom and tossing it into Suhuy's grounding rod. After about six or seven hundred spells, someone notices that their spells aren't reaching their target and turn towards Cailin. Their spells are subtle and well-scripted.
Suhuy reaches for Jenoir, and tells her of the situation. Jenoir says that she doesn't want to step on another Guildmaster's toes, and asks for Suhuy to check with Princess Chandra. Ilk relays to Princess Chandra.
Pharaban manifests himself. Jean is glad that he's not in a form that can shit himself. That Jean freezes; every other Jean across reality jumps. Cailin can see Pharaban's legs all around him, and Pharaban's body above him. There are no spells attacking him any more. Cailin fills up on the spells he has already caught, and then grounds the rest.
Pharaban moves towards the monolith in a way that brings horror to all that perceive it. Cailin does not come with him, and is now the sole focus of all of the magic that was attacking the monolith.
Princess Chandra stops throwing things.
Cailin yetis out and runs. The place where he was a moment ago became the focus of the magic and grounded down the Logrus tendril. That power dump is now a very unhappy place.
Pharaban has settled down on the monolith.
At some point during Pharaban's approach, the three guys who were doing the ritual saw Pharaban, lost their shit, and ran. One hit a tree at top speed and is now unconscious; the others are still running, but haven't left the shadow. Ilk delivers all three to the Torturers' Guild.
Cailin changes out of his yeti form and magical spells start converging on him again. He changes to yeti, returns to the grounding rod, changes back to human, and immediately changes back to yeti again. Suhuy cleans up the power that was spilled in the process.
There is a sensation of discomfort for everyone within range of the monolith on both sides. Suhuy and Ilk each see Pharaban, one on either side of the monolith. Anyone capable of hearing a scream at that range heard Pharaban scream, once, briefly.
[The scream came first, then the curse that caused the discomfort]
Ilk is suddenly aware that the Serpent is peering at this interaction and wondering if Pharaban is going to die. The attention gives Ilk a warm, comfortable feeling in his stomach.
Cailin turns back into a human. No spells attack him. There is no magic here. None, whatsoever.
Ilk is fairly certain that Paraban's power is not the opposite of Bronelle's power, since he survived, but the powers were very definitely not compatible. Pharaban is radiating a vast amount of Logrus power as normal, but it's not as ordered as usual.
Calla has the feeling that Death is looking over her shoulder. Not impending doom, but Death.
Suhuy dives into the pedestal and tries to pull Pharaban back to Pharaban. Somewhere in there, the Serpent gives him a bit of an assist, and he succeeds. Pharaban takes a few shaky steps away from the pedestal, and then his control of the Logrus becomes much more steady.
Suhuy asks Cailin if he caught any of the signatures from the spells. Nope - too busy countering them.
Marial invites the Realms Lords to her ways to continue their meeting.
Savior of Chaos was working on a "How To Be A Realms Lord".
Wyndham formally requests to be removed from her position, on the grounds that she's not good enough. Her request is denied, and she leaves the room in tears.
The disposition of the new Logrus blade is discussed. Marial feels that it should be kept safe, since Evil Benedict might be faking his conversion. Ilk mentions the current location of the blade. Marial is reassured, and asks after studying the blade in that place at some point.
Ferethyn mentions the fact that he is not quite sure where in his duties... several of the House rings are not responding correctly. The House Seconds of Moonlight, Swayville, Helgram, and Cara aren't responding correctly.
The House second and the House ring of Pharaban are not responding correctly. Ferethyn has no idea about the scepters - some houses have them, some do not.
Barimen's rings are responding just fine.
Ilk brings up his current sideline with Barimen, and the idea of using Raven to prevent their total destruction. It is mentioned that perhaps Barimen should be made no longer a House, and Moonlight being given their place.
Ilk asks who determines the House rankings. Theoretically, the House ranking is due to the voting of the Houses, but this won't be the first time that the Realms Lords have meddled, nor the last. We don't normally care about the ranking among the Houses.
Shiryu suggests that the land beneath Barimen could reject them and send them on their way. Shiryu thanks Melk for the favor of helping him train all of his apprentices now that things are slightly more far forward than they were before.
If the ground is made to reject them, then no more than two of them can gather at any place without the ground rejecting them.
Everyone is suddenly aware of Melk having told them in the past of his series of disappointments in trying to take an apprentice. The ones with enough motivation don't have the detachment necessary for the job. Ilk brings up Illyana - she was one of the disappointments, not enough detachment. She meddled to save her family, un-making her apprenticeship in the process.
Suhuy is told that he should consider taking on an apprentice, if only temporarily. Suhuy looks at Ilk, who grins and shrugs. Pharaban is suggested as a stand in.
Ilk brings up the undrawing of Ingold's Pattern. Shiryu says that it went a long way towards solving the rift problem. All they need to do now is to un-draw one more Pattern. Corwin's Pattern is now on its own, off in the Sea somewhere.
Only having three promontories here is a good thing -- there is less for people to squabble over. Amber and Chaos are well held, and Ygg is on a promontory, and nobody will mess with Ygg. Shiryu has placed Ygg on a promontory so that he will drift no more.
Ygg was drifting due to the strains that large connective-tissue thing underneath that was not allowing motion and waves - it was too rigid. Shadow is a fluid substance that flashes between the promontories.
The Primal Pattern should probably stay, but the one in Amber Castle or Rebma needs to be un-drawn. They're four separate Patterns. The Primal was (? drawn first?)
The Primal Pattern was drawn by Dworkin, the Amber and Rebma Patterns were drawn by Oberon, and the Tir Pattern is special. The one that would need to be un-drawn to allow Dworkin to be sane here would be the Primal -- Shiryu has talked to Dworkin about it at some length.
Un-drawing any of the Patterns should wait for further study - a million or so turnings worth.
There has been an instability ever since the Amber and Rebma Patterns were drawn, but the tears did not begin until more Patterns were drawn.
Un-drawing Ingold's Pattern caused such a massive shock wave because it was such a massive Pattern. Shiryu brings up a map showing the n-dimensional non-linear waves. It makes sense, at the time.
A reset would have caused the same thing, but with less waves and resulted in more promontories being around, so this way was better. It wouldn't have hurt the structure, but would have destroyed every known creature.
Shiryu talked with Dworkin about the Pattern redraws, so he is aware of the discussion. "And he does miss his brother Suhuy." Suhuy looks frazzled. The next time that Shiryu sees Dworkin's brother Suhuy, he will endeavor to persuade him to visit. Suhuy just shakes his head.
About three-quarters of the way through the meeting, Hamster Dworkin politely taps on the door. Marial picks up a small mint from a candy dish and casually tosses it at the door in the right spot to turn the doorknob and open the door.
Hamster Dworkin enters, bows to the assembled masses, and says that his work here seems to be done.
Evil Benedict has announced that he will become pacific, will teach people the Way, and will eschew violence for the rest of his natural life.
Dworkin smiles at the group, says, "See? All he needed was a friend.", turns and walks out. Dworkin picks up the mint and stuffs it in his pouch-cheeks as he goes.
Evil Benedict should be watched carefully. The two Benedicts should not be convinced to be in the same place at the same time.
Having something that is intermittent and can be activated would be safer than keeping permanent gates up to promontories formerly in this reality. Some might want to be towed closer. As an experiment, Shiryu is trying to make an atoll, by placing some of the promentories closer to each other.
Ilk mentions the current state of Evil Titania. Perhaps a word should be whispered in her ear.
Something should also be done to balance Titania.
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