DRAFT Run log for 020618

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Major Events:


Characters represented by players at this run: Cailin, Calla, Ilk and Jean.

Rescuing Random and Laetatio

Cailin is mind-reaming a guard outside the tower where Brand was once held. He discovers memories of Random's trip to rescue Brand, way back when.

Princess Chandra points out that we should be expecting reinforcements to arrive soon. Cailin flies up and takes a look at the tower again. There aren't any windows, but the place where he had dumped the slushy earlier has rotated somewhat.

Cailin fishes around with teleport spells, and eventually finds a barracks where about 115 of the guards are sleeping. In the next room over, a relief crew is strapping on weapons and muttering about having been compromised. Cailin mind-wipes the sleeping guards, and Jean buds into them.

Cailin teleports one of the un-Jeaned guards stairs. People stare at each other for a moment, until Cailin says, "Grab him!" and Jeans pile on the new arrival. Cailin tries to interrogate the guard. The guard is irreverent; Cailin asks for some pain. Ilk strokes a few nerves. The guard screams.

The scene: Cailin, sitting on the roof of the tower, with a hand poked through a magical gate and resting on the shoulder of a guard at ground level. The guard is surrounded by his own squad, with two women standing casually nearby. The guard is screaming.

Cailin tries again. The guard insults Cailin. Ilk pulls the guard's heart out of his torso. "That's mine!" The guard lunges for his heart. As the guard starts to die, Ilk stuffs the heart back in backwards and welds it in place, keeping the heart oxygenated and pumping.

Cailin continues his interrogation, and passes the image of a gentleman to the guard. Just before the guard's brain explodes, Cailin gets the image of that gentleman (Random), in the tower, chained, naked.

Jean chats with the reinforcements below. They know that something has gone wrong, presumably due to a group of adventurers, and that they have sent for more reinforcements. Their communications channel is only one-way, so they can't get a response. They're going up in force to check it out, but don't want any more folks - if these fifteen can't handle the situation, the 115 extra won't be of any help.

Jean chats with Amaranth, who gives him a mage to perform less effective mind-wipes. Cailin's were too thorough -- there were no memories left for him to read. A dwarven mage is fished in, and told to take the left-most attacker. He challenges Princess Chandra to a race, to her great amusement.

Princess Chandra gives the dwarf a countdown; when she hits zero, fifteen guards burst out through the door. The dwarf cheats and zaps two at once. Princess Chandra does the other thirteen in close sequence. No two of hers die in the same way. None of these serious wounds are necessarily obvious from the outside, except for the guard that is missing its heart, along with a clean cylinder of flesh around it.

Jean buds into the two with perfectly functional minds, and notices that the dwarf is also flipping through their minds as well, looking for references to gold. The dwarf briefly touches Jean's mind, gets frightened, and retreats back through the fish to the Mages' Guild.

These guards work for The Concern. They've been to many of the Slavers' Guild meetings. They've been active a lot recently.

Apparently, only those touched by Pattern can enter the tower without being killed.

Cailin drops a couple of corn-dogs into the divot dug by the slushies. There is a *thump*, and the hole now penetrates completely through the roof.

A Jean pyramid forms, and a Jean jumps off the top into the hole in the roof. There is a soundless explosion. Ilk notices that someone just turned up the Pattern volume. Some ash settles through the hole. Cailin conjures Gangulf, and sends him through the hole. Same result.

Ilk asks Jean to invite ecto-Suhuy and his apprentice down here to check out the tower. Jean does so, more tactfully than Ilk's original message. Ecto-Suhuy pours through Jean. Ecto-Ilk follows Ecto-Suhuy. Ilk's ecto-form has a bizarre sensation. While crossing the border from Jean into the shadow with the tower, he becomes an actual ghost. Ecto-Suhuy pours himself out of several bodies at once; ecto-Ilk pours himself out of only one. Ilk thinks that he could puppet this body if he wanted to.

Jean mentions the effort to Dworkin. Dworkin hands Jean a stick, stating that it might be helpful. Primal Jean steps out of Ferethyn's ways, another Jean steps back in, and primal Jean has Amaranth gate himself to Cailin.

Ilk sees a Jean step through. It's a five-year-old Jean, and it walked the Pattern not too long ago. The stick that he is carrying resonates with the Pattern, like a dowsing rod. The stick pulls Jean towards the tower.

Primal Jean goes through the hole. There are no doors, but a lot of plants.

Ecto-Ilk looks at the tower. It's a boring, static Pattern. The tower is rotating, though. Rearranging the Pattern could be hard, but he thinks that he could just slide between the lines by adjusting his Pattern to look like what the Pattern expects. As he turns towards Pattern Suhuy to confirm the idea, Pattern Suhuy pokes his head back out of the wall. "Are you coming?"

Ilk pokes around. The guards are inherent in the quality of the tower. There are several occupants. Laetatio, Random, someone unknown, and someone that looks like a non-local Dworkin. And there is a finger nailed to the wall. It's a thick finger, Gerard-sized, with just a touch of local Pattern in it.

Jean looks for secret doors by kicking things. The plants fail to kick back. Jean, in Chaos, takes the sledgehammer off the wall and brings it to the Mages' Guild. Amaranth regrets asking for a clarification of "smacky thingy".

When the sledgehammer arrives on the scene, Ilk points out to Jean that it is a Pattern artifact. Jean tosses the sledgehammer through the hole in the ceiling and the primal Jean starts playing with it.

Jean breaks through the wall. The sledgehammer lodges in the far wall of a shaft that goes all of the way down. Jean tells Cailin that his hammer is stuck. Cailin tries to open a gate into the tower and fails. Jean looks at Ilk, and Ilk points out that he can't see past that Pattern -- check with the ectos.

Jean calls out, and ecto-Suhuy shows up, offers some advice, and carries the sledgehammer. Jean fishes in some frogs, and frogs down the inside of the shaft.

Ilk realizes that ecto-Suhuy doesn't realize that this is a rescue mission, and tells him. Ecto-Suhuy decides that this is a contest to see who can rescue the hostages first, and races towards the cells.

Ecto-Suhuy grabs Laetatio and yanks. Laetatio comes along, but his hands and feet remain behind in the shackles. Ecto-Ilk grabs the hands and feet, and tags along behind. Jean uses wood-glue and duct tape to reattach the hands and feet.

Ecto-Suhuy throws Jean through the wall, but the sledgehammer just bounces. Ecto-Suhuy tries to convince Ilk to redraw the Pattern in the hammer, but Ilk convinces him to put it off until later.

Jean discovers that he can't bring the fish into the tower. Jean tries to smash the next wall with the hammer, but it goes right through. He chats with the unfamiliar guy hanging on the wall, and realizes that he is ghostly.

Cailin carries Laetatio down the Jean pyramid. Princess Chandra is amused.

Jean realizes that this guy was the guards' dance instructor. Norton's name is dangerous, and Mikail is very nasty. Jean complains to ecto-Suhuy that he can't manipulate things. Ecto-Suhuy drags a finger along the chains, weakens them, and pushes the guy out of the wall. He then pushes the guy through the wall, but his chains remain on this side, leaving him hanging half through the wall.

Jean complains some more about being un-dead, not un-live. Ecto-Suhuy draws on the hammer. It gets up, sprouts legs, walks over to Jean, sprouts an arm, and waves to Jean. "There. Now it's unlife." Jean buds into the hammer, and whacks the manacles. The guy is glued back up and sent out through the wall.

Random is not conscious - he looks like he's had the shit beaten out of him. Jean breaks the manacles. The only parts of Random that aren't bruised are beneath the cuffs. Jean hands Random out to Princess Chandra. She is amused, and cradles him gently in her arms in an attempt to give him nightmares. Ilk avoids chortling.

Jean talks to the not-Dworkin. He seems reasonably sane. Jean talks to his own Dworkin. Dworkin advises caution. He advises checking with Princess Chandra.

Princess Chandra advises Ilk that she might have to kill a Dworkin, so he should be prepared to ward the others against an exploding Pattern. They discuss the concept of a local Dworkin.

Jean breaks out this Dworkin, and realizes that his previous hole in the wall no longer lines up with this room.

Dworkin starts sidling over to one of the guards with his hand out, as if he would casually kill it. Jean warns him that the guards are all him. Dworkin decides that Jean is a parasitic entity. Ilk mentions Augral. Dworkin recognizes that name. Jean checks with Augral, who recognizes this Dworkin and says that he is very canny.

Princess Chandra is nowhere to be seen.

That Dworkin is brought to our Dworkin in Ferethyn's ways through a gate. Ilk follows by pouring along the chain anchoring Ferethyn's ways to Chaos.


A Gerard of Spam

Jean and Ilk discuss what to do what about the place with the tower. Leaving it to be taken over by our enemies again is considered.

Ecto-Ilk suggests rewriting the tower in variable Pattern. Ecto-Suhuy considers it to be a good project -- eventually ecto-Ilk might be good enough to do something with it. He asks Jean to leave one of him behind to bud into it.

Jean complains about being ghostly. Ecto-Suhuy tells his apprentice to stay put and leaves the shadow. Jean is pulled along behind him. They go a few shadows over. After some back-and-forth, Jean feels a sensation of being inside out, followed by the sensation of being ejected from Norton's head, followed by lots of heavy pain, and then he's fine. Ecto-Suhuy recommends to Jean that he go bask in his Pattern a bit -- his connection to it is a bit weak at the moment.

They return to the tower. Jean has Amaranth gate him to Chaos, then he returns to Amber via the viewing rooms in Ferethyn's ways. Once he's in Amber, Pattern-Suhuy goes through Jean to Amber and moves him one shadow over into Primal Amber. Jean returns the frogs and walks the Primal Pattern again.

Jean feels better about himself -- much more solid -- after walking the Pattern.

Faythe and Felice are doing fine in Castle Amber. They're keeping an eye on Llewella.

Jean asks the Pattern to take him to Ingold. For a moment, the world grows dark and shifts, and then Jean is standing where he was before, still in the center of the primal Pattern.

Jean asks the Pattern to bring him to Gerard. The world twists, and he falls out into a very desolate place. He might see Gerard - he's not sure. A shovel might help. Ilk passes Jean a shovel and an etch-a-sketch. They both explode. Jean fishes in a fudgesicle. The stick explodes, but the fudge doesn't. A beer -- the glass explodes, the beer goes everywhere. A beer in a spam-cup. The spam starts screaming. Speculation occurs, and they start shoveling spam from Garnath through Jean and sculpting a Gerard out of spam. The Gerard-finger from the tower is added to the sculpture.

--EORun--


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