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Neville assembles the four company captains of the Warrior's Guild present in his house.
Rupert Thendar was the original door guard in Helgram. Robert Thendar, his son, about to take over for him so that Rupert can become House second.
Calla and Gil are on their way to deliver the next invitation, when out of the shadows jumps an individual carrying a large sword, wearing a long, blue, embroidered robe and a pointy mages hat. He shouts, "Hah! I have got you now! You cannot escape, you spawns of the devil!" Gil runs him through trivially. He catches on fire, and floats up into the air.
Calla asks Jean to take a note. He enters it into the Dancers' Guild archives, and marks it secret at Calla's request.
Jean tells Cailin about the wizardly weirdness. He plays it back on a cartoon viewscreen. Cailin giggles.
Osric considers hunting down Shiryu to ask about the Fringe. Gates are randomly opening into places that don't exist, and all sorts of weird things are coming through from the Sea of Chance. The Fringe seems to be breaking down.
Osric emerges from the Abyss and heads towards Thelbane. On his way to Thelbane, he sees a large slug being killed by a very drunk Janus. Osric greets Janus. Janus is drunkenly enthusiastic about the Savior of Chanicut, and his progressing defeat of the invading slug army.
Janus tells Osric that there are little blue guys following him. Osric forms eyes and looks. Small, blue, hovering. Osric tries to grab one with a tentacle; it dodges. "Why are you following me?"
"You're our hero!"
"Oh. Household members. Does anyone know where I can find Shiryu?"
"We can lead you there! You're our hero!"
They fly off in search of Shiryu. Osric ignores them and continues towards Thelbane. Janus salutes him drunkenly, then attacks a nearby slug.
There is a dragon curled up on top of Thelbane. Osric salutes; it ignores him. There are no Jeans outside Thelbane, but several inside. Osric asks Jean if he knows where Shiryu is, then asks if Jean can bring him to Shiryu.
Jean asks Shiryu if he is willing to have an audience with the Savior of Chanicut. They discuss the matter briefly. Shiryu wonders why Osric asked Jean for an audience -- is he a member of his guild? No - lots of people just ask Jean to find people. Shiryu seems displeased by the idea of people finding him via a Jean.
Shiryu - "We should do something about that..."
Jean - "About what?"
Shiryu - "Access."
Shiryu appears in Thelbane. Osric bows, and Shiryu acknowledges Osric's existence.
The only problem involving Osric that Shiryu is aware of is that he isn't King of Chaos. He hasn't caught up with his apprentices recently. Shiryu expresses a willingness to see the Fringe, and asks Osric to take them there.
Osric gates Shiryu to a Fringe gate in the Abyss. Shiryu pauses momentarily, Osric's Fringe crystal pulses briefly, and Shiryu is now Fringe-worthy.
Osric explains that he discovered and explored this place...
"Fascinating. The originators are not shaped like you. They had tails..."
Osric demonstrates the Tremelloran shape for Shiryu. It feels more comfortable, and Shiryu comments that it seems more right this way.
Shiryu is not familiar with this place, but he is familiar with the concept. Shiryu is not sure why there are such large pieces between the connections.
Osric complains that the places connected to the Fringe are no longer fixed -- they are now moving about randomly. He suggests that it could be tied to the poles moving.
Shiryu agrees to investigate the matter. Osric claims a time-urgency, since the entire thing seems to be falling apart. Shiryu says that, if necessary, he can always borrow Melk.
Shiryu puts his hand out and a stream of the primal building blocks of everything comes pouring out and off the edge of the Fringe. Osric thanks Shiryu, and decides to wait and check the meters later.
[The power dial goes up exactly one marking, whatever that unit of marking happens to be.]
Shiryu points out the markings of another working in this place recently. When told of Johnny's recent demise, he offers Osric another assistant. Osric accepts the offer.
Shiryu returns to his study of the grass.
Jean and REN talk about Silver Lyra, the magic-eating Morganti kittens, and notes about shapeshifter virus. All of the information on shapeshifter virus is apparently barred from shapeshifters. Jean is annoyed, having wanted to use that info to fix his half-sister.
Jean and Ilk discuss moving Silver Lyra to Amber (Ilk is opposed) and reconstituting Gerard. They finish building the spam statue. Jean gets a trump of Gerard from his mother and fishes it to the place with the screaming and the spam Gerard. He fools around a bit trying to stick the trump to the spam, then concentrates on the trump while touching the spam. The trump card doesn't even get cold. Jean fishes in some tongs made of beef jerky, removes the card, wraps it in some skin, and fishes it back.
People discuss finding the signaling device in the barracks. Cailin opens a gate to the barracks, but they are no longer there. He pokes around in a circle, and finds them elsewhere the same radius out from the center of the tower.
Ilk follows Cailin's trail and magically travels down to look at the signaling device. Cailin and Natasha go down through the gate, and a few more Jeans head up.
It's a small box with a grill on the front. A few not-very-powerful magical traces on it that almost seem to be incidental. Ilk can see several other powers involved, but isn't sure what. One of them might be Pattern.
The magical signature is familiar to Ilk -- it's Mikail's. Ilk warns those present about Mikail at some length, including warning them that Mikail is probably currently listening in to the warning.
A Jean heads towards the Crafters' Guild.
Cailin conjures some smelling salts and tries to wake Tate. The salts fail to wake him, and smear all over his face, starting to burn it.
Natasha taps Cailin on the shoulder. "Wasn't that a blank wall a while ago?" She points at a door on the wall.
Ghostly-Ilk contemplates encountering a necromancer, and hides in the rock. It's fairly uncomfortable, even though it isn't Patternish.
Cailin and Natasha gate to the surface.
Ghostly-Ilk contemplates encountering a necromancer some more and bugs out, after teaching Cailin his two favorite anti-Mikail spells. He keeps an eye looking over Cailin's shoulder at Cailin's view-only gate.
The door opens. A small guy, carrying a large flat red squarish bag walks in, and says, "I think that I'm going to need a few more napkins."
Ilk warns Jean that it is probably a trap - Mikail has a nasty sense of humor.
The guy hands Jean a piece of paper and asks him to sign for the pizza. Jean sees a big blue dot, and eventually scrawls something illegible on it. "By the way, you probably don't want to be upstairs when you open that. You might want to set a timer."
The pizza delivery boy steps back through the door. Jean tries to follow, "to get napkins", and bounces off the wall. The delivery guy steps back through the door, and hands over a large stack of napkins.
[Ilk silently contemplates that Mikail was probably just conjuring and de-conjuring the guy, door, and pizza directly, instead of gating a real person back and forth and leaving an obvious trail.]
People upstairs discuss the box.
Jean hears a scrabbling sound from inside the box, and decides that they need to hurry.
Cailin conjures a Gandolf, hands him the box, and sends him through a gate to the X-files shadow with orders to open the box on the other side. Gandolf steps through, opens the box, and the visual goes away. The gate goes away, too. Cailin tries to open another gate, and fails, as if there was nothing there.
Ghostly-Ilk heads out near the X-Files shadow. When leaving the shadow, he switches back from ghostly to ecto.
Jean rings the doorbell at the Crafters' Guild. It makes a pretty sound. Jean talks with the doorbell. The Crafters' Guild is very concerned at the loss of their Guildmaster at Jean's hands.
Jean apologizes to Lord Shiryu yet again for disturbing him. He mentions the Crafters' concerns, and explains for what purpose he wants a crafter. Shiryu is not pleased by mention of the Slavers' Guild -- they've been creating illegal ways in Chaos.
However, the destruction of a shadow gains Shiryu's full attention. He insists on visiting the site, now. Jean tries to get an Ilk near the tower, but none are present. Jean has Cailin open a gate to a nearby shadow, and Shiryu is gone.
The Savior of Chaos is brought from his position in Ferethyn's ways to Shiryu's side. He is standing near a hole. Shiryu is pointing at a hole in a way that Ilk can see what he is seeing. There is a hole in the fabric of shadow that goes through to the Sea of Chance. The edges of the hole are still actively unraveling.
"That is bad. Make it stop. I'll take care of that; you take care of the punch."
Shiryu heads into the hole, at high speed.
Ecto-Ilk joins Ilk near the hole.
Cailin considers bringing Tate to the magic tracking shadow. Natasha objects. Cailin considers going home.
Savior of Chaos, through Cailin's gate, asks Cailin to assist him with something. Natasha accuses Cailin of trying to abandon her again, so Cailin just dumps his father through a gate into House Moonlight.
Jean, outside the Crafter's Guild, tells the doorman that the situation that he wanted them to investigate has consumed all of Shiryu's attention and asks if the Savior of Chaos will suffice. The crafter is skeptical and refuses, stating that Jean has too much influence over the Savior of Chaos.
Cailin - "So, do we just trump him and blow him away?"
Ilk - "Well, for starters, we shouldn't talk about it right here."
Ecto-Ilk tries to get Ecto-Suhuy to come along, but Ecto-Suhuy convinces his apprentice to stay and work on the conversion of the tower.
Ilk grabs the assorted group -- Cailin, Jean, Natasha, and Darkstar -- and pulls them into Suhuy's ways. Cailin is the hardest to transport by far, not Natasha, to Ilk's surprise.
Natasha screams, and her form starts to melt. Cailin gibbers, tries to gate them home, and fails, due to his location. Cailin gibbers some more.
Ilk realizes that the form Natasha was melting towards was Bronelle's. Ilk grabs Princess Chandra with an "I'll apologize later but you're coming with me NOW" attitude and pulls all three of them into a small highly secure chamber in Suhuy's ways. At some point during that process, Savior of Chaos switches over to Suhuy.
Cailin demands that Ilk tell him what is going on. "Beep. We're sorry. The tendrils you are trying to reach are not currently available. Please try again later." Cailin freaks out to Jean. Jean, who recognized Bronelle's form, asks Cailin if he has trumped Natasha recently. Cailin doesn't remember having done so.
Jean takes Cailin's trump of Natasha and fishes it to Dworkin. Dworkin can't tell much about it -- this place isn't trumpish.
Jean asks Snarsht if he remembers healing Natasha. Snarsht doesn't know who Natasha is, so Jean fishes in the trump and shows it to Snarsht. Snarsht claims not to have healed that person. He checks with the Dancers' Guild and is reminded that she became healed during the time when an impostor was in charge of the Beastmasters' Guild.
Jean asks Flora if the person who was helping to plan the wedding was Bronelle. Flora's not sure -- she didn't meet Natasha until after Cailin proposed, which was after she was healed by "Snarsht".
Jean looks around and asks Cailin and Darkstar where they are. Cailin is still freaking out, and can't tell. Darkstar says that they're in Suhuy's ways. "Can't you smell it?"
Jean explains to Cailin that he proposed to Bronelle. Cailin faints.
Suhuy, Princess Chandra, and Bronelle are in a room. Bronelle is most upset at being deprived of all of her power by the filters on Suhuy's ways and is fighting with tools with which she has recently become unfamiliar.
Princess Chandra has her hands full of Random and is pressed, desperately keeping every molecule that may have been influenced by Bronelle away from her.
Suhuy pulls Marial from her ways to Suhuy's, saying as they go, "Battle Bronelle Princess Chandra pressed Suhuy's ways" He notices that Marial is pulling some of her favorite weapons in behind her.
Marial arrives, realizes what Princess Chandra is doing, changes her defense form to match Princess Chandra's.
Suhuy can tell that Princess Chandra is actually holding her breath. She has not changed anything about her, but she is keeping all of the molecules of air from touching either herself or Random.
Marial has changed her form so that it is slowly out-gassing to push atmosphere away from her, and starts throwing things at Bronelle.
There is a plethora of Serpent Power in the room.
Ilk generates a breeze towards Bronelle by Logrus-pulling air into the room from the outside. Princess Chandra takes two steps forward. Ilk cranks up the volume, and Princess Chandra takes another step, and visibly considers taking another step, then reconsiders.
Marial has defined the space that Bronelle is safe within by the pieces she has thrown.
After a little bit, Marial has stopped throwing things and has pulled her sword. It seems to be just an exceptionally sharp piece of metal.
Princess Chandra shifts, pulls a piece of paper out of her pocket, and lets it drift to land at Bronelle's s feet. The contract is signed by Silver Lyra, King of Chaos, and contains the words, "Former Poisoners' Guild". When Bronelle takes a moment to look down, a long bit of something sharp sinks into her eye and starts moving towards her brain.
Bronelle tries shapeshifting to move her brain, and another sharp bit appears towards where she was moving the brain. This goes on for another fifteen or sixteen throws, until Bronelle is too slow and starts twitching as one reaches her brain. Then four or five more converge from different angles, and pierce her brain.
"I have killed you. You are dead, but haven't stopped moving yet." Princess Chandra turns to Marial, and says, "Would you please dispose of this corpse for me now?"
Princess Chandra turns to where Suhuy has most of his tendrils, and speaks. "I believe that I was watching somebody."
"My apologies for disturbing you." Suhuy returns Princess Chandra to Ferethyn's ways.
Marial takes two steps over to the twitching, declared corpse, pulls out two very short blades, and waves them in a complex pattern through Bronelle, leaving nothing more than a messy puddle with no pieces more than an inch in the largest dimension.
She turns to Suhuy. "I'm not sure whether you should fumigate this place or seal it... Silver Lyra might want to inspect what's left."
She out-gasses a bit more, then turns and casually pulls herself out, using Logrus.
Suhuy asks Melk to stasis the room. Melk coalesces, looks around, grins at Suhuy, and then freezes the room.
[In her Ways, Marial is busily getting her revenge on the interruption by describing to all present in great detail how the Savior of Chaos defeated Bronelle.]
Jean turns to Darkstar. "So, do you want to bail now, or would you prefer to wait here?"
Darkstar points out that he is in Chaos, from which he has been banished, and that he isn't going anywhere without Suhuy's permission.
Ilk arrives in the room, to find Jean and Darkstar playing card games with trumps.
"So, we were talking about Mikail?"
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