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Osric emerges from the Fringe gate in New Cataan, locking it after him. He is told that the Serpent and the Unicorn are about to have a chat in Chaos, and is fished to Chaos to go down with the ship.
Tendri'd out Ilk as Suhuy asks Cailin if there are any similarities between the blobs and the clouds, or if they could be related to his draining process in some way. He also asks Princess Chandra about the possible similarity to the person from that other reality who was stealing scales -- souls being transformed or consumed?
The fish doesn't want to come out of Jean in Chaos, next to the Unicorn. Jean tries to coax it out in Chaos, and eventually convinces it to do so.
Ilk in the tree warns Jean that he probably shouldn't move or use the scale while the Serpent is over Chaos.
Osric approaches the Unicorn and greets it. The Unicorn looks him up and down and wanders off dismissively. Jean introduces King Osric of Chaos to the Unicorn, and the unicorn acts slightly less dismissively. Osric continues poking the Unicorn.
Ilk creates a note in front of Osric, "Leave the greater powers alone. -- Ilk". Osric ignores the note.
The Serpent is still manifesting in the sky over Chaos. There's a lot of sky. There's a lot of Serpent.
Jean tells Mandor that the Serpent is manifesting over Chaos. Mandor reluctantly decides that he should go to the support of his King. Mandor requires a whale - he has difficulty fitting in the fish.
[Ferethyn has pushed his isle further out to Sea]
The Cailin in Chaos walks up to the candidate member on his doorstep, and invites him to join House Moonlight. They go inside and lock the door.
Local sane Dworkin asks Jean if he can have Darkover untethered, now, while things are still peaceful. Jean acquires permission from Faythe, then asks Ilk how to un-moor Darkover.
Ilk tells the real Suhuy about the Serpent manifesting, and asks for directions on how to unmoor Darkover. Suhuy un-moors the Logrus, and un-moors Darkover while he is at it. Ilk tells Jean that Darkover has been dealt with.
Ilk posts a note in red ink on the Realms Lord bulletin board: "Unicorn in Chaos. Serpent manifesting over Chaos. This may be peaceful..." On the board, Ferethyn posts, "My ways are clear". Shiryu is in another piece of fruit and not paying attention to the board. Marial is still fighting a holding action against Julian's troops. Ilk posts, "The Logrus is clear", and signs it as the Savior of Chaos.
Jean has offered to evacuate Old Lords to another reality from the Grey Zone. Jean checks with Ilk checks with Ilaryn, and the badger reality is offered.
King Osric can feel the pieces that were attached to Chaos detaching.
[Pharaban's lands have detached and drifted off.]
Osric tries to interrupt the Unicorn and the Serpent again. They ignore him, and seem intent on some level of communication that he cannot perceive.
When Cailin reaches his living room, he finds Zorro and a chemistry lab. "What are you doing?" "Experimenting!" Zorro points at a marble floating in mid-air. Cailin tells Zorro about the impending apocalypse. Zorro rants and determines that he should go forth and rescue people with his apprentice, Don Serioli.
Ilk pulls a Jean and half of the floating continuous House Cara party into Suhuy's stables, and sets out a tarp. Jean is removed from Suhuy's ways afterwards.
Zorro pulls Cailin down into the stables with him. Zorro grabs his cloak and mask. They determine that the blood of Amber are the oppressed. Cailin puts on his uniform, and they mount and ride out.
The Serpent's Apprentice considers listening in on the conversation, then settles himself with helping evacuate things that can't flee quickly enough from the ever widening radius of death around the two powers. The only way that he can think of stopping it involves getting the Unicorn and the Serpent to stop yelling at each other.
Osric feels as if all of his flesh is being scowered by a brillo pad. Osric whacks the Unicorn on the head with a gavel. The Unicorn continues to ignore him.
Cailin tries to pass a message to Get using his true name. "Get your butt back to my house."
[SERPENT IN CHAOS STOP UNICORN IN CHAOS STOP FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE STOP STOP]
Mandor is trudging across the landscape towards Osric. "Mandor! How do I get their attention?"
Upon finding out that Osric wants to get the attention of both of them, Mandor responds, "It's been nice knowing you."
Mandor tries to explain the cosmology of the Serpent to Osric.
Mandor - "The Unicorn's attention is probably easier to get than the Serpent."
Osric - "Well, I wacked him on the head with the gavel"
Osric asks for the attention of the Unicorn. Mandor starts preparing to do so. Ilk conjures a note. "Been nice knowing you -- Ilk" Mandor flips the note over, grabs a pen from behind his ear, and writes, "I'm going to use Mikail-shape" and crumples the note.
Osric backpedals when he discovers that Mandor's plan involves sacrificing a member of Amber's family.
Osric calls out to Melk. Melk manifests. Osric asks Melk to do something about the ring of destruction. Melk offers to speed up other things so they can flee faster.
Cailin tells Princess Chandra about the Serpent manifesting in Chaos. She leaves him in charge and goes to Chaos.
Princess Chandra and Osric chat. Ilk fills in Princess Chandra. Princess Chandra advices Osric to take a step back.
Princess Chandra makes a mottled amphibious thing from the dirt and hands it to Osric. "If that dies, come back."
Osric goes to House Chanicut to evacuate his House to the Fringe. "Yay! The Hero of Chanicut is here to save us!" Osric has everyone get into physical contact and less than 22 feet in diameter, and funnels his household into the Fringe. They get a very abbreviated briefing. Osric checks out the adjacent gates. One of them is a pocket stop, so Osric funnels them into it.
Osric returns to Thelbane. Most of the Etiquette Guild is there -- they're packing things up for evacuation. Osric evacuates them to the Fringe.
The Shifters and Dancers refuse to go with Osric.
Jean asks his contact in Marial's army to point out the Serpent manifesting. The contact refuses to distract Marial, but will distract Amaranth, who is being Marial's backpack.
Jean tells his mother about the impending apocalypse. She seems unimpressed, until Jean points out that Dworkin asked for Darkover to be un-moored.
"Don't tell anyone that the apocalypse was my fault." Jean, to his mother.
Cailin goes to Snarsht's tower. Cailin blows his diguise, but the mask is so effective that they don't believe him.
"No, no -- this is the Beastmaster's Guild. The Apocalypse Guild is two doors over thataway."
Cailin contacts his father, who was sleeping in his bed in House Moonlight. He is told to stay inside the house -- he was apparently there during the dragon's attempt to torch the house.
Cailin contacts Titania. She knows that Darkover and Ferethyn's ways are both un-moored.
Cailin trumps Darkstar. "Where are you now?" "Dining room table." They talk. Darkstar feels better about Darkover being un-moored when Cailin shows him the Serpent in the sky over Chaos. Darkstar insists that this is the end -- he has been reading prophecies, most recently, the Book of Cassandra.
Cailin gates off to find Cobaltians. Coral points out that her current location is a promentory -- it's safe. He may wish to bring other Amberites there. She is currently steering it -- she hopes to collide with the Spiral soon enough.
Cailin finds Duncan and Shannon in New Cataan, and realizes that he can't gate them out, because the blobs might escape.
He continues searching for Amberites. Random is horrified -- the sight of the Serpent instantly sobers him up, regardless of what drugs he just took.
Ilks resync. Jean whales the unlife saucers to the badger-verse.
Cailin rides back to his House. Zorro is there. Gerard -- the big heap of Spam -- is there.
Primal Jean saw Zorro ride into the screaming shadow, say, "Gerard - time to go." The spam staggered, Zorro slapped Gerard into Gerard, threw him over his shoulder, and rode off. Jean checked with Zorro - there are many others there, but he's busy. Jean gets a lift out to House Moonlight from Zorro.
Gerard seems cranky about being a pile of rotting spam, and is reassured that his current condition is correctable.
[The Spiral is empty; The Dragon Egg promontory has people from Cobalt in it.]
People try to find out a way to evacuate Hamster Gerard. Jean volunteers to take over Amber if someone will give him a pair of pants. Random gives Jean overalls and a small straw doll.
Jean tells Dworkin that Gerard has been partially rescued, but is still made of spam. Gerard goes off to take a nap and steals Laetatio's bed.
Hamster Gerard accepts Jean as a valid replacement and is sent home. Jean places a post-it note into the log noting the change. Amber appears to be unchanged. The redheads are in Darkover. House Beldin is in House Moonlight, Shannon and Duncan are in New Cataan.
She pulls out a Weapon. It is not a nice weapon. It is not a kind weapon. It is not a Morganti weapon. She takes the Weapon, ascends, and starts picking scales off the Serpent and throwing them at the Unicorn. After about the fourth scale, the conversation seems to have reached a stopping point.
She says: "Now that I have your attention, can we deal with the problem at hand?"
The unicorn replies with something akin to a blood curse. Princess Chandra falls to the ground, takes her Weapon, and starts shaving the horn of the Unicorn.
Then she steps back and says, "Are we done?"
Then she says, "I am now going to show the problem." and looks at the Serpent's Apprentice. Ilk puts up a viewscreen, and indicates the mites in Chaos near House Moonlight. Princess Chandra declaims that anything that can kill that (indicating the Serpent) can kill that (indicating the Unicorn) -- so deal with the problem, then you can fight each other all you want.
They exchange some more harsh words with each other, then settle down and start discussing the problem. Occasionally the Serpent and the Unicorn address informational questions at the viewscreen, which answers them.
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