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Ilk advises Neville to loot the body. Neville grabs Oberon's corpse and walks off towards Amber to rest the body in state. Ecto-Ilk follows Neville.
Ferro plays with Oberon's head. Suhuy stops funneling power to other Ilks and stays with Ferro.
The Serpent's Apprentice heads into the Sea to take a look at Home and Uber-Merlin's promontory.
Jean whales the trumpeters to the Golden Circle to spread the tale of King Eric II nobly defeating Oberon, the failed King, failed son, and failed father. Jean has the Dancers' Guild help generate the propaganda.
Julian has lost his shit and launched a full-out attack, which turns out to be a feint to try to kill himself. He doesn't want his son to see him defeated. Unfortunately, while misunderstood Benedict is shrugging off those attacks, he can't block the suicide attempt. Hamster Dworkin manages to partially stop the attempt. Zack enters the room, pulls out the wood glue and duct tape, and starts trying to fix his father. Julian grabs Zack's blade and commits hari-kiri. Julian dies in Zack's arms. Zack is not okay with this.
Ilk watches Julian's soul jump into the Jewel of Judgment around Zack's neck.
Jean updates Benedict and the Dancers' Guild. Benedict is pleased at Oberon's death, but not at Julian's. The Dancers' Guild can't tell Jean what he was presumably spying upon.
Neville sets his coronation after Oberon lies in state for two weeks.
The insane Norton is fixing spam-Gerard. The head-Ilk is completely insane after being cut off from the Logrus for so long. The head-Mandor is completely insane after being cut off from magic for so long. Jean and Ilk contemplating tossing the collective into another piece of fruit, to minimize the damage that they can cause.
Cailin and Cailin start walking Tir's Pattern. Beldin climbs onto the Pattern behind the Cailins.
Time passes.
Cailin, Cailin, and Beldin reach the center of Tir's Pattern. They are followed shortly by Laetatio, who claims that this is the safest spot in this place. Cailin and his father talk. Tate almost accidentally Pattern-teleports out, but is dramatically preempted by Cailin. Tate ponders trumping their allies to the center of the Pattern for their protection.
The Toram-cloud is still hanging over the castle, trying to suck down power from nearby clouds. Cailin tries to play tug of war with Toram and take the power first, but fails.
Cailin and Beldin discuss using Pattern-magic against Toram.
Cailin trumps Darkstar, who asks for the Pattern back. Beldin trumps Shannon, to ask her to ask the Unicorn to hit that cloud with the Pattern. The Unicorn gives the group at the center of the Pattern a funny look, then charges.
The Unicorn swats the Toram-cloud with the Pattern. The Pattern goes through the cloud like a grid of hot wires through an ice-cube. There isn't enough of Toram's signature left to be recognizable.
However, there are only three of them left in the center of the Pattern. Tate is gone, but he left some yellow liquid behind. Beldin and Cailin discuss the Tate situation. Tate's trump is warm.
Cailin drains the remaining bits of cloud. There's not much power left. There are no clouds left anywhere else -- Toram must have drained them all for power. Cailin scans for Toram's signature in this shadow. There's nothing else. And Cailin's signature is only here on the Pattern.
Cailin trumps Darkstar again. Darkstar gave the head mage to the bear mage.
Cailin blasts the stronghold without leaving the center of the Pattern. Nothing is left, and no cloud forms. All of his allies reached minimum safe distance first. There are a couple of brief Pattern-explosions in there. Beldin points out that those were trumps exploding. Cailin wonders where Tate went first.
Beldin trumps Samantha who asks the Unicorn to look for anti-dragons. None are spotted locally.
Cailin checks in on Titania. She claims to be just fine. Cailin is accidentally arrogant; Titania tries to cut him back down to size.
Cailin trumps Duncan. Duncan is tossing little arrowheads around. Duncan says that he hasn't hit an anti-dragon in at least ten minutes.
Shannon asks the Unicorn what it is planning on doing next with the Pattern at Beldin's behest at Cailin's behest. Shannon looks stricken -- the Unicorn is planning on giving the Pattern back to the one who handed it to him.
They trump Duncan to warn him of their impending arrival. He frets about anti-dragons. The relay happens again, asking the Unicorn about the definition of "local". "Local" apparently means local.
Beldin and the Cailins teleport to Duncan. Beldin asks Shannon asks the Unicorn how to kill anti-dragons. The only two known methods involve swatting them with the Pattern or impaling them on the Unicorn's horn.
They discuss rallying, but don't have any points to rally around. Cailin creates a planet. People start to arrive.
Rainbow, Snarsht, Gauss, the bear mage, Darkstar, Flora, Hubert, Sparrowhawk, Shannon, Duncan, ...
Guido is not rallying on this point. People fail to volunteer to trump Guido. Cailin creates a hobbit as a minion and hands it the trump. The trump is cold, but the hobbit doesn't get through. Cailin de-conjures it, and conjures a Radegast. Radegast refuses to concentrate on the paper. Cailin de-conjures Radegast and conjures a Saruman. Saruman concentrates on the trump, looks disconcerted, and falls over dead. Cailin picks the trump up again.
Cailin creates a bird and sends it after Guido, along with a couple of emergency backups. Rainbow takes off after the birds. A kitty-cat chases after the butterfly.
Cailin tries to disavow all responsibility. Flora walks up to him, pats him on the shoulder, and says, "Yes, I know that you're completely responsible for my lover." He gives her a sad look.
A while later, the butterfly and kitty-cat return. They state that Verra's wish has been carried out.
Guido's trump is now warm. Cailin asks Darkstar to destroy the trump. Darkstar scribbles with a pen over the card, and the ink is sucked back into the pen.
Gauss reminds them that they were supposed to destroy this place. Cailin dismisses anyone who can't help.
Someone asks Cailin how he is planning on getting the Pattern back out.
Jean fishes the Savior of Chaos, who has been watching Dworkinetics for some time, to Chaos. Ilk swaps tendrils with the Ilk in the Jean-tree, and makes gack'ing noises at all of the things that he missed. He heads over towards House Moonlight see how Ferethyn is doing with the anti-dragons.
Jean talks with Zack about Julian's funerary arrangements.
The Serpent's Apprentice finds Home, but can't find any remains of Uber-Merlin's piece of fruit. Ilk says hi to the Wyrm under Home. It's kinda dumb, and is pleased to have an older, wiser Wyrm take an interest in it. Ilk asks Shiryu where he was planning on setting up the atoll, receives directions that kinda make sense, and eventually finds it -- it's where the Logrus is. Ilk slaps himself on the forehead, then tows Home to the atoll.
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