![[previous]](gu-prev.gif){kind=small}
![[next]](gu-next.gif){kind=small}
Back to the index.
The party is heading down the entropy slope towards faster and faster places. They are heading along the line of Carlton's teleport, and each shift is becoming harder and harder. Three stops later, they are on a warm plane of glass, and there is ash raining from the sky. Carlton shifts to armor against radiation, and warns the others that they should leave soon. They check, and don't find any family member bits here.
They keep shifting, and draw closer and closer to what, chronologically, would have been the *BOOM*. They make a right turn to avoid it laterally, and find lots of corpses and mass destruction. Six to eight shadows later, they stop. Carlton shifts to medieval armor to handle the arrows flying at them, which the rest mostly ignore. The arrows are coming from a castle that is flying a flag with no symbol and being attacked by horsemen flying a smiley face banner.
They stop and rest. Beau hangs anti-radiation mirror spells, and Damia is feeding people from their supplies. The talking mandrake root jumps into the boiling water, and three come out. They complain that there isn't enough room in Damia's napsack and start tossing things out to make room, so Cyndia conjures a mandrake root home. Time passes.
Cathryn, Ilkandacian, and Stormy, are chronologically immediately before Stormy accidentally turned Fiona into a grey sphere.
Stormy notices that they're approaching. Lana and Flora approach Stormy. Flora says, "Cathryn?" Stormy replies in the negative and points towards Cathryn. "No, that's a Tir ghost" They chat. The switch was prophesied by a mad woman called Circe, according to Flora. However, Ilk wasn't part of the prophesy. Ilk and Cathryn are frozen in place.
Stormy tells Flora to walk through the crystal. Flora tells Lana to do it, and Lana wanders around, avoiding the unseen crystal. Stormy points Lana towards the crystal and she walks through it, then says that it felt like someone just walked over her grave.
Stormy opens a Trump gate to where Cathryn is, and then says that time is not progressing there. Flora expresses that freezing time is impossible. Stormy replies that he knows someone who can.
Stormy unfreezes his wife who gives him a dirty look. Flora then removes his illusion on her.
Ilk senses that he is being observed from over his shoulder, turns, sees a Stormy-esque Trump gate next to Cathryn, and breaks off a bit of his staff and tosses it at the gate.
Stormy detects some slow movement on the other side of the gate.
Stormy is talking with the Time Lord about un-sphereing Fiona, and the Time Lord replies that he just brought them back to just before they were spheres.
Stormy and Illyana go through the Trump gate, and Ilk's thrown staff bit bounces off Stormy.
Stormy turns to the Stormy that just went through the gate and asks, "Why not?" "You'll put Fiona in one. This is Bleys", and he hands a sphere over. "Hello, Bleys" Stormy, Stormy, and Benedict argue briefly. Stormy calls, "Mel!", and a voice from next to him responds, "Yes?" They chat.
Stormy introduces Ilk and Cathryn to Illyana, says, "I hate time travel", and then Stormy, Stormy, Illyana, and Melchizedik disappear. Ilk, Cathryn, the other Fiona, and Benedict are still here. Ilk decides to wait for someone else to do something first.
Cathryn walks into the crystal, followed closely by Ilk. Unfortunately, Cathryn passes back into Tir, whereas Ilk bounces.
Benedict offers to walk through the crystal and fetch Cathryn, and Ilk accepts his offer. Benedict tries to walk through the crystal and fails, then punches it. "Ouch - that hurt"
Ilk: "The person who made that crystal didn't make it to be broken."
Benedict: "I can imagine".
Benedict offers to take Ilk out of Fiona's lab so she can resume her work. Fiona mutters that he still doesn't trust her, and Benedict leads Ilk out to a guest room. Benedict leaves as Ilk checks out the room. Ilk then sets a few wards and alarm spells and then takes a nap for a few hours.
Malachai stops drinking with Ingold and goes to his rooms in Castle Amber to get some sleep. He wakes up with Serena stroking his hair. She gives him a drink, and tells him that Benjamin is demanding Cassandra's return. She slipped him a mickey to keep him from going to Oberon.
They chat about problems. Oberon's chief medical officer came by to examine him - she told her he was in Arden. They entertain themselves, and afterwards, there's a knock on the door. Malachai puts on a robe and opens the door. There is a tray of hot, steaming food outside the door, and nobody in sight. Malachai and Serena feed each other, and time passes.
The breakfast bell rings. There is only one throne at the high table - it's Oberon's. There is nobody sitting at the high table. Serena and Malachai sit there, and are served.
Johann had made Prospero his second.
Malachai goes off to do work and check in with Ingold's second. He notices Gerard and a huge cat eating at a table in the stables. They've reached a draw, and seem to have become friends. Gerard asks Malachai to tell the chief medical officer that he's in Arden. "She's in Arden". "I took the fleet out?" "That works". Gerard is limping, and is visibly bruised from the fight. Malachai greets Bucephalus, and they head to Arden.
Logan and Arielle greet Malachai. They say that Zack promised to get them back before anyone notices that they're gone, because they don't have a pass. Malachai tries to trump Zack and fails. He tells them that he needs to travel through shadow to pay off a debt, and if they want to come along, he will try again after that.
Logan tells Malachai that he can smell the mines, and that he should do something about that. Malachai blames the problem on the lack of quantity of chemicals that explode in this shadow.
Malachai tries to send a messenger to Ingold, and discovers that Ingold went off into shadow, having noticed the severance of a certain kind of connection, and left sealed orders in case he didn't come back.
Malachai returns to the castle to look at Benjamin.
Carlton shifts into a mandrake root to investigate the proliferation of mandrake roots, and when he tries to shifts back upon his return, discovers that he is stuck. He claims that the poisons shifted to the outside, and are blocking him.
Damia tries peeling Carlton, and peels back a bit that turns green and catches on fire. Damia catches on fire, too. Her hand chars, and she cuts the sliver of skin off and it falls to the ground and melts. Damia is okay, but Carlton's shell re-sealed.
They continue parallel to their initial path. A few shifts later, the local shadow changes enough that Carlton manages to shift back. There are now six mandrake roots.
Much mandrake silliness ensues.
Back to the index.