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There are six Stormies in the bucket; two of them are bodied, and four of them are amulets. The bodied ones can see each other and the amulets can see each other, but the bodied ones cannot see the amulets and visa-versa.
All of the people watching this from the outside just saw Stormies freeze. Not disappear, just freeze. Illyana just passed out.
The bucket is made out of Stormy magic; he commands it to spill the beans. The answers all arrive at the same time, further proof that time is not passing for them. The answers are along the lines of "because you told us to do this" "Who's us?" "The powers that have done this." "How is that possible?" "You've commanded it." Stormy certainly doesn't remember having done this...
Stormy looks for the time passage hook in him, and can't find it. The chunk of Stormy that is frozen in time doesn't seem to be here. He's not sure if the sphere's hook is here; there's an odd echo of it from around them - they could be inside the hook?
The embodied Stormies were working on the inside page of the Fiona sphere.
They Trump-look around, and determine that that aren't in one of the internal pages to the spheres - they're at Fist of God Mountain, about two-thirds up, ...
Stormy blows away the hook, and it melts. There is a massive out-flux of power, and the council of mages contains it. The two bodied Stormies look like loose energy matrices. The pendants are unreachable, and he's exhausted. There's no hook, and there's Fiona lying on the ground over there.
The two Stormies each ask for a third of the power that the council grabbed. The council looks at them, look back at the power, then contain it and divide it. Stormy looks at the power; the hook is in the power. The power is saturated with hook-ness. Eating it would be a bad thing, but Stormy is barely strong enough to embody.
There are six pendants that are all here, and not moving. Four additional pendants show no signs of life. Stormy asks Melk what's up - "Cracking the spheres?"
[Snorting Stormy for fun and profit]
Stormy tells Fiona to tell Jimmy to ask him if her can revive Illyana, along with Rain. Illyana is in trouble.
Stormy tells Melk about the hook. "Maybe that's why the rest of you aren't moving?" He checks the amulets - there are hooks in the six living pendants now. They weren't there before.
Stormy asks Melk how much time they have - it's until Melk gets tired. Melk points out that the trapped and hooked power is growing - it's drawing power from the mages that are holding it in place. Not rapidly, but still growing.
Stormy embodies, and asks to borrow Fiona and Rain in a moment. "After stabilizing Illyana?"
Stormy has enough power to comb his own hair, maybe. Jimmy goes off to help Stormy to bed.
Fade to black.
Stormy wakes up to the smell of brewing coffee, and feels sorta-okay. He sings a bit to amp up. Fiona brings him coke, and says Illyana is okay, and complaining about missing all of the exciting shit. Jimmy is taking care of Fiona - she's not connecting her mental self to her physical body. They're communicating with her telepathically. Stormy asks Fiona where the other Stormy went - the two time-munged Stormies merged over the night. Mel?
Melk says that four of the living amulets died, and two of them almost died. Stormy's wives used the life energy from one of the two Stormies to keep the pendants alive, and Melk re-adjusted the time stream to deal. There are no grey spheres in sight - the two surviving pendants think that they are Bleys.
Stormy tries to make mental contact with the pendants; he makes a surface contact. They chat - Bleys initially accuses Stormy of being responsible for his current state, and he is unaware of the passage of time since his sphereage.
Stormy tries to contact Fiona, and encounters mental shields and a recorded message. Stormy knocks on the wards to try to make contact, nothing. She's apparently concentrating on something. Bleys, who has been riding and watching, says, "Nice - what did you do to my sister?" Stormy tries to explain.
The power pool has grown a lot - there is between four and six Stormy's worth of power in that pool now, although not all of it seems to be from Stormies.
Stormy shows Bleys what happened. He doesn't buy the explanation. He claims to have been exploring some prophecies concerning a certain young lady - Circe. She had made prophecies concerning his family; he was investigating their accuracy.
"I'm not sure which Amber you're from." - Stormy
Bleys is aware that he is physically occupying the amulets; Stormy asks him to vacate one so he can check them out. Bleys complains that a single amulet isn't large enough to contain him.
Stormy makes a small, 4' diameter, grey sphere. When he pops the sphere, most of the people in the room twitch. "That doesn't have any way of sustaining life."
Stormy tries again to convince Bleys that he's trying to help him for purely altruistic reasons; the story involves pleasant times at parties in alternate Ambers with alternate Bleys, and distant relations between some of his family and the Amber family. Stormy introduces Melchizedik as the Time Lord, and Bleys is unconvinced. Bleys turns to Melk, asks for proof, and Melk gives it. None of the others see the proof, but Bleys then asks Stormy, "What can I do to help you, sir?" He claims that Melk showed him that Stormy was the center of this universe.
Stormy: "I'm a shadow of your grandfather"
Bleys: "Dworkin?"
Stormy: "Yes."
Bleys: "Poor thing"
Bleys withdraws to a corner of the amulet, and Stormy checks it out. There is a very quiescent Stormy print in the amulet, living. Stormy ponders restoring Bleys. Melk has no clue where Bleys's body went. Melk says that there's no intellect in that blob of power - just power, so there probably aren't any Stormies there.
Stormy contemplates the missing Stormies. Vociferously.
Stormy tries to resurrect one of the dead amulets. It fails. He tells Bleys to knock off the cowering.
Stormy explains to Bleys that he can't make him a Real Amberite body, because he's not real. He made about ten feet along the Pattern once, before it tried to kill him and he left. Stormy reaches to the Stormy in the amulet under Bleys and tries to figure out how to wake it without kicking Bleys out. He decides that there isn't enough time to do it right and punts.
Stormy makes Bleys a body that looks like a normal Bleys - weak chin, beard. Bleys moves into the body, but not fully, puppeting it. He's still partially in the amulets, and still sustaining them, but not being sustained by them.
Stormy tries to wake one of the amulets up by feeding it some power. The amulet reaches the jump-off point and starts building itself.
Stormy turns his attention back to Fiona. He's still getting the recorded message off the shields; she's building up lots more power there. There is no visible hook in Fiona, and no hook in the two amulets that were housing Bleys or Bleys's new body.
Stormy: "Mel? What happens if we come out now."
Melk: "Now? You explode, she explodes,.."
Stormy: "What? We got them out."
Melk: "I need to re-balance the time streams."
Melk has Illyana re-balancing the time streams for practice.
Stormy wakes up the other Stormy amulet and suggests to Bleys that he might want to look around with their power and trump to find his real body.
Stormy tells Bleys that a Clarissa did this to him. "Why?" "Well, possibly she is Circe or she mothered Circe."
"Who got us involved in this?" (point at Fiona) "Who technically?" (point at Jimmy)
Jimmy fathered children on Circe. They discuss the situation, Circe's alive-ness, and the status of the prophecies. This Bleys seems very similar to Jimmy's Bleys. They chat.
Melk, on the re-balancing of the time streams, "She's doing a good job this time."
Melk: "It's not really time travel - it's
just a manner of achieving your goals beforehand - effect preceding
cause"
Stormy: "That sounds like time travel to
me"
Bleys suggests using that hooked power as a trap for an enemy. Jimmy considers sending it to Apokalyps to zap Darkside, but decides not to risk letting Darkside and Clarissa join forces.
Stormy uses prophetic sight and takes a look at the future of that power and the hooks in it. He sees it ceasing to exist along with the rest of this universe. He sees all of them ceasing to exist along with the universe. Just about everything, including Melk and Illyana, are gone after. The only thing that will survive the ending of this universe is the seed of a tree, as far away from them as is possible for something to be.
Stormy looks for Bleys's lab, and can only hit the edge of this place. This place isn't connected to anything, and Stormy's stamp is all over the place. He really is the center of this universe.
He checks on Fiona, and she has accumulated even more power. Her body appears Real. Stormy leaves a "hello?" waiting outside her shields.
Stormy: "I like playing nice with things like Fiona Barimen"
Everyone is intact, with Fiona and Bleys in trouble. Melk tells them that he doesn't know where they will arrive, merely that it will be someplace Real.
Stormy: "Mel? If we come out of this, and we're in a grey sphere, I'm going to hurt you. "
Illyana: "I thought that you were God and could do anything. At least, that's what the universe keeps telling me."
Stormy gives Illyana a concentration field, and she comes somewhat more into focus.
Stormy: "What are you taking with us?"
Illyana: "Me, you, my wives, my husbands, that Fiona, that Bleys."
Stormy: "Both pieces of that Fiona, both pieces of that Bleys, and both
amulets."
Illyana: "I'm going to leave that power here?"
Melk: "No."
They try to determine how to get the power out. The mages lock the power into a soul trap crystal given to them by Stormy; it is living, rampant, and wants out.
They leave. There is a crackathum, and they're sitting in a dark place. All of them. Stormy Trump-looks, they're about half-way down the wall of the Abyss. He's not sure which one. Looking up, it seems indeterminate as to which universe they are in. The soul crystal is about three times the size of the one he handed her, and Connor is propped against the wall.
Melk does something, and a small fire demon appears. He tells it to lead them up through the caverns to the world above. Stormy offers to trump them up, and Melk says that they might never arrive. Doing things around here increases rather than decreases the improbability. Melk says that it's the Realms Master's fault.
Stormy thanks Melk for his aid; Melk replies that he got a new apprentice out of it, Illyana. Melk had said that she would learn quickly. When he elaborates that "quickly" means "in less than a human lifetime", Stormy tries to explain the effect of that duration of time to someone of his age. Melk says that they can visit sometimes, and that she can absorb her lessons while away from him. They discuss the teaching strategies of Old Lords.
Melk: "Dworkin has given up the right to call himself a chaos lord"
They follow the bouncing flame for a bit, and reach a giant cork message board. The messages seem to be of a more magical than physical nature.
"What is this?" "Demon Central Exchange. If you want to advertise for something..."
They continue upward and come out in a hole in the Courts of Chaos. There is a table set up in the room, along with someone shaped as Shiryu. They bow to him; he bows to Melk in reply.
Shiryu: "The rest will be along shortly"
Stormy: "The rest of what?"
Shiryu: "The welcoming committee."
Stormy: "Huh?"
Shiryu: "Aren't you in the company of a new elder lord?"
The group acts confused for a while, then Stormy does introductions. Shiryu points to the energy crystal and says that that will be the new elder lord. It will be thrown into the Sea of Chance and be washed back up in a most interesting configuration. Stormy is curious if this will create Clarissa or a Clarissa-like entity, Shiryu confirms that the being that will emerge is not a redhead.
Stormy asks where the being called Clarissa originated, and Shiryu says that she predates him.
Shiryu observes that neither Bleys's nor Fiona's bodies are Real. Fiona's body looks real to Stormy... Bleys doesn't think that this is his reality set - he's a hermaphrodite here.
Oberon comes to the table and sits down. Dworkin comes to the table and sits down. Dworkin looks a lot like a well-kept, un-insane Dworkin.
Stormy says that "We have to be getting on our way to our own reality set here.", and Oberon replies, "Just give us the old one."
Oberon opens a rift to the Sea of Chance over the table.
Stormy creates a memory crystal and hands it to Shiryu, hands it to him, says that if the new old lord is curious about its origins, this includes all of them of which that he is aware.
Melk contacts Stormy on very narrow band channel and says he will get Illyana back to him, don't worry, and you should go now.
This Oberon had casually tossed around more power than Stormy has seen even Dworkin use. This is apparently a very powerful place.
Stormy goes home, along with the mob, minus Connor, Melk, and Illyana.
Upon arriving home, he receives a mental tickle from Turvalen saying he can't get any farther without help, and he needs more help than just Stormy can provide. There's a note from Illyana saying that she will have a break in eleven of her years which should be next week for him.
Stormy pops a new Stormy to send to Turvalen's aid and assess the situation.
Fiona still playing, apparently trying to connect her mind to her body. Bleys can use the amulets to look at his lab and find his real body.
He leaves his family here, and goes to lab where left Cathryn and Ilkandacian. There's no trace of them, or the blue crystal.
Stormy does a post-cog, range 10 years, and discoverers that Ilk went that-away, within this Amberverse, and did a few sorcerous jumps. Cathryn walked into where the crystal used to be, and the post-cog ends there. The crystal's line seemed entwined with Cathryn. Stormy checks her home Amberverse, and she's not there.
Trump-looks for this Benedict. He's training a soldier somewhere. This Fiona is off in shadow, not in her lab. Stormy leaves her a note and his trump.
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