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Darhyse, currently in the shape of a sword, is trying to stay embedded in a body that is possibly Julian's. A phoenix is attacking the sword. Janus and Cassandra are watching. The body that seems to be Julian's is still moving.
Cassandra tries to push the sword farther into the body with telekinesis, but nothing happens. She signals to Janus, "I'm going to join the fight." "You're insane." Cassandra indicates that she is going to recover Darhyse, so Janus charges. By the time Cassandra has gotten to her feet, Janus has hit the phoenix with a big stick and is fleeing at top speed. The phoenix is pursuing him. Cassandra charges towards Darhyse.
Cassandra puts her hand on the hilt of the sword and Julian grabs her wrist and twists, bringing her to the ground face down next to him. She calls out loud to Darhyse, asking for help, and sees the phoenix start to return. Cassandra tries to stick a knife into Julian, but he reverses it and plants it in her side. The wound hurts.
She manages to escape Julian's grasp at the cost of a fractured wrist bone, but Darhyse is still in Julian. She tries to fry Julian's brain with a Sith-bolt. It is parried with ease, and one is launched back at her. She parries with great difficulty, starts to stumble, and is grabbed and yanked sideways. It's Janus. He picks her up and runs with her. Several times as they run, she feels the Force translocation hit them. Every time it happens, Janus becomes greener. They hear the sounds of a phoenix in pursuit.
Cassandra starts noticing a pattern in the translocations.
Ilk and Norton are defending Home. Norton is on the outside tossing Pattern grenades at the Logrus masters and feeding Ilk power. Ilk is on the inside running tests on the shadow, finding intrusions with Logrus and shadow manipulation, and trying to shut them down.
[The GM comments that it was a bit more energetic than that...]
Cathryne, two members of the Dancers Guild, and a little boy are staring at a bound Flora. Flora is attached to a table in an underwater environment.
Cathryne can't see the chains, but she can feel them. The bonds are solid tubes encasing Flora's arms and legs. Cathryne tries to probe them with the Logrus, and finds that her tendrils are stopped in the same way that they are stopped when they contact rifts.
The kid pipes up, "Whatcha doing?" "Trying to free Flora." "Okay." The kid wanders off and starts poking at the base of the table.
Cathryne asks Flora how she got into this predicament. Flora explains that she was trumping Llewella to warn her about Benedict's current mood, and was betrayed.
Cathryne trumps Flora and tries to pull her through. It fails. Cathryne tries to stretch the sheaths with the Logrus, and fails. She tries to pound them with her fist, and fails to affect them. She shifts her hand into a sledgehammer and continues. Her hand doesn't hurt this way, but it doesn't work any better.
Cathryne trumps Martin. He's in Arden. They chat. Martin is annoyed that Cathryne didn't contact their group earlier, as she was just eaten by a blue thing, but doesn't have any useful advice on how to free Flora. He suggests asking Merlin.
Martin turns to Malachai and says that whatever ate Cathryne couldn't have been that nasty, since she's now in Rebma, apparently fine. Malachai tells Martin that Merlin won't be very useful at the moment - he got himself blown up again.
There are a number of Castle guards fighting the blue things, but very few rangers. Malachai assumes that most of the rangers have probably already been absorbed. There are no officers on the scene.
Malachai asks the Norton conglomerate if they can take the group closer to the battle, and indicates a position on Ilk's viewscreen. Dead Ilk opens a teleport gate, and Malachai, Norton, Martin, Serena, Tazik, Random, three birds, Corwin's zombie and Damia's zombie shamble through.
Malachai tries to attract the attention of an NCO to receive a status report, and gets a trump call. It's Cassandra. They each claim to be in a battle. Cassandra can see Corwin's shambling corpse in the background of the contact. "Oh, no. You've killed him again."
"Julian's alive." "How nice." "Darhyse is fighting him."
Malachai asks the group at large if anyone knows how to deal with phoenixes. The Ilk simulacrum suggests that modifying the shadow around one to make fire not burn properly might damage or destroy it.
"Can Ilk come to us?" "He's in Norton's head."
Cassandra reaches out to Darhyse and summons her. Malachai gets the strong sensation that Julian is trying to mentally stab him in the back. "Look out!" He drops the trump contact. Cassandra throws herself to the ground. Everything in the area around Cassandra and Janus is dead or dying, and Janus looks significantly older.
Cassandra reaches out to Trialla, and nothing happens.
Malachai is getting another trump contact. "Hi." Cassandra is not pleased with the prospect of gaining a Corwin along with the Norton and Ilk.
[Norton and his Head People]
Before going through, Ilk racks his offensive spells on a nearby tree, in order to avoid a repeat of his first encounter with Julian.
Malachai passes Norton through to Cassandra. Norton makes two extra heads, one for Ilk and one for Corwin. They discuss goals and strategies with Cassandra.
Ilk tries to shove the phoenix into another shadow, and finds it very hard to move - it seems to be tightly linked to this shadow. Norton starts Logrus-summoning and reanimating corpses, and Ilk pinions the rapidly approaching phoenix with a bunch of Logrus tendrils. Little phoenixes spark and spin off from the large, immobile phoenix.
"Can't keep a good corpse down!"
Norton plays with a baby phoenix. He tries to shift the little phoenix into a pile of chestnuts. Janus spikes a falling chestnut in mid-air on a dagger and passes it to Cassandra. It tastes good.
Ilk and Corwin are trying to fetch Darhyse, using Corwin's Pattern and Ilk's Logrus. Norton starts trying to shapeshift the big phoenix into a watermelon.
Cassandra notices the land around them becoming moist. Through the trees comes bobbing a sword, with a Julian attached. Cassandra can tell why Julian is coming along with Darhyse - the tip of the sword, sticking out of Julian's back, has turned into something canvas-like.
There are lots of sharp, pointy, oil-covered things flying in their direction from Julian. They seem guided.
Cassandra ignites her darksaber and smacks the sharp bits. Ilk raises magical shields, and Norton moves away from the bird. Ilk looks - the spikes have Pattern in them and have shapeshifter virus on them. They try dodging and blocking with Pattern.
Malachai gets a status report. The blue things are remaining mostly contained, but the guards are still taking losses. The number of blue things is variable - they tend to split and recombine with no particular pattern. Random acquires a sword from the NCO giving the report.
Martin takes a swing at one of the blue things. Werewindle whangs off the blue thing, and the blue thing is knocked backwards. Martin complains of an aching hand. He takes another swing, which goes right through the thing without slowing down or effecting it. Random picks a bullet randomly out of his pocket, loads it into his revolver, and fires at one of the blue things. The bullet hits, and the thing shatters. Random counts his shells, and determines that the bullet fired was an 'A'. Malachai loads his gun, and shatters six. Random and Malachai continue until they run out of ammunition. The shards remain on the ground where they fall, unmoving. Malachai tries a 'C', but the primer doesn't even ignite here.
Malachai tries to trump Benedict to get more ammunition. The trump is blocked, very hard.
Malachai mounts Bucephalus and heads up towards the back of the castle. As he rounds the rear of the castle he sees a large gryphon. It's wrestling with Tazik's Sha'um. He blasts past them. They wheel together and turn to attack him as he passes, but are too late. Malachai remains mounted as he rides into and through the castle.
Malachai sees lots of corpses of servants lying on the ground. He passes an ancient servant who is muttering about messes left by other servants and stupid Amberites...
Malachai reaches the command post. Prospero has a sword out and pointed at him until Malachai enters the room and is recognized. Prospero says that the guard is split between fighting the blue things in Arden, defending the courtyard against an attack that Benedict insists will come soon, and defending against an army attacking over the pass from Garnath. Prospero is pleased to know that Malachai has discovered how to defeat the blue things - he was about to send yet another wave of guards to Arden, but now he won't have to.
Malachai asks Prospero if he knows where he could find some more ammunition. Prospero removes a drawer and places it on top of his desk. Resting inside the drawer is a box marked, "For Amberites Only". When Malachai touches the box, a spark arcs forth from the box to his hand, reminding him somewhat of the Wand of Not Yet Now Shoot Me Not Yet, and a crack appears around the edge of the box. He opens it, to discover that the box is filled with ammunition. All of it is marked with 'A'.
Malachai promises to return, picks up the box, and trumps through to Random. They each empty their guns one more time, and the last of the blue things shatter.
Cathryne is staring at a table with a Flora on it. She pulls through a Jaws of Life, and tries to cut the chains off. She can't get the blade between Flora's arm and the chains. She finds, with tiny probing tools, that the chains are stuck to Flora's arms and legs.
Cathryne experiments for a while. The kid eventually grows impatient, and whines, "Take the table!" The kid begins to lift the table and the pedestal, and the floor around it stretches. The kid stops lifting, but the table continues to rip free.
Cathryne trumps Martin, who pulls them through. Cathryne is drenched, the area around her is drenched, and the chains are now visible. They have the same color and index of refraction as the murky water the table was just resting in. The table is apparently floating in mid-air.
Cathryne, the kid, and the floating table with an attached Flora head to the castle through the back way. There is a Sha'um wrestling with a gryphon. They incidentally end up blocking her way. Cathryne shifts into a Sha'um form. She realizes that they're saying, "If they think we're just playing, maybe they'll just go away." Cathryne negotiates with Gillian. Eventually, Gillian throws the gryphon at Cathryne.
Much hilarity ensues.
The kid gets bored, wanders over to the Sha'um, and demands, "Up!" Gillian ignores him, and he climbs up between her ears.
Gillian tries to cut Flora away from the table, but ends up shattering her own claw.
Gillian pushes her nose under the table and flips it onto the roof of the castle, where it teeters precariously on edge. Cathryne flies up after it, and is brought back to the ground by the gryphon. The kid scrambles up the mountain, and is ignored by the guards.
Cathryne pulls in a wildabeest, and ends up chasing it down and killing it herself. She pulls in a load of tuna. Gillian and the gryphon turn towards the fish, and Cathryne darts past them.
Cathryne finally arrives on the castle roof, and gives one of the gargoyles a new F-string, receiving a pointer to Flora's departure path in return.
Cathryne goes down the stairs off the roof, and tries to Logrus-pull to the table. After a moment of being stunned, she wonders why she is face down on the floor. She's on the floor a few feet away from the door leading off the roof. She remembers trying to pull through the floor and impacting...
Cathryne follows her tendril to Flora's chambers. A non-local Flora tells her that the little Deirdre was telling chained Flora and her child a tale of her home to distract her mind. Flora tells Cathryne that she and Theraat were offered a trip back to their continuum by Zack, and she really doesn't want to be here when Benedict and Oberon start duking it out. They discuss Julian and Zacharias.
Cathryne tries to contact Clarissa. The air seems to thicken around her and turn slightly bluish. She seems to be looking out from something faceted that is resting on an end table or altar. Sitting in front of her is someone who looks a lot like Clarissa. She's holding a large sword and fighting with something that isn't quite there. The scene changes depending on what facet Cathryne is viewing it through. Behind the woman is a familiar-looking tower. Cathryne stops rubbing the coin, and the image fades away from in front of her.
Flora says that Vail is Benedict and Fiona's son.
Cathryne goes to a window and Logruses a note to Norton asking for help from Ilk, and hits a Logrus-block. She trumps Martin, who tells her that Norton went through a trump contact to Cassandra where they are fighting Julian and a phoenix. They chat.
Norton tries to intercept the spikes with Logrus-driven detrius. Each wave of spikes is blocked, but the waves keep coming and coming. Norton shapeshifts into mist to ignore the spikes, and Julian starts crystallizing the air around him. Ilk notices that Julian is using exalted shadow manipulation.
Ilk starts melting the shadow with primal chaos starting with the phoenix, and takes advantage of the distraction to push Darhyse the rest of the way through Julian's body, grabs Janus, Darhyse, and Cassandra, and Logrus-pulls off towards Amber, leaving lots of false trails behind him.
Pulling the sword out of Julian's body caused more problems than Ilk expected. One of his tendrils went awry and grabbed Julian's nose, ripping it off. The Jean simulacrum claims credit for the grab. "Gotchya nose!"
The primal chaos starts billowing outwards rapidly, but starts shrinking almost immediately, as if Julian had countered primal chaos before.
Janus is throwing up, and Cassandra is coping with the pull silently.
The battle is definitely balanced in favor of Ilk and Norton. Provided that no new elements show up, they will definitely win. Fortunately or unfortunately, a new element shows up. It's Rainbow. He's here to help.
Rainbow was the last thing coming through the gate that Ilk was trying to close before it closed -- Rainbow killed the mages that were holding it open on the far side.
They chat. Rainbow says that he would hate to lose such an interesting place, and that his new apprentice wanted the head of his old House to be able to return to his duties soon. Rainbow isn't sure what he can do to help in here, but offers Ilk power. Ilk tells Rainbow that the Logrus masters attacking the outside of Home are from a different Reality.
Ilk passes Rainbow through to Norton to help deal with the attackers on the outside, and continues to attack the death zone.
Rainbow appears next to Norton, seemingly being inflated like a balloon out of a Logrus tendril. Norton tells Rainbow that he has dealt with the mages, but the Logrus masters are being annoying. Rainbow asks Norton how skillful they are at shapeshifting. "I don't know. I haven't really seen them shift."
Rainbow becomes less substantial and a lot bigger very quickly. "Wow." Rainbow opens a mouth at Norton's ankle and says quietly, "I learned it from Andron."
Rainbow looms over the Logrus masters and says, "You shall not escape me!" and starts pointing a finger at them, one by one. There is the inverse of power, the one being pointed at gets a deer-in-the-headlights look, then Rainbow squishes it with his thumb. The Logrus masters are frantically shredding away at Rainbow's body. Unfortunately for them, Rainbow is actually just the thumb - the rest is an illusion.
Norton animates the enemies as they die, and sends them after their still-living compatriots.
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