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Tessa has spent the last several years realizing herself, and by sheer physical force, managed to take out two of the master-level mages that were on Toram's side. She didn't realize that they were master-level mages, or that she was taking them out - she was just in a weight-lifting contest. But those against Toram thought that she was on their side, and brought her to the Mages' guild, where they are helping her gain a connection to her past self. Among other things, she remembers that she is a member of House Cara, and is told that her House head in currently in the guild house.
[Retcon to transit room]
A member of the mages guild is guiding Jello to the transport room just as Ilk and two others that she doesn't recognize are entering, along with Jenoir.
Tessa is 5'11'', 140 lbs, very muscular arms and legs, green and red hair with migration patterns, two eyes, purple and yellow eyes, wearing white and pink skin-tight lame.
Introductions of a sort happen.
Jenoir kicks the group as close to the center of reality as she can.
There, on the docks, with Darhyse leveled at them, is a dripping wet Cassandra. Cassandra sees Princess Chandra's son, Princess Chandra's grandson, Ilk, and some woman appear in front of her. She sheaths Darhyse. Standing next to her is the non-local Merlin. Merlin says, "I'll be right back" and disappears.
Ilk asks Cassandra if she would be willing to transport something for him. Tate pulls him aside and warns him that the Assassins' Guild doesn't do deliveries. Ilk brushes Tate off and returns to Cassandra. Ilk asks Cassandra if she wants to go back into the water to talk more privately. She expresses a lack of desire for that plan. Ilk dries Cassandra, then pulls her aside and tells her about Corwin's accident and mentions that his stuff might want to end up with the sandy Corwin in Chaos.
Cassandra asks for writing materials to leave a note for Merlin. Ilk hands her pen and paper, she writes the note, and Ilk conjures a signpost for it, and plants the signpost on the ground. The signpost clanks on something metal. Ilk lifts the sign, reads the plate, and kicks it off the dock. "What was that, Ilk?" "You don't want to know."
The plate comes winging out of the water and into Tessa's hands. She reads it, and shows it to Cassandra. "Please return all copies of the original writings of Cassandra to:" and it gives an address. Tessa plays with the plate and admires her reflection. Cassandra takes note of the address.
The bugs and Caine's tastes are discussed. Ilk opens a magical gate to the roof of the castle to avoid Amber's new lawn ornaments. Cassandra, Cailin, Tate, Tessa, and Ilk go through the gate.
The gargoyle band is still playing on the roof. The group heads downstairs and arrives at the courtroom. Cassandra heads directly for the Corwin bits. She picks up the notebook, but doesn't see Greyswandir, and goes for the closest Jean.
Neville is talking with the etiquette guild member. His mage should have definitely returned by now. He's trying to remain calm by wording a report to his superiors regarding the performance of his mage.
Cassandra asks Jean about the trumps; Jean tells her that his mom put them in the throne because they were screaming. Cassandra heads for Flora.
Cassandra - "Can I have my father's
trump deck, please?"
Flora - "Probably."
Flora waffles and squirms. Cassandra is insistent and rude. Ilk leads the others off towards Random. Flora continues to waffle. Celeste joins in. "It's my grandmother's castle until court is over. Get the deck!" "Aunty Flora - please stop pissing her off!"
Cassandra can't tell where the deck is, but Darhyse can tell that Greyswandir is inside Norton. Cassandra calls Norton over to her.
Flora insists that she should be able to keep the deck because it was initially her deck, which Corwin stole from her long before Cassandra was born. Cassandra claims that she can tell which trumps are her fathers and which were Flora's. Flora seems skeptical.
Cassandra tries to probe Flora's mind, and the player is hauled out of the room.
Cassandra stalks off to a corner.
Ilk introduces Laetatio and Cailin to Random. They start talking. Tessa joins the conversation, and is introduced to Random. Random flirts with Tessa.
Celeste starts drawing a trump of Jean. The picture looks like a five-year-old. Jean wants the trump to be a picture of him skipping the squiggly thing on the flat place. Celeste refuses, but adds the frogs, the juggling balls, and the tree with Augral in it. She makes two copies.
Ilk goes over to Cathryne and recovers Verra's pearl from her. Ilk starts contacting Verra.
Flora walks over towards the throne.
Random finally turns to Cailin. "Yes?" They decide to talk, but somewhere else. Tate is comparing notes with Martin.
Ilk is passing chocolates, flowers, and bottles of wine through the contact in an attempt to get Verra to open up. She seems to be annoyed with him, and passes through a stack of paper describing the method of creating one of those pearls. It's not a simple process, and involves flattening a Dragaeran city filled with her worshipers with Primal Chaos.
Cailin wanders off in the direction that Random gestured. He sees a stone box jittering around, and prepares to kick it over. Neville warns him not to disturb the box. They chat. Neville claims that House Cara is conquering Chaos and subsuming the other houses into subservient positions.
Ilk goes over to talk with Caine. He explains his recent discoveries. When Ilk mentions that the gates were highly vulnerable to Logrus, Caine grins, and pulls his Logrus blade. When Ilk mentions that the plant-like creature in the center seemed more vulnerable to order, Caine reaches over his shoulder and draws a Pattern-dagger that looks like what a mage would create if they tried to create a blade out of Pattern energy. Caine resheathes the Pattern dagger, and tosses the Logrus blade back and forth between his hands as they talk. Caine suggests that they drop the shields around Clarissa, to see if the effect has gone away.
They head to Celeste. Celeste blatantly snubs Caine and Raven. Caine is grinning like a maniac. Raven has a poker face. She suggests that they find Osric, so that he can drop his shields as well. Ilk and Caine head towards Cassandra. Raven tells Celeste that he hopes that they do not come to odds.
Cassandra notices that Ilk, followed by Caine, with a Logrus blade, and more distantly by Raven, are heading directly towards her. Cassandra draws Darhyse.
When Celeste goes back to her drawing, she finds a small shot glass of liquid resting next to her writing instruments.
Ilk mentions the sphere, the possibility of lessened influence on Clarissa, and the idea of contacting Osric. Cassandra tries to sheath Darhyse, but Darhyse wraps herself as a cloak around one arm instead of sliding into the scabbard. She hands the trump to Ilk. He tries - blocked. He solicits Cassandra's help - blocked. Ilk heads back towards Celeste.
Caine looks at Cassandra and says, "Well-trained sword."
Caine heads for Cailin. "May I assist you?" "I wanted to offer you a drink - I noticed that nobody was being hospitable." They decide to wander towards the bar. Caine introduces himself.
"So, does Random know that you're related to him yet?"
"And Random does indeed seem to be oblivious."
Celeste conjures a little glass flask and pours the contents of the shot glass into it. Jean recognizes the scent, and tells Celeste about it.
Neville does something secret.
Celeste takes the trump. She tries to reach Osric. She's pushing through the block, and begins to get contact with him. Ilk feeds her a gradually increasing stream of power. They achieve contact, and chat.
Celeste pulls Osric through. When she touches him, she senses vast, powerful depths. She still feels that echo when she is in contact with him physically on this side, and lets go.
Ilk fills Osric in on the recent events.
Osric goes to the lab downstairs through Ilk's bug, and notices that his samples are regressing back to their original non-statued state. He returns to the lab and tells Ilk and Celeste. Celeste drops her shields. Osric drops his shields. For a brief moment, another set of shields go up around Clarissa. They're Cathryne's. Then Celeste flattens them.
Mattress Jean is wandering around on this carved-looking thingy. It's mostly the same. The ends are flat, the rest is curved, and the whole thing is down. Jean starts doing laps, and is definitely picking up speed. He keeps going. There's definitely a squeaking sound. He works on optimizing himself for running, and becomes more streamlined and less bumpy.
There's a big, long thingy coming down towards him, and there is a dark blob on the tip.
His legs are now in lines, and he's galloping instead of gallumphing.
The black goo drips out of the long thingy and hits the center of the thingy. The squeaking become higher and higher pitched, then leaves Jean's audible range.
Jean jumps for the long thingy and lands on it. It dents. He runs up it. It expands upwards, then becomes a roundish thing. Half-way up the roundish thing, it becomes flat. In the middle of the flat, there is a protrubence that looks like a thumb. Jean is dripping acid on it. Jean runs up it. It's trying to shake him off, but failing. He's through the forest of hair and heading through the elbow, and there is another hand that is hitting the arm behind him. Jean reaches the facial features, and gets sucked into a nostril. He runs around the nasal cavities, looking for something important. He heads for the brain to attempt to take over.
He discovers that if he leans back against the wall of the brain, it gets softer. He digs through the brain. He's damaging it behind him, and tries to fix it. He has more luck shredding than reassembling.
Jean finds out that other people don't have a little room in their brains like Norton does.
Jean finds a place where by leaning up against it he acquires input, and another place where by leaning up against it, he can change the input. Jean gets longer to touch both places at once, and achieves control over his host.
He's in a shop in Amber city. People are looking at him strangely. There are broken things scattered all around him, and it looks like the puppet's arm is broken in several places.
Jean straightens out the arm. The people around him look at him even more strangely. The shop seems to have either toys or animals, and books.
Jean tries to grow into the walls to control things that way. As he does this, he absorbs material, and eventually litters. There are now thirteen little things like him in the brain, too. Jean buds into them. The two weakest die. Jean has mostly consumed the brain-stuff here, and nothing else is really tasty, so there isn't much for the others to eat. Jean has the body start pulling the little Jeans out of his nose and placing them onto nearby bodies, then starts just spitting the little Jeans onto bystanders.
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