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Cassandra declines Lord Talos's offer due to time constraints from to her current apprenticeship to the Assassins' Guild. Cassandra reassures Lord Talos that she is not to be subject to his craft, at least not right now. Lord Talos comments on Cassandra's asymmetry. It is determined to be a fashion statement, but only for the short term.
Lord Talos - "So tell me, have you ever
made love to a shapeshifter?"
Cassandra - "I can't say that I have."
Lord Talos - "Yet."
Lord Talos reassures Cassandra that he keeps his work and his social life separate, and invites her out to a pleasant restaurant. Cassandra repeats her current time restrictions, and asks for a rain-check. Lord Talos expresses unfamiliarity with the term, so Cassandra explains it. Lord Talos says that he has a busy schedule, so she should contact him when she is free so they can arrange for a time.
"Do you do mage-work?"
"Mage-work?"
"Small magics - contacts over distance?"
Lord Talos stops and concentrates, then pulls forth a red rose and sets it on the table before her. "Lovely." "Hmmm... too fragile." He passes a hand over the rose, and it transforms into a locket in the colors of the rose.
He tells Cassandra that if she opens it, he will know what she is thinking, or if he cannot, he will contact her. She takes it, examines it briefly, and tucks it away.
Lord Talos leaves the room, and Cassandra follows him. When Cassandra reaches the waiting room, everyone but the nurse is gone. Cassandra asks the nurse if there is a standard method of traveling between Guilds. She gets a description of a route to the Assassins' Guild that involves several shapeshifts and a large number of unfamiliar words. She listens to the description, pauses for a moment, and then turns to one of her bodyguards and arranges for a teleport.
Cassandra is now back in the throne-like room in the Assassins' Guild. Princess Chandra is at her desk doing paperwork, and nods to Cassandra, acknowledging that Cassandra will be her next item of business. Cassandra bows acknowledgment. Princess Chandra does paperwork for a few more minutes, and then turns towards Cassandra.
Cassandra - "I would like to
speak with you, if you have a moment?"
Princess Chandra - "What kind of master
would not have a moment for her student?"
Cassandra - "Busy."
Princess Chandra - "There is that."
Cassandra asks Princess Chandra about the charge given to her bodyguards. Princess Chandra informs Cassandra that her sole charge is to keep them alive, and that she prefers not to second-guess their judgment.
Cassandra - "Tell me, how does one get
about in Chaos?"
Princess Chandra - "That depends on who
the one is. Personally, I just go there and things arrange themselves
around me. I thought, perhaps, that you should simply ask your
bodyguards."
Princess Chandra asks after Cassandra's arm. Cassandra tells Princess Chandra that the arm was removed as a precaution after it was infected, not lost in battle. They discuss the sloppiness and imprecision of the enemy's attack. Princess Chandra asks Cassandra if she would like to order a cleanup crew for that enemy. Cassandra expresses her desire to keep that as an option.
Cassandra bows and prepares to leave.
Princess Chandra - "Before you go..."
Cassandra - "Yes?"
Princess Chandra - "One of my previous
apprentices asked if perhaps some of your family was recently in a place
called Dragaera?"
Cassandra - "I don't actually know. I
don't believe that I'm familiar with the locale."
Princess Chandra - "He retired there. He
got tired of the politics... and recently saw indication of both Logrus
and Pattern use there."
Cassandra - "I couldn't really tell you
- I'm not familiar with the shadow."
Princess Chandra - "It would be good to
set Mario's mind at rest..."
It is concluded that if Cassandra finds out what is happening in Dragaera, she will stop by and tell Mario.
Cassandra bows again, and leaves the presence.
Cassandra asks her bodyguards to take her to House Cara. They ask her for a more specific destination. Cassandra trumps Celeste to ask her where within House Cara she should land.
"Hey Corwin?" "Yes, Jean?" "Do you know what this is?" Jean hands Corwin one of the scrolls possessed by his humaniform bodies. Corwin looks at it for a while. "Where did you get this?" "Right here." Jean indicates his belt pouch. "Why don't you hang onto this for a while?"
Celeste is getting a trump call. It's not very strong, but it's familiar. She takes it. It's Cassandra. Celeste notices that Cassandra seems to be talking through a filter.
Cassandra turns to tell her bodyguards that they are going through the trump contact, and finds that they are both touching her. Celeste extends her hand, and Cassandra steps through the contact. Celeste notices that the two bodyguards force themselves through at the same time. She is blatantly cooperative with their attempts.
A discussion of the nature of ways and navigation within the Courts happens. The descriptions given by Ilkandacian are not particularly helpful to either Cassandra or Celeste.
One of the Jeans interrupts the discussion, and asks Celeste if she can get him out of that icky place where he went when he fell through the trump gates around Barimen. "How many of you are there?" "All of them."
Celeste looks across the countless sea of demons, and realizes just how many Jeans there are.
Ilk puts up a viewscreen, showing Celeste the trump gate through which some of the Jean demons have fallen.
Celeste examines the gate. It's obviously active.
Ilk warns Celeste about the hazards of trumping Jean and seeing through all of his eyes at once. Jean shuts his eyes, except for the ones in the pit. Celeste raises shields to limit the amount of input from the contact, and trumps Jean. Celeste has a single, clear contact with one Jean, the little child.
Celeste opens her shutters one small notch. She now has two points of view. One is the Jean standing next to her, and the other is the little boy. Celeste tries to solicit Jean's help in getting perception from the Jeans in the pit alone.
The mattresses shut their eyes, and stop echolocating. Jean finds it much easier to think that way.
[I know that. I'm humoring her.]
Celeste slowly opens her shutters. As she opens her shutters, the Jeans with whom she is in contact change. She pans until she finds a demon in the pit, with whom she opens all of his perceptions. Celeste asks Jean to have them all hold hands and then come through the contact. The demons on that side all touch, and the mattresses burrow into a single host.
Celeste holds out her hand, and one demon comes through. The contact closes behind the demon. It opens its mouth, and about two hundred tiny mattresses run out, scurry across the roof, and dive into the sea of demons. Ilk keeps a spread of tendrils behind the mattresses, just to make sure that they don't accidentally eat any of the members of his House.
Jean opens his eyes, and the onslaught of information staggers his mind a bit. He experiments with adjusting the amount of sensory input. Demons all across Chaos blink.
Jean practices forming pyramids out of mattresses to use as siege towers out in the middle of nowhere.
Ilk prepares to contact the approaching friendly armies.
There is a small explosion just to the right of Cassandra, as if a firearm just missed her.
Cassandra draws her saber and ignites it. There is a huge column of energy extending from her hand and connecting directly to the sky. Celeste dives for cover and raises her shields. As far as Cassandra can tell, her bodyguards are standing next to her trying to evaluate the location of the threat. Tendri'd Ilk looks for the source of the attacks.
Cassandra dials her saber down, and the column grows a bit thinner. She pulls Darhyse. Darhyse evaluates the situation, shifts into a cloak, and wraps herself around Cassandra. Cassandra pull the cloak tighter.
Tendri'd Ilk spots traces of a sorcerous gate with one floating end, and sends some tendrils through, along with some nasty magical energy. Celeste spots a minor magical explosion and mentions it to Ilk. Ilk tells the others on the roof that someone is firing through a moving sorcerous gate. Celeste shuts it down. The gate opens again, elsewhere, and Celeste squishes the mind behind the gate. Celeste tells Ilk that the gate leads to someplace local, and gives him the coordinates. Ilk recognizes the location as the Warriors' Guild.
Ilk on grand tour tells Corwin that someone in the Warriors' Guild is trying to kill his daughter. Corwin sighs, says that he was worried that this would happen, and asks Ilk for a lift to the Warriors' Guild. Ilk Logrus-pulls Corwin there, and leaves a number of tendrils around for defensive or transportation purposes.
Corwin stalks into the guild, kills the first six people he finds, and then announces that attacking him is fine and that he accepted that when he took the job, but if they attack anyone in his family, he will slaughter everyone in the guild. One of the warriors present ducks out and comes back with someone dangling on the end of his sword, broken, but not dead, and drops him at Corwin's feet. Corwin picks him up by the neck and has a short conversation with him.
"...well, we were going to kidnap her, but she was on House Cara, so that's kinda hard."
Corwin changes his mind and tells the attempted assassin that he is free to try to kidnap Cassandra, and then if they recover his remains, he will officially denounce his actions. The warrior is confused. Corwin explains.
"Let me give you a hint. She's Princess Chandra's apprentice."
Corwin stalks out of the guild and says, "Ilk, I'm ready to go back now." Ilk takes Corwin back to the grand tour.
Ilk on the roof of House Cara tells those present that Corwin has dealt with the threat, then replays Corwin's recent actions in a viewscreen. Celeste conjures popcorn.
Celeste realizes that Ilk is displaying something that has already happened from memory, and asks Ilk how he generates that viewscreen. Ilk starts in on the sorcerous shoptalk. Celeste notes that Ilk is using Logrus for the continuous modifications, and that it would be harder, but feasible, for her to replace the Logrus with magic. She also notes a possible improvement that would let her display someone else's memories, if she had a strong mental contact with them.
Tendri'd Ilk goes over to greet the armies, starting with the one that is close to the Morganti-armed Dzurlords that are wading through the demons. The force is comprised of more than one minor house and willingly throws itself under his command. Ilk then chats with the Dzurlords, and tells them that the army above is friendly. The Dzurlords mention that Sethra left to find the Necromancer and infiltrate somewhere.
Ilk, Celeste, and Cassandra discuss the Savior of Chaos, Saint Cassandra, and the approaching Benjamin.
Jean points out a Helgramite army that is marching around Chaos to Ilk by flying the saucer over them and asks Ilk if he should drop some mattresses on them. Ilk puts up a viewscreen over the area. Celeste looks at the formation, opens a gate of her own, and analyzes their magical defenses. Cassandra analyzes the formation and points out the location of the enemy mages and indicates the weaknesses and strengths in their formation. Celeste expresses a preference to attack from close proximity, for better leverage. They prepare to attack.
Osric and Neville are waiting for dinner to end. The dinner is seven courses long, with several removes during each course and sorbet between courses.
Dinner ends, and Flora invites them back through the gate.
Osric hooks up with the Kashfan embassy and gates them back to Kashfa. They look around with amazement. "A lot of things have changed." "When is the last time that you were here?" "A month or so."
Osric warns the members of the embassy about the white statue goddess. They thank him. It comes out that a rumor is circulating that he is Osric, one of the lost sons of Amber. Osric decides to not deny the rumors so vigorously in the future.
Osric shadow-gates to the Fringe gate under Kashfa. He realizes that his gate is locked from the inside, and prepares to go to the next one out. There are two guards there, one on either side of the gate. One bows to him, and another checks an iconograph. They tell him that they have been posted there to prevent anyone but him from passing through the gate.
Osric gates to the next Fringe gate out from Amber. It is in the middle of a blasted, glassy plane. This gate was outside the barrier around Amber the last time he checked, but is now inside the blasted area left behind the gate.
He goes to the control center, and notices a warning light in a far-off sector. The Fringe defenses are going off on an almost continual basis. He brings up a visual, and the platform looks smoky with occasional lines of tracer fire, as if there was a major war going on there. Osric turns on the air conditioning and stirs up a breeze. He can now see that there are now at least three sets of uniforms, mostly occupied by humanoids. He notices that at least one side is using the Fringe defenses against their enemies. He decides that their ingenuousness deserves some reward, and doesn't squish them for their presumption.
He uses his Gwen-meter on the battle, and doesn't notice any traces there. He does a general scan, and the infected area that he had cordoned off hasn't grown. He notices another outbreak somewhere else, and cuts off an area three platforms by three platforms. He's never been through any of those gates in recent memory. The flora and fauna on the far side of the central Fringe gate seem to be mostly in blues and blacks, and the sky is blue shading into purple.
The guys that were sacrificing their entire civilization to him have set up a regular sacrifice booth. While he is watching, two lovers that were obviously not allowed to marry jump off the Fringe hand-in-hand. Osric puts them both in the same battery. Osric looks through the gate, and sees stuff stacked for miles in every direction in preparation for sacrifice.
Osric does maintenance stuff and whips together an army to send in to help with the battle in Chaos. He hires some mages that are accustomed to multi-dimensional work and a few holy warriors to supplement their forces. He determines a gate in the Black Zone to be the best exit point for the army from the Fringe.
Osric takes a mage through that gate and has him try to contact Ilk on House Cara.
Neville checks to see if he has a suite of rooms, finds out that he does, and settles down for the night with his mages. Neville verifies with his mages that they are secure, then asks them why he rates mages as high-ranking as themselves. They tell him that the opposition present was so powerful that they were assigned to him. They say that both of them together might or might not be able to stave off an attack. Neville tells his mages that here they seem to be under some form of protection, but if they leave, then Ilkandacian and all of his allies will be breathing down their necks.
Neville tells his mages that Ilk is now controlling the demons. The mages say that it is good that someone has the demons under control, and that their ally was formerly controlling them. Neville is surprised, and asks them why the demons were attacking both sides. They respond that their ally lost control. Neville asks why he lost control. They say that it is not their place to speculate, and that it was not their turn to watch him.
Neville - "Who is in charge now?"
Mages - "The House is still in charge."
Neville - "Do we have any allies left?"
Mages - "We will still triumph."
The mages reassure Neville that the situation is well under control. Neville and the mages turn in for a good night's sleep. The mages take turns keeping watch.
Norton on grand tour has almost reassembled a Vlad-torso.
Jean prime hangs around Flora. One Jean checks out the room that dinner was in, and another stays with Faythe. The one checking out the room notices that the doors are all locked. The ten thousand Jeans cleaning up Kolvir are about a quarter of the way up the mountain.
The group on top of House Cara steps through to the battle. Celeste starts blowing up the ward. The mages that are holding the ward are visibly wincing, and the other mages present are building a gate to pass their troops through. Celeste stomps on the gate. All of the mages are now holding the ward, and are actually doing so successfully. "Now?" "Now." Jeans start raining from above. Ilk starts squishing mages - compressing bladders, reversing hearts, and swapping brain bits. "Zack" wades into the battle, walking through the ward with a sparkle of Faerie energy, and starts chopping his way through their ranks. "Zack" says that he wishes that he had his Pattern sword out, and everyone nearby cringes away from him.
These are harder for Jean to get into than the demons, but he manages to burn his way through them. There is a lot of pain involved, as they slap at him and try to squish him.
The enemy are fleeing from Cassandra's Pattern sword, so she chases them towards the others that are doing slice-and-dice. About half-way through the battle, Darhyse turns into a cloak so she can get more of them.
Jean uses Darhyse as a launching platform. Zack has long-since killed the enemy leader and worked his way down the command structure, and there is nobody in charge left. The battle has reverted into a rout. Zack starts taking heads as trophies. Ilk focuses on preventing anyone from escaping.
Celeste tried to take over one of the mages, but Jean budded into it first.
Jean loads the flying saucer back up with un-injured mattresses. Very few of him got killed, but many were injured.
They return to the roof of House Cara, just as Osric arrives with a mage. Osric describes his army. It seems extremely effective, and the group decides that it would be most effective kept in reserve. Zack goes off and has his heads bronzed.
Jean, after checking the memories in his new bodies, tells them that most of the Helgramite columns are in or near the Black Zone, defending or attacking allies. He doesn't know the status of the defenses within House Helgram itself.
Ilk, Norton, Jean, and Corwin discuss long-term strategy on grand tour. Corwin advises attempting to negotiate a cease fire or the surrender of the enemy. An Eggo divergence occurs, courtesy of Norton.
Ilk feels the need for advice from REN, and asks Jean if he could find Rainbow for him. Jean asks the guards outside the door to his room in the Dancers' Guild to find Rainbow. They tell him that they cannot, but that Rainbow's apprentice should be able to do so. They send for Rainbow's apprentice at Jean's request.
There is a knock at the door, and Jean opens it. A gentleman is standing there, holding a hat. He hands the hat to Jean and closes the door. A cat climbs out of the hat. Jean greets the cat. The cat pulls out something small and unfolds it into a black sheet, and hands it to Jean, along with a piece of chalk. Jean writes "Ilk needs advice -- Jean" on the sheet, then starts doodling on it.
Ilk, Jean, and the hat pass conversation fragments around, until it becomes clear to Ilk that the cat is Rainbow's newest apprentice, and his uncle, REN. Ilk asks Jean to ask the cat if he could discuss strategy with it, someplace private. The cat indicates that Jean' rooms would be appropriate, and Ilk asks Celeste to trump Jean.
Celeste narrow-beam trumps Jean, and eventually finds the only ones with their eyes open, the two in the Dancers' Guild. Jean pulls Ilk through the contact. He arrives spread between the two Jeans, and pulls himself back together. Ilk and the hat converse.
The cat is keeping one Jean distracted by drawing on the black sheet with chalk. At one point he grows his claws into many colors of chalk and draws that way.
The hat advises negotiating for the surrender of each of the enemy forces, contingent upon the surrender of each of the other enemy forces. He won't tell Ilk where each Houses' positions are. Ilk is not okay with the idea of letting House Helgram survive, but is convinced.
The cat makes a gate to the roof of House Cara. Ilk tendri's out and passes through the gate.
Norton asks Ilk on grand tour if he could ask Jean to bring some empty demon shells this way. Ilk asks Jean, Jean agrees. Jean asks Ilk if he could just push mattresses into their brains directly. Ilk tells Jean to ask Corwin - it might be a trap.
Celeste asks to arrange for a quiet place and refreshments for her story-telling session. Ilk erects a canopy in House colors, and calls down to the kitchens for some static food. The cook raves about a recipe that Zack gave to him, and promises a feast.
Celeste tries to trump Cassandra without a card. She almost acquires a link, then it falls apart. Celeste tries to reach Cassandra mentally. She knocks at Cassandra's shields. Cassandra takes a look outside her shields. It's that bright star across the table from her. She cannot send anything coherent; it's a dream-contact. Celeste holds up both ends of the conversation. They chat. Celeste tells Cassandra that she would like to explain her current situation. Cassandra asks if she would like to have a family member present - her father.
Cassandra runs behind her shields to hide, and trumps her father. She asks him to hear Celeste out. Corwin insists that he doesn't kill family members. Cassandra checks with Celeste, then pulls him through.
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