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Dworkin has reached the center of the Primal Pattern and is looking around grumpily. He appears to be sane and not very happy about that. "Suhuy! What are you doing!"
Suhuy morphs up into a standing position, pushing Ilk behind him. "Nothing, brother."
Dworkin - "You! Apprentice! You must be mine! It says so on your hat!
Come here!"
Jean - "Can I just walk to you, or do I have to start at the
beginning?"
Dworkin - "Start at the beginning."
Dworkin tosses a ball onto the start of the Pattern, and it starts rolling along the Pattern. Jean follows the ball. "But it's not bouncing!" Dworkin sighs, and the ball starts bouncing. The farther that Jean progresses, the more he becomes shaped like Jean prime. As he walks, Dworkin gives him advice on how to bounce, skip, and hop instead of just walking.
[Cassandra's arm is healing more quickly than Norton expected.]
Suhuy is looking down at the bolt. "Well? Make yourself up." Ilk starts shifting into his human shape. Suhuy goes back to looking at the Pattern.
Jeans are flying around the skies over Chaos and Amber. Jean is acquiring topological information about the layout of Amber and the Golden Circle kingdoms, as one big shadow.
There are visible problems in the Golden Circle kingdoms. In one of the shadows, everyone is dead. Some of the shadows' inhabitants are involved in massive, incoherent battles with various opponents. There are lots of Gwen statues all over the Golden Circle, and there are blueish statues scattered around occasionally.
He tries to tell his mom, but she's busy organizing. Jean lands some saucers near the wars and shifts into demons. He asks them why they are fighting, but they don't seem to have a good reason - these wars seem to be due to madness. Jean tries to help them do this right, by dividing into good guys and bad guys, but is attacked by insane armies and has to break stuff.
Jean complains to Ilk about the wars, and mentions the blue and white statues.
Neville is in a safe black zone kingdom trying to determine what has been going on. The elders in House Helgram have all apparently either died or abandoned their members, and the only person present here that outranks Neville is deferring to him. There are between sixty-five and seventy members of the House here. Before the hostilities started, there were millions of people connected to the House, and about a thousand full members. Neville fills the group in on what he knows regarding the situation in Chaos.
The House itself is no longer being completely destroyed. Some people seem to be holding their own, some seem to be doing fine, and others seem to be very dead. It doesn't look like they can continue to hold out.
Those here are those who were willing to leave the battle and want to stay alive, keep the House alive, and keep the honor of the House alive, in that order. Neville proposes the idea of a cease fire. Those present seem willing, but those fighting are less so. Those fighting are also people that Neville does not recognize.
Neville trumps Random and asks him if he could arrange a meeting with Ilkandacian. Random asks Neville to call back when two colors have turned through the sky. Neville requests that those currently defending House Helgram to just hold place if not attacked; reactions vary from incredulity to immediate hostility, but do not yet range to open assault.
Random opens his window and shouts, "Hey Jean!"
"What?"
"Could you come over here for a sec?" A Jean wanders over towards Random.
"Which Ilk is currently running House Cara?"
"That would be Suhuy"
A number of brief communications occur between Ilk and Random via Jean. Jean gathers a number of saucers at Random's embassy, forms a flying barcalounger with their tractor beams, and heads towards Ilk. Random is vastly entertained and amused.
A council of war occurs. A long discusson over whether the group should hit the next focus now, or deal with one of the other problems, such as looking into Blake, the Patterning of House Cara, or just attack Helgram or Swayville directly. Cassandra is opposed to dealing with Helgram until we can nuke it completely, so the group heads off in search of the next Gwen focus.
The group arrives at the edge of the shadow containing the next focus. There is a massive physical barrier in front of them, stretching out of sight in either direction. Ilk asks an etiquitte guild member who owns the shadow, and is told that it is House Cara, and was won in a duel over toenail direction some sixty or eighty turnings ago.
Darhyse jumps up onto the wall and looks around. Nothing. Cassandra orders a Dzurlord to open the door in the wall. The Dzurlord swaggers over to the door and draws a dinky little knife, then opens the door and looks around. Nothing.
The group continues. On the far side of the door is a poster displaying the then-current head of House Cara, gloating over his victory in the duel.
In the center of the shadow there is a large temple surrounded by a field of tallish green grass. There are big towers in the temple, made of a single white stone.
The group circles the temple. Power appears to be flowing upwards from the temple, possibly channeled by priests in the middle. Sethra is asked if she wants to check it out, and sits down and starts a working a ritual. Verra manifests inside Sethra, turns towards Ilkandacian, scolds him at some length, and then leaves, leaving behind some information in Sethra as she does so.
Norton is currently with his fiance and five Jeans, trying to recover Zack's body. Jean is playing with the attacking sharks, to their rather fatal dismay.
Norton modifies a fish so it can survive the pressure change and sends it into the low-pressure bubble surrounding the body. It swims around briefly and isn't destroyed. The group takes that as a good sign, and Norton and Faythe enter the bubble themselves, while Jean continues beating up sharks. After they enter, they can read the inscription on the bier:
"Here lies Zack, once a good man, turned against those who loved him dearly."
It is now apparent that the body is chained to the bier. The situation is analyzed at some length, until Jean notices the approach of Rebman-ish looking people, at which point a decision is made to just gate out magically, taking the corpse with them. When the Jeans entered the bubble, the mattresses-Jeans swelled, not causing any damage, but making him feel somewhat stuffy.
The group gates to the edge of Arden, and doesn't set off any mines in the process. Faythe seems intrigued with Arden. They Logrus-pull through the blocks around Amber to Chaos, and are stopped at the wall of Pattern surrounding House Cara. Osric notices the group arrive, and, remembering their mission, sends Zack downstairs for food. Norton and company walk up the wall onto the roof, where Norton fixes the damage to Zack's body, makes it undead, and covers it over with a white sheet. When he is done working, he adds stability to his own brain, and helps Faythe continue to heal herself.
Faythe is introduced to Osric, and Jean, Faythe, Norton, Ilk, and Osric chat. The Suhuy ghost is resting in a barcalounger beneath an umbrella with a wine cooler resting nearby. Zack returns, and is introduced to Faythe. The conversation continues.
The Ilk in Zack observes Norton, Faythe, and the Jeans, and knowing their quest, wakes the Norton in "Zack". Norton in Norton's head tosses a sack over the head of Zack in Norton's head and Ilk in Norton's head beats Zack in Norton's head about the head and shoulders with a stick until he stops moving.
Zack starts twitching and is starting to look like Norton.
Norton throws Zack into his own body, finishes taking over his body, and then proceeds to dress Zack in the clothing he was wearing, gives him all of the stuff that he was carrying, places the bowl of popcorn in Zack's hands, strategically scatters a handful of popcorn nearby, and places a bar of soap at Zack's feet.
Zack wakes up, looks around, spots the soap, apologizes for slipping, and proceeds to hand out popcorn.
[Zack has no knowledge of his death or subsequent revivification - he saw Benedict, was trumped out at the last second by Celeste, and then slipped on a bar of soap at House Cara]
Nortons pop another head for Ilks, and a conversation happens between Norton, an Ilk head, Norton, an Ilk head, Zack, Osric, Faythe, and Jean.
The Norton with the Vlad torso and staple remover, Faythe, and five Jeans go off to join up with Grand Tour, which is currently being led by a Jean and listening to trees tell stories.
["Who did we leave in charge of Grand Tour?" "Me."]
The other Norton grows leathery bat wings and heads off the roof. When he leaves the influence of the Pattern, he is still sane. Ilk contacts Ilk for an update via Logrus, and Norton is still sane. Norton is pleased and amazed.
[The GM is a liar]
Random and his flying barcalounger encounter Norton. Drugs and mental hospitals are discussed. Norton gives Random his card. Random mentions that he would like to have a secure conversation, and Mandor wards the group. Ilk notices that they are now in a private shadow. Random relays Neville's offer for a meeting, and Norton and Ilk agree to meet Neville. The private world dissolves, and the group heads back to Random's place. Mandor complains that his shadow didn't work correctly - the atmosphere wasn't self-replenishing.
Neanderthal Jean has now reached the center of the Primal Pattern, and looks identical to Jean prime. Dworkin hands him a frog. "Good kid." Dworkin lifts his hat to illustrate that he, also, has a frog under his Jester's cap. Jean puts the frog under his hat. Dworkin says that these are the frogs that walked the Pattern, so they might as well see the world.
Dworkin links arms with Jean and they disappear, reappearing in Dworkin's practice room. There are no doors in the walls, but there are all kinds of jester equipment - juggling balls, flaming knives, tightropes, balance beams, and so on. As they practice, Jean's aim and coordination are improving in Helgram. His tactics are getting somewhat bizarre and sometimes involve juggling balls, knock-knock jokes, and fish.
Ilk and Suhuy try to find a way out of primal Kolvir. Suhuy starts picking the lock on the door to Dworkin's cave. "I haven't had to do this by hand in years!" Ilk looks around, then spends a while whacking at the edge of reality with a stick yanked off a tree next to the Pattern. After a while, he gives up and hides from the Pattern in the shade of a tree, working on the stick.
Ilk asks Norton on their way to the next Grand Tour stop chat about building something to eat fish and exude magic, to reverse the effect of the fish. Norton isn't sure how to do it, or for that matter, how he made the fish in the first place. Insanity does seem to have its advantages...
Ilk creates a ways across the life-eating grass.
The same Dzurlord as was first sent into the shadow, is again sent, by Cassandra to check it out. He draws the same pitiful little blade, steps across the way, waves his knife around a bit, then scrapes the side of the temple with it, and some dust is created. He saves it in a twist of cloth, and comes back and tells everyone that it's OK.
Sethra sets up a magical circle and starts working. The group goes into the temple to investigate. Ilk keeps the dust back, but the shadow is still trying to change their forms, and Jean's puppet is getting taller and growing wings. Jean steps back across the ways temporarily, and someone damps the changes in his puppet.
In the center of the shadow is a white statue standing on a big obsideon block. Cassandra tries to use the force to channel power from the statue to someplace harmless. She disappears, along with two of her bodyguards.
Cassandra is in a small green cage. The bars are only a few inches apart. She recognizes the cage - she had tried to help get Auricle's toy out of one like it. She tries to trump Ilk, and fails. Corwin - fails. She flips through her deck, and all of her trumps don't connect.
Celeste is trying to trump Cassandra. Jean has a sense of forboding and tries to warn Celeste to stop what she's doing. Ilk falls over. Jean notices that the link between REN, Ilk, and himself was moved, that REN also fell over, and that Celeste has the far end of the link now. The Jeans starts frantically trying to ramp up their power levels.
Cassandra is getting a weak trump call. It's Celeste. "Take ... my ... hand ... now ..." Cassandra does so, and is next to Celeste.
The group decides to flee. Jean grabs Ilk, and Norton grabs Sethra. The yeti is moving close to Atalanta speeds. The group runs like sallies.
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