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Cassandra acquires a change of clothing from her father through a trump contact. The group chats for a while, and then Cassandra takes the Dzur army, the Jean army, Cailin, Princess Chandra, and herself across the Barrier. Princess Chandra looks around and decides that this time they should arrive at the Council in style. Cassandra enters the tent to change. Cailin looks up. The sky is outer blue, and the sky is green, and a bird is closing on their position. Cailin asks Princess Chandra about the situation, and they discuss it briefly. Princess Chandra is familiar with the type of bird.
Princess Chandra asks Jean if he is near Paulette or any of her siblings. Jean acts confused.
They discuss dealing with the bird or the bird's rider, but nobody has a crossbow on them.
Jean sends a minute and a half worth of saucers up around the bird. No rider. He tries to tractor where a rider would be, but doesn't latch onto anything.
The bird swoops down, grabs Oberon's standard, and flies off with it. People are unconcerned.
The tent starts to melt. Jean pulls the cards off the table, keeping the hands in order. Everything but the table and the three chairs has melted away.
Princess Chandra looks around and confirms that everyone is ready to depart, then pulls a small silver dagger, touches the dagger to the ground, and inscribes an arch with the dagger, leaving behind a line. The hole is not magical - she just carved a line in the current shadow. Princess Chandra hangs a simple gate spell upon the line.
The travel through the gate. Cailin stays outside the Council chambers with the army of Dzurlords; most of the others enter the chambers.
In the council: Many Jeans, Osric, Neville, Suhuy, Vlad, Gentleman Suhuy, his apprentice, Ilkandacian, Cassandra, Amaranth, and Princess Chandra. The guilds are filing in. Corwin steps in, looks around, is handed a pile of clothing, looks at it, hands over Greyswandir, then proceeds to change, piling his dirty clothing in a corner.
Silver Lyra walks in in her standard form, greets people, asks Jean if he knows where his half sister is, walks to Amaranth, chats with her for a bit, then goes to her chair.
Silver Lyra asks Jean why he called this meeting; Jean explains briefly, then tells Suhuy via the jade dragon that the council is ready.
Things blink, but nobody notices, and then Shiryu appears in his chair next to Ilk's.
The arrangement of the chairs behind the throne:
There is a semi-circle of chairs, with the flat side of the semi-circle against the wall behind the throne. The Time Lord's chair is at the center of the semi-circle. Warlord - Shiryu - Savior of Chaos - Ferethyn - Suhuy
Shiryu stands and looks at the Council.
"I have two options before me. Wipe it all out and start again, or let you attempt to fix it."
Jean in Amber starts asking the guards near the rift in the basement of Amber about the rift.
Cassandra looks around. Corwin appears disbelieving, but Princess Chandra is slightly pale.
Jean asks Celeste about the location on the other side of the rift. His response to her explanation: "Amberites with red necks? I can deal with that."
Celeste reaches over and opens up a limited, shuttered contact with Jean. As she does so, she realizes that Jean is not alone in his mind. Shiryu is in there with him. Jean whispers mentally to Celeste. "Mister Shiryu said that he might have to wipe everything out and start over because of the white statues."
Upon Jean's insistence, Celeste shares with him her impressions of Hillbilly Amber. They include an emaciated Flora carrying around the headless corpse of a young Brand with some tiny bones stuffed down its neck.
Jean decides that is a very broken mom and that she definitely needs help. His help. He sends in the Jeans. Many Jeans scattered throughout Castle Amber head towards the Pattern room.
Shiryu turns to "Suhuy" and asks him to invite his little brother to join them, as this directly effects him. Ilk checks, and spots the largest concentration of Dworkin in Amber Castle. "Suhuy" leaves the council chambers and finds a Jean in Chaos. Jean trumps "Suhuy" to the gates of Amber Castle, from where "Suhuy" can determine that Dworkin is running down the corridor towards him. He asks Jean to trump Dworkin and him back to Chaos. Jean does so, then that saucer heads away from the castle at top speed.
Dworkin runs right through the door of the Council chambers, realizes where he is, and announces, "Fish!" He looks around again and straightens himself up, changing his clothing from a jester's suit into a tuxedo.
He walks up to the edge of the table, puts his hands down, and says, "You might all be wondering why I called you here today. To be honest, so am I. Could someone hand me my notes?"
Dworkin is insane. People try to ignore him.
The Jean that was leaving the castle at top speed suddenly ceased to exist. Being a nice clean death, Jean is nonplussed about the idea of death. Shiryu tries to explain to Jean that what he is experiencing is trimming fingernails, not death.
Snarsht gets up off of Felice's lap, looks at the Norton with a dagger through his head, and looks at the severely shriveled Norton. Felice stands up.
Felice - "Mother"
Celeste - "Felice"
Felice - "What happened?"
Celeste - "What do you last remember?"
Felice - "I was just watching all of the
birds."
Celeste - "You've been kinda asleep for a
while, and now you just woke up."
Celeste watches Felice head towards the bathroom, then turns back towards Snarsht and Norton. Snarsht and the shriveled Norton are gone; the Norton with a dagger through its eye is still there.
Cassandra is getting a trump call. She takes it. It's Celeste.
Snarsht and a very, very thin Norton show up in the council chambers. The table makes room for Snarsht; Norton gingerly makes his way over to Snarsht's side.
Celeste asks Cassandra about dagger disposal. They chat briefly. It becomes apparent that the dagger embedded in Norton's eye is a Morganti.
Celeste reaches out over the god channel. Clarissa is not there, but Verra is. Celeste asks Verra if she would like a Morganti dagger that someone rudely placed into a the eye of a friend.
Celeste voluntarily gates to Verra, and takes a Jean along. Verra is not in the place of the gods. She's in a castle with black walls, black wall sconces, black everything. And no windows.
Verra says that the dagger is still drinking life, and that there is still life there to drink. Which is strange.
Verra does something dramatic and godlike, and they appear near a forge set on blue crystal. A dwarf wanders over. "Yes, my goddess, how can I help you?" Verra tells the dwarf that the dagger is broken. The dwarf examines Norton and the dagger, then yells down a trap door. A number of dwarves pile out of the trap door.
One dwarf gets disgusted, pulls the large hammer off the altar, and golfs the dagger out of Norton's head. Those people in Norton's head notice the dagger disappear, but still can't find any power.
Jean follows the track of the Morganti, but cannot find it. The dwarves drag Norton down the hole. Celeste expresses her desire to have the person back. Verra attempts to do so, is thwarted by a foolish Seroli, and gets annoyed and manifests. The Serioli runs down the hole and returns dragging Norton behind him.
Celeste taps the giant matrix crystal and puts a life shield around Norton. The people in Norton's head notice the power come back on and wake Norton, who puts his body back on and stretches. Celeste and Norton talk about breaking the connection between Norton and the dagger.
Norton dies, the connection to Celeste fails, and the power drops.
Celeste rebuilds the shields, and Norton stands back up again.
Ilk tries to consult the Serpent by thinking at it, and is shocked when it responds in his head.
Ilk relays Shiryu's opening statement to the Serpent.
"Yes. That's why you were promoted."
"Why was I in particular qualified for this particular task?"
"You were not. I needed your master, and the vacancy was intolerable."
Ilk is much relieved at the thought of Suhuy returning, until the Serpent mentions, "Promotions are permanent."
Ilk is turning pale in the back of the Council chambers.
Osric asks Shiryu what needs to be fixed. Shiryu replies, "Fix it. I do not know what is broken, neither do I care. If you do not fix it, I will start over."
Osric questions if anyone has more information about the statues. Cassandra glances at her father, and then relays the story of her last encounter with Gwen.
Neville mentions that he spoke to Ygg recently, and Ygg thinks that he is dying.
Cassandra mentions the mages she encountered in Tremere, who apparently make gates of mist that can cut one off from powers, and they seem to be designed to combat Clarissa or her descendants.
Cassandra talks about experimentation on statues and white dust in Bleys's lab.
Jean mentions the bunnies.
Cassandra mentions that she knows the name of the person behind the statues. Shiryu asks her to approach. She does so, and bows to him. When Cassandra is at the deepest point in her bow, Shiryu puts his hand on her forehead, and she finds that she no longer knows the name, but she knows that it is missing.
"Why did you do that?"
"It was for your protection... Does anyone else know the name?"
Osric gets the same treatment; few others volunteer.
Ilk mentions the sphere of Pattern-gates with the chaos creature in the center.
Vlad mentions the attack currently under progress upon House Cara.
"Suhuy" mentions privately to Shiryu the possessions of Celeste and Brand.
Jean tells Celeste that Shiryu is looking for Clarissa or her descendants.
Celeste makes her apologies to Verra, explaining that she should go to the council chambers in Chaos regarding the white statues. Verra says that she has dealt with one of the statues, and volunteers to come along.
Celeste gates to the Council chambers with Jean and Verra. Celeste notices that Verra cannot seem but to manifest here. The member of the Etiquette Guild bows low to Verra, bows not so low to Celeste, and admits the group.
Lord Rainbow gets up and bows to Verra. "Sister! Come sit by me." Verra bows to the council at large and goes over and sits down by Rainbow. "Brother, it has been such a long time." They grin at each other.
Verra makes her opening remarks, and mentions that she stopped by because we seem to be "...somewhat bothered by these white statues." Shiryu looks somewhat bothered at being sassed.
Celeste gives the entire story of Clarissa, Faythe, and so on.
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