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Norton's situation is discussed. Celeste interrupts Rainbow and Andron's conversation and fetches Andron to help.
Andron wanders over to the blucite, looks it up and down, taps it a bit, scratches his chin, and makes other body gestures that will not be logged. He concentrates a bit then looks shocked. He looks around, and Jenoir extricates herself from her conversation and joins him. Jenoir sits down and leans back against his legs, seems to achieve a state and becomes somewhat indistinct. Andron stretches out a finger, points it at the heart of the blucite block, and mutters one primal word. After a couple of moments, Andron's head comes down. Norton vibrates the Norton in Celeste's head. "Ouch, that hurt." Suhuy's hackles rose at that word.
Andron is looking down at Jenoir, and she appears to be looking back up at him.
Rainbow wanders over, leans up against the block, and a look of surprise crosses his face. He wanders back to Flora. "Nope. Still can't do it."
Verra comes over, looks at the cluster of people, looks at the blue thing, looks back at the cluster of people, and says, "What is it?"
Jean - "Amber is a lot like Rebma, only forwards and dry."
Caine is mentioned.
"Poor boy didn't count on my brother," says Verra.
Jenoir and Andron suddenly disappear.
Jean asks Imagio if he can find Jenoir and Andron. Imagio claims to be busy, and suggests Jenoir's apprentice.
Amaranth starts flipping through an impressive book of magic.
Ilk goes outside to scan for them. Nothing, but the usual block is present around Andron and Jenoir's place.
Celeste goes outside to scan for them. Her life scan is confused by the environs of Chaos. Celeste gates to Clarissa's tower. Celeste looks for Andron and Jenoir - she gets a blip in Chaos and is then cut off. Celeste looks for Norton - he's in Chaos. Celeste looks for Darkstar - he's over there, right next to a bright power source. Celeste gates to Darkstar. She's standing in the center of a Pattern, one whose lines appear wider than those that she has seen. Gil, Sir Erik and Ingold are also nearby. Ingold says, "Don't worry - I let you in."
"Don't worry - we're preparing for the inevitable." Ingold tells Celeste that they have been preparing for war with the statues, and that they told Cassandra, Merlin, and Corwin to contact them when people were ready.
Celeste tells them that Shiryu has declared that the statue problem will be solved or he will start over. Celeste mostly fills them in on recent events. They seem shocked that Corwin is King in Chaos and that she is in charge of Amber. They wonder if this means that Oberon is actually dead. Corwin is having hysterics in Celeste's head.
"... that stiff necked bastard would want to run everything."
"You don't like your fathers? You are all bad children."
"My father is a bad father."
They refuse to help Celeste on the grounds that they don't want Benedict back, until she demands that they help her free her daughter's fiance.
Darkstar is impressed when he hears that Celeste couldn't trump Norton out of the blucite, and asks if he can try.
Jean gets a trump call from Augral. He wants to take a nap. Jean gets a trump call from Celeste. She asks him to push Norton back out of the council chambers. Celeste ends up with Jean's fish, and trumps him back to give back the fish. Jean complements the fish on its initiative.
Darkstar pulls out a whiteboard and a marker and starts sketching Norton. When he is done, he concentrates and the Pattern dims. There is now a Norton in blucite in the center of the Pattern.
Norton is now Sane. He remembers everything, including his name and that he rebelled against Snarsht. Norton starts freaking out, until Mandor reaches up and pulls a switch and renders Norton unconscious. Norton was in cohoots with someone that was simultaneously rebelling against Suhuy. The one redeeming factor is that he was only a willing cohort, not the originator of the plan.
Amaranth is building a horror by blindly chaining spells together in an attempt to locate Jenoir and Andron. Cailin notices a number of errors in the spell, and starts giving magical advice. He also adds a hook that keeps the spell from going after him.
Ingold takes a swing at the base of the blucite block. The entire block moves.
Darkstar trumps Jenoir, sticks out his hand, and then Jenoir, Andron, and a number of beings with Mages Guild badges step through.
Amaranth releases her spell, which rumbles out of the room.
The conversation in the center of the Pattern continues. They see a thing reach the edge of the Pattern and evaporate.
Amaranth and Cailin build two of the critters, and give the second one orders to watch the first one from a distance.
The people in the center of the Pattern see another thing evaporate on the Pattern and a second thing sit nearby, rumbling.
Cailin opens a gate to that place. Amaranth watches carefully. Amaranth, Cailin, Cassandra, and a couple of Jeans go through the gate. The new arrivals can see the beginning of a very wide Pattern, but cannot see the people at the center.
Cailin sends a ring off to fly over the Pattern. A lightning bolt zaps the ring, Cailin takes damage from the feedback, yetis out, and runs off. Celeste trumps Cassandra. Cassandra is getting a painfully loud and powerful trump call. Corwin and Norton are snide and humorous in Celeste's head. She yells at them.
Jean warns Cassandra that if she goes in that Pattern thing, she should leave her bodyguards behind.
Celeste and Cassandra are snitty at each other; Celeste hangs up in a huff and tells Ingold to trump Cassandra.
Darkstar trumps Cassandra. They chat. Darkstar mentions the knife that Cassandra is wearing, but refuses to tell her anything else.
"There are things that make Old Lords scared?"
Darkstar taunts Cassandra, and tells her to come beat him up. He consults with Ingold on the odds, and they conclude that she can probably walk it. Darkstar hands her some mushrooms.
Cailin is still running in a straight line. He's going through villages, hills, and mountains.
Cassandra asks Jean to tell Princess Chandra and her father that she is taking this crossing, hopefully to acquire an additional weapon, and that she will return and report in if she survives.
Cassandra turns to her bodyguards. "You can't follow me." "No shit." She tells them to guard her things, and if she fails, take her stuff to Corwin and report to Princess Chandra.
Cassandra starts shedding items of power and her regimentals. Darhyse turns into a cat and insists that she go with Cassandra. Cassandra and Darhyse argue, but Darhyse eventually concedes.
Darhyse tells Cassandra that if she dies, she'll make Norton find her - and if Norton doesn't like it, she'll gnaw on Snarsht. Cailin is mentioned. "Can you make him turn into a big bird again?"
Celeste and her head people discuss walking this Pattern. Corwin says that he would have difficulty dragging Celeste along behind him. They say that Celeste's chances of walking it would depend on how the blood lines actually run.
Norton and Corwin try to shoo Celeste out of the center of Ingold's Pattern, in the worry that there might be problems with the green door. Darkstar hands Celeste a special trump of himself. Celeste notices that her trump cards are out of order - they've been shuffled.
Darkstar draws a sketch of the outside of the council chambers for Celeste. She notices that it is very vague - only the concept of a trump sketch. She concentrates on it, and is outside the council chambers.
[Your brain must be at least this big to use this trump]
Cassandra eats the mushroom and becomes very big. She starts walking the Pattern.
A little while later, Norton in bluecite, Andron, Jenoir, and some members of the Mages Guild appear in the council chambers. Norton and Celeste chat mentally. Just before someone taps Celeste on the shoulder, she has a great feeling of unease. It's Caine. He's reporting in. He looks worn. When questioned, he says that he had to destroy a shadow that thought that it was real. He asks Ilk if he is all him - parts of him look newer than others. Ilk reassures him that the effect is known and benign.
Ilk takes Caine into the council chambers, and points him towards the upper gallery. Two of the people there jump him, and he cuts them in half with his Logrus blade. He sighs. "Four thousand years, and this is [?]"
Caine throws a single red rose in Amaranth's direction. Jean intercepts it and hands it to her. "Thank you, Jean."
Osric has stepped up to Norton and starts trying to chip a tunnel through the blucite.
Jenoir and Andron have drawn aside with the mages and are talking in graphic detail. Amaranth is invited over, fails to understand the conversation, and starts socializing.
Cailin is still running, but there is a flash of dark in front of him and then he discovers that he no longer has legs. He's still yeti'd. He tries running on his hands, and then the dark thing takes one of his arms. Cailin tries to cast and becomes a single-winged, no-legged bird. Cailin contacts the other him, and asks for a gate out. Just as Cailin gates out, a black cat dives through the gate as well.
Ilk greets Hunter and skritches him. Cailin tries to regenerate his limbs. Cailin shifts back, and then hurts a lot. Ilk pinches shut the leaking parts with Logrus. Hunter wanders off, bored.
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