![[previous]](gu-prev.gif){kind=small}
![[next]](gu-next.gif){kind=small}
Back to the index.
Tate finishes drawing his trump of the place described to him by Jean, and Mecha-Jean is passed through into a place where he starts squidging many little attacking things.
The room that Cassandra is in is not shaking with Mecha-Jean's footsteps. She works her way to a defensible position and thumbs out her trumps. They're all warm - she's outside the scope of the power with which they are powered. She tries to reach out psionically for Malachai, but cannot push through the psionic chaos around her. On the bright side, she finds that she can feed on the chaos, and does so.
Mecha-Jean is in a different throne room from the one with Cassandra - it's taller, and Cassandra and Darhyse aren't there. A Jean goes over to Pattern Suhuy and asks how to move through shadow with that Pattern thing. Pattern Suhuy wanders over to Tate, activates the trump that Mecha-Jean used, and pulls himself and his apprentice through. Ecto-Ilk and Pattern Suhuy are in a large throne room near Mecha-Jean. There are many people flailing about and trying to stick things through the ghostly folks, who ignore them.
Ilk checks the surrounding shadows for Cassandra. He doesn't find Cassandra, but discovers that he can't go thataway. He starts lobbing people there.
Cassandra notices people flying at her. She avoids them. Jean reports to Ilk. "A little to the left" Ilk shifts his aim, and the people start splatting against a wall.
Jean - "That's Ilk."
Cassandra - "Suck!"
Jean - "No, Ilk's throwing."
Darhyse makes a hole in the wall so they can look for a safe landing area outside the throne room.
Ilk tosses Mecha-Jean through. Mecha-Jean crashes through the back of the throne room at high speed, tries to brake with his foot-rockets, and ends up in a smoking hole in the ground.
They clear the room by killing everyone within it, and then start looking for signs of Malachai. Pinioned under Galantine, above the throne, is a pair of white stone wings.
They wander through a hole behind the throne and find lots of grey mist. Mecha-Jean leads the way, loses all sensor inputs, and jets around for a while. Cassandra follows, tracing along a wall with her hand, and finds a statue and a bunch of grey things sitting around it. One of the grey things is Malachai; she drags him out and has Darhyse stand guard on him outside.
Jean is somewhat irritated when he discovers that Pattern doesn't work in the mist - of course mecha-Jean can't move or sense anything; he's just rock.
They try to get an Ilk into the room to conjure stuff. Eventually, Jean trumps the Savior of Chaos and pulls him through. Ilk appears next to Cassandra and then looks distressed briefly and unravels. People start scooping up Ilk bits and putting them into a helmet. There's not much left.
Cailin asks after Cassandra, and he and Princess Chandra consider going through to help her. Jean warns them that the trump goes to the wrong place, and tells them what happened, sort of. Ilks are annoyed.
Just before Osric goes through the gate to the council chambers, the gate flickers briefly. He goes through it and is standing in a rocky bunker that somewhat matches the description of the place where the group fought the former heads of Helgram. Osric starts creating a gate back to his Fringe gate. He feels that someone or something is paying attention to him. It's vaguely familiar, from his childhood. Probably an old lord. Osric returns to the Fringe gate, and something seems to follow him through the gate. Osric shields himself and gates back to outside the door of the council chambers.
Ilk has Jean tell Suhuy that places are popping up that are warded against the Logrus. Suhuy wants to go off and tell the Serpent, and does so.
The situation is discussed. Osric describes one of his Fringe gates to Jean. Jean looks around, and notices something looking like that drawn in blood on the far wall. Osric and a barca-Jean leave Chaos, enter the Fringe, and go to Osric's control center.
Jean leaves a saucer behind in Osric's control center. Osric sets up an elaborate plan, and steps through the wall with the bloody ring, shielded.
Osric tries to go fishing for Malachai. He notices that his power is stopped by the edge off the grey mist. He walks in, and discovers that he can't even shapeshift in there.
As Cassandra steps through onto the Fringe, dragging Malachai behind her, a little Norton appears on the Fringe. Cassandra and the little Norton chat, and decide that the grey is the exact same color as the grey spheres. Norton's flame is determined to be god flame, and Norton decides that decides that he is a god and starts looking for worshipers. The Ilk in the helmet is determined to be too small to reconstitute.
Osric sends a cable around Mecha-Jean and starts winching him out. When Mecha-Jean leaves the mist, he starts concentrating really hard on getting out, and Mr-Suhuy-Pattern shifts out.
Osric discovers that the barca-Jean is actually comprised of many Jeans, and starts worrying about having left some behind.
Osric prepares to do something, and warns people to leave.
Mr. Suhuy is whispering instructions in Mecha-Jean's ear. Most of the words don't make any sense to Jean.
Osric notices that this statue isn't on a pillar - it becomes wider and wider as it goes farther down. He starts buzz-sawing through the statue.
A discussion ensues regarding rescuing the other statued people, because it might pull people out of grey spheres. Cassandra mentions Gwen priests being hidden as grey statues.
Osric brings the group back to the outside of the council chambers.
Norton tries to god-flame the statue, with little success. He realizes that splitting his body split his soul, and recombines. Somewhat more power, but still not enough.
[Norton - God by marriage!]
Ilk in Norton's head suggests Norton going Ilk to grab Ilk's soul. Norton stalls. Ilk promises to give the body back.
Verra washes fire over Cassandra's arms to cleanse them because they were going numb after carrying the grey statue, and is pointed towards the Malachai statue.
Cassandra - "... my brother, Malachai."
Verra - "That was alive?"
Norton - "And it will be again!"
Verra steals the Orb briefly for a power-up, says that this will be complex, and that she will need to take Malachai home with her.
Ilk nags Norton some more about shifting into Ilk to grab his soul.
Norton goes into the bushes and turns into Ilk.
Ilk remembers lots of pain, sitting blissfully at the right hand of the Serpent, then being yanked back into this mortal coil.
Norton is currently sitting at the right hand of the Serpent. He doesn't feel his brain drifting into insanity. It is very peaceful, as total entropy always is. After a while, he notices near him, an Ilkandacian, a Mandor, and a very calm screaming guy. The Serpent has many eyes, and a few empty eye sockets. Norton can't quite tell if he is sitting by the Serpent's side or is a scale on his back. Norton cannot tell if the Serpent has noticed him or not. Ilk notices that the Serpent has noticed that he has been replaced with a different he. Ilk does the get in touch with his inner Logrus thing.
Back to the index.