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Cassandra and White Company are going down the staircase when they are passed by something at Atalanta's speed, but moving too white to be Atlanta. Cassandra recognizes her apprentice.
[The Sith has a Yeti Knight apprentice?]
[He's not a Yeti, he's a fast honky wookie.]
[White Yeti Can't Jump]
The Master at Arms (I believe) opines that if the Yeti encounters danger ahead, it will simply return at its usual speed. Cassandra can find no fault with this logic, but is curious about the Yeti-triggering event.
Cassandra sends one of the three remaining Dzur to the surface. The Dzur does not return. (Down to two.)
Cassandra sends a White Company scout to the surface. The scout reports a valley full of Gwen statues, and frightened (house-sized) cats. The cats can't fit down the stairwell, and are trying to dig into the side of the mountain.
Cassandra & White Company continue downstairs. They find a dog-leg a short distance down the corridor, with a yeti-shaped hole through what appears to be a rice-paper wall blocking the end of the normal corridor.
Some discussion ensues. Two White Company scouts are dispatched, one down each corridor. The one down the straight corridor returns after tracking the corridor to the end of the rice paper shreds. The wall with the Yeti hole looks like stone from the other side.
The scout sent down the side corridor fails to return.
Cassandra sends a better trained, higher ranking White Company member down the side corridor. They report that the scout encountered a trap just around the corner of the stairs; it appears to be stretching him out rather painfully. The stairs are drinking up the bodily fluids that fall on them.
[The stairs are thirsty.]
Cassandra decides that reinforcements would not be a bad idea. She tries to trump Corwin. That trump is warm.
She tries Darkstar's trump of Corwin. She gets Darkstar. "The trump you have dialed is not in service at this time..."
[Trump forwarding.]
Cassandra and Darkstar chat. Corwin is in council, and not trumpable. Darkstar is at the center of a Pattern, next to Ingold. The eyes aren't red, so the connection is not being eavesdropped upon.
Darkstar offers to bring anyone. Anyone. Cassandra thinks. Ingold is offered, but for some reason holds off until later.
Cassandra requests the Warriors Guild, as their Guild-mistress. Darkstar congratulates her on killing Benedict. Cassandra corrects herself, "Guild second".
Cassandra makes a note to gate the next big nasty thing towards Evil Benedict.
Darkstar requests a signed note from Cassandra with a drop of blood (provided via a bite from Darhyse.)
Darkstar warns Cassandra to duck. She does so. The Warrior's Guild is gated in; they seem to have decided the best way to deal with the problem is to kill Cassandra. They charge straight over Cassandra's head and down the straight staircase, screaming and yelling. Cassandra is not impressed.
The Yeti laps them, still going down. There is some surprise. The Yeti creates a new hole in the rice-paper wall.
Cassandra considers the situation, still at the split. She requests a Norton. Darkstar asks if he's still crazy; Cassandra is unsure.
Norton hears a voice in his head, and not any of the usual ones. There is also a mask behind Norton, claiming to be someone particular, but not convincingly.
Norton and the floating mask agree to help Darkstar. They get pulled through to Cassandra. They discuss the situation, and Norton goes up the staircase to help the surviving cats.
Cassandra requests an Ilk. Darkstar trumps Suhuy and asks permission to borrow Suhuy's apprentice. Suhuy grants his permission, and Darkstar gives Suhuy the location in terms of Logrus coordinates.
Suhuy contacts an Ilk (the one with Neville) and passes along the message. The Savior of Chaos and the Savior of Helgram :) travel via their earlier established transportation method (Ilk tendriing & pulling the ground that Neville is standing on).
Neville, Norton, and Ilk arrive at the top of the stairs at the same time. There are two surviving cats in overhangs they've dug themselves next to the doorway, and various shredded bits of fur are out in the milling mass of statues.
N N & I open up. Neville fires pattern beams from the Frogdalorean armor, and Ilk tries to hit those beams with Logrus. Ilk finds that this place has no direct connection to the Logrus, but he finds that the insane Norton, who doesn't know any better, is a perfectly acceptable source of Logrus energy.
Explosions ensue, along with a few temporary gaps in reality. The statues appear irritated. None are actually blown up, but several take noticeable damage.
Norton examines the cats. He can shrink them, but they'll then not be blocking the carved overhangs, and they'll get shredded. He decides to use some god-fire on the statues to block the overhang while adjusting the cats.
The statues hate the fire. The shrunken, beaten up cats are Logrus-pushed by Norton down to where Cassandra is. The cats whimper. The two surviving Dzur are put to use as cat-carriers.
Ilk considers nuking the entrance and statues clustered about with Primal Chaos, but decides to leave it along on the grounds that it might be their only way out.
The mask butterflies, and reveals itself as Rainbow. Rainbow offers assistance; Cassandra requests it in dealing with the Warriors Guild.
Darkstar gives Cassandra a note from Princess Chandra, giving her permission to kill Gwen. Cassandra is ecstatic.
The Warriors Guild charges down the staircase, and encounters Rainbow. The scouts hold back long enough to ask Rainbow if Cassandra is under his protection. "No", he replies, "I'm under hers."
The Warriors Guild drops its promotion plans and forms up in good line.
Cailin slows down enough to notice turnoffs. The turnoff that he tries causes some strange young girl to faint and spill (or generate) some fluid. He seems to be in her bedroom.
Cailin picks her up and runs with her back to where he hopes Cassandra is.
Norton leaves Ilk and Neville guarding the exit, and pulls himself down to Cassandra.
Norton decides that he wants a Logrus blade, and pulls the nearest one in. Caine holds on to the other end. Ilk in Norton warns Norton what's going on, Norton continues the follow-through. Caine has the situation explained to him; he's not initially respectful of Cassandra's authority, but he's looking forward to the fight.
He capes in Raven to watch his back. Flashy.
The trapped turnoff is checked by the assembled masses. The late scout is disgusting and not meticulously described.
Caine sticks his Logrus blade into the stretching field. The field drops. Caine is in a lot of pain, but only Cassandra (and probably Raven) realize that he's in pain and that he's leaning on Raven.
They come to a door. Mandor pops a head out of Norton and begins to describe the many magical traps on the door. It's a series of nasty ones. Mandor opines that the Enemy herself is on the other side of the door.
Mandor can open the door, but it'll take a sacrifice of someone's lifeblood. A virgin's lifeblood, to be specific. He apologizes for the crudeness.
Cassandra is unclear on the concept of "virgin". It is explained as "someone who has never had impure thoughts". Cassandra excuses herself (and all of White Company) from that description.
Norton attempts to claim virginity, and fails.
Norton Logrus-searches for a virgin and finds one inbound at a high rate of speed. Being carried by Cailin. He pulls them both in.
Cailin realizes he's now at the group, feels safe, and de-Yetis. He loses his limbs and promptly takes another form - a bird with an eleven or twelve foot wingspan. He looks menacingly at the shrunken Sha'um. Cassandra looks menacingly at her student for looking menacingly at the cats.
Someone (Rainbow?) (Mandor?) checks the passed out girl and states her heritage as a cross between Gwen and Brand. This brings her to the top of most people's hit lists.
Norton discovers that this is the only virgin reachable via the Logrus from here.
Mandor is given the go-ahead; he takes a Dzur knife, and makes it as primal as he can. It becomes very real, and made of chipped obsidian.
Mandor asks Cassandra to perform the cutting; Cassandra mentions that she can't kill. Mandor assures her that no actual fatality is required, and the sacrificee can be fixed up after the door is opened.
Norton makes plans to do just that, since he likes Brand.
Cassandra begins the cutting process. The door opens. The Warriors Guild, White Company, the two surviving Dzur, the injured cats, Norton, Cassandra, Rainbow, Caine, Raven, and Cailin go in.
Cailin realizes that he now has access to his magic, shifts back into his own form, and recasts his arm and legs.
Gwen's daughter regains consciousness enough to realize what she's being used for, and in horror moves enough to deliberately kill herself. The door closes behind the group.
Norton grabs her soul for safekeeping. She ends up in the basket-case corner next to Celeste.
The room on the other side seems to be a foyer. The forces mill about and scout the area.
Jean sees his friends walk into a door. He tries to wave, and fails. He realizes he's not in his body. He isn't sure whose body it is.
Jean tries to shapeshift the body, and fails. He tries everything he's ever tried before to shift all of the bodies he's shapeshifted in. At once.
The wall opposite the invasion melts, and Gwen tumbles out, looking discombobulated. Mutual attacks happen.
Her lab is revealed, with a lot of green cages.
Ilk and Neville notice all of the statues turn to dust as all the power invested in them is extracted. Ilk follows the power, bringing Neville. They arrive in the combat.
Ilk spots parts of Vlad in green cages. Neville spots his knife, also in a green cage.
Cailin does magic stuff as required. He drains all the energy he can from the area. He fills up less than a second later.
Jean starts unracking spells inside Gwen's head. She doesn't seem to appreciate that.
[An out-of-character discussion happens about fishing Norton's fish inside of Gwen. Nothing comes of it.]
Jean notifies Corwin that the attack has commenced.
Ilk notices the room getting much more static. It hurts uss, yess, it does. Ilk also noticed that he is at the center of the power that defines an area of reality.
Neville notices a big machine focusing all of its ordered energy toward Gwen. It is apparent that Gwen is possibly the most Real thing in reality at this moment. Neville starts trying to screw with the machine.
Cassandra trumps Darkstar, and requests Ingold and Osric.
Osric gets grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged through a Void-style rip in reality. He shields, and drifts through the void.
The Cailin formerly with him decides that now would be a good time to learn how to navigate on the Fringe, and begins to do so.
Osric drifts out through another rift in reality. He sees Gwen. He unloads. The game hangs.
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