From sgorton@grey-havens.net Mon Jul 29 18:13:26 2002 Return-path: Envelope-to: dkap@haven.org Delivery-date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 18:13:23 -0400 Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 18:13:26 -0400 (EDT) From: Sam Gorton To: Dave Kern cc: "A Page in the Life of ..." Subject: 3/19/2002 log notes X-Evolution-Source: imap://dkap@mailhost.haven.org/ Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-Id: <1241185244.8438.6.camel@hedgehog.wardrobe.irobot.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 - Jean brings Calla to Neville to discuss free-range Morgantis - The Morgantis are (under GM pressure and with other PC 'help') named - Goliath (the big sword, the Gwen-eater) Stealth Hex Wanderer Stalker (Jean's player has named the other two Hopalong and Cannibal, for reasons which remain obscure even to himself.) - Rainbow explodes, messily, staging his own fiery death to get away from the fudgesickles. Yet more of the fudgesickles are converted to worship Emeril, the god of Bam! - The various watchers disperse, including Shiryu. - A six-legged cat walks to to Jean and walks off. Jean ignores it while looking for anything resembling a shapeshifted Morganti. - Calla is returned to Chaos, in the midst of a slug forest. She is moved from there to the politeness lesson, and thence to House Cara - Jean talks to Snarsht about Neville's knife problem. Snarsht appears at Neville's house - in Amber - Whale Calla back to Amber, near the castle - A Cara-ite walks out of the whale in Amber - apparently he wandered in without anyone noticing. He's leaving burning chunks of himself in his footsteps, but seems too stoned to notice it. Paraphrase - Jean: "Are you vulnerable to pattern?" Cara-ite: "Oh, yeah." The Cara-Ite is persuaded to re-enter the whale, and is returned to Cara, where he staggers off. Jean: "He'll feel that in the morning." - Jean begins to work with the fudgesickles to build a city in Chaos. He plans to sacrifice it to Verra. (Shiryu approves, if not this run, then later.) - Jean and Neville talk to Snarsht about the kittens, their powers, and why the trump doesn't work for them anymore. At this juncture, it becomes evident that Snarsht doesn't shapeshift - he beastmasters himself. By altering his base form, he changes his appearance -and- breaks anything targeted for his old self - including Trump. - This means that the free-range Morganti ("Hex") is basically untraceable, but Neville twigs that it will probably be trying to model itself on Snarsht. - Calla and Jean discuss doing something interesting and constructive. They decide to vacation in the reality of Gwen's laboratory, and be as un-Amberish as possible by actually cleaning things up. - Jean whales Calla to the valley outside of Gwen's laboratory. The remaining Jeans there (in solder bodies in various broken states) are fairly healed, but very hungry. Jean brings in food in both Chaos and Amber styles, for himself and for Calla. He finds that the bodies here favor the Amber-food, so he grumps and brings in more for himselves. - They open the door to the lab complex, and hear the tromping sound of many, many booted feet. The place is definitely compromised. - Jean wishes that he had an army. Belatedly, he realizes that he has one. He contacts the assassins-in-exile and recruits two minutes of them to help him scout and possibly reclaim the laboratory. They are informed, and arm and armor up before they go in. They've been training, vacationing, and sharing -all- of their skills with each other - the fear of Princess Chandra is proving to be an excellent motivator. - Jean swears Calla to secrecy, and whales in the assassins. - The assassins arrive, scout, and deploy. One of them talks with Calla, introduced as a friend of Jean's and someone helping. The least senior assassin is deputized to check her out on weapons; the assassin and Calla are mutually surprised to find someone so competent hanging out with Jean. Calla is better than many, but by no means all, of the assassins. She is familiar with most of their weapons, save several exotics. - The assassins choose to demystify themselves to Calla - apparently in order to fully explain why it is they need such a low profile. They out themselves as runaway former bodyguards of Caelin who lost their charge. "How did you lose _him_?" "Me personally? He disappeared like a soap bubble right in front of me." Calla realizes Caelin's tendency to go first and think second (if at all), and is more sympathetic. - Calla and/or the assassins notice that one of the still-suriving (non-angel, non-hippogriff) statues is moving veeeeeery slooowly. Jean investigates, and is stomped into a flat bloody mess by a statue moving -extremely- quickly. They discuss what just happened (since Jean has to recollection) and the problem recurs. Calla realizes that everything they have said out here has been overheard, which is bad - particularly for the assassins. She also realizes that the statues must not be hooked up to the Laboratory communications system, or else the Jean-bodies in the valley would have been killed or captured by the troops inside the lab itself. (No one ever uses the front door, apparently.) - Calla decides to relocated the crowd away from the nasty statues, which she does not want to have to fight. The assassins ghost in, followed eventually by Jean and Calla. They close the door behind them. - The supply of jeans to ensure a way out is discussed. Three mages's guild members are queued up, but the assassins reveal that some of them can mindwipe, so they are never fished to the Laboratory shadow. (The assassins would have had to have killed them before allowing them back, regardless.) Seven new soldiers are procured from the tail end of a group attacking a room, mindwiped, and turned into Jeans. The room (or something in it) is apparently killing everyone who enters. The soldiers, Jean finds, are convinced they've cornered a major force of the enemy, and is sending in constant reinforcements. The assassins fail to be curious about what the room is actually doing, and suggest leaving the room to do its job. - Jean talks to Querlon about the evil statues, in the form of various mythological creatures. Querlon discusses the situation with Jean, learns that they are affiliated with the enemy who killed his creationists, and that their destruction would damage her abilities. - Querlon asks Jean to ask Shiryu to transport him to the place in question, because he does not think Jean could move him. Querlon also declines Jean's request to observe, stating that he does not believe Jean could survive being in the vicinity of the battle. Shiryu agrees, both with Querlon's opinions and his request. Shiryu describes Querlon as an immovable object. Jean: "In my experience, there's no such thing as an immovable object." Shiryu: "Querlon comes close." - Jean asks Shiryu what the name of the promontory containing the laboratory is. Shiryu is curious why Jean cares, and is apparently satisfied with the reason. ("I'm curious, and I want to know what to call it", I believe.) Shiryu reveals that the name has recently changed, and is now Pride's Folly. Names of promontories change to reflect events; it may rename to Jean's Triumph (which Jean, as a Dancer, considers too high-profile) or Querlon's Stand. - Vanir's Wrath was named after Vanir, who caused a place to shatter into many. Vanir was tate's father (I believe) [One of these two promontories was formerly known as Night's Delight - I believe Pride's Folly, but I am unclear because of how my notes are written.] - Shiryu moves Querlon to Pride's Folly, where he no doubt spits out anti-statue propaganda until he enrages them into attacking him and shattering in the process.