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Recorded for Posterity by Iain Walker.
Session 3.7 Index Session 4.2
The Gap 126 PPF to 130 PPF
It is late summer of the year 130 PPF when we all receive a note from Brand telling us that he has something he wishes to share with us, and asking us to join him in the Blue Sitting Room at lunchtime tomorrow.
The next day, we all turn up at the Blue Sitting Room at the appointed hour.
After a few minutes Random arrives as well. "What's going on?" he asks us. "Has Brand succeeded in some area of his research?"
We admit our ignorance of the exact reason for this meeting too. And we wait.
After half an hour, Brand has not appeared.
Tamarind attempts to Trump him, but fails to get through. From what he can sense the reason could be distance or a barrier. He asks for some help, and Ibrahim and Damien join the contact.
Although not a great deal of help, their assistance is enough to allow Tamarind to determine that Brand seems to be both far away and in a barred location.
"Someone check Brand's rooms," Phoenix suggests. "And maybe we should try one of the other members of the research clique?"
At these words Tamarind goes pale, and uses his mental Trump of Chalice to try and contact her. He cannot get through, for the same reason as with Brand.
He Trumps Dworkin instead. The link quickly opens up. However, when asked, Dworkin tells Tamarind that he has not seen either Brand or Chalice recently.
Random goes off the get the Jewel of Judgement, on the grounds that this might help to locate Chalice, who has attuned to it. Brand, who has not, is less fortunate in this regard.
Ibrahim Trumps away to collect his equipment and, when he has done this, Trumps back to Phoenix.
Then we all step through the Trump link to Dworkin.
He is in a shadow with a greenish-black sky across which sun-bright blue triangles are moving. He, and now we, are on a high rocky pinnacle with a dark sea visible thousands of feet below us.
Tamarind explains the problem to Dworkin, who nods.
"However, I cannot help you at the moment," he claims.
That being so, Phoenix suggests that we go to Brand and Chalice's last known location - Brand's tent by the Abyss.
Everyone agrees with this suggestion, so Tamarind uses his Trump of the tent.
Slowly, the link opens up. He peers through it, and can see that the tent has been ransacked, though as he watches there are no signs of movement visible. He passes this on to the rest of us, and we all step through the link. Dworkin comes with us.
Upon arrival it is instantly clear to all of us that there has been a fight here, and that the place has been searched.
Damien begins examining the ground, fumbling around in the disorientating heat-haze-like visual distortion until he locates Wilkes and Dashwood, then examining the ground properly.
Phoenix also searches for clues.
Ibrahim uses the Pattern to try and sense whether the local shadow has been changed since he was here last, or whether there is anything of power lurking in the vicinity.
Tamarind Trumps his sword, Nexus, to him, finds his armour, and then he and Dworkin try Trumping Chalice again.
Damien finds a fine scattering of crystal shards distributed about the ground. They have traces of Empowerment magic on them, which is fading away. They are not the same sort of crystal that the Ordnung was made of, being of mere shadow stuff.
Phoenix tells Ibrahim about this.
Ibrahim, meanwhile, is sensing that there have been no significant changes to shadow, but that there are large quantities of Empowered items about, largely in the tent.
From his examination of the scene, Damien concludes that there was a fight between two reasonably large groups here, one of them human-sized, the other smaller.
Phoenix finds an unfamiliar scent. Something living, but not something that she has encountered before.
Tamarind and Dworkin still cannot get through to Chalice. She feels nearer, but is definitely somewhere barred to the Trump.
Ibrahim examines the crystal shards, and concludes that they were part of something animated.
Tamarind produces the Soulstone that he still has, and Ibrahim compares it with the shards. After a short examination, he finds that they are not the same. "I think they are the remains of an enchanted defender," he says.
"Could you do your scrying spell?" Phoenix asks Damien.
"Yes, but it will take time," Damien replies.
We enter the remains of the tent.
All of us apart from Tamarind can sense that there is a lot of magic under the bed. Tamarind, in contrast, can sense the power of Trump in an ornate metal dodecahedron on legs lying on its side against one wall. It looks as if its surfaces are made of hinged, folded sheets of metal.
Ibrahim examines the magical thing under the bed. From what he can sense it is a recording device of some kind, but not one made using Brand's style of magic. It is also transmitting at the moment ... but by broadcast, rather than a directional beam that we could trace.
He begins to fiddle with the recording device, first to try and stop it recording, receiving or transmitting information, then to try and retrieve any recording it may have made.
From his assessment of the interior of the tent, Damien thinks that about twelve invaders appeared in the bedroom by magical means, and that in response to this Brand activated his crystal defence force from an enchanted ornament that we find on the floor.
Phoenix has determined that Brand and Chalice were indeed both here, each in their own bedroom. She finds a spot or two of blood on Brand's pillow.
Tamarind has gone outside by this point.
Phoenix also goes outside.
Ibrahim finds that the recorder/transmitter is fairly crude, but that he can switch off the receiving aspect of it. Unfortunately it proves not to be quite as crude as he had thought, as switching off the receiver automatically shuts the entire thing down, and releases the pent-up magical energy inside it.
"DUCK!" shouts Ibrahim, thrusting his Pattern sword into the device as it goes critical while trying to retrieve any data he can from it at the last possible moment. Unfortunately using his Pattern sword to disrupt it only speeds the explosion on its way...
BOOM!
Ibrahim is blown up into the air as the flames from the explosion begin to consume the tent.
The explosion flows around Damien, fortuitously shielded by a large metal safe.
Phoenix and Tamarind both throw themselves flat to the ground, Phoenix slipping into demon form as she does so. The flames wash over them both.
Dworkin is just caught up in the explosion.
Damien runs over to where Ibrahim is going to land, fortunately well away from the edge of the Abyss. Phoenix flies after him and catches him before he hits the ground.
Tamarind tries to salvage all that he can from the flames.
Dworkin, badly burned, falls over with a clunk.
Phoenix carefully brings Ibrahim down to the ground. He is semi-conscious, and has had his hair and beard blown and singed off.
Tamarind finds that everything combustible in the tent has been turned to charcoal by the force of the flames. He examines Dworkin and finds that he is unconscious but healing. Then he Trumps Random.
Phoenix quickly uses her Shapeshifting to heal Dworkin's wounds, and he becomes much more aware of the world around him.
"They probably know we're here," he comments. "I wasn't able to grab any data," he continues. "But I think I got a reasonable look at the style of magic involved, and I could probably scry for it."
Meanwhile, Random answers Tamarind's Trump call.
Random agrees to come through with the Jewel, and appears in a purple Trump rainbow. Tamarind explains the situation to him.
The rest of us make our way back over to the smoking remains of the tent.
Random concentrates on the Jewel of Judgement to see if he can locate Chalice. A red glow begins to emanate from it.
After a while, Random relaxes and red glow fades from the Jewel. "She's not far away," Random tells us. "But her Jewel imprint feels oddly fractured."
Tamarind wonders if it is a place severed from the rest of the universe. A shadow pocket. Or somewhere in the Courts. Or both.
Dworkin comes round. Damien hands him his hip flask. He drinks.
We tell Dworkin what has happened. He agrees that Chalice could be in something like one of the sealed realms of the Courts of Chaos.
Random indicates a direction to one side, along the edge of the Abyss, and down, as being where Chalice is. This is not in the same direction as the entrance to the Courts that we are aware of. He tells us that he will go to the Amber fortress by the Abyss and triangulate from there.
"I'm off to have a lie-down," says Dworkin.
Random and Dworkin Trump away separately, leaving us by the remains of Brand's tent.
Phoenix wonders whether we could look in Brand's safe. She thinks she could turn it inside out, thus negating our having to actually break into it.
Damien uses the Pattern to determine that there is actually subtly hidden magic on the safe that is keyed to Brand himself. It is also radiating equally subtle anti-scrying magic, which will scupper any scrying ritual anyone might perform to find out what happened here.
Ibrahim meanwhile uses the Pattern to sense anything of interest, and finds that Brand had set up a magical security perimeter. There are sensors, and a hidden receiver. He digs up this latter, and attempts, very carefully, to view what is recorded on it.
Tamarind tells Phoenix that one way to get to a place in the Abyss is to do a series of Trumps of successive points within it. "Or perhaps you could jump in?" he suggests.
Phoenix considers this, and extends a tentacle down into the Abyss. She finds that the Abyss is dissolving it away. She retracts it.
Instead, Tamarind opens a Trump Gate into the depths of the Abyss and Phoenix sticks the tentacle through it, absorbing matter from the ground here to replenish it as it dissolves. This seems to work, although were Phoenix not cutting off pain signals from the tentacle it would probably hurt like hell.
In the depths of the Abyss Phoenix, looking through eyes of the tip of her tentacle, finds a one hundred metre diameter fractally-carved ring on the face of the cliff. She tells Tamarind, who recognises this as the old gate into the Courts of Chaos.
He joins her mentally and confirms that this is so.
Then Tamarind feels a Trump contact coming on, and identifies it as from Random. He accepts the call, adroitly juggling holding the Trump Gate open, mental contact with Phoenix and this call, all at the same time.
Random tells him that from his triangulation, Chalice seems to be below the old gate to Chaos. "I can't tell anything else," he says. "So I'll return to Amber with the Jewel."
Tamarind nods, and the link goes down.
Meanwhile, Ibrahim is examining Brand's enchanted security recorder. It seems to be magically locked, but Ibrahim finds that there is also a more easily accessible level of recording, apparently for emergency playback in situations like ... well, this one probably.
Ibrahim tells everyone else what he has found, and we gather round. He then carefully triggers the emergency playback feature. A three-dimensional image springs to life above the device.
We see an aerial view of Brand's tent, with occasional flickers of light as if the security device is picking up something intermittent. Then there is a red flash is Brand's quarters. The image zooms inside and a dozen large, black, conventionally-shaped demons appear in the bedroom. They have horns, claws, tails, cloven hooves and so on, and are not unlike some of those we saw in the Courts of Chaos before their mass suicide.
Brand appears to have been asleep, and they club him into unconsciousness before he can react. As they do so half a dozen glittering crystal spikes leap into the air from the enchanted ornament we found earlier. They cut down some of the demons, but as they lose the element of surprise the demons appear to be faster than them, and they are destroyed. The demons appear to be about as fast as Tamarind, and they do not seem to bleed, thus explaining the lack of their blood in Brand's tent.
As the last defensive device is destroyed, Chalice enters the room, sees the demons and reaches for her Trumps. Unfortunately she is also clubbed into unconsciousness before she can do anything more.
Brand and Chalice are grabbed by the demons.
Once this is done, a glass mannequin appears in another flash of magic. It is carrying the booby-trapped recorder-transmitter, which it places under the bed where we found it.
Then they search the place. They take a device that looks like a large handgun or sub-machine gun with an attached wrist support, as well as a second, half-assembled version of the same thing, and some notes. As well as these they take a few other things, components, tools and so on.
They all gather round again, the glass humanoid does something, and they teleport away, with their fallen comrades. The timestamp on the recording suggests that this all took place some four days ago, local time.
"Have we got anything that protects against the Abyss?" Ibrahim asks.
"An interposed Trump Gate might work," Tamarind suggests.
It seems clear that we will be trying to recover Chalice and Brand. That being so, Tamarind takes ten minutes to create a small Trump Trap that can be used to Trump people to him, in case of hostage situations.
While he does this, Ibrahim goes to investigate a gantry visible behind the (former) tent complex and extending out over the Abyss. On the end of the gantry he finds a shed containing a large winch and something like a bathysphere, all powered by some form of Real empowerment.
Phoenix and Damien look through the other tents to see if there are any useful weapons, such as test models of the Abyss Projector guns (as we suspect them to be) using non-Abyss energies.
They find a couple of conventional weapons lockers, and take crossbows from them. They also find some more of the crystal guardian creatures, currently inactive, and gather them up too.
In another tent they find a bulky, partially-assembled prototype of the Abyss Gun. Neither Damien nor Phoenix knows how to put it together, so they just remove some more parts to ensure it stays disassembled. Then they show it to Ibrahim.
After he completes it, Tamarind wonders whether his Trump Trap is actually going to be more effective than just Trumping Chalice or Brand himself.
Phoenix thinks that if she could make Damien invisible and very fast on his feet then a hostage situation would be unlikely to be a problem.
Ibrahim notes that if speed is important, he has boots that can help their wearer run as fast as a car. However, they are magical, and so cannot be relied upon to work everywhere. Or to last in hostile environments.
Damien agrees to let Phoenix modify him as she suggested. She does this thing, and Damien's shape is modified into one with cat-like legs. After a few moments to adjust to these, Damien is now able to run fast enough to keep up with Sebek [that is, at Engine Speed]. "Fear my legs of power!" he comments.
With this done, Tamarind opens another Trump Gate down to the first gate into Chaos and Phoenix extends a tentacle through it and down, heading for the gate that we want. The intention is that once we can see the second gate, Tamarind can do a sketch of it and we can go through.
As her tentacle descends, it dissolves faster and faster, and Phoenix has to absorb more and more air from around us to replenish it, causing quite a strong wind to rush in towards her and around the rest of us.
The lower the tentacle goes, the less and less convinced Tamarind becomes that he will be able to do a Trump of the second ring - it's too far down. By the time the second ring becomes visible it become clear that it is also at a depth that will be pretty fatal to unprotected Amberite human beings. Like us.
Ibrahim suggests that we move the bathysphere over to above the gate and go down in it.
The only problem with this idea is how we will work out the right place to move the bathysphere to. Three good ideas immediately occur:
He also thinks that the Impossigon Power may be the easiest way to open the gate when we get there, although concentrating very hard on it, as we did last time, would probably do the trick here too.
None of our magic-users are sure they know how to adapt their magic to the utterly hostile environment of the Abyss, so we decide to go with Tamarind's plan.
Thus we Trump down to the upper ring, balancing on its fractally-spiked curving surface above the potentially-fatal drop into the Abyss. Once there, we use the power of the Pattern to shift shadow, shuffling back and forth along the ring with the intention of shifting onto the lower ring.
As we do this the Abyss begins to dissolve us away, and as we shift down the view below us becomes filled with static. Phoenix, who, in her demon form, is less affected by the Abyss, tries to heal the damage we are taking as quickly as we take it, but still, we will be in trouble if we do not get out of the Abyss quickly.
Before too long we reach the second, lower, ring. Tamarind, attuned to the Impossigon, concentrates hard on it as we continue to dissolve into the Abyss.
And quite quickly, he feels the entrance activate. The circle of cliff face inside the ring seems to step back, and back, and back, much as the other ring did before.
We quickly step in, out of the Abyss, to the relief of everyone, and progress down the tunnel that has appeared before us.
After a short walk we reach the inner gate, again as before, which, after much concentration and a great deal of non-Euclidean twisting, opens before us.
Passing through the inner gate we find ourselves in a fractally-surfaced tunnel curving away before us. It appears identical to the one through which we entered Chaos before. The inner gate closes behind us.
All of us apart from Tamarind can sense that the magical environment is very variable here, and so unable to support anything other than short duration spells.
Now that we are in, we take stock of our situation.
Some of Ibrahim's magical equipment is in urgent need of attention. Likewise the spells of anyone who has them racked.
Damien and Ibrahim start work on their various magics. Ibrahim in particular works on repairing his magical muskets.
Phoenix offers energy bars around, but otherwise rests.
Tamarind passively scans the Trumps, but finds that none of them are active in here. He cautiously attempts to scry on Chalice's Trump, but cannot sense anything. She seems to still be behind the barrier.
When he has completed his repairs, Damien also hangs a Chain-Shot spell.
Tamarind makes three Trump Trap cards of himself, so that the rest of us can immediately Trump to him should the need arise. Damien suggests making them palm-sized so we can hold them discretely to hand. Tamarind takes this on board. He also makes a Trump Trap of Damien for himself, so that he can Trump troublesome opponents over to him to be dealt with.
When he is done, he hands out the Trump Traps.
Phoenix looks at hers. "What does ... Oh," she says as she finds herself Trumped to next to Tamarind against her will.
After an hour or so we are done, and proceed onwards, following the curving fractal corridor.
Tamarind leads the way, using Impossigon power to help us get where we wish to be, rather than where the tunnel leads by default.
Phoenix mentions that there is faint scent of Brand and Chalice in the tunnel. A good sign.
Tamarind finds that is easier to progress using Impossigon power than by using concentration alone, as we did before.
Phoenix finds herself shifting into her demon form, and so goes with it.
"If we meet a welcoming committee, we should kill them all except the one in charge," Damien suggests. No-one else objects to this plan.
There is a definite Impossigon trail along the tunnel that we are following. This leads to the Path of Madness, again much as before, although those of us attuned to the Impossigon find the going less hard than it was before.
Phoenix, unprotected by any such attunement, feels the rage induced by the Path more than the rest of us. She shapeshifts her personality and siphons this off to a separate mental Rage Room inside her own head.
The rest of us grumble at each other under our breaths.
Suddenly there is a wrench as we step through a portal and into an irregular kidney-shaped chamber.
Some one hundred creatures are facing us, arrayed across the chamber with military precision. Two of the glass mannequins stand at the rear of the chamber. The creatures between us and them are equally divided between standard-looking demon types, and creatures like jewelled metallic flying conger eels with insect-like mouth-parts.
"We can keep one of the ones at the back," says Damien, and charges, slotting in the Magic of Shadow lynchpin to activate the Militia spell in the musket Ibrahim has lent him.
Ibrahim casts a lightning bolt at some of the flying eels.
Tamarind draws Nexus.
Phoenix turns into her flaming phoenix form and flies towards the mannequins.
"Surrender!" shouts one of the mannequins.
"We accept!" shouts Tamarind in return.
There is possibly a misunderstanding here...
"Forwards!" shouts the mannequin as we show no sign of surrendering to them.
BLAM! The Militia spell in Damien's musket goes off, and musket balls fly across the chamber, knocking down several of the demons, but unfortunately doing little more than denting them.
Some of the eels swim through the air for Phoenix. They are faster than her, but she is more agile.
Tamarind prepares Phoenix's Trump in case of need, and puts his back against the wall by the entrance.
Damien's Legs of Power carry him quickly to the front rank of demons. He enfilades them to one side of him and keeps going towards the glass mannequins, slashing and skewering with Dashwood as required en route.
He quickly finds that the easiest way to get through them is to run over them on top of their heads. At about sixty miles per hour.
Eels swim through the air after him.
Ibrahim lightning bolts a convenient grouping of them. At the same time knives fly from his enchanted bandolier and form a defensive swirl of blades around him.
Phoenix flies around some of the flying eels, and through others, burning them as she does so.
Tamarind pretends to cast a spell, just to keep the demons on their toes. "Flimery-Flummery, hic, haec, hoc, abacadabra..." he chants. Or something like that, anyway...
Demons begin to bunch together in Damien's path, some of them climbing on the shoulders of others to reach him. Eels buzz him, and one slashes him through his armoured clothing. However, Damien is now most of the way towards the mannequins.
Ibrahim lightning bolts handy concentrations of demons and flying eels.
By now Phoenix is close enough to channel fire at a mannequin. It tries to dodge but she is faster than it, and it gets slightly melted.
Damien rushes on, firing the musket at the legs of the mannequins, shattering both legs of one and one leg of the other.
He then stabs Dashwood into the chest of the totally leg-less mannequin, which shatters in pieces, leaving only its head unbroken.
Ibrahim blows up more demons with lightning bolts, then wades in with Chrysanthir.
The demons are well-trained, but Ibrahim has a Pattern Blade and his knives covering his back. The demons burn.
Tamarind charges the first rank of demons, but before he gets to them uses his palm-sized Trump Trap of Damien and appears next to him instead. The demons look confused. Ha, ha.
Phoenix shifts from her phoenix form to her armoured demon form and turns to fight the demons. "The other one's yours," she calls.
"Thank you," says Damien. Heading for the wall at sixty miles an hour, Damien breaks his headlong rush by running up the side of the wall, ascending to the ceiling, then somersaulting back down to the floor, still moving, in a posy martial arts manner. He angles his run up the wall so that he lands by the second glass mannequin.
As he lands, Tamarind appears beside him in a purple Trump rainbow.
Now the three of us are together and Ibrahim is on his own in the midst of the demons.
The remaining glass mannequin has just finished casting a spell.
Damien feels his right hand start to itch. He breaks both of its arms off.
By now Ibrahim is being mobbed, so he glances at his palm-Trump Trap and appears by Tamarind.
Tamarind makes psychic contact with the glass mannequin and mind-locks it.
Damien's hand is now itching horribly, and the itching is spreading.
"Chop it off!" shouts Phoenix, seeing the hand beginning to putrefy...
Damien quickly does this, with Dashwood. Ouch!
Blood begins to spurt, but Phoenix quickly seals the stump, shapeshifting it closed. The hand, now fallen to the ground, rots.
Tamarind uses his mental domination of the glass mannequin to force it unconscious. It slumps.
By now the sheer numbers of demons and eels in this chamber is pressing us.
Damien uses the Pattern to feel around for any portals out of here. He can tell that this chamber seems to be a shadow in its own right, but cannot feel any portals. That being so, and following a shouted plan from Ibrahim, he just shoots the musket with the hard-wired Militia spell into the mass of demons, allowing Ibrahim to stab them while they are off balance.
Phoenix defends Tamarind, who mind-locks an eel so that it ploughs into a wall at seventy miles an hour.
We slowly whittle down the number of demons, taking some minor injuries ourselves as we do so. Damien sprints across the room, using his Legs of Power to great effect, then Tamarind palm Trump Traps to him, and the others do the same to Tamarind, putting us away from the demons, who turn and charge us.
We blast them as they approach.
We repeat this as necessary. It is a long drawn-out fight, but eventually all of the demons and eels are dead. The only survivor is our glass mannequin with one leg and no arms.
With things now being quiet, Phoenix grows Damien a new hand (that's both of them she's done now), heals everyone else, and then sits down to rest, being quite tired after all that.
After a quick breather, Phoenix begins to sniff around the walls for scents that might indicate the presence of an exit.
Tamarind checks the Trumps. Those of Chalice and Brand are no longer behind a discontinuity, but they are still barred.
The rest of us look for other ways out using the Impossigon power.
While doing this, Damien rescues his palm Trump Trap of Tamarind from the bony puddle of putrescence that is the remains of his hand. When he touches the goo his fingers start itching again. Bloody Hell.
Damien quickly touches his hand to the blade of Chrysanthir. This burns the flesh off his itching fingers in a rather painful way, but does seem to stop the magical rot.
Phoenix, unimpressed with this, shapeshifts the flesh back onto Damien's finger bones. She makes it quite clear to Damien that he is not to do that again. He understands.
Ibrahim spends a little time studying the properties of this shadow. He quickly finds that it is very slow - time here runs some fifty times slower than it does in Amber. It also seems to be a shadow you cannot Trump into or out of, though Trump obviously works inside it.
When Ibrahim tells us how slowly time here is passing, we speed up our search for a way out.
We also decide that we probably do not have time to interrogate the glass mannequin. At least, not here.
Eventually Damien finds a way out, and Phoenix confirms this by detecting the scents of Chalice and Brand beside it.
Tamarind says he thinks we should go through, then concentrate on going around any opponents we may find on the other side rather than through them.
Damien agrees with this idea.
As it is contaminated with magical goo, he also asks Ibrahim to use Chrysanthir to destroy his now useless palm Trump Trap. This Ibrahim does.
Tamarind is aghast at this destruction.
Then he concentrates on the way out. With a fair amount of effort, he manages to activate the portal, which wrenches open much like the others, the doorway twisting away and a tunnel opening up beyond it.
Ibrahim slings the remainder of the glass mannequin over his back, and we all go through.
As we go along the tunnel we seem to be stepping through a number of shadow veils. As we go those of us with advanced Pattern skills can sense that time is speeding up in each shadow fragment.
Phoenix can sense Brand and Chalice's scent trail here too. From it she thinks that they woke up at some point along the tunnel.
At the far end of the tunnel time is now flowing some fifty times faster than in Amber, and there is another door. We think this is quite a clever idea, as the massive time-flow differential disadvantages anyone coming in, while providing as much time for the inhabitants to prepare as possible, as one second in the entrance chamber is nearly three-quarters of an hour here.
Ibrahim suggests that we should run away if, when we open this door, everyone on the other side has an Abyss Gun pointed at us. Fair point.
And with that, Tamarind concentrates hard and opens the door.
As it wrenches wide, we go through.
We emerge on the other side into a huge dimly lit chamber, stretching off into blackness. Only Phoenix, with her enhanced senses, can see the far side, which seems to be a mile or so away. The chamber as a whole looks like the inside of a vast stomach.
There are a large number of demons close to where we have emerged. And a big gun, like a larger version of Brand's prototype, mounted on the back of a ten foot tall demon. There are eel creatures hovering in the air, and several of the glass mannequins. Near the glass mannequins are a handful of familiar Chaos beings - a couple of faceless woman, two balls of blade and spike-tipped armoured tentacles, a school of flying iridescent fish-like things with insect mouth-parts, and a couple of giant Siamese cats.
"Amberites, what do you want?" says a voice.
"My daughter and son," replies Tamarind.
"Why?" the voice asks.
We do not deign to answer this.
Some of the glass mannequins confer silently.
The voice seems to have been coming from a group of three glass mannequins, over there.
"We need them to live," says the voice after a moment. "The male makes weapons to fight our enemy," they continue. "The Rurrae."
"If you give up the prisoners we might be able to help," Tamarind tells them. "People who we fight against end up dead, though," he continues. "You don't want to fight against two enemies at the same time," he concludes.
The glass mannequins confer again.
While they do so, Tamarind checks the Trumps again. Chalice still seems to be somewhere barred, but the barring is weaker now.
"We will give you the male," the glass mannequin says after a while. "With the female to follow when the Rurrae is destroyed."
"The other way round, please," Tamarind replies.
They consider this.
"What is the Rurrae?" Ibrahim asks them.
"It is absorbing demons, assimilating them," says one of the glass mannequins. "We do not wish to be assimilated."
Tamarind demands to see the captives.
"We will show you the male," they say.
We reply that that is not acceptable.
"What is the problem with the female?" asks Tamarind, a dangerous tone in his voice.
"There is no problem," reply the glass mannequins. "You simply cannot see her."
We do not buy this. For one thing the glass mannequins seem to be really bad at lying, as they are doing now.
They back down.
"Very well," they admit. "The female has escaped."
While this conversation is occurring, Ibrahim is sensing the local shadow properties.
That being so, Tamarind demands to see Brand now.
"We shall fetch him," says one of the glass mannequins. It lifts into the air and flies off into the darkness in a standing position. Phoenix sees it fly down a tunnel out of the chamber.
"Who are you, and what is your relation to the Courts of Chaos?" Ibrahim asks the glass mannequins.
"We served the Masters," they say. "We are the Ittibya." They indicate the flying eels. "They are the Niochun, and they are the Joseg," they conclude, indicating the conventional-looking demons.
While this conversation takes place, Tamarind concentrates on his mental Trump of Chalice. He does not get through, but he does get a scryed impression of Chalice being in blue crystal tunnels, with demons listening to what she is saying. She seems to be in charge, and is wearing rags.
The Trump link seem to be refracting through various shadow paths and fades in and out, and finally away altogether, as she and her demonic associates move on through the tunnels. Tamarind continues trying to make contact, but with no success.
"Had you not though of asking for our help?" Ibrahim asks the glass mannequins.
"You would never help us willingly," they reply. "You caused the Masters to destroy themselves," they continue, accusingly.
"Even if that is true, we did not do the demons any harm," Phoenix points out.
Ibrahim confuses them by drawing out subtle distinctions and comparisons.
Damien asks them about the Rurrae.
"It began far away," says one of the Ittibya. "It grew among the demons. It became larger and larger. It grew in secret until it was too large to die. We saw the male making his weapon. We saw it could destroy the Rurrae. So we took him."
Apparently they had a plan to attack the Rurrae's edge and move from there in to its centre. They tell us that the edge is some distance away.
At this point Phoenix spots figures emerging from the tunnel down which the Ittibya flew off before. They resolve into two flying Ittibya carrying Brand, slumped, between them. She mentions this to everyone else.
Tamarind palms Brand's Trump, in case of need.
The three figures land close by us. Brand's eyes focus on us.
We ask him how he is.
He looks groggy, and rather battered. "They are not treating mw well," he tells us. "But I feel better for seeing you here."
"We accept Brand back in return for helping you against your enemy," Tamarind tells the Ittibya. "And of course, you will help us find the female?"
They quibble about this, but eventually decide to go along with us. However, they insist that two of their number go with us to keep an eye on us.
We do not disagree with this.
Damien hands our Ittibya prisoner over to them. "He got broken," he comments.
A demon takes the Ittibya and lays him on the ground. The school of flying fish move and swarm over the body, obscuring it from sight. The Ittibya moans with pain from inside the school.
The two Ittibya with Brand bring him over to us.
Up close he looks even more starved and beaten up.
We see the flying fish fixing the broken Ittibya by weaving new glass flesh for it. This seems to be a rather painful process.
"I had finished the Abyss Gun when my bedroom was invaded by demons," Brand tells us. He seems rather irked that they managed to get through his defences. "Chalice and I were brought here, where our captors threatened Chalice unless I helped them. I could not Trump away, and did not want to risk tearing the place apart with the Pattern, or harm to Chalice. So I did what they wanted."
We ask him about the Rurrae, but he seems to know no more about it than we do.
"I think it sounds like another gestalt entity," Ibrahim comments.
"It is an amorphous amalgam of all of the demons it has absorbed," one of the Ittibya says. "It tries to force them to be assimilated by attacking their reproduction chambers and food areas."
Tamarind's Trump link with Chalice firms up slightly and he receives another image of her via it.
He mentions this, and with help from Brand, Ibrahim and Damien tries once again to contact her.
After some consideration, the Ittibya reluctantly, and irrelevantly, give their permission for the attempt.
After a good deal of time and effort, Tamarind opens the Trump link to Chalice into full contact. She looks surprised, and relived, and happy, when she sees who it is.
We tell her that we've got Brand and that we've stuck a deal with the locals.
"Do you want to tell your friends to postpone the revolution?" Damien suggests, seeing her demons milling about in the background.
"Good luck," she tells them, and steps through the Trump link to join us.
Tamarind gives her a hug.
"What took you so long?" she says from Tamarind's arms. Then she bursts into tears.
Phoenix weaves Chalice a fluffy robe to cover her rags. She gratefully puts this on.
"The gun is perfectly safe," Brand tells Ibrahim quietly. That is, he's booby-trapped it.
"I found that some of the demons were very susceptible to my Voice power," Chalice tells her father quietly. "I was setting up a power base until I was rescued."
One thing she does not have is her Trumps.
Tamarind demands them back from the Ittibya.
"It will be done," they say.
We question the Ittibya further and establish that the Rurrae can do magic, has the Power (that is, is attuned to the Impossigon), can quickly heal itself, and can shed warriors.
The portable Abyss Guns have been used against it, to good effect. The Ittibya mention that they have a side-effect - 'The Frost' - a burning crystalline substance that collects on the guns as they are fired.
"They do produce raw Order as a by-product," Brand comments.
From all of this, we conclude that the Rurrae really does sound very much like a Chaos version of the Ordnung.
We decide that the best way forward is to go back to Brand's laboratory to fix it up and then build a new, big gun.
Damien asks the Ittibya for Brand's notes.
"You shall have them," they say.
They're so obliging, now that we've spoken to them firmly...
"Have you been bringing in people from outside to do your tax returns?" Damien asks them, alluding to the disappearances in Amber over recent years.
The Ittibya look confused.
"Have any other outsiders been here recently?" Tamarind asks them.
"One male, who looked like a Master," they tell us. "He left into the tunnels."
"Err... Was this before the Rurrae?" asks Tamarind.
"The Rurrae appeared soon after the male left. Into the tunnels," the Ittibya tells us. Uh huh.
We show them our Trumps in the hope of identifying who it was. They quickly recognise the outsider as Merlin. Who none of us have seen for six months and more.
"I hope Merlin wasn't absorbing the Civil Service," Phoenix comments. Then, on thinking about it, realises that there has been at least one disappearance since he vanished. So it's probably not him. Maybe.
Tamarind checks Merlin's Trump, but finds it barred.
Ibrahim suggests that he might try a Trump reading on the Rurrae to see if a similar effect results.
Another Ittibya arrives carrying Chalice's Trumps, which are returned to her. It also has Brand's Trumps and his notes. In fact, everything that had been taken.
Brand wants one of the Abyss Guns back too.
The Ittibya grumble, but comply and hand one back to Brand.
Brand examines it. "The gun separates Order and Chaos within the mechanism," he says proudly. "So it never needs refuelling. It was easier than trying to contain the Abyss or access it directly."
"Is there an easier way out?" we ask the Ittibya as we make ready to go.
"Yes," they reply.
After sufficient prompting from us, they say they will show us.
We are led down another tunnel, and out into the Fractal Vortex. After proceeding along it for a while, we emerge back onto the edge of the Ring on the cliff face in the Abyss, with two Ittibya still in tow.
We start to dissolve. The Ittibya do not.
Brand radiates Pattern desperately.
We shift shadow back up to the other ring, until Tamarind can Trump us all the way back to Brand's tent. This we do, arriving with the two Ittibya still accompanying us.
Brand looks at the remains of his tented encampment and shakes his head. Then he activates something and the tent and everything in it regenerates. He leads us inside and offers all of us tea and cake. Apart from the two Ittibya.
Phoenix, very tired by her exertions, goes to sleep.
"Do you have anything that could block out the corrosive effects of the Abyss?" Ibrahim asks Brand.
"I use the bathysphere," says Brand. "It regenerates its mass via the cable connection to the top."
"How do you survive in the Abyss?" Ibrahim asks the Ittibya.
"We just do," they reply.
Brand, now more relaxed from tea and cake, offers some to the Ittibya.
They take them, looking as puzzled as it is possible for glass mannequins to look. One of them absorbs its cake up its arm, where it swirls into its glassy flesh and begins to disappear, dissolving into it.
Ibrahim sets about fixing his items and spells. Again. Damien does the same with his spells.
Tamarind thinks he should probably pop back to Amber and let people know what has happened.
"How long has it been out here?" Chalice asks. "It felt like months in there."
"For us in Amber, it was a few hours," says Tamarind. "Here by the Abyss it was about four days."
"Wow," she replies. "Can I come back to Amber with you?" she adds.
Tamarind is quite happy with this as a concept, and he Trumps the two of them away to Amber.
Brand also goes to have a bit of a lie down.
In Amber, Tamarind and Chalice Trump into the Arrival Courtyard and are admitted to the Castle in general.
From the Main Courtyard Tamarind Trumps Random.
After a short while Random takes the call. He proves to be in a castle that appears to be out in shadow somewhere.
"The immediate situation has been resolved in a satisfactory manner," Tamarind tells him, not giving out any more details than that as he is operating in ultra-Trump Security mode at the moment.
"Why don't you come through to me and give a full report?" Random suggests. "I see you've got Chalice with you," he adds.
Tamarind bristles at this breach of Trump security, though it is possible anyone spying on the Trumps would see her there anyway. "I'll call you back," he tells Random, and breaks the link, despite Random looking slightly miffed at this.
With the link down, he takes Chalice off to her rooms in Castle Amber.
With her safely installed there, he Trumps Random again and, when he takes the call, goes through to him.
Random proves to be in a shadow illuminated with a reddish-purple light, in an office overlooking a plain on which is a large tented encampment.
Random invites Tamarind to sit, gets him a drink, and asks him what we found.
Tamarind tells him. That old Chaos servitor races are fighting a large amalgam creature, and kidnapped Brand to build weapons for them. Also that Merlin disappeared down there, just before the Rurrae appeared. Tamarind draws comparisons between the Rurrae and the modus operandi of the Ordnung.
Random takes all this on board. "This Rurrae certainly merits further investigation," Random agrees. "Likewise, these surviving demons."
Tamarind mentions the wild fantasy of giant Abyss Guns mounted onto the giant two hundred metre long flying beetles that Ibrahim has been introducing to the armed forces of Amber.
Random takes this under silent consideration.
And with that Tamarind Trumps back to Brand's encampment by the Abyss.
Meanwhile, Damien is questioning the Ittibya about the Rurrae.
The Ittibya - who, it turns out, are named Uljas and Oka - tell him that the Rurrae communicates with them via the creatures that it buds off. It has demanded that they surrender and prepare for assimilation.
Apparently the creatures it can shed vary in size, shape, strength and appearance. Some are as fast as the Niochun (the flying eels). None of them look like Merlin. This does sound more and more like an organic version of the Ordnung.
At this point Tamarind arrives back.
Phoenix wakes up. "Should we work out ways of determining what the Rurrae actually is?" she wonders.
"It would be easy to tell if it's Merlin," Tamarind comments.
"We can likewise tell if it's Anurerishkigal," chips in Ibrahim, indicating the life-force lens he has borrowed from Tristan. "Anurerishkigal farmed the demons before, although not like this. Perhaps it's learned some new tricks."
"The Rurrae might learn from things that it absorbs," notes Phoenix. "If it absorbed Merlin, who was trapped in the Ordnung, maybe it adopted the Ordnung's strategy at second hand." Fair point.
"Also," Phoenix and Damien think at the same time. "Isn't it possible that this is part of a long-term demon life cycle rather than in independent threat?"
We try to work out how the demon races arose.
The Ittibya are not very helpful in this. "We have always been," they claim.
From questioning them further, and trying to take into account how time works in Chaos, we work out that one of the Ittibya is about two hundred and thirty years old. The oldest demon they know of is some seven thousand years old.
From what they say, they also do not know where their organic-seeming habitat comes from. They just live there.
"Could the Rurrae be a cancer of the 'body' of the demon city?" wonders Phoenix.
The Ittibya tell us that the Rurrae seems to absorb demons by basically morphing them together into a single mass, but that each demon continues to exist within it as an independent entity, however warped in shape, rather than them all merging together into a homogenous mass
While this conversation occurs, Phoenix is building a first aid kit out of parts of herself. She is shedding small living patches that are applied to a person in advance and that will move to any injury they suffer and work to fix it, independent of the state of consciousness of the person they may be applied to.
"Shapeshifters don't need to wax," someone comments on this.
When she is done she hands the living first aid patches around. "Sorry, Damien, you can't train them," she comments.
"I want to catch one of the creatures budded off from the Rurrae to examine it," Tamarind says.
At this point Brand re-emerges from his bedroom. "Why don't I give you a demonstration of my Abyss Gun?" he suggests. "Then we can go from there..."
We all think this is interesting, if nothing else.
That being so, Brand Trumps us away to a barren shadow somewhere. We appear on a blasted plain of rock, with no signs of life around us.
As soon as we appear, Damien and Ibrahim can both tell that the fabric of the shadow is damaged here. We can all see small regions of Abyss - three-dimensional night-black areas with swirling, twinkling stars within them - scattered across the landscape and slowly shrinking.
Ibrahim worries about the long-term implications of such weapons.
"It is a bit 'I am become death, destroyer of worlds'," agrees Damien.
Brand produces the Abyss Gun. We can sense that it has magic, Trump, Impossigon power, the lot, in it. He points it as a rock off in the distance and pulls the trigger.
A jet of Abyss, again night-black with swirling, twinkling stars within it, shoots from the barrel of the Gun and strikes the rock, dissolving it away into a sphere of Abyss that hangs in the air where the rock was. A crystalline 'frost' develops on patches of the Abyss Gun, and on its wrist piece.
When Brand stops pulling the trigger, the jet of Abyss remains hanging in the air, slowly diminishing to nothing over the course of minutes. The region of Abyss remains where the rock was.
"The ambient Order nullifies the Abyss eventually," Brand comments. "But the shadow remains damaged."
"Does the crystallised Order react badly with the Abyss?" Ibrahim asks.
"Yes," says Brand. He carefully scrapes some of the 'frost' from the Gun, rolls it into a ball, and tosses it into the pool of Abyss.
BOOM!
We all feel the shock-wave of the explosion ripple through the fabric of shadow itself. It feels bad.
"Can you project Abyss through a Trump Gate?" Tamarind asks.
"No," says Brand. "It would destroy the Gate instantly."
"Does it work in Amber?" asks Ibrahim.
"I am reluctant to find out," replies Brand seriously. "Though I must admit to a temptation to stand on the highest tower in the Castle firing randomly down into the city while laughing insanely..."
"Would it work less well where there is more Order than Chaos in the fabric of the shadow?" wonders Phoenix.
"I think that would probably be so," nods Brand.
The Ittibya watch all of this interestedly.
Phoenix Trumps Ibrahim for a private conversation. "Do we really want to talk about this in front of them?" she asks when he takes the call.
"As long as they don't believe it'll work in Amber," says Ibrahim after considering this. They drop the link.
"This is why we want the weapon," says one of the Ittibya, indicating the blasted landscape.
From what they say the collective mind of the Rurrae is too powerful for them to tackle. They have tried poisoning it, but doing so only damages parts of it, not the whole entity.
Phoenix casts a Significant Look at Ibrahim. They had, after all, been working on adaptive shapeshifting toxins not too long ago...
"Is the Rurrae really susceptible to the Abyss?" Tamarind asks. "You don't seem to mind it."
"The Rurrae is susceptible," they reply. "Not all demons can survive the Abyss."
"It arose in the oldest powers of the tunnels," they continue. "The Typor and the Umastet are the demons who lived there. The area was not particularly important."
"Can we have a guide to take us as close to this place as possible?" asks Tamarind.
"This can be arranged," reply the Ittibya.
"Do we need to stay here?" asks Phoenix. "It's freaky."
"Probably not," says Ibrahim.
Tamarind scrapes some discarded shards of the Order 'frost' into a rusty tin that he finds behind a rock. He sees that the shards and the tin are slowly dissolving one another in a mutual fashion. He decides against trying to take pure Order down into the Abyss.
"What powers does the Rurrae have?" he asks the Ittibya.
"It has used magic, but not the Power," says the Ittibya. "It invades our realms through existing paths."
We consider that we could just block those and isolate the problem.
"Let's go and have a look at it then," Damien suggests.
No-one disagrees with this idea, so Brand pulls out a Trump.
We ask whether the Ittibya have any Trumps.
Uljas and Oka say that they recognise Trump as one of the powers of the Masters, but that they do not have the power themselves.
We ask them whether any of the Masters still exist in Chaos.
"All of the Masters are gone," they reply.
Brand concentrates on the Trump he pulled out and, with it, we return to his tent.
"How easy would it be to relocate the bathysphere?" Tamarind asks Brand.
"Not easy," he says. "You would need something like Castle Corvallin to do it."
We consider using giant beetles for the job. Briefly. They do not hover very well, which would probably be a problem, and the down-wash from their wings is also considerable.
"What about a magical crane, with the cable being a conduit for Trump?" asks Ibrahim.
Tamarind thinks this is not a workable idea, to say the least. "But we could just go down in the bathysphere, the demons could leave and open the gate, then we could pile out after them. The bathysphere could then be sent back up..."
"But not re-summoned..." chips in Brand.
"Why are you all so concerned about avoiding what is basically cosmetic damage?" Phoenix wonders.
Damien is inclined to agree with this point. And after a moment, so does everyone else.
That being so, we stock up on food and set off.
Brand remains behind in his tent to build big guns, watched by Oka. Uljas accompanies us.
Tamarind gets out his Trump of the upper gate.
"Can you go ahead and open the lower gate ready for us?" Ibrahim asks Uljas.
"Yes," replies Uljas.
Damien checks that the old realms behind the upper gate do not connect with the demon realms behind the lower one. Uljas claims that they do not. No way through there then...
Uljas teleports off to open the lower gate ready for us.
We give him a few seconds, then Trump through to the ring of the upper gate.
Once we are there, Tamarind warns us that the hilt of his sword is Trump Trapped, and will zap anyone who touches it straight to the Arrival Courtyard in Castle Amber.
We note this.
From the upper gate, we shift shadow down to the lower gate, as before, and quickly dive into the open gate. We are a little singed by the Abyss, but Phoenix keeps us all intact.
Once inside, Uljas leads us into the Fractal Vortex, through it, and so into the kidney-shaped chamber in which we first arrived. It has been cleared of the bodies of the demons we fought here.
Given the very slow rate of time flow here, we make our way across this chamber as quickly as possible, out of the other portal and down the tunnel there, ending up in the large, fast-time, stomach-shaped chamber.
We emerge to see a guard of some fifty demons waiting for us along with two Ittibya. We sense the latter communicating silently with Uljas, although we cannot tell what is being 'said'.
As the silent communication ends, Uljas tells us that it has been updated as to the whereabouts of the Rurrae. There are apparently four paths that would need to be sealed to isolate it.
We consider this. Ibrahim spends a while fixing his spells and items (again). Damien likewise spends some time fixing his spells. Phoenix stores a couple of spells from scratch.
While they do this, Tamarind draws a couple of Trumps of this stomach-shaped chamber. He then makes some minor modifications to his mental Trumps, and adds two mental Trump Traps that can instantly take him to Phoenix or Ibrahim should he so wish. With that done, he scans the Trumps, finding that none of them are active in this place.
As we complete our various tasks, Phoenix notices that Uljas is doing something magical. "What are you doing?" Phoenix asks it.
"Storing spells," it replies.
"Thank you."
"Lay on, McDuff," Damien tells Uljas.
Although not seeming to understand the reference, Uljas leads us off.
We are led across the stomach-shaped chamber, then through intestine-like tunnels and orifices, passing through a number of shadow veils as we do so.
Ibrahim and Damien pay attention to the changing properties of shadow as they go.
Ibrahim also examines the walls of the place through the life-force lens. He finds that despite their organic appearance they are in fact dead matter. He also finds that Uljas has some ten percent of the life-force of a young member of the Royal Family of Amber.
After a few hours of trekking, we begin to encounter more demons.
"This is the defensive perimeter," Uljas tells us.
Before long, the way ahead is blocked by a barricade. Beyond it the tunnel narrows, then widens out again to the same size as it is here. Also beyond the barricade are a few piles of putrescent patchwork flesh.
Uljas has a mental word with the demons on duty here.
"Yes, as you were," says Damien. He is ignored.
"How were the dead bits killed?" Phoenix asks.
"Magic and physical combat," Uljas tells her. "It has withdrawn now, but still lurks just out of sight."
"There is a shadow barrier about one hundred yards ahead," Uljas adds.
Tamarind checks Merlin's Trump. He finds that it is still somewhat barred, but he also seems to be unconscious. Based on this he concludes that the Rurrae is probably not Merlin as such. He informs the rest of us of this.
"Just as long as we don't have to do what we did to the real Caine," comments Damien.
We quickly debate how to seal this path.
Ibrahim thinks that the Impossigon power, which made these paths, might be the best way to un-make them. He considers this further, then concludes that conditions differed when the paths were made. Since then the creation of the Pattern has weakened the Power so much that it is no longer capable of undoing what it was used to create when it was more powerful.
"How long does it take the Rurrae to tunnel through physical blockages?" Damien asks Uljas.
"Not long," is the reply. "However, using the Abyss Gun tends to form an effective barrier in its own right."
Phoenix climbs over the barricade to examine the fallen lumps of Rurrae. She wants to know how the various demons were stuck together. What, in short, is the glue? Because she thinks, with a great deal of justification, that dissolving the Rurrae back into its component parts might help...
From her examination of the bits, the demons seem to have been stuck together by a primitive form of shapeshifting. She thinks that a toxin might help to counteract this. Certainly the different parts are beginning to separate after death. Phoenix can also sense that the controlling link was probably psychic rather than physical.
Ibrahim peers at the bits of Rurrae through the life-force lens, and discovers that these parts are life-force-less. That is, dead.
We all join Phoenix beyond the barricade and proceed from there down the tunnel. Uljas accompanies us, but stays at the back.
As we go off, the Big Abyss Gun (with Brand's 'safety features') is being brought up on demon-back.
We pass through the shadow veil further down the tunnel. Then through another.
Tamarind checks the Trumps again, and finds that Merlin is in this shadow!
Ahead of us, the tunnel bears to the left. All of us can sense that there is a presence further down it. Phoenix smells an array of demon-like scents, and turns into her demon form herself. Then she grows a few darts under her fingernails. Some of them are poisonous; others are probes for gathering information.
Ibrahim pauses to activate his flying knives.
Tamarind adds a few lightning Trump sketches to his sword in case of need.
He then scrys on Merlins' Trump once again. He finds that Merlin is surrounded by flesh. He seems to have been absorbed rather than being the primary absorber. So it would seem that he is not the Rurrae as such.
Tamarind passes this information on to the rest of us. Also, from what he can tell, Merlin is in the same shadow as us, but is not physically close to us. However, he has a plan. "I could create a Trump Gate or Gates around Merlin with the plane of each Gate acting as a blade to cut him out of the mass of other demon-flesh. We could then retrieve him," he suggests.
The rest of us think this is mad, and he should get on with it at once.
At this point a tentacle formed of a patchwork of demon-flesh appears around the corner ahead. It has eyes.
Damien and Phoenix move forward toward it while Tamarind sketches away, and Ibrahim guards Tamarind.
"Like to talk?" Damien asks the tentacle.
New tentacles appear around the corner, and there is a rumbling sound from beyond them. "Prepare to be assimilated," say several demonic voices speaking in perfect harmony.
Phoenix fires darts into the tentacle - her information-gathering probes.
Ibrahim warns us back as he begins casting a spell.
Damien also casts a Hellfire spell towards the Rurrae as he backs off.
Darts launched, Phoenix grows more armour.
Ibrahim finishes slotting the lynchpins of his spell into place, and a concentrated earthquake shakes the tunnel, which abruptly shifts along its natural fault lines, cutting the advancing mass of flesh off from the main body of the Rurrae.
Screaming noises emanate from beyond the cut.
Damien's Hellfire spell blocks most of the rest of the corridor, leaving just enough room for Phoenix's probes to return.
This they do. She analyses what they have found out as she re-absorbs them.
Phoenix also sends Uljas off to check that the Rurrae is not also attacking along the other three routes. He flies away.
By now Tamarind has completed his Trump sketches, and begins to activate as many of them as he can at once. The rest of us provide as much psychic power to assist in this as we can.
With our help, he proves able to open all six at once, forming a code of Trump Gates around Merlin. Once the six Gates overlap, a large cube of flesh is cut out and drops through the bottom Gate and into the corridor beside us.
Then Ibrahim thrusts Chrysanthir through the bottom-most Trump Gate into the Rurrae, apparently causing a great deal of pain to it. There is a moaning and a burning sound from the other side of the Trump Gate. At the same time Chrysanthir is disrupting the Gate, which we think is a good thing. Tamarind shuts down all of the Gates anyway, and silence fills the tunnel.
Phoenix sets about absorbing the non-Merlin parts of the cube of mixed flesh, examining it all as she does so. Ibrahim's animated knives help with the excavation of Merlin. Some of the cube is dripping bloodily. Some is ashy. Some is glassy. It all seems to parts of demons. The glassy part proves to be some of an Ittibya, so Phoenix keeps that for later examination, as she thinks it might help her learn how to survive in the Abyss.
As she examines the various samples of demon flesh, Phoenix finds that the boundaries between the mashed-together components of the Rurrae are really only skin deep. The underlying flesh has been warped in shape, but not changed beyond that. The glue holding it all together seems to be in the epidermal layers, and there Phoenix finds a thin, transparent layer of something like brain tissue.
She separates out a section of this so that Ibrahim can touch it with Chrysanthir.
He does this, and the substance burns down to nothing, indicating that it is at least Chaos in origin.
From our further examination the 'brain layer' has a small amount of psychic power and a little life-force. Phoenix finds that she can psychically overpower it and force it to separate from the parts it is binding together.
Tamarind examines the 'brain layer' sufficiently to obtain a psychic impression from it, which he uses to draw a Trump sketch of it. Which he then uses.
Quite quickly, the Trump link opens up, and Tamarind receives a strange sense of double contact - there is a weak contact to the part of the 'brain layer' we have here, and a much more powerful one elsewhere which really does not want him to close the link.
We quickly notice that Tamarind seems to be having difficulties, so Damien punches him on the chin, bruising his knuckles on Tamarind's helmet, but knocking Tamarind out too. The link is broken.
By now Merlin is free, although still in a very distorted shape.
We take a sample of the 'brain layer' and destroy the rest of it.
At this point Uljas returns, and tells us that the attack was only occurring here.
That being so, we return behind the barricade, where Phoenix analyses her samples and Tamarind regains consciousness and rests.
Damien casts a critical eye over the defences here. He finds them to be totally uninspired, but effective enough.
Ibrahim asks Phoenix to synthesise a stimulant. This she does. Ibrahim injects it into Merlin, while Tamarind keeps a Trump of Merlin to hand.
As Merlin comes round, he flows into a blob and begins to roll away.
Tamarind Trumps him, forcing the contact and bringing him to a standstill. Merlin is conscious, but seems to be panicking again. Deju vu all over again...
"Tamarind? What the hell was that?" comes over the Trump link after a pause. Apparently Merlin is thinking again.
That being so, Tamarind releases him.
Merlin rolls back and shifts into his human form.
We ask him what he knows about all of this.
"I came down here while exploring the old Courts of Chaos," Merlin explains. "I managed to come in here through one of the other gates, but once inside I encountered a huge mass of flesh which overwhelmed me ... and that's all I remember."
"It's hungry and it wants to live," he adds.
"Does it feel threatened?" Tamarind asks him in response to this.
"Yes," says Merlin. "I think it does..."