Notes Taken by Samantha and Alastair Beadle.
Everyone turns to face the six riders who have just appeared out of nowhere on the darkening moorland. They are wearing black plate armour chased with ornate silver designs. Their faces are hidden by their helmets. Their horses are thin, angular and evil-looking steeds whose feet have claws, not hooves, and whose teeth are those of a carnivore. In colour they are black, with a dark silver metallic sheen, glittering solid black eyes and silvery claws and teeth. The riders are visibly armed with swords and crossbows.
Godofos and Jihx both trigger the transition that changes their ring and pendant jewel respectively into their swords, and Jihx trigger the activation of his armour and shield, too.
Jihx fires a warning shot from his sword, blasting a rock to pieces. This doesn't exactly have the desired effect, as all the six riders fire their cross bows at him. He dodges, but the riders really are very fast, if not quite up to his standard. Three bolts hit him, penetrating his armour. He falls from his horse. Godofos leaps from his horse and runs towards the riders. Caitlin, a crossbow in each hand, fires at two separate riders. Etienne prays to God for a pillar of fire, at the same time noticing that the magic here is quite similar to that on the Enchanted Earth.
Caitlin's crossbow bolts hit one rider, knocking them off their horse, but the other one knocks the bolt from the air with their sword. They look very fast.
Godofos reaches the nearest rider and hacks deep into one of its forelegs with his sword (though he doesn't manage to hack its leg right off, as he might do with a normal horse). The horse hisses in pain and is not impressed. Its rider throws a dagger at Godofos.
Etienne's pillar of fire burns down out of the sky. The horse and rider try to dodge, but the horse just seems too slow. The rider jumps off, just in time, as the fire-bolt burns the horse to ashes.
Arun, on his horse, goes invisible and turns into dragon form.
A rider produces a lance, as if from nowhere, and charges Jihx. Jihx blasts him with his sword and although he tries to duck round the side of his horse, the blast grazes his shoulder and knocks him off his horse. But the horse keeps right on coming!
Caitlin pulls another loaded crossbow out of her capacious saddlebags (she wants a loaded magical pistol, but there's only so much Probability Manipulation can do, so crossbows she gets) and fires at one of the riders who is heading to assist the one Godofos is attacking. The bolt takes right in the forehead (fortunately for him, he's wearing a helmet!). His swing misses Godofos by miles as a result, and he's knocked off his horse to the ground.
Godofos grabs the remaining good foreleg of the already-crippled horse in front of him, and twists it outward. The horse shrieks and collapses to the ground. It is not entirely out though, and bites Godofos on the way down, in the leg, through his armour. Ouch! As he looks down at the horse and moves away, Godofos notices the cut on its other foreleg is bleeding moonlight. As the horse goes down, its rider tumbles off, but quickly rolls to his feet.
Etienne commands Electra into the air. Electra flies up.
Arun (who is now an invisible dragon) flies up from his horse and breathes a bolt of sun-fire on one of the attackers, burning a hole in his chest. He falls off his horse.
The faster rider (Moonrider, as it appears this is what the attackers are) shouts something. Arun and Etienne feel a burst of some kind magic they think is probably a Power Word, and Arun abruptly become visible in mid-air.
The horse whose rider Jihx blasted off attacks Jihx.
A third Moonrider moves towards Godofos. As they approach the Moonriders seem to acquire large rectangular shields from somewhere or other. They are black have a vertically divided circle in dark and light grey in the top half, and in the bottom half some kind of symbol, which seems to be different for each one.
Etienne, on Electra, continues to gain height.
The extremely fast, Power Word-using Moonrider produces two crossbows and fires, one at Arun, one at Caitlin. Arun takes the bolt in the throat and tumbles from the air. As the bolt approaches, Caitlin tumbles off her horse, and behind it for cover. The bolt skims across the top of her head but misses.
Etienne arrives at the altitude she wants. She starts to concentrate upon the Pattern, to manipulate shadow so that there is an abandoned, unstable mine tunnel under the very fast Moonrider, which is going to cave in right about ... now. The ground starts to crumble under that very Moonrider. She continues to manipulate shadow so that wherever the fast Moonrider goes, there is crumbling tunnel under the claws of his horse.
Arun, falling at high speed, regains his senses enough to realise what is happening. He tries to pull up, and just about manages it, landing heavily on the ground. He takes cover then concentrates on shapeshifting the arrow out and closing the wound.
The fast Moonrider starts to fall into the tunnels collapsing under him.
Godofos grabs the shield of one of the Moonriders who is attacking him hand-to-hand and wrestles with it. He picks up one of the two who are attacking him and throws him into the other. They tumble to the ground in a heap.
Jihx shoots the third attacker approaching Godofos. He acquires a large hole in his chest, and falls over.
Etienne thinks that the old mine tunnels the fast Moonrider is falling into are probably filled with explosive gas, that any spark could set off. A spark like ... that one! The hole into which the Moonrider fell erupts in fire and debris and the ground shakes from the force of the explosion. The Moonrider and his horse fly off in different directions.
Godofos takes a running kick at one of the two Moonriders he just threw to the ground. He connects. Something goes 'crack' unpleasantly.
A Moonrider spurs his horse towards Jihx, levelling a crossbow. Jihx and Moonrider fire simultaneously. The Moonrider acquires a large hole burnt through its chest. Jihx is hit by a crossbow bolt in the neck, which penetrates his armour, seemingly without too much difficulty, and buries itself in his neck.
As the fast Moonrider flies through the air on the blast of the explosion, Etienne concentrates a little more. She wants him to land on some sharp rocks. As she can see most of the rocks from up here, he lands in a clump of gorse that appears to have some sharp rocks concealed inside it. At least, there is a loud and unpleasant cracking sound as he hits the ground.
Caitlin pulls two hand axes out of her capacious saddlebags. She throws one at each of the two Moonriders Godofos is fighting. Each one takes an axe between the eyes. They both fall heavily to the ground, bleeding moonlight, which is very visible now that is almost dark. As Caitlin's axe hits one, Godofos also hits him in the stomach with a sword. He bleeds lots of moonlight from there, too.
They were the last Moonriders still standing. Quiet descends on the area.
Etienne flies Electra over the area where the fast Moonrider landed. He seems to have vanished. She fires her arquebus into the undergrowth, but gets no response. Electra flies her back to the others.
Etienne goes over to where Jihx is lying on the ground, bleeding heavily from the throat but still conscious. She prays to God once again, removes the neck parts of his armour (there is a neat cross-shaped hole in the neck-piece where the arrow went through), then pulls the arrow out. Bloody hell, that hurt! Jihx's blood splashes everywhere. A golden glow appears about Etienne's hand and Jihx's body, and his wounds quickly close, the blood slowing and then stopping altogether. Before Jihx has entirely stopped bleeding, Caitlin cups a hand and grabs some of Jihx's blood. With the other hand she takes the crossbow bolt, which has an ornate black metal tip, shaft and flights.
In the background the remaining 'Moon-steeds' are running away. The bodies of most of the Moonriders are melting away into moonlight and shadow. The ones who have axes in their heads are not currently showing any signs of melting away, though.
Caitlin takes her handful of Jihx's blood over to the Pattern-thing on the cliff face. She spreads the blood over part of its design that she can reach.
Godofos finishes off the injured moon-horse whose front legs he crippled. The two Moonriders with axes in their heads are still not melting away, and Godofos suspects that they are in fact still alive. So he kills them, chops off their heads. then they melt away into moonlight and shadow.
The pale golden rock making part of the Pattern-thing on the cliff that Caitlin had spread with Jihx's blood begins to fizz and bubble. A rumble starts from deep in the ground, then fades away. The part of the Pattern-sign on which the blood was spread seems to have gone - melted away deeper into the cliff face. The blood does not seem to have affected the granite around the Pattern-sign.
Jihx, is pretty much recovered by now, but he is all covered in his own blood, and the toga-thing he wears under the armour is soaked in blood too. He deactivates the armour and takes off the toga, leaving him naked in the middle on the moorland. Brrr! Chilly!
Jihx and Arun (still in dragon form, but his throat has healed itself too) take Jihx's bloody toga and go over to the cliff. Arun takes half and flies up to the top of the cliff, while Jihx takes the other half. Together they start using the blood-soaked toga to spread Jihx's blood all over the Pattern-thing. Before too long the pale gold stone making the shape of the Pattern is bubbling and hissing and sinking back into the cliff. A rumbling deep in the rocks starts, and builds. And builds. And builds. There comes a sound of crashing rocks as a cliff not far off to one side collapses. Rocks bounce down all over the place. The shaking gradually dies away to nothing, but more the pattern shape is gone.
Jihx turns from the cliff and using the purple beam from his sword to shatter the remaining obelisks. As he does the first one, Etienne feels the imbalance of forces that happened on Ragasa as obelisks were shattered begin to build up. It dies down as another one is shattered, then build again as a third is destroyed. Jihx has to step back from the cliff quite a way to be able to see the ones up at the top, but they still shatter quite nicely. The forces begin to die away.
While Jihx does this, Godofos finds a rock hammer under a gorse bush, and chips away at an undamaged bit of the Pattern-thing. The thing itself seems very tough and he only chips it very slightly. H is able to chip away some of the granite it is embedded in, though. As he does this he can see that the pale gold stone seems to go back into the rock face further than he's dug so far - it's not just something on the surface. Hmmm. That blows out just chipping out the entire thing, then. He cuts his hand and dabs some of his own blood on it. It hisses and dissolves, with a violent rumbling in the rocks. A couple of pebbles bounce off his head.
Some damage has been done to the Pattern-thing but it is still largely intact.
Etienne has been keeping an eye on things here, and about now she feels the forces producing the line of cold, and the line itself, die away. She announces this to the others. Result! However, the high level of the magic of this shadow radiating from the Pattern-thing remains.
Etienne decides to do something about this. She brings forth the power of God to destroy the magical Pattern-thing. The cloudy skies darken into thunderclouds. Lightning flashes within the clouds, and thunder rumbles over the moorland. Then the Pattern-thing bursts into orange-yellow flame that gradually burns away its substance back into the cliff.
The group back off from the cliff and make camp out on the moor to watch the fire. Etienne makes a camp fire and they open the hamper of food Arun brought through from Vitesse. Everyone eats. Some people keep watch while others just rest. Jihx finds himself a new toga under a gorse bush.
The night crawls past, broken by rumbles, both of thunder from overhead and from within the ground as the Pattern-thing burns away, and rocks fall here and there. Occasional cold rains wash over the moors.
At about midnight Caitlin spots something moving through the darkness. She wakes Jihx, who wakes Arun and Godofos, then wakes Etienne herself. Godofos is not happy and being kicked awake by Jihx, and hits him. Jihx falls on him.
As they watch whatever is approaching, Etienne can tell that they are magical. They are making very little noise as they move through the gorse towards the burning Pattern-thing.
A whispered discussion ensues. It is decided to watch and see what the movements are. Although it is very dark under the clouds, after a minute or two they can make out, by the light of the still-burning Pattern-thing, eight mounted figures riding towards the burning cliff. They look similar to the ones they fought before. They whisper among themselves as they approach, though the group cannot hear what they are whispering.
Arun, in dragon form, leaps into the air and flies over them, hoping the darkness will conceal him as he hasn't yet re-racked his invisibility spell.
The eight riders approach the cliff. Through her ring of far-seeing, Etienne can see that the eight are riding in formation, seven around one in the middle. They come up to the base of the cliff, now with the remains of assorted landslides at its base, and the central figure dismounts, as do two others. They move right up to the cliff face, while the other five remain mounted in a perimeter a little way off. The central figure goes a little way up the biggest landslide.
The group discuss killing this central figure. Through her ring of far-seeing Etienne can see that he looks old - thinner, and a bit shrivelled-looking.
From above the riders, Arun Trumps Etienne. She accepts the call, and he is updated on what's happening. He asks Etienne to co-ordinate the attack when it comes.
Caitlin mounts her horse and gets ready to run after they fire. Jihx mounts his horse. Etienne does likewise and hands Caitlin her arquebus, and she also loads a crossbow with the ornate black crossbow bolt taken from Jihx's neck earlier. Everyone lines up attacks on the assumed leader. Etienne calls down a thunderbolt from the heavens. Arun breathes a sun bolt. Jihx fires a bolt from his sword. Caitlin fires both the black crossbow bolt and the arquebus. Godofos fires two normal crossbow bolts. All at the central figure.
The three energy bolts blast the leader, who falls to the ground. But the three crossbow bolts and the arquebus ball are reflected back before they hit him - at the people who fired them.
Immediately she fires, Caitlin turns and spurs her horse away. Arun turns and flies off. Godofos waits to see what happens. And the two crossbow bolts he fired hit him, one in each forearm. Ouch! Caitlin, riding away, has moved her horse out of the line of fire she just used. Regardless, she feels agony in her back as the black crossbow bolt embeds itself in her back. Just before the explosive arquebus ball from Etienne's gun smashes into her back and explodes. Ouch, ouch, ouch! She falls roughly from her horse to the ground. The horse gallops on.
Four of the seven other riders dismount and run over to their fallen leader, and gather around him. The other three take up active defensive positions, and spot Arun as he flies down towards the ground by one of them.
Jihx fires the bolt from the his sword again. One of the four figures around the leader falls over.
Godofos bites off the flight ends of both the crossbow bolts through his forearms, and pulls them through. Then he quickly finds some clean bandages in a bag under a gorse bush and binds up his wounds.
Caitlin lies on the ground, bleeding heavily.
Etienne summons a fiery column from the sky, directed at the group of four figures by the leader. As the column descends, the targets vanish in the purple rainbow of a Trump. The column of fire smashes into where they just were.
Jihx blasts one of the three riders who formed a perimeter around the cliff with his sword and who have now grouped together. They fall over. Godofos runs into hand to hand range, sword at the ready.
Jihx goes to fire again, but suddenly feels incredibly sleepy, and slumps in his saddle, asleep. His sword slips from his hand, but is caught by its lanyard and dangles from his wrist.
Godofos slashes at one of the Moonriders, wounding cutting him down. He and the remaining Moonriders move back.
Jihx wakes up to a pain in one foot. His horse has bitten him on the foot, to wake him up. He pulls his sword back into his hand, and fires at the remaining Moonriders. Then notices the Godofos is right in front of them. The blast passes through Godofos' arm and hits one of the Moonriders. Ouch again! The Moonrider falls over, but Godofos is still standing.
The remaining Moonrider backs off, on the defensive. Godofos stomps after him.
Arun fires another sun-bolt at the last Moonrider, and he dies horribly.
Everything calms down, leaving only the sound of the burning Pattern-thing.
Electra and Etienne approach the burning Pattern-thing. A fair amount of it still remains, so she casts the anti-magical spell again to accelerate its destruction. The burning increases. She then calls upon God to provide another Angel to guard the Pattern-thing and tell her if it burns out, or if it is mended by anyone. The Angel materialises. This one is named Uxor. Etienne gives it its orders. It nods and flies up.
Jihx rides up. Godofos is not at all happy with him for shooting him earlier, and swings at Jihx, missing by millimetres as Jihx backs off. Godofos pulls out Jihx's Trump and concentrates on it to attack him mentally. Unfortunately, Jihx resists. Godofos gives up and sulks.
Arun pulls out his Trump of Caitlin and concentrates on it. Not too far off, Caitlin, still bleeding heavily, feels the Trump link coming on, and resists it. Arun gives up.
Etienne opens the Trump link to the Amber Castle courtyard. Electra, Arun and Jihx all pass through. Etienne drops the link and magically heals Godofos. Then she Trumps Amber again and the two of them go through to the courtyard. Upon arrival she pulls out her Trump of Caitlin and concentrates upon it. Caitlin resists this one, too, so Etienne gives up and drops the link.
Elsewhere on the field, Caitlin comes to a decision. She pulls out her Trump of her cave on Derris and concentrates on it. It is much harder work than usual due to her blood loss. Eventually she gets through, and crawls through the Trump link. As she arrives she nearly faints from exhaustion, but keeps hold of consciousness with sheer willpower. She picks up some bandages (of which she has some in the cave), then pulls the crossbow bolt out of her back (OUCH!) and hastily ties on a bandage as she feels consciousness slipping away. Out she goes.
Etienne wants to check on the burning Pattern-thing again. She tells everyone else this, then Trumps to Vitesse with Electra. Arun goes with her. From the courtyard of the auberge there, Etienne flies off towards its location on Electra.
Back in Amber, Jihx also wants to find out where Caitlin is, as she's not answering her Trump. He asks a servant for a bloodhound, and is lead to the offices of the Castle Guard. Once there, he tells them what he wants, and after a little while, a guard comes in leading (and struggling with) a big steel-grey wolf-like dog, on a leash of heavy chain. "There you go sir," he says. "One of Prince Julian's stormhounds. Best trackers we've got." Jihx goes off with the stormhound.
Godofos asks a servant about the line of cold that was coming from Ragasa. He is told that it is still there, but the line next to it to the south has gone.
Jihx takes the stormhound off to wait for Etienne to call. He gets it some food and it eats, then sleeps.
After a while, Etienne arrives at the still-burning Pattern-thing. She stops about half a mile away and Trumps Jihx.
Jihx has gone into one of the castle gardens and is playing 'fetch' with the stormhound using a big branch. He feels a Trump call coming on, and accepts it. It's Etienne, who tells him she's reached the burning Pattern-thing. He and the stormhound go through to Etienne. Upon arrival, Jihx pulls out his Trump of Godofos, to bring him here too.
In Amber, Godofos feels a Trump call coming on. He identifies it as Jihx and, having just mastered the art of using his own Trump to defend his mind against outside influences, uses his own Trump to help him resist the call. Jihx feels his call being resisted, and pushes it, trying to force the contact. But he fails, and gives up.
Etienne Trumps Arun, and brings him through to where she is. Then she Trumps to Vitesse, effectively swapping places. Upon arrival in Vitesse, Etienne is greeted by the innkeeper, and goes to bed to rest.
Once Jihx gives up, Godofos Trumps him. Jihx takes the call, sees it's Godofos, and brings him through. "Very funny," says Jihx, stroppily. Godofos grins smugly.
By the burning Pattern-thing, Godofos, Jihx and Arun go to where they camped, then to where Caitlin rode off from, not far off. A little way on there is a big pool of blood, mostly soaked into the ground. Jihx asks the stormhound to track Caitlin from here. It sniffs at the blood, sniffs around, then sits down, clearly not finding a path.
On Derris, Caitlin wakes up, feeling wasted. She pulls out her Trump of the Amber Castle courtyard and concentrates on it. Again, it's very hard work, but before too long, the link opens up, and she almost falls through it. Servants rush up and help her off to the castle infirmary.
Having had no luck tracking Caitlin from here, the others decide to see if Caitlin is in Derris. Not that they know where he cave is, or anything. Jihx pulls out his Trump of a fortress on Ahnel, concentrates on it, and once the link is open, passes everyone and their horses through before going through himself.
Jihx is greeted by the Ahnelians there, then he and the others ride out of the fortress towards the gate to Derris. As they go, he can't help noticing that it's quite cold here, certainly colder than it should be. The cold gets worse the closer they get to the gateway.
They pass through the shimmering silver gateway into Derris. It should be steaming tropical jungle here, around the ancient temple complex containing the gate, but in fact it's frosty there, too, and the jungle is wilted and dying all around. Bad!
Jihx has the stormhound sniff around for Caitlin's trail, but again the hound comes up negative.
At this point, Godofos feels a Trump contact coming on. He checks his Trumps, and it's Gerard. Godofos accepts the call. Gerard tells him that Caitlin has appeared in Amber, badly hurt, and is now in the infirmary. Godofos passes this on to everyone else. Gerard brings everyone through to him in Amber, just outside the infirmary.
They're let in. On a bed in the infirmary, Caitlin is lying on her front, with her back heavily bandaged. Lady Vialle is sitting by her bed and says hello to everyone as they come in.
A few words are exchanged with Caitlin, then Etienne, in Vitesse, is Trumped. She takes the call, and the situation is explained to her. She gets out of bed, then Caitlin is very carefully passed through to her bed, so that her wounds are not jarred. After Caitlin is through the others come through to Etienne and go down to the bar to eat and drink. Etienne casts a healing spell on Caitlin, and her wounds close up. She is pretty tired even so, because of the long-term effects of her wounds, so she gets another room at the inn, and goes to rest. Etienne returns to bed.
Down in the bar, Jihx, Godofos and Arun eat and drink, then retire to bed. Arun is not entirely happy with this, but Godofos 'convinces' him that he should really go to bed now.
Everyone sleeps.
Caitlin wakes up feeling much better. Everyone goes down to breakfast. Caitlin enjoys a good breakfast and once it's over feels back to normal.
After breakfast, Etienne goes outside and walks around for a little while. A pigeon of her desire flies down from the sky, and lands on her arm. She writes a note and ties it to the leg of the pigeon, then sends it off through shadow to see the Angel Uxor at the burning Pattern-thing and report on whether it has entirely burnt away yet.
Godofos, Arun and Jihx return to Amber to find a new line of cold to follow to its source. From a servant they learn that the line of cold from the Pattern-thing has not, as yet, returned...