Notes Taken by Samantha and Alastair Beadle.
Etienne and Jihx are in Etienne's slow Enchanted Earth, where Etienne is praying to make another spirit-trapping bottle (for Connor). Before long Etienne realises that a faster but otherwise similar Enchanted Earth would be better for her purposes and goes there (via a short walk along the corridors of the Palace in Rome) to complete her prayers. Jihx tags along. The only difference visible to him is that the guards outside the door are different.
In Amber, Arun looks at piles of lightning-bolted body parts and two buckets of mixed ashes, soil, grass and so on and is not entirely sure what to do about them, particularly the ashes. He searches through the ashes and does find some minuscule amounts of intact DNA - of two Jihx-like people, one male and one female. He takes this DNA and stores it, then uses the female version to start to genetically recreate Nemain from fertile eggs he prepares out of himself. He realises that re-creating Lillian and Gerard will be much easier as there are large parts of them that have not been burned to ashes.
Elsewhere in Amber, Caitlin and Skyrie have some lunch.
Having eaten, Skyrie Trumps off to Vitesse to research 'HIS SPELL' (his anti-God spell, that is).
Caitlin goes off to talk to Vialle, but en-route is intercepted by a messenger, who was coming to find her to ask her to go and see Vialle. Caitlin goes and sees Vialle.
In Vialle's office, Vialle and her secretary are doing paperwork. Vialle asks Caitlin about our progress. Caitlin informs her that Jihx has been retrieved, Nemain's soul has been retrieved and that God is disappointed in our efforts.
Vialle offers to go and tell Moire of the good (well, better) news of Jihx's revival (as yet, no one has told Jihx that Moire had been prematurely informed of the deaths of him and their children).
Caitlin also tells Vialle of the actions of the others, although she has difficulty describing what Skyrie is up to.
In Vitesse, Skyrie can sense the presence of God quite strongly and decides that this is not the best place to conduct his researches into destroying Him. He moves through shadow a little, looking for a similar but less Godly shadow.
After a while he finds one and starts his research in an Inn similar to that on Vitesse.
In the Enchanted Earth, Etienne continues praying over her bottle.
Jihx is loitering nearby, holding the bottle of Nemain close. Jihx manages to psychically communicate with Nemain as her spirit sits in the bottle. She is not happy about Connor being left behind in Hell, but describes how they came to be in Hell:
The two of them were travelling through shadow when a mob from a town (it sounds like the town in Jalku) attacked them. They escaped a little later but were ambushed in a ravine, overwhelmed, apparently by sheer weight of numbers, and knocked out.
They came to tied to stakes in the square where Jihx and Skyrie found their remains. The townspeople, the priest in particular, passed judgement on them and burned them to death (which was not a pleasant experience by her account).
Then they found themselves on a path in a dark, menacing wood, with an archway in front of them. This sounds exactly the same as where Jihx found himself. There were creatures in the woods that were sufficiently menacing that despite their very serious reservations about it they passed through the archway.
Through the archway were mud flats bounded on one side by a river and turning into bare hills on the other. There was no sign of the archway or the forest, but there were invisible biting insects. Groups of people were running about the hills, apparently chasing banners.
There was a ferry across the river, manned by a ferryman named Charon, a tall, wiry old man with a long white beard and eyes like glowing coals. He took them (and various other people) across the river, which he named the River Acheron. Charon hit them with the pole he used to propel the ferry when they asked questions, and they were as weak and slow as shadow people and could not resist.
The ferry dropped them across the river, where there was a winding road between high walls to a magnificently decorated marble palace, without furniture, lit by torches in bronze holders. The walls were covered in Minoan-style (though she does not describe them in such terms) frescos of bulls, dolphins and people. The Palace wound on and on, chamber after chamber, with huge staircases and great pillars inscribed in unreadable languages, until they reached an enormous room open at the far end, giving, through the pillars on that side, a view down over the depths of Hell - an enormous, world-sized bowl, with fire and smoke visible far below. On a throne at the far end, backing onto the view over Hell, sat a Minotaur on a throne - Minos, Judge of the Dead. After talking to them for a little he wrapped his tail around them and sent them off to the plane of Hell where Jihx found them.
A couple of hours pass while Jihx and Nemain talk and Etienne continues to pray.
In Amber, Caitlin leaves the dining room and goes to find Arun.
He is in the Amber Castle Infirmary, sat in front of a table. An umbilical cord from him leads to a transparent tank containing bubbling liquid and a child, connected to the base of the tank by its umbilical cord. These are all, including the tank, part of Arun.
When Caitlin asks him he says that things are going "Swimmingly," and it will only be another hour or so before Nemain's new body is ready. Arun is also secretly making these bodies super fertile, in the same way as he did with Jihx. He and Caitlin wonder if they should put Nemain into the body straight away, to avoid a stray spirit getting in and taking it over before Nemain can. Not that there is much evidence of free-floating spirits in Amber, but it never hurts to be careful.
Caitlin Trumps Jihx to ask him. When things are explained to him, Jihx favours waiting until the body is fully formed.
Out in shadow, Skyrie is concentrating on his new anti-God spell. He begins to realise that it will take a few weeks to perfect - it is, after all, a God-slaying spell!
He considers an alternative plan to force God into a physical avatar that can then be dealt with conventionally.
Not long after the end of Caitlin's Trump call, Jihx receives another. He takes it (the caller does not seem to be giving him much choice in the matter, in fact), and it is Queen Moire.
She says she is pleased to see him alive again. Jihx is upset that she was told that he was dead.
They discuss their children's predicament. Jihx assures her that they will be fine (although he is not actually as convinced as he tries to show) and promises to keep her informed of progress.
Back in Amber, Caitlin stays with Arun and makes 'helpful' suggestions about his work with Nemain.
The staff of the infirmary, and the few patients who are in the same ward as Arun try not to gawp at what is happening, but it's hard for them not to.
Caitlin gets a tour of the Infirmary from one of the doctors here, and talks to one or two of the patients. Her bedside manner is abrupt and far from sympathetic. "What happened to you?"
"I fell off a ladder, your highness."
"Oh. That was careless wasn't it!"
In the Enchanted Earth, Etienne finishes the spirit-holding bottle, passes it to Jihx, and moves onto creating another gate-to-Hell-creating spells.
From Amber, Caitlin Trumps Jihx and asks if she can experiment with Trumping Nemain while she is in her bottle. Jihx's answer is predictably negative!
In shadow, Skyrie feels a Trump call coming on. He identifies it as being from his second in command, the Precursor Alexiun, and takes the call. He is in the audience chamber in Mamaxia, with lots of others who seem to have been contributing to a group Trumping of Skyrie. Behind him smoke is rising from the city of Mamaxia. "Sir, we are being invaded!" he says.
"By whom?" demands Skyrie.
"By an army of big, strapping madmen wearing kilts!" he replies.
He says the invaders are attacking from all sides, appearing as if from nowhere, and that Mamaxia is the final city holding out against them. This has all happened within one local day!
Skyrie is tempted to go through to assist, then decides to do so. He quickly draws a Trump sketch of where he is now, then goes through to the Precursor.
On arrival he senses that God is present, weaker, but the same as the Gods he has sensed elsewhere. The situation there does not look good - they are losing, and his people are either dying or defecting to the other side. The enemy are using magic in their attacks and are supported by the weather. The attacks are also taking place on all other worlds in the Fourteen Empires.
Skyrie gives orders to round up all of his surviving sorcerers and gives instructions for his armies to disperse, surrender or convert. He leaves orders for the Precursor to contact him again when they are ready to leave Mamaxia.
He then returns to the shadow he left and his work on 'HIS SPELL'.
Elsewhere, Etienne completes her gate-to-Hell spell.
She and Jihx Trump off to Vitesse and then wander off through shadow to find somewhere appropriate to use it. They locate an old, ruined, pagan temple, in a small stand of woods by the road, apparently to someone like Pan judging by the remains of carvings of satyrs and Bacchanalian activity visible on the ruins.
Etienne conjures up the gate to Hell. It appears obediently on command in the relatively intact doorway to the ruined temple - a big iron door in a section of masonry that fills the doorway. The door is unbarred and Jihx and Etienne step through. The scene on the other side is the same as before, with menacing woodland and the archway.
Jihx begins to Trump Connor, but then remembers that they need Skyrie to make the link permanent. He Trumps Skyrie - but nothing happens. Jihx steps out of Hell, with Etienne following him, and tries again - this time it works and he makes contact with Skyrie.
In Amber the Nemain-child is now physically about twenty years old and does indeed look exactly like Nemain. By this point she is out of her tank and in a hospital bed instead, connected to Arun by an umbilical. He and Caitlin check that the body is alive but soulless. It is, but only lives when connected to Arun - if he disconnects it, it stops breathing and its heart stops beating. Caitlin Trumps Jihx to tell him that they are ready.
Over the Trump link, Jihx and Etienne request Skyrie's assistance. They cannot help but notice that Skyrie appears to be upset by something, but he comes through to them. As he does so the Trump sketch of Skyrie they used to contact his loses the last of its Trump power.
Just as they are about to go back through the gate into Hell, Jihx is Trumped by Caitlin, who tells him that they are ready for Nemain's soul. Jihx passes this news on and the Trump links drops. They step into Hell.
Skyrie quickly Trumps Connor, turns the Trump contact into a physical Trump gate with the assistance of Etienne, grabs Connor and allows Etienne to put him into the bottle. It looked like Connor was in the same place as last time - the place where it was snowing fire.
Having done this, they cannot help but notice that dark clouds are gathering outside, in the shadow, so they flee out of Hell.
Etienne and Jihx Trump off to the slow Enchanted Earth.
Skyrie Trumps back to the world where he was just as the door to Hell slams shut and the wind rises fiercely. "Strike Two", taunts Skyrie to God as he departs.
Etienne leads Jihx off to the infirmary of the fast-time version of the palace of Rome by the same route as before. En-route Jihx Trumps Caitlin, who resists. Jihx remembers she always does this so gives up and Trumps Arun instead. Arun holds the hand of the body, makes it stand up (smiling), and they Trump through to the other infirmary. The Nemain body is wearing nothing but a hospital gown open all down the back.
Caitlin remains behind in Amber.
The Nemain-body is lain on an infirmary bed and then Arun disconnects himself from it. At the same time Jihx opens the bottle containing Nemain and waves it close to the bodies face as if it were smelling salts. We can all feel the spirit moving from the bottle and into the body. After a moment the body takes a deep breath, and her eyes open and look around rather wildly. Jihx assists her to sit up.
They embrace, and Nemain bursts into tears.
In Amber, Caitlin Trumps to her cave on Derris to see what has been happening there. It has been some years since she was there last, but even then it had fully recovered from the cold snap the Moonriders had created there. When she arrives she can sense the presence of God in this shadow.
She makes her way out and sneaks off through the jungle towards the village she was raised in. She finds the village where it should be, but the compound where the children are 'raised' has been demolished, and a small hut-like church with a cross on its roof has been constructed in its place. And judging by the fields that seem to have been slashed-and-burned out of the jungle, the formerly carnivorous non-agricultural people seem to have taken up farming!
Caitlin sneaks off towards the gate to Ahnel to see what the situation is there.
She finds a large encampment of what look like Victorian-era red-coated soldiers armed with swords and crossbows guarding the gateway. A white flag with a red cross (the St George's flag) flies over the camp. Some native Derrisians are visible in the camp, but seem to be performing entirely menial tasks. There also seem to be horses corralled in various places about the camp, which is unusual given that there was nothing like that on Derris before. She observes that some people are passing through the gate, in Ahnel, so perhaps they are not just guarding the gate, but invading Ahnel, too. Perhaps it is a good thing the Ahnelians have had so much practise fending off Derrisian raiding parties...
She returns to the village and looks for someone to speak to.
Elsewhere, Skyrie does another quick Trump sketch of himself, then Trumps Jihx with the intention of passing it through to him. However, Jihx is still busy comforting Nemain and resists the call, so Skyrie quickly gives up and returns to his research.
Arun Trumps from the Enchanted Earth to his home world of Eridos to see what is going on there.
In the cultivated fields around the Derrisian village, Caitlin finds a familiar face - a man named Carl. Carl is very surprised to see her.
She asks what he is growing.
"Manioc," he says rather resignedly.
Why he is growing it, she asks. "To Eat," he replies. "It tastes awful but God does not want them to eat lizards any more."
Carl does not seem terribly enamoured by the new religion. He passes on the news that Ahnel is under siege from the portal, but the forts there have been holding out for some months now.
Caitlin humours him, but God's terrible powers of sarcasm detection appear to be working and dark clouds start to form overhead. Caitlin leads Carl off through shadow away from God's wrath. Carl is a willing refugee from Derris!
They find their way to a small oasis in a desert, occupied by people similar to Derrisians who are cooking a meat-based meal and who invite Carl and Caitlin to join them. Carl is particularly impressed by this meal.
Arun arrives in shadow Eridos, Trumping onto the island where he spent a lot of his childhood. It is a beautiful sunny day, with blue sea stretching off over the lagoon in the centre of the island and palm trees waving in the breeze.
He sneaks down to the nearby village to check the place out. It seems much as it always was, and there are no signs that God has reached here.
Arun then shifts shadow off to the secure shadow where his two children now live - shadow Dakar. This is a shadow with a good deal of similarity to Eridos, so it does not take a long time to get there.
As he enters the shadow via its one entrance the gate guardians - huge and powerful dragons - bow down to him. He checks, and there is no sign of God here, either.
He makes his way towards the village where the people from both of the two settlements from which the mothers of his children originate now live. As far as the villagers know he is a man of mystery, their benefactor, who turns up from time to time.
The village children run up to him and greet him by name. He gives out chocolate cream eggs. His children (Lanex, his five year old daughter, and Darnia, his four year old son) run up and hug him, and other members of the community also greet him.
Everything and everyone is happy and lovely and sickly sweet.
Arun spends some time there and tells the children lovely happy adventure stories. Then he leaves, Trumping back to Jihx in the Enchanted Earth.
Elsewhere, Skyrie tries to Trump Jihx again. This time Jihx takes the call.
Skyrie gives him the new Trump sketch of himself, and explains that things are going pear shaped back in the Fourteen Empires.
Jihx tells Skyrie he will help if he can, and the Trump link is dropped.
Skyrie then Trumps Precursor Alexiun back in Mamaxia.
In the Enchanted Earth, Nemain is given the bottle containing the soul of Connor to cuddle. This she does.
Arun Trumps Jihx and is brought through.
By now Etienne is making two new spirit-holding bottles and a new gate-to-Hell spell.
Etienne, Jihx and Arun discuss whether all the Hells are actually connected or if there are separate Hells for other shadows where the cross-shadow God has no power. Etienne suggests that we could enter one of the other Hells (such as the Hell of this shadow) and shift shadow from there into the Hell where Lillian and Gerard are. She also worries how Gerard can be recovered when his spirit is encased in ice.
Skyrie Trumps the Precursor Alexiun, who takes the call. Skyrie then opens the Trump link into a Trump gate, through which all the magic users that have been assembled by Precursor Alexiun start to pass. Once they are all through the Precursor also comes through and Skyrie closes the gate. Now that he is not diverting all his concentration to holding the gate open, Skyrie notices that God has started to arrive here, so he leads his minions off through shadow until he reaches a place where God does not exist.
Skyrie tells them they are to practice their magic. This will include re-learning it largely from scratch, as the magic here is quite different from that in the Fourteen Empires.
The sorcerers are left in an abandoned palace which is provided with supplies by locals who have a prophesy regarding a group of overlords who will one day turn up, take over the palace and rule them. As they have just done. How convenient.
Arun Trumps off the Amber to begin work on repairing Lillian's body. He soon realises this will be much faster (in Amber terms) in the Enchanted Earth and so he Trumps to Etienne in her fast Enchanted Earth, bringing along Connor's ashes and Gerard's body too.
Jihx and Nemain see him arrive with the two corpses and the ashes and are not happy. They nag Arun about getting Connor's body back first. Arun is quite tired by now.
By now Etienne has prepared all her spells.
Out is shadow, Skyrie decides to look for a shadow where people reincarnate into the same bodies immediately after their deaths, with their soul changed just enough by the process to break any Trump link they might be in.
He speeds off through shadow to find this world of his desire.
In the oasis, Caitlin bids farewell to Carl. He seems happy to remain with the people there.
Caitlin goes off in search of an army to lead against the army in Derris.
Etienne is ready to go so they Trump Skyrie.
When he takes the call he says he will call back in a minute. The Trump link drops. Skyrie draws a Trump sketch of where he is (so he can get back there later), then calls Jihx back. Jihx takes the call and brings him through.
Jihx is feeling rather tired from all this exertion, so Etienne gives him (and Arun) a magical pick-me-up.
They leave Nemain and the bottle containing Connor in the Rome palace Infirmary and go down the hall a way. Etienne casts the gateway to Hell spell on a cupboard.
The gate appears, and they go through into Hell.
It seems much the same as the previous Hell, although there are some noticeable difference - the trees are somewhat different and in different places, the archway is slightly different, and the font of the inscription on the archway is different (though the words are the same). There is a strong presence of God here, but it feels slightly different to that in the other Hell.
They walk off through the dark and menacing forest to find the original Hell, by way of an entirely God-less Hell, which also has a path and an archway that is slightly different with an inscription in a slightly different font. After a while they reach a third path that is the path through the forest they remember from earlier visits to Hell, with the correct archway and inscription. The presence of the original God is strong here. Arun notices that, like Skyrie's, his magic will not work here. Etienne's still does.
Etienne Trumps Lillian. Jihx Trumps Godofos, who we assume is here but whom we have made no effort to contact before now (well, he is very unlucky!).
Skyrie attempts to Trump Nemain, but this fails to work.
Caitlin travels away from Derris through various higher and higher-tech shadows. She knows that high technology works in Derris, it is just that the local culture has rather precluded its development.
Outside some kind of motel she finds a red sports car which has the keys in the ignition. She liberates it and roars off in search of an army.
In the forest outside Hell, Etienne Trumps Lillian. After a while she makes contact, and the link opens up. Lillian is still up to her knees in the river of boiling blood but, appears to have more crossbow bolts in her than before. Skyrie opens the link up to a Trump gate and she dives through, turning into a bodiless spirit as she does so. Her spirit is retrieved and put into one of Etienne's bottles. Skyrie's Trump gate automatically closes as its target comes through.
Jihx Trumps Godofos. He too makes contact and the link opens up. Godofos seems to be dressed in nothing but rags and is being tumbled through the dark and stormy air by a powerful wind. Other people are visible in the background also being spun through the air; most of them seem to be in couples, though.
Skyrie, waiting to open another Trump gate, entertains himself by using the Pattern to summon a small demon of his desire which he sends off to Caitlin. He then summons another, this one armed with a fondue fork, which is to go off and poke Godofos with its fork. It flaps off.
Jihx and Godofos converse via the Trump. Jihx tells him that they need to know where his body it before they can rescue him. Godofos seems uncertain. "I think I was drunk," he says. "I think was in a whore house or something."
Jihx is not terribly impressed by his forgetting where he was.
There is a discussion about putting him into another body - perhaps that of a whore. "You are not putting me into a woman's body!" says Godofos emphatically.
As the conversation continues Jihx notices, through the link, a small devil fly into the field of view through the Trump and poke at Godofos' backside with a fondue fork. Godofos swats it and appears to kill it in one blow, whereupon it is tumbled away by the wind...
Elsewhere, Caitlin's search for a leaderless, heavily armed power-armour equipped task force is leading her into post-holocaust-type shadows. As she shifts through shadow her vehicle is changing from a sports car into a small tank. Occasional mushroom clouds are visible in the distance as she travels.
Godofos tells Jihx that religious zealots hanged him, along with whores, barkeepers and both kinds of customer. He had such a bad hangover he couldn't really do anything to stop them.
Etienne Trumps Gerard. He takes the call, but it still frozen into the ice with only his face showing. Regardless, Skyrie opens the Trump link up into a gateway. However, Gerard cannot move through the gate because he is trapped in the ice and can't get out. Attempts to smash the ice by reaching through from this side of the gate fail - the implements we try to use to do so just pass through the ice (and Gerard) as it is were not there. Skyrie considers going through the gate to get Gerard out, but decides against it in the end.
Etienne calls upon God to send down a pillar of fire through the gate to 'smite' Gerard, or at least the ice that is holding him. She feels something happen, and certainly her stored magic is depleted, but nothing happens. Certainly no pillars of fire are in evidence.
A bush near to us bursts into flame. We speculate that that is where the energy from Etienne's spell has gone.
But then a booming, awe-inspiring, magnificent-sounding male voice sounds from the burning bush. It seems to be addressing Etienne.
"WHY DO YOU OPPOSE ME, MY CHILD, WHEN IT WAS YOU WHO MADE ALL THIS POSSIBLE? YOU WHO SHOWED ME HOW TO BECOME WHAT I AM NOW. YOU WHO ENABLED ME TO BECOME ONE WHERE BEFORE I WAS MANY. YOU. AND NO-ONE ELSE," the voice booms.
"BUT AS YOU WILL. YOU HAVE FREE WILL. AND IF YOU CHOOSE TO USE THAT WILL TO DENY ME, THEN YOU SHALL PAY THE ETERNAL PRICE OF SUCH BETRAYAL. CHOOSE YOUR COURSE WISELY," He concludes.
Etienne turns and flees off through the woods back towards her original 'benign' Hell. Skyrie Trumps Etienne. Jihx decides that this is a good idea (better than his, which was to flee through shadow, anyway) and assists Skyrie.
Arun attempts to discuss things with God, and seems genuinely interested in converting over to God's side. An angel appears, beautiful, magnificent, with halo and huge white-feathered wings, glowing with golden light, bearing a flaming sword. "I am here to bring the Word of the Lord unto you..." it intones.
Arun considers this.
Etienne runs through the Hell shadows until she reaches the exit, when she gets a very strong Trump call, which she accepts, from Skyrie and Jihx. They start to go through the link to her.
Arun notices them begin to disappear, which would leave him alone here with God and His angel on the borders of Hell. He decides this would not be a good idea, and leaps for Skyrie and Jihx. His superior Amberite reflexes just let him grab one of them before they vanish, and he goes with them. However, as he leaps for Jihx and Skyrie the angel leaps for him, and there is a searing pain in his lower chest as he makes contact. Suddenly he seems much lighter...
Skyrie, Jihx and Arun appear with Etienne. Arun's body has been entirely cut off at the lower ribcage (leaving only his head, arms and upper torso to come through the link) by the flaming sword of the angel, which at least seems to have cauterised the wound. Arun begins to rebuild himself, first flattening the bottom of his torso, then growing little legs from it as he starts to absorb new mass for himself.
Everyone steps out of Hell back into Etienne's fast, safe, Enchanted Earth.
Caitlin arrives in a war-torn shadow, in a high-tech city ruined by high-tech warfare. At the bottom of a kilometre-wide crater surrounded by shattered and leaning skyscrapers she finds encamped a force of a couple of thousand soldiers, with power armour (looking something like robotic gorillas armed with big guns, shoulder-launcher rockets, the works), heavy weapons and some armoured vehicles. She gets out of her tank and approaches the camp, hailing a patrolling power-armoured guard.
She explains to the guard that she wants to help, and can pay. The guard radios in and a squad of half a dozen power-armoured troops drop from the sky about her, apparently via some kind of rocket-assisted super-leaping. They escort her to their commander.
She is taken into the camp and then to a command vehicle in the centre. A woman who looks forty or so, wearing a shabby uniform with a large pistol at her belt steps out of the command vehicle to greet her. She wants to know what the help is that Caitlin can provide them.
Caitlin states that she can provide them with what they need - tactics, leadership, weapons - and an enemy! The leader seems impressed by this but has to put the question to the vote, now that their central government is gone. She and other people go off to arrange this.
After about an hour the commander returns. She tells Caitlin that they have agreed to accompany her to war.
After a few more hours they have struck camp and are ready to depart.
Caitlin has 'found' a horde of gold bars, which she gives to the army as a show of good faith.
Then she begins to lead them off through shadow towards Derris...
In the Enchanted Earth, Skyrie Trumps back to the point he was summoned from and continues his journey.
Arun regenerates his torso. This, on top of everything else he has done today, is tiring him right out.
Godofos' situation is described to Etienne. She recognises where he is as the second circle of Hell, the one for the lustful and the carnal sinners. "How is this a suitable form of Hell for the lustful?" someone asks. "God knows!" is the literal answer. Etienne thinks it is because the great gale there is symbolic of their uncontrolled lust.
Etienne goes back into Hell ('benign' Hell, that is) and Trumps Godofos. However, she fails to get through, and steps out of Hell again.
"OK, now what do we do?" she asks the world at large...
Session 3.5 Index Session 3.7
Skyrie's Diary for This Session