Session 3.9 Index Session 3.11
Notes Taken by Samantha and Alastair Beadle.
Title for this session by Alastair Beadle.
Outside Hell, Etienne uses her Advanced Pattern powers to drop off combat units (of a few thousand troops each) at strategic points around Castle Amber and Amber City as the first part of her plan to take over Amber itself. However, the castle is ready for this second assault and there are guards everywhere each within sight of at least one other. This means that the alarm is raised almost immediately, and combat begins. However, the castle guards can do nothing to stop her as Etienne continues to use her powers to bring in additional troops in outflanking manoeuvres.
As she does this Etienne also uses her ever-increasing Pattern powers to darken the skies over Amber itself and to turn the incoming tide blood red. Over the horizon with the scarlet tide comes a raiding party of the raft-people who had invaded shadow Belanoth, on a dozen of their hundred-metre-long, seventy-metre-wide rafts. The harbour defences open up on them as they sail in, and a battle ensues. Despite their losing half of their giant rafts in this initial battle they fight their way into the harbour, destroying many of the ships moored there before they swarm ashore and engage with the Amber guards.
The battle for Amber is long and hard. Man-for-man the Amber guards are vastly superior to Etienne's forces, but their numbers are limited, whereas Etienne just brings in more and more troops as needed.
Even Etienne herself is injured several times during the month long battle for Amber, as, physically, she is not much superior to the Amber guards. But in the end, Amber falls to Etienne.
Most of the city, castle and harbour are wrecked by the battles. Etienne has lost more than two million troops in taking the city, but still has many more available if necessary. There are also hundreds of thousands of casualties among the citizens of Amber itself, and the Amber guards are utterly decimated.
The blood-red sea clears within a day of the end of the war.
The people of Amber are then given the choice of converting to Christianity or being burned at the stake. Most of the remaining population convert, but about ten percent of the population - roughly one hundred thousand people - refuse to convert and are burned at the stake as a result. This includes many of the Amber nobility and rich merchants (those who did not die in the war). A few nobles manage to flee along the shadow paths out of Amber, but unfortunately for them, God is present elsewhere in the Golden Circle too...
Of the surviving inhabitants of Amber, Etienne deports a large number, what would have been fifty percent of the original population. She then imports large numbers of Christian shadow-dwellers to replace them and provide an instant power-base for herself.
Otto, the second son of the Holy Roman Emperor in the Enchanted Earth, is appointed as King Otto the First of Amber. Resources are provided for rebuilding the Cathedral of the Unicorn and consecrating it as a Christian cathedral, and also for rebuilding the other parts of the city. However, vandals are also employed to go around destroying Unicorn emblems throughout Amber. Etienne also has 'combat charwomen' going around Amber, destroying all traces of the other Amberites so they cannot be brought back from their remaining hair, blood and so on in the way that Godofos was earlier.
Then Etienne sets about conquering the other shadows that she can reach from the Trumps she took from everyone else's bodies. She goes to each world and makes sure it has a God (creating one using her 'GodSeed' spell if it does not) and then converts them to Christianity - forcefully if necessary. She also makes these shadow places where Trump does not work.
Ahnel (Jihx's homeworld), De'alund (Finndo and Lillian's homeworld), Eridos (Arun's homeworld), Bergamer (Godofos' homeworld), and the Fourteen Empires (Skyrie's homeworld) are among the shadows to be 'Etienne'd'.
Precursor Alexiun (the leader-in-exile of the Fourteen Empires in the absence of Skyrie, who is, along with various mages, in the shadow to which Skyrie took them after the fall of the Fourteen Empires) is convinced by Etienne that converting will be best for the Fourteen Empires, and converts personally to Christianity. He is followed by many of his people.
Once everywhere she can reach everyone's Trumps have been 'Etienne'd', she goes on to visit other shadows, performing a similar treatment on them, introducing God and Christianity, and making the shadow Trump-proof.
Etienne also has the corridors to the Amber Pattern room sealed off with rubble so that it cannot easily be accessed.
Three months after the end of the war to take Amber she receives a Trump call. Quite a strong one...
Back in Hell, at the bridge across the Ninth Ditch of the Eighth Circle of Hell to be precise, "And where do you think you are all going?" booms the huge demon with the long sword-like fingernail to us all.
We back away from the demon to plan our next move. Meanwhile the demon returns to cutting up the damned souls who are trudging along in the ditch below.
Arun, seeing the demon distracted by this, charges for the bridge. Unfortunately the demon turns to face him as he arrives, and the long fingernail waves in his face. "Yes?" asks the demon.
Arun hesitates - and as he does so catches a glimpse of someone in the ditch who looks just like him (except that the shoulders of the person in the ditch are not on fire and he is holding his intestines in with his hands, having apparently been disembowelled by the large demon). Arun decides to bargain with the demon, asking what it will take to let him cross.
The demon explains, rather patronisingly, that the sinners in this ditch are the sowers of discord, scandal and schism - those whose sin was to rend asunder what God had meant to be united, so that they are hacked and torn through all eternity. The demon does not entertain any of the bargains offered by Arun. However it does, from what Arun has said, consider that some of Arun's previous acts qualify him as an inmate of this ditch. The demon grins, showing large pointed teeth. However, demons do not judge, they simply punish. Only God may judge. The demon also mentions that only one man has passed over this bridge before - Jesus Christ. It also says that it does not leave the bridge.
As an experiment, Skyrie, Jihx and Caitlin attempt to Trump Arun. However, the Trump does not turn cold as it should and the attempt fails, despite the fact that Arun is only yards away, conversing with the large demon.
Skyrie hypotheses that this is because Arun is dead and so his psychic imprint has changed. He starts to draw another Trump, based on Arun's current psychic impression. As he does so he can feel no Trump energy entering the sketch, so he gives up.
Arun goes to the midpoint between this bridge and the next, where the demon (which seems to be under all the bridges in some manner) cannot reach. The sinners below shuffle by; there are too many of them for them to congregate there in what might be though of as a sensible manner. He attempts to form himself into a bridge, although because of his mass and his inability to absorb the matter of Hell this will be a very narrow bridge. The process takes a lot longer than he is used to but he eventually forms himself into an I-beam, standing vertically by the edge of the ditch, supported by the rest of the group, who then allow him to drop over the ditch.
One at a time, slowly and carefully, we move across the Arun I-beam bridge. At the other end Arun slowly reforms into human shape and is hauled up by the rest of the party. And on we go.
The tenth and last ditch contains four groups of beings. Some people are sitting against the wall scratching at their horribly scabby or leprous skin; other ill-seeming people run around snarling and frothing rabidly. Large, nasty-looking hogs are running around chasing the other inhabitants. Some people are staggering around with bloated abdomens as if incredibly thirsty, and reaching out towards invisible things in front of them. Some people are smoking as if about to burst into flame.
However, there are bridges over this ditch...
Skyrie, Caitlin, Jihx, Connor and Nemain go across the bridge. Arun decides to question the sinners in the ditch. He shouts down and asks about the safety of the bridge.
He gets several contradictory arguments shouted back up at him by various people, some saner-looking than other. He also gets one plea to be released from the ditch by a huge, immobile-looking man without ears who, once started, yells constantly, claiming he can reveal a plot against Satan (in return for being got out of this ditch). Arun gives up and crosses the bridge.
Beyond the ditches, the flat, rocky ground slopes down into the gloom of Hell. We head down.
As we walk down, huge figures loom up from the gloom ahead. As we come closer we can see that they are giant men, about one hundred metres high, sunk up to their navels in the ground, chained up so tightly that they can only move their eyes. Close behind them is a stone wall, chin high to the giants.
As we approach one giant notices our presence and starts to talk to us in gibberish. Arun tries to communicate with him, but fails, getting only more gibberish for his trouble. However, another giant next to the babbling one also looks down at us and introduces himself as Antaeus.
Arun and Antaeus converse about our travels so far.
Antaeus says that God placed him and the other giants here himself. The babbling giant is apparently called Nimrod. During the course of this conversation the others start to climb up the chains of one giant in order to scale the wall. This turns out to be quite easy, but Arun stays at the bottom to see how they get on anyway.
Jihx reaches the top of the wall first and steps out onto the top of the three metre thick wall. An icy wind blows across the top of the wall from the plain of ice that can be seen stretching away on the far side. The far side the wall is covered in ice, thin at the top and thickening down the wall, giving a smooth curving slope down onto the plain of ice below. Jihx signals down to the others and Arun starts to climb up too.
Jihx, momentarily forgetting his state of nudity, attempts to slide down the ice slope. Unfortunately it is so cold that the ice is not actually very slippery at all; Jihx bounces his way down, breaking several bones (again!) and leaving large pieces of his skin stuck to the ice. He lies on the ice at the bottom, freezing cold, badly hurt and with his skin freezing to the ice as he heals.
Arun morphs himself into a sledge, pointing the flames from what were originally his feet downwards to melt the ice ahead of him, and grows seats for Connor and Nemain.
Skyrie and Caitlin unpack their parawings and jump off the top of the wall, floating gently down to the ground. As they come down they can just about see people frozen into the ice ahead.
The Arun-sledge, sleigh bells jingling, brakes to a halt near to Jihx.
Skyrie and Caitlin land some moments later. They pass on the news that they saw people frozen into the ice.
Arun heals Jihx with his shapeshifting powers, even faster than the normal Hellish healing rate.
Once Jihx is healed we start to search for Gerard.
Arun talks to some of the sinners here, too, but only manages to annoy them.
Jihx, luckily, manages to find Gerard after we have searched for some time, frozen into the ice as he was when we last contacted him by Trump, with only his face exposed.
Meanwhile, in Amber, Etienne resists the Trump link by radiating Pattern energy about herself, greatly inhibiting Trumps there. However, she feels that the link is so strong it will probably break through in the end, so she shifts off through shadow using the Pattern, heading for a Trump free zone.
Once there she consults with God. He tells her that her cousins are still in Hell, so the call must have been from someone (or something!) else. Etienne requests God's assistance to hold off what she thinks may be an elder Amberite. God agrees to do this, and transports Etienne through to Heaven, where she will be safest.
Heaven is very nice.
A few days later the Trump contact returns. This time Etienne accepts it, with God watching over her as she does so, and the link opens up to reveal a bare breasted woman, with silver streaked green hair, sat on a throne. Around her neck is a gem on a necklace, she wears a white gold circlet on her head, she is wearing a number of sapphire rings and is holding a pink coral sceptre in her left hand. It is Queen Moire of Rebma!
However, unlike the last time Etienne met her this time she is wearing an eye-patch that partially covers a scar on her left cheek.
"What have you done with Jihxth and my Children?" lisps Moire menacingly.
"They are dead," Etienne tells her. "They rejected God. I tried to persuade them otherwise but they did not listen, so now they are dead. What has happened to you?"
"The trouble you have cauthed in Amber has been weflected here, in my thity," Moire lisps angrily.
"The trouble can be avoided if you turn to God," says Etienne. "Now that Amber has converted to Christianity, they have peace and prosperity. You can have the same if you also convert."
Moire declines this kind offer. She proclaims her intent to retrieve her consort, her children and the others from death and to avenge her cousin, Vialle. Oops.
Etienne passes on the usual 'offer' of salvation and threats of damnation if it is not taken up.
Moire greets this with "You dethpicable twaitor!" and promises to return. She breaks the Trump link.
Etienne discusses this threat with God and decides that something has to be done about Rebma. An army of tritons is decided upon as the way to go about this (especially as Etienne is still able to breathe underwater, thanks to Arun) and Etienne sets about a recruitment drive.
Having assembled an army of tritons, Etienne leads them off underwater towards Rebma. However, well before they arrive at Rebma, water spouts, whirlpools, rip tides and typhoons rise up, seemingly out of nowhere, and decimate the triton army, killing and scattering them. Etienne senses a power behind this that is realer than the Pattern - could it be the Jewel of Judgement?
Etienne reconsiders her plan. She then attempts to use the Pattern to dry out the sea around Rebma. Unfortunately the environment of Amber proves simply too Real for this to work, even with her advanced level of Pattern power.
Back in Hell, Arun starts to melt the ice around Gerard using the flames of what were his feet. The others mop up the water as it melts to prevent it re-freezing around him again. And very, very slowly Gerard is exposed.
During this long process Gerard is quizzed about the Jewel of Judgement. He says that as far as he is aware once Oberon finished using it to re-draw the Primal Pattern it was picked by a red bird which flew off with it to take it to Corwin, all of which was according to plan. Hmmm.
And eventually Gerard is freed from the ice. He is utterly blue with cold, and can barely move. Arun assists with the defrosting process.
Etienne ponders on how to deal with Rebma, and take the place over. Nothing appears to work, certainly not magic or anything major caused by the Pattern, and none of the Trump decks she took from the others contain Trumps of Queen Moire. God, His power very limited in Rebma, much as it is in Amber, does not appear able to provide any assistance.
Etienne attacks Rebma using the same techniques she used against Amber, that is, using the Pattern to shift shadow into Rebma itself to bring troops in behind the Rebman defences.
Etienne injects tritons and other underwater troops into strategic points around Rebma. Unfortunately, this turns out to be a lot harder than it was in Amber. As in Amber the Rebman guards are on full alert, and arranged so that each one can see at least one other meaning that the alarm is raised almost instantly. And because of the 'Real thing' assisting the defenders it is harder to shift shadow and move into Rebma in any case. Also, once deployed Etienne's troops begin disappearing into the mirrors that are a common form of decoration around Castle Rebma - they walk past a mirror then are suddenly inside it, beating on the glass and unable to get out. Only Etienne seems to be immune to this effect.
Etienne discovers that the mirrors all seem firmly fixed to the walls and so cannot be removed. Instead she issues orders to break the mirrors. However, it is soon discovered that only missile weapons can be used for this as touching the mirrors, even with a sword, sucks in the attacker too. Also, even if broken, the mirrors appear to repair themselves once broken and left alone for a while. It is also noticed that the people trapped in the mirrors appear to vanish from the mirror's reflection after a while...
Etienne leaves Rebma and returns after a while with a huge sea monster that she sets on Rebma. It starts to attack the city and knocks down a few buildings before a whirlpool sucks it away. Etienne tries again with smaller sea monsters, leading them directly into Castle Rebma, but these too are sucked into the mirrors, or at least parts of them are. A black ink-squirting squid-like sea monster successfully covers the city in ink, apparently blocking the mirrors, but the ink and the monster are sucked away by a powerful current.
Following this discouraging lack of success, Etienne then leaves for shadow, looking for something else to conquer this 'Real thing' against which she appears to be powerless...
The newly enlarged group continues to head away from the wall, presumably towards the centre of this, the ninth circle of Hell, down the faint slope in the ice. It is insanely cold here, and the icy wind bites through clothing and other protection as if it does not exist. Before long, Jihx, Connor and Nemain are made some cloth socks from Skyrie's and Caitlin's parawings to prevent them from continually leaving the soles of their feet behind, stuck to the ice.
The people frozen in the ice start to get further and further embedded as we advance, from having just their faces or heads exposed as they were in the area where we found Gerard, to people with their heads facing up with only their eyes exposed, but frozen shut with ice, to people completely embedded in the ice with nothing showing at all. And after a long trek, when the people are completely entombed under the ice, the vast figure of Satan looms ahead out of the gloom. Looming a mile over the plain even though he is buried to chest height, each of Satan's three faces is chewing on a person, and its huge, bat-like wings cast shadows onto the plain of ice below.
Jihx tells everyone else the message that Jesus got out by going 'past' Satan.
Arun walks around to the other side and discovers that the ice starts to rise again there. Satan peers down at us.
Jihx looks up at Satan. "Let us out and we will kill God," he asks him.
Satan is not taken in by this plan and refuses. "The way out to Purgatory is not for the likes of you," booms his huge voice from above.
He describes the route out of Hell taken by Jesus and Etienne, climbing down him through the Earth and out, but upon investigation the gap around his body is not at all visible - the ice goes right up to Satan's body all the way around.
Satan proposes that we all join together and pool our collective power to tear a way out of Hell, and that we do it quickly before God sees and reacts to what we are doing! Skyrie expresses qualms about this, but joins in anyway. We all link hands and touch the skin of Satan, concentrating so that the power of all of our minds is passed through into Satan. We can sense that Satan's mind is individually more powerful than any pair of our minds, but not as powerful as all of us put together.
Gradually a tearing sensation is felt, as if the world around us is tearing open. The tear then becomes visible to our eyes, as a rip in space, beyond which is black nothingness. The tear grows larger and larger until it is tall enough for Satan, that is, bloody huge - at least a mile tall, and seeming to go down into the ice as well. It then begins to widen sideways to extend all around the group (Satan now being an official group member). As it does so we begin to feel the presence of God becoming stronger, and the growth of the tear slows down. Satan has an abrupt change of plan, and the tear shifts until it becomes a disc overhead that starts to descend down over Satan and all of us. When the disc is just a few metres from us it shrinks down to exactly fit around his body, excluding the rest of us. [That Satan eh? What a double crossing bastard!]
As the tear in space comes closer and closer to excluding us, Jihx feels some kind of psychic contact, not a Trump, something else. He accepts it (not that it feels like he has much choice).
The link opens up into his mind, and he can feel that it is Moire. Jihx relays the situation to her, and she tells him that she could suddenly make psychic contact. She offers a psychic hand to pull all of us through to her. Jihx passes this on to everyone else, and her offer is quickly accepted. Moire begins to reel us all in along the psychic link. This is definitely not a Trump contact, but those who know about such things can feel that it is powerful, magical, and very Real.
There is a massive booming, "NOOOO!!!" from Satan as we snap along the psychic link to wherever Moire is, and then we have left Satan behind in Hell.
Everyone appears somewhere as Moire's psychic link drops. Everyone feels their Trump and magic-based powers kick back into life as they all snap back into the 'real' world. However, as they arrive they also feel their souls begin to fizzle away into nothingness. Not good.
Arun thinks that he can stop this happening, by shapeshifting his spirit, so he does so (sensible lad!).
Then, before we have fizzled too much some power sucks all of us into itself, through some sort of window.
And we find ourselves in a space that appears to be a chamber with walls of dark translucent blue-green glassy material, apparently equipped as a magical laboratory. It has a large ornate pentagram inscribed into the flagstones of the floor, with large blue-green candles burning in tall silver candlesticks at its points. However, there are parts of things which are simply missing or not present - the sides of the things in the room which are facing away from what appears to be an ornately framed mirror attached to the wall on one side. None of us are casting reflections in this mirror, but through it we can see a mirror image of this room containing Queen Moire, dressed as usual in nothing but scaled trunks of blue, and wearing a good deal of jewellery. She appears as she did to Etienne, with eye-patch and scar, and with a Jewel throbbing with blue light at her throat; this light fades as we watch. She looks rather tired.
We all feel as if we possess bodies now, and in fact can see that we are indeed in bodies and wearing what we would consider to be our 'normal' clothing and other items, including those we had on upon entering Hell.
Arun tells the rest of us that he thinks that he may be able to control the body deterioration we suffer outside of this place.
Moire approaches the mirror and look in at us all. Then she tells us that we have been gone for six months, and that we have been rescued, "to some extent."
In Castle Rebma, we discuss our situation with Queen Moire.
She explains that we are currently inside the reflection in a mirror in her laboratory. It is because of this that we appear as we now do and also why our souls are not fizzling away. When Arun tells her he thinks he can survive outside the mirror she reaches out and does something to the frame of the mirror on her side. We all feel something change about the mirror. Arun steps up to, and through, the mirror, out into Moire's laboratory.
As before he seems able to control him spirit to the extent that it is not fizzling away. He floats over towards a laboratory bench, and into it (this form seems insubstantial). Then he attempts to shapeshift the bench to form a new body for himself, and succeeds in manipulating its substance. It starts to re-form into a facsimile of Arun.
While Arun does this, Jihx asks Moire what has been happening.
She tells all - the killing of Vialle, the war to take Amber, the vast numbers of deaths, the assaults on Rebma. We are not best pleased with Etienne's work over the past few months!
Moire explains that some enemies from her past attacked Rebma from shadow, one result of which was her losing her eye and that this, along with various other problems in the last few months (such as the red tides which Etienne caused) have delayed her being able to attempt our rescue. She says that she had been unsuccessful in making contact with Jihx, Connor and Nemain up until the point where she rescued us. Something we had done - presumably our helping Satan rip a hole out of Hell - allowed the contact to be made.
When asked, she explains that the powerful-seeming jewel about her neck is the Eye of Peace - the Rebman equivalent of the Jewel of Judgement.
In the background, Arun shapes the laboratory bench into a new Arun-shaped body. All everyone else can see is the bench reshaping itself, as Arun's spirit form is invisible. However, this new body does not have Amber blood, and so cannot be used to walk a Pattern and live.
Arun asks Moire if she has any body parts from anyone of Amber blood. And she does! She has some of Jihx's hair in a crystal ball, which she picks up from the centre of the pentagram. She does something to the crystal ball and it unfolds like a flower to give access to its contents. She takes out a strand of hair and gives it to Arun, then re-seals the crystal ball, with the rest of the hair still inside.
Arun begins to build a new body for Jihx using the hair and the substance from another table.
Moire sends off servants to Connor and Nemain's rooms to see if there are any traces of them there, and after a while the servants return with some more hair and some skin flakes.
Over the next twelve hours or so, while the rest of us wait in the mirror, Arun makes a new body for Jihx.
Out in shadow, God informs Etienne of Satan's attempted escape from Hell, and of the escape of the other Amberites from Hell at the same time. However, God cannot explain how they got out, only that they did.
This news does not make Etienne happy.
When Jihx's new body is ready, Arun brings it over to the mirror and Jihx steps out of the mirror-realm and into his new body.
Once this is done, Arun mentions that he could heal Moire, too. She accepts this offer, so he regenerates Moire's lost eye and removes her scar. He also uses this opportunity to make her super fertile at the same time...
Jihx goes off to walk the Rebman Pattern, accompanied by Moire, while Arun starts on another body. As they walk down to the Rebman Pattern she suggests that he attune himself to the Eye of Peace so that he can make use of its power. He can do this by taking it with him around the Pattern, then attuning himself to it in the centre.
Jihx does this. Once he reaches the centre of the Rebman Pattern he follows Moire's directions and concentrates on what appears to be a tiny flaw in the Eye of Peace, concentrating on projecting himself into it. And quite quickly he feels himself, or his spirit, enter the gem. It contains a three dimensional representation of the Pattern, glowing a bright blue-green colour. Jihx is at the start of this three-dimensional Pattern and so projects himself along it.
Around it he goes, seeming to race along it in an alarming manner. Sometimes it seems as if he is a tiny thing racing around a gem-sized Pattern; at others it seems that he is of normal size, but racing around a three-dimensional Pattern of utterly vast proportions. As he travels he feels that he is being taken apart and re-assembled in a manner not dissimilar to that when he first walked the Pattern in Amber. However, this time it seems as if the disassembly and reassembly is taking place at a deeper level than before.
Jihx feels himself gaining understanding of how to use the Eye of Peace to control the sea and its currents, and to draw power from it into himself. He also feels that there are other abilities above and beyond these that he does not understand at the moment, but into which he may grow in time.
And eventually - he is not sure how long it takes - he reaches the centre of the three-dimensional Pattern inside the Eye. When he gets there, there is a bright blue-green flash and he is back in his body at the centre of the Rebma Pattern. He uses it to teleport back to the edge of the Pattern, where Moire is waiting.
As Jihx and Moire walk back up to the castle she explains some of the other powers of the Eye. It can freeze people in place, influence the emotions of large numbers of people, enhance magics, and possibly enhance Pattern abilities - it can enhance the powers one possesses. She also asks Jihx not to tell the others too much about the Eye.
Out in shadow, Etienne goes back to the original enchanted Earth (which is not one that any of the other have been to) and uses her Advanced Pattern abilities to adjust the properties of the shadow to prevent people getting to it without Advanced Pattern. She also seals off its local God from the rest of the linked cross-shadow entity that forms God as a whole.
She then goes off through Shadow looking for more things to use against Amber and the other Amberites.
Over the next week or so (as this is quite hard work, and Arun does have to rest), Arun builds new Jihx, Connor, or Nemain-based bodies for everyone, in an order requested by Moire. However, before he begins to do this he makes normal (non-Amber blooded) bodies for everyone so that they can spend their time as productively as they can while they wait.
Jihx has a new body first, of course, a new Jihx body; then Connor and Nemain are given new copies of their original bodies. Once they are done, Arun makes himself a Jihx body (though it looks like his own original body when it is done), then a Connor body for Skyrie, a Nemain body for Caitlin and a Jihx body for Gerard.
While he waits for an Amber-blooded body, Skyrie spends his time drawing Trumps - a super-Trump of God in particular. Once he is put into a new Amber-blooded body Skyrie finds a branding iron of an appropriate shape and burns a plus-sign shaped cross into his forehead. He does not explain why he has done this to anyone.
As each Amberite is given a new Amber-blooded body, they walk the Rebman Pattern and then go off to find their personal equipment before returning. Given the prevalence of God close to Amber, this is potentially quite dangerous, but they manage to avoid being sent back to Hell again. Although they recover their other equipment, Arun, Connor and Nemain have all lost their Trump decks.
Once Caitlin has a new Amber-blooded body, while she waits she goes off and knocks her own teeth into their usual pointed shapes. This hurts a lot, but she is used to it.
Having re-walked the Pattern in their new bodies, Caitlin and Skyrie insist that they get samples of their original bodies and have new copies of them grown before we do anything else. Arun is not terribly happy with this, but no-one objects too much.
Caitlin attempts to Trump herself to her cave Derris where there may be samples of her old body. However, she does not get through, and the Trump does not even go cold. Likewise, Skyrie cannot get through to the Fourteen Empires. Etienne has, after all, blocked off both shadows to Trump contact as part of her activities during the last six months...
Then Jihx proposes that, "We Trump God and see what we can do about it."
Sounds like a plan...
Session 3.9 Index Session 3.11
Skyrie's Diary for This Session