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Notes Taken by Samantha and Alastair Beadle.
Whippoorwill and Godofos are fleeing through shadow away from the massacre of Jihx's army towards the port area just outside the shadow storm where Ghenesh used to be, which we have named Ghenesh Port.
Some way from the site of the massacre, they stop and Whippoorwill Trumps Caitlin.
Caitlin has had a refreshing sleep and is now breakfasting in Vitesse. She accepts the Trump call, and she and Whippoorwill exchange news.
Caitlin describes the 'gift box' given to her by Etienne that is said to contain "something that will be of great use to you in the future". She and Whippoorwill discuss what it may be, or rather what they will want it to be and thus what it will be when Caitlin opens the box.
Jihx, in the Hospital world, has finished healing and removes the regeneration pack from his chest.
He thanks the staff for their help. "See you next week," he jokingly says.
Then he Trumps Whippoorwill, who is still in a Trump call with Caitlin, but who accepts the call anyway, putting us all in a strange three-way Trump link.
Jihx is brought up to speed on the conversation, and joins in.
Whippoorwill suggests that, as Caitlin and Jihx appear to have significant power to resist the magical attacks of the Courts of Chaos, now is the time to push for electoral reform of the structure of the Amber and Rebma premierships so as to ensure that we have the most effective people in charge. This would include the Regent being elected from and by a select group of the populace. That is, the Royal Family. Precisely whom this should include (given the number of people of the Royal Blood who are essentially Rebman) is at present still unclear.
Part of Whippoorwill's reasoning for suggesting this is to avoid our being sidelined once the Elders return to Amber. Another part of his reasoning is that by doing this we may avoid the civil unrest that occurred in Amber with the disappearance of King Oberon, and which was mirrored in unrest in Rebma at the same time, when the late Prince Eric also attempted to woo Moire into marriage.
We decide that Jihx will talk to Moire, to attempt to get her on side with this plan.
Suddenly, Godofos starts as a though occurs to him. "Ah ha, that's how you do it," he says. "Look at this."
He pulls out a Trump and proceeds to open a Trump portal in the air to the shadow of Ahnel. "I think I can make something of this!" he exclaims. "See you later." And he steps through the portal, which closes behind him.
We also discuss how to attack the 'vaguely God-like psychic presence' sensed prior to the two major shadow bending incidents. This clearly was not God, but certainly had similarities. Caitlin senses that it seemed to spread out from the centre of the Chaos army in Calagat. We speculate that a modified version of the 'Anti-God' spells developed by Lillian and Skyrie might be use here.
Caitlin has a though, and checks Corwin's book to see if anything has changed in it. It appears that nothing has.
The one known enemy location, Coraltown, is identified as a target. We speculate that, during an attack on it, 'King Chaos', whoever it is that is bending shadow, may show themselves again.
It is agreed that those of us who can sense this 'King Chaos' will home in on him and attack him physically. The problem of breaking Coraltown's magical defences is then discussed, and we agree that we have too little experience with, and resistance to, magic at the moment.
Jihx and Caitlin both come through their respective Trump links and join Whippoorwill close to Ghenesh for an experiment.
Caitlin then attempts to mask her 'Amberness' from the other two, using her control over her Pattern emanations to cut them down as far as she can. She does successfully hide her 'Patternness', but not her mind. That is, we can still sense Caitlin but not that she is an Amberite.
We discuss how to use this in a plan.
In the end, we conclude that the best way is to create a noisy distraction around Coraltown - high winds - during which Caitlin scales the walls of the town then Trumps Godofos through to join her. He then creates a Trump gate and our armies pour through.
At this point in the discussion we reach Ghenesh Port. All is dark and quiet; there is no sign of the fleet that was sighted coming this way previously.
Whippoorwill tries to track down Olec and Callam, his spies who he left here to observe previously. Before he can find them, Caitlin points them out to him.
They emerge from cover and report. Apparently the fleet came in to the end of the inlet of sea and anchored for a while. Then a small hole appeared up in the sky near the shadow storm, stayed there for a while, then come down to sea level and enlarged. The hole was black inside, forming a tunnel that also contained a sea, with lights illuminating the way through it, like lanterns. The fleet then sailed into the hole. Once the fleet had disappeared inside, the hole then shrank away and disappeared.
Caitlin points out a common maritime theme to the Chaos attacks - the fleets, the fish-people, the tidal wave attack and Coraltown - and wonders if this is something we can exploit. However, maritime shadows are very common out there...
As she puts forward this idea, Caitlin notices that this shadow feels slightly warped, as if some parts of other shadows have leaked into it. Perhaps as if two shadows have been merged and then split apart, but in splitting the two shadows apart a residue of the other shadow has been left in each one.
We wonder whether this merging and splitting up of shadow is what eventually releases the Vadgaon worms. However, we have no evidence of this one way or the other at present.
We decide what to do next.
Caitlin plans to return to Coraltown to try out her disguise and explore what lies beyond Coraltown, in case it holds any clues as to where the Chaos forces come from.
Whippoorwill plans to return to The Tunnel to have his scribes and constitutional lawyers there draft an Amber constitution.
Jihx plans to return to Rebma to talk to Moire about constitutional reform and attempt to get her on board.
Caitlin shifts off through shadow to Coraltown, impressing herself with the speed at which she manages to get there. She seems to have gained a new understanding of how to use the Pattern to shift through shadow much more effectively than before.
Before arriving at Coraltown she shifts her clothing into ninja-type night camouflage and concentrates on suppressing her Pattern imprint.
Whippoorwill Trumps to his villa in The Tunnel, summons a carriage, and then heads for the Senate.
Jihx Trumps to the Arrival Courtyard in Castle Rebma. He is quickly admitted and directed to Queen Moire.
Near Coraltown, Caitlin looks down on the cratered and battle scarred landscape. However, there are no bodies or abandoned vehicles and Coraltown itself looks peaceful.
She skirts around the town, looking for a possible source for the town's occupants. She does sense that the shadow has been adjusted somehow, but she cannot figure out quite how. She speculates that Coraltown was just 'stretched' into the shadow, inserted from outside somehow.
As she searches around she find traces of the passage of tens of thousands of beings that arrived and then a smaller force that went back along the same path. Caitlin follows this path and quickly finds herself back at Ghenesh Port, but coming in from a different direction than the army she followed out from here before. She senses that this trail is weeks or months older than the trails of the recent attacks. Both the trail out to Coraltown and the trail back end at Ghenesh Port and can be traced no further.
As she ponders this she senses a presence entering the shadow.
After a few minutes she observes a small swirling opening appearing in the sky, perhaps two inches across. This tiny hole just sits there, remaining small.
She does not think that this presence in the shadow is the same as that she has felt previously, although she feels that it is doing the same thing. She does not, at present, feel that she has any method of attacking it, so she remains hidden.
Caitlin attempts to get a feel for the properties of the shadow on the other side of the hole. She senses that it is a very Real shadow, about as Real as a Golden Circle shadow (not as real as Amber). She also senses some form of protection on the shadow as well as a control link to it from several people. In the shadow time is fast, magic is powerful, technology is minimal and Trump will function. The whole place gives the impression of being alive. The shadow also feels as if it is spatially quite small and self-contained.
After ten minutes of apparently doing nothing, the hole shrinks away and closes. Caitlin decides to Trump Jihx.
In The Tunnel, Whippoorwill arrives at the Senate in the full robes of his position as Consul for Life. The guards salute and open the doors for him. The debate in the Senate chamber beyond halts abruptly as Whippoorwill walks in.
One delegate, a particularly brown-nosing one, greets Whippoorwill enthusiastically. The other delegates pick up on this and greet him too.
Whippoorwill explains that he is here to make use of the Senatorial Clerical staff, in particular Mr Snide, the Senatorial Head Scribe. He bids the delegates continue with their business, which, as he leaves the chamber, they begin to do.
A Senate House flunky leads Whippoorwill off to the clerical offices.
Mr Snide, a short and thin man with a bitter expression, wearing a pair of pince-nez spectacles on a sharp, hooked nose greets him as he approaches his desk. Whippoorwill discusses the production of a constitution for Amber, and asks for a sugar-coated version to persuade Gerard to give up his throne.
Mr Snide says it has been a challenge to do so, but he has such a constitution in a draft format and can have it fully drawn up by the end of the day.
Whippoorwill is impressed by this and gives Mr Snide a bag of gold for his trouble. He says he will be back later in the day to collect the document and heads for the door. As he leaves, Mr Snide is settling in for a hard day's work, arranging papers and getting up a good head of steam in the huge steam-powered typewriter on his desk.
Leaving the Senate House, Whippoorwill begins moving through shadows of The Tunnel collecting troops as he goes.
Meanwhile, in Rebma, Jihx arrives in the Rebman Throne Room where Moire is having an audience day.
As she sees him, Moire orders everyone else out of the Throne Room. Jihx approaches.
She asks for an update on the situation.
Jihx tells her of what has been happening.
She comments that attacking Coraltown without magic would seem to have been very foolish.
Jihx considers how magically skilled Moire is, and wonders how she could contribute in their defeat.
Moire asks what the others are doing.
Jihx tells Moire all about 'Whippoorwill's' idea of Amber becoming more democratic, with an elected rather than an appointed Regent. Elected from and by a selected group of people, that is, the Royal Family.
Moire raises an eyebrow at this. She says that she considers this a 'most interesting idea' and that she will 'observe the results of the experiment closely'.
Jihx goes on to say that perhaps Rebma might go the same away.
Moire does not appear to be convinced, and say that she wants to see how it goes in Amber before she commits to anything of the kind in Rebma.
At this point Jihx feels the tickle of a Trump contact coming on. He identifies the caller as Caitlin, and takes the call.
Caitlin describes what she has found out at Ghenesh Port, and tells Jihx to inform the others of what she is doing. That is, she is going in search of the shadow from which the hole was projected, and en route will attempt to find an anti-magical item. She breaks the link, but not before noticing that Jihx's mind is now more powerful than her own...
Jihx explains to Moire what Caitlin is doing.
She thanks him for keeping her informed, and prompts him to go talk to his children.
Jihx goes off in search of the children, looking for Connor and Nemain particularly (his and Moire's only adult children) as the others are all in school or nursery at present.
Servants point him in the direction of the Castle Rebma Command Centre, which he enters to find Connor and Nemain engaged in discussions regarding troop movements with some of the Rebman commanders.
He greets them, and they chat about the plans.
The Rebman military seems to be assuming that attacks underwater are going to happen, and are planning defences based on Rebman troops along with the use of the Eye of Peace and sea monsters summoned up from the depths.
Jihx suggests some improvements that everyone thinks are a good idea. He then tells them about the suggested 'power sharing agreement'.
Nemain and Connor seem unsure about this, so Jihx explains it in more detail. They all have a good laugh at the idea of Moire stepping down voluntarily...
Elsewhere, Whippoorwill trundles off through shadow searching for versions of the Tunnel with both magic and a current excess of troops. He is soon able to find some of these, and recruits large numbers, taking them through shadow with him.
Unfortunately, as he moves them into the next magical shadow the laws of magic there are different, and their powers do not work as well. Whippoorwill can sense the difference in magic, but his troops cannot compensate for this effect. The further he goes the worse this effect becomes, until quite quickly their magic does not work at all.
He takes the magic users back to where he found them and recruits more normal troops instead. In fact, many of these are the same troops as he had before, who were all recently killed at the massacre close to Coraltown...
He is approached by his man Delporto, who apologise to Whippoorwill for not having a chance to tell him the results of the interrogation of the velociraptors before.
Apparently Delporto couldn't get 'the lizard' to renounce its gods, but he was able to extract some useful information from it. Apparently Coraltown has no doors or windows at street level but has drawbridges that come down from higher floors. The buildings themselves are all linked by high-level drawbridges too. The town is made of a living coral that can heal itself. The town can also heal everyone in the town, never runs out of supplies and is laid out in a very well-planned defensive way. It also has lots of magic and magic users, but we knew that. There are currently three of the velociraptor's Gods in the town:
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The velociraptor apparently thought that they would know we would be coming after we kidnapped the patrol of velociraptors. However, they do not actually know why they are there.
The people defending Coraltown consist of:
Whippoorwill decides to Trump Caitlin to pass this information on...
Caitlin shifts off though shadow in search of the shadow from which the hole in space was projected and a subtle anti-magical device, one which will project a magical 'dead zone' around itself in such a way as it is very hard to detect. She quickly finds a ruined Greek-style temple, not unlike those of the MoonRiders in Ghenesh. In the ruins is a skeleton wearing a necklace whose pendant is in the design of two interwoven snakes, like a smaller version of Caitlin's broaches. It seems to have been crushed under a falling pillar. The skeleton appears to be that of a woman of Caitlin's size and build, in fact it could be that of Caitlin herself... The necklace feels like it is Caitlin's, and she takes it.
She then carries on to pursue the shadow from which the hole was projected. Very quickly she ends up back where she started, at the edge of the shadow storm where Ghenesh once was.
Unfortunately, Trump does not work there, and Whippoorwill cannot contact Caitlin.
Caitlin moves around the storm, continuing to try and shift for her target shadow in case Ghenesh is merely in the way. However, she keeps coming back to the edge of the storm. She deduces that the shadow is inside the shadow storm.
Whippoorwill Trumps Jihx instead, and when Jihx takes the call tells him about the results of the torture of the velociraptor.
They then discuss battle plans.
Whippoorwill suggests pouring poison into the walls of Coraltown, allowing them to fill up and overflow into each other. Perhaps one of Godofos' Trump Gates could be opened to there from a world with a poisonous sea. Perhaps nitric acid? Or natural poisonous gasses from a volcano? Or perhaps we could just use the lava from the volcano?
Caitlin, at the edge of the shadow storm, decides to return to Ghenesh Port. She arrives there very quickly, to find that the 'eye' is not currently present. She Trumps Jihx.
In Rebma, Jihx feels a Trump call coming on, identifies the caller as Caitlin, and takes it.
News in exchanged, and the planned attack on Coraltown is expanded upon. There will be a diversionary attack with Jihx and Whippoorwill on the outside of the town while Caitlin sneaks into (or is possibly helicoptered over) the keep, at which point she then Trumps Godofos to set up his lava-pouring Trump Gate.
This sounds like a plan. Whippoorwill goes off to find a suitable lava flow in a shadow close to Coraltown, so that the lava will be as similar to its natural state as possible in Coraltown.
Caitlin shifts shadow back to Coraltown and observes it, casing the joint from the edge of the dead forest while masking her presence as much as possible using the Pattern, looking for weak points and ways in.
Jihx Trumps back to Ahnel to raise the diversionary attack force.
This will comprise of siege engines, ladders and battering rams backed up by large numbers of catapults, trebuchet and Godofos' Trump powered howitzers. They will be manned by those of his army he thinks he can best afford to lose.
At Coraltown, Caitlin is finding it difficult to find weak points in the very-well-designed defences of Coraltown. In fact, she thinks she could learn quite a lot from whoever was responsible for setting up these defences. She can also sense lots of magic in the town.
And so we prepare...
The "Now These Her Princes Are Come Home Again" Top Page.
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