"Now These Her Princes Are Come Home Again"

SESSION 4.10 : Mantichores!


Session 4.9   Index   Session 4.11


Notes Taken by Samantha and Alastair Beadle.


Caitlin has stabbed a mantichore.

Jihx has Parikhan's mind in a lock but is being more than a little distracted by the fighting going on around him.

Godofos picks a Trump of a lava world and starts to concentrate on it. He cannot open a Trump gate to the place in Amber, but he can still pass mantichores through to the lava world...

Whippoorwill swipes at a mantichore with his mace but finds that it is almost as fast as he is, and it nearly dodges. The mantichore takes a glancing blow to the face and then, with two others, turns to attack him.

The Amber guards rain arrows down onto the mantichores from behind the arrow slits. The mantichores roar in pain as they are pin-cushioned with arrows.

Caitlin leaps up and stabs a mantichore in the eye, blinding it on one side. It roars in pain and slashes around blindly.

Whippoorwill waits for the three mantichores to attack, refraining to defend himself to maximise his counter attack. He takes a heavy blow but drives the sharp end of his mace into the skull of a mantichore, which falls to the ground. As it slumps to the ground its comrade stabs him in the back with its poisoned scorpion tail, and Whippoorwill feels a burning sensation start to spread through him. The third mantichore stands back, waiting for its turn.

Caitlin is nimbly avoiding the thrashing of the blinded mantichore and the two others that are attacking her.

Godofos, concentrating all his effort on the Trump, takes a series of hits, stabs and bites from mantichores. He ends up being shaken vigorously by the arm by a mantichore. However, he manages to maintain his concentration, and his hold on the Trump.

Jihx, concentrating on Parikhan to keep her mind in a lock, has to fend off a single mantichore. He can just about do this.

Another flight of arrows hits the mantichores. Four of them, enraged, take to the air. Caitlin casts a glance in their direction, exerting the power of the Pattern, and suddenly they manage to entangle themselves mid flight. They fall back towards the ground.

Godofos sees four entangled mantichores plummeting towards him. Caitlin sees this, and concentrates on the Pattern again. A flailing mantichore wing takes the mantichores slightly off to one side, and Godofos sees that they are no long about to squash him.

The four mantichores head for Whippoorwill, who moves to stab one as it falls. He is knocked to the ground under the weight of the others.

Caitlin returns her attention to the blinded mantichore, who misjudges its next attack and hits one of its comrades. She turns her attention to the remaining mantichores.

Godofos is still concentrating on the Trump and still being slammed around by a mantichore that is gripping his arm in its mouth, though its teeth have not penetrated his armour yet. He is stung by a mantichore again.

Jihx has made his way over to Parikhan but is still having to fend off the mantichore, so he can do nothing more than hold her and defend himself.

Yet another flight of arrows hits the mantichores. Several of them turn to spray the walls of the courtyard with poisoned spikes from their tails. There are screams from inside as several hit their targets and guards slump at their arrow slits.

Caitlin is stabbing mantichores in the eyes and leaving them to attack each other in the confusion - a confusion that her mind is creating with the assistance of the Pattern.

Godofos is stabbed for a third time by a poisoned scorpion tail but continues to attempt to open the Trump link.

Whippoorwill extracts himself from under the mantichore pile and leaps towards Jihx, to defend him from the Mantichore.

With the pressure off slightly, Jihx takes the opportunity to attack Parikhan. He stabs her in the head, but does nothing more than scratch her skin. She seems very tough. His second blow is directed at one of the six eyes on this head. The eye bursts. Parikhan makes a pained noise.

Caitlin leaps around, blinding mantichores as she goes and 'directing' the blind ones to attack those around Godofos. Godofos is released as the mantichore attacking him is attacked by a blind one.

At this point Godofos's Trump link opens up. He grabs for the nearest two mantichores, the one that was attacking him, and the one attacking it, and tosses them through the Trump link. The mantichores are lost to sight in the lava flow.

Yet another flight of arrows hits the mantichores. Several fall over under the cumulative effects of many arrows. Others fire more poison spikes at the walls.

Whippoorwill continues to fight one of the remaining mantichores. He is slowly wearing it down.

Jihx, freed from all attacks now, focuses his entire mind on Parikhan. As he does so, he can sense another mind trying to Trump her and attempts to resist this too.

Godofos throws two more mantichores through the Trump link and into lava world.

Caitlin joins him in doing this and the remaining mantichores are thrown through the Trump link. The remaining mantichore bodies and bits, except for a single scorpion-like mantichore tail that Whippoorwill suggests we keep so that he and Godofos can have some anti-venom made, are also disposed of through the Trump link.

Caitlin joins Jihx in his mental battle with Parikhan and the other mind trying to Trump her, which appears to be stronger than Jihx. They focus on Parikhan's mind and over a minute or two drive her into unconsciousness, cutting off the attempt at a Trump link.


By now Whippoorwill and Godofos are no longer feeling a burning sensation as the mantichore poison courses through their veins, but instead are starting to go numb, Godofos much more so than Whippoorwill. So Trump to The Hospital, taking the mantichore tail with them.

Jihx and Caitlin remain in Amber to guard Parikhan and keep her unconscious.


In The Hospital, Whippoorwill and Godofos hand over the mantichore tail, which is swiftly taken to the Toxicology Department, and the medics there begin to treat them as they are taken off to their personal private medical suites.


In Amber, Gerard appears behind one of the arrow slits and demands to know what is going on.

We tell him.

"Good job," he tells us helpfully. He tells us to keep him informed of any further developments, and leaves.

Jihx asks Caitlin what they should do with Parikhan.

"Let's just cut her up now," Caitlin says.

"Help yourself," Jihx replies in a resigned way.

Caitlin orders the Guards to assist her, and to bring cutting equipment.

The Guards bring a large double saw into the Arrival Courtyard. Using it, Caitlin and the Guards set about the slow process of cutting Parikhan in two.

Jihx, not wanting to witness this gory spectacle, leaves the Arrival Courtyard.


Outside, he has servants bring him some lunch, then goes to his rooms in the Castle for a bit of a rest.


In The Hospital, Whippoorwill and Godofos are receiving blood transfusions to minimise the effects of the mantichore poison while an antidote is found. They talk via video-conference while this occurs.

After three quarters of an hour or so, a doctor brings the anti-venom that they have manufactured and injects both of them.

The poison induced numbness quickly fades, to be replaced by the pain of their more conventional wounds.

The Hospital staff look after both of them for a while as they recover.

Quite quickly, they are both reasonably fit, so they leave their bed and prepare to return to Amber. Before they go they check on the Castalia, the prisoner in cryogenic suspension, and Jim, the egg.

Castalia is still unconscious is suspended animation. Jim has grown to about twice his former size, but is still an egg.

With that done, they then Trump back to Amber.


They arrive in the Amber courtyard about Amber twenty minutes after leaving to find Caitlin and the guards have sawed about a third of the way through Parikhan. There is surprisingly little blood, and she does seem to be healing, despite remaining unconscious.

They question Caitlin on her motives and methods.

With the situation explained, Godofos joins Caitlin in the sawing process.

Then a thought occurs to Caitlin - now that Parikhan has been cut open, why do we not start pulling Parikhan's innards out?

She and Godofos go to do this. Unfortunately, Parikhan seems not to have internal organs as such. Instead, she appears to be made up of a mass of small tubes, all stuck together in a single mass that makes it rather hard to disembowel her. Damn.

Whippoorwill then suggests that Godofos passes it through to one of the lava worlds.

Godofos likes this idea.


So with the three of us agreed, Parikhan is dragged to Vitesse and then pulled through shadow to an isolated sandy hilltop in a semi-desert landscape. This is done so that we can use Trump Gates rather than normal Trump links if we wish.

Godofos opens a Trump link to a world of lava, and then Parikhan is pushed halfway through the link and into the lava. Godofos holds her there for a few seconds then pulls her back. Despite a vicious charring her mind is still active (though she remains unconscious) and is healing the body.

Godofos pushes her back though the Trump link and dips her in lava for thirty seconds, when Parikhan's body begins to liquefy. Godofos pulls her back and shuts the Trump link.

However, she continues to liquefy, turning into a rhino-sized transparent blob, which oozes out of Godofos's grasp.

Godofos reaches down into the sand beside him, and pulls out a rhino-sized bathtub. Unfortunately, it is full of holes. He repeats the process, and finds an intact bath instead.

By this time, however, Parikhan is getting away down the hill, flowing away, apparently under gravity.

We get it into the bath. It attempts to flow out over the side. A lid is pulled out of the sand and placed onto the bath, but the blob starts to push past the lid with great strength, even when the lid is securely strapped down.

Caitlin can sense that the mind is still unconscious.

That being so, Godofos opens a new Trump Gate to 'liquid nitrogen world' and passes Parikhan through into it for a while before pulling her back.

Parikhan is now a frozen blob. Frost starts to form over her.

Whippoorwill hits the Parikhan-blob with his mace. Unfortunately, it bounces off, jarring his arms. The blob is now starting to melt!

Another Trump gate is tried, this time into deep interstellar space. Before opening the Gate, Godofos gives Whippoorwill a second Trump of the place, which Whippoorwill opens a link to so that he can observe.

The Parikhan blob, which is now flowing off downhill again, is sucked into the hard vacuum through the Trump gate, along with a large quantity of the local atmosphere and sand.

Whippoorwill observes the Parikhan blob fly off into the distance.

Then the thought occurs that this means we will be unable to retrieve her if we want to, as she is drifting off into the depths of space. Also, we wonder whether she will eventually regain consciousness and he able to escape. We discuss whether what we have just done is the best idea we could have had. Whippoorwill continues to watch the Parikhan blob.

It seems to be wriggling, but is not, apparently, boiling off.

Caitlin joins the link and observes as well.

Wishing to resolve the situation, she imagines that a large flaming meteorite hits Parikhan. Remarkably, that is exactly what happens next as a kilometre-wide flaming ball of rock flashes across the field of view of the Trump. Parikhan can no longer be seen...

We decide that this is the best that can be done for now, and so we forget about Parikhan for now.

The three of decide to rest and discuss things, so we Trump back to Vitesse.


Upon arrival we are greeted by Renee, the innkeeper, and order lots of food and drink.

Whippoorwill Trumps Jihx to invite him along.


In Amber, Jihx has just awoken from his nap when he feel a Trump call coming on.

He identifies the caller as Whippoorwill, accepts it, and when Whippoorwill explains the situation to him joins the rest of us in Vitesse.


In Vitesse, Caitlin, Godofos and Whippoorwill describe Parikhan's fate to Jihx as we eat and drink.

At this point, Jihx feels another Trump call coming on. He identifies the caller this time as being Gerard, and accepts the call.

Gerard tells us the Lillian and Finndo Junior have located a large Chaos army in shadow Fidellin near to Amber and are planning an attack on it in the near future. Jihx passes this on to the rest of us.

"And some people just sit on their arse in the castle all the time..." mutter Caitlin and Godofos in the background, along with various similar comments.

Jihx says that he will discuss the situation with the others, and we will get back to him. The Trump link is dropped.

Jihx, who has spent more time near Amber than the rest of us, remembers that Fidellin is a shadow of islands, the largest about fifteen miles across with more and more the smaller they get. The shadow is uninhabited but has natural resources valued by Amber, such as timber, fish and so on. He also recalls that it is about as close to Amber as one can be and have full Pattern and Trump powers active.

We discuss whether to join the attack.

In the end, we decide that Jihx and Whippoorwill should return to Amber to make sure that there are no problems there. Godofos and Caitlin will go to Fidellin to investigate and assist in the attack if they feel is necessary. That is, if they conclude that the attack is not just a diversion.


All of us apart from Whippoorwill Trump to Amber (Caitlin and Godofos filling a picnic basket with the remains of our meal before we go). Caitlin and Godofos head in the direction of the stables, preparing to ride to Fidellin. Then they remember that the have Trumps of Lillian, and use that means instead.

Lillian quickly answers the Trump call, shuffling away her Trump deck.

Caitlin and Godofos go through to join Lillian. They find themselves on the bridge of a Trump powered airship that looks very similar to the original Trump-powered airships with which Finndo assaulted Amber many years ago. Lillian is wearing her normal uniform, with Trump deck, pistol and dagger at her belt.

When we ask, she leads us over to a map table, pointing out where her airship fleet is hidden, below the peaks which ring a crater-like island, and where the Chaos army is, on a roughly circular island perhaps twenty miles from where we are now, one side of which is ringed by hills but the rest of which is flat. She also describes the Chaos army, which seems to consist of more than a million troops, currently encamped. They seem to have been there for a few days, and have only a few ships. Magic does not work on this shadow.

We discuss tactics.

Caitlin starts to put her imagination to work, whilst chewing on a steak that she has brought with her. She thinks that the island where the Chaos army is camped might be a dormant volcano, largely hollow, and about to fall into the sea.


Whippoorwill begins to walk through shadow from Vitesse back to Amber, looking for a spell rack and troops as he goes.


In Amber, Jihx heads for the Command Centre.

There he finds Vialle and discusses the attack with her. She thinks that it is a good idea. She also mentions that Gerard has been bringing elements of the Fleet which, with the cutting of the shadow paths into Amber, were trapped in shadow back to Amber using the Pattern. Queen Moire is organising the defences of Rebma, and co-ordinating with the defences of Amber.

He also sounds her out regarding our democracy plan.

She tells him that she has not been able to make any headway in convincing Gerard that it is a good idea. Apparently he is very set in his ways, and not keen on changing the way Amber is run, particularly in the midst of a major threat to Amber.

From what she says, Vialle is wary of the scheme herself. She thinks that perhaps it needs to be tried out further, perhaps in shadow.

Of course, in shadow we can find places where it has been tried, where it will have succeeded wildly, failed dismally, or anything in between...


In shadow, Whippoorwill comes across his army camped and waiting for him in the midst of some ruins in the middle of a desert. The most intact thing here is a tall obelisk bearing Whippoorwill's crescent moon-face symbol. Whippoorwill examines it and finds that by pressing certain points, a cavity appears in the obelisk. Inside is a spell rack, in the form of a smoke grenade, as all of his anti-magical spells will have the form of smoke.

While the troops pack up the camp ready to leave, Whippoorwill casts an Anti-Magic Pulse spell into the grenade ready for use later.

Then he leads his army off through shadow towards Amber.


Godofos is let down from Lillian's airship by a rope ladder and once on the ground Trump through his Trump Gate-fitted Trump Jet - the replacement for the one lost in the last battle at Coraltown.

He climbs in and flies off to the island closest to the one where the Chaos army is, landing out of sight of the army and climbing up to observe.

The camp is visible off in the distance. There seem to be some command tents flying the Chaos flag near the centre.


Caitlin's Pattern-powered imagination is attempting to make the chaos inhabited island erupt into a volcano. However, she senses resistance, as if the attributes of the shadow, or at least of the part she is trying to change, have been locked down in some way to prevent this sort of thing.

Caitlin is forced to back her plan down to a heavy rainfall - and even this takes time. She seems limited to natural-seeming manipulations of the area.


Confused when he does not see the island sink into the sea, Godofos Trumps Lillian, who passes on the news that Caitlin is having trouble. Damn.

He heads off to set up a pair of weaponised Trump Gates with which to attack the Chaos army.

From his hilltop viewpoint on the island, he draws a pair of Trump sketches of widely spaced spots on the Chaos island near to the perimeter of the army's camp. They are as diametrically opposite one another as possible, about one hundred and twenty degrees apart.

He then begins to connect one of these Trumps to hard vacuum and the other to the bottom of a deep ocean, hoping that the latter will wash the entire camp into the former.


Whippoorwill, having found all that he wants in shadow, continues to walk back to Amber, leading the army with him.

He Trumps Jihx and when he gets through tells him what he is doing. It will take a few days to get back to Amber using this method.


Godofos's first Trump Gate, to a shadow of hard vacuum, opens up and reaches a diameter of about four metres. A huge localised hurricane begins, sucking the contents of the army camp towards it.

Then his second Trump Gate opens up and grows to the same size. A column of water bursts from the Trump and washes over the camp on the other end from the vacuum Trump, cutting a swathe through it and indeed washing parts of the camp into the vacuum gate.

After a few seconds of this, a shimmering dome appears over the camp, deflecting the water jet. Then, somehow, the area of space where the vacuum Trump gate is seems to be twisted around and away, much like when the Chaos fleet escaped. This cuts out the gale racing into the vacuum gate. The environment of the camp settles back towards normal.

Godofos and Caitlin can both sense that someone is warping the properties and structure of the shadow to do this.

Godofos begins drawing a Trump sketch of the inside of the dome, near to what he judges to be the command tent. When this gate opens, vacuum begins to suck in the camp once more.

Again the space of the shadow is warped and the end of his Trump gate is moved some distance away from the camp.

As Godofos starts to draw his fourth Trump sketch he feels a presence sweep over him, as if it were looking at him. He takes out his own Trump and begins to defend himself with it. He feels the mind sweep past on its search.


In Lillian's airship, Caitlin can sense that all of this shadow warping is coming from the island, but she cannot sense a mind - a presence - behind it as we have been able to before.

Wanting to investigate further, she too climbs down from the airship and shifts shadow off and then back into Fidellin to get to yet another nearby island.

From here she can feel a presence - the same presence she felt when the original Chaos fleet was pulled out of Amber.

She focuses her mind on this presence, trying to learn more of it. She senses that it is male, arrogant, confidant, driven and perhaps more powerful than her. It is somehow linked into the shadow but the physical form - the body - to which it is linked is not nearby.

Elsewhere, Godofos feels the sense that someone is looking for him go away.

The same sense sweeps towards Caitlin. She attempts to mask her presence as much as she can, but despite this starts to feel the properties of shadow change around her. She can almost understand how this is begin done.

At this point Caitlin decides to depart from the shadow, and does so with some haste.


Elsewhere in Fidellin, Godofos finishes his new Trump sketch, opens a gate using it, and begins to rain lava down onto the camp.

Before too long, the same shadow twisting diverts the stream safely away.

Godofos also senses that shadow here is being shifted to stop Trumps working.


In the next shadow, Caitlin has the idea of comparing the presence she felt with the chaos Trump packs. However, she does not know enough about Trumps to be able to do this.

So she calls Jihx, and when he takes the call explains her plan to him. He comes through to assist.

Caitlin gives him the Chaos Trump deck she took from Portunus for Jihx to try this out.


Godofos is still dumping lava on the Chaos camp. However each successive Trump Gate is getting smaller, as the amount of effort it takes him to open them gets greater and greater.


Jihx shuffles through the Chaos Trump deck, concentrating on each Trump and comparing it with the presence in the shadow that he can feel around him. After a few minutes he makes a tentative match with Timandra! This despite the fact that Timandra is supposed to be dead, and that she is female and the presence feels male. Damn those wily Chaos shapeshifters.

They Trump Godofos to tell him this and when he takes the call begin to discuss plans.


Godofos also checks his pack of Chaos Trumps (the one taken from Anaximander) and compares them to the presence. He quickly comes to the same conclusion as Jihx.

At this point Caitlin Trumps Whippoorwill to bring him into the plan.


Elsewhere in shadow, Whippoorwill feels a Trump call coming on, and accepts it. It is Caitlin, who explains the situation to him. He comes through and joins the rest of us, bringing his personal squad of troops along with him, but abandoning the rest of his army.

Godofos has figured out how to link two Trumps together without being in the Trump link himself, with the intention of using this technique to attack people via Trump Gate. He uses this technique to begin to set up a Trump Relay linking Timandra with lava world.

Opening the link to the lava world is easy. However, making the link to Timandra proves much harder. The efforts of all four of us are not getting through, and feels as though we may never be able to do so.

Jihx and Godofos can sense that someone else is assisting her. From the Chaos Trump decks Godofos identifies it as Chimal, who was with Timandra the second time the Chaos delegation came to Amber. He has a strong mind, but one weaker than Timandra.

We suddenly stop our attack, build up again, and launch it at the weaker mind of Chimal.

Slowly we begin to plough through Chimal's defences. However, the going is slow - this could take hours!

Whippoorwill breaks off his connection to get us some assistance.

He Trumps Lillian first, and when she accepts the call explains the situation to her. She agrees to comes through and join the attack, and once she arrives Trumps Finndo Junior to bring him in on the plan too. He too Trumps in.

Whippoorwill then Trumps Gerard. When he takes the call, Gerard proves to be on the deck of a ship at sea, in the middle of a fleet. When the situation is explains he too agrees to join in and comes through. The three new recruits join the attack on Chimal. This boosts the speed at which we are breaking down Chimal's defences, but it will still take some time to do. Gerard and Lillian's minds are contributing a fair amount, but Finndo Junior's mind seems quite weak and is not contributing significantly.

To speed things along further, Whippoorwill Trumps Nemain and when he gets through asks for more assistance. She seems to be in some kind of underwater meeting room with Connor and Queen Moire.

She tells Connor and Moire what is going on, and they agree to assist. She and Connor appear with us and join the Trump link against Chimal.

With the two new members of the group, the speed of the attack increases significantly.


With that side of things hopefully taken care of, it is agreed that Finndo Junior and Whippoorwill will take the airships and start a physical attack on the Chaos camp to further distract the defending leaders.

Finndo Junior pulls out a Trump and Trumps himself, Whippoorwill and Whippoorwill's squad to the bridge of an airship. He then Trumps off for his own airship.

Whippoorwill proves to be in the lead airship of a flight of six Trump-powered airships. He asks about armaments, and is told that the airships have kinetic-energy bombs, large-calibre artillery, machine guns and Trump-powered lasers. Satisfied with this answer, Whippoorwill gives the order and the flight of airships heads for the Chaos island.

As 'his' airships close with the Chaos island, six other huge black airships are visible flying in from another direction.

When they come within range (a distance of a couple of miles) the twelve airships open up on the command tents in the middle of the Chaos army camp with artillery and purple Trump-laser fire.

All of the weapons fire is reflected back at the airships. Fortunately, they seem protected against such things and take no damage from their own weapons.

As the airships close with the island Whippoorwill senses that they have flown into a region where magic now work, as if the properties of the shadow have changed at a certain point in space.

That being so, he sets off his spell rack grenade. The smoke of his Anti-Magic Pulse streams out, though the walls of the airship gondola and down towards the camp. He feels some mage dissipate as this appears to kill the shield protecting the camp.

The airships open fire again, to greater effect.


Back with the group Trumping Chimal, his mental defences suddenly reduce significantly, as if he is no longer receiving assistance.

And we break through and force a Trump contact with him. Godofos opens the Trump gate and the lava is turned on.


From his airship, Whippoorwill suddenly sees lava begin to gout into the centre of the Chaos camp, over a figure visible there.


Godofos holds the Trump Gate open while everyone else reallocate their Trumping efforts onto Timandra.

He then alternates between attacking Chimal with hot and cold (lava and liquid nitrogen respectively).


Whippoorwill, from above, sees the figure being attacked with lava shatter as it is sprayed with liquid gas.


Godofos feels the Trump link to Chimal collapse as he goes, at the very least, unconscious.

He joins the attack on Timandra.


Gradually we break through Timandra's mental defences too, and form a link with her. Suddenly there is a sudden burst of pain through the Trump link, and it drops - as if the other person at the other end has suddenly fallen unconscious.

Damn.


Attacked by twelve airships and with no magical support, the Chaos army is swiftly finished off. The Chaos forces seem to consist mainly of the four-armed prehensile-tailed people.

From the island from which we have been watching, Caitlin begins to use the Pattern to sink the Chaos island into the sea, as she was intending to before. The ground begins to shake.

Lillian tells her to stop, for now, so that the Chaos camp can be searched for any clues, so Caitlin reluctantly stops. A small tidal wave washed over the island we are on.

With that sorted out, Whippoorwill, Finndo Junior, Lillian and her forces go to begin to search the Chaos camp (Lillian Trumping back to her lead airship).

Gerard also pulls out a Trump and returns to the fleet.

Connor and Nemain Trump back to their mother in Rebma.

With things here largely dealt with, Godofos, Caitlin and Jihx Trump off to Vitesse for some rest and recuperation while Whippoorwill, Finndo Junior, Lillian and her forces continue to search the Chaos camp.


Session 4.9   Index   Session 4.11

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