Session 4.13 Index Session 4.15
Notes Taken by Samantha and Alastair Beadle.
Over the course of our journey, Godofos has expanded his knowledge of Trump, and his knowledge of Shapeshifting to the point that he can shift his face and body. Using this latter ability, he has permanently changed the appearance of his body (an Arun-clone of Jihx) from that of Jihx to that of his old self.
We travel on in Agharti. As we go we discuss whether the Courts of Chaos are going to be ready for us or not. Will the Pattern really work there and not be defended against, as we think might happen if the Elder Amberites have been captured and the Chaosites have learnt about their powers?
It is decided that as Timandra suggested we will use the Pattern to shift into the records room of Fortress Gantu to try and track down who is there, and also as a test of our Pattern powers, just to make sure they do work.
We ask Timandra about getting into Spaceshifter Ways if we need to.
She tells us that the Ways are defended, but that the symbol she gave us (the small box whose iridescent silver surface is constantly shifting and flowing) will act as a key and get us inside should we need to go, as well as identifying us to the other Spaceshifters.
A little later, Agharti stops shifting through shadow, and Timandra states that we are as close to the Courts of Chaos as we can safely get. It's time to go...
We suit up into Godofos' Trump-powered environment suits. These are top of the range suits, very high-tech, with armour, sensors (including environment sensors), spotlights and so on.
The Spaceshifters open an exit out through the wall of Agharti into shadow beyond, and we leave. Whippoorwill brings along his men, some enclosed in various Trump-powered vehicles - two tanks/APCs, Godofos' Trump Jet, and a hovercraft - and some just walking. We do not bring along our various steeds, as we do not have Trump-powered protective gear for them as we do for ourselves.
We emerge from Agharti into a shadow of multicoloured rock hillocked and ridged like the sea, all slowly moving as if it is the sea. Overhead, the sky is divided into two halves; in one half there are stars, but the other half is a solid dark red. The sky seems to be rotating slowly. Caitlin can tell the shadow is very unreal and could be easily changed, or destroyed, using the Pattern. Magic does not work here.
We trundle off into shadow. The world continues to ripple and swirl underfoot. Godofos and Caitlin realise that Whippoorwill's troops do not have protective suits that will work everywhere as ours do, and think it would be better to leave the troops behind.
Whippoorwill agrees to do this, and he and his men move off to get as close as possible to the Courts of Chaos so they can act as backup to the rest of us if need be. We bring along the two tank/APCs, along with their drivers, gunners and twenty troops, ten in each.
From Timandra's description, Fortress Gantu consists large of stone-walled corridors, lit by magically-glowing ceilings. Realising that she needs to start in a corridor or tunnel of some kind, Caitlin shifts the area we are travelling through, and a cliff face appears with a cave in it. We enter, and the cave begins to lead us towards the tunnels of Fortress Gantu.
Godofos' suit tells him he is moving through various very bad environments. The others don't notice as much.
Moving through shadow is very easy, as it is very unReal here. Then we quickly they come across an area that is very Real. It feels as if it has been made Real artificially somehow.
We begin to enter corridors. Caitlin shifts us via huge secret tunnels into one at the back of the fortress' records room. The corridor carries on past the secret door that leads into the records room. A small shaft of light from a spy hole in the door is visible in the corridor.
Godofos peers through the spy hole.
He can see a stone-walled room inside, with wooden filing cabinets lining both walls, and desks on the floor between under a glowing ceiling. However, the room is a mess - drawers are pulled out of the filing cabinets, papers are scattered everywhere, and it looks like several fires have been set, but not really taken hold, though there are patches of smoke on the ceiling. A foot is visible to one side, poking out from under piles of paper. We all peer through, and from looking at it conclude that the damage looks fairly recent - perhaps in the past few days.
Godofos applies his strength to the secret door, and with a lot of squealing metal and stone, pushes it open. We enter the records room.
As we examine the place, we see that it looks like random ransacking, rather than a rough search for something. The body looks like that of a guard. He is wearing a tabard with the Chaos serpent symbol on it. He appears to have been beaten to death with a multitude of blunt objects.
We look around at the scattered papers and begin to read some.
Jihx, having spent time reading Chaos books and talking to the Chaosites while we travelled is the expert at the script used - it is still Thari but written with a very different style and font than that used in Amber - and begins to read.
After about half an hour Jihx finds some papers with a master index of Fortress Gantu. This is split into two sections, a large Commoners section, and a much smaller Coteries section. At the end of the Coterie section Jihx finds a list of the seventy Spaceshifters, who are apparently being held in cell block DXQZ12. Searching further he finds that there do not appear to be any Amberites held here. The master index also contains a list of executions, punishments and so on.
Searching further, we look for maps of the place. We do not find any, but do find an operations procedures manual that states that there are no maps of Fortress Gantu for security purposes.
Using the Pattern, Godofos finds another guard, this one still alive but seriously injured. Again, he seems to have had a vicious beating with blunt objects.
We summon a medic from one of the tank/APCs to assist him, having checked that he will survive the environment here (he will).
The medic is told to make him comfortable, wake him up, and make him able to talk. We are not too concerned about his living in the long term.
The medic begins his treatment, commenting as he does so that the guard is weird, as organs and so on are not in the right place.
Godofos tells him not to worry.
While the guard is treated, Jihx searches for, and finds, the prison records for the Spaceshifters. Reading them he does find pictures of them, but nothing unusual.
Eventually the guard wakes up, groaning and obviously in a lot of pain.
We ask him what happened, and he tells us that the commoners revolted, and stormed the Fortress, gaining entrance and ransacking the place.
We ask him how to find cell block DXQZ12, and he tells us that we should use the Trump powered portals to move through the prison, then his head falls back as he dies.
Godofos can sense Trump nearby, so we assume that this is the portals the guard mentioned. We decide to go that way.
The twenty of Whippoorwill's troops we have with us exit the APCs and accompany us. Jihx brings along the prison records of all of the Spaceshifter prisoners.
Outside the double doors of the records room is a large circular room with the look for a foyer, all built of stone, with a vaulted ceiling. In addition to the door we have just exited, there are another five sets of double doors evenly spaced around the room. In the centre of the room is a crystal shaft that appears to be some kind of magical elevator. The bodies of guards are scattered about the floor, along with debris, and the other five sets of doors are pulled off their hinges, battered down, or just open.
Jihx activates his sword, and it turns from amulet to sword form. Godofos readies a Trump Trap. And we move out into the foyer area.
Godofos senses that the Trump is coming from one of the other five doorways, so we head that way.
Through the doorway is a long corridor perhaps three metres wide stretching off into the distance. Is walls are lined with alcoves, each one a metre or so wide, and separated from the next by a metre or so. Above each one is a set of symbols, obviously a designation of some, analogous to DXQZ12. Everyone senses Trump power from within each of the alcoves, and Godofos can tell that they are, in fact, Trump Traps. We make sure we all look away from the alcoves.
Godofos quickly draws a Trump Sketch of this place in case we need a quick getaway.
While he does this, Caitlin and Jihx head off down the corridor in search of the alcoves for DXQZ12.
With his sketch done, Godofos rejoins the others and we carry on down the corridor.
Quite soon, one of Whippoorwill's soldiers glances into an alcove and disappears through a Trump Trap. Doh.
We tell the others to stay in the corridor, and not to look into the alcoves.
Godofos steps up to the alcove and looks within. Inside is a large oval mirror with Trump within it. Godofos feels the Trump Trap in the mirror grab him and suck him through. He appears out of similar mirror in a stone-walled corridor with a glowing ceiling, dotted every couple of metres with thick metal doors containing small shuttered windows. The soldier is there, looking rather concerned, but Godofos calms him down, and they return through the mirror there, which is unmarked, but leads back to the corridor where everyone else is.
After a couple of miles of alcoves, Jihx finds the correct alcove, marked DXQZ12. Fortunately the alcoves do seem to be arranged in sequence, not randomly, so this is not too hard.
We round up all of the soldiers and make ready to go through the mirror.
Jihx goes first, and feels the Trump Trap grab him and pull him through...
To appear in a corridor not unlike the one the soldier was pulled through to previously - stone-walled, ceiling glowing, lots of doors. This corridor appears to be about fifty metres long, with fifty doors on each side and a blank wall at the far end. Dead silence greets him.
Jihx checks the doors and finds they have small viewing windows in them. He looks through the first window into the 'cell' beyond and sees a paradise-like tropical savannah paradise, dotted with trees that seem to be slowly wandering across the landscape. Through the next window he sees a vast Victorian sitting room, going off for miles, dotted with groups of large over-stuffed armchairs, side tables, and huge redwood-sized aspidistra plants. In this room Jihx sees areas of destruction, with chairs, tables and aspidistras overturned and fire-damaged. Given the metre spacing between the doors and the size of the places behind them, there is obviously something strange going on with shadow here...
Jihx pushes at one of the doors. There is no sign of magic or locks.
He returns through the Trump Trap mirror to the rest of us.
We discuss Fortress Gantu, and come to the conclusion that there do not seem to be enough bodies here. If the Commoners stormed the place, we think it's very likely they took casualties. That being so, where are their bodies? Were they taken away by the survivors?
With that discussed, we all pass through the Trump Trap to cell block DXQZ12.
We notice that one of the doors down the corridor is open, so Jihx goes to investigate.
While he does this Caitlin and Godofos check the windows through the cell doors. There are all sorts of different environments behind them. However, Caitlin can tell that all of the worlds behind the doors are linked together by shadow paths.
Jihx reaches the open door, which seems to be very thick, and to slide rather than swing open, and finds that it is blocked by the body of an elderly man. He recognises the body from the picture-locket Timandra gave us as being that of one of the Spaceshifters. They seem to have been beaten to death, like the guards above.
Through the door is a white sand beach with a promenade above it with an evening sun hovering low over the sea. The beach and promenade stretch off to the vanishing point.
Jihx steps over the body and goes onto the beach. From this new vantage point he sees two other bodies and various blood stains and drag marks from something with large claws.
Having looked through the windows of the doors by the Trump Trap in, Caitlin joins Jihx and steps through onto the beach. She decides to change the shadows here to make them all more linked and easier to search. However, when she tries this something stops her, seeming to have made the shadow 'rigid' and unchangeable.
She casts around to find whatever is hindering her, and senses that there are a large number of things scattered around the cell block, hidden within the shadow veils, which are stopping this. She begins attempting to open a path to one of these from on the beach, to see what it is.
On the beach, Jihx follows the promenade, which seems to stretch off to the horizon in the direction away from the sea, and quickly finds a shadow path. He follows this and appears in the next shadow of the series making up cell block DXQZ12, the large Victorian sitting room.
He searches around, and finds some more bodies, and again signs of blood and of resistance to whatever happened.
We collect all of the bodies together in the corridor by the door onto the beach.
With that done, Godofos contacts Timandra, and when she takes the call explains what has happened and shows her the bodies we have found.
Timandra looks unhappy at this. She asks that the bodies be passed through to her so that they may be given a decent funeral.
So Godofos passes through the bodies we have found so far, and they drop the Trump link.
We sends the troops out to search the cell block and retrieve any other bodies which may be present.
While they do this, Godofos tries to remove some cell doors, just in case someone should try and trap us within the cell block. He finds that the doors are very tough, seemingly built to contain people far stronger than him from beating them down from inside or outside. However, he investigates and finds that when the doors are open he can damage the tracks they slide on. He does this to several doors, so that they cannot close.
Jihx matches Spaceshifter prison records to bodies.
As she tries to access the hidden shadow stabilising devices, the same force which is 'rigidifying' the cells stops Caitlin from accessing the devices causing the effect. Damn.
Godofos suggests she try it from outside the cell, as they are presumably there to stop people breaking out, and not in.
Caitlin leaves the beach and tries again from the corridor. This time she begins to make progress, and starts to open a path to access whatever the 'rigidifying' device is.
After a few hours Whippoorwill's troops have searched everywhere in the cell block. We have found that the various shadows making it up are not quite as large as they appear - there are shadow barriers quite close to the doors in all of them, much like the ones in the zone of shattered shadow. There is still a lot of space for seventy or so people.
The troops have found only another seven bodies, for eleven in total, implying that there are still fifty-nine missing Spaceshifters.
At this point, Caitlin finally completes opening a way through the shadow veils to the stabilising device. It seems to be a shiny metallic spindle shaped thing, perhaps two feet long, its surface convoluted like that of a brain. It is very Real, as Real as Gerard's Pattern Sword.
Caitlin picks up the device, and nothing appears to happen. She then moves it out of the shadow pocket it is in.
She checks to see if this has disrupted the protection on the rest of the cell block, but the absence of this device does not seem to have affected the others.
Godofos tries Trumping some of the other missing Spaceshifters, but does not get through.
He then contacts Timandra again, and when she takes the call, tells her what we have found so far. That done, he passes the other seven bodies through to her.
Godofos and Timandra discuss the situation, and agree that the other Spaceshifters may have gone to the Coterie Way. We agree to try there next, and drop the Trump link.
That done, Godofos pulls out the Trump of the cracked temple which Timandra gave us earlier, and concentrates on it.
The Trump link quickly opens up. Through it we see signs of obvious fighting, and bodies are scattered around on the steps up to the temple. However, the place seems deserted at present, so Jihx steps through the link, sword at the ready.
The entrance to Spaceshifter Ways seems to be surrounded by a high black stone wall, with a single large gunmetal-coloured gate in it. There is no movement anywhere.
With the place seemingly secure, Caitlin steps through the link, followed by four soldiers. As soon as they come through the link, the soldiers fall over, twitching. Damn.
Caitlin and Jihx notice at this point that their environment suits are indicating a hostile environment; given their attention on the environment and not being attacked, they did not notice this before.
We quickly pass them back to Godofos, but not before one stops twitching, dead.
Godofos passes all twenty of the soldiers back through another Trump link to the tank/APCs, which, being Trump-powered, should also be safe. That done, he joins Jihx and Caitlin outside Spaceshifter Ways.
We check the bodies that are there, and find that they do not appear to be the people we are after, but rather the bodies of Commoners. They appear to have been blasted with some kind of energy bolts, some in the front as they approached, some in the back as they tried to run away.
As we get closer to the entrance to the Ways, we quickly notice that the wall is full of magic, concentrated in parts of the carvings there from which the blasts seem to have come.
Jihx starts to make his way up the stairs followed by Godofos and Caitlin slightly further back.
Nothing happens.
We ascend to the top and use the shifting box-key that Timandra gave us to open the doors, which swing wide of their own accord. We enter the Ways.
Stepping through the doorway we step into another shadow. This is a cavern of multicoloured crystal, with crystal stalactites and stalagmites protruding from ceiling and floor.
A path is visible winding through the stalagmites, and the bodies of a number of Commoners are scattered around on the crystal, along with bloodstains and so on.
At the end of the path is a cave mouth, but it has been filled with a solid mass of grey rock. It looks like a solid rock face has been moved to cover the exit.
Jihx tries to Trump Timandra for directions but cannot get through. He then tries to use the Pattern to shift through the rock wall to the other side, and wanders off through the crystal stalagmites to do this.
Meanwhile, Godofos walks back along the path with the key and once outside Trumps Timandra.
Caitlin keeps an eye on things inside.
Jihx shifts quickly through shadow, and soon finds himself moving from the multicoloured crystal of the Way foyer into a corridor of golden crystals. At the far end he sees that it opens out into a room, in which he can hear, and sense, the presence of live people. He can also feel some magic in the corridor.
Godofos talks to Timandra once she takes the call. She tells him that she does not know what the rock face is - it did not used to be there. She suggests that perhaps they erected it as a defence against the Commoner attack.
Jihx, having seen enough for now, shifts back to the others at the rock wall, quickly rejoining Caitlin and Godofos. He tells them what he has found, and we all head off together, following the same path Jihx used.
As we go, Caitlin senses that the golden crystal corridor is another shadow that works its way around the rock barrier. As before, we emerge into a corridor of golden crystal, with a room at the end containing people. As we approach them we sense that they feel similar to the Chaosites such as Timandra. Coming closer still we can sense the presence of magic; Caitlin's spindle does not appear to suppress this.
"We are your friends. We come in peace," Godofos shouts down the corridor.
"Who are you?" shouts a voice back.
We all sense magic building at the end of the corridor, as if people are preparing to cast spells.
"Timandra's friends," replies Godofos. "Who are you?"
"Balayan," replies the voice.
We check the list of imprisoned Spaceshifters that Timandra gave us, and find that there is indeed a Balayan there.
When we ask, Balayan reports that there are thirty-three of them here. He asks us to prove our bona fides.
We show the key, and they seem to relax a little.
Balayan invites us closer. We feel the magic fading away, and we come forward.
As we enter the room we see that the thirty-three Spaceshifters here, of all ages, are grouped together. Many are armed and several others are clearly holding back defensive or aggressive spells.
Balayan proves to be an oldish-looking pale-skinned man, who, along with the others in the room is examining us closely. "You're Amberites!" he exclaims when he sees us. "Why are you helping Timandra? Has she conquered Amber?"
We explain how we came to be here, and ask them where the others are.
Balayan tells us that they does not know. The commoners stormed Fortress Gantu, trying to kill them. They defended themselves and fifty or so of them escaped out into the rest of the Courts of Chaos. They came up against mobs in the streets and the Ways and some of them were separated. They have not seen the people they lost since, and cannot now contact them.
We consider this, then declare our intention of returning them to Timandra. They look quite pleased at the prospect.
We lead the thirty-three Spaceshifters out of their Way using the Pattern, into the crystal foyer area and out to the entrance courtyard.
As we emerge Caitlin notices that someone is watching us from near the gates. She sees a figure duck out of sight. She informs the rest of us of this, and Jihx sprints off in that direction.
Reaching the gate and going out into the street beyond, Jihx sees a man just beside the gate, against the wall. He is wearing a uniform and green tabard with a white unicorn on it. The man is looking off further down the street, making hand signals, as if signalling someone. Jihx can see someone there, not quite hidden by the corner, but quite some way off.
"Amberite soldiers," Jihx reports over the Trump-powered radio in his environment suit.
In the Spaceshifter Way courtyard, Godofos and Caitlin send the Chaosites back to their Way. They begin moving back up the stairs towards the door, looking more than a little concerned.
With that done, Caitlin and Godofos also head for the gate and the street beyond.
Behind them, they see most of the Spaceshifters go back into the Way, but Balayan, with half a dozen of the toughest-looking and most heavily-armed Spaceshifters protectively around him, remains outside, pulls out a Trump and begins to concentrate on it.
In the street, the Amberite soldier demands that Jihx drops his sword.
When Jihx refuses he attacks, but Jihx, being stronger and faster, parries him and kicks him in the chest, knocking him off his feet.
Godofos and Caitlin arrive.
Jihx disarms the soldier and brings him forward.
Caitlin questions him as to who he is and what he is doing here.
He refuses to answer to 'Chaosite Scum' like us.
We do not reveal our true identities just yet. However, Caitlin, seeing that we can survive the environment here, removes her helmet.
The soldier insults Caitlin and her fighting skills, at which point Jihx lets him go.
The soldier draws his dagger and leaps at Caitlin.
Unfortunately for the solider, Caitlin is vastly superior to him, and a few moments later Godofos steps in and saves his life by stopping Caitlin. He is lying on the ground, broken and bleeding but still conscious.
Caitlin continues the interrogation.
Thinking now might be the time to contact the Elder Amberites, Godofos pulls out Brand's Trump and concentrates on it. He does not get a response.
Jihx grabs the soldier, pulls him to his feet, yanks him close to him, and uses all of his psyche on him, asking "Who do you work for?" as he does so.
The tiny brain of the soldier very quickly crumbles under this assault, but no coherent answer is forthcoming. The soldier drools.
At this point, large group of soldiers appears, marching around the corner in the direction the soldier we captured was signalling in.
Godofos tries some more Trumps of the Elder Amberites, beginning with Benedict. He feels the call start to get through, then it is resisted, and the link drops.
Jihx tries to hold off the advancing soldiers, firing energy blasts from his sword into the street ahead of them.
The soldiers scatter and take up defensive positions.
Caitlin joins the Trump link with Godofos and as they push at it, senses that even together they could not force it open.
The soldiers, now mostly in cover, begin to fire arrows at us. We dodge.
A figure in white scale-mail armour on the back of a large grey horse comes around the corner. Could this be Prince Julian of Amber?
We duck out the way of the arrows back into the Spaceshifter Ways entrance courtyard. We notice that Balayan is passing people through a Trump link, presumably to Timandra...
Once in cover, we pull out the Trump of Julian and all three of us concentrate on it.
Collectively, our minds seem to be much stronger than Julian's. He tries to resist, but is simply not strong enough. We crash through he mental defences and drag him through the Trump link.
Unfortunately, this breaks the Trump link, and he leaps to his feet, drawing his sword.
We take up defensive positions.
"Uncle Julian, please don't!" shouts Caitlin.
Julian ignores this.
We attempt to convince him of our identities, but he ignores this, and attacks Godofos, who defends himself but does not attack.
Caitlin steps back and emanates Pattern, hoping this will convince Julian of our bona fides.
Jihx blasts him with his sword as he attacks Godofos, to little effect - the blast seems to bounce off his armour.
Godofos is fending him off but, Julian is much stronger and faster than him, and he is rapidly weakening. Suddenly Godofos holds up a Trump Trap and Julian disappears in a purple Trump rainbow to a prison shadow. Phew. Godofos sags slightly; his sword (which he thought was largely indestructible) is nicked along the edge from parrying Julian.
Jihx and Caitlin Trump Julian again, and together they begin to force the link open once more.
Godofos Trumps the prison chamber which the Trump Trap leads to and attempts to reason with Julian, telling him who we are and so on.
Julian spurns Godofos' arguments, telling that there is at least one Chaosite with a Pattern imprint, and that we are doubtless others.
Glancing out into the street, we see that the soldiers are advancing on our position.
We retreat back into the courtyard, and, using the Pattern, Caitlin finds another secret passageway - this time under the pavement. We duck into it and pull the stone back over the entrance hole.
As we do so, we see the last of the Spaceshifters disappear in a purple Trump rainbow.
Jihx and Caitlin get through and lock onto Julian's mind, overcoming his defences once again. Seeing Julian stop moving, Godofos reaches through his Trump (separate from that of Caitlin and Jihx) link and drags Julian back, his mind still locked in combat with Jihx and Caitlin.
Julian is stripped of his Trump deck, but he will not let go of his sword. We cannot wrest it from him - he is too strong.
We go around the corner and the secret passage we are in turns out to be a secret cell block. Julian is thrown into a cell, and Caitlin emanates Pattern around herself to stop others Trumping him.
Godofos tries once more to reason with him, while keeping an eye of the Trumps of the Elders, just in case.
As before, Julian is not convinced by the arguments of 'Chaos scum' such as ourselves.
At this point Godofos senses the Trump of Fiona become active. Then he senses a Trump link forming to a point in a corner, over there.
We decide to release Julian and talk to the newcomers, as they have got to be more reasonable than Julian!
However, they beat us to it, and Princes Benedict and Bleys (who is, we know, Godofos' father) appear out of a purple Trump rainbow, swords drawn. Unlike his Trump image, Benedict has only one arm.
"Hi Dad!" says Godofos cheerily...
Session 4.13 Index Session 4.15