Session 2.8 Index Session 2.10
Notes Taken by Samantha and Alastair Beadle.
In Ahnel, Jihx finishes his administrative work. He Trumps to Amber and finds out, from a servant, that Caitlin is (as far as the servant knows) the only other one of the group here, and that she is down at the Pattern. Jihx decides to go down there also. He heads for the stairs.
Down below, Caitlin has reached the Pattern room. She goes over to Lillian's cage. Lillian doesn't look too happy, and is rather curt, but does talk to Caitlin. Caitlin mentions their plans to hinder the Moonriders by turning on magical a sun in Ghenesh. Lillian is sceptical that this will last, given that some of the Moonriders are powerful mages. Lillian asks for some proper cloths, not just the blankets she's currently wearing. Caitlin obliges and says she'll have servants bring some down. Lillian then volunteers some more information:
At this point, Jihx arrives. Some more discussion of the Moonrider menace ensues. It turns out that Lillian does not speak the language of the Moonriders. Instead, some Moonriders speak other languages, Thari in particular. There is some speculation as to why Oberon re-created the Moonriders when he redrew the Primal Pattern. Caitlin wonders if he had to re-create Ghenesh (and Ragasa) in order to properly re-draw the universe.
Suddenly Caitlin has a brainstorm - take the Heart of Winter and six of the obelisks to Ghenesh, set them up, then remove one obelisk, retire to a safe distance, and watch the shadow disintegrate!
Meanwhile, in Vitesse, Godofos has finished drawing a Trump sketch of Vitesse for each of the group. Once he's done this he rests and sleeps while Arun and Etienne rack spells. He is woken up once they are done and Etienne attempts to Trump Jihx. She concentrates on his Trump. Nothing happens (because Jihx is in the Pattern room at the moment...).
Jihx and Caitlin finish talking to Lillian. They leave the Pattern room and once outside Trump to the arrival courtyard (to save climbing all those steps).
In Vitesse, Godofos, Etienne and Arun also decide to Trump back to Amber. They concentrate on the Trump of the courtyard and go through at almost the same time as Jihx and Caitlin. Fortunately they do not intersect or anything messy like that...
They head for a sitting room inside the castle, and discuss things.
Arun wants to negotiate with the Moonriders for some mutually acceptable settlement. Caitlin tells the others of Lillian's views on the situation, and states that she thinks genocide is the best (indeed only) option.
Godofos Trumps Gerard to get his opinion. He and Caitlin think that he will support their genocide option. After a moment Gerard answers. He is behind his desk once again.
Godofos asks his opinion. Gerard basically sits on the fence, and puts the decision back in the hands of the group, though he is really very sceptical of the peace/negotiation idea. They thank him and close the link.
There is some discussion about why the Moonriders started the first war with Amber. From the library this was apparently because their sphere of influence, which had been growing, started to impinge into the Golden Circle, Amber's sphere of influence. And then the trouble started.
Jihx and Etienne are in favour of taking out (or capturing) Erebus and Gorgon before they take any peace offering to the Moonriders.
They discuss the previous 'meeting' they had with Gorgon, and the chances of getting him by mental means in the future (as he was able to shrug all their minds off before). They decide he really needs to be attacked physically.
For now, they decide that the plan is to go to Ghenesh by shifting through shadow, and let Etienne check for a shadow of the Pattern in Ghenesh.
They head down to the stables and get horses and packs before riding out of the castle, through the city, down off the plateau and off into Forest Arden until they start being able to shift shadow. The plan is to go via Forest Arden because it will allow the forests on Ghenesh to be reached more quickly.
Before too long, they encounter a patrol of Arden Rangers, out of Castle Arden. They ask the Rangers to accompany them on this trip, but the Rangers say they have their orders and their duties here in Forest Arden, and politely refuse. On they go.
Godofos decides he would a stormhound to come along on this trip, so Jihx Trumps back to Amber in order to get one for him, vanishing in a flash of purple rainbows. The others lead his horse.
Etienne moves the group through shadow at top speed, shifting for Ghenesh. The magnificent trees of Forest Arden shrink down to a more normal size. It gets colder, and the sky clears to a pure wintry blue. The trees become more twisted. Etienne and Arun can sense the level of magic increasing, and Etienne that the time flow of the shadows is getting faster and faster. The sun moves down the sky, to twilight.
They come out of the forest as the trail leads through a clearing patchworked with fields. A small medieval-type village is visible off to one side. Some dark mounted figures are vanishing into the woods. Human villagers are standing in an open area near the centre of the village. A faint cry is distress is heard. They ignore this and ride on.
Back in Amber, Jihx talks to the guards about getting a stormhound. They lead up (or a guard is dragged up by) the same stormhound Jihx borrowed before. Jihx takes the lead, then Trumps Etienne.
In the forest, Etienne feels the Trump call coming on, and accepts it. Jihx comes through. They ride on. The stormhound lopes alongside at nowhere near its top speed.
As they go, the sun sets fully and darkness overtakes the forest. The moon comes over the horizon and rises into the sky. The face of the moon gradually changes into that of Ghenesh's moon. They travel on, and some time later they arrive in the clearing in Ghenesh where they killed off Cadmus earlier.
They leave the clearing again, by shadow shifting, and quickly arrive in a new one elsewhere in Ghenesh.
Caitlin checks the fringes of the clearing for mysterious shadows. She finds none. Etienne pulls the Eye of St Claire out of her saddlebag and concentrates upon it, sending her point of view off through the woods. Jihx uses the stormhound to search around the edge of the clearing. Godofos climbs from his horse up a tree, carefully selecting the tree so it isn't one that will break at an embarrassing moment, and looks out over the forest. Arun turns into dragon form and flies up to see what he can see. He doesn't bother going invisible.
After a bit, the stormhound backs away from a point around the perimeter of the clearing, growling a little. Jihx calls Caitlin over and asks her to investigate.
Etienne's point of view finds a black marble temple, full of magic and Moonriders , about ten miles away from the clearing. No line of cold emerges from it that she can detect.
She sets off the 'Detect Shadow of the Pattern' power she added to the Eye. There is no response. It seems there is not shadow of the Pattern here. Perhaps something to do with the place actually feeling older than Amber?
Caitlin sneaks into the woods. Godofos comes down out of his tree. Arun flies towards the location. Caitlin can hear and occasionally see something moving in the woods. Jihx and Godofos can just about detect it too. Arun has no idea where it is. Moving around a little, Caitlin makes it out as a tall, thin figure, and some form of canine.
She pulls out a throwing axe and throws it at the head of this figure. The axe thunks into its head; he bleeds moonlight and hisses in pain. Jihx blasts at the glow of moonlight with his sword, and there is another hiss of pain. Godofos leaps into the forest as Caitlin fades back into the shadows again. Arun barrels down through the trees from above, also aiming for the glow of moonlight. Godofos gets out of Arun's way - and also misses the Moonrider, who ducks aside.
However, Godofos takes advantage of the Moonrider's ducking aside to leap in and finish him off, cutting its head from its shoulders.
Then the Moonriders dog leaps at Godofos out of the darkness. He skewers it but it keeps going, climbing up the sword to bite Godofos' hand even through his armour. Godofos is not happy with this, grabs it and unscrews it head from its shoulders, with loud cracking and popping sounds. As the head comes off, moonlight bursts from the neck and it quickly fades away into moonlight and shadow.
Godofos' hand is bleeding. Arun offers to heal it using his new-found ability to absorb and mould living matter. Godofos agrees, and Arun takes his hand, absorbing it into himself and starting to mould the flesh to heal it.
Jihx takes the stormhound into the woods and lets it smell the Moonrider's remains. The stormhound does so, but is not happy.
Arun plays up the fixing of Godofos' hand. He makes it much more complex, uncomfortable, long-winded and visually unpleasant than is actually necessary. Godofos does not enjoy the experience, but at the end his hand is fixed.
Jihx, Etienne and the stormhound look for more Moonriders around the clearing. There don't seem to be any other things lurking in the woods here. Etienne is, however, concerned that Arun's dragon form and the energy flash from Jihx's sword might have attracted the attention of the Moonriders. She uses the Eye of St Claire and sends her point of view back to the temple she found earlier.
Five Moonriders, plus horses and dogs are forming up in front of it. Etienne relays this to the others, and it is decided to ambush them. Etienne sends her point of view into the temple. There are two more Moonriders inside. Etienne sees the Moonriders head off into the woods. It should take them quite a while to ride here - time to prepare.
Etienne passes this news on to the others. Jihx Trumps the Amber castle courtyard and passes the horses plus the stormhound back to Amber.
Traps are set up. Caitlin sets up sharp wires at neck height. Godofos and Jihx make traps using arrays of hidden pointed branches. Etienne sets up her arquebus on its stand. Arun extrudes caltrops from himself to be spread about. Caitlin directs people to the best places to put all this nastiness. After a while the traps are all set up.
Everyone hides. Arun becomes a tree; everyone else just hides behind trees. They wait.
Several loud, whistling hisses of pain and crashing sounds announce the arrival of the Moonriders, much sooner than might be expected given how dense the forest is.
Etienne throws her magical light source towards the sound, and by its light four Moonriders are seen to be down. The fifth is shielding his eyes from the light. Godofos wades into the forest towards this last one. Caitlin sneaks into the forest and applies an axe to one of the Moonriders on the ground. Jihx attacks another one who is down. The tree that is Arun grows and throws a metal spike at a third, hitting him.
Godofos chops deeply into the Moonrider he is attacking. Etienne looks for stragglers further back in the woods, using the Eye of St Claire, but finds none. Caitlin applies her axe to the last downed Moonrider. It is not well. The Moonrider's horses are still attacking (without too much effect) even without their riders. Jihx attacks them, chopping off heads. Godofos uppercuts one, knocking it unconscious. Arun, as a tree, falls onto one of the horses, incapacitating it.
It is at this point that six 'moondogs' lunch themselves almost silently from the forest behind Etienne, right at her. She just has time to spin and fire her arquebus. She hits one dog and hurts two others with shrapnel. Then they bear her to the ground and start tearing at her with their sharp, cold, teeth.
Caitlin sprints over and one of the dogs falls as she hits it with her axe.
Godofos and Jihx also rush over and attack the dogs. Arun turns from tree back to human form and watches, applauding now and again. Before too long all the dogs have been killed and are bleeding away into moonlight and shadow.
Etienne has been quite badly mauled where her armour did not protect her - her head and hands mainly. Arun offers to assist in putting her back together, but Godofos and Caitlin complain that this is too slow and painful to be used now. Caitlin just bandages Etienne for the time being.
Etienne describes one of her spells, 'The Jericho Effect,' that basically brings down structures in the same way as the walls of Jericho were brought down in the bible. She suggests she uses it on the temple she found, from which these Moonriders came. Everyone else agrees with this idea.
They mount up to travel to the temple by air. Arun carries Godofos and Jihx. Etienne Trumps back to Amber and returns via Jihx with Electra, her winged horse. She carries Caitlin. They leap into the air and head for the temple. As the fly Godofos bad-mouths Arun for various of his more recent failings.
Before long, they come within sight of the temple. Etienne sets off her 'The Jericho Effect' spell. There is a massive rumbling, of thunder from the sky, and earthquake from the ground. Etienne and Arun feel the magical defences of the temple crumbling, and it collapses, the roof onto the base, breaking into pieces.
Once the dust has settled they land and search through the rubble for survivors. There are none that they can find (of course, Moonriders bodies do not appear to last long anyway...). As they search, Etienne and Arun can feel that the magic in the temple is now leaking away.
Caitlin repeats her earlier suggestion that they (attempt to) burn down the Ghenesh forest. Etienne thinks this is an idea worth trying. Caitlin reaches into one of her capacious saddlebags and using the Pattern to pull out a petrol (or whatever) bomb. She lights it and throws it into the woods nearby. A small fire starts. A second petrol bomb assists in enlarging the fire.
Etienne prays to God, and before long a Cherub, Pyrus, appears. Etienne tells it to tend the fire and spread it as far as possible. Pyrus grins maniacally, nods enthusiastically, and starts gleefully tending the fire.
Everyone flies (or is flown) off to another part of the forest, a clearing on one side of a small river flowing through the forest.
When they land, Caitlin mentions the though she had earlier that they could take the Heart of Winter and six of the obelisks to Ghenesh, set them up, then remove one obelisk, retire to a safe distance, and watch the shadow disintegrate. Etienne thinks on this and concludes that she may in fact be able to perform the magic necessary to do this if she has a chance to examine some obelisks in more detail than she has so far.
They decide that this is the best idea they've had so far, and to go with it. The place Lillian named as 'The Trickster's Hand' - the cave with the conical pit in the floor - has not yet been visited by the group, so they decide to go there. Etienne concentrates upon the Trump of the place they took from Lillian, and before long the link opens up. Arun stays behind in Ghenesh (so the others can Trump back) while everyone else steps through.
The cave is irregular in size, narrowing to a small tunnel (crawling height) at one end. Guttering torches provide a dim light, and also illuminate the prehistoric cave paintings that cover the walls. A couple of quite old-looking human corpses lie to one side. Looking down into the conical pit, a Pattern-like design of small channels encrusted with dried blood can be seen running down to the bottom of the pit. Around the pit are arranged the familiar six hexagonal black stone obelisks.
Godofos, Jihx and Caitlin stand guard. Etienne uses the Eye of St Claire to examine the area. It seems to lie in a labyrinth of tunnels and caves that it would be very easy to get lost in. In fact, she finds a number of corpses of people and animals in various stages of decomposition scattered about in dead end tunnels. Satisfied that they are not about to be attacked, she puts down the Eye and starts examining the obelisks with her magical and enhanced-Pattern abilities.
After a while, she begins to see how the obelisks work. The pit (and presumably all the other Pattern-like things they have found) is a reflection of some aspect of the real Patterns, and this aspect of the real Pattern is what is being used here - not any magical properties the Pattern-thing may have. The obelisks use something like a real (that is, capable of operating across and through shadow) version of sympathetic magic to focus the resonance of this aspect/reflection of the real Pattern across/through shadow into the real Pattern(s). It appears that if enough shadows of the Pattern, containing a wide enough range of aspects of the Pattern, are used in this way they can, collectively, affect the real Patterns. Ah ha!
It takes Etienne a while to find all this out, but once she has done, she concentrates on her Trump of Arun, back in Ghenesh, while Godofos gets ready to uproot obelisks and pass them through.
In Ghenesh, Arun starts to be able to see a reddish glow in the sky from off in the direction of the temple - the fire they've started.
He feels a Trump call coming on, and accepts it. It's Etienne and the others, with obelisks. Godofos starts to pass obelisks through the Trump link to him. Arun cannot lift the obelisks, but can let them through and down to the ground. So he does.
The others then leave the 'Tricksters Hand' and join Arun in Ghenesh, along with the Heart of Winter which Etienne has been carrying around for a while. Etienne feels the Heart of Winter go magically dead as it enters Ghenesh, but isn't too bothered - she now knows it is not the magical power that is important, but the aspect of the real Patterns it contains.
Under Etienne's direction, the others set up the obelisks in a hexagon in the clearing. Once this is done, Etienne concentrates on the ritual that she believes will have these obelisks working with the Heart of Winter.
As Etienne begins concentrating, Jihx feels the tingle of an impending Trump contact. He accepts the call. It's Gerard, with some urgent news. An army of several hundred Moonriders is heading through Forest Arden towards Amber!
Gerard says the Moonrider army will be in Amber within three (Amber) hours if nothing is done. That would be nine hours in Ghenesh, and Etienne estimates her ritual will only take six, so there should be time to finish here, then deal with the Moonriders. Jihx asks how the Moonriders are dealing with the daylight, and Gerard tells him they all seem to be wearing sunglasses of some kind. But he isn't sure how they'll cope in Amber itself, where such things may not work. Then a thought suddenly occurs to him. The Moonriders are going to try and burn Forest Arden so that the smoke will blot out the sun, in the same way the sun was blotted out when Julian burned parts of Arden to try and stop Bleys and Corwin's invasion of Amber twenty-two years ago! Bad!
Gerard says he'll be in touch, and closes the Trump link. Jihx passes the information from Gerard on to the others. "Ze bastards - who would do such a sing as to burn all zose trees!" exclaims Etienne.
Jihx wonders if the airship Gilgamesh made Trump-powered towards the end of the fight against Finndo is still working, and if so, where it is. It could be quite useful in a fight out in shadow. He remembers that it is still working, owned by Amber but, because it doesn't actually work in Amber, based in the Golden Circle shadow of Narist and paying its way as a transport along the shadow paths through the worlds of the Golden Circle. Perhaps they should fetch it.
Arun decides to go to Arden to help out there. The others will stay here in Ghenesh until the ritual is done. He turns into his dragon form again, then concentrates on his Trump of the Amber courtyard. He vanishes from Ghenesh in a purple rainbow.
Arun quickly identifies himself to the guards in the arrival courtyard as he appears there in dragon form. The guards are understandably a little tense at present. Once his bona fides are established, he leaps into the air and flies off in the direction of Forest Arden.
Back in Ghenesh, Jihx, Godofos and Caitlin pace the clearing and patrol while Etienne performs her ritual. Caitlin spends some of the time in the woods, rigging various very nasty traps along the best avenues of approach...
Session 2.8 Index Session 2.10