Session 5: "Duped" / "That's Not Funny"

Five seconds into the game:

Scott: "SECOND deadliest?!"

Finndo has a theory about the narcotic baths of Granlibakken. He believes they are somehow responsible for our doppleganger troubles. He pulls Osric aside to explain. Osric is diplomatic right back:

Finndo: "To sum up, I tell him that the baths seem to be the key. Through one way or anther, the baths may have peeled the worst parts of us away. A bunch of theories as to how, but the baths are the key."
Osric: "Brother, you don't have any bad parts."

Rob explains _why_ Finndo is troubling to do this:

Rob: "If he doesn't explain, it looks like he's just throwing an arbitrary dictate around. He doesn't want to appear to do that without your backing."
Lydia: "And that would be so out of character for Finndo."
Jarrod: "Exactly."

Cyrus takes their final solution quite well. Oh, look, more evil:

Finndo: "We are about to enter Granlibakken, and... avoid the baths."
Cyrus: "I see."

The party camps down for the night in their handy iron square (square, not circle, after some debate with an agitated Sybil). The usual bedtime rituals ensue:

Shai: "Sonnet's trying to sleep. Note the operative word: trying."

Benedict and Sybil stand second watch. The usual nighttime who's-on-the-worst-watch hijinks ensue:

GM to Benedict and Sybil: "There's a kind of patchwork - lots of different colored fur - rabbit watching you. Very distinctly watching you - that's what catches your attention and sets off your alertness."

The trouble with different folks used to different strokes:

Sybil: "I nod to it and keep going."
Benedict: "You just nod to it?"
Sybil: "It's watching us; I say hello and keep going. Why should I stop to talk to it?"
Benedict: "Because it's WATCHING you?"

Benedict steps toward it.
Sybil: "Benedict - !"
Benedict: "I ignore her. I take another step towards it."
GM: "It watches you."
Sybil: "Benedict - I thought we were supposed to be doing watch?"
Jarrod, softly: "I waaaaaarned you."

The rabbit resolves into the Prince of Colors (first episode character, gentle reader). Sybil bounds over to greet him enthusiastically. On how the Fae say hello:

Sybil: "How long were you dead?"
Prince of Colors : "Oh not very."
Sybil: "Oh, that's good."

On foreshadowing:

Prince of Colors : "I would have your thoughts on three questions - not the answers; merely the thoughts."

About which they argue:

Sybil: "What are you after? You've asked me three times."
Prince of Colors : Three requests for three questions.

Benedict, witness to this, wakes up his older brother. Finndo eyes the situation. On conclusions:

Finndo: "Make the [iron chain] square into a circle."

Sybil has been spending too much time around Cyrus:

Sybil (to PoC), agreeing to his terms: "This is a trap, and I want you to know that I know it."

On exchange:

Prince of Colors : "Very well. Mmmmm, questions: questions, questions, remembering questions: what game are you playing, how far is the land, are you a pair or are you apart?"
Sybil: "Acute."
Prince of Colors : "Acute?"
Sybil: "On angles."
Prince of Colors : "You're feeling sharp, then."
Sybil: "I'm feeling... _pointed_."
Finndo: "Directed."
Prince of Colors : "Well. At any rate, not at all obtuse. Your answer is in the ice."

The trouble with getting what you want:

Sybil, to Finndo: "I have no real desire to have that answer, you realize."
Finndo: "What would you like to do with it?"
Sybil: "Hit him over the head with it."

Finndo: "Shall I get it down?"
Sybil: "That's my answer, not yours."
Finndo: "But you don't want it."
Sybil: "That doesn't entitle you to have it."
Finndo: "I don't want to have it. I was offering to take it down for you."
Sybil: "That's very kind of you; I can't do that to you."

More Cyrus influence:

Sybil: "This is dumb. Sonnet would say this is dumb. I'll take it down anyway."

The icicle melts to resolve into a bar of iron in Sybil's hand. It does not hurt her, and it ought to (she being Fae). In other words, she can't be Fae because she's not wounded by iron. What do you say when you think you're no longer who you thought you were? Let's see:

Sybil: "I am very confused."

On iron skillets to the forehead:

GM: "Do you recall the questions?"
Deborah: "I have them written down." She looks at her screen. Stares.
Sybil: "Oh, NO. Finndo?"
Finndo: "Yes?"
Sybil: "Oh, no."
GM: *howling cackling gleeful noise* :)

On fresh complications:

Sybil: "We have a problem."
Finndo: "How startling."
Benedict: "Which one?"

Sybil: "She goes and sits on her bag and stares at the sky."
GM: "You're crying?"
Sybil: "Just staring at the sky. She's thinking, not crying. Thinking."
Rob: "A terrifying enough sight in its own right."

Sonnet's blissfully asleep during all this. It is said a person's true face emerges in their rest. Or maybe not:

Shai: "She's so angelic when she's asleep."
Finndo: "No..."
GM: "Oh, yes she is. She's very angelic."
Shai: "When she's asleep."

Sonnet and Cyrus wake up. On morning rituals:

Sonnet: "Are we dead yet?"
Sybil: "Not yet."
Sonnet: "Good."

Cyrus: "Are we under attack?"
Finndo: "No. Not yet."
Sonnet: "Anything of interest happen while I'm asleep?"
Sybil: "No."
Finndo: "Yes."

The trouble with reputation and no coffee:

Finndo: "One of Sybil's old friends paid us a visit."
Sonnet: "Are you sure we're not dead?"
Finndo: "No."
Sonnet: "You're not sure we're not dead."
Finndo: "No, we're not dead."

On clarity:

Cyrus: "Would you care to explain?"
Finndo: "Honestly, I don't think I could do it the slightest bit of justice. There was an icicle involved."

On coping:

Cyrus: "Was anyone stabbed with it?"
Finndo: "No."
Cyrus: "Well, that's good."
Finndo: "I'm going to try to go to sleep and pretend this was all a bad dream."
Cyrus: "Cyrus loads up a crossbow with iron."

On Benedict, character and true faces:

Shai: "He's so angelic when he's asleep."
Finndo: "No."
GM: "No."
Jarrod: "No."
Scott: "No."

On standing guard with the paranoid and frustrated:

Lydia: "And Cyrus is there with the crossbow waiting for something unwise to walk past so he can kill it."

On breaking the curve:

GM: "Dawn arrives, and for once it does not hit you like a sledgehammer, Cyrus."

On wariness:

Deborah: "I have an idea."
Rob: "That can't be good."

On perspective and sympathy:

Sybil: "I'm a liability."
Finndo: "To whom?"
Sybil: "All of us."
Finndo: "Would you care to elaborate?"
Sybil: "I'm mortal."
Finndo: "That's no great pain."

The party is on the road, tracking the undead army. On trends:

GM: "Is anyone having a conversation on the road?"
Deborah: "Yes, Sybil's bitching to Finndo."
GM: "Other than the default, is anyone having a conversation on the road?"

Sybil is no longer glamoured (very small little bedraggled Fae rather than a Sonnet-echo.)

Lucan: "She's not you right now? I'm fine with that."
Sonnet: "So am I."

Only Finndo would try to be reasonable about the unreasonable:

Sybil: "Why would he do this?"
Finndo: "Are you sure he did it?"

The trouble with yesterdays:

Sybil: "He would have to have. I didn't know you could do this." Pause. "Oh my god - if you're whole Fae and you take away the Fae, there's no you!"
Finndo: "Except someone may have already taken it away."
Sybil: "No. Because there was iron yesterday and it upset me. There was glamour yesterday."

We all reach our conclusions our own way:

Finndo: "It is possible you were deceived."
Sybil: "No. He had song."

On sympathy:

Sybil: "Oh, I want to kill him."
Finndo: "I'm sure that could be arranged."

The trouble with linear thought for the non-linear:

Sybil: "Why did he - ? He must have had a reason. Well. He always has a reason, but do I /like/ the reason is the important part."

On Benedict:

Osric: "I'm going to grab Tracker Smurf at some point when he gets back."

On Tracker Smurfing:

Benedict: "Any clue on where they might be going?"
Osric: "That's what you're for, isn't it?"

It all depends on your point of view (and spending too much time with Sonnet):

Sybil: "I can't kill her. That's inconvenient."
Finndo looks over.
Sybil: "I can't kill her. I need her back."
Finndo: "Except that by killing her, you get her back."
Sybil: "No, I need her alive. If she's dead, I'm dead."

On the dispensation of information:

Benedict to Osric: "Would you care to inform the rest of our merry little gang?"
Osric: "I don't know about 'merry'..."

On trying to help:

Sybil: "We could send something on ahead to see what's there."
Osric in You Dumbass Tone: "Yessss..."
Sybil: "Would you _like_ me to?"

Sybil wants to summon an air elemental to spy on the single campsite the party can see in the army's trail. The result of bitter logic and learning curves:

Cyrus: "What if it [the elemental] is booby trapped?"
Finndo: "We tested for that."
Sybil: "Then it will eat me and it will be only mildly inconvenient for you."

Osric: "Well, you've gotten maudlin lately."
Sybil: "Mortals are like that."

On expectations set too high:

Air elemental: "I have to REMEMBER?!"

Sonnet may have explained about the duplicates issue to Lucan, who has a certain perspective:

Lucan: "Do I have to deal with three of you now?"
Sonnet: "Do you WANT to deal with three of me?"
Lucan: "It's a somewhat heady proposition."
Sonnet: "I think you can handle it."
Lucan: "Heh heh. Heh. NO."

On dashed hopes:

Lucan: "So we're staying back, huh?"
Sonnet: "Yes."
Lucan: "Yeah - yeah. Yeah, we're not moving forward, and I'm all for that."
Sonnet: "If they heard the other people riding around, they may realize they're surrounded and cut back this way."
Lucan: "You weren't supposed to tell me that!"

They come up on the campfire:

GM: "For all the world, it looks like Sonnet, in slightly different clothes -"
Shai: "Roasting marshmallows?"
GM: "Cooking something on the fire."

When the chance at revenge is too generously offered:

Osric: "You see your brother Osric slowly going around. You can stop him if you like."
Benedict: "... Nope. I don't stop you."

Two groups of two people each (Benedict and Osric, Finndo and Sybil) are circling around the camp to come up on the duplicate Sonnet from the sides. Sonnet and Cyrus are hanging back directly behind the tent in case the duplicate Sonnet tries to bolt out the back door, so to speak. Ah, sweet suspicion:

Deborah squints at Shai.
Shai: "I'm hanging back."
Deborah: "Yes, but if you know that, you're in the perfect position..."

On tactics, and the trouble with glamour:

Finndo sprinkles iron on himself.
Sybil: "We could fool her, couldn't we?"
Finndo: "Yes, but there's the possibility that that's Sonnet - or that that's _you_."

Finndo rides right on up to her and starts a conversation. It's always good to know that your enemy has laid a trap:

Finndo: "Evening."
Duplicate Sonnet: "Ah, Prince. Hello."
Finndo: "You've been waiting."
Duplicate Sonnet: "You've been coming. It would be rude not to set up a proper reception area."
Finndo: "Yes, and I have been looking forward to this reception with _no_ _end_ of enthusiasm."

How to politely inquire about the trap:

Duplicate Sonnet: "There is food."
Finndo: "If I could inquire, where has the army gone?"
GM: "She looks briefly amused. Then: "That's something for polite dinner time conversation, don't you think?"
Finndo: "Under normal circumstances, I would agree, but I would consider it quite safe to consider this less than normal."

When you can't dazzle them with brilliance:

Duplicate Sonnet: "But Daddy always said you needed to behave properly in all circumstances."
Finndo: "Your father is quite correct in that, but the proper behavior varies from circumstance to circumstance..."

Baffle them with bullshit. On buying time:

Rob: "And at that point, Finndo riffs for ten minutes on this theme, expounding on all the circumstances and propriety."

On little bits of history:

Lucan: "I'll take the reins. I used to be a stable boy; you'd figure I know how."
Sonnet: "Yes. Also pretty good in haylofts, as I recall."

On propriety:

Finndo, still going: "... and as such, I fear that this is neither the proper time or place for a sit down dinner to continue the conversation."
GM: "She listened politely to you this entire time."

On consequences:

Duplicate Sonnet pulls the skewer of meat back and looks at it. The meat on it is fairly charred; she kept it in the fire the entire time you had this conversation. She lazily tosses the stick towards [Finndo].
Finndo: "I catch it in the non iron hand."
Duplicate Sonnet gestures at the meat, "They were after us as well, you know."
Finndo: "I can't imagine why."

It's nice to know what sort of people you're dealing with:

Rob to GM: "How much does this [the skewered meat Duplicate Sonnet tossed him] look like male genitalia?"
GM, choking: "Not at all. In as much as a rat does."
Lydia: "What an interesting turn of thought, Rob."

In the middle of this situation, watching Finndo chat to Duplicate Sonnet while we wait and stand around the campsite Duplicate Sonnet has had indefinite time to set up with anything she likes, Osric trumps Benedict with a question. Small logistical issues:

Osric to Benedict, via trump: "Do you recall us having a plan?"

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect:

Duplicate Sonnet: "Then again, if I am correct in my understanding of the princely conduct, you don't know whether to believe me or not."
Finndo: "Yes. That would be correct. But there is no evidence they were after Sybil."
Duplicate Sonnet: "That would require her killing someone."
Finndo: "Yes, but appearances can be deceiving. I am going to assume that you are as sharp as I would anticipate, at the very least, which means you are probably aware of the situation that this creates."

Let's make sure you understand Just How Broken this all is, Cyrus:

GM: "She starts to stand up - slowly. She is armed but - not."
Sonnet, commenting to Cyrus on what Duplicate Sonnet is doing: "Getting up slowly, bent over slightly, to show him a touch of cleavage. Nice underwear, lace trim..."
Cyrus: "That's more than I needed to know."

Before I kill you, Mr. Bond...

Finndo: "I cannot imagine that you would have stopped in a place so easy for us to find without a reason."
Sonnet: "Really?"
Finndo taps his chest, points at his mouth, points at the lake.

Hey, look on the bright side of relative snobbery:

Sybil: "You don't know who has bought you. You've sold your soul and you don't even know to whom."
Duplicate Sonnet: "You don't know who's got you." And she gives Sybil a Sonnet Look.
Sonnet: "I really think you should shoot her in the back of the head."

He's too used to us saying _Fuck_:

GM: "Please roll, Cyrus."
Cyrus rolls. "_Shit_."
GM: "I'm not familiar with that designation: please elaborate."

Unsurprisingly, the campfire turns out to be a Huge Fire Elemental that wants to hurl Huge Fireballs at folks like Cyrus. For once it's not because Cyrus charged the fireball:

GM: "And now you have to deal with," and he mimes hurling a fireball at Lydia, making huge whooshing noises of doom.
Lydia: "I Dodge."
GM: "Sure you do."

On more designations:

GM to Shai: "You're riding towards it?"
Shai rolls. She stares at her dice.
GM: "That's your riding roll? How'd you do?"
Deborah: "She's not riding _towards_ it."

What it takes to get true cooperation out of Amberites:

Osric to Benedict: "Well, brother, all of Nature is here, and it's all pissed. Defend me."
Benedict: "Well, I guess I'm defending him."

The devil is in the details. On those helpful little touches that make it all so much more worthwhile:

GM: "Cyrus, you're having a flashback. But it's saltwater, not the burning water above you now. There's a ship on fire above you, you're sinking, sinking, you're sure you're going to die, something beneath you is reaching for you - you're back in the present."
Lydia stares.

The Duplicate Sonnet rose up on a whirlwind air elemental; Finndo threw a deck of cards into the wind to try to fill it with cards (Finndo does card magic). On possession of the right cards:

GM: "Finndo, what are you doing?"
Finndo: "I want my cards back. And if it happens to take the elemental with it..."

Karms are more interested in function than in form:

Sonnet: "I try to grab him by his - " She gestures in a way that the reader thinks means his pants.
GM: "You're still riding?"
Shai: "Of course."
Jarrod: "It doesn't have to be an elegant rescue."

A watery fist descends towards Cyrus's head. On helpful advice:

Sonnet: "Get The Hell Out Of The Water!"

Sometimes they just put it too neatly to add to:

GM: "You manage to roll away and as you roll," *slam* his fist comes down on the table, "SPLASH!" Pause. "And I imagine you try to get away?"
Cyrus: "Uhm. Yeeeeaaahhh."

When at first you don't succeed:

GM to Benedict: "Are you going to grab him, this time?"
Jarrod to Lydia: "You're getting more abuse from the rescue..."

It turns out that the fire elemental and the water elemental cannot themselves cross into each other's demesne. So Sybil bottles the fire elemental and then throws the bottle into the walking lake that it is the water elemental. Lots of steam erupts. On being thoughtful:

Sybil, belatedly, to people fleeing steam: "Sorry about the heat!!!"

Everything's fine! It's all fine here! Trust me - I'm singing Gilbert and Sullivan:

Finndo: "To me! to me!"
Sonnet: "We're running away from the fire!"
Finndo: The fire is under control! Follow the sound of my voice!" He begins singing (no, really) in a deep, operatic bass. "'An Englishman is a - '"
GM, helpfully, to Osric: "It occurs to you it could imitate Finndo's voice."
Rob: But not his vast knowledge of show tunes!

Benedict is the one who rescues Cyrus from the water elemental... by the throat. On Never Living It Down:

Benedict, smirking, "Are you all right Lord, Halibut? Sorry about the rough jerks."

Duplicate Sonnet got away on the air elemental. We decide to find her (somehow). Careful what you ask for:

GM: "Benedict, roll your tracking."
Deborah: "Please track the large elemental through the air."
Finndo: Already working on it...

Cyrus: "Fortunately, there is this air elemental path that has been ..."
GM: "So long as the trees remain."
Deborah: "Okay, I was being sarcastic, but."

Meanwhile, the earth elemental has, of course, removed the army tracks while the fight was on. On hubris:

Benedict: "Goddamn son of a bitch."
Osric: "Should have chased it."
Benedict: "I wasn't going to leave you alone."

The real trouble with dopplegangers who think like you do - mostly:

Sybil: "The problem with this is that we have to outsmart ourselves."
Sonnet: I'm not that smart."
Sybil: "Neither am I, but if you add a bunch of me together eventually we can start thinking."

Sonnet: "I'm so pissed. I'm not that smart. I wouldn't sit there waiting to do a cute little ambush. I would have gotten every one in the middle of the night."
Sybil: "That wasn't you, that was me being you."
Sonnet: "But why would I sit there in the middle - "
Sybil: "Because they would stop to talk to your breasts!"
Sonnet: "Point."

20/20 hindsight and Can't We Schedule These Unplanned Outages:

Finndo: "Sybil, can you make preparations that would enable us to deal with this sort of thing in the future?"
Sybil: "I give him an Osric look."

On helpful suggestions:

Fred: "You want precise weather control? Find a fucking jewel of judgement."
Scott: "It's on my list."
Jarrod: "Well, I've got a birthday coming up."
Scott: "We've never seen Dad wear one."
Jarrod, ref. the Savoy eavesdropping rubies: "Because I'm so hip on rubies right now."

You say tomato, I say tomahtoh:

Finndo: "Would you be capable of making Benedict's arms capable of hurting something like that?"
Sybil squints: "Well, technically Benedict's a weapon..."
Finndo: "No, not Benedict's arm. His sword. I do not anticipate him punching."
Sybil: "Oh. That's easier, then."

On the consequences of time spent with warlocks, short woodland resources and random weirdness:

Sybil: "We could just send an air spirit to look for a mass of undead people moving about."
Sonnet: "How would an air elemental know the difference between live and dead people?" Pause. "I can't believe I just said that!"

Deborah asked the GM if she could bind a water spirit to Benedict's sword but set a trigger on it such that the spirit would go off when he wanted it to (as compared to on the first strike). On shaping the fears of your players:

GM: "How effectively do you think the Prince communes with water?"
Deborah, warily: "What do you mean by that?"
GM: "How well do you think Benedict - "
Deborah: "Oh that Prince! I thought you meant the Prince of Colors."
GM: "I can't help it if you read double meanings into things."

On sharing:

Deborah: "You're a shit, Fred. I like you, you're cool - but you're a shit." Pause. "No offense, don't take it personally."
Jarrod: "Oh, no, he enjoys it."

We track the air elemental by means of Finndo's cards dropping out of it along the way of its passage. Finndo picks up the first card dropped by the air elemental and pockets it, thus revealing the plan. On degrees of seething displeasure (would that be two metric assloads, Jarrod?):

Jarrod: "Now Osric has a level 2 Benedict look."
Sybil beams: "You didn't know he could do that either! Ha!" Apologetically, "I feel better."

Hey, what's G-13 do?:

Sybil: "You only have two swords? The second best warrior in the country only has two swords?"
Benedict glares at her.
GM: "That is a VERY unfriendly look. You would feel uncomfortable imitating that look."

Benedict is off to be sneaky quiet tracking fellow. On the consequences of practice:

GM to Benedict: "You were feeling sneaky before that red film descended over your eyes."

On Pavlov:

Finndo: "Finndo is anticipating that the small hill is the as yet undiscovered earth elemental and I will ride with the expectation that it will rise and I will bolt."

Pavlov round two:

GM: "There is a note in the hill."
Finndo: "I flick it up with my cane."
Jarrod: "Everyone is expecting these notes to explode."

This is the point where the intelligent people should get very very worried:

GM: "The note says - "
Lydia: "In whose handwriting?"
GM: " - I might tell Finndo that. 'Brother, I believe you misplaced these.' It's signed with a particular jot."
Finndo: "Osric."
GM: "The handwriting is identical."

On packing well and modesty:

Finndo: "I leave the cards here and break out another one."
Lydia: "How many cards do you HAVE?"
GM: Please reference that card tricks ability. He has cards enough to play games with an entire army."
Rob: "A shoebox full is pretty much enough to get by. He's not above hitting the local shadow Long's and cleaning them out to pick up more." He mimes tossing a deck away, "Oh, god it's a Canasta deck!"

We settle in for a night:

Benedict: "We do pay the inn, right?"
Finndo: "One way or another."
GM: "He takes care of that people thing."

We're easy to please by now:

GM: "The night does not have an ambush in it."
Cyrus: "That's good."

On the limits of endurance, last straws, arbitrary dictates and Finndo's wisdom in asking Osric _first_:

Sonnet: "I could use a bath."
Finndo: "No."
Sybil: "What do mean no? We're filthy!"
Sonnet: "I reek!"
Sybil: "We need baths!"
Finndo: "No."
Osric: "They'll tie knots in your hair. It's just what they're expecting you to do."
Sybil: "But! OH! No! Noooooo!"

On foot and mouth and magnetic attractions:

Sonnet: "If I were me, I'd be sitting in a tub right now. I want to find me and kill me."
Sybil: "So do I!"
Sonnet: "You would like to kill me?"
Sybil: "No, but - no, but but it's complicated!"

Cyrus: I have not developed this connoisseurship of baths.
Sonnet bursts out laughing.
Finndo, dryly: "Please keep it that way."

On job satisfaction:

Cyrus: "So what is our iron supply?"
Finndo: "We're good on iron."
Deborah: "Not enough."
Finndo: "No, we resupplied. We've got the brick, the chain, the filaments, the dust. We're good on iron."
GM: "Good to see you guys have achieved the level of paranoia I was shooting for."

A Karm's look on the bright side:

Sonnet: "It /is/ a pretty country. It's a shame they're all evil."

It's the _details_, kid:

Sybil: "Can we burn the fucking duchy down around their heads?"
Finndo: "Not yet. We have to determine which part needs burning."

Accepting people for who they are:

Sonnet of Finndo: "He's being irksome?"
Sybil: "Oh, I don't think he's being irksome beyond his usual irksomeness."
Osric: "I second that."

Sonnet and Sybil discuss attractive men in the crowd as they parade through the city in Granlibakken where the Duke makes his home. Girl chat, you know:

Sonnet: "What about that one?"
Sybil: "He looks kind of slow.
Sonnet: "Sometimes slow is good."
Sybil: "No." Pause. "Well. I had to shoot my last lover several times, so there's something to be said for that."
Sonnet: "You had to shoot him?"
Sybil: "Yes."
Sonnet: "But you didn't kill him?"
Sybil: "Oh, I did. Each time."
Finndo: "Ladies, ladies. Please just smile and wave."

Planning out your explosions ahead of time, Benedict rage Defcon level 2.5:

Benedict: "I am just waiting, WAITING, for someone to offer me a bath."

Hand a girl your heart and a rose and look what she does with it:

GM: "At some point, a young man emerges from the crowd and tosses both of the ladies a rose."
Sonnet: "I catch it."
Sybil: "I don't catch it. I reach for my bow."
Finndo: "_Sybil_."
Sybil: "But he tried to trap me!"
Finndo: "You handled it well. Let it go."

Sonnet: "What does the rose smell like?"
GM: "A rose."
Sonnet: "Not poisoned, then. What color?"
Scott puts his head in his hands.

Finndo doesn't want Sonnet going out that evening to be 'offended'. When you're grounded, get them to list every last barred privilege:

Finndo: "Assume we were in hostile territory until I say otherwise."
Jarrod: "Boy, he won't let you have any fun, will he?"
Sonnet: "So the whore houses are out?"

And G-14, applied with irony (see session 4, in which Benedict asks Sybil this question):

Osric: "Are you allright, brother?"
Benedict: "Do I Look Allright?"
Sybil beams at Benedict.
GM: "Benedict, this is taking another fifteen minutes."
Scott: "I feel like a Reebok shoe." He mimes pumping air into a shoe.

Legendary Graces:

Finndo: "Finndo takes a moment to explode in social Kung Fu."

What we Do Not Need is an Evil Lucan to go with our Evil Sonnet. A good Prince covers all these basics:

Finndo: "Lucan? Lucan, get the horses. And don't take a bath."

Romantic gestures, paranoid women, etc. part 3:

Shai: "Sonnet will aside to Lucan to take the rose off her saddle and bury it."
Finndo: "Lucan will be watching the horses."
Scott looks appalled.
Lucan: "She didn't say what I'd be burying it in."

Finndo has a certain unmistakable diplomatic style:

Finndo: "An issue has risen to present itself and as such I must ask you a very frank question."
Duke Ruana Logoth looks troubled for a moment. "Very well."
Finndo: "It is necessary that I know more about the workings of your baths."
Duke Ruana Logoth: "I don't know what you mean."

Politely saying 'you people are either on drugs, evil or both':

Finndo: "Granlibakken is a very happy realm. An exceptionally happy realm."
Duke Ruana Logoth: "We assume it is due to the comforts of civilization."
Finndo: "Yes, but it seems to be infectious."
Duke Ruana Logoth: "What do you mean?"
Finndo: "In our travel to the south, several members of our party partook of the delightful baths. Some essential part of them was taken."
Duke Ruana Logoth: "I don't understand."
Finndo: "Sorcery was afoot."
Duke Ruana Logoth: "I don't understand. Aside form the ethereal properties of the brethoon leaves, which has served us for quite some time- "
Finndo, dryly: "Brethoon leaves."

The duke explains that the leaves are mildly narcotic but harm no one. Really. But he does learn another phrase besides 'I don't understand':

Finndo: "Then there is a possibility that our baths were tampered with."
Duke Ruana Logoth: "We do occasionally get incursions from the forests, but those are beasts."
Cyrus: "What kind of beasts?"
Duke Ruana Logoth: "We do not know; we've never seen them but they are brutal and their tracks are in that direction."
Sybil: "Oh!" And has to clamp her hands over her mouth.

When polite euphemisms don't work, apply Cyrus:

Cyrus: "Has anyone died in large quantities around here?"
Duke Ruana Logoth looks startled.
Cyrus: "One of the concerns was that our dopplegangers were responsible for the deaths of whole towns."

On civilized cluelessness:

Duke Ruana Logoth: "The wildness has been responsible for entire households before, but -"
Sybil: "These people don't like mirrors very much."

Sybil requests a look at the brethoon leaves, which she gets. She examines them, but lacks a word in her vocabulary. The Fae are not, after all, very, well:

GM: "You get three concepts: there is definitely magic, a sense of duality, and of order. Not - order, per se, but of proper."
Sybil, to Finndo: "It's all very Osric-y."

Translating:

Finndo: "Get our rooms, and ask Sybil for a better breakdown than Osric-y."

Cyrus Logic versus Karm Logic:

Cyrus: "I have a vast temptation to have Lucan take a bath, have the rest of us sit around with swords after he has gotten out and see what emerges. I am not proposing we kill Lucan, but he would be the easiest way to do it."
Sonnet, Karm style: "You are assuming it would emerge in the same place."

The how-to on enacting revenge:

Sybil: "Can't you simply deal with the simple problem and never mind who's doing what to you?"
Finndo: "No."
Benedict: "No."
Finndo: "If we know what they want, then we can predict what they will do. Our problem with our dopplegangers has been they know what we want but we do not know what they want."
Benedict: "And then you can kill them."

Defcon level 3.5 is all about training issues:

Benedict: "Were Are The Training Grounds?"
Servant: "What do you mean?"
Benedict: "Where. Are. The. Training. Grounds?"
Servant: "Pardon me, sir, but I'm only trying to understand where you're trying to get to so that I can direct you to the appropriate - "
Benedict: "I pick him up, put him aside and grab the next one. 'Where. Are. The. Training. Grounds?'"
Servant quivers. "That way?"

Benedict works out, drawing a crowd of admirers and handy sparring victims. The occasional downside with having the undivided attention of a Prince of Amber is that, occasionally, you have the undivided attention... :

Benedict curves one finger. "I motions one over to me. You. Come here."
Deborah: "I must work out my stress."
Jarrod: "I must Kill People."
Guy: "Me? No, really, me? Oh - but he's a Prince, I really shouldn't - I should..."

Sonnet's approaching the stables to find Lucan when she overhears a conversation within. The evil way to keep a mirror over the bed, so to speak:

GM: You hear Lucan say, "This Isn't Funny."
Sonnet: "I ease around and look in."
GM: "Funny, you don't think you'd ever straddle him quite that way."

On providing not just magazines but magazine racks:

GM: "She [Duplicate Sonnet] is pawing at him, nipping, tugging at clothes. This is Lucan in the forbidden fruit mode."
Sonnet: "How old is she?"
GM: "Well, she's you."
Sonnet draws her sword.
Jarrod: "Boy, that's not going to traumatize him at _all_."

Back with Benedict, who has been working his way through sparring partners, giving them tips along the way. A whole new twist on 'this man is mine':

GM: "There's a noise, a scuffle behind the crowd."
Benedict: "I pause, look over in that direction."
GM: "Three men are down; a fourth and fifth are bleeding. And you advance, 'I want my body back.'"
Benedict: "Come and take it if you will."
GM: "And then men you are with advance."
Benedict: "BACK OFF!"

GM: "The walls grow up and form a dome."
Benedict: "I see I've learned some new tricks."
GM: "You trapped the right thing."
Benedict: "COME ON THEN, SECOND DEADLIEST MAN IN AMBER!!"

No one can pick a fight with you like you can:

GM: "I'm better."
Benedict: "No, you are merely more undisciplined."
Scott: "You know, I'm going to goad him."

And back in the stables, with the Give The Lad Emotional Problems contingent... if you can't be sneaky, be Thorough:

Sonnet: "I'm invoking Clever and I'm going to cut her head off."
GM: "I don't see how that's twisty and sneaky - I'm not seeing the clever. Explain that to me. Tell me the story."
Sonnet: "I'll be quiet."
GM: "That's not Clever."
Sonnet: "Then I just chop her fucking head off."
GM: "Okay."
Sonnet: "I'll be fast."

Poetic justice when you fight dirty is fighting yourself fighting dirty. Nice to know we all recognize it:

GM: "As you close in, you see Lucan go 'WHAT?' She turns, hisses, but you get a cut down her side, and bits of what she's wearing get kind of smoky; you see a flash of something brown, and then it restores, and she's pulling Lucan up.
Scott: "Meat shield."
Jarrod: "Meat shield."
GM: "And then she's rolling away from you."

Back with Benedict and the Most Amazing Swordfight Ever, the GM is contemplating the appropriate skillset for, well:

GM: "As you cut across him, a smoky brown bit seals up behind him. Roll. Roll ... unfortunately not alertness."
Deborah: "Roll notice demonic possession."
GM: "Observation."

On disillusionment, how-to:

Sonnet: "Flying kick, center of Lucan's chest."
Lucan: "You're going to get me out of this righ -aaaaaagh."

Double your fun, double your pleasure:

Sonnet: "You can't have him either."
Duplicate Sonnet: "No."
Sonnet, Karm-reasonably: "Let him go. We can talk about this."

When you can't be reasonable, be frank:

Sonnet: "What do you really want?"
Duplicate Sonnet: "I want just me."
Sonnet: "If you injure him, I will hunt you down. If you get away from me , I will learn everything possible to get rid of you, you skanky bitch."

Nothing if not thorough:

GM: "She's dying. She can't speak any more."
Sonnet: "I'm holding it."
GM: "She's twitching; you can feel her dying around the blade."
Sonnet: "I hold it."
GM: "She's shaking - "
Sonnet: "And I cut upwards through her."

Sonnet: "And then I stomp on the skull."
Lucan: "She she she - !" He runs out of the stables, past Cyrus, flailing."
Cyrus looks at Lucan, pulls out his flask of iron shavings, tucks it back into his shirt and proceeds into the stables."
GM: "Sonnet is in the stables, stomping a large humanoid rat skull."

Benedict's luck with the dice is apparently valid for all variations of Benedict. They consistently roll the same figures over and over again. So this, apparently, is what it takes:

Scott: "Legendary +4."
GM: "I hate to say this, man, but."
Scott: "SHIT GODDAMN IT!"
GM: "This is uncanny."

Understanding your available resources, all together on 3, folks:

Benedict: "What's breakable in the area?"
Cyrus: "People."
Finndo: "People."
Deborah: "People."

Sometimes you just need to cut to the direct solution:

GM to Finndo: "Lucan runs past you."
Finndo: "I extend my cane and trip him."
Lucan trips. "BATH BATH BATH BATH NEED A BATH NOOOOOWWWWW."
GM: "He's scrambling up to his feet, do you lift him?"
Finndo: No, I just fucking cold cock him."
GM: "Thump."

Some women stand on chairs and shriek. Some don't:

GM: "Cyrus, you enter the stables. There is a rat creature being stomped."
Cyrus: "I see they have rat problems here."
Sonnet, very very angry: "Yes they have rat problems."

It's increasingly difficult to surprise these people:

Finndo: "I'm afraid this may be very interesting. Osric, Lucan seems to have had a bit of a fall."
Osric: "What, again?"

Things for which librarians are not typically prepared:

Cyrus: "I scoop the head into a bag and I carry the bag to the library."

Ask not of the mysterious Prince, for you may get just as confused an answer:

Guy: "What was that?"
Benedict: "I don't know."
Guy: "Me either. You - help him break down that barrier."

Chivalry and Karms:

Sonnet: "Thank you; I think I can take it from here."
Cyrus: "The lady should not soil her hands."
Sonnet: "The lady has already soiled her boots."

Benedict finds Finndo in the library. Some days you wish it was just a cat in a tree:

Benedict: "I'm bare chested, scratched, bare sword in hand, sword is bloody."
Finndo: "Allright, that was either a really good practice session or something has gone horribly wrong."
Benedict: "The latter."
Finndo: "Why am I not surprised?"

Benedict and Sonnet meet, glare, stare each other down. Credit where credit is due:

Benedict: "Benedict's got his full mad on."
GM: "Sonnet's matching you."
Benedict: "Impressive."

Benedict: "May I see what's in the bag?"
Sonnet: "You don't want to see what's in the bag."
Benedict: "Yes, I do."
Sonnet: "You may follow me because I'm going to take the bag to the infirmary and Prince Finndo because THIS is what attacked Lucan."
Benedict: "No, you can show me the bag because I'm going to find my brother Osric in the library and then you may take it to Prince Finndo."

Even their history is ultra-civilized and drinks tea afternoons:

GM to Cyrus: "That's enough reading to you because you're going to pull your hair out if you read more of civilization - "
Scott: "It's like talking to Finndo."

Big brothers always know what to say:

Benedict stalks into the library.
Cyrus eyes the bloody Benedict.
Osric looks up with eyebrows up as usual, "Fun evening?"

On pattern recognition (see last session):

Sonnet: "I give Finndo the blood-dripping bag."
Finndo: "If I open this, it's not about to start swearing vengeance on Benedict, is it?"

Your plan, it had some flaws:

Sonnet: "Please remind me again why you acquired Lucan to PROTECT ME?" Pause. Viciously soft, "Excuse me."
Finndo: "Did it engage in dialogue?"
Sonnet: "Briefly. It was upset by the current situation. I couldn't have Lucan, she couldn't have Lucan, so."

Rats, fish. We all contribute:

Cyrus: "So was your doppleganger accompanied by rats."
Benedict: "My doppleganger is a rat."
Cyrus: "How fitting."

One always says thank you when given a gift, even when it drips and decays:

Sonnet: "Ah, yes, he was not carrying a skull. You may have that by the way; you seem to be fond of heads in bags."
Finndo: "Ah, yes, thank you. I will get a servant to get this to a taxidermist."

Knowing your place and the habits of others is important:

Sonnet: "I understand what you are saying; this bothers me immensely. Perhaps you should share this with Prince Finndo. I need a drink and a bath."
Sybil: "Oh, he's been eavesdropping. Do you want me to get that drink?"

Sybil has been thinking too hard:

Sybil: "We need to lay a trap for them."
Lydia: "Perhaps we should lay a giant wedge of cheese."
Sybil: "Would that work?"

The crux, so to speak, of the issue for Lucan is, neatly put:

Lucan: "Two... words. *Rat*. _NOOKIE_. EW!"

Finndo gets Lucan into a bath and debriefs him. (Er. Take that both ways, yes.) And gets in that last jab:

Finndo: "Yeeesss. Here is the very gritty soap. And after you've had a moment to soap down, if I could have your account of what transpired."
Lucan: "She showed up, I thought she was playing another of her FUCKING games, and then I guess real girl showed up and - well." He mimes, in the bath, stabbing and chopping, helpfully accompanying them with screaming noises and gestures. He follows this up with frantic soaping.
Finndo: "Did the nookie related one saying anything before pouncing on you?"
Lucan: "Nothing repeatable or important."
Finndo: "Pillow talk. Saucy."
Lucan: "Saucier than usual, actually."
Finndo tosses him a towel: "Sonnet is waiting for you in her rooms."

Sonnet returns to her rooms and rolls an abysmal alertness as she enters the common area. Did we mention the equally petty and malicious senses of humor?

GM: "A chamber pot hits your head."
Sonnet: "Ow!"
GM: "It was full."
Sonnet: "Hard enough to knock me out?"
GM: "No."
Jarrod: "Unfortunately."
GM: "But you need a bath. Once you gather your wits, they just did the whole thing above the door trick."

Benedict tries to teach Sybil about noticing the details. Sybil instead practices her new game 'push the Benedict button':

Benedict: "What do you notice that's different?"
Sybil: "Your horse has new shoes."
Benedict: "If it does, I'm going to kill somebody."

'Let's strike a flint and see':

Sybil: "How long is this going to go on?"
Osric: "This?"
Sybil: "All of this."
Osric: "Till we're dead, I imagine."
Sybil: "We could just kill ourselves and fix it!"
Osric: "Oh. Carry on, then."

Cyrus checks that the horses are iron shod and have no glamour on them. On the value of mild senses of caution:

Cyrus: "Don't want to wake up tomorrow and fall out of my saddle because the horse turns into a giant rat beast or something like that."

Meanwhile, Lucan returns to Sonnet's rooms; he finds her in the bath. Nothing makes one admire proportion like seeing excess:

Lucan: "Ah, furry in all the right places. Excellent!"

When you demand the impossible, be specific:

Seamstress: "I see you may have a need."
Jarrod: "I seem to have lost my pants."
Benedict: "Formal, brown, orange or yellow."
Seamstress: "How soon?"
Benedict: "Tomorrow if possible."
Seamstress: "Pardon, tomorrow morn or tomorrow day?"
Benedict: "Day if possible."
Seamstress: "Less of a problem."

On taking things to extremes:

Lydia: "Okay. Fred made me buy my history as an Aspect."
Jarrod: "I thought Fucked wasn't an Aspect?"

Because we didn't have complications enough:

Benedict: "I have figured out what the entire objective of this evening was. My saddlebags are gone - stolen. My trump deck was in there."
Finndo: "Your trump deck was in your saddlebags."
Benedict: "Yes."
Finndo: "Not with you."
Benedict: "Nope."
Finndo rubs that migraine spot. "Well. This is quite awful."
Benedict: "Yes."

There comes a point where you just don't have a sense of humor left:

Benedict gives Osric the challenge question: "What is the weather like in the north this year?"
Osric: "Fire from the heavens, that sort of thing."
Benedict's sword comes up.
Osric: "You are no fun at all, are you?"
Benedict's sword stays up.
Osric sighs: "Prometheus."

Patience, young grasshopper; admire the view, first:

Benedict: "It may be time to speak with the Duke again."
Sybil: "Can we burn the fucking town down around their ears yet?"
Finndo: "Not yet."
Sonnet: "There may be people in the town. It's a /nice/ town."

Benedict has ridden south to find the Southern Captain to whom the Duke referred the party's queries about the narcotic baths. He comes back with an empty horse; the Captain is, of course, dead. A little too much civilization:

Finndo: "So we explain that the Southern Captain is dead and demand an audience with the Duke."
Duke Ruana Logoth: "Oh, dear. Did something untowards happen?"
Sybil squints at the Duke.

Cyrus: "You appear to have a rat problem."
Duke Ruana Logoth: "That's not funny."
Finndo: "No no it was not. These seem to be travelling cloaked in illusion."
Duke Ruana Logoth: "Is this the point where I come up with something ingenious that solves the entire issue?"
Finndo: "One may hope."
Duke Ruana Logoth: "I apologize for my failure."

Eventually, Cyrus asks a perfectly reasonable question:

Cyrus: "So why were the saddlebags taken, or was something in the saddlebags?"

Possible additions to Scott's fate point bag for being a good sport. Possible additions to Scott's sheet for a defensive rivalry with *everyone*, too:

Sonnet: "He Kept Them In His Saddlebags?!"
Finndo: "Don't get me started."

And, of course, the Inevitable Call Home to Oberon. Gee, Dad, thanks for caring:

Finndo: "We've got another problem." He shows Oberon the rat head.
Oberon: "Gross."
Finndo: "These are our dopplegangers."
Oberon: "Looks nothing like you."

Representing Amber's military might, if not temper:

Finndo: "They were traveling under a veil of illusion."
Oberon: "Ah. And here I thought it would be easy to find them out."
Finndo: "This one was travelling in the guise of Lady Sonnet. Lady Sonnet did not respond positively to the encounter."
Oberon: "She's that capable?"
Finndo: "I don't know. But she can handle herself in a fight."
Oberon: "Good to know."

Let's brighten your day in four words or less:

Finndo: "But this is incidental to the primary news of the day."
Oberon: "I am prepared to be delighted."
Finndo: "They got Benedict's trumps."
Oberon: "Strike that. Reverse it."

Because what Benedict _really_ needed was to have Oberon think less of him. What a helpful big brother Finndo:

Finndo: "Yeess. They were in his saddlebags."
Oberon just LOOKS at him.

Helpful advice and paranoia come by honestly:

Finndo: "Yes. As far as I can determine, two of the dopplegangers made themselves known while they preceded to rifle through our rooms and his equipment."
Oberon: "There's multiples of them."
Finndo: "We think so, though we've never seen more than one at any given time. Which gives me a thought."
Oberon: "So, basically, suspect everything."
Finndo: "Yes.
Oberon: "You've already come up with a question and answer, haven't you? Lets have our own.

Finndo exposes the doppleganger's rat body to natural daylight and discovers that such exposure results in shrinkage into little, ordinary rat bodies. We're not sure if he was sincere or not at this point:

Finndo: "Oh, this is delightful."

Finndo explains to the party. We are now officially Complicated and Complexed at:

Cyrus: "They're rats by day and dopplegangers by night?"
Sybil: "There are so many things this could hook up to that I don't know where to start."

Being a Karm means always being ready with the practical solution:

Finndo returns, swinging the rat body by its tail. "This is our Lady Sonnet."
Sonnet: "Very well, I want a cat."

Hey, who you callin' scruffy?!

Finndo: "They seem to respond very interestingly to sunlight. Though I now want to know what she had on the stick."
Sonnet: "I'm not a cannibal."

Oh, for a PetSmart:

Cyrus: "So. There's a pet store some place in town?"
GM: "There's a rat-catcher..."

Finndo: "Sybil, we would like to have a tour of the orchards before we depart to the south to speak to the late Captain's Lieutenants."
Sybil: "Sure, you go do that."
Finndo: "Cyrus, fine, if you wish to pursue cats. Osric, Sybil, if you would join me."
Sybil: "Oh!
Cyrus: "I make an appointment with the town rat-catcher."

Sybil chats up the trees, and finds them to be dull conversationalists:

GM: "The trees are nice, pleasant, look of a kind, grow in a similar fashion, provide shade..."
Rob, imitating the trees: "Suuuuuunlight. Mmm. Sunnnnlight. Oooo. Nutrients. Mmm. Rich Earth..."
Lydia: "Blood!"
GM: "No blood! These are civilized trees."
Jarrod: "Happy trees."

An inherent distaste for order:

GM: "That is an interesting thing that you don't notice until you try another tree. They harmonize. They sound the same."
Finndo: "Sybil, is something wrong?"
Sybil wipes frantically at her mouth and makes 'gab gab gab gab' noises: "Ewwwwww."
Finndo: "They taste bad?"
Sybil sticks her tongue all the way out, "They taste bad!"

Cyrus visits the rat-catcher. The rat-catcher is Helpful but Not Very Bright. Cyrus is... patient:

Rat-Catcher: "A-yup!"
Cyrus: "Where do rats go during the day?"
Rat-Catcher: "The ground, I 'spect."

Cyrus assumes there is some sort of intelligent process to all this. Silly Cyrus:

Cyrus: "The ground. How does one find such rats?"
Rat-Catcher: "Usually, they got the balls to come out in the open and hiss at you and stuff. That's when you hit them with a stick."
Cyrus: "How do you drive them out in to the open during the day?"
Rat-Catcher: "During the day? Don't usually."
Cyrus: "How do you find your rats?"
Rat-Catcher: "Go looking."

So we need something small and portable that kills rats:

Cyrus: "I resist the urge to throttle him. 'Where do you go looking?' "
Rat-Catcher: "Place client tells me to. Thereabouts. Sometimes bring along a dog, sometimes a cat."
Cyrus: "Got any handy?"
Rat-Catcher: "Yep; they're mine."
Cyrus: "How much would I have to pay you for one?"
Rat-Catcher: "Been training old Arf for some time. Premium dog."
Cyrus: "I set a coin down on the table."
Rat-Catcher: "Real good dog."
Cyrus: "I add another coin."

Inspiring confidence:

Rat-Catcher: "Miss him terribly. Want yourself a cage? Arf's not real bigger than a rat; I figure you can fit him in one."
Cyrus: "I add another coin."
Rat-Catcher: "ARF! Where'd you get your ass to?!"

Not presenting this to the Lady Sonnet:

GM: He comes back with a rat sized mangy fucking dog. You cannot believe you paid this much for a dog. It's possible he is the distant mutant product of a rat and a dog. Looks like he spends time in sewers."

And so:

Finndo: "We're riding south, and if Arf makes any noise at all, it is entirely your responsibility, Sir Cyrus."

Back in the orchard, Sybil made the mistake of asking the GM how the trees felt about things. Downright foolish Sybil:

GM: "These know that they should grow, they should grow the way they grow, the leaves should have the stuff, whatever the stuff is, that they make, in them. We're happy little trees. The magic is suffused; it's in every leaf."
Deborah, staring: "They're Magic Trees."
GM: "Yes."
Deborah sighs.

On the tolerance and welcome for a new pet:

Finndo: "We are riding south now. Cyrus has a little scruffy dog."
Shai: "Who is covered in fleas."
Finndo: "Who is likely to meet the short end of a boot at some point."
Arf: "Arf!"

Sometimes, you just have to say it:

GM: "You get to that intersection. You've been here before."
Finndo: "Oh dear."
Deborah: "What?"
GM: "Wasn't there a town here?"
Deborah: "You're fucking kidding me."

The difference between strategizing and executing:

Finndo: "Well, make sure the horses are freshly shod for exactly this reason as well - "
Cyrus: "I already did that."

The GM calls Jarrod over to his desk so that Osric can see the content (on the laptop) of a 'note' written on the door of a house in blood:

GM: "Not quite this font, of course."
Scott: Look, brother, it's courier 12!"

Some days, it's all about drilling down to basics:

Osric: " 'We will not be mastered.' It would seem they feel they have as much of a right to life as we do."
Sonnet: "They would be wrong."

There's a faint thump inside the house the note. Folks, these are people whose _pets_ are expendable:

Finndo: "We should investigate."
Sonnet: "Send the dog in first."

Sybil, still struggling to find the word 'proper' in her fae-raised vocabulary:

Finndo knocks on the door with his cane.
Sybil to Osric: "That's what I mean by Osric-y."
Osric: "What?"
Sybil: "We're going to ride in and burn the fucking town down around their ears, right? And he still knocks!"

They find a man beaten, his eyes ripped out, bleeding and dying, tied to a chair in a room of notes and books and study. You _can_ beat training into a man, it turns out. In the face of evidence to the contrary:

Finndo: "I surmise this is the local wizard."
Dying man: "No? No, I'm not. I desperately wanted - COUGH."
GM: "There are some small, shattered cages around as well."

Uncomfortable revelations:

Finndo: "What happened here?"
Dying man: "I don't entirely know. It was Ruustro's doing. Foreigner. Clearly into magecraft. The house was for sale; he wanted it. Once I figured it out what it was, what he was, I asked for an apprenticeship."
Finndo: "And he took you in?"
Dying man: "As much as he took in anyone, which was very little, I'm afraid. Foreigner..."
Finndo: "And what did you do with the rats?"
Dying man: "They were his... pets. Then one night there was a flash of light from the house. I came to investigate, he wasn't here, and something ripped out my eyes."
Finndo: "Why did he keep rats?"
Dying man: "He said he'd figured something out, something about essences, but he never told me. "
Finndo: "Do you know if he did anything with the bathwater?"
Dying man: "Yes - that was most odd. He had me collect it."
Finndo: "Of course."

Danger. Yes. And the appropriate thing is to:

Cyrus: "I turn away from the light source to keep my night vision."
Deborah: "Ah, paranoia."

Only Jarrod could make a five letter noise in the back of his throat a quote:

GM: "Hrm. His notes might be Gheneshi script."
Jarrod, dryly: "Uh Huh."
GM: "You don't read it. But you think you might have seen one or two texts while you were at the academy."

On denial:

Cyrus: "So who reads Gheneshi?"
GM: "Gheneshi, Lady Ismerelda...
Deborah: "Again With The Not Lady Ismerelda."
GM, reasonably: She does have greater proximity than Tarraign."

Hey, it was worth a shot:

Cyrus: "If you do not mind, I will search for bodies."
Finndo: "As a matter of fact, I do mind."
Cyrus: "I do have the dog with me."
Finndo: "And I'm certain the dog will provide just the extra balance you need when Benedict's doppleganger arrives."

A good GM always pays attention to a character's stated needs:

Sybil: "Provided nothing turns on me, I immolate the bodies."
Finndo: "May I politely suggest that this would be a fine offering to a being of some power?"
GM: "You could in fact burn the entire fucking town down."

After-Session Quotes:

Some days you just can't win:

Scott: "Benedict has been trying and trying and trying and trying to prove himself to his brothers - and then his trump deck gets stolen."
Lydia: "And now you're only the THIRD best swordsman."

It's really all about how you define trust:

Lydia: "We need to find someone who reads Gheneshi."
Rob: "We need to find someone who we can trust."
Deborah: "We need to find someone who we can kill."
Lydia: "Tarraign?"
Rob: "Tarraign."