Session 12: Things Bright and Pale.
Players and Characters:
Lydia ........ Cyrus
Shai ........ Sonnet
Scott ........ Benedict
Jarrod ....... Osric
Rob ........ Finndo
Deborah ...... Sybil
Fred ........ GM
Jeanne ...... Various Fae
Stat line up:
-2 Poor
-1 Mediocre
0 Average
1 Fair
2 Good
3 Great
4 Superb
5 Epic
6 Legendary
7 Legendary +1
Last session ended on a wounded note. Cymnea, Queen and Oberon's wife, conspired with her dead brother Quinn and her living sister Wendra, to return their brother Kipwyn and their father Nod to life from the City of the Dead. To that end, they arranged for Piero and Oberon to be out of the way, distracted the party with the fighting in the streets and trapped Finndo and Osric in a strange place. Sybil and Sonnet tripped over the conspiracy on the mountain, alerted the men, and fighting ensued. In the course of events, Kipwyn made it down the mountain but Nod did not; to achieve this, Finndo offered Cyrus's daughter Aine to Kolvir. Kolvir accepted. Cyrus does not know that this bargain took place. Finndo also managed to subvert Cymnea's chief representative in the city, the Hand.
Finndo managed to get through to Oberon and Piero, whom he found in a coma (Oberon) and badly wounded (Piero). He brought them through to recuperate and restored order to the palace, sending out warrants for the arrest of the Queen and her conspirators. Osric and Benedict walked the City of the Dead, seeing disturbing visions of the past and present: Benedict witnessed Sybil's death, the loss of his arm, the death of Finndo's beloved, and Osrat sweeping down on Amber with an army of dark and twisted Fae.
Our tale opens in the Castle, with the recuperating party and the chaos of a realm whose Queen has turned traitor and whose King is in a coma.
Getting things started:
Rob: "Okay, we have a couple weeks of pain to get past, don't we?"
Sensible precautions:
GM: "Finndo has on his appointment calendar, aside from 'Keep Kingdom Running,' a conversation with Karm at some point to discuss certain companions. I believe the day after the last day we ran, Cyrus had certain intentions. Does anyone have anything they want to do?"
Deborah: "I do."
GM: "Yes?"
Deborah: "Two things. Hiding."
GM: "Hiding is acceptable."
That can't be good:
Benedict: "Benedict is going to start recruiting."
GM: "Recruiting _what_?"
Sybil, aside from hiding and caring for Sonnet, takes up her new variant on her favorite hobby. She works on summoning a mass of elementals and forcing them to learn to work together in formation; she's trying to create small armies of elementals. Jeanne has not learned the No Helping Rule just yet:
Jeanne: "I just have this vision of Sybil in some out of the way corridor, summoning elementals."
Deborah: "No, in Sonnet's room."
Jeanne: "So under Sonnet's bed."
Deborah: "That's an excellent idea. Thank you."
Greyskull just doesn't cut it anymore:
Rob: "By the power of Creepy."
Karms have such problems getting help:
Jeanne: "Where is Lucan?"
Rob: "HIDING."
How to explain? There was a brief impression last session that Finndo and Osric had been turned into a puddle of water; Lucan was instructed to bottle the puddle in case it turned out that the Princes really were... liquidated. Hey, there were practical considerations:
Lydia: "Lucan had the bucket of FINNDO."
Shai: "We thought Finndo had become water so we told him to get a bucket..."
Lydia: "And a MOP."
Experience is the best teacher:
Lydia: "I have made a mental note to never be turned into water in this campaign."
Rob: "You know, that was already on my list."
Jarrod's always been more diplomatic:
Scott: "Benedict's been asking questions, and a lot of them, of people."
Jarrod: "Background checks, that sort of thing?"
Scott: "Actually, yes."
Deborah: "Benedict finally decided to grow a brain."
Jarrod: "Benedict federalizes the guardsmen."
Jarrod's also always more 'helpful':
Deborah: "Allright, anyway, GAME."
GM: "Working."
Jarrod, in Osric's voice: "Working on it!"
The GM references notes from the previous session. A glimpse of how he thinks:
GM: "Foreshadowing on demand, OW, is the color commentary."
Jarrod's just getting over the plague (and you only think I'm kidding), and has been dosed heavily on NyQuil. He's feeling a touch slower than usual and apologizes once or twice. It doesn't make me feel better:
Jarrod: "I'm sorry. It's the drugs."
Deborah: "So we might actually be able to get around Osric this session."
GM: "So will Osrat."
Jarrod: "Careful what you wish for."
Finndo has his meeting with Baron Karm. Baron Karm is rather displeased with the developing trend of his daughter coming home in bruises and wounds; he would like a new job for her. One that doesn't let her take things into her own hands quite so much. Allow me to remind the Gentle Reader that Sonnet was raised among pirates because she was sent away from her father, Baron Karm, as a punishment to him: Karm had 'taken matters into his own hands' by slaying another Baron who offended Karm's delicate sensibilities. Never say the man can't learn:
Finndo: "So. As I recall, you were looking for something a little less dangerous for her."
Karm: "I want something that is a little more clear about her following instruction."
Finndo: "And ideally one that does not involve quite as much back and forth with the blades."
Karm: "That would be good. If there's anything I've learned working under your frather, it's that taking initiatve requires permission first."
The ever diplomatic Finndo is thinking 'spy'. Karm is at least polite about it:
Finndo: "Allright, fair enough. Your daughter has certain talents I have a use for. I currently have a need for a personal secretary."
Karm: "I've never known a functionary with one function."
Daddy's little girl shouldn't soil her hands:
Finndo: "Initiave is by and large not particularly useful."
Jarrod: "She could aggressively rearrange your filing cabinet."
The right tool for the right job:
Karm: "You understand my intention here."
Finndo: "Yes."
Karm: "I mainly wish her to not run up the side of a mountain without someone instructing her to do so."
Finndo: "And fall back down, yes."
Lydia: "I have Cyrus for that!"
Perhaps Baron Karm has not been paying keen attention:
Karm: "She is, in matters related to being a daughter, not particularly disobediant. I will bring this to her as my idea."
Finndo asks Karm to stick around the Castle and City as a disincentive for anyone else thinking about stirring up a bit of trouble while the King is still in a coma. (It's a bit like keeping an ICBM in your courtyard just to remind the neighbors that life could get awfully awkward if they get cranky.) Karm agrees to be visibly about, and adds that they've already made an impression, what with fighting off a mob last week.
When you part the Red Sea, make sure one guy makes it back to tell his friends and family about the awful fate of everyone else:
Karm: "Enough people saw us fight."
Deborah: "I think the problem is that the people who saw Karm fight DIED."
GM: "Well, no, -"
Rob: "Some of them RAN!"
Karm sends his daughter a note explaining to her that she is now Finndo's secretary. A lady keeps her little weeping fits and room-destroying tantrums to the privacy of her boudoir:
Sonnet: "Sybil, could you leave the room for a moment?"
Sybil: "I don't think your father wants me to leave."
Sonnet looks at her, flat and level.
Sybil flees: "I'll be going now."
Sonnet Self Expresses. Sybil decides on discretion, and lots of:
Shai: "The screaming lasts fifteen minutes and then abruptly stops."
Lydia: "She has finished breaking things and now will break people!"
Sonnet: "Sybil, you may come back in now."
Sybil shakes her head rapidly but does not answer, staying outside.
What exactly is the skill for 'I Know Everything'?
GM: "Osric, can you roll against your pattern esoterica."
Osric: "I don't think I can."
Hey, it's not bad advice. It couldn't hurt:
GM: "As night falls, just as the full moon is moving out of being a full moon, waning, dusk falls, and you kinda get this hair on your arms standing on end feeling that sggests to you that a vision of some sort is going to come over you."
Osric: "Oh good."
GM: "What do you do?"
Rob: "Bite down on a leather strap!"
Never hesitate. The GM just gives you more incentive to panic:
GM: "This is probably around dinner time."
Osric: "Of course it is. I leave the castle; I'll go maybe halfway up Kolvir just to get away from people."
GM: "The feeling gets stronger as you go up Kolvir."
Jump for it, jump for it - oops, too slow!
GM: "As you look up, the stairs are not yet fully formed, but there's this superimposed glimpse of them, and a vision of a man walking up them."
Osric: "Can I tell who it is?"
GM: "Somehow it seems very clear that that's Cyrus."
Osric: "UH huh."
GM: "And then it fades out."
Osric is indirect. Cyrus is... not:
GM: "Cyrus, your intentions for this evening?"
Cyrus: "I'm visiting the city of the dead."
GM: "Are you now. How early are you going up the side of the mountain? Are you waiting for the stairs to form?"
Cyrus: "I'm waiting for the stairs just to show."
A man's gotta try (although why he bothered, we don't know):
Rob: "There are troops posted up there, just so you know."
GM to Cyrus: "How clandestine are you going to be with regard to the troops that you know are on the mountain?"
Lydia: "Very."
Rob: "It's Cyrus."
Lydia: "Legendary."
GM to Finndo: "Sometimes troops just don't help. In fact, there's a general lack of awareness."
This is why you don't hire Imperial Stormtroopers:
Rob: "This is why the long term plan is limited access, because you know, it's a STAIRCASE. Your job is to sit on the bottom step, okay?"
We really really need the off button for Lydia's imagination:
Lydia: "There's a power word: lack of bladder control."
The futility of sneaking around the omniscient:
GM: "Cyrus, you are like a ghost, you are like a shadow, you sneak past everyone and then - Osric is waiting for you at the base of the stairs and he's not at all surprised to see you."
Remember Vell, where the dead rose to life and cried vengeance upon their murderers (literally)? When you buy your funeral flower arrangements in bulk:
Osric: "Interesting choice of destination."
Cyrus: "I have a very extensive acquaintance with the dead."
Osric: "Yes, I imagine you're very popular with them."
Shai: "VENGEANCE!"
If you can't dazzle and you can't baffle, just be really really vague:
Osric: "Planning on taking a field trip?"
Cyrus: "Yes."
Osric: "Exactly for what are you looking?"
Cyrus: "The dead, of course."
Deborah: "Oh for god's sakes."
Jarrod: "He's learning."
Understatement of the hour:
Osric: "Any in particular?"
Cyrus: "There's so many."
Mistaking your friends for Dr. Evil and vice versa, en masse:
Deborah: "I thought the NyQuil was supposed to make him [Jarrod] LESS evil!"
GM: "It just puts him in an altered state."
Jarrod: "It's wearing off, I might add; I took it last night."
GM: "So he'll let us think he's in a much bigger haze than he actually is." The GM puts the backs of his hands up against his eyebrows and wiggles his fingers frantically to simulate Crazy Eyebrows of Psychic Death. He spews noise, "Hubbaga glag glag glaggada."
Ha!
Jarrod: "I defy you to quote that."
Don't teach Grandma how to suck eggs:
Osric: "Care for some company?"
Cyrus: "Do you have a particular fasctination with the dead?"
Osric: "They're awful chatty."
Cyrus: "Allright then."
Osric: "After you?"
Blurring the lines between evil and evil:
Lydia: "Oh, too much time spent around Osric."
Jarrod: "Yes, I'm very pleased with that; it's worn off quite well."
Osric goes up two or three steps behind Cyrus on the stairs to the City of the Dead. Mentioning these things now:
Lydia: "I have chosen, by the way, to be both armed and armored, not that it's likely to help."
GM: "It's a long climb."
Jarrod: "They're putting in an escalator next year."
GM: "You eventually reach the top; there's a not quite there marble arch; it looks like there ought to be an inscription but you can't make it out."
Uh. Thanks for the reassurance:
GM: "The archway does not turn into a great big gaping maw that swallows you."
Jarrod: "Oh good! I'm so pleased!"
The City of the Dead really is the city of the dead:
GM: "Cyrus, this is your first time here. What you see is a silvery landscape that in a number of ways seems to mimic the populated portion of Kolvir. There is a castle in the distance. You're in the upper tiers of the city; there's a lot of architecture that isn't currently in use; it seems like the architectural styles are significantly different enough that it might be echoing an earlier time. That's at least your first impression. There are ghostly figures moving among the structures; there's something of a featurelessness before this whole thing starts and none of them seem to have taken notice of either of you. At this point, you're a half dozen steps forward and Osric is just now coming through the archway."
And what game would we like to play today:
Taking your moment when you can:Cyrus: "We enter the city."
GM: "At any point you wish to deviate from Cyrus's plan, please tell me."
Osric: "Osric is mainly curious to see what Cyrus does."
GM: "You know the properties of this place; he doesn't. Do you wish to isolate yourself from those properties so they don't respond to you."
Osric: "Yes. His purpose is to see what Cyrus sees."
Rob: "You're cloaking!"
Jarrod hesitates: "Detached observer, yes."
: "You go into the city, you're following him, none of the faces are distinct, it's very soft focus, so questions of identity are more or less moot. And you're going through the city for a while; the streets are enough different htat this is not a case of navigating familiar territory. That's when one of the figures walks around the corner of one of these buildings, seems to orient towards Cyrus. Osric, what are you doing?"GM to Osric
As Cyrus and Osric cross the City of the Dead, a figure steps out from around a corner. Guessing a little too quickly:
GM: "The figure points at you, Cyrus, as you walk forward."
Jarrod and Shai: "VENGEANCE!"
Cyrus is not really Cyrus; it was implied in an ealier session that Cyrus stole another man's identity in the war that cost Cyrus's father in law the Admiralty and lost much of the fleet. Apparently Cyrus and this man were shipwrecked together; the other man did not survive. When he was rescued, Cyrus then claimed to be him. When your reputation is deserved:
GM: "Detail grows about this person; detail grows sharp. You haven't seen that face in a number of years; it's the original Cyrus. He looks... Not Pleased."
Jeanne: "The original Cyrus?"
GM: "How did you kill him? Strangulation, drowning, stabbing, what?"
Scott: "Probably."
That's one word for it:
GM: "All three are fine. Regardless, whatever wounds you did are apparent and Osric sees that."
Cyrus: "I let him starve."
GM: "This is a kind of skeletal guy, skin pulled back from his teeth somewhat; looks to you like someone who starved. He's wearing a style of naval uniform that was retired a few decades ago. And there seem to be other figures gathering behind him."
Lydia: "This is my popularity."
Scott: "The Cyrus fan club!"
Turn over a rock and out crawls a swarm of unfortunate truths:
GM: "The other figures start pointing."
Osric: "Are they carrying torches or pitchforks or something?"
GM: "They are armed as they were in real life and it seems Cyrus has killed a great many men - no women. It's all male and no children."
Rob: "There was at least one woman. The spy."
GM: "Right. But she's not in the crowd."
Jeanne: "I thought he didn't kill her."
Jarrod: "I'm just tempted to say 'Your fan club's here, it seems.'"
Taking the philosophical approach:
Cyrus: "I think I could have expected that; this is the City of the Dead, after all."
Where's Miss Manners when you need her?
GM: "As you move on, you noticed that they have surrounded you and barred the way you were going to go. You actually do know all these people."
Lydia: "These are the personal as opposed to the random deaths."
GM: "You have a good memory for faces, especially if you determined what some of their last expressions were. So some of the random deaths and it's not like you knew every single one; it's entirely possible you blew up that guy's ship; not terribly surprising."
Cyrus: "Is there an etiquette for moving past these?"
What do you mean 'we', paleface?
Osric: "Etiquette?"
Cyrus: "You know. So we're not chased by a horde of angry ghosts."
Osric: "Well. I think they're rather after you."
Playing with your toys:
GM: "Some of them begin drawing weapons."
Cyrus: "I pull a sword."
Osric: "Actually, I - "
GM bounces his ball and smirks, "Yes, Osric?"
Osric: "Stop that."
This is what happens when the scientific theory gets taken too far:
Osric: "Is that something I should interpret as a threat? Can they hurt us at all?"
GM: "You haven't really experimented with ghosts before. You know that people responded poorly to the idea of Kipwyn's ghost coming down a few days before."
Osric: "I'm just trying to remember if you pass through them or what not."
GM: "This is an excellent experimental opportunity."
Different people see the same opportunity each in their own unique light:
Cyrus: "I'm just going to try something odd."
GM: "What a shocker."
Cyrus: "I'm going to try to change the environment around me as if I was shadowwalking - but not quite."
Osric whimpers.
Notice that Osric always lets Cyrus take point?
GM: "You, Osric, know how close he is to a Pattern up here and are amused by him going PLUNK."
Osric: "That's not going to work."
Cyrus: "Shall we go through them?"
Osric: "After you?"
I fling myself in the path of danger and then I run it over:
Cyrus: "I find the folks that look least pointy and I charge through them as if I was fighting them ... but charging through them."
Jarrod: "So your typical tactic then."
That's certainly one way to look at having Cynthia for a wife:
GM: "As you do this, you swing your sword around; it seems to bat blades aside. Some of them stab towards you and it causes you to fold in pain but there don't seem to be wounds. The problem is you are now in the thick of a mob."
Cyrus: "I fight through them. I'm not partiuclarly interested in staying."
GM: "Do you have anything like survival or endurance that would reflect your ability to grit your teeth and bear through?"
Shai: "He's married."
GM: "Aside from being Cyrus and living the life you live."
Lydia: "Self destructive."
Making pictures in the sky to amuse yourself:
GM: "You've lost sight of Cyrus; there's so many ghosts that, even translucent, they mask him. What are you doing?"
Osric: "Huh. What an interesting question."
Shai: "Perhaps I should just obsrve."
Rob: "Hey, is that a cloud?"
A man's fight is his own:
Osric: "I'll do my best to attempt to keep up."
GM: "Even if that means going through these ghosts?"
Osric: "Yeah, but they're not fighting me; I don't have a sword out."
Cyrus showed up today with a great big 'fuck me here' sign on his back:
GM: "That's true. You get up to the edge of the mob and that's when you notice someone seems to be following you just a step or two to your left."
Osric: "Really. Who might that be?"
GM: "Looks like Aine. Cyrus' daughter. Who disappeared two nights ago - presumably with your mother and sibs."
Osric: "Yeeeessss."
Appealing to a mob's enlightened self interest:
GM: "She smiles brightly up at you and waves. And she's looking towards the mob like 'oooh!' Are you doing anything?" He adds, "No one's making any noise. Which is interesting."
Osric: "I motion her to stick close to me."
GM: "Aine makes a face at the mob and it starts to part."
Shai: "Hi! We're here to cause Cyrus MORE pain!"
Jeanne: "They'll move aside for that."
Family resemblance, anyone?
Osric: "He'll pat her on the head and move forward."
GM: "She's not there; there's an electric tingle when your hand passes through her head." The GM, a grown man, squinches up face into a childish scowl, folds his arms, and mimes stomping, "The mob parts for her scowl, which acutally is rather comical to Osric, come to think of it."
Deborah: "Looks just like Cyrus."
On reputation:
GM: "Cyrus is panting, stopping for a breather; he just burst through, leaning against something, catching his breath."
Osric: "You allright?"
Cyrus: "Yes. That was a bit of an exercise."
GM: "There's a ghost of Aine next to him."
Cyrus: "I give Osric an extremely accusing look."
Osric: "What?"
And there's the pitch:
Osric: "I assume she was what you were after."
Lydia: "Oh what a statement not to make!"
And he swings:
to Osric: "What is she doing here?"Cyrus
IS MY KID DEAD OR NOT? Every father wants to know at some point:
GM: "She runs away from you two up the side of the virtual mountain. She just sort of tore off from you guys running up the side of it."
Cyrus to Osric: "Now you will tell me how much of what we see are visions versus what we see are the true dead."
Osric: "What an interesting question."
Jeanne: "And we're glad you asked it."
Wisdom lies in deliberately chosen obfuscation:
GM: "You don't know."
Jarrod: "I know but he's not going to say that."
Osric: "The answer is both; it can be either; it can be both."
Asps. Very dangerous:
Cyrus: "I follow her up the mountain."
Osric: "Ah. Officer thinking."
GM: "Okay. you let him go first?"
Osric: "Sure!"
Lydia, as a player, well knows that Finndo is responsible for what happened to Aine. (Finndo didn't actually kill Aine; he just let Kolvir _have_ Aine, but I suspect he considers that a distinction that Aine's father will not appreciate in the first murderous blossom of rage.) How has Cyrus failed to put the pieces together?
Lydia: "DENIAL. The power of Denial."
Helpful advice:
GM: "Osric, you get the feeling that Cyrus is covering more ground than you are and is pulling away from you."
Osric: "I make every effort to keep up."
GM: "What kind of every effort?"
Shai: "Will you skip?"
Not just a river in Egypt anymore:
GM: "Cyrus, she leads you past the castle, still up the mountain."
Lydia: "Cyrus' expectation is that she is leading him to where she is being kept."
And now we learn about metaphysics the up close and personal splat way:
to Osric: "There are two things that happen. One, it seems to you as if the fabric of this place is resisting your intention, and Cyrus continues to recede from you. Two, the clouds have managed to draw near."GM
It's good to be smart:
GM: "Actually you know the ground is kind of transparent and it looks like the stairs are fading."
Osric: "It's enough to clue me in that oooh that's bad."
Looking on the bright side:
: "She seems to be continuing to lead you up to the summit of Kolvir."GM to Cyrus
Being a little _too_ goal oriented:
Osric: "Is he [Cyrus] still in earshot?"
GM: "He is small."
Deborah: "Perhaps you should put the clouds in front of the moon so the city will fade and you will plummet to your deaths and Cyrus will not learn that Finndo killed his daughter."
Osric uses the Pattern to try to catch up to Cyrus; instead, the ground solidifies under his feet. Sometimes you get what you need, not what you want:
Osric: "Does it help catch me up?"
GM: "No, but it is preventing the ground from not being under your feet."
Osric: "That's good."
GM: "That's very good. But you're not sure that you want to spend another night or another month - you're not sure - concentrating."
Good faith effort for a good show, and back to our real interests:
Osric: "I will shout to Cyrus that time is of the essence and he should leave soon. Very Soon."
GM: "Cyrus, you don't hear anything yet."
Osric: "I head back to the stairs."
Lemons. Lemonade:
GM: "You manage to make reasonably good time away from this part, back through the city; you get to the archway just in time to see the stairs wink out."
Osric: "Oops."
Lydia: "There's an understatement."
Osric: "Right, then."
GM: "You seem to be maintaining a nice opacity and substance around you."
Jeanne: "Think DOWN."
Proof that Osric does not belong at a telco:
Deborah: "Maybe you should jump!"
Jarrod: "NO! I don't THINK so!"
Oh, right, obligation:
Osric: "Well, I guess I need to save my errant student's ass. I'll see if I can't find him afterall."
In the City of the Dead, moonlight lends the City substance in the sky. If anything obscures that moonlight - say, clouds - the City no longer has substance. Somedays you start out high and then everything seems to just go down hill:
GM: "Cyrus?"
Cyrus: "I chase her!"
GM: "She has reached the top of Kolvir; vaguely, you think you hear something in the distance but it's a fair ways off. She turns towards you, smiles a bit, and seems to grow a few years older into her early teens. Rather fetching young lady. And then the mountain seems to surge up between the two of you and then the ground goes away and you're falling. What are you doing?"
Jarrod: "Yelling, I expect."
When there's really nothing more to say:
Cyrus: "I pull my trump of Finndo.."
Shai: "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!"
GM: "You get the trump out of Finndo, you trump Finndo - what are you doing?"
Cyrus mimes holding a trump. He wails: "BLWAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"
Awkward explanations time:
GM knocks rapidly on Finndo's table, "You sense Cyrus. Finndo, it's very rare that you get a sense of motion from a trump."
Finndo: "Brace myself and reach."
GM: "Cyrus, you go sprawling across the floor THUMP."
Finndo: "What are you /doing/?"
Cyrus: "Falling."
Brotherly compassion:
Finndo: "Finndo looks at Cyrus on the floor, walks over to the cabinet, pulls out the liquor bottle, comes back, puts it on the edge of the desk, looks at Cyrus again and goes back to his paperwork on the assumption that Cyrus will have an explanation for this at some point."
Jarrod: "Once he stops going AAAAAAH!"
Not so much the brotherly compassion:
: "Everything but that opaqueness you're standing on has gone away. Hey! That looks lke Cyrus - oh, hey he disappeared."GM to Osric
Beaming down, Scotty:
Shai: "Hey, I can see my house from here."
GM to Osric: "You're standing on something slightly larger than a silver frisbee."
Osric: "So yeah. Leaving. I think that place trump would be good."
GM: "Yeap, vzzzzt. That seems to work. As you go through it, you feel the litle frisbee go voooop."
Friendly concern:
Deborah: "Jeanne, are you entertained yet?"
Jeanne smiles.
Shai: "Perhaps she's just appalled."
Cyrus lives by rules and categories; one of his rules is that he does not drink while in residence with his wife. Getting to the heart of the argument:
Cyrus stands up, puts the trump away, looks longingly at the bottle.
GM: "Your wife is in the coma."
Deborah: "Why can't you drink?"
Lydia: "His wife is in residence."
Deborah: "Your rules suck!"
GM: "She won't know."
Jeanne: "It's not like you're going to get lucky anyway."
Summing up neatly:
: "I was falling. Thank you."Cyrus to Finndo
Splitting hairs:
Finndo: "You know the city of the dead is probably not a really good place to go."
Cyrus: "I gathered that much."
Finndo: "Allow me to suggest against trips to it in the future, but if you feel it absolutely necessary, perhaps you should arrange it publicly in case of more flight."
Cyrus: "It was public; I went with Prince Osric."
Finndo: "Nothing Prince Osric does is public."
This time, you were lucky:
Finndo: "Allow me to say it is good I was not asleep yet."
Lydia: "Otherwise you would have had a very strange dream ending with a small splat."
Rob: "Disturbing for you, perhaps."
Cyrus really is a masochist; he is still fussing over Cynthia by way of imitation-Karm tactics:
GM: "Week proceeds. At the end of the week, Sonnet is on her feet and able to fulfill her assignments. Cynthia remains unconcious."
Rob: "Oberon?"
Cyrus: "Cyrus continues to hover and scare people."
Sonnet escapes her bedrest and approaches Finndo for a basic job interview - qualifications, responsibilities, retirement plans, personal investment:
Finndo: "Ah, Lady Sonnet, you're out and about.."
Sonnet: "Yes, Prince Finndo."
Finndo: "I take it your father has spoken with you."
Sonnet: "He has presented this to me, yes, but we have not spoken."
Finndo: "Then I assume he has not provided much in detail regarding the position."
Sonnet: "She presents the note to Finndo."
Finndo: "Well. The position of secretary - I have had numerous secretaries in the past - "
Sonnet: "Did they live?"
Getting straight to the point:
Finndo: "Oh yes. As a whole, those who have gone on have been successful in their fields of endeavour. However, there are a number of roles that a secretary could fullfil and while I certainly could use the assistance keeping my correspondance tidier, I spend a lot of time away from the palace and the workload is usually less than it currently is. And thus the quesiton I put forwrad is: "How much do you hate this?"."
She clearly isn't dealing with our postal service:
Finndo: "Your father wants you somewhere safe; and this can be the safest position in the world. You can stay at the castle."
Sonnet: "Truly. I could fulfill the job of correspondant while returning to my life as a pirate. The postal service has my admiration."
More grandma sucking eggs moments:
Finndo: "I think the return to the sea is unlikely unless you like the idea of your father killing random crews."
GM: "Been there, done that."
Sonnet: "Yes, he's done that. While my penmanship is lovely, in time I could become creative with the letters in a fashion displeasing to you. Perhaps I could be of service in a more pleasing manner."
Some people hear innuendo no matter _where_ they go:
GM hits himself repeatedly in the head.
Finndo: "I am not so much of a fool as to think you would be happy with any role thrust upon you."
GM chokes.
You can go to bed immediately, or you can be spanked and then go to bed immediately:
Sonnet: "It's not being forced; I do have the option to say no, don't I?"
Finndo: "You always have the option, however, if you choose to do so your father will think of something even less entertaining."
It's not much to ask of life:
Finndo: "Allow me to go a little further and ask you what you're looking for."
Jarrod: "Medical, dental, a nice little 401k..."
Shai: "A base, a stable source of income that does not depend on my father's grace and that does not require me to kill hundreds of people in a year."
Jarrod: "Daddy won't buy me a porsche!"
Timing:
GM: "KNOCK KNOCK"
Finndo: "Enter!"
GM: "Your highness, your father is awake."
I bet she tells all the Crown Princes that:
Finndo: "I put it to you this way: if you are unhappy with this, then a small position which will bring you income and give you the freedom of the city is available. If you are willing, I have a great need of a spy."
Sonnet: "Did I ever tell you that you are a delightful man, Prince Finndo?"
Osric is already with the King, who has just roused himself from a coma. Conversation starts out awkward and promptly heads to 'oh shit'. How do you tell Dad his wife is a traitor?
Oberon: "Osric?"
Osric: "Yes. Are you feeling well?"
Oberon: "How long have I been asleep?"
Osric: "About a week, Father."
Oberon: "Right. Where is everyone?
Lydia: "What an interesting question."
Jeanne: "And we're glad you asked it."
Start out slow and incidental - or maybe not:
Oberon: "Start with the more important people, please."
Osric: "Well. Mother's dissappeared, and -"
Oberon: "What."
Can we stay on TOPIC here?
Rob: "Oh, that's the note to walk in on."
GM: "Strangely enough. Finndo enters with Sonnet in tow."
Shai: "Looking very pleassant and cheeerful and coiffed and Sonnet."
Osric to Finndo (meaning Sonnet): "What did you DO?"
Oberon: "About my WIFE."
Shameless stage stealing; no wonder Osric and Oberon never get along:
Finndo: "Father!"
Oberon: "Finndo."
Finndo: "I take it from your tone that Osric has been briefing you."
Oberon: "If you want to call it that."
Short, concise, succinct. And then the running:
Finndo: "Very well, shortest form. Mother conspired with Wendra and Quinn to attempt to return Kipwyn and Nod from the City of the Dead and presumably arranged for your distraction. In the meanwhile, Kipwyn's return was successful, Nod's return was prevented; Mother, Kipwyn and Wendra are now at large; their primary representative in the city now works for me. Piero has not been seen since your return but I'm of the impression that he is recovering as well."
Oberon: "Would you all please leave."
Finndo: "Certainly."
Rob: "Now for the swearing and the screaming."
The Princes and Sonnet file out. Seconds later:
Oberon: "THERE'S NOT ENOUGH BRANDY IN HERE."
Sonnet: "May I suggest faces? They make very satisfying things to punch."
Everyone has a special quality that makes them uniquely appealing to another person:
Finndo: "I start pulling all the paperwork into a bundle for father to review."
Shai: "For one brief moment Sonnet liked the King."
GM: "You continue in the same mode for at least another day, during which Oberon gets extremely drunk and recovers from that."
Benedict returns to hear that his father is awake; he pays the King a visit. The King is still visibly sloshed. Not quite the recognition Benedict might once have craved:
Oberon is clearly in his cups: "Ben, come in! I'm enjoying not being king for anosher day."
Benedict: "Are you allright?"
Oberon waves a hand and pssssshts: "No."
Benedict: "Anything I can do?"
Oberon laughs. Rubs his head and an eye and deflates: "Figure out what to do."
Benedict: "Working on it."
Oberon offers him the brandy flask wordlessly; Benedict leaves as wordlessly without taking it.
It's in your own best interests, sir:
Cyrus: I peek in on Oberon if I have the opportunity.
GM: "Oh do you. The guards request that you don't."
Cyrus: "Okay, I can respect that."
Getting a bit _too_ in character:
GM: "Osric, do you seek Cyrus and scold him at any point? Or are you just going to let the falling be the lesson."
Jarrod giggles. For several minutes.
Jeanne: "I think that's door #2."
How about a shoe dropping? And here's the other shoe. And the next one. And, oh yeah, the shoe TREE:
Finndo presents Oberon with an official dossier of paperwork. "Benedict is at the moment investigating corruption in the city guard."
Oberon laughs, "Okay, that'll take him a while."
Finndo: "Yes, but he's got a good head for it. The City of the Dead; there is now a stairway to the City of the Dead and visiting it is a most interesting experience. Osric, Benedict and myself visited it on the second night of the full moon; I believe Cyrus and Osric visitied it on the third. On our trip we were regaled with numerous visions and possible futures; the one that is most salient is one of Osric's doppleganger returning to Amber, leading an army of Fae."
Oberon: "How do you know it was Fae?"
Finndo: "There was something about their appearance."
Oberon: "Go on."
Finndo: "The actual return transpired during a reasonably well coordinated set of difficulties. Events began with Lord Cyrus appearing to murder a chambermaid. In time it became clear that he had done so under the influence of remote magics and investigating that led us to the Hand in the city. An orchestrated assault was coordinated to trap the Hand, which went less well than it could have, complicated by the fact that he had the assistance of Quinn's magic. While this was going on, Wendra and Mother had gathered at the top of Kolvir with Cynthia and Aine for reasons unknown. By some use of magic they managed to summon the stairs that Kipwyn came down. This was discovered by Sonnet and Sybil; Sonnet was very badly beaten. Attempts to stop them were slowed by Wendra's archery; she is a very dangerous woman. However, and this is why this briefing is going on in private, I sacrificed Cyrus's daughter to the mountain to prevent Nod from returning."
Oberon facepalms. "You did not tell me that."
Machievelli should have taken notes from these guys:
Finndo: "No on else knows."
Oberon: "You did not tell me that."
Finndo: "No."
Oberon: "But it was successful.."
Finndo: "Yes."
Oberon: "Excellent."
And now for the wacky:
Finndo: "Nod fell from the stairs. The Hand is now in my employ."
Oberon: "Doesn't he work for them?"
Finndo: "Yes, but he was somewhat bitter that Quinn's protective magics were not what he was led to believe. He's an opportunistic fellow and not one to turn your back on, but. He also seems to be capable of transforming himself into a half man half fish and has made oblique reference to not being the only person being capable of doing so."
Oberon: "Right."
Finndo: "Osric and Ben know about this but to my knowledge no one else does."
Oberon: "You're employing a fish."
Finndo: "For the moment."
Oberon: "Capital."
Anything you want to SHARE with us, Dad?
Finndo: "It is my hope that our next step will be to return to investgiating the matter of Osric's duplicate, but that can wait till all is more settled here. At the moment, I am concerned about Piero's status."
Oberon: "I'll take care of Piero. I got him into this."
Finndo: "I am somewhat troubled by how thoroughly this trap was arranged."
Oberon: "Yes, but we'll talk more about this later."
Finndo: "Thank you, sir."
Each family has its own peculiar way of conveying affection:
Deborah: "Wow. You know. No 'how ya feeling Dad?' 'Need a HUG?'"
Rob: "Finndo shows affection by allowing him to get drunk."
Communication skillz:
Finndo calls in Benedict: "So. Uhm. How goes things?"
Benedict: "I need to gut the city guard. Excuse me."
Finndo: "Very well, then."
Benedict asks Sonnet to isolate a new City Guard captain for her. The reputation of power:
Benedict to Sonnet: "I need to find a good decent man with a brain among the City Guard. He just needs to want to do his job properly."
Sonnet salutes, "Yes your highness."
Shai: "Sonnet is so fucking cheerful it's not even fucking funny."
Benedict: "Benedict starts interviewing people."
Jeanne: "She could just - "
Sonnet: "I'm going to go out - she's an attractive chick, but she's going to strike up seemingly random conversations."
Benedict: "And someone who is not happy with the current state of affairs."
Deborah: "You're looking for Jeanne. "
Scott: "Yes. Actually. Yes."
Lowering your standards to fit:
GM: "The best approximation of your parameters that you find is a man who has been passed over for a number of promotions, works on the night shift and doesn't see the profit in being dishonest, although that doesn't mean he isn't corrupt."
Sonnet: "Corrupt isn't necessarily bad within the parameters."
Jeanne: "So the best you could find is someone who plays the game badly."
GM: "Not necessarily that, but he exposes the system for what it is."
Gee. Wonder why:
Shai: "And his mouthing off isn't popular, so he's on grave shift and in the worst part of town."
GM: "He's been around for a while."
Sonnet: "How many years."
GM: "20. Alot of them in this part of town."
Sonnet: "Is he easily distractable?"
GM: "No."
Sonnet: "Does he talk about any of the people he works with?"
GM: "He talks about almost everyone disparagingly. He's somewhat bitter."
Sonnet goes through the majority of the rest of the men within five minutes each:
Sonnet: "Thank you have a good evening, thank you have a good evening, thank you have a good evening."
Deborah: "Touch me and DIE."
Sonnet: "Thank you have a good evening. Do something about your uniform. Thank you have a good evening."
Another meeting for Oberon and Finndo. And could you take the noxious brat with you?
Oberon to Finndo: "Piero will be on his feet in a few days."
Finndo: "Excellent."
Oberon: "I've been thinking about what you saw. I can't say whether it is true or not. I will have to do some exploration myself. However, I have had some dealings with Faerie in the past. I would like to see that realm not much changed by this doppleganger's presence. I have achieved certain hard won assurances from its Queen."
Finndo: "Allright. We will make arrangements for a trip then."
Oberon: "It seems to me you have a very capable guide."
Hello, Dad, you left your Kingdom to MOM:
Finndo: "If I may bring up a topic it is somewhat difficult to approach, what was it that was so important that it drew both you and Piero?"
Oberon: "I can't tell you yet."
Finndo: "I understand but I wish you to know that the question is there."
Oberon: "I'll see if I can answer it when you return."
Finndo: "I will make arrangements: we will defer a few days until Piero is back on his feet."
Finndo sends an invitaiton to dinner for the brothers. Senior Management decision making processes:
Finndo: "I trust Lady Sonnet has presented her investigation. How long would it take you to make changes?"
Benedict: "Not long at all. I can do it within the next day or two; however I will need to replace the current heads of the city guard and I will need a day or so to make the rounds and meet with each of them."
Finndo: "I will provide you the funds for that and all the writs necessary. That said, haste is of the essence. I have just finished speaking with Father and he has had time to chew upon what we saw in the City of the dead. He is of the opinion that Osric's doppleganger meddling in the affairs of the Fae is not something we should allow."
Benedict: "It only took him a DAY to figure that out?"
Osric, helpfully: "He was quite drunk."
It's nice to know a girl's appreciated for her finer qualities of habit:
Finndo: "He has some arrangments with the Fae already. And if our one Fae is any education, I would much rather not have to deal with a great many of them. As such I think an expidition to Sybil's home is in order."
Sybil has spent all the intervening time making herself a small army of elementals, teaching groups of them to work together and making presents for everyone - two per person. Each person receives a group of elementals that will defend them. And, for each person, Finndo receives a bottle of elementals designed to attack them. She is not, however, finished with her task.
Finndo summons Sybil to the breakfast. The world never goes quite the way you want, does it:
Finndo: "It seems we are about to take a trip. And, Sybil, we are going to greatly need your services as a guide. You've been greatly enthusiastic to return to the Land, and this is a good time."
Sybil, indignant: "What, NOW?"
Cyrus: "We'll stock up on iron."
Sybil: "Now."
Finndo: "Thursday, actually."
Sybil: "But we can't go now."
Amber's universal coping mechanism: alcohol:
Finndo: "Sadly this is the best time available. The City of the dead carries visions - and this is not to leave this room. One of these visions was of the possibility that Osrat will be raising an army of the Fae, twisting them in some fashion and leading them against Amber. For obvious reasons, this is unacceptable."
Sonnet: "Sonnet pours herself a glass of brandy."
Cyrus: "Cyrus twitches longingly at the bottle."
Confidence builders:
: "Sadly we are dependant upon your expertise in this matter."Finndo to Sybil
Never let Sybil do the idea-discovery:
Sonnet, soothingly: "No, Cyrus can be quite useful."
Sybil: "As what, BAIT?" Pause. "Ooooh."
Sonnet offers Lucan the chance to avoid being hauled into the Land, the home of the Fae. Sybil Helps:
Sonnet to Lucan: "Do you want to stay in Amber? Do you want to stay in the city?"
Sybil: "Or you can come meet more of me!"
Sonnet: "And explain to Father."
Lucan: "I never thought staying around your father would be the safer option."
The party travels to Homewood on their way to the Land (on the theory that since Sybil landed in Homewood when she fled the Land, Homewood is how you get back to the Land). Sybil, meanwhile, owes Benedict an apology, in a 'Yes, that _would_ be the reason why' sort of way:
Benedict: "Matters of elemenatals, I leave to you. Matters of strategy, leave to me."
Sybil: "What's strategy?"
EEEEP! Paranoia... engaging:
GM, for no reason, abruptly beams and rubs his hands together frantically.
Deborah: "What was That?!"
If the reader will recall, Alrya is Dorr of Homewood's young daughter. Benedict is relatively close to Dorr, and Dorr is loyal to Oberon. To settle political angles, Dorr suggested that Benedict marry Alyra and Benedict agreed. Unfortunately, Benedict's doppleganger (cf. session 6: Waking Ours) got Alyra alone and brutalized her. Benedict later killed the doppleganger, but Alyra has been recovering ever since. Setting the stage:
GM: "You have dinner with Dorr and his daughter. She is otherwise well appointed but she looks at her plate a lot."
Finndo: "Finndo makes a point of making the conversation go whenever it might slide into awkward silence."
Sonnet: "He has help."
Dorr always seems so cheerful:
Finndo: "At some point we reveal that we are going out looking for the Land."
Dorr: "Funny, you don't look silly."
Finndo: "We have reason to suspect that Osric's doppleganger is operationg there."
Dorr: "Really. Kill him a lot."
Finndo: "We intend to."
When voyeurism loses to Running Away From Pain:
GM: "Dorr encourages Alyra to take a few minutes alone with Benedict."
Rob: "WHOOOOSH. Oh how conveniently the entire party vanishes."
Benedict and Alyra have a moment alone. They'll wish they hadn't:
GM: "Alyra is quiet and mostly looking at her hands. The lighting is not particularly strong here; it's the forest. You've got candles and torches but it's not quite the level of light you get in the daylight."
Benedict: "There's a moment or two of awkward silence, of course. Benedict shifts around, obviously uncomfortable. But then he slow, gently, almost not sure if this is something to do, he GENTLY takes one of her hands."
GM: "That's when you realize she's been crying."
Alyra, softly: "I'm so sorry."
Rob and Jarrod make simultaneous knife twisting motions.
The trouble with this scenario is that we can't kill the villain; we already did that part. Twisting a little further:
Alyra: "I'm never going to be the wife you deserve."
Benedict: "It's not your fault."
Alyra: "It's my fault if I can't be what you should have; I'm not strong enough."
Perfectionist:
GM: "I'm sorry, I can't do weepy 14 year old."
Scott: "TRUST ME, that's close ENOUGH."
It's sweet. It's well intentioned. It HURTS:
Benedict: "Ben, instead of saying anything, merely takes her hand in his and just starts walking. "
GM: "You notice that while she occasionally does make sure she's not bumping into you, she is never looking into your face. You read people fairly well and now that you're close enough to pick out the details -"
Benedict: "The thing is, he's not looking at her either. There's the occasionally side - not turning the head - side glance. He holds her hand gently but firmly, as if willing his own strength to help her."
GM: "This is a much longer awkward silence. You get the sense that she is sitting there silently blaming herself. She's got that kind of guilt stricken set to her shoulders, to her features, if you look. The crying, the tears, are still happening although she's not shuddering from it. After a while, after the silence goes on almost to the point; she breaks and kind of crumples towards you, sobbing."
And then the pain gets driven home:
Benedict: "And at that point we find a nice tree and I settle down sitting, cradling her, and at some point turn her face to mine, look into her eyes -"
GM: "She is not really good with that. "
Benedict: "Stop blaming yourself."
Alyra: "I have to. Or else I have to start blaming you."
When there's nothing good that you can say:
Jeanne: "Ow."
Lydia: "Ow."
Benedict: "He goes back to cradling her."
How Cynthias are made:
Alyra: "Father believes the wedding should proceed within this year."
Benedict: "Summer or fall?"
Alyra: "I'd rather not have the trees dying around me."
Benedict: "Summer then."
Jarrod: "She's uplifting."
Jeanne: "She's 14. Prone to melodrama."
Alyra: "I'll inform Father."
As a brief warning: The Land has some simple rules: 1) iron is an affront, even iron as horseshoes. 2) Hospitality is sacred. 3) Never accept a gift, for gifts are binding. Always barter. 4) True names have power. 5) Metaphor is reality.
Now _that's_ depressed:
Finndo: "The next morning, we make the final check, make sure of the fittings and take the shoes off the horses."
GM: "And Cyrus has that glowering look at the sun, which you haven't seen in a while."
Cyrus: "Cyrus has been making up for several months of not drinking."
Benedict: "To give you a sense of you that affected him, Benedict is not teasing you [Cyrus] even at this prime opprtunity."
Sybil leads the party, looking for the Land. Smartass back seat drivers:
GM: "You ride past a particular spot and there's just this little tiny wisping of light -"
Sybil: "I go that way."
GM: "It's a little bit stronger but it's far. And one of his questions comes back to you - how far is the Land?"
Jeanne: "How many miles to Babylon?"
Jarrod: "You are in a mazy of twisty passages, all alike."
Shai: "You may be eaten by a grue."
Dealing with the Fae:
GM: "You think you are just on the cusp of it. Two trees of ash."
Sybil: "There."
Sonnet: "Those weren't there before."
GM: "No, they weren't."
It's never the things easy to kill:
GM: "Some kind of change comes over the land and nothing's changed - except everything's changed. There's a certain vividness, an electricity running through the air. And there are things pacing you, pale things, in the distant forest, low to the ground."
Jarrod: "Bunnies?"
GM: "NO."
Lydia: "Wolves."
GM: "Possibly."
Wolves step out from the underbrush and confront the group... with hack poetry:
The Silver Queen is far, today;
Our master Hunter, gone away;
We wolves are left nearby to stay;
Yes. Now is time for us to play --
Spill our blood, the Land will say:
'Here's strength for us, and pain you'll pay!'
Fighting hack with hack:
Finndo: "Foolish beasts won't let us pass; we'll go by quietly or KICK YOUR ASS."
The wolves attack and, naturally, fighting ensues. Typical fighting, at that:
Cyrus: "I grab one of the wolves and I hurl it at the other."
Scott: "Bowling for mammals!"
Jarrod: "Cyrus looked at it cross eyed and it died."
After the fight, while we clean up the mess, the next envoy arrives. This one is from the Prince of Colors, whose Court we had been seeking - Sybil, if the reader remembers, knows him pretty well. Even the people you want to hear from have to rhyme:
GM: "As you're doing this, a tiny sparkling thing (think Tinkerbell but less Disney) flits in from the direction of Sybil's bird."
Peaseblossom offers an overdone bow:If you will forgive our skill
with poems we shall furnish.
We think in time you'll find our rhymes
are rather deadly earnest.And some might say that if you pay
attention you shall learn;
if you'd be wise, a greater price
shall these, our secrets, earn.So, come with me, be company
In my Lord's colored court;
An offer's made, of shelter, shade
As guests, my Prince reports.
Some folks just don't like to gambol, I suppose:
Sybil: "Sybil looks relieved."
Osric: "I officially hate it here."
Sybil and Peaseblossom chat along the trail to the Court of the Prince of Colors:
Sybil: "How is he?"
Peaseblossom: "Around and about."
Sybil: "But not squared off."
Peaseblossom: "A triangle yesterday."
Sybil: "But always angled."
Double a Sybil, and you get a lot of consumed alcohol:
to Cyrus: "Do you have any wine?"Benedict
We arrive at the Court of Colors, soothing the horses along the way:
GM: "There are more and more flowers along the way and then you open into what would be a clearing if it were not cluttered with every kind of fae imaginable, sparkling with color, a carnival gone crazy, wacky music of 7 different flavours."
Osric, to his horse: "Sorry. So so sorry."
Everyone is separated from each other as they ride up to see the Prince of Colors. Benedict is approached by a Fae called TumbleMyWits. What do you say to your guilt's desire?
TumbleMyWits:
"What's this I see?
An anger bright and pure?
Has't come to me
To show it can endure?Well, well, I say!
A connoiseur of rage...
A mortal's way
To ignore life's next page.I've remedy
My good and mortal knave
A melody
Which might your woman save.It's simple, yes
Just decide upon a price
And I will bless
With forgetfulness of mice."
And the inevitable You Dumbass moment:
Benedict: "What may I call you? I am called the swordsman."
TumbleMyWits: "You may call me Tumble My Wits."
Benedict: "Can you explain further?"
TumbleMyWits: "You have a problem with mice, yes?"
GM: "Osric, as you're riding along and you realize that people are not around you, something that looks like a beachball, whirling colorful sphere of a thing, bounces out into your path and rolls to a stop. It pops out a head." The GM makes a *pop* noise.
Bobbing Boy: "You may call me bobbing boy." The GM bobs in his chair until it literally bends.
Osric: "I am called the man of shadows."
Bobbing Boy: "Man of shadows, I have a way to describe you. Would you hear it? Listening comes at no price."
Osric: "If it is said, I will hear it."
Bobbing Boy: "Very well." He bounces to one side of Osric and produces a great big long scroll of endless nonsense words. Pretending to read:"A mortal man with hunter's mien
The like of which I've sometime seen
Upon a horse, in hand, a lance
And armored in pale circumstance.He's your better, though spawned of you
With arcane skills, you know it true
I wonder, friend, if offer's made,
Accepted, then, and price is paidYou'll understand, and then discern
His power's nature, your concern...
So come on now, things can't get worse
The answer is in my next verse."
The agreeable soul sucking vendor:
GM: "I'll get back to you, unless you want to -"
Deborah: "Sell your soul now."
GM: " - sell your soul now."
Jeanne: "We take partial payment!"
Quick adapting, isn't he?
Osric: "My interest you cetainly have peaked; I have the price of which you speak."
Everyone stares.
PhD in material sciences raises its head:
Osric: "Will you stipulate that I have something I found in shadow that I will give up? A crystal rose."
Bobbing Boy: "A rose of crystal. It's frozen, unchanging. Does it grow?"
Osric: "When properly cared for."
Bobbing Boy: "Tell me of its care."
Jeanne: "You don't have to rhyme."
Osric: "Yeah, cause it's really easy to rhyme potassium carbonate."
Osric: "Give it water, give it sugar."
Bobbing Boy: "Sugar, sweet things! We have many sweet things here!"He's more than rat made as one man
He's two, or three, all by his plan
Title taken -- as Hunter, seen:
Though White, he's found a secret, green."
Benedict, meanwhile, cuts a deal. Whoops:
Benedict: "You seem to be intersted in my rage." He produces a bronze dagger. "A symbol of my rage."
TumbleMyWits: "Symbols are real, in the Land."
Benedict: "Yes."
TumbleMyWits: "You offer me your rage. Accepted."
When you have no rulebook for the Fucking Bizarre:
: "A bright, sparkly fairy maiden who looks something like a child comes up to you."Jeanne to Cyrus
Fairly Fine _sings_:
"Your daughter's gone a-falling
She cannot tell you where
Your daughter's gone a-falling
Into some spider's lair.Your daughter's gone a-falling
Her down-flight has been traced
Your daughter's gone a-falling
And would you like a taste?Your daughter's gone a-falling
A glimpse, I'll give to you
Your daughter's gone a-falling
Just tell me what you'll do."
Okay, now this was just plain gratuitous:
Deborah: "Oh my god."
Jeanne: "Twinkle twinkle!"
Let's clarify: what'll ya give me for your kid?
Cyrus: "Why do you want to know what I'll do?"
Fairly Fine: "I merely offer."
Shai: "Ah, Faeries."
Jeanne rubs her fingers together in the universal symbol for payment in hand and bobs her brows.
Cyrus attempts to take the Fae up on it. Bargaining without logic:
Cyrus: "I'll give you something bright and sparkling."
Fairly Fine: "Bright and shining?"
Cyrus: "Bright and shining?"
Fairly Fine: "Or cold and dark."
Cyrus: "Sparkly!"
Fairly Fine: "Mmm."
Cyrus: "Cold and dark, we can do. I offer her a lump of coal."
Nice try:
Fairly Fine: "I haven't seen that before."
Cyrus: "It is a rock, cold and dark, with fire inside."
Fairly Fine: "It is your heart?"
Cyrus: "No."
Whoever said Cyrus had a lump of clay for a heart?
Fairly Fine: "I see no fire. This for your daughter?"
Cyrus: "Yes."
Fairly Fine: "Agreed."
Not even a whisper of a stream in Egypt:
: "You see a vision of your daughter in a dark place made of natural stone upon a stone slab; she's breathing, appears to be smiling, but pale. She's alive."GM to Cyrus
The Fae not only barter, they lay traps. Watch the wording in the poem:
GM: "Sonnet. There's a handsome young man riding alongside you; it's not one of the Princes."
Sonnet: "Good day. Or evening. Or whatever it is."
Fae Man: "Quite right." And he gestures to a little place off to the side.
Sonnet: "My companions seem to have gone riding off."
Fae Man: "They do that around here."
Sonnet: "I imagine they do."
The Fae begins to sing, helping her off the horse:
"O come along, my sweet-sung song
And sit: I'll spin for you a tale.
Your time is short, and my life, long,
Among these things so bright and pale.
Your life is leashed by fate and name
To those pretenders you call kings
And you and I know it's the same
Were you to play as prettier things.
Perhaps it is you want an out
From your father's obligations
And yet you do not have the clout
To have your inclinations.And while I cannot help you there in mortal matters so,
I'll give you this, now stay aware: back to the sun you'll go."
Tempting:
Sonnet: "Back to the sun I go?"
Fae: "Yes."
Sonnet: "Interesting."
Fae: "I will now leave you. You're very charming. I'll see you again."
But not that tempted:
Shai: "I do not say thank you."
GM: "Good."
Deborah: "Smart."
And then the last knife twists, all the way home. Finndo is a man who can ignore knives turning in his gut when duty tells him to:
GM: "Finndo, you see a group of Faeries playing cards. The master seems to be a creature that's halfway between some furry beast and a man; more lionlike. "
Finndo: "I'll ride up."
GM: "As you draw near, he begins to speak to the others at the table:What happened to our little boy
What thief stole his emotion
What sparkling thing ate up his joy
When down upon the oceanWhy did he grow so tall and fair
When his heart turned into dust
How could he strive, how could he dare
When all he does is what he mustWill he live long with heavy heart?
Will succor come from duty?
Or will his life come soon apart
His price paid for her beauty?We'll grant you then, an answer, true
If an offer can be made;
If our next prize has come from you,
Your lover's end, a vision-trade."
Ouch:
Jarrod: "Wow, I got off easy."
Our own fuzzy Marquis deSade:
Jeanne: "As Lydia said, It's all about the pain!"
Lydia: "Meep!!"
Finndo's answer:
"That gift is not yours to give,
for mortals die and mortals live.
And though the power of Fae is strong,
I know should she return she'd come back wrong.Tis clear some game is being played,
for from my companions I have strayed.
To know the maker of this test,
what price is it that you think best?"
You cannot pay for that which is priceless:
PokerLion: "What price is your love worth?"
Finndo: "Though odd it is you seem to care, that is a price I do not share."
She does have a point:
Jeanne: "Sub-tle=ty. Spelled b r i c k."
Scott: "Ow."
The fae lions at the poker table argue among themselves. Spoooooky:
Fae 1: "If there is no price you can name; then leave it be, it's all the same."
Fae 2: "Well, we can gift it and leave the price to be named later."
Fae 3: "True true but this mortal has a suspicious look."
Fae 2: "A gift freely given; what harm is that?"
GM to Finndo: "All three of them blink brightly at you."
The GM has one of the game soundtracks going. Apparently it met with disfavour:
Lydia: "Now we are in the land of the cheesy seventies porn music."
Fred, defensive: "This is rave music!"
The answer, gentlemen, was no:
Finndo:
"I'll take no stake from this table
And would not even were I able,
And these are matters on which I do not dwell
and instead I depart and wish you well."
Sybil, meanwhile, rode unhindered up to the Prince. Old lovers, old enemies, and nothing changes:
Prince of Colors: "Oh it's you."
Sybil: "Yes, it's me."
Prince of Colors: "Gone so long."
Sybil: "Back so soon."
Sybil, in backstory, nearly killed the Prince of Colors in exchange for her mother's release from Hell. Carrying baggage:
Sybil: "You missed me not?"
Prince of Colors: "I wasn't trying to hit anything."
Sybil: "I know what that feels like."
Prince of Colors: "I remember."
Oh, is _that_ where they went:
Sybil: "Obligation's past."
Prince of Colors: "Some."
Sybil: "We accepted your hospitality."
Prince of Colors: "We?"
Sybil: "All my friends and I did. I hope they have been treated well."
Prince of Colors: "Of course they are. They are free to roam and have conversations as they wish."
A daughter's filial concern:
Prince of Colors: "Your mother is not upon her throne."
Sybil: "Has she gone and got herself lost in hell _again?_
I ain't goin' after her. I _ain't_:
Sybil: "Three times that is now?"
Prince of Colors: "It is not for me to know."
Sybil: "It is not for me to go."
For old time's sakes - eh, never mind. Let's bargain:
Prince of Colors: "You're here for a particular thing. A man if he can be called that..." Sybil says nothing, and he adds, "Yes, I remember that look. I can tell you what it takes to take a shot at him."
Sybil: "Can you tell me what it takes to kill him? Can you tell me what it takes to save the rest of you?"
Prince of Colors: "I'm not concerned."
Sybil: "I'd hate to see you treated so."
Prince of Colors: "Sometimes you hate to see me, it's all the same."
Sybil: "I'd never give you all my hate. I have given you else in the past."
Prince of Colors: "What would you give me for a hint."
Sybil: "What's a hint cost?"
Prince of Colors: "It's a worthless thing." He bounces a bauble.
Score:
Prince of Colors: "There is somthing worth nothing to you."
Sybil: "No. You know me better."
Prince of Colors: "You are making assumptions."
Let's re-establish the relationship...
Prince of Colors: "Your mother treated your poorly, did she not? I saw to your delayed pursuit, did I not?
Sybil: "I paid, did I not?"
Prince of Colors: "Do you have any reason to come back here. Is anything worth anything?"
Sybil: "Several things."
... and then make it worse:
Prince of Colors: "Would you be bound to the Land forever?"
Sybil: "Why would I be bound to the Land?"
Prince of Colors: "This is exactly my point. Give me your right to your mother's throne and I will tell you how to find the hunter."
Sybil: "Her throne?"
Prince of Colors: "If you have any others I'd be delightned to hear about them."
Someone's having issues:
Prince of Colors: "Your relation with your mother would be strained, no? Reduced down to its component contempt."
Sybil: "I would rather offer you something truly worthless: my mother."
Prince of Colors: "Let's keep things to you, shall we?"
Sybil has no ambition to deal with the Land or a throne; to her, the throne really is completely worthless. He's right about that. All the same:
Sybil: "I would give you my right to set her throne... Take it then, wait no... it is worth more than a hint."
Prince of Colors: "All right, how about a poem?Follow your mother where she's gone,
and soon you'll face, within that place,
its alabaster master.Three silver belles will ring the tone,
and tell with grace, where you might trace,
if courage you can muster.By then you'll be just dust and bone,
cast in mortal lace: ah, what disgrace...
but that is _your_ disaster.Now, what I've had to say, is done;
it's time to race: pick up the pace,
and hope that you are faster."
Mortal assumptions bite you on the ass:
Prince of Colors: "Oh, look. It's your friends."
Sybil: "You took from me."
Prince of Colors: "WHEN?"
Sybil: "My glamour, fair prince."
Prince of Colors: "Oh, you think I took that."
Nice try redux:
Worth another shot as well:Sybil: "Did you not? I'll give you this: "I do not hate you for it now."
Prince of Colors: "You can give whatever you like but it will not be received. You will not bind me so."
Everyone has their regrets:Prince of Colors: "I might give you an answer to that, but later."
Sybil: "I would like to bargain with that."
Prince of Colors: "Deal with the Hunter and we'll talk."
Sybil: "That's not the bargain we agreed on."
Prince of Colors: "No, but it is on your plate, is it not? Prince."
Finndo: "Prince."
Prince of Colors: "Delightful to see you again."
Finndo: "I presume the hunter lies outside the bounds of your hospitality."
Prince of Colors: "Unfortunately."
Anyone else confused?
Finndo: "The game is stud."
Sybil squints.
Osric: "So do I."
Finndo: "The Land is at hand. And a pair is better than nothing."
The trap springs:
GM: "A sundry young man that Sonnet will find familiar walks out from the treeline.
Fae Man: "My Prince!"
Prince of Colors: "Yes what is it?"
Fae Man: "I would not have these ones leave while the debt is still lingering."
And snaps shut, empty:
Finndo: "I will listen to your claim."
Fae Man: "She had information of me. I clearly told her it was a gift and yet no compensation."
Finndo: "Ah, that is grave indeed. But fortunately you have been recompensed wit the ear of a prince and we shall be going."
HA!
Prince of Colors applauds Finndo.
Sybil, as she turns to go, gives the Prince of Colors a sharp little 'Look What I Caught' smile over her shoulder."
Do Not Fire Near The ThermoNuclear Factory:
Benedict: "I'd be interested to see if your trick works here."
Osric, firmly: "Not Just Now."
The party finds its way to a barn particular to Sybil's history on its way to find the bells in the riddle. The GM, it should be noted, has a degree in English. Damn puns:
GM: "It's just a rundown little barn; as you near it, there are a bunch of maidens all running around the barn."
Rob bursts out laughing.
Rob: Fred, if you did what I think you did, I'm going to KILL YOU.
Deborah, pained: "Are some of them silver maidens?"
GM: "Some of them are."
Jarrod: "I hate English majors."
Pissy Sybil:
Sybil starts using language she must have learned from Sonnet.
GM: "Some of the vegetation blights. "
Could Finndo be... lonely?
Finndo: "Young lady, we have some young belles to be sleeping - I mean speaking to."
_Rhyming_ puns, no less:
Finndo: "Fine, we will approach a silver belle."
GM: "She is laughing and she is still dancing. Three of them look exactly alike."
Finndo: "Approach one of those. "
GM: "She rings a bell at you and goes and stands by a tree."
Finndo: "Approach the others."
GM: "They form themselves up in kind of a triangle, appear to await for all of you to draw close, and then..."Ding, dong, dell -
The Silver Queen's
been sent to Hell.Twitch and scratch -
You'll find the way
through brambles' patch.Do you dare?
When at the end,
you'll soon be there."
Vengeance is a dish best served sulfurously hot, apparently:
: "I already have enough; for the moment, I think it is very imporantant that we get your mother out of Hell."Finndo to Sybil
Like master, like minion:
Cyrus: "You first!"
Finndo and Sybil: "Yeeessss."
The party finds their way through an enormous bramble patch to a ledge overlooking an endless chasm down into Hell. They fit on the chasm, but nothing not of Fae seems to be able to fall into the chasm - mortal substance lingers in the air. In other words, only Sybil or other Fae can pass. Oh, yes, and it helps to Read The Fucking Clue:
Sybil: "Oh! Small catch I just realized: We have to die."
Finndo: "I see."
Osric: "Notice us not laughing."
While everyone tries to figure out how to get into the chasm, Sybil comes to the conclusion (without mentioning it to anyone) that she is the only one who can go and she can only succeed by killing herself. She turns to Finndo and apologizes; she thanks Sonnet and then she kills herself with the poison that she has always carried on her person. The player belatedly has a question or two:
Deborah: "So do I die again?"
GM: "You're dead. No, you're really dead."
Cyrus: "Again. This is a pattern."
Will wonders never cease:
GM: "You, Osric, investigate this more thoroughly than your brother."
Deborah: "And come to the startling conclusion that he's right."
GM: "It _is_ somewhat startling."
This exchange will only make sense if the reader finishes the quotes session. Come back to this - and then bean Fred with a wet noodle, will you?
GM: "Sybil, you're falling for quite some time."
Sybil: This feels familiar.
GM: "Yes, it's almost as if your fate has something to do with falling."
God. Hell sucks:
GM: "You feel everything that is bright and colorful in you go away as you fall. And you're still falling. You feel the last bits of you trailing away behind you and for a brief punctuating moment, there is none of you. And then the world such as it is comes back around you; it's dark, there are no colors at all in anything around you; shades are shades of grey; the blacks are very black, the whites are stark when they occur and that's rare and there's nothing around you but the sense of being in a very deep hole."
Oh, sweet opportunity - and it's no longer sweet. Irony drips from this game at times:
GM: "You feel a little listless -- you have no passion to motivate you."
Sybil: "I walk forward."
GM: "You walk for a while -- up ahead you think you see a huddled form up ahead, all gray."
Sybil: "Hello."
Queen of Air and Darkness: "Hello?"
Sybil: "Is anyone there?"
Queen of Air and Darkness: "Is anyone there?"
GM to Sybil: "It's your mom. She's looking very lifeless."
Sybil: "I kick her. No, wait, I don't care anymore, do I?"
Last session, Osric agreed to allow Sybil to come where she was wanted by Osrat - and then to not interfere. Osric gets a trump call. Thanks for the payment:
Osrat: "Hello."
Osric: "I was wondering when you'd call."
Osrat: "Your work is done; you'd best step away."
Osric: "There's nowhere to go."
Osrat: "All right, then. Just thought I'd remind you. I'll leave your future to your discretion, then. If you'll excuse me, I have something to attend to."
And down in Hell, Sybil finds herself face to face with a rat:
Sybil: "It's you. I'm not surprised."
Osrat: "You shouldn't be. Hell is my realm."
Sybil: "It takes one to be one."
Osrat: "That's a rather strange analogy. I'll accept that."
Sybil's glamours had been gradually returning; with it, unfortunately... came Osrat. That's how he tracked her. The irony is a bloody lake, and lying to Osrat is a Bad Idea:
Osrat: "You've been using your glamours again, haven't you?"
Sybil, lying: "No..."
Sybil turns on her rather broken parent with a half hearted viciousness. On the importance of timetables:
Osrat: "I'm sure this is a touching reunion, do you have anything else to say to her? Or would you like the pain now?"
Osrat has Sybil encircled and completely without power. She has no weapons and no immediate way to kill herself again (although she thought about it hard). Sybil attempts to buy time. From Osrat. Riiiight. Sybil at last learns how to push the button:
: "I'm very sorry if you miscalculated. Osric never does."Sybil to Osrat
Eventually, Osrat takes a chomp out of Sybil (and I'm still puzzled as to why he didn't eat all of her). He leaves, crackling with power. Scott sums up helpfully:
: "We have more problems."Scott to Lydia
Finndo finally manages to get through via trump to Sybil; he pulls her and the Queen of Air and Darkness out of hell, quite literally. The trump contact feels odd because, well:
, of Sybil: "You are getting a signal not in keeping with a regular signal given that she's dead."GM to Finndo
What does Sybil do once she's got her feeling back? She beats the crap out of her mother. (Not a very close family, no.)
Finndo: "Sybil! Sybil, wait wait waaiit!"
Sybil to Queen of Air and Darkness: "You stupid stupid stupid bitch!"
Well, you can't have everything:
Sybil: "Why can't you go be a goat!"
Queen of Air and Darkness: "Today I'm a wraith. Tomorrow, I will be a goat."
Hypothetical questions:
Cyrus: "Rast may be good at going in a straight line, but he may have limitations."
Finndo: "Interesting question. I have never seen them."
The group is twice offered hospitality by Osrat as the Hunter in White; the second time, they accept to go and see if they can deal or discern more information. Decor small talk before 'and how shall we kick your ass' begins:
Osrat: "Welcome to the lonely court."
Finndo: "Hunter."
Osrat: "Prince."
Finndo: "Charming place; I love what you've done with it."
Osrat: "Didn't really do a thing, actually. Moved it around a bit."
And then the negotiation begins. It needs no embellishment:
Osrat: "You seem to have come here with murder in your hearts."
Finndo: "Oh yes."
Osrat: "I'm well acquainted with this."
Finndo: "I thought you might be."
Finndo is picking up Osric's gift for understatement:
Osrat: "I don't want to hurt you."
Finndo: "Prudent."
Osrat: "I'd like to know what suddenly drove you here."
Finndo: "The possibility that you may be a threat."
Details:
Finndo: "At the very least we know you carry no small amount of malice and no small amount of capability."
Osrat: "And I have no small amount of self preservation. I am the only one of my group to survive."
Sybil: "At your hands."
Dealing with Stalin or Hitler, take your pick:
Osrat: "I would like to make an arrangement with you. A treaty."
Finndo: "That is always a possibility."
Osrat: "You wish to see that I do not act against Amber. What if I agreed to that?"
Finndo: "I would immediately be suspicious."
Osrat: "I'm sure you would. In exchange, you would not act against me, nor any you represent - meaning Amber."
Bald faced liar and truth time:
Osrat: "I offer it fairly because I possess some fraction of a brother's love."
Finndo bursts out laughing: "I can think of nothing that would make me think of that like Osric's love of me."
Osrat: "It was mostly to hear you laugh."
Osric to Finndo: "I always did like your laugh."
Pertinent reality:
Sybil: "Why am I the only one who can think in my family?"
Lydia: "Because eveyone else is a goat."
Too Many Metaphors!
Osrat: "You think I tilt gainst Amber?"
Finndo: "Only as a joust. Not as a lever."
We sympathize. Believe me, we sympathize:
Jarrod: "I'm so glad that somebody else has to deal with him [Osrat or Finndo, I'm not sure] for a change."
They speak with Osrat just a little ways away from a glowing green power source. Benedict starts to step towards it and Osrat calls him on it:
Osrat: "Brother."
Benedict: "You're no brother of mine."
Osrat: "Oh, but I feel it so, right about here." He places a hand over his heart.
Benedict: "I'll remember that point."
Unnecessary:
Finndo: "Just know that what glimpse I receive colors my perception."
Volunteering points of view:
Cyrus: "I'm all for the degeneration into violence, personally."
Osrat, unsurprised: "Are you."
And fitting in with the Princes:
Sybil to her mother: "You're pathetic, I just want you to know that."
Spinning the spindoctor not so much:
Finndo: "I can think of almost no one more capable of finding loopholes in the agreement we have."
Osric: "But at least you have along someone capable of doing that."
Finndo: "And that fills me with a warm and fuzzy feeling."
Obligatory Star Trek reference:
Finndo: "FASCINATING."
Jeanne: "Captain."
Does it now:
Finndo: "This entire issue of Hell complicates matters immensely."
She just can't resist that button - and neither can Finndo:
: "You're not this arrogant; how did he [Osrat] get this way?"Sybil to Osric
So _that_'s what it takes:
Cyrus: "I'm still for the degeneration into violence, personally.
Benedict: "For once, I agree with you."
PATIENCE, grasshopper:
Cyrus: "I continue to advocate violence as a solution."
Finndo remarks that he had no idea how he and Osric were sprung from the trap in last session, and Osrat replies that Finndo has Osrat to thank. Everyone else immediately comes to the correct conclusion that Osric and osrat had been in communication. They take it - relatively well:
Osric, not quite defensive: "What would have had me do?"
Benedict, helpfully: "I'm speaking with Osrat, and this is the deal we've made. I'm speaking with Osrat and this is what he said. I'm speaking with Osrat and he did this."
Cyrus, firmly: "I'm speaking with Osrat."
Osric: "Oh really."
Lydia mutters: "Osrat showed up with a candygram."
Finndo calls for opinions and buy-ins from the rest of the party. It's a personality roll-call:
Benedict: "A quick consultation right now, with you know who. Barring that, draw the line."
Cyrus: "I continue to advocate violence as a solution."
Finndo: "Your Majesty?"
Queen of Air and Darkness: "I beg your pardon?"
Finndo: "Right."
Sybil: "A bargain with the devil is a bargain with the devil; wearing a shiny white suit doesn't change his nature."
Osrat: "I resent that."
Sybil, conciliatory: "I don't think it's your nature, dear; you're much more controlled."
Osric: "I don't think you're going to get out of this without giving away anything you don't want to."
Finndo: "Don't tempt me. Sonnet?"
Sonnet: "It's not my place to take initiative in this matter."
Finndo: "If that's really how you want to answer, that's fine, but I'd really like to hear your opinion."
Sonnet: "My opinion? Since we are all in one piece, perhaps we should leave. But I do agree with Prince Benedict. I am willing to support violence or diplomacy; point me in the proper direction."
Osric: "I am willing to negotiate with him until we turn blue."
Reaching for straws:
Sybil: "Don't we have rat poison?"
Osrat: "Doesn't work; tested it."
Finndo calls Oberon to get buy-in and information - the real issue, for finndo, is precisely what agreements Oberon got out of the Queen of Air and Darkness and how they might conflict with Osrat. You get nearly killed in ONE battle and everything goes to hell:
Finndo: "At the moment, Osrat and the Prince of Colors seem to be vying. Osrat has offered an interesting proposition; more or less a non-agression pact. I was not certain of the previous terms. However, there is one more complication; there is a Pattern here."
Oberon: "So I get my wits knocked out of my head and when I come to, there are two more Patterns. You're sure I'm not just seeing triple."
Finndo: "I'm pretty sure."
No shit, sherlock:
Finndo: "I take it this was not expected."
Oberon: "You're telling me he has control of this third one. I'd say he's negotiating from a position of power."
Or... we could cheat:
Finndo: "Or we could do both: tip the balance in the favour of the Prince of Colors and get negotiation."
Oberon: "I like that plan."
Finndo: "I think we can get the same arrangements as we had with the Queen."
Finndo, during all that time waiting on the ledge while Sybil was munched by Osrat, drew a number of trumps. One of the barn, one of the ledge, one of the Prince of Colors. Finndo now trumps the Prince of Colors. Making your point:
Prince of Colors: "Who goes?"
Finndo: "That would be I."
Prince of Colors: "You should come here."
Finndo: "I have little time, but an offer."
Prince of Colors: "Get out of my head."
Finndo: "It offends you so?"
Prince of Colors: "It is presumptuous."
Finndo: "Oh it is, I know."
Jarrod: "But I don't really care."
Finndo: "We will be along shortly."
Role reversal:
Lydia: "Kill things!"
Scott: "Meep!"
Someone's always a critic:
Rob: "That was showing him the gun."
Deborah: "You're supposed to speak softly and carry a large stick, dear, and then place the stick on the table where they can see it and then not mention it. You're not supposed to wiggle it around in his head!"
Here we go:
Finndo: "Prince, I have a gift for you. I will name you a price."
Prince of Colors: "I will hear the price and the gift."
The Prince of Colors now has the Queen's throne and his own, since Sybil gave up her rights to her mother's throne. On top of that, he turns out to have the Queen's son, which it seems she gave him her name to protect. Small problem in giving your name in Faerie: it's the unshakable bind. Now, historically, according to canon, Faiella was Oberon's second wife (following, incidentally, Cymnea, whose marraige to Oberon was annulled for no stated reason, and her sons declared illegitimate). Faiella bore Oberon three children: an illgitimate son, Eric, a legitimate son, Corwin, and a daughter, Deirdre. Scott does the math:
Prince of Colors to the Queen of Air and Darkness: "I name you three times. Faiella Faiella Faiella. Now get out." To Finndo, "She no longer has a place in the Land; but I suggest that you look after the baby."
Scott stares at the GM: "Oh wait -!"
Scott facepalms.
Scott just keeps thinking and thinking and at some point he realized, probably, that Sybil is Faiella's daughter, and, well, sometimes, you just can't resist quoting Scott's reaction:
Finndo: "Things seem adequate here; we will agree to return to the same bindings --"
Rob stops talking to watch Scott.
Scott is pounding his head on the desk.
Lydia is laughing.
GM: "MERRY CHRISTMAS, SCOTT!"
Finndo lets Osrat know they'll take the non agression pact and then insists that Osrat agree that, while in Amber, he will be bound by Amber law:
Osrat: "So boring."
Finndo: "Yes, but armed. Good day."
Clever Rob:
Rob: "By Amber law, Osrat is a small rat with no powers."
GM: "Yes."
Rob: "It actually gets added to the charter somewhere."