Session 16: A Fire in the Heart

We resume with a small problem: there's a sizable island drifting its way across the west towards the mountains of Draconis and then on to Amber. It has, among other things, great big huge-bug-spitting tubes coming out of the base and fire-inclined indigenous life on it. Last session, Osric and his "Lieutenant", Osrat, anchored the island in our reality (since it had been half in, half out, and thus harder to destroy).

Now we just need a plan. For plans, we have Finndo, who spontaneously generates Brilliant Sure Fire Ways To Defeat That Obstacle, With A Backup In Case It's Not That Surefire Afterall. Finndo has had 3 weeks to spontaneously generate a Cunning Plan, and sure enough, we have one.

This session is all about one great, big, ongoing battle. Be warned: the wit gave way to a great deal of screaming bloody incoherent murder, and thus this set of quotes is much shorter than the usual collection.

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We get the game rolling in the least reassuring way possible without the GM speaking:

Finndo: "PLAN!"

Finndo starts issuing orders for his plan to cope with the island. The party has 3 days to pull this off.

Finndo: "To review, Cyrus, we need fifty of the most badass marines you can get your hands on. Absolutely ass kicking bad men. Sonnet, we need about fifty pirates. We need people who have been on ships that have been through the worst crap imaginable and are not going to chicken out."
Sonnet: "I will be invoking an aspect; I am tired and surly and I am invoking an aspect."
Finndo: "Osric, I need an entire warehouse full of 500 lb steel shot shaped in a roughly aerodynamic fashion. Or bullet-y. Benedict - archers. Again about 50, absolute best you can get your hands on."

Oberon gave Benedict a vessel for his wedding gift. Hope he insured it:

Finndo to Benedict: "Oh, and we need your ship."
Cyrus: "You weren't needing your ship for anything else, were you? Ever."
Benedict: "I see what I'm going to be asking for for my next birthday."

Making excuses for him:

Finndo: "Sybil - an assload of air elementals."
Sybil: "One metric assload coming up."
Sonnet: "He's tired. He's not surly. His coffee's been shitty lately."

Famous Last Words:

Finndo: "Sybil is going to be responsible for getting Benedict's ship airborne. We've been looking at this thing from the ground; we've been looking at it like it's very high. We need to be looking at it from above and start dropping heavy objects. It is a simple plan."
GM: "And what could possibly be going wrong?"

The plan, in case the reader has blocked it out, is to take Benedict's ship airborne, using Sybil's air elementals en masse. Finndo intends to fly the ship /over/ the island and drop 500 lb pigs (weights) on the island as the closest thing we have to cannonballs. Sybil..'s air elementals will also form a first defense against the flying bugs we noticed in our last look at the island. Sonnet.'s pirates will man the ship; Benedict's rangers will shoot down attackers and Cyrus.'s marines and Finndo.'s Draconis division will serve as the absolute last line of defense. Effectively, Finndo. intends to bombard the island.

Princes of Amber, the players know, are inhumanly swift, cunning, strong, you name it - but this is the dawn of Amber, when such things are not taken for granted. Keep in mind that Finndo is the pansy of the party:

Cyrus: "How many pigs can the ship hold?"
Finndo: "Not that many. That's the problem: I'm going to lift them up to you."
Cyrus, drily: "Can you lift 500 lbs?"
Finndo: "Yes."
Cyrus stares.

Sarcasm, Scott?

Scott: "I like this plan. I'm excited to be a part of it."

And then the optimism:

Finndo: "If they arrange a counterattack..."
Osric: "IF? IF?!"

Ever get that sense Finndo's a few cards short of a full deck?

Finndo: "We have range on our side and they seem to have bugs; this is why we have a plethora of air elementals. We want prisoners if the bugs come after us - 4 would be ideal."
Osric, drily: "Prisoner bugs."

Baron Mourn is Oberon's torturer; Ismerelda is just - well. Regent of Savoy, witch, general bitch practitioner. The reader will recall Ismerelda as the non-charming woman. (The party probably likes Mourn - having never met him - than Ismerelda, just on pure default.) Using your allies to their best talents:

Finndo: "Yes. I wish to make a gift of a pair, ideally, to Baron Mourn and to Ismerelda."
Osric: "You always were a giver."
Cyrus: "For crossbreeding purposes?"
Finndo: "I consider those two people to have delightful talents for finding out what makes them dead."

Some people are just commitment shy:

Sonnet: "Will we be boarding [the island]?"
Finndo: "Ideally not. However, we may be boarded."
Cyrus: "So harpoons and everything."
Finndo: "Ideally not; we don't want to be tied to the moment."

Etiquette vs. logistics:

Cyrus: "Why a ship? Why not a fortress?"
Sybil: "/What/? For one thing, it's quite rude."
Finndo: "Weight. Bringing a ship airborne is one thing; bringing a castle airborne..." Pause. Helpfully, "One reason I don't want to think about the island being airborne."

Sybil has a bad habit of falling to her death; Sybil (the players know) is Deirdre and Deirdre's eventual fate in the Amber chronicles is to die falling into the Abyss. Getting to be an old hand at destiny:

Cyrus: "It's the falling that's..."
Sybil: "Falling's not that bad. You get used to it after a while. The splat's not good but I tend to forget that part."
Osric to Cyrus: "You're doing the telling grandma how to suck eggs thing again. Let me remind you: fuuuuck!"

Candidate must have Master's in E.E or C.S, CCIE, 10+ years of Java experience and 5+ years of applicable experience of dealing with the absurd... send resume by pigeon.

Finndo: "Sonnet, talk to Sejak. Sejak has men who are used to dealing with really weird ass shit."
Sonnet: "I'll put him on my appointment calendar."

Cyrus goes recruiting. Looking for a few good Gurkhas:

Cyrus: "I need bad men."
GM: "Bad naval men or just bad men?"
Cyrus: "Men who have made it through..."
GM: "People who survived sailing with you."
Cyrus: "Yes, but other than that, I'm just looking for really bad men. Naval experience is not as important as badassness."
Osric: "They need to be able to fight in a hurricane."
Cyrus: "Former veterans, but also just extremely bad men."

Not quite the dream of being a pirate lass she had in mind:

Finndo: "Sonnet! Welcome to your first Captaincy!"
Sonnet: "My first Captaincy."
Finndo, on cue: "Your first official Captaincy!"
Finndo beams at the GM: "I get her a tricornered hat."

Benedict trumps Logan Dorr to get his hands on the requested rangers. Just a few days ago, the Land (where the Faeries used to live) was ripped apart and the Fae fled into Dorr's Homewood territory. Dorr's a little shaken, still. Well, not so much shaken as testy:

Logan: "Hi."
Benedict: "Hi."
Logan: "Forest seems to be in one piece."
Benedict: "That's good."
Logan: "Emphasis on the seems."
Benedict: "That's bad."
Logan: "Yes well."
Benedict: "Anything specific that you've discovered?"
Logan: "Small problem with some of the geography changing around but well we'll deal with that."

Give the man credit for a learning curve:

Benedict: "Well. Finndo has come up with a clever plan."
Logan: "How far can I get away from it?"

Not to mention honesty:

Benedict: "Fortunately, your services are not required. However, 3 dozen archers is what I need."
Logan: "Will they be coming back?"
Benedict: "Questionable."

Management tips:

Logan: "Tell me more."
Benedict lets out a long sigh: "How much do you really want to hear?"
Jarrod: "See, when you want to motivate someone, don't mention death."

Trust and faith in Amber:

Logan: "Before I hand these men off to you, I'm going to need to say something to them."
Benedict: "There are great rewards if they do survive, but we'll get to that later."
Logan: "So single men, no girlfriends."

Coping:

Benedict: "Yeah, ones waiting to take on - well. Let's put it this way. Big floating island, several hundred feet up in the air. We're going to take a ship, _my_ ship, my _wedding gift_, we're going to fly it over to of this thing and we're going to drop very heavy things on it, a lot of them. The archers are needed for point defense for whatever they send up after us. We already know there are bug type creatures that..." He trails off. "Very ugly. Very dangerous."
Logan: "So. I'm telling them to go fly and shoot the ugly things."
Benedict: "Pretty much."
Logan: "Call me in a few hours."

Benedict named his wedding gifts - the ship - after his wife, Alyra. Oh, irony, bittersweet irony:

GM: "And just for the out of character appreciation of everyone, Sonnet is Captain of The Alyra."
Rob to Scott, suggestively: "Oh captain my captain."

Awkward common sense:

Scott: "It [the ship] was a wedding gift. If he hadn't named it after his wife..."
Shai: "And if he named it The Sonnet, some eyebrows would have been raised."
Scott: "Benedict is smarter than that."

The guys work out the rewards offered to the survivors. Same difference:

Rob: "We're talking about Knighthood for the guys, for the pirates large sacks of cash."
Jarrod: "So more large sacks of cash."
Rob: "The important thing about Knighthood is that it comes with land."
Jarrod: "LARGE SACKS OF CASH."
Shai: "Royal pardons. Get out of jail free cards."
Jarrod: "Ditto."

Roles and Rivalries:

Benedict: "So just so there's no confusion; once we get on board this ship, how's the chain of command working?"
Finndo: "Sonnet's going to be in charge of the ship; Cyrus is going to be in charge of the men on the ship. If you are not offended, I would prefer that he be in charge of all the men; he has more experience."
Benedict, through gritted teeth: "Very. Well."
Finndo: "I presume you will be a unit commander for the archers."
Benedict: "I had better be."
Finndo: "Osric and Sybil will be doing their own particular thing."

Neither a borrower nor a lender be:

Cyrus: "The interesting problem is how you plan on dropping these things."
Finndo: "I leave that particular logistical issue to you two. Keep in mind, the boat is not going to sink. We could saw a hole into the bottom."
Benedict closes his eyes.
GM: "Well, keep in mind, the air -"
Finndo: "We don't want to turn it into a sieve, but a trapdoor -"
Benedict groans.
Sonnet: "We could use the plank..."

Our very own Jean-Luc:

Finndo: "We can just set up a trough at an angle and roll them."
Osric: "So things that'll roll then."
Cyrus: "You could tie stuff to the capstan and just let go - "
Finndo waves a hand: "Sure. Make it go."

When the going gets tough, the tough go back to their roots:

Sonnet: "Okay. Off we go to recruit."
GM: "So where do you start?"
Sonnet: "Where do I start? Finndo suggested I have a meeting with Sejak, which I'll do towards the end of things. I go to my favorite bar first."
GM: "You get there. Someone flies out the door."
Sonnet: "I step over the body and then I start applying ruthless charm with Karmlike efficiency."

No discrimination among the drunk:

GM: "What're you saying? What's your pitch?"
Shai: "Pitch?"
Jarrod whispers, "Fat Sacks of Cash."
Sonnet: "Cash, pardons, excitement, things for real men. Real Men. And Real Women."

Shai rolls very badly. On to plan B:

GM: "You are greeted by a large round of 'send my men into certain doom; fuck you'."
Sonnet: "I start buying a round of drinks."

Meta-gaming:

Finndo: "If the pirates are drunk at that point, there are 50 royal marines, 50 archers, 50 Draconians and pirates. They have every reason to be well behaved. To say nothing of the large drop."
Cyrus: "And they're going to all get along."
Rob: "Again, these things never work unless you have a ragtag crew!"

Back with Sonnet. Going through the obligatory motions:

GM: "They go, 'oh sure why not, for an old friend, an old flame, various other reasons - and of course, the fat sacks of cash. We will get that in writing, you understand.'"
Sonnet: "Signed by the fucking Prince!"
GM: "'Everyone, meet my new best friend!' And then you spend your time with men who are drinking their last."
Shai: "Grope, slap, grope, slap, grope, slap..."

Badassness qualifications:

GM: "Cyrus."
Cyrus: "I'm beginning with the royal marines. I want half the men out of the royal marines..."

Sonnet sails back up with her pirates, still drinking their last (gallon):

Shai: "Diary entry. ~I am drunk. I have 70 no 30 no 50 no depends on how many live drunk men on the ship. Most of them can't read; they have no idea I forged Finndo's signature, he'll forgive me eventually...~"

Lydia's dice continue to suck. Again with death and motivation:

Cyrus: "I believe what I will choose to do is go to the Office of the Navy; I am here on behalf of the Crown Prince and I am requisitioning 25 brave and... single men."
Cyrus rolls.
GM: "It's good that you have so many Aspects [to spend to improve your results]."
Lydia, literally: "Waugh!"

Meanwhile, Osric is off in shadow fetching supplies. We have long joked that Jarrod could build a bomb with a quick trip through Home Depot...

Shai: "Osric at Costco..."
Jarrod: "Do they have kevlar at Costco?"

You get what you hire:

Cyrus: "I'm looking for men who are particularly vicious in hand to hand combat."
GM: "Oh you can find them. Poor quarter breeds them."
Cyrus: "And ten men who are strong and can be used to lift things and then can be used for suicide."
GM: "It's almost as if you have a nose for these things. You don't trust a /one/ of them."

Mentioning death as incentive, however:

Lydia: "I pick the 50 best men. The last 25 left standing, I take with me. I don't need to trust these men, I just need them to be vicious. Once they're aboard ship, it's really in their best interest to be... useful."
Jarrod: "Or they get thrown off."

Efficient:

Cyrus: "I am outfitting the ship with a series of troughs that are basically on a lever - a basic seesaw. The mechanism is tied to the capstan so the men can turn it and can dump things over the side."

Raise your hand if this sounds like a Bad Idea(tm):

Finndo: "If Osric has the time, he can always get a random collection of explosives and try them out."

Osrat - Osric's doppleganger - is currently glamoured as Osric's captain. Consideration to your evil twin:

Benedict: "Will your Captain be joining us?"
Osric: "Rather up to him."
Deborah: "WHAT?!"
GM: "Well. Osric would want it to be up to _him_ [in his shoes]."

Mazlov's pyramid of needs, Amber style:

Shai: "They have a good working relationship."
Deborah: "They have _too_ good a working relationship."
Jarrod: "He's helpful."
Scott: "Uh huh."
Jarrod: "Okay, call it an enlightened self interest."
Rob: "And extended self interest."

Erranding:

Jarrod: "Sure, why not. So Costco, Home Depot, and Koffman's Sporting Goods."
Shai: "And military surplus."
Jarrod: "That too."

Someone explain this reference:

Osric: "I need a warehouse full of the 500 lb - I'm going for something bullet shaped, but cannon balls will do."
GM: "Your friendly cohort does suggest that he can find ways to mold large unformed bits of iron if necessary."
Osric: "Mold them?"
Osrat: "Yes. Just a suggestion, but, please, carry on."
Shai: "I can see Osric coming back with 500 lb iron lawn gnomes."
Fred: Then he charms them up and they're dark lawn gnomes.
Rob: "That look like David Caruso: 'It's my turn!'"
Jarrod: "Some shaped charges, as it were. "

Women gather, men hunt:

Osrat: "If you'd like me to take care of the whole warehouse thing, you can run along and do that other thing..."
Osric: "The remainder of my list is deer hunting arrows -"
Rob: "Flesh cutters."
Osric: "Yes. I also want the parachutes that they use for returning rocket stages to the earth."
Shai: "For the ship? What?"
Rob: "We'll mount one on the bow and one on the stern."
GM: "You find Nasa. Abandoned Nasa."
Jarrod: "That'll do fine. Two of those parachutes with Kevlar straps to hold them on. And the last thing I want is nets."
GM: "You manage all that in the time allotment."

Finndo trumps Osric. Positing a perfectly spherical sharp thingamajig:

Finndo: "How's it going?"
Osric: "Oh, just waiting for you to call. I think you'll be pleased."
Finndo: "Got a question for you. Are razor sharp pinwheels within your reach?"
Osric: "Pinwheels?"
Finndo: "I'm thinking of something fluttery that's still sharp."
Osric: "You mean like the lawn things?"

If it can be imagined, it does exist in Shadow. The land whose police really do say 'You! Out of the gene pool!':

Osric: "So basically I need a shadow whose government believes in survival of the fittest."
Finndo: "Honestly, just a large collection of lawn darts would suffice."
Osric: "So apparently I need to look for Planet Darwin."

Feature Request:

Finndo: "If you could just get large volumes of shrapnel."
GM to Osric: "That you can do easy."
Deborah: "Flying caltrops."

We've been gearing the ship in the water off Amber. Behind every great plan is a small logistical issue:

Lydia: "How are you moving the ship from point A to point B?"
Jarrod: "Magic!"
Rob: "We paint it red and it goes faster!"
Scott: "Should we call it greased lightning?"
Rob: "No, because then this would turn into a musical and we're already pushing our luck with the ragtag band."

Now that's desperation:

Rob bursts into song, bellowing out old commercial jingles in a resounding bass.
Deborah wails: "Fred, could you please get back to buttfucking us!?"

Finndo arranges escape trumps for everyone but Sybil. On priorities:

Deborah: "Sybil looks sad and unappreciated."
Rob: "/After/ this, we will train Sybil in the use of trumps."
Scott: "But that goes in the same category as oh by the way the geography of Homewood has changed and the navy needs to be modernized!"

Double your patterny fun!

GM: "The island has become large from the horizon and is advancing minute by minute. You figure you've got about half a day before it reaches the range and that's about as much time as you can give yourself. Osric, not so much with the lawn darts."
Osric: "Shrapnel, then."
GM: "That's fine, your lieutenant has indicated."

Sybil is Fae; Fae can't handle iron. On feeling less than loved:

Deborah: "OH SHIT! Did anyone mention to Sybil that we were manhandling a lot of iron here?"
Rob: "No."
Jarrod: "No."
Lydia: "NO."
Deborah smacks her forehead.
Shai: "Just slipped our mind."

Metagaming in the extreme:

Finndo: "Benedict, I'm going to give you one additional responsibility. Look around the ship before we go, because we have a ragtag band. I don't want any charming but cunning stowaways."
GM: "You have watched way too many movies, dude."
Benedict: "... what?"

Foreshadowing:

Osrat: "You realize you're about to die."
Osric shrugs.
Osrat: "Just shrugging? Very well; I'll try to replace you kindly."
Osric: "I thought you might."

Saying it with feeling:

Scott: "Large sacks of cash."
Jarrod: "Yes. It lubricates so many of these deals. I don't know why, but I want large sacks of golf balls. And a driver."
Lydia: "From Amber with love."

Evil Twins not so much with the overwhelming trust:

Osric: "I want to experiment to see when I'm out of sight of my doppleganger; does the frisbee trick work during the day?"
GM: "No, that would seem to be something specific to the properties of Tir. "

Not just a river in Egypt:

GM: "There's always," and he twists an imaginary [Cymnea] ring on his finger, "other escape negotiations."
Jarrod hesitates: "I don't really want to..."
Deborah: "Evil is Helpful!"
Jarrod, defensively: "My family is Not Evil."
Deborah and Scott laugh out loud.

Uncomfortable realities:

Lydia to Jarrod: "You fed my daughter to the mountain!"
Jarrod: "That was not my family! That was /him/. My mom's side of the family is not evil."
Rob: "She's my mom too."
GM: "Trying to forget that."

Standards:

Sonnet: "These are the scum and the dregs of the Isles. These are my friends."
Finndo: "It could be worse. They could be druids."

The definition of cold and ruthless:

Rob: "Finndo is gladhanding with everybody, the Draconians and the pirates; Finndo's a great guy."
Deborah squints: "You're making best friends with the men you're sending out to die."

Dishing what you take:

Scott to Deborah: "Stop touching my dice! You're tainting them!"
GM: "There's plenty of dice over here - "
Deborah: "Oh, it's okay. Scott is giving me shit."
Scott: "Yeah, well -"
Deborah, clarifying: "Scott is breathing."
Scott: "Hey!"

'Uhhhhmmm. I might need you to come in Saturday. Mmmmm. And Sunday, too.':

GM: "And the archers arrive."
Finndo: "I glad hand them!"
GM: "These guys aren't cheering up. They probably got an honest talking to from Logan."
Finndo: "Excellent. Then I sincerely glad hand them."
GM: "They've got a realistic view of what they're going into; they know it's for the safety of the kingdom."

Heroic != Common sense:

Benedict: "I search the ship."
GM: "There aren't any stowaways."
Jarrod: "Not if they have /any/ /brain/..."
Rob: "See, Finndo has this fear that Alyra would try to be heroic."

Sonnet warns Sybil that avoiding the pirates would be wise. Passive Aggressive How To:

Sonnet: "They're a rough sort."
Sybil, gamely: "I'm a rough sort of lass."
Sonnet: "They don't need distractions. Trust me."
Sybil: "What an /interesting/ phrase for you to use."
Sonnet: "Which, distraction or trust me?"
Sybil looks at her flatly and then turns away, "Oh, look, what's that over there?"

Obligatory ST reference:

GM: "You have this small problem where Draconis is many days away. "
Jarrod: "Pattern travel?"
GM: "We need the warp sequence."
Jarrod: "It may be the Excelsior sequence."

The singing's like a maraschino cherry of squick on top of the doom sundae:

GM: "Those of you who have not been on a hellride; you travel through a thousand skies in an instant; every fantasy landscape you think you might see is there -"
Lydia: "Roseywood!"
GM: "Oh, look there's singing!"
Jarrod: "Shove a pig overboard."
Lydia: "Splat!"
Rob bursts into song: "We're dying a thousand deaths! We're dying a thousand deaths! I'm crushed! I'm flattened! I'm burned! We're dying a thousand deaths!"

Sybil protectively trails Sonnet when she leaves the Draconis contingent to check on the pirates. Timing the snippishness:

Sonnet: "I do not have time to get into it with you; we're about to get in the fight of our lives; go deal with your fucking elementals; I have work to do."
Sybil: "/Someone/ didn't get enough sleep, did she?"

That can't be good:

Shai: "Sonnet is looking sullen."
Deborah: "And so is Sybil."
Shai: "The women are sullen."

So we do have limits. Excellent!

Deborah to Rob: "And if Finndo cared about this sort of thing, he'd do the math."
Rob: "What, that their lesbian love affair is falling apart?"
Deborah, startled: "What? NO!"
Shai: "What?"
Deborah: "Getting off this ship! No no no!"
Fred: "There will be no slash fanfic for my game!"

Ah, the blessings of military life:

GM: "The Draconians have been forming their own plan all this time. Their life purpose is defending Draconis from tings that come over the mountains."
Rob: "They don't believe in wacky plans."
GM: "They're executing plan Alpha I 6."

Last session, Osric locked the island firmly into this reality, enabling us (theoretically) to do it damage. Speak not the Dark's name:

GM: "They're still trying to get out of this reality. They've been pounding against that ever since you set that up."
Osric: "They need to not succeed at that."
GM: "Funny you should mention that."

Diverse boat rocking:

Shai: "This is funny."
Deborah: "This is screwed."
Shai beams.

Osric mentions the reality checking in front of Benedict. Holding resentments:

Osric: "Oh, did I not tell you about that?"
Benedict: "It's one of the many things you seem to leave out - but then again, you've been busy these last three days, so I won't hold that against you."
Osric: "Well, when I first - " He looks at Benedict flatly.

The party gets the boat over the island and takes a look down. There's only so much detail they can get of the surface of the island below. First off, it's quite a distance down and second off, there's some distortion in the air from the amount of air getting kicked up to keep ship aloft. But there is scurrying come to life on the island. The party starts unloading the shrapnel, resulting in more clouds of dust and scurrying. Summing up:

Rob: "There is four loads of cannonball already on the ship and a load of shrapnel. Drop the first one."
GM: "There's a gout of flame when it lands, going straight up."
Sonnet: "Fire on the first hit, dust on the second."
Finndo: "All right. Counterattack?"
Sonnet: "Shrapnel."
Finndo: "All right; shrapnel's enough to hurt whatever's coming."
Sonnet: "Many Bugs."

Christie gave Lydia a large, fluffy bunny. Lydia took to wearing the bunny... on her *head*. Appealing to a higher power (and because they said I had to quote it):

Deborah: "Fred. PLEASE take the bunny off her head..."

The party takes up bombarding the island. Benedict charges some of the pigs with his unraveling force; the ones that are charged always cause the flame effect shortly before they hit or when they do; a few of the ones that don't have that charge occasionally do. The party does some math. And then the physics:

Lydia: "Well, if the volcano erupts, there will be a lot of trouble."
Rob: "And then the screaming and running."
Lydia: "And the incineration and dying."
Rob: "I'm going to point out something called reaction and dying. Volcanos erupt because there is ground under them; this may just explode outward in a circle."
Jarrod: "So we'll call that the doomsday option."

The second pass completed, insects started rising up from the island in waves. The first wave was a little startled by how effectively they are smacked out of the air by the air elementals kept there for that purpose. The second or third wave is also smacked but a little less effectively. Meanwhile, Cyrus puts a net to use to capture a bug. When cunning traps don't work, go with what you know:

GM: "You're trying net tactics? You do manage to catch one and it is not enjoying its net experience; it may chew its way out. You're not certain what to hit."
Jarrod: "Cyrus will think of something."
Cyrus: "I hit it. Legendary."
GM squints: "You ... punch it. It stops moving. You hope you didn't kill it."

Define 'lunch':

Sonnet: "The last time I saw something that ugly, we had a guest speaker. For lunch."

Lowered expectations of your boss:

Finndo: "Sonnet, here's a secondary task."
Sonnet: "Bungee cord off the deck?"
Finndo: "No, this will make your task easier..."

Don't jostle the elbow of the guy fine tuning reality:

Benedict: "Any enlightenment, brother?"
Deborah: "Working on it!"
Osric: "You don't want to distraaaact me..."

Had to be done once:

Osric: "I'm going to see if I can give the island an earthquake."
GM: "You feel yourself reaching towards it, you're trying to grasp onto the elements within it necessary to create that effect and it fights you and actually manages to keep it from being too severe."

Benedict interprets the fire gouts the worst possible way. The best of all best possible outcomes:

Benedict: "Relay the possibility that this thing may be a shell to Finndo for something big big big that's Fire."
Sonnet: "Egg?"
Benedict: "Yes."

Being picky:

Rob: "My kingdom for a rail gun."
Jarrod: "You didn't ask for that."

Paranoia:

GM: "We're going to fast speed this a little bit; the island continues to discourse flying creatures; these things probably live very compactly, so they've got the volume of the island potentially."
Finndo: "Have Osric look and see if there's a possibility they're coming from somewhere else."

Thank you for calling Osric's house of Contemplation and Reality tweaks; you ask, we raid Nasa; your subjective is our objective. We care. Really. Hold, please!

Sonnet: "Your esteemed brother -"
Osric: "Which one?"
Sonnet: "The loud one."
Osric: "Right."
Sonnet; Has suggested the bugs may be coming from somewhere else. Perhaps the island is a door.
Osric: "... and?"
Sonnet: "He would like you to think about this and possibly come up with an answer."
Osric: "I'll get back to you."

How to tell the Larry, Moe and Shemp apart:

Shai: "I have the Prince's signature right here - which one? The loud one!"

The fine tactical appreciation of Senior Management:

Sonnet: "The mountain is shooting fire out its ass. Allegedly it's melting stone."
Finndo: "That's not good."

The fight has been progressing without real, well, progress. Laying the ground rules:

Scott: "How big is this ship?"
Deborah: "NO RAMMING!"

Essentially the same reply:

Cyrus: "Should we go down there?"
Sybil: "No!"
Osric: "You first!"

Oops. Fuel on the fire:

GM: "In a series of pops and flashes of flame, creatures start appearing on the deck of your ship. They're dressed in robes but they're sectioned; they've got these long faces with a probiscus like what you might expect of a mosquito and their heads sweep back in demonic shapes around these human eyes and whatever they touch bursts into flame. Osric?"
Osric: "I have an idea."
GM: "Excellent!"

... ooops.

GM: "[Osric, roll] Insight."
Osric: "Epic."
GM: "What's looking out for things below decks?"
Osric: "There's a below decks?"
GM: "Yeah. And flaming creatures that teleport - BAD."
Osric: "... oh. I'll have a look."

Sometimes, it's the only thing you can say:

GM: "You open the door. Huge amount of smoke comes out."
Osric: "... shit."

Benedict starts to go after the bugs. Fighting the last war:

Osric: "Fifteen seconds, brother."
Benedict: "We don't have them!" He keeps going.
Osric: "Ten seconds, brother."
Finndo: "Lead the ship into shadow, take the bugs with you and leave them behind."

HA!

GM: "There's a large number of the fiery, horny things here [in the hold]."
Deborah looks up.
GM: "Don't quote that."

Above decks, Sonnet has been captured by the bugs and swept off the ship. Gut response:

GM: "Something is carrying Sonnet away into the swarm."
Cyrus: "I shoot it!"

The fire creatures are eating the spine of the ship away and it's about to collapse. More strategy than plan:

GM: "And you're watching the ship fall apart."
Benedict: "I asked Osric to do something while I get Sybil."
GM: "Do something?"
Benedict: "I'm hauling ass."

Osric uses the ring on his hand to signal his mother's family that he's in danger. You win some, you lose some family:

GM: "You're starting up the stairs when your ring really starts to take notice and - you're gone."
Scott: "You're saved!"
Deborah: "We're fucked!"

Finndo, to clarify, is on the ground, trumping up the pigs to be dropped onto the island. So he's not on board to offer tactical advice. Summing things up:

Cyrus: "I trump Finndo."
Finndo: "Yes?"
Cyrus: "They've taken Sonnet."
Finndo: "Shit. Situation otherwise?"
Cyrus: "WAUGH!"

He's literally making this up as he goes along, by the way. I'm just sayin'.

Finndo: "I'll get back to you. Get everyone evacuated. We may have one last plan."

It's like dealing with an amiable, sinister, sorcerous blood-related hive:

Cymnea: "Hello."
Osric: "Thank you."
Quinn: "Looks like quite a spot you've gotten yourself into there."
Cymnea: "Oh yes. Quite nasty."
Quinn: "I don't think we'll be getting involved."
Cymnea: "No no no."

Some of us are destined to fall. Some of us are destined to be plastered with goo:

GM: "What are you doing about the fact that this thing may or may not be prepared to eat you?"
Sonnet: "It hasn't tried to eat me yet so I assume it's carrying me somewhere. If I try to kill it, it will drop. I will fall a long way. I'm good but not that good."
GM: "You're clever. You could probably figure a way to turn a dead bug into a flyer."
Sonnet: "Screw it. I'll kill it."
Lydia: "And again, Sonnet will be soaked in gore."

Sonnet kills the bug and uses its corpse as a glider. Taking advice:

GM: "Oh yeah. It's dead. Dead dead dead. And now you're zooooooooom plummeting towards the island oh it's big. Yeah, that's big."
Shai hesitates.
GM adds: "You probably want to save your clever, considering your landing options or worse, worse and oh wow worse."

The moment required music:

GM: "The thing starts spinning and she gets around it just right and 'I'm pretty much going to be landing on this island'."
Rob starts singing the Indiana Jones theme.

And for the people not gliding in on the corpses of their abductors:

Finndo: "Status."
Cyrus stares.
Finndo: "Status. Ah, the ship is foundering. Right. How goes the evacuation?"
Cyrus: "People are evacuating?"
Finndo: "Start passing through anybody who can't get themselves off."

The ship is foundering. Benedict is charging the _entire ship_ with his power while everyone else evacuates. The idea is to ram the ship at the island for maximum damage. The devil is in the details:

Cyrus: "Prince Finndo, Osric is missing."
Finndo: "Fuck. All right, grab a trump sketch so you can get yourself off and I'll get back to you. Oh. And Take Sybil With You."

Benedict once flew with Sybil on Ariel (her primary air elemental). Benedict unfortunately used his unraveling power and the incident left an impression on Ariel. Negotiation:

Sybil: "Ariel. I want to wait until they're off and then we're grabbing Benedict once the ship starts to fall -"
Ariel: "NO. BAD!"
Sybil: "What?"
Ariel: "FULL OF BADNESS!"
Sybil: "So we wait till it falls out from beneath him and then we grab him."
Ariel: "Badness!"
Sybil: "We wait till he's falling and he's clear of it and about to die. Then we grab him. No badness."
Ariel: "BAUBLES!"
Sybil: "Have I ever failed to bauble you?"
Ariel humphs.

Cyrus interrupts Sybil's rescue plan by bodily picking her up and carrying her to safety. Revealing influences:

Sybil: "Sybil starts to use language that she must have learned from the court matriarchs, Sonnet or the pirates."
Cyrus: "What improper language for a young lady!"
Sybil: "You can take your proper language and stuff it up your flaming, gaping asshole!"
Cyrus: "Your mouth should be washed out with soap!"
Sybil: "I want my elemental! ARIEL!"
Scott: "Benedict would be proud of you."

Finndo has managed to hook up with Sonnet on the island. A matter of (exponential) degree:

Finndo to Sonnet on the island: "Keep an eye out for anything bad."
Sonnet: "Point of order: everything is bad."
GM: "You look up and see the falling ship."
Sonnet: "Actually. Would the remains of the ship falling from the sky be bad? Oh. And why is it black?"
Finndo: "Black? Yes, that counts as bad."

The party evacuates, splitting up as it does so. And Plan A comes to a close:

GM: "The ship hits. All of you lose your sense of hearing if you're anywhere near the island. There is effectively a volcanic erupting up top - not quite, but still there is a gigantic gout of flame probably seen to the other end of the kingdom; it goes up miles. You two - Osric and Benedict - out in the desert. You four, back at the fort in Draconis, with your ragtag band of soon to be knights and very rich men."

Benedict trumps Finndo. Coming up with options:

Finndo: "So you're not falling through the air."
Benedict: "No. I am not."
Finndo: "I'm guessing you might be with Osric."
Benedict: "I am. So Plan B?"
Finndo: "Plan B involved us taking captives. We're on to Plan F."

The party regroups at the fort in Draconis being borne down on by the approaching, undefeated island. Cutting to the doom:

Sybil: "Do we have a plan?"
Cyrus: "Is it a clever plan?"
Finndo: "That's a very interesting question."
Sonnet: "Does it involve going back to the island?"

Casual dress workdays:

Sonnet: "I go get tea, dripping blood guts."

Forming a magical output Union:

Finndo: "Plan A is sending Sybil there with as many earth elementals as we can manage."
Sybil stares.
Finndo: "Plan B is seeing if Benedict can charge the entire island."
Sybil: "Prince Finndo, let me explain to you about capacity. Benedict and I both have /limits/."
Benedict: "/Thank/ you."

Manipulation, to varying degrees of success:

Finndo: "If this is too much for either of you, you are free to go home."
Sybil: "Oooooh! God. I hate that. I'll stick around."
Benedict: "I hit him."
Deborah: "What?"
Benedict: "I hit him."
Finndo sneers: "Child." He gets back up.

Finndo gives Ismerelda a call. It's Christmas in July!

Ismerelda: "How goes the fight?"
Finndo: "Enormously badly. However, we have some bodies."
Ismerelda: "I see."
Finndo: "And we would be delighted if you would be willing to inspect them."
Ismerelda: "All right. Do you meed me there?"
Finndo: "No. We'll pass them through to you."
Ismerelda: "/Oh/."

_Ow_:

Ismerelda takes them into the Vivisectionary. "Not at all human, are they?"
Finndo: "No. I'm sure you will enjoy the challenge."

Rule #1 is Never Volunteer:

Finndo: "I think the next one is simply going to be hit and run. Osric, if you could mess with the tectonics and I will deploy the earth elementals and run like a scared little bunny."
Cyrus: "There's the matter of capturing some of these things live."
Finndo: "All right, Cyrus, come along and bring a net."

The women are left behind while the men Try Something on the island. An excellent opportunity for tea and bitterness:

Sonnet: "Fucking Moron."
Sybil: "He's our moron."
Sonnet: "It may not even be there anymore since the ship fell on the goddamned island."

Sybil, last session, made the mistake of referencing Sonnet's affection for Benedict. Sonnet has been upset with her (Sonnet-style) ever since. Making amends:

Sonnet: "I shouldn't care. That's annoying."
Sybil eyes her. "I care about Finndo."
Sonnet: "Why?"
Sybil: "I've got a lot invested, I suppose. And I'm kind of fond of them, even Cyrus, in a brutal, vicious sort of way."

Dealing with Karm logic:

Sonnet: "I shouldn't care but I do. I should stop caring."
Sybil: "Just flip a switch?"
Sonnet nods: "I'm no longer angry at you."
Sybil: "Uhm. Sonnet?"
Sonnet: "I'm no longer angry at you."
Sybil: "Ooookay."

Just checking:

Sonnet: "I shouldn't be. You didn't know. You do now. I'm not angry at you."
Sybil: "Sonnet, are you going to kill me?"
Sonnet: "No."

Paying up:

Sybil: "I care about Finndo."
Sonnet: "That is annoying."
Sybil: "You have my sympathy."

Same difference:

GM: "What are the women up to?"
Shai: "Nothing."
Deborah: "Bitching about them over tea."

Finndo trumps Sonnet. Therapy. At least ten years of it:

Finndo: "Are you and Sybil busy? We're about to complicate matters further and draw both of you into possible danger. Any interest?"
Sonnet: "We are at your disposal, Your Highness. Sybil? They want us to go kill shit."
Sybil: "Certainly. Let me put down my teacup."

Cyrus is scouting around on the island. When all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail:

GM: "Sonnet, you notice that Cyrus has been noticed."
Sonnet: "How far away is he?"
GM: "Several hundred yards."
Sonnet: "I trump him."
GM: "Cyrus, you're getting a trump call."
Cyrus: "Yes?"
Sonnet: "Incoming." And she hangs up.
GM: "There are several swarm things above you."
Cyrus: "I put my back against something."
GM, helpfully: "There's a lot of ground..."
Cyrus: "I shoot my crossbow at one."
Benedict: "He continues to advocate violence as a solution..."

Targeting:

Cyrus: "I hit it in a sensitive spot that is not its head."
Shai: "Bugs got nards!"

Alliteration put to evil:

GM: "Cyrus returns with buggy booty."

Elizabeth's torturer may have said, 'I am entrusted with the methodical destruction of Her Majesty's enemies.' This is our Baron Mourn, whom Finndo trumps.

Mourn looks startled.
Finndo: "Ah, Baron. My apologies for approaching you in so unexpected a fashion, but I have need for your unique expertise."
Mourn: "Ah. Excellent."

Requirement docs are specific for a reason:

Finndo: "I have a prisoner of a rather unique type."
Mourn: "I've never met one of those."
Finndo: "I care very little for what it has to say. I wish to see what makes it dead."
Mourn: "Oh."
Finndo: "As thorough an understanding of its anatomy as possible."
Mourn: "Oh. So not immediately dead."
Finndo: "No. I wish to know what it does not like."
Shai: "They have a lot of good cooks in that barony."

Benedict isolates what he realizes is one of thousands of chimneys on the island; he informs Finndo that it would be easier to go down into the island via the several-people-wide chimney than the various craters. Osric, meanwhile, realizes that the core of the island is creating the bugs. We need better spec sheets:

Finndo: "Mild additional information about your guests; it appears they may have been summoned or created spontaneously by magic."
Ismerelda: "Ah, yes, that would explain a few things."

Benedict draws the line at picking a fight with the bugs flying past him. Putting things in perspective:

Finndo: "No sense of adventure."
Benedict: "No sense of stupidity."
Shai: "You're ... crawling down a /chimney/."
Scott: "All right, there are /limits/."

Gravity will get you there the fast if splat way:

Finndo to Benedict: "Pull me through. I've got a much faster way of going about this."
Deborah: "Falling?"

Sonnet's crept ahead of Benedict to the core of the island. Strategically not advancing:

GM: "Seen those photographs of the sun? It's like you're seeing a very small arc of it. Small tendrils whip about and bugs appear."
Sonnet: "A glowing plasma curtain that spits out bugs."
Benedict: "Huh. We'll wait for everyone else."

Is that your technical description of the problem?

Finndo: "So. Osric!"
Osric: "Yes!"
Finndo: "The thing!"
Osric: "Yes."
Finndo: "The big glowing sphere."
Osric: "Yes."
Finndo: "With tendrils."
Osric: "Yes."
Finndo: "Spits out bugs."
Osric: "Yes."
Finndo: "Found it!"

Exit strategies:

Finndo: "Think you could do more against it if you were closer?"
Osric: "That's a very interesting question."
Finndo: "Well, it might squish me like a little bug."
Osric: "Then the running away."
Finndo: "Not so much with the running."
Osric: "Trumping, then."

The entire party trumps into the chimney via Benedict and then stand around in it figuring out what to do about the molten sun at the end of their tunnel. When you start to feel like a nail, everything looks like a hammer:

Benedict: "Option 1. Frontal assault."
Sybil: "No."
Finndo: "Except that it's a big glowing sphere. It's quite large, as you may see, if you peer around the corner."
Osric: "I've seen it."
Cyrus: "How large?"
Finndo: "Death star large."
Cyrus: "What would happen if I fire a crossbow bolt into it?"
Finndo: "I suppose it's not really fire..."
Sybil: "... maybe."
Finndo: "We have a number of things we could do to it, but most of them are risky or foolish or both."
Sonnet: "Like being in a tunnel?"
Finndo: "We could attempt physical assault. We could attempt to bring in elementals; we could see if Osric is capable of taking it over. "
Sonnet: "Or we could cave in the tunnel and kill it with rocks."
Benedict: "With us in it?"
Finndo: "That is a comparable plan."

On pattern recognition:

Sybil: "I ... don't want to be difficult -"
Osric: "You?"
Sybil: "But if we are dismissing the thing at whose heart we stand, how are we... getting away?"
Finndo: "That's when the running away comes in."
Sybil: "You use that phrase cavalierly, I've noticed."
Cyrus: "We do a lot of it."

No Helping!

Rob: "We better hope it's not an evil clock."
Jarrod looks quizzical.
Rob: "Because what's it counting down to?"

The clever plan we come up with involves Benedict pouring his unraveling force into the small sun at the core of the island. Scott rolls and throws in everything on his sheet. And then some more. And then comes the unfortunate moment when the Dark Powers are asked for their assistance. The path to hell is paved with good intentions:

Scott: "Angry. Fudge point."
GM: "Legendary +2."
Scott, resigned: "I call upon the dark powers."
GM, smoothly: "The dark powers are happy to help. How much help would you like?"
Scott: "How much help would I like?"
GM: "Pick a number."
Scott stares. "The powers are happy to help?"
GM: "Pick a number. How much help?"
Scott: "Legendary +8."
GM: "And you now have a second connection [on your sheet] to the dark powers."

Benedict arches his back and a fountain of the unraveling power blasts out of him in a river at the sun, which slowly winds off its axis, speeding up. Observation:

Sybil: "That's not good."
Sonnet: "No, it's not. This is why I'm going to ask for card powered nikes."

The dark powers only deal in one coin, after all:

Jarrod: "What the hell did you sell?"
Deborah: "You have to ask?"
Scott: "Another part of my soul."

The sun starts to self destruct under Benedict's onslaught. Understatement of the episode:

Benedict: "Let's get out of here."
Osric: "Wiser words were never spoken."

A secretary's work is never done:

GM: "And the mountain is tilting and landing and dear god that's going to be awful awful awful awful."
Jarrod: "Where is it landing?"
GM: "Draconis. The eastern side of Draconis."
Shai: "Well, I know what I'm going to be doing for the rest of the year. Letters of condolence."

Finndo creates a new order out of the men Knighted from the survivors of the ragtag band. Spin:

Finndo: "The Knights of the Mountain are going to exist for dealing with really fucked up shit. They're peers now - this is better for them, their kids, they get income, they get to be men in black..."

The party make it back to Amber, and half of them are immediately put to their sick beds - particularly Benedict and Sybil. Finndo reports in to his father, Oberon, who is testing out his legs and recovering from his own convalescence. Efficient conversationalists:

Finndo: "Feeling any better?"
Oberon: "So, flew the ship, big boom."
Finndo: "Stopped it."
Oberon: "Good."

Less Than Comforting:

Finndo: "Wow, that was bad."
Oberon: "It was the first one."
Finndo: "I'm not sure we can handle too many more of them."
Oberon: "Me either."
Finndo: "I'm not entirely sure what Benedict did that finally took that down."
Oberon: "Me either. So. Any details?"
Finndo: "I explain."

A little too late for regrets. Watch the concern drip off Oberon:

Oberon: "That boy spent too much time around Piero."
Finndo: "Yes. Oh my god yes. That was very much my conclusion."
Oberon: "Oops." Pause. Thoughtfully, "Useful oops."
Finndo: "Oh, it definitely made the difference." Silence. Then, "Oops."

Speaking of capacity:

Finndo: "We have 5 or 6 square miles of Draconis that's pretty much wasteland at the moment."
Oberon: "That's going to cheer them up, isn't it?"
Finndo: "Well, it was defeated and I smoothed some ruffled feathers."
Oberon: "We're going to have to keep that up. I'm going to have my strength back in 2 or 3 days."
Finndo: "Good. Because we pulled out more stops than I knew we had in stopping this thing."

That's the easy part, actually:

Oberon: "Can you assemble everyone else in 3 days?"
Finndo: "Easily done."
Oberon: "Tell me anything else as it comes to you and I'll tell you my plan."

Improving Morale:

Finndo to Osric: "He has a plan. And let me say that upon hearing that, you have my utmost sympathy."

Finndo visits Sybil in her sickbed and explains that there will be a briefing on Tuesday to go over the New Plan. Reasonable objections:

Sybil: "So a member of your family has a plan."
Finndo: "Yes, it should fill you with a warm feeling."
Sybil: "But I'm still recovering from the last plan."

There's always some egg timer ticking away in the background:

Sybil: "You realize that because you're doing this, I'm going to have to go find out this stupid plan and get myself killed."
Finndo: "You've got till Tuesday."

By Sonnet's definitions, she and Benedict are married. Ah, jealousy:

Shai: "Sonnet seems to genuinely liker her [Alyra]."
Deborah: "In a married my lover, you fucking bitch sort of way."
Shai: "Married my fucking husband, you fucking bitch."

Come Tuesday, Oberon holds his briefing with the party (and incidentally demonstrates Finndo's favored son status). The fuckage in brief:

GM: "It's Tuesday. Oberon is sitting somewhat heavily in said throne. "How much have you told them?"
Finndo: "You know, at this point, not enough. Too many other things to keep track of."
Oberon: "Like to catch them up?"
Finndo: "All right. At this point, I've lost track of how much I've brought you up to speed so here is the story. Dworkin created the Pattern; Dad and our Uncle took it from him. Dworkin survived; he cast the Pattern into shadow and I believe that during the conflict with Dworkin, our Uncle perished. Father of course found the Pattern here; Dworkin has recently made the return and, if I infer things correctly, the Pattern that was in the Land is now somewhere else."
Oberon: "Yes."

Yet more oopses (collect them all!):

Finndo: "We've pinpointed the location [of the Pattern] reasonably precisely."
Oberon: I threw it into the ocean.
Finndo: "We may have to talk about that."
Oberon: "All right."
Finndo: "There may have been something there."
Oberon: "There was something there?"
Finndo: "Yes."
Oberon: "Huh. More on that later."

And a third oops - one very pissed off Dorr with a forest full of archers:

Benedict: "You might want to talk to Logan at some point."
Oberon: "Yeah, figured I should from a position of strength before I did that."

On scale:

Finndo: "In any case, Dworkin is back and presumably wants to be back."
Oberon: "Or trying to be back."
Sybil: "That's his version of trying to be back?"
Oberon: "That's his version of testing us."

Noted? Noted?! What about the fat sacks of cash? What does it take to be remarked upon?!

Cyrus: "And the clever plan is?"
Oberon: I'm getting to that. First off, thank you. Your sacrifices and efforts have been noted, but circumstances being what they are, the expression of appreciation will have to be put off till when things are not as dire. The story Finndo has told you is how I think things believed it to be until a few days ago. I needed to buy some time. Hiding the Patterns that were not directly under my control or under my roof, so to speak, was the first step. If there's only one target I can protect it better. The city in the sky will not be materializing for a while. Dworkin by his nature is not likely to find it in the sea; that leaves the Pattern under the mountain which as you know I have had control of for a while. Nature of things being what they are, I decided to check my facts. All of them. This took some time. I now have reason to believe that Malakai may have survived. It took everything you had, no offense, to survive this first test. If we can recover my brother in any state of health it would be something in addition to what you have."

It's never 'back at the manor' or 'in the cedar chest in the guest bedroom', is it?

Cyrus: "Where is he?"
Oberon: "That's a very interesting question. The best answer I have for you goes a little something like this: beyond the end of shadow where things burn."
GM smiles: "That's where we'll leave off."

You said it, sistah!

Sonnet: "Ah. I think it's time to go get drunk."

************************

The traditional:

Rob: "Ow ow. Ow my ass."

Taking your paranoia where you can find it:

GM: "You beat it! You blew it up from the inside!"
Shai: "I didn't get injured. This bodes ill."
Scott: "No, you rectified one problem."

Guess the bunny looked cute on her head:

Lydia: "Hello Mr faceless creature of evil, will you be my friend?"
Shai: "Can I have a bunny?"

Or not:

Deborah: "PLEASE stop wearing the bunny."