Session 17: A Fire Upon the Water

Picking up where we left off in the briefing with Oberon after the battle with the island, Oberon has just explained that he believes his brother Malachai, who last helped him defeat Dworkin, did not die after all. Malachai is alive and we must go fetch him. Small issue with the instructions in Japanese, Mandarin and Swahili:

Rob: "We're kind of lacking a certain amount of information."
Shai: "Like all of it."

Finndo is driven to rubbing his forefingers in a circle between his brows. Every son's unique, after all:

Lydia: "You're getting Dad's gesture!"
Jarrod: "I have different gestures for Dad."
Fred: "It involves less fingers."

Oh is _that_ all?

Finndo: "Do we have anything more precise than 'keep going until everything catches on fire'?"
Oberon: "The problem is that the physics of the place get a little strange."

Feeling excluded much?

Oberon: "I expect Osric can help you out when you get there."
Finndo: "He's useful."
Oberon:: "He's talented."
Finndo: "I've heard that."
Osric: "He's right heeeere!"

Oberon described the place where Malachai is kept as 'beyond the end of shadow where things burn'. And that was it. Gee, thanks for the hip-waders, Dad:

Finndo: "When you say 'everything burns' -"
Oberon: "Oh yes, that'll be a bit of a problem."

Crossing the Ts, dotting the Is:

Cyrus: "Does the catch on fire include us?"
Oberon: "If you don't take precautions, yes."

No one listens to Zathras:

Oberon: "You're at the edge of things; things have a tendency to wink out of existence, releasing a lot of energy."
Sybil: "Prince Finndo, I highly recommend another course of action - ANY other course of action. Perhaps dancing the polka."
Oberon: "Dancing in the face of apocalypse."
Osric: "I'll get my fiddle."

Oberon has, for five years, been locked up in his room, ignoring the Kingdom to research Dworkin. Finndo has been stuck at Amber running things for him. Sybil has opinions about this. Sybil's sense of self preservation not so much. Sharing with the King:

Sybil to Oberon, brightly: "Your Majesty will be running the kingdom in Prince Finndo's absence?"
No one says a word.
Lydia lets her breath out slowly and quietly.
Oberon looks at her. Acidly: "Yes. As he always has."
Sybil, sweetly: "That should take a load off your shoulders, Finndo."

The Crown Prince's Secretary, always on hand with pertinent bullet points (Stupid, stupid, stupid and colossally dumb):

Finndo: "I think we are all in agreement of what a terrible idea this is."
Sonnet: "Yes, would you like a list of why?"

That would be exactly what we were thinking, yes:

Finndo: "Which raises the question -"
Sonnet: "Why isn't he [Oberon] taking care of it?"
Finndo: "You saw how well it went last time."

A little too much meditation and metaphor:

Sonnet: "Why are we avoiding bursting into flame? Why don't we become fire?"
Sybil: "Because I don't want to be on fire!"

Stating the obvious:

Cyrus: "How do we turn ourselves into fire?"
Sybil: "Patience and a lot of matches."
Finndo: "I think the issue is not so much becoming fire as surviving the process."

Benedict informs his wife that he is departing in 3 days into certain death ... again:

GM: "Alyra looks appropriately crestfallen."
Benedict: "Talk to my /father/."
Deborah: "Oh, God, you didn't actually say that, did you? Because Alyra would."
Lydia: "And Oberon can have TWO Dorrs yell at him."

Benedict joins the meeting being held to review our 'plan'. It's never what you think it is with Sonnet, is it?

Finndo to Benedict: "To summarize what you missed, no one particularly likes this plan..."
Sonnet: "Sonnet is standing, arms folded, staring at the wall."
Lydia: "Lady Sonnet is attempting to become fire."
Shai: "No, I'm thinking about ceramic."

You will not be cooked. You will be _totally_ alive:

Finndo: "We are gathering information."
Sybil: "That's very nice but we don't have methodology and we don't have a plan."
Finndo: "We do have a plan."
Sybil: "Go forward and die?"
Finndo: "We will go in this direction until we encounter hazards. If the hazards are too much, we will retreat. We are not exactly throwing ourselves into the lion's maw."
Cyrus: "Except for the dying part."

The Princes decide to shadowfind a boat that can withstand that much fire; they also discuss shadowfinding a crew who worship them as gods (and therefore will hold still for being cooked alive). Summer vacation isn't what it used to be:

Cyrus: "If we have a boat, we need a crew."
Finndo: "Well, if their gods sail into port..."
Sonnet: "They are true believers sailing into hell whose bodies will burn but whose souls will be honored for the manner of their deaths."
Sybil pipes up: "I'd like to stay home."

The Titanic, The Titanic II, The Titanic III...

Osric to Sybil: "Feel free [to stay home]."
Sybil looks hopefully at Finndo.
Finndo shakes his head.
Benedict: "Nice try."
Osric: "This will be the episode where the terribly ironic things happen to you."

Finndo steps away to call the King of Colors, about whom Sybil was worried (given that the Land got ripped to shreds by Oberon when the Pattern was moved). How things change (and Rebma gets established):

GM: "He is much greener than you remember and there's a circlet around his head."
King of Colors: "Why are you calling me, Mortal Man?"
Finndo: "Oh, I delight in your tone."
King of Colors: "Mm."

Not so varied as all that:

Finndo: "Could it not have been my deep concern for your safety?"
King of Colors: "It does not seem to fit your kind."
Finndo: "My kind are varied in many ways."
King of Colors: "Yes. You want something."

Someone's a little bitter:

Finndo: "No more than I mentioned. There have been changes of late."
King of Colors: "The changes have been many, but I am adjusting."
Finndo: "Anything you need?"
King of Colors: "I think we have gotten all we need from your blood."
Finndo: "Fascinating."

The last thing Sybil's player needed was Finndo defeating her lover in front of Sybil. Sweet Salvation!

Finndo: "I send the Hand a note that I have more information on what happened to his people; these powerful beings seem to have invaded."
GM: "You don't tell anyone else?"
Finndo: "God no."
Deborah: "Not even Sybil?"
Finndo: "Good GOD no!"
Deborah: "THANK GOD!"

A little too much enthusiasm?

Lydia: "Varieties of doom!"
Jarrod: "It's important to get your fiber, especially when the doom comes up all sudden like."

Benedict takes the time to visit Eagle's Peak since God only knows what the dark things in Eagle's Peak have been up to following their master Piero's death. Hinting:

GM puts on 'don't fear the reaper'
GM to Benedict: "Sure you don't want company?"

Wouldn't you just be thrilled in Rast's shoes?

GM: "There's Rast, looking very very much unhappy having to babysit whatever oogy things come out of Eagle's Peak."
Benedict: "Baron Rast!"
Rast: "My Prince!"
Benedict: "What have you to report?"
Rast: "Nothing's come out. That we found."

Subjective definitions:

Benedict: "Anything unusual happening?"
Rast looks at him.
Benedict: "For Eagle's Peak."
Rast: "Oh no no. Nothing unusual for Eagle's Peak."

Tactfully put:

Benedict: "How far have your men been going up?"
Rast: "Not far. We've been patrolling the base but I'm not sending anyone up there; they might come back different."

Rast is big and slow, not dumb:

Benedict: "All right. I'm going up."
Rast: "Please say no to this: 'Do you need an escort?'"
Benedict: "No."
Rast: "Thank you."

Consider the source:

Benedict: "I'm going up the mountain."
GM: "You know the way pretty well by this point. The observatory is as I recall only 2/3 of the way up; this is probably the area you were in before you headed up for the night on top of the peak. Past that, you're not particularly inclined to go again. It's dusk by now, and as you come upon the observatory, the sole gateway in is kind of a glistening black that ripples. It's almost like that tar pit under the walkway, only vertical. "
Deborah: "/Run/."
Lydia: "Cyrus would be like 'wow that looks safe; I'm out of here'."
Shai: "And he's the self destructive one."

Such a supportive group:

Benedict: "Touch it [the curtain of dark goo]."
GM: "It parts. At least a little bit."
Jarrod: "Bet you wish it didn't."
GM: "It's like a spinning lump of clay on a wheel; if you move too fast, it seals back up. You get a bit of intuition that someone else would just lose their limbs."

Dang bachelors never vacuum when they move out:

Benedict: "I will work at it until it gets to the point where I can step in."
GM: "Takes about five minutes. Pretty dark beyond that. No one seems to have kept torches lit. The aperture is closing slowly, but it's enough that you can get through. You suspect it will be sealed up by the time you get back. The visibility is shitty with your single torch. You realize that that blockage was an extension of the goop."
Benedict: "... the tar pit?"

That or Drano:

GM: "Which has become not necessarily more active but it seems to have increased in volume, and further out on the periphery beyond the walkway, it's making it up the walls, it's expanding -"
Rob: "The power that coats is the only power you need."

Benedict is still forging forward. Pig Latin meets dark humor:

GM: "Keeping your footing carefully, because you have to make sure that's walkway and not tar pit up ahead, but with this lighting it takes you several minutes to get to the other side."
Lydia: "Creeping doom of goo."
GM: "Gloop."
Shai: "Creeping goop of doom."
GM: "Bloop."

Knowing when to give up:

Benedict: "PIERO?!"
Lydia: "We must fix the master..."
GM: "Brrooop."
Scott sighs, and puts his chin in his hand: "Start exploring."

Ring in nose:

GM: "You get down into the workshop area: complete wreck. Looks like he very hurriedly woke everything up and said 'come along'. There used to be a lot more of stuff that you thought were scattered bones in jars but apparently they were part of those things that went along with Piero."
Lydia: "Come along, little eyeball, come along."
GM: "So it's kind of bare."
Benedict: "Right."

Tug tug tug goes the ring in the nose:

The music on the GM's laptop sings: "I'm after rebellion; I'll settle for lies..."
Scott looks resigned: "I have no choice, really."
Rob: "There are /always/ choices."
GM: "And there are the cave mouths leading deeper."

Some people read Cisco, some people bone up for their Necromancy Noteworthy Sorcerer's Apprentice certifications:

Scott: "Not going down there just yet."
GM: "NO? There are no books lying around."
Shai: "How to build a bone demon in 24 hours or less."

Sonnet, meanwhile, is putting together what we need to go off to the end of the universe. Now there's a market niche:

Shai: "On Sonnet's list? Grappling hooks, that sort of thing..."
Jarrod: "Yeah, just stop by Insurrection Depot..."
Lydia: "ID, for all of your revolutionary and insurrection needs!"
Shai: "Asbestos underwear!"
Rob: "They needed no zoning permissions."

Careful what you sign your name to:

Benedict goes deeper into the mountain.
GM: "Alyra's there."
Deborah: "Oh god, not again."
Alyra: "You promised us destruction last time you were here."
Benedict: "A mountain doesn't qualify? Oh, yes, I did. Oh /that/. Ah yes."

When even Scott can't summon the 'no helping':

GM: "You are at what appears to be the threshold to a larger cavern and she bows her head and backs into it. You get the sense there are other figures standing around there."
Jarrod mutters: "They're coming out of the goddamn walls and floors."
Lydia: "I am master of this place now."
Scott: "And Benedict is thinking, "I'm a FUCKING PRINCE OF AMBER, I'm a fucking PRINCE of AMBER..."
Deborah: "Fucking being the operative word."

Exercise for the reader: irony or not?

GM: "Most of the people you know are there. Anyone whose name you know. They're all kind of watching you, every head tracking you at the same time. They look a little pale, a little cadaverous."
Benedict: "It's wonderful that you all came out to greet me. Anybody happen to know what happened to Piero?"

Benedict is stubbornly trying to locate Piero in the cavern full of the dark echoes of everyone he knows. The real people are back at the castle, but the dark representations of them have clustered around Benedict, all watching him, all responding to him, with echoes of the real personalities. Always the last one to know in these affairs:

Sonnet: "Piero's gone."
Benedict: "Is he coming back?"
Finndo: "I think he already has."
Benedict: "Really. Do you know where I could find him?"
Oberon: "You don't get it do you?"
Benedict: "Perhaps you should explain it to me, then, just so we're all clear on the matter."
Dorr: "All right. It's like this. There can't be more than one."
Rob bursts out laughing.
Deborah: "Oh shit."
Jarrod: "Oops."
GM: "Actually, hell, Finndo laughs."

On the caboose of the clue train:

Benedict: "There can't be more than one what?"
Mom says: "Master of the Peak, of course."
Jarrod is laughing out loud.
Shai: "HI, you're in charge of the dark shit!"

And the party of the first, hereinafter referred to as 'the sacrifice'...

Benedict: "And pray tell who is Master of the Peak?"
GM: "They all bow. And when they come up there's kind of this whispering tide of 'Destroy us destroy us'. And occasionally you'll hear 'my husband, my brother, my son, my lover, destroy us'. Selm and Cyrus refer to you as my adversary. Osric calls you 'my pawn.' 'My lover' was Sonnet, Dorr was 'my son'."

It's the accessories that make the man, you know, and the role:

Scott stares helplessly at the GM.
Lydia, in a small voice: "Waugh."
Deborah: "Okay, I'm creeped out."
GM, helpfully leaning into the moment: "You catch the Oberon one occasionally throwing in 'my disappointment'."
Benedict: "SILENCE!!"
GM: "They're quiet. They all lower themselves to one knee."
Benedict turns around and heads back the way he came.
Rob: "I'm going to invest in a breathing apparatus for Benedict." He breathes in deep and hard, Darth Vader style.

Back at Amber Castle, the rest of the party is going erranding for that which will get them through the land of fire - literally - and the end of the universe. The GM has left them time to discuss it, and they've come up with some specifics. Rule 6: Never Let Your Players Think:

Osric: "You're looking for a Shadow where he is the God which contains metal ships and an insurrection Depot."
GM: "What are you intending to find at this ID?"
Osric: "Her shopping list of grappling hooks and - and -"
Shai: "Standing boarding invasion kit. Asbestos underwear and -"
Jarrod: "Sun god robes standing on a pyramid..."

Since we have to sail off to (let me say it again) the end of the universe to find the party's not entirely deceased after all uncle, we need a particularly durable boat (having rammed the last one into a floating island, Oberon isn't about to furnish us with another one, and besides, we don't want to take a wooden galleon into the sea of fire). The plan amounts to finding a (preferably metal) ship in a shadow that worships Osric as a god (and thus will dutifully hold still while he sails them into hell). The GM's notion of this shadow involves Vikings. While Jarrod stares, Rob attempts to make him feel better. Never let the Irish/Scotsman start the sentence with 'it could be worse, they could...':

Rob: "They could be singing your praises." He bursts into song, "~He's a god, he's a GOD, he's a GREAT OLD GOOOOOD!~"
Jarrod to GM: "I don't think I can handle that."

'Negotiable' gets a new spin when a god is doing the talking aka Osric the Jedi:

GM: "After a few days, you've refined things to a shadow of warrior Vikings awaiting your arrival before they sail to their final doom. They're waiting for you to come and say 'let's go.' It's like why go to a store when they've got what I want on every ship anyway."
Jarrod: "And that works out because they don't take AmEx anyway!"
Rob: "You /will/ take American Express..."

So now we have this metal ship full of Osric-worshiping Vikings who have been diligently stocking up for Armageddon with anything modern and destructive enough to qualify for the end of the world. It must be nice to have a purpose in life:

GM: "They're big into power tools."
Rob: "By the power of Thor's Jackhammer!"
GM: "They're entire cultural purpose is based on kicking ass and waiting for their god to come along and say hey it's time to sail off into certain doom and fight ultimate evil!"
Jarrod: "So. Chainsaws."

Kneeeeel before Zod:

Jarrod: "Milk and honey!"
Deborah: "No, that comes after certain doom. Cheaper for the paymasters that way."
Jarrod: "No, I'm their God come to take them; I have to show them that promise of paradise."
Deborah: "No, you don't. You just have to be their god, they die for you, there's paradise. They disagree, they die now, no paradise for them."
Jarrod: "I don't want to join your church."

Honey flavored koolaid:

Jarrod: "Osric is a benevolent God!"
Lydia: "Mostly!"
Jarrod: "He's benevolent until it's time to die for him. So. Milk and honey."

Earlier in the episode, Sybil bluntly asked Oberon who would be running the Kingdom in Finndo's absence (implying a whole lot of disrespectful things of the King). The women are in a certain degree of agreement when it comes to Oberon (and none of it affectionate). Rewarding the behavior (Sybil _likes_ chocolate):

Deborah to Shai: "Do you chide Sybil for saying that to Oberon?"
Shai: "Not at all."
Deborah: "Do you say anything?"
Shai: "Nothing at all, In fact, she gets chocolate."
Deborah: "Very bad little girl. Don't do that again. Here, have a cookie."

The party boards the Viking-crewed, metal ship. Benedict arrives by trumping through to Finndo, and a Viking promptly revvs up his chainsaw at Benedict. Benedict, naturally, draws. The proprieties count:

Benedict looks at Finndo.
Finndo: "Not mine."
Benedict: "I disarm him in two seconds."

Hello, Pot? This is Kettle.

Viking: "Very impressive!"
Benedict sheathes his sword.
Viking: "I would be honored if you would cut off my hand."
Benedict: "Later."
Viking: "EXCELLENT! I got disarmed by the God's little brother!!"
Benedict to Osric: "You and I are going to talk later."

Sonnet maintains or thinks she maintains her ninja powers through abstinence. Assisted abstinence. See, _that_'s how you keep morale up:

Finndo to Sonnet: "I laid in some batteries."
Sonnet: "I take it the crew is interesting."

Well, thank god for the lack of Viking Consultants at Catbert Industries:

Jarrod: "If Cyrus had helped, the crew would be singing the spam song."

Sybil summons her named fire elemental, Town. (As in 'burn the fucking town down'.) Damn workaholics:

Town: "Do I burn the people?!"
Sybil: "Not yet."
Town pouts: "Ohhkay." Three seconds later, "NOW?!"
Sybil just looks at him.
Town sighs, "Oh-kay." He stomps up to the tower on top of the ship and waits, chin in hand.

Coping mechanisms:

Sybil: "I deal with any overtures from the Vikings by telling them that they are unworthy to bear my children."
Shai: "Sonnet suggested it."

The trip to (say it with me now) the end of the universe is going to take a few weeks, leaving the party trapped on a boat with the Vikings and each other for company. It's an excellent opportunity for being shoved off deck and revealing glimpses of character. What happens when you effectively give a geek the Green Lantern's ring:

GM: "Cyrus has quickly become king of the chainsaw joust, where two large men run at each other with chainsaws and one of them comes away scarred and it's never Cyrus. They seem to have a lot of medical expertise devoted to chainsaws, even chainsaw attachments to the arm..."
Deborah stares at the GM.
GM: "He found the shadow of Evil Dead Vikings! Of course they have the chainsaw attachments!"

Sybil, meanwhile, has been counting Vikings. The number is getting smaller, even accounting for the Cyrus-damaged ones. The Requisite You Dumbass Moment:

Sybil: "Prince Osric, what's in the hold?"
Osric: "Cargo."

However. On Learned Wariness:

Sybil persists: "Prince Osric, are the Vikings cargo?
Osric eyes her: "... why?"
Sybil: "Vikings keep going into the hold and not coming up. I thought Town might be eating them for a bit but I've been feeding him regularly and he's on top of the tower."

... but you might have somehow failed to notice?!

Sonnet: "Do you have unholy minions?"
Osric: "What?"
Sonnet: "Do you have unholy minions?"
Osric: "Not that I'm aware of."

Osric approaches Cyrus and inquires politely what sort of cargo they have on board. Cyrus inquires of a Viking, who happily informs him 'weapons'. Boys with their toys. And Cyrus' wariness curve is apparently behind Osric's:

Cyrus: "What sort of weapons?"
Viking: "The kind you save up for the apocalypse?"
Cyrus: "Such as?"
Viking: "All sorts of stuff. It's really cool!"
Cyrus eyes Osric: "Why do you ask?"

Osric hints at a possible munching issue. Cyrus probes. And reasons you /detail/ the ship's manifest:

Cyrus: "Any of them animate?"
Osric: "Big slimy thing."
Viking: "Oh yeah."
Cyrus: "Any of them slimy?"
Viking: "Oh yeah."
Cyrus: "Why?"
Osric: "One of them seems to have gotten loose."

Staffing from Paklids (We look for things. Things that make us go boom or bloop or ~chomp~. Things!):

Cyrus: "One of them got loose."
Viking: "Oh, that's /bad/."
Cyrus: "Which one?"
Viking: "The devourer?" Thoughtful admission, "Could be."
Jarrod: "I should have gotten the smart Vikings."
GM: "Smart Vikings with biological weaponry! Instead you got dumb Vikings with biological weaponry!"

What exactly is the dark denizen of evil abandon ship threshold? Two? 32,768?

Cyrus: "What does it devour?"
Viking: "The enemy!" Unfortunate pause. Qualifier, "Sometimes the friend."
Cyrus: "And it was sealed away, was it?"
Viking: "Yeah, we got barrels full of it. Did it all break free?"
Cyrus: "Just one."
Viking: "Oh good, we won't have to abandon ship."

Cyrus explains to Osric and Sonnet. Reassuring the lady who must not worry her pretty golden head, Cyrus style:

Sonnet: "Prince Osric!"
Osric: "So what is it?"
Cyrus: "It's the devourer."
Sonnet: "So it eats things, I take it?"
Cyrus: "But it's only one of them."
Sonnet: "Where are the others?"
Cyrus: "In the barrels. So I'm told there's no need to abandon ship."
GM: "Always interesting, the side effects of getting what you want in Shadow."

No... HELPING!

Cyrus: "I sneak forth and stalk the wily certain doom."
Jarrod: "Hopefully the dumb Vikings don't have smart biological weapons."

Cyrus proceeds to go down into the hold to confront the devourer; Sonnet goes with him (being the stealth ninja that she is). Turning down affirmative action:

Cyrus: "Lady Sonnet, this could be dangerous!"
Sybil: "Sonnet, I'll shoot him for you if you like."
Sonnet: "Do not shoot Lord Cyrus, Sybil; that's not necessary."

Sonnet and Cyrus drop into the hold; Sybil is going to remain on the ladder and use her bow for ranged support. They never show you these out takes:

Sonnet rolls a -4 on her attempt to leap onto a cargo box silently.
GM: "She tumbles into the air like a graceful thing that goes SPLAT," and he SLAMs his hand down on the table.

Cyrus has come armed with a net and a chainsaw (only Cyrus). They isolate the devourer and he moves in. Cyrus casts the net onto the creature and runs smack dab into a logistical issue or three (like that's not a trend):

GM: "This thing, about that tall, munching on the leg of a Viking, looks up as the net goes on it. It waits, its features blur, and the net starts to fall through it."
Sonnet: "Sybil! Shoot it! "
GM to Sybil: "You don't have a line of sight."
Sybil: "Can't! Sorry!"
Sonnet: "FUCK!"

When violence doesn't work, Cyrus tries... violence:

Cyrus: "Cyrus goes at it with the chainsaw."
GM: "It hold still as you chainsaw it, vibrating." He looks around, shaking his own body and making puzzled devourer vibrating noises. "Blllblllbllllblllblll looking around blll blll bllll blll."

The chainsaw is obviously not going to work on the devourer, since it's just going to eat the chainsaw and sit there vibrating and looking confused while it's blended a bit (food processing ala chainsaw). That feminine touch of pragmatism:

Sybil: "Sonnet! Get a barrel! Bait the barrel! Trap it! Get it to go into the barrel!"
Sonnet: "Cyrus! Barrel!"
GM: "Bllllbbbbllllbbblllll..."

Life is one great big lab experiment to some people:

GM to Osric: "You can hear the chainsaw - it's a bit... muted."
Osric: "Well, I do need information."
GM to Osric: "So you're going to just saunter over to the sound of the chainsaw - it's a bit subdued..."

This is why the escalation engineer gets paid more:

GM: "Osric, you come around the corner. You recognize the face of this thing although it looks a little perturbed. The net's about halfway down now and it's starting to get frayed by the chainsaw."
Osric: "Go get Benedict."

Huh. Fancy that:

GM: "You see Sonnet moving this barrel that's awfully heavy - as if they armored it for some reason - and then drop it on its side and hop onto it doing this rapid foot thing rolling it forward..."

Benedict has been learning Go Fish from Finndo (hey, but not for money; he's not dumb). Osric trumps Benedict. Isn't it nice to know your product has range?

Osric: "Brother, we have a bit of a problem."
Benedict: "Yes?"
Osric: "Do you remember those magical pod frog things in Piero's cave?"
Benedict: "Yes?"
Osric: "Seems in this shadow they're biological weapons."

Benedict climbs down the ladder past Sybil and ventures into the hold. No one has any respect for the _rules_ anymore:

Benedict sighs: "Where is it?"
Deborah: "Daddy's come to go spank."
Osric: "Over there, where the arrows are."
Benedict sighs again: "Excuse me."
Sonnet indicates the barrel under her feet: "Supposed to be in this barrel."

Nice to have that understood:

Benedict: "I don't think I have anything to worry about with them."
Osric: "I'm not really concerned about you."
Benedict: "Of course not."

Knowing when it's pointless:

GM: "Cyrus appears to be going first."
Benedict: "Lord Cyrus, perhaps I - never mind."

Bad podling! No Viking for you!

Benedict: "I start leading it back at a walk towards the barrel."
Lydia: "Hello little frog man. Come to Papa."
Benedict: "What are you doing here?"
Podling looks at Benedict.
Benedict: "Yes, you. What are you doing here?"
Podling looks at Benedict quizzically.
Benedict points at the barrel and snaps his fingers.
Podling pouts.
Benedict snaps his fingers, "GET back in there."
The podling gets back in the barrel.
Sybil: "Sounds like Benedict's talking to my pets."

The voice of experience with ill behaved man-eating pets:

Sybil: "Mmm, Benedict. You might reinforce the order to the rest of them."

Ah, yes. Charming creature:

Sonnet to Benedict: "You have interesting pets. Kinda cute in a way."
Cyrus: "No."

People! Peoplepeoplepeople! I saw ~people~! What's in the bag! I can't reeeaaaad!

Benedict: "Let's take this back upstairs."
Sonnet: "No problem. Perhaps you should reconsider their [the podlings] diet."
Cyrus: "I only have a dog. "

Speaking of pet abuse (someone doesn't like the Vikings very much):

Cyrus: "Sybil, get a Viking down here."
Sybil singsongs sweetly: "Oh, Avar!"
Viking: "YES!"
Sybil: "They need you down there." Extra saccharine sweetly, "I'm afraid I can't get off the ladder."
Viking: "You want me to jump?"
Sybil, brightly: "Be a man!"
Viking jumps - and lands _badly_: "I DIE FOR THE CAUSE!"
Sybil: "Oh, Sonnet, one Viking delivered!"

Time to get out a bit more often:

Benedict goes purple, "SYBIL."
Sybil, defensive: "What? You wouldn't have broken!"

Iago says "Ragnarok-ready Techno-Vikings with Biological Warfare!" Just not very /bright/ techno-Vikings:

Benedict: "Where did you get these [the podlings]?"
Viking: "The shaman!"
Benedict: "Where's he?"
Viking: "He's dead."
Benedict: "Do you have anything else by the shaman?"
Viking, unperturbed: "Yep."
Shai: "Osric's handbook for the easily gullible. It's the bible for this shadow."

You can't fault religious enthusiasm:

Vikings: "All this stuff is for the end days because we figure nothing'll be left after the end days. We figure it'll clean itself up!"
Benedict: "Well, it cleaned up several of your crew."
Viking: "They went with Osric!"

There are forty Eskimo words for 'snow':

Rob: "We become very familiar with the symbol for bio hazard."
GM: "All over the place."
Rob: "Or even just dangerous."
GM: "That one means hand to hand combat that one means hand to hand combat but you won't survive afterwards, that one's just pointy, and that one means soap..."

The real danger of Saturday morning cartoons corrupting the young is that they don't /stay/ young:

GM: "The dark powers are always happy to provide weaponry for the end times!"
Jarrod: "It's sort of an end to end solution!"
Rob: "It's always why Cobra had such a good business model..."

Life on the boat continues (with time to go). Missing the point by several miles:

Sonnet: "Everybody gets drinks but Sybil."
Sybil: "Why not me?"
Sonnet: "That was stupid. You knew he would break."
Sybil: "I /said/ I was sorry."
Sonnet: "He could have been useful. You don't break your toys."
Sybil: "I did apologize."

Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned on the Way to Certain Doom:

Sonnet: "Did you take care of the body?"
Sybil, defensive: "Yes."
Sonnet: "Then you may have tea."
Sybil: "Thank you."

Practical considerations:

Cyrus: "Prince Finndo, do your trumps work out here?"
Finndo: "Stand still."
Cyrus: "No, I meant back to the places we could run away to."
Finndo: "What an excellent question."

Did you have to ask?

Sonnet: "Just out of curiosity -"
Osric: "Yes?"
Sonnet: "What's Sybil's place in this pantheon?"

Oral traditions, enthusiasm, and just plain wrong:

Osric: "I test their faith and ask them their history."
GM: "They sing. Epically. Vengeance of Nog songs."
Rob: "If you ask them for the blueprints of this ship, they sing. If you ask them how to install RAM, they sing."
GM: "They can't help but sing. These are the end times."
Rob, singing deeply in a strong bass, emphasizing every other word while the GM thumps and stomps in time: "And ONE screw TWO screw UNSCREW the BOX with SCREWDRIVER. The BOX opened UP he COUNTED the SLOTS. Four SLOTS two SLOTS how FAST is THE board, FIGURE this OUT..."

And once they get started with the mythology, they just keep singing in a deep, operatic bass. Yes, he does sing like this in the shower; why do you ask?

Rob: "BENEDICT, brother of Osric, who went into the place of DARKNESS and cam out with the SWORD that could cut NIGHT itSELF." He revvs up into it, throwing out an arm, "We sing now of BENEDICT, sword of DARKNess."

System geeks can't resist sub-system geeking:

Rob belts out: "Finndo, the sleazeball, oh how we hate him, why does Osric keep us from smashing pretty face."

Apparently the not-that-bright techno-Vikings have not-that-bright Gods:

GM announces: "Finndo is the Loki figure, the one the Gods always have along that they SHOULD know is about to double cross them but have along because he's a God."

Appealing for mercy from Thoth:

GM: "Osric?"
Osric: "Yes?"
GM: "Roll pattern esoterica."
Osric: "No."
GM: "Please."
Osric: "Don't wanna."

Sonnet: beautiful and deadly. Sybil: skinny and fierce. Different impact. Which one do you want to see in paradise with the milk and the honey?

Shai: "Sybil is probably Hel."
Deborah: "What?"
Shai: "The goddess Hel cold and beautiful."
Deborah looks dubious.
Shai: "Maybe that's Sonnet."
Deborah: "The beautiful is more Sonnet."
Rob: "Sonnet's the Valkyrie."

The boat is now closer to the storm that we must pass to get to the land of fire and then beyond all things. Time to batten down the hatches. And here I thought insane was a prerequisite to the job:

Cyrus: "I get the Vikings together and explain that we are going to sail into the endless storm of the apocalypse."
Vikings: "AH THE ENDLESS STORM!"
Cyrus: "I let them make their preparations."
GM: "They are about it."
Cyrus: "I watch to make sure they are not insane."

Town seeks Sybil out, telling her that Osric was attempting to communicate something to him (and failing). Translating elemental into peoplespeak:

Town: "The thinky one?"
Sybil: "Thinky logical one or thinky half assed one?"
Town: "THINKY!"
Sybil: "Ah. Osric."

Sybil dutifully approaches Osric to find out what he wanted. Translating from Fae to peoplespeak also not working so much:

Sybil to Osric: "Did you need anything from Town?"
Osric: "There's a storm coming that doesn't end; he could assist or hide."
Sybil: "I've got him in the engine; did you need him to DO anything?"
Osric: "Not unless he can stop the storm that doesn't."
Sybil: "No. Hearts?"
Osric: "No."
Sybil: "Allllriiiiight."

The odd compliments you get:

Finndo: "Anytime you feel like it, you can come over into the corner with Satan [Finndo]."
Sonnet: "That's allright; they all think I'm going to sleep with them after they're dead."
Finndo: "They have good taste."

No one appreciates frugality anymore:

Finndo: "I keep wanting to ask: I keep finding incinerated Vikings. Now they're blaming me for it, and that's fine, because I'm evil, but I don't have to wear a funny hat, so I don't mind. But would you know anything about that?"
Sybil: "Mmm?"
Finndo: "So again, about the charred Vikings? Are you out of firewood yet?"
Sybil: "The Vikings are already dead; I didn't want to waste the firewood."

So much for those illusions of godhood:

Benedict: "She had a All right jump thirty feet; he died."
Sybil: "I've already apologized /five times/ for that."
Finndo: "Make it six."
Sybil sighs, "I'm sorry I broke the Viking. Any of you could have made that jump."
Finndo: "I cannot jump thirty feet."
Sybil blinks: "I'll keep that in mind."

We've entered the endless storm (which is essentially the land of water). Osric has lashed himself to the mast to guide the ship through the shadow; everyone else has gone belowdecks to wait it out. Pointing out the flaws in logic:

Finndo: "Sonnet, where are you going?"
Sonnet: "I can be more useful than him [Osric]; I've at least been on a ship."
Finndo: "And what do you do in a storm like this?"
Sonnet: "Stay belowdecks or stay lashed to the mast?"
Finndo: "Are you lashed to the mast?"
Sonnet: "No."
Finndo: "Get your ass back down here."
Sonnet: "Yes, Boss."

When every direction is up, just go up:

GM: "This is god's own storm. Visibility is much less than the length of the boat. You aren't entirely sure how Osric is able to shadowshift in this slamming sameness. You guys get whacked by several waves; the wind gets worse and again, every time you try to look out, this thing is in all directions across all realities, move to the next close thing, move to the next close thing."
Osric: "Oh shit. Yeah. Well. Going forward."

Benedict goes abovedecks to check on Osric. Pessimism to grandma:

Osric: "I was in the middle of telling you the good news."
Benedict: "There's good news?"
Osric: "After a fashion. Our destination is coming for us."
Benedict: "That's good news?"

The party gets through the storm into an earth based shadow at what seems to be sunrise. Except, small catch:

GM: "The sun which is rising in the distance doesn't appear to be a sun so much as a wall of fire."
Sonnet: "Would that be our destination?"
Osric: "Of course."
Sonnet: "Oh good."

Sybil encourages the earth to move them forward and Osric keeps a piece of that shadow with him as the ship ventures into the fire shadow. Experience is the best teacher of new things:

Jarrod: "My killer plan is to focus on the pattern and assert that the ship and everything on it will not burn."
GM: "There are ten minutes or so as the fire goes closer and closer... you can squint against the tearing effect that the fire creates in your eyes; against the sand, the fire is actually boiling away; it washes over - it washes /around/ you, just barely missing most of the ship; parts of the ship do get hit by it and just melt and sag. However, it seems that roughly centered around Osric, a pocket of the earth shadow you're in is staying, hanging around but it's like you're in a globe past which ain't nothing but burning. It seems you might be able to move /through/ - it seems to have cut a chunk free and you're... floating."
Deborah: "Hey! You made yourself an island!"
Osric: "So that's how you do it!"

The party makes it through fire successfully. The GM is known to outline his plot points (A, B, C, D, etc.). Insolence!

GM: "The curtain of fire recedes behind you - and what did I write down:"
Jarrod: "There's a big E on a sign as we pass."

An argument for universal naming conventions:

GM: "You're now in this big desert, a big molten landscape; the surface of Io would look like this -"
Deborah: "The what?"
GM: "Are you familiar with a moon of Jupiter?"
Deborah: "Oh! Sorry; thought of cow, Zeus..."

Baby all the lights are turned on you:

GM: "You seem to be at the edge."
Osric: "Now what?"
Finndo: "Well. You're the expert."
Osric: "Bastard."

Less with the helpful suggestions about reality-alteration from the self-destructive one:

GM: "You are at the frayed edge of outermost shadow; you're at the absolute extreme edge if Amber is at the center. You figure by Dad's description that somehow you're supposed to get /beyond/ that."
Cyrus: "You want to disjoint your mind."
Osric: "Oh sure, I'll get right on that."

Making lemonade:

Finndo: "I may be able to provide a physical direction. I don't know how much use that will be."
Osric: "Why not."
Finndo: "Taking a deck. Dealing in a joker. Joker's Malachai. Keep shuffling out points of the compass."
GM: "Thataway."
Osric: "I will attempt to shift us to thataway."
GM: "The island - more this sort of a conceptual disc - you guys are leaving this small dust trail behind you, shooting up in flames - esoterica, Jarrod?"
Jarrod: "Oh shit. Even. Superb."
GM: "Oh, it's trying hard to push out back in the other direction."
Jarrod: "At least that gives me a direction to go on."

Role reversal:

GM: "You are really - and they keep trying to turn you the other way and you keep going NO that way NO that way - "
Osric: "It's fighting me."
Benedict: "REALLY. We didn't NOTICE."

Steering:

Benedict: "I tie myself down again."
GM: "Bits of lava geysers are shooting up in front of you occasionally - one of them shoots up right in front of your ship and then CLANG. The ship appears to have run right into a big metal barrier."

David, meet Goliath:

GM: "Osric, is this a wall or... oh shit. It's a chest."
Jarrod: "A ... chest?"
GM: "Clang. It's ... looking down."
Osric: "This is - this is somebody."

Wacky, fucked up solutions pulled out of ass on random demand a specialty. How's it feel, GM? Huh? Huh?

Finndo: "What?"
Lydia: "Hello, dear."
Finndo: "I spell out in gigantic letters [with cards] over our head, "Hello."
GM stares.
Finndo's player beams.
GM hangs his head.

Kissinger could learn a thing or two about means to an end:

GM: "Roll graces."
Finndo: "Legendary +2."
GM: "Use your cartomancy aspect."
Finndo: "Legendary +4. "
GM: "Hmmmmm. Stop. Clunk." Booms, "NOBODY'S TRIED THAT BEFORE."
Finndo, spelling in cards: "PLEASED TO MEET YOU."

Large scale diplomacy:

Big Iron Man: "I DIDN'T REALIZE THE SMALL ONES COULD THINK."
Finndo: "Understandable."

Yes, yes, but never mind that part:

Big Iron Man: "WHAT'RE YOU DOING HERE?"
Finndo: "Looking for Malachai."
Big Iron Man pauses a moment: "DUNNO HIM."
Finndo: "Maybe a tomb?"
Big Iron Man: "OH YEAH. YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO GO THERE."

It is a bit of a conversation killer:

Finndo: "Why not?"
Big Iron Man: "HUH. CAUSE THEY PUT ME THERE TO STOP PEOPLE."
Finndo: "Huh."
Jarrod: "Dot dot dot."
Lydia: "Now I have to kill you."
Jarrod: "Nice chat; you have to die now."

If you can't bribe them, look for a weakness (Amberite conversational guideline #3):

Big Iron Man: "YOU REALLY SHOULD TURN AROUND."
Finndo: "Enjoying the conversation."
Big Iron Man: "YEAH. DON'T GET MUCH OUT THERE."
Finndo: "Understood. Must get kinda dull."
Big Iron Man: "YEAH."
Finndo: "Not many visitors."
Big Iron Man: "... YEAH."

And then manipulate them shamelessly (#4):

Finndo: "Maybe the folks who put you here ... company?"
Big Iron Man: "DON'T FOLLOW."
Finndo: "Don't they visit?"
Big Iron Man: "NO."
Finndo: "Huh." Long pause.

Relying on the minty fresh improvisational technique:

GM: "I had no idea how you guys were going to deal with this one; guess it's as good as any."

Then try logic:

Osric: "Brother, perhaps if you let him know we're his nephews."
Finndo: "Uhm. Yeah. We'll see about that."
Finndo spells out more cards: "So no one's allowed into the tomb."
Big Iron Man: "NOPE."
Finndo: "What about family?"
Big Iron Man is silent for a long moment. "HUH. S'POSE IF YOU KNOW THE PASSWORD."
Finndo: "HUH. Hang on a second." To Osric, "Let me see if he knows it."

Finndo trumps Oberon. conf t int s0 ppp authentication chap oooooh Daaaaad:

Oberon: "Finndo?"
Finndo: "Dad. There's a guardian outside the tomb. Wants a password."
Oberon: "What?"

Nice to know the small iron man has limits:

Finndo: "Password."
Oberon: "Huh."
Finndo just looks at him.
Rob: "You all get to see that moment of homicidal rage go across Finndo's face."

Barimen is the House of Chaos (Chaos being the opposite realm of reality from Amber) from which Dworkin (who, in canon, actually created the Pattern) originated before he went off and ticked off Chaos by creating a whole new pole of Reality. The players all know this. The PCs have no idea. And, shockingly, the players discover that once again there's something that Oberon's not telling the PCs. Raise your hand if this stuns you:

Oberon: "Maybe try... barry."
Finndo: "Again?"
Oberon: "Try Barimen."
Finndo: Allright."

When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite:

Finndo: "Barimen."
Big Iron Man: "OH WELL. GO ON THROUGH THEN."
Finndo: "Uh, thanks. Any thing we should pick up for you?"
Big Iron Man: "I DON"T THINK YOU'RE COMING BACK."
Finndo: "Okay. It was a pleasure. Oh, I'm Finndo by the way."
Big Iron Man: "GREVLOCK."
Finndo: "Pleased to make your acquaintance."
Grevlock: "DIE WELL."
Finndo: "We will. Thanks."

For differing values of 'odd':

GM: "There's this slow lumbering turn as he steps aside. And there's nothing but void beyond."
Deborah to Finndo: "Sybil is giving you the oddest look. It might make you very uncomfortable."
Osric: "Brother, you continue to trouble me."

Dutiful spin, dutiful snide remark:

Sonnet: "It was very nice of your father not to give us the bloody password."
Finndo: "That's an interesting question but is so far down the list of priorities of the moment."
Sonnet pauses. "368." Pause again. "Thousand. Got it."

The party is now effectively drifting in limbo and it might as well be the afterlife. Oh that old chestnut:

GM: "It's almost like it's not a place you can go, but... shhhhhhh ~pop~. It's almost like being bodiless."
Sybil: "Oh this again."
GM: "No, you are still physically on the ship but whatever desert you brought with you - gone. But you're in formless black."
Shai: "It's like falling but not falling."

If you're accustomed to adjusting reality, how much must it trouble you to have nothing to adjust? Adaptation:

Cyrus: "This is creepy."
Benedict: "Try going down into the bowels of Eagle's Peak sometime; that's creepy. This is not nearly as bad."
Osric to Benedict: "So glad you think so."

Relativism:

Finndo: "And charming."
Benedict: "In a formless nightmare sort of way."
Sonnet: "I've had dreams like this."
Finndo: "Helllo....!"

As the party got closer and closer to the shadow of fire, Town (the fire elemental) had more and more trouble staying contained and resisting the urge to join the rest of the available fire. Finndo and Sybil eventually locked him up in a card surrounded by a deck of cups (the water suite). Bright Idea Syndrome:

Benedict: "Is Town available to be freed - "
Finndo: "I so don't want to find out."
Sybil: "I don't think it's a good idea."
Benedict: "Okay."

What an ideal place to build a superconductor:

Finndo: "I throw a quarter overboard."
GM: "You lose sight of it after a while. It seems to be going more in the direction of downish but -"
Finndo: "Experiment."
GM: "If you flip it straight up, it continues straight up."

Ya can break the laws of physics, after all:

Finndo: "What's the longest piece of string we got?"
Sonnet: "The bungee cord down the hall."
Finndo: "I'm throwing it out."
GM: "It just kinda hangs out there."
Finndo: "I'm trying to figure out if what gravity there is, is consistent."
GM: "No."

Agreeability, how-to:

Osric: "I'm continuing to try to go in the same direction."
GM: "You have no idea if you're moving or not."
Osric: "Allright."

Earlier, Finndo represented Malachai as the joker in search of a homing beacon. When in danger or in doubt, eye Finndo's ass:

GM: "How the hell are you going to find Malachai in all this?"
Finndo: "Joker's going to have to come out. "

Finndo brings out the joker to represent Malachai and uses it as a compass. Pleading mercy to a court of justice:

Osric: "I make every effort to go that way [in the direction of the card]."
GM just looks at him.
Jarrod: "Don't make me roll again; don't make me roll again..."

Osric proceeds to try to point the party in the direction, such as it is, that the card of Malachai indicates. No one ever said acuity felt good:

GM: "You have no sense of motion. YOU [Osric] have a sense of motion. The rest of you don't. Osric looks constipated."

Patience not a Fae strong point:

Sybil: "Bored now."
Sonnet: "It's a moment of peace."

When everything is black, grey looks pretty damned good:

Sybil: "Oh!"
Sonnet: "Is that grey?"
Sybil: "It's something! It's different!"

And the next complication is:

GM: "It grows larger.It looks like a grey stone sarcophagus."
Osric: "That's it."
Finndo: "So we found it."
GM: "It's got a lid."

Time to display initiative - because that always goes well:

Sonnet: "I'm reviewing my notes from the meeting and I don't recall what we're supposed to do once we find him."
Finndo: "He may not be as dead as he appears, so return with whatever we get."
Jarrod: "There's a note inside: 'Find me at the McDonald's on route 132.'"

It takes more than combat gear to make a man:

GM: "The Vikings don't know what to make of this. 'Are we past the end times yet?'"
Finndo: "That has yet to be determined. And I look evil."
GM: "And you suddenly become the most terrifying man in existence."
Finndo: "Yet polite."

Having found what we were looking for - Malachai's tomb - we attempt to get our hands on it despite the fact that both we and it are floating in formless limbo. Mucking about with the source of truth:

GM: "You get the grappling hooks on and as you start to pull it is unclear whether it is coming to you or you are going towards it but eventually, it touches against the ship, way down, close to the edge of the deck."
Finndo: "If we can pull it onto the ship that's great."
GM: "You... no."
Finndo: "It's the stationary point isn't it?"
GM: "Yeah."
Finndo: "We'll slide planks out under it, though."

Caution versus curiosity:

Cyrus: "Let's keep it a small distance form the ship."
Finndo: "Let's inspect it."

Armed paranoia as a lifestyle choice doesn't lead to much rose-smelling:

GM: "There's a lot of carvings on it, language that none of you recognize."
Finndo: "Start taking rubbings."
GM: "Going to take some time."
Finndo: "That's fine."
Cyrus: "I stand ready with a crossbow."
GM: "Looks like it's just a heavy fucking lid."

Sybil and Osric go over the rubbings and the lid and figure out what they believe to be the code for opening the coffin. They open it just so. Learning from experience:

GM: "There's a faint crack between the lid and..."
Finndo: "Well done. Is there an appropriate way to open it after that?"
Osric: "After that just lift."

I'd say that some people ain't got no respect, but Finndo wanted the lid for curiosity's sakes:

GM: "The lid goes tumbling slowly..."
Benedict: "Sorry!"
Finndo: "Oh well."
GM: "You got rubbings of most of it."
Sonnet: "I put it in your black bag."

And success! Except that it's too early in the episode for success. Anyone else worried?

GM: "There's a shrouded figure in there - as in wrapped in a black shroud."
Finndo: "Reach in and lift him out."
GM: "Very light. You can't make out anything; it's a man. You got him."

Opportunist:

Finndo: "Finndo's current goal is to commit the sarcophagus to memory as a place."
Deborah: "God, that's an awful trump trap."

Oops:

Finndo: "We have what we came for."
Benedict: "Now how do we get out?"

Today's game is... dodgeball!

Finndo: "I'm sure there are several ways out, but that's a question I leave to Osric."
Osric: "Let's make sure we've done everything we came here to do."

Applied Philosophy:

Cyrus: "Perhaps that [the sarcophagus] is what makes the universe a fixed point and if we remove it the universe will unravel around us."
Sybil: "Isn't that what we want?"
Cyrus: "The unraveling not so much."

The dark powers have a number of convenient, flexible payment plans available for your ease of mind:

Benedict: "How important is this?"
Osric: "How important is your uncle?"
Sybil: "/Ben/."
Benedict looks at her.
Sybil: "Not another chunk of your soul."
Benedict: "It's a chunk I already paid with."
Lydia: "Pre-bought soul calling plan!"

And our new clever strategy: Run!

Benedict: "I think I broke it!"
Finndo: "Oh /dear/."
Osric: "Is that good?"
Cyrus: "Probably not."
GM: "Fire starts to lick out from the crack."
Osric: "Let's get away from that."

The party has accidentally cracked limbo, and fire is leaking through. A Viking's going to be left behind. Enthusiasm yes, scalability, not really:

GM: "Osric, are you leaving him behind?"
Osric: "And he's just hanging out there?"
GM: "As it grows, he's taking a step or two back hm?"
Osric: "Can you lasso him or something, Cyrus? Grapple him, I don't care, put a hole in his leg, but -"
Cyrus: "I have a net!"

The party is hesitating to abandon anyone to limbo while the fire shadow bursts into limbo and threatens to swallow them whole. Open mouth, insert foot, shove for thigh:

Sybil to Finndo: "This may just be something they taught me, but you don't stand next to the expanding fireball!" Pause. "You're doing this on purpose."
Finndo: "No, but I must say I appreciate the irony of those words coming from you."

There's 'helping' and then there's 'good helping':

Scott: "Best speed, Mr. Sulu."
Jarrod: "We're going to see if we can pull that Fiona trick to get to Draconis. Legendary."
GM: "The fire begins to recede in the distance and then there's a THUMP and the perimeter of this thing is coming under you faster than you're moving."
Benedict: "Faster..."
Sybil: "Perhaps if you helped."
Scott blinks. "We're trying to help."

Fireballs of incipient doom must look pretty satisfying to people enthusiastically seeking out Armageddon:

GM: "The Vikings are laying down their weapons and going into paroxysms of 'The End Times! The End Times!"

Rivalries, like other aspects, can be spent once a session to boost a roll. Using the GM's tools to your own benefit:

Rob: "Does Osric need the help?"
GM: "He seems to."
Rob: "Boy. Just when things were getting tough, I'll just remember that Old Osric Couldn't Cut It."
Scott: "Me too." The players cross off the Rivalry aspects on their character sheets.
GM: "And that gives you the extra push.... boy that lava flow looks familiar. And there's that extremely large man."

Trendsetting:

Grevlock: "HEY."
Finndo: "Hi."
Grevlock: "You're not supposed to be back."
Finndo: "It was a nice trip."
Grevlock: "What did you do there?"
Finndo: "Ran away."

The better part of valour:

GM: "You get the sense of him - it's hard to tell what the fuck he's doing; his head is vast distances form you, but he turns.
Grevlock: "SHIT. RUN FASTER."
Finndo: "YES. THANK YOU."
Rob: "And we run, run run."

Everything in its time and place:

GM: "Osric, you can feel vast swathes of shadow burning behind you. How well did you roll?"
Osric: "I burned every last thing: legendary +3."
GM: "You guys are just ripping through shadow, in this skittering blur; it's a hell of a ride, you thunder along, but Osric seems to be just calmly thinking, "Yes, that's about right...." You hit the ocean in a HUGE spray and there's this incredible amount of mist that has shot up as a result of your impact. The ship is not doing so well, probably taking on water."
Scott: "Shadowfix it?"
Rob: "Let's finish crashing first."
GM: "The mist starts to clear... that looks like one of the isles of the sun."

When Amber looks reassuring and familiar, it's time to re-examine your life:

Sybil: "Where are we?"
Benedict: "The Isles of the Sun."
Sybil: "Home!"

Oh, right. About the bio hazard cargo... yah. When even Cyrus's self preservation instinct kicks in, listen:

Cyrus: "I look into the hold to see what's broken."
GM: "There's... lots of different colors. You don't want to go there."
Cyrus: "Perhaps I don't."
Finndo: "There's a friendly ship on the way."

Some people are just never satisfied:

Scott: "What's the Viking reaction to all this?
GM: "WWWAAAAUGHHHAAAAUUUUGHHHHH!"
Finndo: "Scuttle this into shadow where these guys can fight to their death; that'll make em happy."

Old friends, familiar faces, warm greetings:

GM: "A ship pulls up - it's a pirate ship. The captain's limping."
Scott: "LUCAN!"
Lucan: "You got any treasure!"
Finndo: "Don't Even Ask!"

Now that's a polite gesture from a guest:

Lucan: "I suppose you want to come on board."
Finndo: "Yes."
Lucan sidles up: "Can I pretend to charge you?"
Finndo: "Oh, sure."

Negotiation loses its shine when its outcome is a bit guaranteed:

Lucan, loudly, for the crew's benefit: "You may come on board - for a price!"
Finndo, loudly: "Name your demands!"
Lucan, still loudly: "We'll discuss that later - in my cabin."
Finndo, as loudly: "Excellent; large sacks of cash are yours!"

Old hands are wonderful if only for their swift grasp of the situation and their ability to take you at face value:

Lucan: "What's the corpse?"
Finndo: "You really don't want to know."
Lucan: "Ah."

No need to terrify the host; it would be rude:

Lydia: "We can tell Lucan."
Rob: "And I would, but he really doesn't want to know."

Hospitality, pirate style:

Lucan: "I've got some excellent liquor off a ship I took -"
Finndo: "Excellent!"

At long last in safe waters, Sybil lets Town out of his card (where he was kept so he wouldn't join the flames in the shadow of fire). Picky, picky:

Town: "You really gotta get more room in there - I've got a cramp in my embers..."

Once at shore, Sonnet heads off on a Finndo-enforced vacation, and Cyrus wishes to check on his wife and his business dealings in the Isles. He invites Osric along with him and Osric accepts. Everyone else - Finndo, Sybil and Benedict, and the corpse - are going straight to Amber Castle to report in. It's never just 'mission done, nice job, thanks, have a parade, have some virgins, here's your large sack of cash', is it? Okay, Spock:

GM: "You trump back to Finndo's headquarters. There are ten crossbows leveled at you. "Drop your weapons. And the cards."
Finndo: "Fascinating."

What's the first thing you do? Besides freeze:

Benedict: "No, not really. Do I know the voice?"
GM: "No."
Sybil: "Town's hidden."

And a very small voice from nowhere in particular says 'oh dear':

Rob: "What colors are they wearing?"
GM: "The Queen's."

Let's start with the gentle hints:

Finndo: "I take it there are some complications in our absence."
Guard: "I don't have to talk to you."
Finndo: "You don't, but I'd suggest it."
Guard: "Come this way."

You win some, you lose the prize:

Sybil: "Do they pick up the glamoured crossbow? And the bow?"
GM: "No. But you don't feel comfortable -"
Rob: "What about the bundle?"
GM: "They tell you to leave it. We will post a guard; you are being treated courteously."

And back in the Isles of the Sun, completely oblivious to what's befallen Finndo, Benedict and Sybil, the complications start out small. Cyrus checks in at the factor house for his business and requests a status report. The first tiny catch appears:

Cyrus: "What's happened since we left?"
GM: "You mean since you've been gone for a year?"
Cyrus: "Oh shit. Are my investments doing well?
GM: "Oh yeah. Your wife's been taking care of them. Going to go visit her?"
Cyrus: "I invite Osric home!"

And the second:

GM: "Osric, roll insight. Please."
Osric: "Legendary +1."
GM: "You really don't trust this guy that Cyrus is getting his report form."

It's not like Cynthia could be sleeping with him; this is Cynthia, afterall:

Osric: "I have a bad feeling about this. Cyrus, may I have a word."
Cyrus: "Yes?"
Osric: "Alone?"
Cyrus: "Yes. We step aside."
Osric: "There's something... not right about that man."
Cyrus: "Not right in what sense?"
Osric: "He's either lying to you or I just don't trust him. I'm certain of it."

Or maybe it could be Cynthia. It's just a mild sense of caution taken to a wee bit of an extreme:

Cyrus: "Shall we poke around a little further?"
Osric: "Discretely."
Lydia: "I think we're about to become common sailors for a bit."
GM: "Are you? Going home first?"
Lydia: "No."

Continuing to advocate:

GM: "How are you going to become common sailors?"
Shai: "Mug a couple and steal their clothes."
Rob: "Again, violence problem solving."

Isn't it a bit late for moral judgments?

GM: "Are you going to mug citizens of the realm?"
Jarrod: "It's all for the greater good."
GM: "Right. I'll get back to you fuckers."

Brutal efficiency that misses the, ah, point:

Jarrod: "We'll mug them and pay them."
Lydia: "Cyrus is a responsible citizen."
Jarrod: "We don't have time to explain. Punch and pay."

And back at Amber Castle, Finndo, Benedict and Sybil have been (mostly) disarmed and are being escorted under guard to see the Queen. For certain values of 'escorted':

GM: "You're led to the throne room."
Rob: "No. Finndo /leads/ to the throne room."
Scott: "Benedict's on one shoulder."
Deborah: "Sybil on the other."
GM: "One of the men stepped up to the door once you got up to it and said 'allow me'."
Finndo inclines his head.

'How quickly they forget.' - Tip O'Neill:

GM: "The door is open."
Finndo strides in purposefully.
Quinn: "Ah, I was wondering when you'd get back."
GM: "Cymnea is on the throne; Kipwyn is standing behind her, looking fairly solid."
Jarrod: "Turn my back for /five/ minutes."

Allright, so we are planning on killing all these guards. What's your point?

GM: "Wendra's up in the balcony with a bow."
Finndo: "Mother. If we wanted to kill all these guards..."
Cymnea just looks at him.
Finndo: "So how have you been?"

Heart on her sleeve:

Cymnea: "Where's Osric?"
Finndo: "What a fascinating question. He's allright."
Cymnea: "Good."

Yes, but we try not to refer to them in good company:

Finndo: "He's been busy. I'm surprised you don't know."
Cymnea: "Why would I?"
Finndo: "You seem to have a talent."
Cymnea: "I seem to have many talents."

Negotiating from a position of strength does help with the confident air:

Finndo: "More importantly, you seem to have a throne at the moment."
Cymnea: "Yes, how bout that."

Hey now! She didn't even give us a chance to betray each other's trust!

Finndo: "I assume there's a purpose to our little welcoming."
Cymnea: "I'm going to assume that you're all taking exception to the situation."

Is there a polite way to say 'fucking bitch, your days are numbered'?

Finndo: "In only the politest of terms, of course."
Cymnea: "It's not really a time to be polite anymore, is it?"
Finndo: "I've found that there is never a time not to be."
Cymnea: "Spoken like your father. He always knew what to do at just the right time."
Finndo: "Ah. Yes, another knack."

Puts a whole new twist on 'he'd put his own Mother in the dungeon', doesn't it?

Cymnea: "Yes. So. I know you are reasonable. Reason with us why you are not enemies of the Crown."
Finndo laughs, "Against our dear Mother?"
Cymnea: "Oh yes."

Curiosity killed the Prince:

Finndo: "Ahhh. While the reasons are manifest, I think the cheerful willingness to discover exactly what is going on here should go some distance."
Cymnea: "I really sort of thought that would be your default behavior."

From a certain perspective, it's rather generous of him:

Finndo: "Well, fine. The fact that Benedict hasn't killed them all -"
Cymnea: "Means nothing. Only means he's waiting."
Finndo: "Yes, but if he's waiting, that alone goes a long way."

Take your compliments where you can:

Cymnea: "I do not think for a moment that any one of us would be safe if but one crossbow was lowered."
Sybil: "I'm flattered."

So, did you actually win this throne or are you just squatting?

Sybil: "I'd like to ask a question, and I'm uncertain how to phrase it politely. I ask it purely for tactical reasons: did you actually take Oberon or was he simply gone when you arrived?"
Cymnea: "You'll understand when I don't answer that for purely tactical reasons."

Oh, right. The weal of the People and all that:

Finndo: "Where's Father?"
Cymnea: "Gone."
Finndo: "I take it the realm is well."
Cymnea: "Has been."

If Charisma was a stat, they ought to have rolled it for this moment:

Finndo: "I'm willing to point out that all of your alternatives are far worse."
Cymnea: "Are they."
Finndo: "They are."
Cymnea: "I see."

The trouble with negotiating from a position of strength is that it had damn well better not be a bluff:

Finndo: "If you feel your hold is as strong as all that, I can see a certain standpoint. But, ultimately, you are of course aware of what happens should you try to kill any of us."
Cymnea: "Murder isn't what I had in mind."
Finndo: "Of course. But you may have a difficult time stopping before there."
GM: "She's listening."

Not so much an expression of affability as a baring of teeth:

Finndo: "I do not think that you could [stop before murder] - I myself am a simple talking man but I'd be amazed should you find a way to stop Benedict short of that; I think even Kipwyn over there will recognize he is not the safest man to have around."
Kipwyn shifts his weight.
Finndo smiles.
Benedict smiles.
Sybil smiles.

Ooooh, disagreement in the ranks?

GM: "All of you pick up on the fact that he gives Quinn a rather pointed look."

Ignorance is bliss:

Osric: "Sausage?"
Cyrus: "Fish and chips perhaps?"

Still negotiating with Cymnea (well, at least we're not dead):

Finndo: "Allow me to present it to you this way. Kept as prisoners, we're far more trouble than we're worth. I assure you that in less than a day, I will know everything I need to know about how you're running things here."
Cymnea: "It'll be worth far less than that."
Finndo: "However, if we leave - but I sense a counter offer."
Cymnea: "No, prisoner was what I had in mind. I don't trust you. Break their limbs!"

And the fight breaks out (what, you thought we'd hold still?). Contingency murder plans:

Rob: "Finndo breaks the guard's neck."
GM: "You can't move."
Rob: "With a card that shoots from his wrist."
GM: "One of the guys drops down gurgling. And you, Ben, start... glowing black. Finndo, you are so unhappy about being near that. The reason you guys could do that - Cymnea removes your glamor [Sybil] and all your other glamors go away, too."

Personal goals over better tactics (going after Quinn did not deal with the immediate threats) aka the advantage to the GM of inspiring hate for the NPCs in the characters if not the players:

GM: "They pull back from coming near Benedict, and Finndo's trying a second action - "
Finndo: "I'm going to count on Quinn not having physical defenses - the goal is the card right here on the jugular on Quinn."
GM: "Okay. Another card shoots out form you; you hear Quinn laugh for a moment as it starts to magnetize to a suit of armour but you force it back to him and then SHIT and he backs out of your arc of vision."

A little too much success with the unraveling:

Benedict: "Legendry + 1, Legendary +3."
GM: "You have just fallen through the floor. You're in some sort of wine cellar."

Spoiled, much? They took Sybil down before she bound the elementals. Wee small issue with unbound fire:

Sybil: "I am going to overwhelm them in fire and earth - she can dismiss them all she likes but sheer volume should overwhelm them."
GM: "The room explodes in chaos and you start to bind them and a sheet goes over your head and you're beaten unconscious."
Deborah: "That's what a Legendary +6 gets me?"
GM: "You have no idea how much chaos you unleashed on the room. I'll get back to you."

Back in the Isles of the Sun, Osric and Cyrus are trying out their disguise. When in doubt, fall back on basics:

Lydia rolls deceit. Looks at the result: "I find the darkest bar I know."
GM: "So your crappy mustache does not look like a crappy mustache. What do you do if someone recognizes you?"
Lydia: "I beat them up!"

Cyrus and Osric by sailors alcohol and chat them up for information. Whoops:

GM: "Someone lets slip - in these conversations - that they had to come out here to the Isles after the change of power back home."
Cyrus glances at Osric.
Osric's eyebrow go up.

For some reason, this is the information that riled folks up into a proper irrationally homicidal-urge-based emotional investment (usually we're quite rational):

Cyrus: "How long do you figure you're going to be out here? Running here?"
Sailor: "Yeah, a number of us."
Cyrus: "Piracy still good?"
Sailor: "Oh yeah, in fact it's stepped up after Sejak went home."
Cyrus: "When did he go home - where is home, anyway?"
Sailor: "Bout six feet under."

Swift and appropriate reflexes:

Cyrus: "I lie about where I've been."

Karm, the reader may recall, was a knight of Andros who won his bride by betraying his liege lord and slaughtering the entire royal family of Andros in their sleep - with the exception of his bride, whom he married, despite the fact that she was insane by then (something about witnessing your true love slay your family in cold blooded treachery). Karm was only alive through Oberon's intervention and, with Oberon gone, Karm's fate apparently fell under 'unspeakable':

Sailor: "Don't know what happened to the King; kinda like the way things ran under him."
Cyrus: "How'd Sejak die?"
Sailor: "They got rid of him."
Cyrus: "Karm?"
Sailor: "They, uh."

Karm castrated Lucan for his interest in Sonnet when she was a little girl (and then made the man her bodyguard). Karm was a Knight, ultimately, and Lucan... is not. Unless it was a more basic revenge:

Cyrus: "Who's the governor now?"
Sailor: "More a who's the governor of the week question."
Lydia: "Wow. Cyrus is pissed off; he liked Sejak."
GM: "Why didn't Lucan mention this?"
Cyrus: "That's a very interesting question. Karm versus Lucan."

Honor knows no barr of rank or station:

Cyrus: "I ask about business, who's doing well."
Sailor: "No one's doing well, except for the people who bought in. None of us. Why are you asking?"
Cyrus: "Man's gotta eat."
Sailor: "Yeah. I'm kinda done talking to you." He gets his drink, moves away.

Immediate action is a bit instinctive. Like, oh, say Lucan: why /did/ you fail to mention a few small details? And how would you not like to die? Be specific:

Cyrus: "So. We have a problem - or not, as the case may be."
Osric: "Well."
Cyrus: "I don't suppose you have a card of Lucan?"
Rob: "I do."
Osric shakes his head.

Mass destruction apparently not including specific, targeted murder:

Cyrus: "Two guesses as to who's in charge back home, assuming it's not Mr I Have A Flaming Island. I'm presuming he would not murder - he'd just rain fire on the kingdom."
Osric: "I don't think he'd [Dworkin] be interested in the kingdom so much."

Sycophancy has its uses:

Cyrus: "Yes. Shall we have dinner at home?"
Osric: "Whose?"
Cyrus: "Mine, I think."
Osric: "Let's find out what she knows."
Cyrus: "She's very good at getting to know the power structure."

And Sonnet, on her Finndo-ordered vacation, does what pirate lasses do best on vacation:

GM to Sonnet: "You're getting drunk. You carouse well."
Sonnet: "Yep. I got a nice room, looking out at the sunset, and I'm getting drunk."

Benedict has fallen through the floor into a cellar below. He's trying to reach the Pattern, but there's always a coin to pay:

GM to Benedict: "Pattern."
Benedict: "Great."
GM: "Oh dear god this is giving you a headache... "
Lydia: "ANGRY!"
GM looks expectant.
Scott: "Oh yes, pop goes the weasel."

On predictability:

GM: "A voice behind you says, 'Ahem. I'm going to wager I can put this sword through you faster than you can pull that trick back up again. Wine?'"
Ben sighs: "Quinn?"
Selm: "Selm. It'll help calm you down."

The thief owns the most locks in town; the man who maps everyone else would be afraid of being mapped himself. Playing both sides:

Benedict: "You're helping them. Why?"
Selm: "Did you not keep tabs on how I left?"
Benedict: "Right. Care to reconsider."
Selm: "Depends on what you're offering."
Benedict: "What do you want?"
Selm: "I make it a habit of never answering that question, so let's not try."

'He who shares my bread and drink is not my enemy':

Benedict: "Forgiveness, amnesty."
Selm: "Amnesty, right, got it. Your forgiveness would be touching but that's as far as it would go. I have Andros, that's good enough for me."
Benedict pours out the cup: "Hm."

Gee, thanks:

Selm: "As a personal favor I will arrange for your limbs to remain intact."

Nice to know he can see us coming:

Selm: "Don't go up there for a while."
Benedict: "Didn't look like the sort of place I needed to be, so I was here."
Selm: "Right. Although it was fifty fifty as to whether it would be you or the Fae bitch. Either one of you could have melted through the floor."

If you're going to be locked up, you may as well get some information out of it:

Benedict: "So. How long ago did this all take place?"
Selm: "Few months."
Benedict: "Was Oberon here?"
Selm: "You know, I wasn't really in a position to keep track."

Selm has a reputation for seducing other men's wives. Unfortunate phrasing:

Benedict: "My wife?"
Selm: "She's taken care of."
Benedict: "In what manner?"
Selm: "Prettily."
Deborah moans.
Benedict nods.
GM: "You really should never discuss one's wife with Selm; almost an adage."

Let's at least pause a half hour before you rip the castle apart in your escape, eh?

Selm: "I think I'm supposed to take you and put you in chains now."
Benedict: "Let's be about it then."
Selm: "They're probably going to knock you over the head."
Benedict: "Why? Doesn't matter."
Selm: "That whole melty thing, not so good for the chains."
Benedict: "Oh. Right." Benedict turns around.

Unconscious Princes, collect all four!

Selm: "I'm sure you know the way."
Benedict: "Benedict isn't even going to try unravel on this."
GM: "Something's put over your head, you're knocked unconscious, I get back to you."

And in the Isles, Cyrus and Osric are sneaking up on Cyrus's home. You'd think the players had Ben's issues:

GM: "There are several armed men looking out from behind curtains in Cyrus's place."
Lydia: "Oh, now I'm angry."

Thought that was Prince and the Pauper:

Osric: "Do you have a guard staff?"
Cyrus: "No."
Lydia: "Presumably we're skulking."
Shai: "The prince and the thug."

Can we say 'house arrest'?

Cyrus: "I'd like to know where my wife is. Considering that your mother has my daughter, I am somewhat put out."
Osric: "Can I get a sense of whether Cynthia is in the house?"
GM: "She's just calmly having tea. There's a guard there."
Osric: "She's alive."
Cyrus: "And?"
Osric: "She's having tea. There's a guard with her. She had paperwork. She did not look particularly troubled."
Cyrus: "She never does."

Husbandly concern:

Osric: "She's probably safer if we leave her be."
Cyrus: "Yes, I imagine so, but that does unfortunately remove one of our news sources."

Putting a delicate face on the matter:

Cyrus: "Who do we think we can trust for information - they turned Lucan, is the problem."
Osric: "Did they?"
Cyrus: "Or else he would have told us - or didn't know, which seems unlikely."

At this point, it honestly seemed possible that we were all about to genuinely die:

Lydia: "Okay, we're going to try to track down Sonnet."
Deborah: "Oh god. Please don't."

Sonnet is holed up in a rather nice hotel and engaged in systematically getting herself thoroughly drunk. The GM, naturally, switches immediately from Lydia's announcement to this next line. Bastard:

GM to Sonnet: "There's a knock on your door."
Sonnet: "What."
Lucan: "Hey!"
Sonnet: "What."
Lucan: "It's Lucan!"

Give the player immense credit for graciously walking into the trap with her OOC eyes wide, wide, wide open:

Sonnet: "Hi!" Sonnet opens the door. "Hey... you interested?"
Lucan grins: "Always."
Sonnet leans back.
Lucan comes in.
Sonnet: "Hey. Have a seat."
Lucan: "Yep. So. How's tricks?"
Sonnet: "I've been ordered to take a vacation. I'll drink to that."

Wanted: position as Prince's secretary, no marriage proposals whatsoever, preferably few men, opportunity to bone up on ninja leet skills, franklin planner and opportunity to gain scars:

Lucan: "They're working you that hard? I'll drink to that, too."
Sonnet: "I haven't gotten a scratch on me in at least 2 years."
Lucan: "Hmmm."
Sonnet: "Cushy job firthing hell."
Lucan: "You got no new scars?"
Sonnet: "Not a single damned one."

Careful what you ask; you might get an answer:

Lucan: "Okay, where's the real Sonnet?"
Sonnet giggles. "I left her in hell."
Lucan: "Hell."
Sonnet: "Yeah."

Hey! Nice opinion he has of us!

Lucan: "So you been there?"
Sonnet: "Twice."
Lucan: "I'm not surprised."

It does sound a bit extreme when combined with alcohol:

Sonnet: "Sworling google purple shit and Benedict was shooting black shit and I was just kinda flying around killing shit."
Lucan: "You were what?"
Sonnet: "Flying around killing shit. How ya been?" She offers the bottle.

Four down, two to go:

GM to Sonnet: "He takes the bottle, grabs your wrist and suddenly a white mailed fist collides with your head."

And outside, Cyrus and Osric have tracked Sonnet down and are skulking about to check out the joint. Surreptitiousnes as an art form:

GM: "Both of you [Osric and Cyrus] roll observation."
GM: "You don't think anyone's watching, Osric; Cyrus, you're a bit more aware of the street. There are definitely some rough looking types that you expect to be around here... but they don't look right."
Cyrus: "I point them out to Osric."
Osric: "I look at them without looking at them."

Street thugs of all descriptions:

GM: "Yeah. Makes sense."
Osric: "Military?"
Cyrus: "Or something."

Our GM, Catbert:

Jarrod to GM: "They're not mine are they?
GM: "Oh no. Why would they be?"
Jarrod glares.
GM beams. "What?"
Jarrod just shakes his head, "Just asking."

Sense and sensibility:

GM: "You can probably make it up to the room without them realizing it, though."
Cyrus: "I'm going to try the roof."
Osric: "Osric's not going to do that."

Splitting up to handle the threat better that way!

GM: "Hang around outside?"
Osric: "Just keep an eye on them."
Cyrus: "Check out the room as best I can."

You know, Cyrus spends nearly as much time falling as Sybil does:

GM: "She's sitting there drinking."
Cyrus: "Okay. I rap on the window."
Sonnet drunkenly opens the window. "Hi!"
Cyrus: "Meet me downstairs?"
Sonnet: "What? But. But -"
Cyrus: "I leave the roof."
GM: "Shouldn't you fall? PUNCH."

Very few people argue with gravity and win:

Lydia: "Did I make it?"
GM: "Roll. No, you get knocked off."
Rob: "Yank him down with you; that's dirty fighting."
Lydia: "Yep!"

Falling from rooftops not all that subtle an arrival method:

GM: "He's like, WAUGH, and you guys go tumbling. Osric, roll observation."
Lydia: "I'm landing on her."
GM: "You hear something going on around that corner."

Unnecessary encouragement:

Lydia: "WAAAAAUUUUGH."
GM: "Both of you land."
Cyrus: "BAM!"
Rob: "Don't let go; beat the shit out of him."
Jarrod: "This is something at which you should excel."

No one ever _stays_ cooperatively dead:

GM: "Roll again."
Cyrus: "Legendary +1."
GM: "You beat him and he seems unconscious and it's Osrat and big arms come up - you come around the building and there are big elementals coming up and they're about to WHAM - they knock Cyrus across the street."

Only Cyrus could get into this position:

Osric: "Where is he [Cyrus]?"
GM: "He's ten feet away being wailed on by a pile of rock."
Cyrus: "Excuse me! OW!"

Sometimes, there's nothing else to say:

Jarrod: "I don't know what to do about this!"
GM: "And the thing looks at Osric."
Osric laughs. "Hi."

Speaking of positions of strength:

GM: "And it peels away the earth and there's a semi-conscious Osrat. "Remind me not to try that trick again."
Osric: "Not with that shit, no."
Osrat holds his head: "Oooooh. Why does she drink that shit?"
Osric: "That's funny."
Osrat: "Do be a dear and give Mother a call on your ring, would you?"
Osric: "I'd like some information first."

Now _that_ is a character summation:

Osric: "Cyrus is an elemental of pain."
Osrat: "Noted."
Shai: "Just wait till the alcohol wears off."

The enemy of my enemy is still my enemy - no, wait, my ally - except for the enemy part:

Osric: "What the hell is going on?"
Osrat: "We made a deal."
Osric: "We?"
Osrat: "We. Mom!"
Osric: "Oh yes."
Osrat: "You went off into deep shadow. We didn't see you. I figured I was just as good a substitute."

Oh, right. _That_ deal. Could be worse; it could be Dworkin:

Osric: "Maybe you should tell us about this deal."
Osrat: "Oh, it's the deal where we take over the kingdom."

And five down, Osric afoot:

Osric: "Okay, this is going to be a longer conversation than I thought. Tea, then?"
Osrat: "I was thinking back at the castle."
Osric: "Uhm." He gestures to Cyrus.
Osrat: "Oh him? I think I've broken him enough; he'll come back and go into the dungeon like the rest of them."
Osric: "I'll do that."
GM: "She takes all three of you."

Cymnea teleports Osric, Osrat and the unconscious Cyrus back to the throne room of Amber Castle. Ever have a sudden urge to look at your pocket watch and hurriedly bolt for a hole?

Osrat: "Uhm, Mother."
Cymnea gives him a look.
Osrat sighs: "Could I get my ring back? I sent Sonnet to you. Right, thank you."
GM: "He puts on a ring just like the one you've got."
Jarrod: "Oh dear oh dear."

Rub it in, why don't you?

Osrat: "So are the others taken care of?"
Cymnea: "Oh yes. All of them are."
Osrat: "Very glad to hear it. I see our partnership is working out."

Understatement of the year:

Cymnea: "Oh yes. Osric."
Osric: "Greetings, Mother. You've been busy."

Yes, had to run out for some milk, paper towels and the sarcophagus of a dead god kept beyond the end of the world; hope I didn't keep you:

Cymnea: "You've been away."
Osric: "Yes, Father's errands."

Putting it neatly:

Cymnea: "It was convenient."
Osric: "I'm coming to that conclusion."

The GM had originally wanted Cymnea to ask Osric this most awkward of awkward questions in front of the rest of the party so they could see him betray them, or seem to betray them (again):

GM to Osric: "The throne room is in _tatters_ - and there's a hole in the floor."
Cymnea: "So. Here's the real issue: Are you with us?"

Stall, stall, stall (and he never really answers her):

Osric: "I am here, Mother."
Cymnea: "You know what I mean; don't play games."
Osric: "You would never expect anything less."
Cymnea: "I do expect you to make the occasional exception."
Osric: "Very well."

Lying through the pearly whites:

Cymnea: "What's with the corpse?"
Osric: "I'm not entirely sure."

Well. Strictly speaking, in a technical sense... you could look on it as that:

Cymnea: "Ah. Strange cargo."
Osric: "That errand I spoke of."
Cymnea: "So he has you graverobbing."

He comes by the vague, short, alluding answers honestly (or as honestly as you can):

Osric: "Oberon as per usual did not give much indication. How is he, by the way?"
Cymnea: "Gone."
Osric: "That's interesting."
Cymnea: "Isn't it."

Ha! They don't know everything! Ha!

Osric: "And what of Dworkin?"
Cymnea gives him a blank look.

Using the common reference points:

Osric: "The gentleman with the island."
Cymnea: "Not a peep."

So the guy who invented the Pattern and his fought his way out of hell to come get it back, sufficiently interested to throw _islands_ at us to test our resolve, just plain gave up when the principal threat - Oberon - fell off the map? Huh. No perseverance these days:

Osric: "I find that odd."
Cymnea: "Yes. So did we. Perhaps it was your father he took issue with."
Osric: "Almost certainly."

Being called on it:

Cymnea: "So back to the question."
Osric: "I think our interests have always been aligned, Mother."
Cymnea: "That's the answer I would give. I'll allow it for now. I believe all of them, now that Cyrus is here, have been tossed in the brig."

Broken, but alive. So there's hope! A tiny, tiny pinpoint of hope, but hope!

Osric: "They're alive, then?"
Cymnea: "Broken."
Osric: "I see."

No kidding:

Cymnea starts to say something, stops. "Never mind."
Jarrod: "That's even spookier than if she said something."

Picky, picky:

Osric: "The real question is what now, Mother?"
Cymnea: "You rule the kingdom by my side."
Jarrod: "I don't want it now! It's broken!"

The throne room is in pieces following the fight necessary to take down Finndo and Sybil and Benedict. Anybody else feel a bit like a teenage hoodlum who wasn't respectful to the parental carpets?

Cymnea: "Actually, right now, we fix this goddamned room. That went poorly."
Osric: "Should I... ask?"
Cymnea: "It's your friends again."
Osric: "Ah."

Underestimation is a two way street:

Cymnea: "They were a bit more explosive then we were really... well."
Osric: "They have been busy, too."

Trust between mother and son not so much:

Cymnea: "Haven't they? I think it is in our mutually aligned interests for you to get some rest. I'll post a guard, just to be sure."
Osric: "I thought you might."

All in agreement, say aye:

Lydia: "Oh, Cymnea must die."

Bit of a sore spot, eh?

GM to Osric: "You do hear Osrat saying to her, 'I can have some earth elementals take care of this -'"
Cymnea: "NO! No elementals!"
Osrat: "Allright, just offering..."

A little too much accommodation:

GM to Osric: "You're back in your room. What do you do?"
Scott _looks_ at him.
Jarrod: "FUCK!"
GM: "That can be arranged - what? You're an honored guest!"
Jarrod: "Oh, dear god." He facepalms. "I really need to stop thinking because it's all horrible."

Housecleaning's an issue now?

Osric: "First, I'm going to see if I'm being watched and if my room has been disturbed."
GM: "How?"
Osric: "Is stuff moved? I should know. "
GM: "Maybe a little here and there."
Osric: "Does it look recently used?"
GM: "Not especially."
Osric: "Have the sheets been changed?"
GM: "Like that stuff."
Osric: "Hm. Shit."

Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise - not to mention alive:

Jarrod: "You know, I think I'm going to be a good little boy and get some rest. Don't know what to do."
Scott: "Sleep on it; think about it."

Something flickering out of the corner of my eye:

GM to Osric: "Every time you keep drifting off - EVERY time - you see fire. Like your room's burning, and then - oh."
Rob: "Dooo doo dooo dooo do doo."
GM: "You just can't get to sleep and - it's about ten times in - it's always fire. Sense a pattern here?"

Some people have no sense of patience:

Jarrod: "Now that you've mentioned that, why don't we do that and concentrate on the Pattern. Is it here?"
GM: "Pretty strongly here - no it's not. Why did you get that feeling after confirming beyond a doubt that it's here? You have two different inputs. You're getting conflicting data."
Jarrod: "Wow. Deep shit. Huh. That's FASCINATING."
Deborah: "AUGH. Fucking VULCANs!"

Temptation, temptation:

Osric: "I trump Benedict."
GM: "Huh. He's not answering. Maybe he's asleep or knocked out, more likely, given. Hey - you could always try to push and see if you can get into his dreams."
Jarrod: "I'm not sure if I want to! That's too interesting a thought."

Osric gives it a shot anyway. A little too much truth:

Osric: "I'll push a little harder!"
GM: "That's funny; you never would have looked for that - THUD. So this is what it's like in one of Benedict's dreams where there are a bunch of corpses standing there calling his name and whispering 'destroy us'. Benedict doesn't seem aware."

Carrot first, then stick:

Osric: "Wave a hand in front of him. Anything?"
GM: "Dimly. Brief flicker and then he focuses back on them. Wanna shake him?"
Osric: "That could be bad. I think. Benedict."

Two shoulders, no angel, two devils, two ears:

GM to Benedict: "They're usually whispering. They're usually standing over in that crowd; Osric is apparently standing aside."
Benedict: "Why aren't you over there? Get over there."
Osric smiles: "No."
GM to Benedict: "Oooh, a defiant one."
Benedict: "/No/?"
GM to Benedict: "Do you wish to squash him with your mighty power?"
Rob: "He is so annoying after all."

Petpat, yes, that's very impressive:

Scott: "Is there an Osric over there?"
GM: "Come to think of it. Maybe this is Osrat!"
Benedict draws his sword: "What are you doing here? I am the master of this place."
Osric, tiredly: "Yes, of course you are."

Sometimes you've got to wonder how Osric really sees his brothers:

Scott: "But he's not wearing the armour."
GM: "No. So there's a bit of doubt there."
Benedict: "The sword lowers a bit."
Osric: "Gooooood."

Say, you wouldn't happen to have an evil triplet now, would you?

Benedict: "What do you want?"
Osric: "To talk to you."
Benedict squints over his shoulder.
GM: "You know what. There are two Osric's in that crowd; this is a third one."

The words that brothers find encouraging:

Benedict: "Allright. Talk."
Osric: "So glad you will /allow/ me." He sighs. "Well. You seem to be asleep. Do you remember that?"
Benedict: "Shit."
Osric: "Yes...."
GM: "It starts getting hazy and indistinct except for him."
Benedict: "Shit."
Osric: "_Yes_."
Benedict sheathes his sword.
Osric: "Come on..."

Remembering to dole out the warm fuzzies:

Benedict: "Selm!"
Osric: "Yes? What of him?"
Benedict: "Took me prisoner. A hole in the floor. That was me."
Osric: "Oh really? Yes, I saw that. Good show that."

Putting it mildly:

Benedict: "Almost. Almost. Now, I'm just hoping I wake up with all my limbs intact. What about you? You must have been put in an interesting position."
Osric: "Oh yes."

Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will tell you both yea and nay:

Benedict: "Where are you?"
Osric: "Well, that is an interesting and difficult question. For the moment, I'm in my chambers. And you are presumably in the dungeon."
Benedict: "Yes. Get me out?"
Osric: "Well, that may both be difficult and quite easy."

Using what you've got on hand:

GM to Osric: "You could probably take the guys at the door if you had a sword. For a fudge point, you have a sword in your room."
Shai: "You have a pointy hat; maybe that would scare them."
Rob starts whistling.

Acceleration due to comprehension:

Benedict: "And oh yeah, what the hell is going on?"
Osric: "My dear sainted mother seems to have taken over again, as you probably know. But I don't think we're really where we think we are."
Benedict: "Oh, that's an interesting prospect. That's a very interesting prospect. That's an extremely interesting prospect - I don't suppose there's any way to accelerate my path to consciousness."

The important distinctions:

Osric: "I can see if I can wake you up."
GM: "It might hurt."
Jarrod: "Him or me."

Somewhere in hell is a company making alarm clocks based on that theory:

Osric: "It would be an unpleasant choice."
Benedict: "I deem consciousness fairly important."
Osric: "Very well. Prepare yourself."
GM: "Pain's a good way to wake people up."

Thank god Osric's not a dark power:

Scott: "Oh, shit. And he's inside my mind, isn't he?"
Osric: "How sure do you want to be to wake up?"
Jarrod: "How much of a plus would you like?"
Scott: "I'm damned sure I want to wake up."

He's got a point:

GM: "You might want to tell him not to scream."
Scott: "I do have some control over myself."
Jarrod: "Since WHEN?"

Helping:

Osric: "This may hurt a lot. Try not to cry out."
Benedict: "Allright; it will probably just make me angry, which is allright."
GM: "You find the worst pain you've ever felt inside you, and you lend it."

That was either really bright or really dumb of Someone:

GM to Benedict: "And you find yourself- contact drops - you find yourself sitting up in the cell, suddenly - but you manage to swallow it. There's still something over your head, possibly a burlap sack, and your hands are manacled. Otherwise, you're sitting on the floor - and you're chained to something?"
Benedict: "Anyone in the room with me?"
GM: "No, they must have put you in an individual one."
Benedict: "Unravel."
GM: "Snick."

Or very kind:

Lydia: "Broken limbs [on Benedict]?"
GM shakes his head.

They're not going to make it automatic:

GM: "Light in here is awful; you can't make out a damn thing."
Benedict: "Make out the dimensions, feel around."
GM: "You're pretty sure you've located a door. Hinges are on the opposite side."
Benedict: "Of course they are. Straw, bedding?"
GM: "Yeah."
Benedict: "Put my ear to the door."
GM: "Someone is definitely patrolling."

Getting away with helping:

Benedict: "Okay. Well, I can do one of two things; I can try to explode in fury or I can wait for them to open the door."
Deborah: "You could melt your way through the side into another cell that isn't used -"
Rob: "Or that is used."
Scott: "Hadn't thought of that."
Deborah to GM: "Sorry."

A dish served hot:

GM: "Dammit, you're going to miss that."
Deborah: "Miss what?"
GM: "Nothing."
Deborah: "MISS WHAT? Aaaaargh!"

Brotherly assistance:

GM: "Doesn't take you long; you're not sure who is in that room, but they're breathing."
Benedict: "Go up to the body; pat it down."
GM: "Arms have been broken."
Benedict: "Who is it?"
GM: "Think it's Finndo."
Benedict: "Unravel the chains. He's asleep right now?"
GM: "Seems to be."
Benedict: "I take off a strip of my shirt, and gag him - because I'm going to set his arms."

One does have to admire that Finndo refrained from asking 'by whom':

GM to Finndo: "On the second one you wake up."
Finndo screams into his gag.
Benedict: "Don't cry out."
Finndo: "I won't."
Benedict: "Your arms have been broken."

Doing the math. A conspiracy of cartographers:

Finndo: "I assume they did not put us in the same cell."
Benedict: "No."
Finndo: "I assume you are at liberty."
Benedict: "Yes. I met Selm -"
Finndo: "You're about to again."
Benedict: "Interesting."

Playing coy:

Finndo: "Ahem. Selm."
GM: "There's no answer."
Finndo: "It's not Amateur Night at the Roxy, Selm."
Selm: "Right right. Sorry about the knife; had to."

It's seems like it's always about putting on a good show with Selm:

Benedict: "S'allright; thank you."
Selm: "Mmhmm."
Finndo: "How much do we have to go through to make this look good?"
Selm: "Quite a lot."

So much for the Common Amber RPG Player Solution #2 (#1 is get all three Pattern Swords and and/or the Jewel of Judgement and then walk the pattern):

Finndo: "How many men between here and the Pattern?"
Selm: "Aha. Here's the thing: problem is it's way down and we're way down somewhere else."

Conveniently yours:

Finndo: "Where's Sybil?"
Selm: "You're all in adjacent cells; I managed to arrange that as well."
Finndo: "And the distribution of our items?"
Selm: "That's going to be tricky."
Finndo: "Are they anywhere near by?"
Selm: "No."
Finndo: "How far?"

The up front and straightforward game of intrigue:

Selm: "I think Quinn claimed them. What do you want done with the corpse?"
Finndo: "Protect it. If you have to, swap it out. That one is for a much bigger game than this one."
Selm: "Excellent; it's already been swapped."
Jarrod: I know that you know that I know that you know..."

Parting the armed sea:

Finndo: "Any guards in the immediate vicinity?"
Selm: "Excuse me." Pause. "Not anymore."

Keeping It Simple:

Finndo: "Benedict, the door."
Benedict: "How? By unraveling it? The hinges are on the other side."
Finndo: "The lock is right there."
GM: "Ping!"

The lady should not lose the use of her limbs. Ah, chivalry:

Finndo: "Who else has been crippled?"
Selm: "They didn't see fit to do anything to Sonnet; that's about it."

Thorough, if nothing else:

GM: "At the opposite end of the corridor of this prison, there's a guard there who appears to be taking a nap."

Plot point check:

GM: "This is H."
Deborah: "Thank god, we made it alive."
Scott: "Yaaaay H!"

So, the moral of this tale is that if we ever need to utterly break someone, get someone besides Selm to do it:

GM to Finndo: "Your fingers are mildly sprained; looks like someone tried to make it look like they were broken. You're going to have a hard time doing it but the actual fingers are not broken."
Jarrod squints at the GM.
GM: "Bad plan to make Selm your thug when he might like the prisoners."

Benedict and Finndo locate the rest of the party and assesses the damage. Chivalry apparently has its limits:

GM: "Cyrus: randomly broken. Sybil: Limbs broken. Limbssss. Sorry. You are a Big Ass Threat. Sonnet has a lump on the head."

Osric trumps Benedict right about then. Collaboration, Lion of Winter style:

Benedict to Osric: "Finndo's arms have been broken, so have Sybil's, Cyrus's are merely randomly broken. Sonnet's out."
Finndo: "Selm is a Horrible Vicious Man who has been acting against us in every way. We hate Selm."
Osric looks dubious.
Benedict: "Benedict has a look of conviction - but there's no conviction when he says that."
Jarrod: "You know, I don't think you can lie to Osric at all successfully."
Osric: "Very well, then."

Pre-arrangements:

Benedict: "But you apparently like him right now; are you going to stay where you are?"
Osric: "Perhaps that would be best. I will do what I can to help you - you may wish to take me prisoner if you want."
Benedict: "Now or later?"
Osric: "Give me some time."

Just double checking, you understand:

Benedict: "Is Osrat working with them?"
Osric nods.
Finndo: "I assume that is Osric."
Benedict: "Yes."

No one shrugs off an Amberite under house arrest heading for the Pattern:

Finndo: "Can he get to the Pattern or anywhere near it?"
Benedict brings him into the contact.
Rob: "Everyone shares in the pain a little."
Osric: "I can't get there without being seen."

For his own health, of course:

Finndo: "Do you still have your trump of the hall?"
Osric: "Yes."
Finndo: "If so then you have a means of leaving your room without being seen."
Osric: "Oh yes, but I am 'guarded'."

A sensible precaution:

Finndo: "No, no, perfectly understood. If I knew where Quinn had my cards, I could get them back or I could dispose of them."
Osric: "He's nothing if not creative."
Finndo: "They are hidden."

Stubborn, pigheaded, obstinate man:

Finndo: "Where's Sybil?"
Deborah: "Out of character, leave Sybil there. She can't walk; she's not an asset."
Rob: "Too bad."
Deborah: "What are you going to do, throw her over the shoulder and tell the Fae not to scream?"
Rob: "Yes."

Warm fuzzies with all your bones broken:

Deborah: She's not family; you have no duty; she's not an asset; leave her."
Scott: "If he did leave her there, Benedict would go back for her."
Deborah: "That's sweet! I'm touched."

Looking on the bright side:

Shai: "Poor Sybil."
Deborah: "That's allright; I take it as a compliment they felt the need."

Finndo is lying so that Osric has plausible deniability and, of course, in case they're being spied on or Osric is, well, Osrat or working for Cymnea or eight other possibilities. Xerox the trumps, Quinn. Go right ahead:

GM to Cyrus: "Your jaw doesn't work right and you're in pain - you do have your boots."
Finndo: "Hello. Here's the question: where am I drawing? And the answer that jumps to mind is Kinko's."
Osric: "If you like."

And beneath the obvious lie is the more sensible truth (since there isn't an existing trump, Cymnea and the other Children of Nod can't just track Finndo down via the cards they took from him). Sensible precautions:

Rob: "Finndo actually draws a place he does not have an existing trump of."

Like a sack o' potatoes:

Osric: "I have some things I need to do; call me after you're out."
Deborah: "Are you getting Sybil?"
Rob: "Oh yeah. Unconscious?"
Deborah: "I think that's a very good idea."
Sonnet: "Give me Sybil..."

Psychedelic fast food:

GM: "It's McDonald's."
Jarrod: "We love to see you smile!"
GM: "You see some people checking their milkshakes..."

Cause right about then we needed it:

Rob: "In this shadow, Finndo's a very rich man -"
GM: "You own the fucking Kinko's."
Rob: "And that's enough to get us some decent medical care."

My boyfriend's back and there's gonna be trouble:

Shai: "Yes, Sonnet is sobered up quite nicely when she wakes up. Let's see, Selm keeping her from getting all her limbs broken, Benedict standing over her."

Osric, still up in his room, pokes and prods at the Pattern to figure out what seemed amiss to him. As I was walking up the stair I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today; I wish, I wish he'd stay away:

Osric: "Pattern?"
GM: "Something is trying to convince you it's here."
Jarrod: "I try to shadowwalk in my room."
GM: "Can't. When you do that for a moment you thought you saw someone in the mirror that wasn't you. Old guy, little hunched. Brief visual impression."

Osric meets Crocodile Dundee:

Osric: "I'll keep pacing and see if I can catch another view."
GM shakes his head: "You think he knows he's been spotted."
Osric: "Then he'll turn right back to the mirror and wave."

That moment of pan to the forehead realization:

GM: "It's you; why are you waving to yourself?"
Osric: Not in the mood to chat?
GM: "Nothing. Apparently not."
Deborah: "I'm really going to be pissed if we never made it back."

A man's vistas are best kept wide open:

Osric: "Shame. I was really looking forward to meeting you."
GM: "Nothing. Who does Osric think it is?"
Osric: "One of two people, Tarraign -"
GM: "Not Tarraign."
Osric: "Or it could be Dworkin for that matter. All of which he was looking forward to meeting."

And off in shadow, the broken - literally - party recoups and regroups. One of the convenient things about Shadow is that time does not run consistently throughout. In other words, some shadows will have a year pass while a day goes by in Amber and in others a day passes in the Shadow and a year goes by in Amber. The first is called a fast time shadow and is a classic fallback mechanism for Amber players (I go off to a fast time shadow, grow up, start an army, and learn all about genetic manipulation...). Falling back ten to punt in the football game of thrones:

GM: "You guys have gotten your medical care and so forth."
Rob: "Emergency medical care; we're going to the fast time."
GM: "When people's bones are set, you're given drugs."
Rob: "When everyone is conscious, there's a briefing."

Notes are compared. None of it looks good. Surprise, surprise:

Cyrus: "In case it wasn't obvious, your supporters have been rounded up. Sejak is dead along with most of his men. That wasn't Lucan."
Finndo: "That is good news; I won't have to kill him."
Sonnet: "It was Osrat. Someone with a white mailed fist."
Finndo: "That is consistent. The additional data that we have is somewhat limited -"
Cyrus: "They effectively set traps for us."

Good, from a logistical standpoint. Bad, from a logistical standpoint. Very consistent for the game:

Finndo: "They knew to be watching my quarters and that was my error. They also