Session 20: Sonnet's Funeral // "Smoke and Mirrors"

Session 20 returns us to our regularly scheduled format of pain. Very little time has passed since session 18 - very little indeed. One might say that Session 19 existed only in Sonnet's mind, with the exception of the part where she lived and had her body and face rebuilt as a plain faced, practically built lass from Draconis - oh, yes, and Finndo hired her back on as his secretary. The rest of us know about _none_ of this. Typical Amberites.

To the knowledge of the party, Sonnet's death has just been announced by Finndo; Rast has been killed mere hours beforehand with ruthless efficiency by Karm. This was not Karm's fault: he was possessed by Quinn.

It's been an eventful time; we just got back from retrieving Oberon's only-mostly-dead-brother Malachai from beyond the edges of reality to assist in the battle against Dworkin (a god whose grudge against Oberon is entirely plausible to his children, namely that Oberon stole the Pattern from Dworkin, its creator). Oberon congratulated us, stuck around long enough to offer Cyrus the admiralty and confirm his parentage (and refuse to inform Cyrus of the identity of his mother), bind Sybil with her true name and inform her of _her_ parentage (which she, not unreasonable, called a bald faced lie), and to collude with Sonnet to marry her to Osric (whom he has not informed of this and whom he specifically told Sonnet not to tell) - oh, yes, and to hear about Rast's murder. Oberon left in the minutes between Rast's death and Sonnet's murder.

And we pick up from there. If you're gasping for breath, imagine the soggy, muddy, amorphous, nail-filled shoes in which the players find themselves.

As always:
Players and Characters:

Lydia ........ Cyrus
Shai ........ Sonnet
Scott ........ Benedict
Jarrod ....... Osric
Rob ........ Finndo
Deborah ...... Sybil
Fred ........ GM

Stat line up:

-2 Poor
-1 Mediocre
0 Average
1 Fair
2 Good
3 Great
4 Superb
5 Epic
6 Legendary
7 Legendary +1
etc.

Remember that he said this:

GM: "We have a week before Sonnet's funeral. Some of you have expressed what you have in mind to do. I will ask you to remind me because I have my bullet point version which is fairly abbreviated. Do not hesitate to bring up other things if it looks like there's a place for it in what's going on."

The GM goes around the room allowing each player to start in on the things they wanted to accomplish in that week between murder and funeral. Finndo starts out with the cycle of life. Sunrise, Sunset:

Rob: "From Finndo's perspective, the three short term things are arrangements for the wedding- "
GM: "Funeral."
Rob: "Funeral, sorry, making sure Rast's men are mad at the right people and the code [on the note that Selm left wrapped around the sword that killed Sonnet and pinned her corpse to her own door]."

Sybil does not understand the concept of mortality. She views death as this transitionary thing before you come back to life; the Fae don't really die until you invoke a lot of cold iron and Sybil has never seen that done. So she's going about her business waiting for Sonnet to show back up, which should be any day now (just ask her). To everyone else, death is not to be mocked. Irresistible forces and immovable values:

Deborah: "Sybil is going about her regular schedule - having lunch in Sonnet's room, place setting for Sonnet, waiting for her to come back. Fresh flowers. The usual."
Scott stares at Deborah with a thoroughly indignant expression.

Benedict storms into Sonnet's room, where Sybil is having her usual daily lunch. When 'you dumbass' should look in a mirror:

Benedict: "What are you DOING?"
Sybil looks up: "What?"
Benedict: "What are you DOING?"
Sybil blinks, looks around her set table, looks up at Benedict: "... having lunch."
Benedict snarls: "She's not coming BACK."
Sybil, soothingly, as if to a small child: "Just be patient."

Condescend to the guy with the temper. Next bright plan, please:

Benedict raises his voice: "You don't understand death, do you? She's not coming BACK."
Sybil squints at him: "Oh. Ooooohkay, Prince Benedict. Suuuure."

Foot. Meet mouth. Seek throat. Shove for thigh:

Benedict: "Get out."
Sybil: "/What?/"
Benedict: "GET OUT."
Sybil humors him: "Did you want to join us for lunch?"

Benedict hauls Sybil out by the scruff of her neck and throws the flowers after her. Give her an inch, watch her miss by a mile or ten:

Sybil: "Sure you don't want to go work out some of that aggression or... something? Do you want me to let her know you don't like flowers now?"

The GM keeps on going around the room, player chaos notwithstanding. He sums up, only to run into inevitable player wit:

Benedict: "Benedict is interviewing guards."
GM: "Rilga is riding a horse out of Draconis. I don't know what Sybil's up to. Osric's plans are kind of shadowy -"
Osric: "I think I have one here. It's in purple. Kind of shadowy."

Bran Brazil is an impregnable fortress carved out of a mountain. It has only been taken by treachery (specifically, Karm's treachery) and only the once. As a result, Oberon has historically placed Bran Brazil in the hands of a commander who is not as sharp or competent as Oberon. Dubious Honors:

Finndo: "In fact, Cyrus, you've got command. You are the interim commander of Bran Brazil."
Deborah to Lydia: "That's not necessarily a compliment."

The trouble with putting the gold eggs in the gold basket - no gold, stupid, trustworthy henchmen:

GM to Finndo: "You're not sure you want to keep him there long term."
Finndo: "The problem with Bran Brazil is that you need someone there [that's] that trustworthy."
Deborah: "Or that stupid."
Shai: "Or both."

Benedict has taken up a hobby best described as Seek and Destroy. Specifically, he has in mind Sonnet's killer. Everyone leaves a trace - particularly ninjas:

GM: "Benedict, you are able to reconstruct a few key points about the fight. It definitely occurred in 3D - there was some leaping about."
Shai: "Footprints on the ceiling."
Benedict: "Sonnet's."

Putting it mildly:

GM: "Yeah. The landing from it was not gentle -"
Jarrod: "She rolled a -4."
Shai: "And she was a bit emotional at the time."

Benedict is still investigating the scene of the fight that killed Sonnet. Feeling... mapped:

GM: "And the door locked itself as soon as she came into the room. You haven't had time to really take apart the mechanism but you aren't even sure it is a new installation; it could have been done weeks in advance."
Shai: "Or used."

Almost only counts in hand grenades, horseshoes, nuclear weapons and duels to the death:

Benedict: "This all gets written up and sent into Finndo. And Osric."
GM: "She did seem to hold up for at least half a minute. She held her own."
Lydia: "And then she got skewered."

When reputation works against you:

Benedict: "And for signs of entry; where did he come from? I assume the guards are like 'huh don't know how he got there?'."
GM: "She's Karm's daughter; you don't want to get too close to the door, man!"

Princess Bride, that ultimate reference for swashbuckling fans of derring do:

GM: "Even with a Superb, you can't reconstruct blow by blow the fight..."
Scott and Rob: "There was a great duel here..."
Rob: "Both masters..."

The players were discussing the mad they have on for Sonnet's murderer - and the other people responsible, namely the Children of Nod and most specifically Cymnea, who provided the transportation to Selm. Eddie Izzard, a comedian in some favor with the players at the moment, described Hitler in terms of crossing boundaries: "They kill off their own people, and we're more sort of fine with that. Hitler, he killed people next door. Oh, stuuuupid _maaan_." Eddie Izzard needs to do a skit on Cymnea, or perhaps Jarrod has already summed it up:

Scott: "Yeah. Benedict might have let Mom go before Sonnet's death, but now..."
Jarrod, using an Eddie Izzard voice: "Stuuuuuuupid maaan."

Karm, following the murder of Rast, has been imprisoned in a dungeon cell and placed under guard. This is as much for Karm's protection as anything else; the man's enemies are legion. So it was that the man learned of his beloved daughter's death while sitting in a cell. Life is not looking up:

GM to Finndo: "Pretty shortly after all this, Karm asks his guard to convey to you a request for an individual conversation. You enter Karm's cell, Finndo. He has a small oil lamp burning that has a stack of letters next to it. He says, "I'd like to have these sent."
Finndo: "Easily arranged."
Karm: "They involve preparations for my daughter's funeral. There's some, ah, people a little closer to home who do not think of me unfavorably who will be able to put her to rest on family grounds."
Finndo: "Understood."
Karm: "One of these letters is a call for them to come here to the castle; it will probably take them only a few days to arrive."
Finndo: "I will ensure fast delivery."

I have rarely felt so much sympathy for a ruthless, expedient traitor:

Karm: "I just didn't want you to pursue a state funeral."
Finndo: "Understood."
GM: "He's very somber; you have not seen him this quiet in some time. It does look like he's not been getting sleep."

Careful who you step on on the way up the ladder; they'll remember you on your way down:

Finndo: "Is there anything else? I think we're close enough that we will be able to have you attend safely; I am in the process of convincing Rast's men exactly who their ire should be directed at."
Karm: "A week of my freedom is a small thing to set aside."
Finndo: "Excellent. Is all well down here; have they been treating you properly?"
Karm: "Can't say as I've had much company."

Finndo takes the letters from Karm. The future of Amber:

Rob: "Pop to Kinko's, copy them [the letters arranging the funeral], then I can mail them, and read the photocopies at my leisure."
Lydia: "You're such a bastard."
Rob: "Yes. Your point?"

Rast had men who will want to avenge his death at Karm's hands. Finndo has to cut them off at the pass. The downside of initiative:

GM to Finndo: "We'll assume that's not the first day because you want to get word into Rast's men's ears before they start forming plans and so forth."

The Queen is not a traitor, really - but we'll take her, dead or alive:

Finndo: "The completely not officially put forward by the Crown by any stretch of the imagination [offer of reward] is up in the mid six figures."

Crossing that Rubicon, several times, and then running a boat up and down it, just to be thorough:

Lydia: "Do you really want Mom dead?"
Rob looks at her very very flatly. "I don't care."

Ever get the feeling that cryptic is a personal style statement?

Deborah: "Rob, I don't know how to interpret that I don't care."
Rob: "Good."
Deborah: "Wha - ?"

Finndo has to spin Rast's men and steer that urge for revenge. The best spin is done with the truth:

Finndo: "I am going to quite explicitly explain to them [Rast's men] the sorceries afoot on Quinn's part; I will regale them with tales of necromancy and doings late at night and I will then explain what Quinn did to Karm and finally that it was Quinn who killed Rast and that I mean to have men I can count on when it comes time to call that due."
GM: "These are stern folks whose faces don't show responses that much but you're pretty sure you got them."

The pragmatic side of justice:

Finndo explains: "Rast was one of Oberon's best generals and these are Rast's men who are serious hard cases so we don't want them feeling like they want to kill Karm."

Speaking of the target Finndo left out of mentioning to Rast's men, Selm is definitely the man who slid the final thrust home, so to speak. The value of being organized:

Finndo: "Selm. I don't want anyone dead. Well, there's a list of people I want dead but Selm is not on it."
Cyrus: "Allright. I definitely have a list."

Differences in perspective:

Finndo: "I am more interested in solving problems."
Cyrus: "Dead solves many problems."

Agreeing to disagree:

Finndo: "Yes it does and it is a perfectly fine solution."
Cyrus: "Allright."
Finndo: "It is merely not the only solution and I am open to other solutions."
Cyrus suggests: "Painful bone breaking."
Finndo: "That is an excellent one; ultimately losing them in Shadow is another."

I know. You know I know. I know you know I know. We know Henry knows, and Henry knows we know it. We're a knowledgable family (from the Lion in Winter):

Cyrus: "Do you consider Selm a traitor or merely playing a very dangerous game?"
Finndo: "I don't know. I consider Selm the only one who can play this game."
Cyrus: "He is setting himself up to be the winner no matter what."
Finndo: "Oh, absolutely. As such we pursue him as we would anyone else but we keep a spare eye open. Selm could be counting on us to expect him to be game playing."
Shai: "Games within games within games."

Thank you. We do care about your call. Please hold while we find time to deal with your new and unexpected form of suicide:

Deborah: "I am going to do something that OOC I consider remarkably stupid."
GM: "I am shocked beyond words."
Deborah: "Sybil is going to go visit Karm."
GM: "Finndo, is she allowed?"
Rob sighs: "Yes."
GM: "I'll get back to you"

Sybil, with the best of intentions and no real concept of grief or mortality, pays Karm a visit to check on how he's doing and if he needs anything from his daughter. I /did/ say it was remarkably stupid:

Sybil inquires of Karm: "Do you want me to send Sonnet down when she gets back?"
GM stares: "What the fuck do I say to that?"

Sybil goes on to helpfully reassure Karm that Sonnet will be with him soon (she'll be back from the dead any day now, she's just taking a bit of a while). Blackouts can be /kind/:

GM takes a slow breath.
Deborah buries her face in her hands.
GM: "Allright. You don't know what happened."

It seems that Karm shoved his chair back, lifted Sybil up, and threw her against the wall. Rejection, the efficient way:

Karm growls: "I have a feeling I will be accompanying my daughter soon, but don't threaten me."
Sybil: "What?"
Karm to the Guard: "I'm done with her now." He throws her towards the cell door.

Word gets around to Finndo that Sybil ticked Karm off thoroughly; Finndo corners Sybil in order to have a Talk. Subjective reality, extreme example:

Finndo: "I hear you've had a bit of a run-in with Karm."
Sybil: "I don't think he's handling this very well."

Finndo requires a run down of her conversation with Karm. Sybil's reply lacks a certain grasp of the pertinent details:

Sybil: "Something about his accompanying his daughter -- something about me not threatening him.  He asked me for a fire elemental, I said I couldn't give it to him without your approval, then there was some small talk, and then I was being thrown around the room."
Finndo: "The small talk.  Before you were being thrown around the room."
Sybil: "Well, being thrown around the room clouded my impression of that."
Finndo: "Understood."
Sybil: "He really didn't want you to know about the fire elemental."

Lots of lit wicks and one dead candle. Pity the candle doesn't see it that way:

Finndo: "Why do you think Sonnet is going to come back?"
Sybil: "Because that's what you do when you're dead."
Finndo: "You would be staggeringly wrong."
Sybil succeeds in looking very confused.

Much grief. Limited patience:

Finndo: "Off in faerie land, where things are brightly colored and things rhyme, death may be just be something that happens after breakfast, and you come back."
Sybil: "After lunch, hopefully."
Finndo, firmly: "No.  That does not happen here."

Setting up the shot (who doesn't see this coming?):

Finndo: "Do you like kittens?"
Sybil: "Kittens?"
Finndo: "Do you see this cute kitten?  Here, play with the kitten a little bit. Take care of it for a day. Carry it around with you everywhere you go."

Sybil humors Finndo by playing with the kitten all day; it's a very cute kitten and by the end of the day, Sybil does indeed adore it (other than having a tiny water elemental spritz it when it is bad). The next day, Finndo calls Sybil back for the execution, so to speak. Straight through the goalie's legs:

Finndo: "Did you like the kitten?"
Sybil bubbles: "The kitten's absolutely adorable! He chased my elementals and he's fuzzy and not very organized, and I'm afraid Benedict wasn't in the mood, but _I_ think he would have done him some good."
Finndo: "Finndo matter of factly snaps the kitten's neck."

And _thank you_ for breaking my character:

Finndo: "Keep it [the kitten corpse, complete with the pink bow Sybil tied on its now broken neck] with you for a day. If you're right, you should be playing with the kitten by this time tomorrow."
Sybil stares at him: "Of course."
Finndo: "If I'm right, we're in for an interesting conversation."

Meanwhile, the nuns of the convent of the Lady by the Veronelle arrive to carry out Karm's wishes. They take charge of Sonnet's casket, levitating it. They walk off with it apparently magnetically attached to their hands. There are, it seems, constants in the universe:

Rob: "Finndo looks at his brothers like 'did either of you have any idea that would happen'?"
Jarrod: "Like Osric would tell you if he did."

Sonnet's body is going to be sent down the river on a floating pyre - presumably she is being sent to the Lady. Because what we need is _another_ pissed off force of the universe:

Deborah stares at Shai. "Oh shit."
Shai grins.
Deborah: "They're giving a false gift to the Lady."
Shai giggles, "YES."
Deborah: "I really really hope she's very very dormant."

Sonnet had herself made over into another woman, whom she has named Rilga. Brief luxuries:

GM: "Rilga, you're probably halfway there. You're getting a trump call; only one person that could be."

Oh, right, THAT nunnery:

Rilga: "Howdy."
Finndo: "I am discovering more and more curious things about Andros and I'm hoping you could shed some light on them."
Rilga: "Okay."
Finndo: "Tell me about the nunnery."
Rilga: "It's a nunnery. It has nuns there."
Finndo: "Right. Tell me about the nunnery that seems to have sorcery on hand."
Rilga: "Oh, right -"

And knowing is half the battle:

Finndo: "Oh, they're floating your body down the river and setting it on fire."
Rilga: "They're floating - you mean the Veronelle, right?"
Finndo: "Right."
Rilga: "When is this happening?"
Finndo: "Three days. There is so much more going on here than I am aware of, isn't there?"

One would think the man had been burned before:

Rilga: "I don't know. I /think/ it'll be allright."
Finndo: "... buuuuut?"

These womenfolk and their subjective realities and fairy tales:

Rilga: "It depends on how much of this you believe is real or not."
Finndo: "How much of what I think is real?"
Rilga: "You know, like combating the darkness and all that stuff."

A boy blusters. A man can ask for help:

Finndo: "Pretend here for a moment that I have no idea what you're talking about."
Rilga: "Because that would be the case, wouldn't it?"
Finndo: "Indeed."
Scott, helpfully, to Shai: "Oh yes and Benedict rode out with them. Haven't mentioned that part yet."

Is it tacky for Satan to show up at Holy Mother Church affairs? Or less than gracious not to send him an invitation?

Rilga explains: "How the lord and the lady helped civilize Andros and together they drove back the pale gods and the dark gods and the pale gods are much like Sybil and then there's the whole driving back the darkness bit -"
Finndo: "The darkness."
Rilga: "Right. That darkness."
Finndo: "So how much of a problem would it be that the Lord of Eagle's Peak is riding out with them."
Rilga: "So. Uh. Oh."

Sorry, boss, was that important?

Finndo: "I sense that there's a whole lot that you're not telling me about this?"
Rilga: "Well, it wasn't that relevant."
Finndo: "It is now."

Ah, temptation follows you to the grave:

Rilga: "Do you want me there, or do you want me to turn around and go back?"
Finndo: "I am trusting your judgement on this."
Rilga: "It wouldn't make sense for me to turn up there! I don't know how much I could do, except save Benedict's ass without him... knowing... it..."

Juggling those arrows of conscience:

Finndo: "I would very much like to be briefed on this at some point."
Rilga: "There should be a diary in Bran Brazil. Prince Gellar's diary. I've already told Benedict about this - no. No. No, I haven't, because I was supposed to kill him. But I gave him a note, so Benedict should be aware!!"

Hey, at least the pointy hair admits it!

Finndo: "It's an old Andros religious thing; they're sending her body back to the... Lady or something."
Cyrus: "Well, that's nice for her."
Finndo: "When you get back to Bran Brazil, there's a diary, Prince Gellar's to look up and read."
Cyrus: "Why am I doing that?"
Finndo: "I don't know."

Cyrus staffed Bran Brazil with the Knights of the Mountain (those men that survived the battle against the floating island sent against Amber by Dworkin were made peers of the realm and placed under the banner of the Knights of the Mountain.) The GIGO principle in motion:

Cyrus: "I check that the fortress has not been overrun in my absence."
GM: "No, but..."
Deborah: "Oh dear god."
GM: "The Knights of the Mountain are not the tight militarists that Rast's men are. Keep in mind, they're /rogues/. And while they know that things should not go missing, their methods are pretty unconventional."

Shai, in that rush of player contributions to make up the world of Kings, wrote up Andros. Sometimes, you just call in the originator because it is That Fucked Up:

Cyrus: "I check out the library and look for the book [Gellar's diary] as described."
GM: "This is where Shai gets to be the GM for a bit."
Shai: "Well, it's a man's diary. The guy wrote of himself like he was in a fantasy novel, epic and tragic and all that good shit. Towards the end, which was written during the dark days of the invasion [of Oberon into the old Kingdom of Andros], there was a lot of internal wrestling with himself about the dark powers around Eagle's Peak. The Knights of Andros had been fighting the darkness for ages - and they'd been keeping guard on Eagle's Peak and they figured that Oberon would try to use that power and who better to have that power than someone who knew about it? So the last words are him going off to Eagle's Peak. "

Not the best bedtime reading for a man of Cyrus' temperament:

Cyrus: "I trump Finndo. I have a very depressing diary for you. Why do you want this?"
Finndo: "Because it may tell us something about Eagle's Peak."
Cyrus: "Right. People who go there get devoured by the Dark Powers."
Shai: "DUMBASS."

It only takes a little English:

Finndo: "Among other things, this is less pressing, but if you should find anything about battling the Lords of the Pale - "
Cyrus: "Why do we want to combat the Lords of the Pale?"
Finndo: "Because I think Osrat is one of them."
Cyrus: "How excellent."
Finndo: "Indeed."

Violence with knowledge!

Cyrus: "I shall get right on that."
Scott: "It's great to see Cyrus have enthusiasm about a task."

There's the public library, and then apparently the library in Finndo's safe:

Rob: "And Kinko's. "
GM: "Why Kinko's?"
Rob: "Making a copy of the diary. "
GM: "You have one."
Rob: "Keep that with the /safe/ records."

And he slew X who slew Y who resented X for Z who slew Y's great grand uncle's second wife's child by her first husband, and a debt of honor was called, and there went forth a might host...

GM: "Cyrus. Lots of reading."
Cyrus: "Lords of the Pale."
GM: "It's in there but it's all in terms of ancient battles."

Just planning ahead:

Lydia: "Oh, excellent! If Karm wants to commit suicide, now we know how."
GM: "Send him after what?"
Rob: "Osrat."
GM: "You want to send Karm after Osrat?"
Rob: "No. But if we need to."

And back to Sybil, who has been dutifully hauling about the decaying corpse of her kitten. She has taken to carrying it in a sealed box, mind you:

GM: "So you're dragging the kitten along with you - a dead and increasingly stinky kitten."
Shai: "And a cute bow."

Life is a funny thing:

Jarrod: "Suddenly the Amber countryside is a bad place for kittens to be."

Finndo rams home to Sybil that death is permanent and unpleasant and not something to dismiss. Sybil does the math and counts up all the people she has killed, and all the unhesitating killing the party has done. Disregarding the psychopaths and sociopaths and homicidal maniacs and Cyrus:

Finndo: "Perhaps you've noticed there is very little cheerful killing."
Sybil objects: "But Cyrus -!"
Jarrod lifts a finger: "Point of order."

Benedict meets Rilga, who is following the funeral. Objects in another's shadow still in their own right cast shadows, too:

Benedict: "You're attending the funeral."
Rilga: "Yes, my lord."
Benedict: "All these people?"
Rilga: "Yes, my lord. Word of the lady's death has spread far in Andros."

Lie, lie, lie:

Benedict: "You're Draconic."
Rilga: "Yes my lord."
Benedict: "Why are you here?"
Rilga: "I was travelling to Amber on a royal summons and I caught word of the funeral."

Rilga does in fact have a summons from Sonnet (fancy that) which she offers to Prince Benedict as proof. The summons is dated two years ago. Excuses:

Benedict: "You're a bit late."
Rilga: "My lord, I have been traveling. It just found me a few weeks ago."

Fancy that:

Rilga: "It sought for me in Garcia, but since Garcia is no longer there [having been obliterated by the falling island in session 16], it caught up with me elsewhere."
Benedict: "I see. And you know who I am?"
Rilga: "I have some suspicions, my lord. Your reputation has spread far in Draconis."

Every now and then, the fact that Amber is chauvinist slips in:

Shai: "She looks at you quite directly."
GM: "Yeah. It's definitely one of those Draconic women. She's got the - "
Benedict: "Forward."
GM: " - non shy thing."

Sonnet took a body part from everyone around her to make up Rilga. She took Benedict's damned hazel eyes. Not used to being the pretty boy:

Shai: "Striking eyes. They look familiar."
GM: "No, they don't."
Scott: "Benedict doesn't look often in his own eyes."

And the cycle starts up all over again - Lancelot and Guinevere and Arthur, with a few sharp and unfortunate twists:

Benedict: "Very well, then. I shall accompany you back to Amber once the funeral is complete."
Rilga: "As you wish, my lord."
GM snickers: "Right. So."

Now why is that, I wonder?

Jarrod: "While they're about half a day out, Osric steps out from behind a tree because he doesn't want Benedict out there unsupervised."

Guilt and paranoia make a beautiful team:

Shai: "Sonnet's thinking that was easier than I thought. That was too easy. Oh my God he's hurting."

Eerie:

GM: "And the procession is moving its way towards this group. Benedict, you get plenty of chances. These women are traveling, the globe of light still goes where they go [enveloping the casket], and a similar incantation for the levitation; you haven't seen them do anything."

They've traveled this far in the funeral's wake and they still haven't asked her name:

Benedict: "Brother."
Finndo: "Brother, you are well I hope."
Benedict: "This one wants to see you."
Finndo: "Ma'am, this can wait till after the funeral."
Rilga: "Yes, my lord. "

When Finndo finally got the idea of death through Sybil's preconceptions, she coped... poorly. It involved a lot of weeping and running away and keening and did I mention the carrying on? Interpreting the banshee:

Cyrus: "Ah. Finndo. I take it you convinced her that she [Sonnet] was not coming back."
Finndo, drily: "Yes, this has been an educational stretch for Sybil."

Consolation is a limited commodity:

Cyrus to Sybil: "I find that whiskey helps."
Sybil: "Whiskey? Sniffle."
Finndo: "NO."

Because a drunk Town (the major fire elemental) sounds like a grand idea:

Lydia: "Cyrus has a hip flask. He passes it around,"
Finndo: "It does not reach Sybil. Alcoholic Sybil is not something we need."
Jarrod: "Yeah, she can only summon drunk elementals."

Murphy's law:

Finndo: "Finndo's thinking, I really hope nothing magical happens in the middle of this lake. Cause really the body's identical down to a genetic level. But..."

Each man copes in his own special way:

Lydia: "I'm surprised Karm isn't suicidal."
Rob: "No, because Karm is _hom_icidal."

The passion lost, taken, stolen / The dreams we had and we shared, shattered, broken / With sweet breath you'd come to soothe me / But I so blind and filled with fear / Would send you away from me / There's no hope in regretting now / All the pain that we could not see:

GM: "The casket is brought over, past Karm. Karm walks over, stands by it, hands down upon the casket, contemplating. It's very quiet. The casket is then carried and placed upon the raft and that's when the women start chanting and I'm going to use this song cause it seems right." He cues Sarah McLaughlin's "Mercy".

Possibly it's just a family trait:

Finndo: "Finndo is putting on a show and occasionally trying to make a guess at which person in the crowd is Selm."
GM: "Could be one of the commoners."
Jarrod: "Gosh you're paranoid."
Lydia: "I too am looking for Selm because I am also that paranoid."

Finndo is scrying for the warning signs of a power known as the Lady (since we're feeding it a false gift). Less than heartening:

Finndo: "Finndo keeps his hand on the Empress."
GM: "Yeah, it's thrumming."

Open up wide for Daddy, that's a sweetheart:

Cyrus: "We're feeding Sonnet to the lake."
Jarrod: "It's hungry."

Benedict, the Master of Eagle's Peak, and Sybil, a Fae, are present at the funeral. Insult to injury:

Cyrus: "Are we sure that that's a good idea?"
Finndo: "No. It fights both the Fae and Eagle's Peak."
Cyrus: "What excellent representatives we have."
Finndo: "... Yes."

Cutting disaster off at the pass:

GM: "The Mother is occasionally looking towards Benedict."
Finndo: "Drift that way."
GM: "You get close to her in time to hear her say to Karm, "Please excuse me; I am tired and I'm retiring; this has taken quite a bit out of me." And turns towards you."

Appropriate:

Finndo: "Pleasant conversation?"
Karm: "Thought it was appropriate to thank her."
Finndo: "It's as good a way to go as I can imagine."
Karm: "I think Sonnet would have appreciated it."
Finndo: "Don't doubt it."

Can someone explain manly silence to me?

Rob: "And Finndo will just observe manly silence."

Still watching for Selm:

GM: "Allright. With the funeral concluding, the nuns that were even vaguely near Benedict are the first to head back into the nunnery. They all just kind of fade in time. There was, some distance off, a military camp which you know have been stationed there some time; they had a few riders some distance off just watching."
Rob: "That's where he was."

Well, since you put it that way, probably take bets:

Finndo: "Finndo is going to ask Benedict to keep an eye on Sybil. And he goes into the nunnery."
GM: "What are the rest of you doing while Finndo goes off to become a nun?"

Penalty hold for being male:

GM: "You're in the nunnery; there are a lot of closed doors and some women around the open area around the fountain."
Finndo: "I will wait politely."
GM: "One of them in time comes over to you."
Nun: "May I help you?"
Finndo: "Is the Mother well enough to receive briefly?"
Nun: "I can inquire but I am not directly aware." She goes away; a few minutes pass.

Isolate the most likely to explode basket - and then watch that basket:

Finndo: "What is Osric doing?"
Jarrod: "Keeping an eye on Benedict."

When idle, default to suspicious:

Cyrus: "I am keeping an eye on Rilga."
Shai: "Do I notice?"
GM: "In time."
Shai: "He's married, so I'm safe."

New dog, old tricks:

Rob: "Old habits die hard."
Shai: "Rilga's having trouble thinking of herself as Rilga."
Scott: "Noticed that."

Not as practiced at the ominous hints:

Nun: "It appears that she [the Mother Superior] is still exhausted."
Finndo: "I get the sense that there is much about this funeral that was quite trying."
Nun: "I'm not sure I understand what you mean."

Bribe or payoff?

Finndo: "Just as well. If you could leave this with her," and he hands her a bag of money, "At the very least this has cost you a boat."
Nun: "Your donation is accepted with gratitude."
Jarrod: "Here is your receipt."
Finndo: "Please inform the mother that I would be delighted to speak with her later, primarily concerning the history of Andros and certain landmarks."

Finndo emerges from the convent to be complained at. Sybil's ongoing metaphor for vengeance is 'burning the fucking town down', adopted from Finndo's approach to two attempts on his life in Tanauril. Speaking of old habits:

Sybil: "That's it? That's all she [Sonnet] gets?"
Finndo: "That's what Karm had in mind."
Sybil frowns.
Finndo: "What did you have in mind?"
Sybil: "Burn the fucking town down."
Finndo assures her: "Oh, that's coming."

EvilCorp does a thorough job, thank you:

Lydia: "Do all the composite features of Rilga make her seem familiar?"
GM: "Ehn, you might have a 'have I met you before?'"
Lydia: "But not really."
GM: "She definitely has features consistent with Draconis."

Finndo and Rilga play out the scene of apparently meeting for the first time. Hey, good help is hard to find:

Finndo: "I suspect - ah. That. Two years, eh?"
Rilga: "Yes my lord."
Finndo: "Excellent timing. You are educated?"
Rilga: "To some extent."
Finndo: "Literate?"
Rilga: "To some extent. I am a physician, my lord."
Finndo: "Join me on the way back; I need to consult my records."

Trust. Or the lack of it:

Jarrod: "Assuming Benedict does not object to it, Osric is going to be on him like white on rice until he is far from Eagle's Peak."

A new approach:

Rob: "Finndo is artfully going to arrange to break his arm."
GM: "Whose arm?"
Rob: "His [Finndo's] arm."

Selfish man:

Jarrod: "You could let /me/ do it [break Finndo's arm]."
Rob: "No, he's going to break it at such a time when she [Rilga] is on hand to do something about it."

You go ahead. Waaaaaaay ahead:

Finndo: "My internal wager is that Ildros is the most likely place for them [Cymnea and crew] to hide, but I have not had time to investigate."
Cyrus: "Should I wait until we can all investigate, or should I simply go?"
Finndo: "Why don't you go? If you run into anything there, we can get there in great speed."

A number of sessions back, Tarraign - Oberon's smartest Lord - was tricked into stasis by Quinn. He's been waiting all this time to be fixed, which hasn't happened in between being told such helpful things as 'Selm. Heir to Andros. Fix it.' and 'Large island. Duck.' and 'Malachai. Dead brother. Beyond the end of reality. Go fetch.'. Turnabout and fair play:

Lydia: "We haven't figured out how to unstone Tarraign yet."
Jarrod: "Dad. Fix it."
Scott: "Yeah."

Nomenclature is not what it used to be:

GM to Benedict and Osric: "You two are in Bran Brazil; you're researching Eagle's Peak. (It takes you not too long to figure out the dark mountain they keep referring to is Eagle's Peak; Eagle's Peak is a relatively new appellation."
Shai: "Mount of Doom, mount of darkness, stay the hell away mountain."
GM: "Send an eagle over it, name it eagle's peak -"
Jarrod: "Which [the eagle] then died immediately."

We never said being a knight was a party career:

GM: "The work that most directly discusses the darkness is the diary that you've read. There's occasional talk of fighting back the forces of darkness."
Scott: "How did they do that?"
GM: "Through faith and clarity of spirit."
Shai: "Especially clarity of spirit. All those pesky abstinent knights."

Some things shouldn't need explaining, by way of evolutionary culling:

GM: "A lot of this seems to be 'okay this story has been handed down through 7 or 8 authors and this is the current version' of it. There's not a lot of practical suggestions."
Shai: "When you see a dark god..."

Cyrus and Osric finish researching Eagle's Peak and Cyrus also looks into Ildros, borrowing Osric's enormous thesis on the topic. Well, that wasn't exactly unexpected:

GM: "Cyrus. You've got the book. You're heading towards the courtyard. You turn down a particular hall and there are mirrors on both sides of you stretching as far as you can see."
Cyrus: "I see. I draw my sword."

Okay, _that_ was unexpected:

GM: "You see a number of reflections of you draw a sword."
Cyrus: "I walk purposefully down the corridor."
GM: "You walk for a while; you look back and you don't seem to have gone anywhere."
Cyrus: "I look in the mirrors."
GM: "You see yourself."
Cyrus: "I stick my tongue out at myself."
Jarrod: "That's got to be a funny image."

It means 'neeeeener':

GM: "What exactly does that mean?" You hear a voice three down in the mirror.
Cyrus: "I go to that mirror."
GM: "It's the Prince of Colors."

Those Prince britches expand mighty fast:

Cyrus: "What the hell are you doing in a mirror?"
Prince of Colors: "I'm not sure I should answer that."
Cyrus: "In my mirror."
Prince of Colors: "Oh you own these as well. Hrm."

This is REALLY not the right group from which to get the most positive notion of how to go about being a human being:

Cyrus: "What do you want?"
Prince of Colors: "I want to learn you."
Cyrus: "Learn me."
Prince of Colors: "All of your kind, actually."

The Prince of Colors is definitely looking a bit greener and considerably more maritime - the background is very watery, as well. Still has that ever so dry wit:

Cyrus: "Why?"
Prince of Colors: "Things are new."
Cyrus: "You are fish-like."
Prince of Colors: "How perceptive."

You Dumbass must be in the Fae instinctive vocabulary:

Cyrus: "You are under water now; why does the surface concern you?"
Prince of Colors: "We are in a position to reflect it."
Cyrus: "Reflect it? "
Prince of Colors: "Mmhmmm."

I'm just sayin':

Cyrus: "In what way?"
Deborah: "All the bad ways."
Prince of Colors: "In a fashion best suited to our survival."

It has been remarked that new discoveries are most swiftly adapted by man's two favorite pastimes - porn and weaponry. Guess which Cyrus favors?

Cyrus: "Hm. So. If for example I were to set fire to this castle, your encampment would burn?"
Prince of Colors: "Oh no. Not making things that foolishly."

Someone's bitter:

Cyrus: "Why do you want to be a reflection?"
Prince of Colors: "Because being something else didn't work out too well for us."

So much for diplomacy:

Cyrus: "And what do you want of me?"
Prince of Colors: "Oh nothing in particular, just watching."
Cyrus: "Allright, I have things to do. Good day."
Prince of Colors: "Allright; be about them."

It couldn't hurt:

Cyrus: "I stride down the corridor."
GM: "You walk for a while; going nowhere."
Cyrus: "I stop and look in a mirror."
GM: "Nothing."
Cyrus: "I make a face at it."
GM: "Nothing."

Falling back on customary approaches:

Cyrus: "I walk down the hall methodically smashing mirrors with the pommel of my sword."
GM: "They don't break. It's like hitting stone."

Cyrus trumps Finndo from the hall of mirrors. Finndo had had a conversation with the Prince of Colors - the King under the Water - about the stated desire to become like the Amberites that defeated him. Nice, straight lines for those chaotic, wacky people:

Cyrus: "I seem to be in this interesting place of mirrors."
Finndo: "Fascinating. Elaborate. Are you under immediate danger?"
Cyrus: "I don't think so but the Prince of Colors showed up in one of them."
Finndo's eyes close: "It's a place of mirrors."
Cyrus: "Yes. Well, this used to be the front corridor, but now ..."
Finndo: "I wouldn't have expected him to be quite so literal."

Lalala never mind:

Cyrus: "What?"
Finndo: "Nothing. I take it you can't get out?"
Cyrus: "It does seem to go on forever. Also, the mirrors don't break, which I find very perturbing. He said he was reflective."
Finndo: "That would explain it."
Cyrus: "Maybe to YOU."

Because trapeze artist didn't work:

Finndo: "He's [the Prince of Colors] finding a new gimmick. "

Justifying that paranoia:

GM: "Cyrus, you catch some form of movement out of the corner of your eye."
Cyrus: "I glance at it."
GM: "Someone tall, kind of a dark garb, it flows a bit in shadows, seems to have turned a corner that is reflected briefly in one of the mirrors, but that fades briefly."

There was a man upon the stair, a little man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today:

Cyrus: "There is someone else here who is not here, if you catch my meaning."
Finndo: "Go looking; I'll watch from here."

Cyrus, the originator of the Elmer Fudd shadow echo:

Cyrus: "I stalk the wily shadow in the mirror."
Shai: "He's chasing rabbits. Gee, I wish I knew about this."

On consistency:

GM: "Whomever this is keeps remaining somewhat tantalizingly out of reach. You are not able to stay on top of it."
Deborah: "HI PIERO."

Hey, it worked on the sixty foot walking trees:

Cyrus: "I walk into a mirror."
GM: "You walk INTO a mirror."
Shai: "THUNK."
Cyrus just nods.
GM: "Contact with Finndo shorts out. I'll get back to you."

Timing:

GM: "Finndo, someone's pounding on your door."
Finndo: "Fuck. Get up, cane in hand, look through the peephole."
GM: "It's a guardsman."

Figure it out, boyo:

Guard: "I don't know how to say this."
Finndo: "Yes, but - "

Not my fault! Not my fault!

Guard: "Queen's younger sister is gone."
Finndo: "How?"
Guard: "I think you should direct that question to the men who are watching through the one way mirror."

When Cymnea rebelled and made a bid to resurrect the ghosts of her dead family, Finndo sent a false Dulcea out to the country as a decoy. He kept the real one under guard behind a one way mirror at the castle. All those unpleasant loose ends:

Finndo: "I head down that way then."
Lydia: "Oh, that's right! We sent the fake one to the countryside."

'Non. Je comprends tout.'

GM: "You go into the side room set up to spy on this one [Dulcea]; there's one guy sitting in a chair looking kind of shaken; another one is pacing a bit; there's a faint smell in the air that suggests that one of them vomited recently."
Finndo: "I see. Gentlemen."

Galaxy Quest lives on:

Guard: "My prince!"
Finndo: "I glance through the mirror."
GM: "The room's empty. The particularly pale guard says, "I'm the one who saw it.""
Finndo: "What happened?"
Guard: "She was watching herself in the mirror; she seems to somewhat frequently. And then she stepped towards it and I saw inside her for a moment; I'm afraid it didn't sit well with my dinner."
Finndo: "Understood." He whips out Cyrus's trump.
Jarrod: "The creature's inside out and exploding."

Wesa gonna DIE?

GM: "Cyrus ,you aren't quite sure where you are. Beyond the original experience of not knowing where you are, you REALLY aren't sure where you are. It's so screwed up that you keep trying to form an impression of where you are and it keeps slipping away from your mind. You hear a voice. It's a harsh whisper, "You're not supposed to be here yet!", there's a shoving sensation and you're lying on you back in the corridor again."
Cyrus: "YET?"

If he's not standing and there aren't any corpses around, that can't be good:

GM: "You get a trump call."
Finndo: "Hi!"
Cyrus: "Cyrus seems to be lying on his back on the corridor."
Finndo: "You allright?"

Cyrus Scrooge:

Cyrus: "I think so. Going through the mirror is an interesting sensation."
Finndo: "And apparently a visually tantalizing one. Prince of Colors, you say."
Cyrus: "Yes, and when you go through it tells you you're not supposed to be here yet."

Pity the guy who cleans up that room:

Cyrus: "So there's this shadowy figure in the mirror that's not the Prince of Colors, I believe, but it's quite elusive."
Finndo: "Dulcea just escaped."
Cyrus: "That would explain quite a lot." He starts looking through the mirrors for a Dulcea/Cymnea figure. "She just walked through a mirror?"
Finndo: "Yes, and there were gentlemen on the other side watching it and it was apparently disconcerting."

Hey, the day's looking up!

GM: "It wasn't much of an interrogation; the guy said she walked through and disappeared and Finndo's like FUCK and disappears. The guy's like Uh, and - but. ... Oookay. At least I didn't see his intestines."

Literalism as an art form:

Finndo: "Prince."
Prince of Colors: "Yes."
Finndo: "I appreciate the new domain."
Prince of Colors: "I'm not sure I understand."
Finndo: "I take it you are keeping track of the mirrors to some extent."

Assistance and threat in one simple remark:

Finndo: "I can make a mirror that will cut someone in half when they come through."
Prince of Colors: "Can you? Thats terribly informative."
Finndo: "It's the frames."
Prince of Colors: "Oh! Oh. Yes you could, couldn't you?" He thinks.

Obscure insult of the day:

Finndo: "I hope you find that useful. In any case I mention it in the off chance that you perhaps know something about it."
Jarrod murmurs: "Purity of spirit."

Squawk! Finndo doesn't squawk, but squawk!

Prince of Colors: "Working on it. Well there was the one who was rummaging. Oh, I'm very bad with names at this point. The King's room. There was someone rummaging in the King's room. I'm not quite sure how they got there."
Finndo: "Fascinating."
Prince of Colors, helpfully: "I do keep a bit of an eye on that."

He actually stops for the diplomacy:

Finndo: "I take it your kingdom is developing well?"
Prince of Colors: "We're learning."
Finndo: "Well. I hope we can keep channels of communication open; if things are setting up well, that would serve us well."

And on to the fighting:

Prince of Colors: "Yes, I -"
GM: "- and he shrinks, and suddenly he's this little short, gobliny pointy eared scaly creature that jumps out of the mirror at you, Finndo. Roll."
Finndo: "I know kung fu." He rolls. "I know kung fu very badly."

Well, gee, thanks:

GM: "It takes you by surprise; your shoulder drives into it. Cyrus, you're a good hundred feet away from this and you hear a commotion and Finndo banging around. What do you do?"
Cyrus: "Is it bad?"
GM: "There's a green midget attacking him."
Cyrus: "I throw a knife at it."

Osric is still researching Andros and Eagle's Peak up in the library. He never gets to go out and play:

GM: "Osric, you're on the 42,68756322th history of Andros."
Osric: "Yes, yes, purity of spirit, yes yes."
GM: "It is a lot like reading about this history of Christ."

Finndo trumps Osric, having snared the little goblin. Taking a break from house cleaning to clean out the garage:

Finndo: "You look bored."
Osric: "Yes."
Finndo: "This is you're lucky day, then. I have something for you to see."
Osric: "Oh good."

Osric is not the man to go to for sympathy if you're Finndo:

Finndo: "It tried to kill me."
Osric: "Just the once?"
Finndo: "So far."
Cyrus: "I hold up the green midget for him to see."

And a bit more liveliness to the day for Osric: he has a call paid from Mom! And she thinks we'll trust her opinion?

Cymnea: "We tried to retrieve your Aunt today. What did you do? Come clean. Or was it him? She seems to have been intercepted  - or at least she didn't come through. Where ARE you?"
Osric to Cyrus: "You said this was the front hall of the castle."
Cyrus: "It used to be. Now it is merely this shiny and reflective place."
Cymnea: "We thought this was a good tool, but it appears someone else thought so, too. Don't trust what he tells you." And she fades.

Osric, as mentioned, wrote up a veritable tome of research on Ildros - the phone book on Ildros. Annotated. Ever get the sense everyone knows something but you?

GM to Finndo: "The little green things do look like Ildros's servitor race."
Finndo: "These look like the servitor race of Ildros?"
Cyrus: "What are the servitor race of Ildros?"
Finndo: "You haven't read the book, have you?"

The value of doing your homework:

Osric: "That was chapter 24."
Cyrus: "What are they?"
Osric: "They look like this and they serve!"

Cross-application of skills:

Cyrus: "I cut open the creature."
Finndo: "Impromptu autopsy."
GM: "Cyrus does the y cut very efficiently and opens the creature up."

Abandonment issues:

Finndo: "I'm going to look into a thing or two; I'll check back in."
Osric: "You're going to leave me here, are you?"
Finndo: "Do you object?"
Osric: "It may not be the best idea."

Pride goeth before the fight:

Finndo: "I was planning on leaving Cyrus here for little green things. But if you object ..."
Osric: "No no."
Finndo: "If this is your area of expertise -"
Osric: "No no. I feel quite safe with Cyrus here."

Say goodnight, Gracie:

Rob: "Finndo has an idea for dealing with this."
Deborah: "Cover all the mirrors in the castle?"
Rob: "No no. Much nastier."
Deborah: "Break all the mirrors?"
Rob: "No no. Much much nastier."
Deborah: "Burn Ildros to the ground?"
Jarrod lifts a finger: "Point of Order."

Never second guess the minty fresh spontaneous plan generator:

Rob: "Nope. Finndo is going to put a card in the corner of the frame. And it will expand across the mirror and shrink back to a card in the opposite diagonal corner. And it will do this when someone is halfway through."
Deborah stares.

Meanwhile, thoroughly unaware of events elsewhere in the castle, Sybil is busily resenting Rilga's assumption of Sonnet's role as Finndo's secretary. First denial, then anger, then directing the anger at the wrong target:

GM: "What are you doing?"
Sybil: "I am stalking Rilga with an air elemental and watching for an opportunity."
GM: "To break an arm?"
Sybil: "At the least."

You can't blame him for wondering, all considering:

GM squints at her.
Sybil, defensively: "I'm not going to do it in PUBLIC."

Sybil's air elemental makes a thorough mess of Finndo's office while Rilga is in it, not to mention throwing things at Rilga. When Finndo trumps her a bit later, she is mildly the worse for wear. The trouble with sneak attacks is leaving evidence:

Rilga: "Yes, my lord?"
GM: "She appears to be battered a bit."
Finndo: "Are you allright?"
Rilga: "Your office appeared to dislike my presence."

Amber is not EvilCorp; EvilCorp spends more on health care:

Rilga: "I will clean it -"
Finndo: "I don't have time for this right now. Are you allright, are you bound up?"
Rilga: "Yes, my lord."
Finndo: "Meet me by the door to the King's chambers, bring a quill, paper and a deck of cards."

Damned ninjas:

GM: "We'll assume supply closets have been introduced to Amber."
Sybil: "She's at a closet? It has a door?"
GM: "Yes."
Sybil: "She reaches past it?"
GM: "Yep."
Sybil: "Slam it shut really really hard."
GM: "Misses." He shrugs, "Quick reflexes."

Rilga joins Finndo in Oberon's office. Finndo has realized that all the mirrors in the castle can be used as portals to at minimum spy if not transport people, trump like, between locations. The entire castle is compromised. Oberon keeps a few things hidden behind a stone in his mantlepiece: the Jewel of Judgement and the military deck of trumps to key places throughout Amber. Either would be a staggering loss, and we should have expected this:

Finndo: "I go in to investigate; seeing if it's been disturbed."
GM: "Not so far as the observer would let you know."
Finndo: "Check that stone [where the Jewel of Judgement and the military trump deck are hidden]."
GM: "No dust on it."
Finndo: "Check the mirrors."

Welcome to Amber, where everything has ears and eyes and other unpleasant bits:

Rilga: "Is there something I should be watching for, my lord?"
Finndo: "Hang on."
Finndo puts a card in a corner of each mirror, and it expands to cover the entire mirror. The idea is to completely cut off access.

Benedict and Osric gradually come to the conclusion that all the actual religious texts of Andros must have been destroyed or hidden for some reason. Benedict gives Oberon a call, trying to follow up on Eagle's Peak. Knowing the source of your censorship:

Oberon: "Who's there?" It's very faint.
Benedict: "Dad. It's Benedict."
Oberon pauses for a bit: "Benedict. Yes."
Benedict: "Quick question: Is there any surviving text of Androsian religion?"
Oberon: "Only the ones they hid, I imagine."

You know. Minions. Like you:

Benedict: "Right. Did you go through and remove all the references to the religion or did they?"
Oberon: "Personally? No. I have people who do that sort of thing."

Have some of your own cryptic medicine, Dad:

Benedict: "But you gave the orders."
Oberon: "It seemed the best way to deal with the people."
Benedict: "Great. Thank you."
Oberon: "Ooookay."

Any moment now we're all going to start wearing tinfoil hats:

Finndo: "Next thing I am doing. The mirrors are secured. Rilga is instructed to search the room for any small mirrors, hand mirrors or anything like that. And he throws a deck up in the air as magical chafe."

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck...

Finndo: "Finndo checks the Jewel's home."
GM: "It's empty."
Finndo: "He trumps Dad."

Osric and Cyrus poke about the hall of mirrors. Osric is rubbing off on Cyrus:

Jarrod: "Osric extends his spidey sense."
GM: "The reflection you're looking at darkens progressively; then you see someone struggling with a snake, a large snake. He's hacking at it with a knife."
Osric: "Hm."
Cyrus: "Well, that's different."

Osric and Cyrus plunge into the fight in the mirror. Details, details:

Cyrus: "I forgot to to mention the disorientation."
Osric: "Oh /that/."

Was there ever such a joy as pure, unlucky, bad timing?

Benedict: "I'm trumping Osric."
GM grins: "You are?"

Finndo has trumped Oberon from within the smokescreen of swirling cards and the covered mirrors. Sometimes, the four letter word says all that needs to be said:

Finndo: "Dad. The box is empty."
Oberon: "I don't follow."
Finndo: "Fireplace."
Oberon: "Shit."

Pull the other leg. It's got bells on:

Finndo: "Completely empty."
Oberon: "I've got my trinket."
Finndo: "But someone's got the other half. Needed to make sure it wasn't you."
Oberon: "I wouldn't forget something like that."

Never say the man doesn't have a charitable soul:

Jarrod: "He [Oberon] has been spacey lately."

Thanks for the leadership, Dad:

Finndo: "Be careful. More than one sorcerous party has been using the mirrors."
Oberon: "Great."
Finndo: "Dulcea escaped through one."
Oberon: "Even better."

On enthusiasm:

Finndo: "I will be trapping them so anyone going through gets cut in half."
Oberon: "NEAT!"

Sense of urgency not so much:

Finndo: "Any idea how much longer you'll be?"
Oberon: "Few days."

Little sliced cheese and people sandwiches to go:

Rob explains his cut in half plan to the GM.
GM: "Okay."
Rob: "Little guillotine craft."

Finndo is sending Rilga off to get a list of the mirrors in the castle (no small order). Detail oriented, to say the least:

Finndo: "Describe the event in my office."
Rilga: "I was writing letters and suddenly a great wind burst free in the room even through the windows are closed."
Finndo: "Ah. Of course. I'll take care of that."

Let's not do a redux on the whole death thing:

Rilga: "Should I take one guard or two?"
Finndo: "... take two."

The GM has managed quite nicely to get across to the players that there is no guarantee that anyone makes it out of this game alive:

GM: "The three of you dispatch the snake pretty quickly. He's drawn, he's pale. He says, "... conspiracy." It's Karm."
Lydia: "He just died."

One more resource cut off:

GM: "He's not dead yet. He's not enjoying what's in his veins."
Cyrus: "I deal with the poison."
GM: "You suck it out, you're getting it off your tongue as efficiently as possible it's not... oooooh. Pretty colors."
Osric: "Uh. YEAH. Shit."
GM: "And Karm has passed out."

Cyrus sucked the poison out of Karm's bloodstream, and Karm is out cold. So Osric now has an unconscious Karm in need of medical care and a high as a kite Cyrus. And then the trump call. All the man needs now is a hangnail:

GM: "Osric. As you are trying to figure out what to do with an hallucinating Cyrus?"
Cyrus: "It's pink and it's pointy."
Osric: "_YES_."
Cyrus: "Cyrus hits the pink puffy thing."
Osric: "What are you DOING?"
GM: "You get a trump call."
Osric looks flatly at the universe.

Insolent reality:

Benedict: "Are you allright?"
Osric: "_I_ am fine." He pulls Benedict through.

Count Rugen strikes again!

GM: "There are bits of snake about. Cyrus is sitting on the ground beaming and Karm is passed out, and Osric is looking put upon."
Benedict: "I see the surgery, I see the surgeon. "

Sybil arrives on cue, carried by Ariel. No one ever says 'how do you do' anymore:

Osric: "Did you do this?"
Sybil blinks: "Do what?"

Thank god he didn't break out into song:

Cyrus beams and waves a hand: "It floats! It's floats!"
Sybil: "Oh that? I haven't touched Cyrus."
Cyrus: "There are FLOWERS!"

Benedict has shown up in time to get Karm to medical care. One has to wonder if this is how it feels for Osric to talk to the world all the time:

Cyrus: "He went AWAY!"
Osric sighs. Patiently: "Yes."
Cyrus: "Would you like a flower?"
Osric: "I would love one."
Cyrus beams: "Okay."
Osric: "Why don't you get me one?"
Cyrus nods: "Okay."

First challenges first: death, then drugged...

Jarrod: "My notion of the quality of medical care - is it good enough to deal with poison in Amber?"
GM: "Probably. And Cyrus probably did arrest it enough that Karm will survive."
Osric: "I will herd Cyrus back to the castle."
GM: "Oh, that's not easy."

Osric is deciding how he's going to get Cyrus, drugged out of his gourd, back to the castle (travelling with Pattern initiates high and hallucinating - not good). Sybil really wants to help. Next chapter, we learn about pushing buttons with a fingertip, not a hammer:

Sybil: "I could -"
Osric: "Hush."
Sybil: "But we -"
Osric: "One thing at a time."
Sybil: "It's -"
Osric holds up a finger.
Sybil: "FINNDO WOULD LISTEN!"
Osric glares.

On Helping:

Sybil, meekly: "We could just fly him back."
Osric: "/Fine./"
Cyrus: "Whooooosh!"

What was that about button pushing?

GM to Osric: "And you're flying with a faerie and a loopy homicidal maniac. Aren't you glad you're the normal one?"

They take Karm to Rilga, who has medical training. Lesser used skill-sets:

GM: "It's your dad. He's in bad shape."
Rilga: "Okay. List goes aside; scrub up. It's the only thing I can do."
GM: "Luckily, you have a kit. Let's see here; why don't you roll against medicine."
Jarrod: "Oh dear. Which side's the medicine on again?"

It's always something:

Shai: "She has medical training!"
Rob: "In modern facilities!"

Oh, what tangled webs we weave:

Shai: "Yes! And I have to pretend that I don't need them!"
Deborah: "Doesn't it suck?"
Shai: "YES!"

Karm will make it, it turns out. Cyrus... well, at least he's cheerful. Gratitude to the flower child:

GM: "You suspect from his [Karm's] behavior that there's some neural damage. But he will wake up."
Shai: "But it looks like pretty potent venom. And it was the drawing of the venom for which I will be grateful because it allowed him to survive to make it to the castle."
Cyrus: "Pretty!!!"

That about covers the basics:

Finndo: "What just happened?"
Cyrus: "BIG SNAKE!"
Osric: "Cyrus is hallucinating rather drastically."

Inconvenient, life is:

Deborah: "Sybil is looking panicky and guilty."
GM: "Since you were trying to break the arm of the surgeon saving Karm. Welcome to actions and consequences."

If Rilga is from Draconis, then of course she would not be accustomed to more modern facilities than Amber Castle could provide. When the GM says it...

Finndo: "How is Karm doing?"
Rilga: "He should wake up, my lord."
Finndo: "Are the facilities adequate?"
Rilga looks at Finndo in that direct Draconian way: "Why wouldn't they be, my lord?"
GM: "You dumbass."

Taking those hints:

Finndo: "Is he stabilized?"
Rilga: "Yes."
Cyrus: "BIG SNAKE!"
Finndo: "I assume a large snake was involved."

Rilga has firmly established herself as Useful. Sybil is even more pissy. Just checking:

Sybil: "How many limbs do you need to be a doctor?"
Osric: "Two."
Sybil: "Which ones?"
Osric glares: "ALL of them."

Much earlier in the campaign, Benedict's trumps got stolen during a distraction engineered by Osrat. While the party was busy fighting one doppleganger, Benedict's trumps were lifted right out of his easily accessible saddlebags. 'I wrote that doctoral thesis out by hand and you /lost/ it?'

GM to Lydia: "That brings it to mind - where's the book?"
Lydia: "The book?"
GM: "Osric's book on Ildros. You had it on you when you went into the mirror."
Lydia blinks at him.
Osric: "You took it WITH you?"
Deborah: "They were in your SADDLEBAGS?"

Apparently drugs are how you end up sounding like Sybil:

Cyrus: "BOOK!"
Osric: "Book what?"
Cyrus: "BOOK GONE!"

Ah, Sonnet:

Shai: "And she gets to spend time with her unconscious father ... as someone else."

A beautiful mind is a horrible thing to waste:

Finndo: "He approached me before all this began. Selm told me that he was going to be doing a deep play. This could just as easily mean that it's completely sincere; it's equally possible that Selm did it because the question is enough to keep things off balance."
Rilga: "Of course he meant for the note to be found -"
Finndo: "And the code is also such that I could easily break it."

The man couldn't say 'looks like rain' without layered meanings:

GM: "The note said: "Sometimes you have to sacrifice a queen to stay in the game. My apologies.""
Scott: "Interesting terminology."
GM: "Yes, it is."

Fighting fire with fire:

Finndo: "Hello?"
Cyrus: "I have some poison for you. Perhaps you might get it to some of your interesting friends out in Shadow."
Finndo: "An excellent idea."

Oberon hasn't got saddlebags, I suppose:

Finndo: "Things are critically bad. Short form: They have the war deck."
Cyrus: "How did they get that?"
Finndo: "An excellent question."

We now have two enemies that can show up anywhere, any time, unpredicted, without let or hindrance. Wait. Three. No. Four. Five? Does Selm count as separate from Cymnea, Osrat, the Prince of Colors and Dworkin? Assuming Piero is still on our side - huh. Wonder why Finndo's concerned?

Cyrus: "How did they know where it was?"
Finndo: "I assume the mirror."
Cyrus: "So they've been spying on us."
Finndo: "I am trapping a number of key locations where they might use the deck. For the nonce, if you can contact my brothers, I think we need to touch base somewhere in shadow."

Getting something out of the sixties child experience:

Cyrus: "Ah. I have the snake."
Finndo: "We'll meet up in shadow; keep the poison; we'll deal with it now."

Two words you always want to hear from an elder brother in Amber:

Osric: "Let's go for a walk. "
Benedict: "Where are we going?"
Osric: "On a walk. Trust me. "

They hike down Kolvir to get far enough away to shift pattern. And grass is green:

Osric: "So Finndo would like us to have a chat so we need to be away from the castle to do it."
Benedict: "Right."

It's no small thing to divest themselves of their secrets:

Finndo: "Allright. We're going into the safe room next. We're all going through a bunch of serious total recall scanners; basically, any foreign objects, any metal objects -"
Cyrus: "Clatter clatter clatter... "
GM: "Osric, are you keeping your rings?"
Osric: "They don't come off."
Cyrus: "Do you really want ALL of it?"

Finndo's safeguards involve bioscreens, being stripped, screened again, retina scans, DNA scans, you name it, until we step into a completely bare white room dressed in what amount to scrubs without even our hairclips, so to speak. The GM referred to this as justified paranoia:

Osric: "You're more paranoid than usual."
Finndo: "Yes, well I keep finding that we have enemies that know everything we're doing."

Cymnea, for Winter festival, gave Osric a ring through which he can summon her and, presumably, she can spy. Those awkward loyalties:

Osric: "I shall make an effort to remove it [Cymnea's ring]."
GM: "It comes off. You go through prodding and testing and get new clothes; you walk into this pristine white room with white chairs."
Osric: "Are you quite finished?"

Ask a question, get an answer:

Finndo: "Yes. This [Rilga] is my new secretary; I am vouching for her. I have indoctrinated her into a few facts and shadow. The reason she was selected was because there was no way our enemies could have gotten to her."
Cyrus: "How is that? Did she spend a couple years dead?"
Finndo: "Very nearly."

Finndo starts the information dump:

Finndo: "The first and more important data point is the mirrors. People have been watching and traveling through the mirrors. We have reason to suspect the Prince of Colors. Piero is one of the parties. We do not have additional names, but I would be absolutely shocked if this resource existed and Mother has not taken advantage of it. Oh, excuse me, Dulcea did escape through one. To wit, I leave Osrat and Ruustro as the only two I don't suspect behind the mirrors - but I wouldn't be shocked."

Some things are business; some are personal:

Cyrus: "That's right; we haven't killed Ruustro."
Finndo: "He's on my list for when I have lots of leisure time."
Cyrus: "I had forgotten him."
Finndo: "I hadn't."
Cyrus: "He'll have to go back on my list."

Short shrift:

Finndo: "I would like an account on what happened to Karm."
Cyrus: "Someone shipped a snake into his house, he let it loose, it bit him several times."

Mild enough reprimand:

Finndo: "Allright, Ildros. We have had some reason to suspect that the children of Nod have ties there. Nod's line has some interest there and frankly the oldest rulers - that have since been overturned - were sorcerous kings."
Cyrus: "My book is gone."
Finndo: "Really."
Cyrus: "I lost it in the mirror."
Finndo: "Unfortunate."

Wars are won and lost on information:

Benedict: "But someone possibly now knows what we know."
Finndo: "That's allright; what we know is not enough."
Cyrus: "And what we know they already know because they were a part of it."

And now the bad news:

Finndo: "Someone came into father's chambers through the mirror, or so we infer. Father had a secure space in his room which had been disturbed. It, among other things, had kept the military deck."
Benedict: "Military deck?"
Finndo: "The trump deck of every important location in Amber."
Osric: "Oh, that's not good. How did you know that someone was in there?"

Pot, Kettle, you're related:

Finndo: "The Prince of Colors implied that there was someone rummaging about in there."
Osric: "Oh, you're on speaking terms with him."

The personal ties show:

Finndo: "The Prince of Colors is building himself an underwater empire modeled after Amber as far as I can tell."
Sybil snaps: "Oh, good for him."
Finndo: "He has isolated off a small area and he still has numerous elementals under his command. I have visited Bran Brazil and a number of other key locations and ensured the trumps cannot be used."
Benedict: "Homewood, please."

Technical issues:

Finndo: "Actually Homewood allows us to dig a very large hole. Allright."
Sybil: "Wait. You didn't turn the trump off. You've simply laid traps."
Finndo: "You have to be in proximity to turn them off. "

Can you blame her?

Finndo: "So that's what I know. This is as safe a place as I can find. Oh, and uh. Actually, is there anything else?"
Sybil raises a hand: "Can we just stay here?"
Finndo: "Not indefinitely."

It's nice to have purpose:

Finndo: "You are the Master of Eagle's peak now?"
Benedict: "Yes."
Finndo: "I don't know if everyone is aware but there is something at the bottom of that lake."
Benedict: "It is the antithesis of the powers of darkness. It would be useful to know more, not only as a counter to Eagle's Peak but also of divesting myself of the title."
Osric: "I don't think they're going to let you go so easily."
Benedict: "Oh no. That's why you're here."

Well, after we can't use our mirrors to do our toilettes in the morning, it won't much matter:

Finndo: "So, at the moment, I propose that Ildros is our next destination."
Cyrus: "Are we going there as ourselves?"

Crossing out the perceived no-ops:

Finndo: "What an excellent question. Has anyone traveled Ildros besides Osric? And to complicate things further, we have a number of days before Father returns."
Benedict: "Do you want to wait for him?"
Sybil: "Because he's been helpful so far."

No More Bathwater of Granlibakken (which is how we got the evil dopplegangers in the first place):

Cyrus: "We need convenient doubles that somebody can try to assassinate."
Shai: "You see a strange expression cross Rilga's face."
Lydia: "Rats!"

Easy come, easy go:

Finndo: "There seems to be a physical locality to our anomaly of mirrors."
Benedict: "That hall?"
Osric: "It's not there anymore."

Are you doubting me, brother?

Finndo: "Well, let's test that theory."
GM: "It's not there."
Osric, with a sidelong glance: "It wasn't a theory."

Agreement isn't usually /in/ character with this bunch:

Sybil: "So we don't really have a plan; we have a lot of confused information."
Jarrod nods frantically.
Jarrod adds: "That was out of character."

First things first:

Cyrus: "Action. Fewer words."
Sybil: "Yes! Wait. Plan, then action."

Waaaay, way, waaaaaaaay ahead of me:

Finndo: "Short form. Here is the plan as I see it. We will return to the castle; Sybil will arrange a number of cards which will resonate so that they will appear both to the eye and to magic as ourselves. The rest of you will head to Ildros on as short notice as possible. I will remain in the castle; we will remain in contact and you will go forth and investigate."

For certain definitions of 'just show up':

Lydia: "So we invade Ildros."
Jarrod: "Not so much invade as just show up."

The party makes it out to Ildros, minus Finndo. Shades of being back home:

Benedict: "Allright. Brother, do you sense anything?"
Osric: "That we're in a SWAMP."
Rob: "I sense great humidity in this one."

Picky, picky:

GM: "Not too long after you arrive, there are a few native academics milling around; they don't seem to think it particularly odd that you've shown up. This is a semi-public place that you've chosen."
Osric: "So. You wanted to find some priests, mm?"
Benedict: "Well, we wanted to find possible sources of sorcerous power."

Well, of /course/ it did:

GM: "See the thing is, Osric might say, that the sorcerous power of Ildros supposedly vanished from Ildros several hundred years ago."

Worshiping the machine:

Osric: "Well there's this thing about sufficiently advanced technology appearing to be magic."
Benedict: "I think the temple would be the first place to start."
Osric: "Was I in there [in the temple] in my last visit?"
GM: "There's a series of high walls and gates, with complex hydraulics; they're not even sure how they work. You were led inside the outermost of these where they had histories. But the secret religious texts were beyond those chambers behind large impassable stone walls."

Careful what you ask for:

Benedict: "I wonder if this is a trap."
Sybil: "I almost hope it is."

20 Questions time:

Osric: "There's something underneath us, I think."
Benedict: "A swamp?"
Osric: "Big."
Benedict: "Can you tell what's down there?"
Osric: "I can't."
Benedict: "Sybil?"
Sybil: "Mm?"
Benedict: "Apparently there's something beneath us. Caverns. Could you perhaps ask some of your earth friends?"

Continuing to advocate:

Cyrus: "WHY can't we beat up a priest?"
Benedict: "Not yet."

At the heart of religion lies great mystery:

GM: "You quickly discover that quite a number of the priesthood spends their time stoned out of their gourd; they're all sitting around sucking venom out of snakes. They're doping themselves silly in order to achieve oneness with the mother. But there is, after you travel through the area for a while, another, deeper chamber. You look around for a while, but this is really the 'hi you're in the club get stoned and have whores - I'm sorry, sisters' end."
Osric: "I want to see if we are in a different location relative to the source of power now. Has it moved?"
GM shakes his head.
Osric: "It's all around us, maaan!"

The party needs to get past guards (probably stoned guards, but guards none the less). Rank hath privileges:

Sybil: "I could make it look like nothing was moving but it might work on us, too. Alternately, Benedict could just conk them on the head. "
Benedict: "I can knock him out and Sybil can glamour him to look like he's still awake."
GM: "That's pretty much a casual action..."

Now, now. Cue Indiana Jones theme music:

GM: "Nicely enough, the temple is designed on straight lines and you can pretty much go forward and get to what seems to be the big important thing, which is a large chamber with a set of stairs like stacked cylinders which leads up to what looks like, from this angle, a well."
Jarrod: "Full of snakes, no doubt."

Sybil glamours the doors to appear to be still in place while the party slips through. There was brief debate on how to handle pursuit through the now open doors. The advantages of glamour aka why we hate Osrat:

Rob: "Here's the interesting thing; no matter how they jiggle with the handles, the door's not going to go down."
Deborah stares: "Oh right."

Pessimist:

Osric: "I'll go look."
GM: "There's no water in there and it goes way down."
Osric: "Farther than I can see, no doubt."

Cyrus proposes lowering himself on a rope to take a look. Too much D&D:

GM: "How long is your rope?"
Lydia: "Fifty feet."
Rob: "Fifty feet! It's adventure length!"

Sybil and Osric puzzle out the combinations of patterns in which to hit the various stones about the well to achieve results of one form or another. Hey, if it works:

GM to Sybil: "You've come up with seven combinations that Do Something."
Osric: "I use my eyebrows to determine which."
GM: "Eenie meenie miney moe, catch a power by its... toe?"

The trouble with things of nature is that they're not much on wit and interpretive philosophy:

Rob to Deborah: "Have you considered asking the buttons what happens when you press them?"
GM: "They might say something helpful like 'I go click?'"

Sybil is now a wee bit terrified of death; took all the get up and play risky out of her:

Sybil points to a combination: "That one does not involve fists beating us to death."
Cyrus: "Or we could trigger it and do something else."
Sybil, firmly: "I recommend the one that doesn't involve us being beaten to death."

On boasting, relative merits of:

Cyrus: "I've fought rocks before."
Sybil: "But didn't you get all of your bones broken?"
Cyrus: "Only some."

Putting the death traps to use:

Lydia: "We could push the other sequence on our way down."

We push a selected pattern and for once nothing goes wrong. Amberites on the dungeon crawl:

GM: "There's a brief vibration and the sides of the well sink down until they become flush with the topmost platform that you're standing on. And then, bit by bit down the side of the well, steps slide out of the walls in a spiral pattern down as far as you can see."
Osric: "Right. "
Rob: "I suggest not glamouring the steps until all of you are past them."
GM: "The steps are fairly narrow and it would be easy enough to fall off."

We establish a party order: Benedict, then Sybil, Rilga, Osric, Cyrus. Aligned for ass kickage:

GM: "Benedict at your head and Cyrus at your ass."
Deborah: "Cause this is a thinking train."

Something you don't see every day:

GM: "At about a hundred foot depth or so, Sybil turns around and makes the top segment invisible. You also have the fabricated sides up there so as soon as someone leans on it, they're in for a surprise. Waaaah!"
Lydia: "As long as they don't hit us on the way down, it's all good."
Jarrod: "Falling snake priests."

We make our way down the spiral steps. Downside to visions:

GM: "There's a faint, faint orangey torchlike glow way down below."
Osric: "Do you all see that?"
GM: "Yes, Osric should always ask that question. Do you all see that or am I making shit up again?"
Rob: "And note that at some point we'll fuck with him that way. No, Osric, none of the rest of us see the pink rabbits which I shipped in from Shadow."

Nice to know the indicators:

Rilga: "By that, if you mean torchlight, yes, we see that. Your Highness."
Shai: "She must be being sarcastic; she called him Your Highness instead of my lord."

As we work our way down, the orangey glow is intense, and the heat as well. We ran into something similar when we were standing in the chimney of the island that contained a sun (that Benedict blew up). Reinforcing the Not _Again_:

Benedict: "I've got a horrible sense of deja vu. "
Osric: "Well, you can take care of that, then."
GM: "And it kind of stinks."
Shai: "Like what? Sulfur?"
GM nods.

We never stumble into someone's well kept, organized, neatly filed secret archives with a 'please take what you need' sign:

GM: "Eventually, the stairs stop when the hole stops, above a rocky surface, and the air is strong with a sulphury spell. Benedict takes a quick, quiet leap and lands. You are on a large stone rocky surface that extends surrounded on at least three sides by a magma lake or river. There appear to be several thousand of those green scaly short guys in military formations pretty much anywhere you see something that isn't molten."
Shai: "Stormtrooper goblins!"
Benedict: "Oh shit."

And the session stops there.

Such is the life:

Deborah: "You've completely rewritten my character, you fucker."
GM: "You were about due; that happens every few sessions."

I don't know why I don't just resign myself (probably because it's less fun that way):

Rob: "And there was a gigantic shaft that you haven't fallen down."
Deborah nods agreeably: "There is that."
GM: "You're becoming mortal."
Deborah glares.