Session 23: Death Games

Session 23 continues the fine tradition of picking up on the heels of Session 22.

If the gentle reader recalls, session 22 was all about betrayal and the removal of gloves and the sight of true colors. The Children of Nod were indeed defeated (session 21) with one exception - Quinn. Quinn sent an artifact (that devolved into lots of little tickticktickety clock minibombs) instead of himself. Finndo realized that Quinn's absence meant that Cymnea's faction had been warned and that the only person who could have warned them was Osric.

Osric has stayed away from the party during this interval, watching and waiting with Osrat. Everyone rides back towards the castle, eyeing the rising cloud of steam in the distance. The exceptions are, of course, the Ostwins, who feel a need to try to trump into the castle. That fails. Badly. Cyrus comes upon them later and revives them (not realizing that Osric's 'captain' is actually Osrat).

People paired off - Benedict went with Sybil and Rilga rode on a single horse with Finndo. They took a different path from everyone else and, when they were well away and out of range, Rilga stabbed Finndo in the back. No, I didn't make that up.

Rilga attempts to rifle Finndo for trumps and finish the job, but Finndo's protections kick in and knock her back. She lays low and pretends to be unconscious so that when the party finds the two bodies - Rilga and Finndo - the obvious math (Rilga hurt Finndo) might still have some question marks.

Benedict and Sybil find the two bodies; Benedict manages to keep Sybil off Rilga for the most part, concludes that Quinn possession was at work, gets Finndo to his Bond shadow for medical care and gets the word out. They proceed to attempt using Rilga's link to Quinn to get to him. On the side, Benedict goes to Finndo (drugged beyond belief, paralyzed below the waist and in massive amounts of pain) for instructions. Finndo, having done the Osric math, warns Benedict off the Quinn plan with the explanation that anything involving Osric cannot be trusted. Finndo then checks on the folks he left in charge of the castle - or tries to. He can't get through. He sends Benedict and Cyrus in to check it out. They find the castle taken (and literally so: Quinn flew his citadel and parked it on top of Castle Amber), Sejak's men backed into a small hallway and Ismerelda difficult to reach. Worse, the Pattern is gone. The floor of the Pattern room is blank.

Osric contacts Finndo, discovers that he's not himself, and joins Finndo in the Bond shadow - only to have Piero contact him for a one way conversation that makes the already paranoid Finndo exceedingly wary. He gasses Osric's room. Osric gets out, convinced that Finndo was trying to kill him. He informs Benedict of both this and the fact that Piero has come up with a way to return to Amber from the mirrors.

A counterattack on the castle is launched, deploying Sybil, Cyrus and Benedict to the theatre and using Finndo for a trump attack on Quinn. The attack is successful; the citadel is lifted off the castle and dropped on top of the King of Colors' realm. Quinn is defeated. Osric and Benedict also manage to revive Piero, only to discover that we have been betrayed. Piero is Dworkin.

And that's where we pick up.

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 those doom points the GM mentioned in session 22? Well, yes, now we don't have fudge points either: _just_ doom points. A single red doom chip. Our luck hasn't so much run out as turned against us at terrible cost. Turn in the doom point - and sacrifice a happy ending for your character - and you get one metric assload of a success. Irony, the house specialty, served with a dash of Karma on the side:

Fred hands Scott his character sheet.
Scott: "NOOO! NOOOOO!'"
Lydia: "What, another point of dark powers  - hey, what happened to the fudge point bag?"

Some people handle unexpected rule changes well. Some people should carry a bib with them and stay away from Nightmare chess:

Deborah: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN DON'T FRET?!!!"
GM: "Don't. Fret."
Rob, calmly: "You're fretting."
Deborah, not calmly: "WHAT THE FUCK DOES DON'T FRET MEAN?"
Rob, very mildly: "You're fretting."
Deborah: "I'm not fretting, I'm frothing at the mouth!"
Shai: "Would you like a napkin?"

Some people look to their friends for comfort. I look to my friends for sadism:

Lydia, happily: "Oh no, there are degrees of doom."
Deborah: "Lydia, I need you to not help."
Shai: "Flavors of doom?"
Lydia, brightly: "There is the doom where the bunny merely gets killed."
Rob: "Then there are the slippers doom."
Deborah sighs.

Rob and I both watched He-Man in the days of yore when we were small and impressionable. This is the basis for an excellent argument against TV cartoons. That aside, it's also an excellent explanation as to why the dark powers are the folks in the market and the light powers really... aren't. It's not the soul buying techniques so much as the meaningful conversations:

Rob: "Perhaps you would in the future consider making a deal with a fluffy power."
Shai: "No."
Rob: "They can't do as much -"
Shai: "But they would drive you insane."
Rob: "What?"
Shai: "Just picture making a deal with Orco [from He-Man]."

The GM starts the game at last. Starting out bitter and blamey, really:

GM: "So we last left off with -"
Rob: "No legs!"
GM: "Sonnet and Finndo are in the Bond shadow with Oberon, Osric and Benedict have suffered from a particular revelation -"
Jarrod: "It's all your fault, you know."
Scott, indignant: "My fault!"
Jarrod: "Yeah, you let him [Piero] out!"

Tolerance levels reached, sir. Increasing those - why, yes, you will be:

GM: "And Cyrus and Sybil are out somewhere; the castle is kind of wrecked but still moderately functional; the Pattern is missing, Quinn is possibly defeated, possibly not, with the Black Citadel having possibly crashed into the ocean. Am I missing anything?"
Jarrod: "That's plenty, really."

Cyrus stole some of the walking empty armor that Quinn had used to attack Castle Amber. Quinn was defeated, but Cyrus is still in his armor - and comes to on a march. See, when the GM just looks _sad_, that's a hint that the plan needs to change. Don't worry. It's too late for the worrying:

GM: "Cyrus, you feel as though you are in a fog; you are not sure how long you've been walking and you are definitely outside the castle. You are following someone in a cloak."
Cyrus: "Am I still armored?"
GM: "Yes. But it seems that you are doing so under your own power. The guy seems to be aware of you; you are continuing on. This is Kolvir; if you check back over your shoulder, the castle is down below you looking like another castle landed on top of it. Is there anything you are going to be doing?"
Cyrus: "I assume I am following for a reason so I continue doing so?"
GM: "Even if you don't know where you are going?"
Cyrus: "I have been in battle lust before and snapped out of it."
GM: "Oh, Cyrus. Cyrus Cyrus Cyrus."

And now he asks:

Cyrus: "What does the figure look like?"
GM: "An acolyte from the undead faction - a cloak, you don't see his hands or his face."

Meanwhile:

Jarrod: "So, you gotta plan?"
Scott: "That's your department, I just kill things."
Jarrod: "Oh right."

On the merits of tangible, empirical evidence:

Cyrus catches up to the figure.
Cyrus: "I look at his face."
GM: "There isn't one."
Cyrus: "I pull back the hood."
GM: "There is no head."
Cyrus: "I pick him up and shake him out."

A not unreasonable observation:

Charon: "What are you doing?"
Cyrus: "You have no head."
Charon, agreeably: "That's true."

Criteria help with these things:

Cyrus: "Who are you?"
Charon: "I am a messenger."
Cyrus: "From whom?"
Charon: "A friend."
Cyrus: "I have no friends with no heads."

Do you prefer dryell, bounty or bleach?

Charon: "Yes, but you do have a daughter. Or you had one."
Cyrus: "I have one. I am pretty certain she still has a head, yes?"
Charon: "That remains to be seen. Please put me down?"
Cyrus: "I don't let go of him; I put him down."
Charon: "I can't very well lead you if you stand there looming."

Life presents challenges. And solutions:

Cyrus: "How do you beat the shit out of a cloak?"
Rob: "Scissors."
Shai: "Fire."

Cymnea admitted (and Osric passed this on) that she did not have Aine, Cyrus's daughter. Despite that, and with the caveat that reason does tend to lose out to irrational logic and paranoia:

Charon: "How much do you know about your daughter's fate?"
Cyrus: "She was taken."
Charon: "By?"
Cyrus: "The ex-Queen."
Charon: "Huh. So you still believe that even after recent evidence."
Cyrus: "Yes."
Charon: "Why?"
Cyrus: "Because that is the way of things."

Flashing the living isn't perhaps the best path to credibility for a ghost - but then consider the audience:

Charon: "It is the way of things to believe the story you have been fed. Well. That is exactly the crux of the problem."
Cyrus: "Aaaaand...? I'm - I'm not usually inclined to find headless ghosts incredibly believable."
Charon: "You've seen under my cloak; it's not as if I have anything to hide."

The non corporeal leading the blind:

Cyrus: "Continue."
Charon: "It's this way."
Cyrus: "I follow."
GM: "He's not saying anything else for a couple of minutes; what do you do?"
Cyrus: "I keep hold of the cloak and keep track of where we're going."
GM: "You're getting close to the site of the battle where Aine disappeared."

The cloak - Charon - stops at a particular point on the mountainside. Proving a negative:

Charon: "There wasn't much of a search for a body, was there? You believed she was taken."
Cyrus: "She was taken."
Charon: "Yeeeeessss. I'm afraid I haven't the substance to dig."

It's not like he can *point*:

Lydia: "Do I have a shovel?"
GM: "You have big metal hands."
Cyrus: "I scoop."
GM: "He kind of indicates with sleeves."

Well. This is Cyrus, afterall. It's not so much round as consistently circling the bend:

GM: "You reveal the bones of a small hand after a bit of time."
Cyrus: "I keep digging."
Jarrod: "He's gone round the bend."

Not just a river in Egypt anymore:

GM: "Bit by bit you are revealing a skeleton, the soil bleached, the clothing seems - at least what's left of it - seems to match what she was wearing."
Cyrus: "I don't believe it. Whatever sent you could have planted this here easily."

So much for truth, justice and the American way rallying the stout of heart:

Charon: "That I may grant. But the truth of it lies with the allies you keep, not with us."
Cyrus: "Who is us?"
Charon: "Champions of truth."
Cyrus: "I don't believe in those."
Jarrod: "Well, yes."
Charon hesitates: "No. No, you wouldn't. Uhm."

20 questions, anyone?

Cyrus: "Quinn?"
Charon: "Who?"
Cyrus: "Quinn."
Charon: "Mmmm."

Paranoia ninjitsu:

Cyrus: "The Queen's brother?"
Charon: "Oh, the one with the - the flying castle chap. No, he's dead."
Rob: "I definitely don't believe you now."

Fluffing up the guest accommodations for a visit from Mr. Karma:

Cyrus: "Who, then? Which faction do you represent? And what is your interest in this matter?"
Charon: "I'm afraid I have been bound to only tell you this much: here's the thing. I can give you an image. Or two."
Cyrus: "What sort of image?"
Charon: "A payback from a position you didn't previously have."
Cyrus: "Alllright."
Shai: "I'm so glad I wasn't involved in this."
Deborah: "Ohhh, shit. I'm so dead."

Slow motion advance warning of a very very angry Cyrus. Perhaps if I wail very very quietly... :

GM: "He reaches forward with an arm as though there were a hand to cup something - but no hand. And a kind of shimmering in the air, and simulacrum of the mountain from that night. You see the little stairs going up and the ghost city above it and, perhaps pointing, the other hand gestures and it zooms in on Sybil. "
Deborah, softly: "Noooooooo."

Is there a photoshop for divination magic? They made it UP!

GM: "Who [Sybil] silently, this is no audio, gestures, incants, and the mountain rumbles."
Cyrus: "I remember the mountain rumbling."
GM: "And then a face appears in the rock at her feet and she has a brief conversation with it and the face subsides. The hood of the cloak turns towards you."
Charon: "Part the first. The seismic event at the peak came from this friend of yours. Right. Shall we move on to the second part?"
Cyrus: "Yes."
GM: "And the scene blurs down the side of the mountain; you're in the castle. I believe it was the courtyard. And the cobblestones of the courtyard are rearranging themselves at Finndo's feet back into that face again and they appear to have another conversation. The sightless headless cloak looks towards you while this is going on."
Charon: "You'll forgive the lack of a soundtrack; there's only so much that we can pull from times before. Sight is the easiest sense to bring along from the past; I speak as a diviner. However, we were able to get this bit. This conversation is rather crucial."
GM: "Finndo's voice rings out: Take her and take her quickly. That was part the second."

The skeleton is not actually Aine's. Aine is still alive, actually, under the mountain - but the party does not know that. Finndo planted the skeleton on the mountainside to suggest that Aine had died during the battle, possibly at Cymnea's hands (not anticipating that Charon would play a movie for Cyrus displaying Finndo's and Sybil's complicity in Aine's abduction). Evidence and spin so good that the dead diviner believes it:

Cyrus: "Go on and then I will have a question."
Charon: "Very well. Back to the top then."
GM: "And the image scrolls quickly to the peak, things are going badly, you are a boulder some distance off, Nod is descending the staircase, your wife and daughter stand there as though in a trance, and a wave of earth rushes towards them, first enclosing over your daughter and then reaching out and lashing at the staircase. Nod falls. The children of Nod, reacting very quickly, move towards Cymnea at kind of a half run and boom, they're gone, leaving your wife lying on the ground and the earth rumbles, rumbles, subsides."
Cyrus: "Where does the skeleton come from?"
Charon: "She was enveloped in earth. Suffocated; I imagine her life meant something to the forces that your friends called upon."

The nice, trustworthy people do *not* recommend necromancy. When will we learn this?

Cyrus: "Ah. That's what you meant by taken."
Charon: "That's what _he_ [Finndo] meant by taken, I imagine. "
Cyrus: "I was about to ask how to get her back."
Charon: "You do have a necromancer at your disposal, don't you?"

In Session 22, Benedict and Osric brought Piero back from the realm of mirrors. Benedict was hoping to hand the mastery of Mt. Doom and its associated dark powers back to Piero. Reorg changes:

Cyrus: "I do?"
Charon: "Well. "
Scott: "Small problem with that."
Jarrod: "Yeah, well, detail really."

But, really, *you'll* be different!

Cyrus: "What happens if I bring her back?"
Charon: "Let me ask you something as one who keeps interesting company: have you ever seen necromancy go well?"
Jarrod: "Fair point."

Not our fault! Fuck no, not us! Thanks for the solidarity, guys:

Charon: "Your friends have taken your daughter form you."
Jarrod, Scott, Shai: "Point of order!!!"

It's good to have allies who really know you:

Cyrus: "How do I know you are showing me the truth?"
Charon: "Would you put it past them?"
Cyrus: "Of course not! Just because they could have done it does not make it so."

This is precisely the line of thinking that Cyrus should not explore if we all want to get out of this alive - not that it's news to anyone, including Cyrus:

Charon: "That is true. Why don't you ask them? I might recommend the faerie girl; she's not so good at the lying. However, most of the deception lies with the one who's been doing awfully wonderful things for your family - almost as though he was trying to keep you on the leash."

Oracle of Delphi Wannabe:

Cyrus: "How do you know this?"
Charon: "We watch things."
Cyrus: "Who's we? Little green men?"
Charon: "No."
Cyrus: "Servitor powers of the little green men?"

Cryptic answers, not so much with the helpful.

Charon: "We are those who wait."
Cyrus: "Wait for what? The end?"
Charon: "We wait for when the three become one."

New and interesting ways to pay a man to throw a fight:

Cyrus: "What happens then? Why are you interested in this? Why tell me the truth, if that's what it is?"
Charon: "We are not well disposed towards those who have called themselves your friends."
Cyrus: "I see. Are you well disposed towards me or am I just merely a convenient tool?"
Charon: "We wish to illustrate to you the wisdom of getting out of the way."

Hey, look, I'm just a grunt junior oracular messenger:

Cyrus: "What's in it for me?"
Charon: "That depends on what kinds of sacrifices you're willing to make. Stepping aside for knowledge - fair trade. Taking a more active part on our behalf... well."
Cyrus: "What do you want?"
Charon: "We'd like the opposition to be less."
Cyrus: "Why?"
Charon: "It makes things easier."
Cyrus: "For what?"
Charon: "Our goals. You must understand the organization that I am a part of is such that I do not get to know everything."

And again with the 20 questions:

Cyrus: "Do you work for Dworkin?"
Charon: "Who?"
Cyrus: "Dworkin?"
Charon: "Who?"
Cyrus: "Oberon's enemy?"
Charon: "In that Oberon is part of the opposition, I would say... /yes/."

Could we have elemental subcategories? Maybe an elemental medium access control unique identifier?

Cyrus: "The man of fire."
Charon laughs: "Oh. Far, far, far too many beings for that description."
Jarrod: "Yeah, I ran into that problem."

Not the Vorlon you're looking for:

Cyrus: "Do you remember the floating island?"
Charon: "Oooh."
Cyrus: "Him."
Charon: "On a technicality, perhaps."
Cyrus: "How did you get here? Have you always been here?"
Lydia: "I feel like a Bab5 character. Why are you here? What do you want? Who are you?"

Ask not what you can do for your country...

GM: "The cloak shrugs and says I toss my cloak here and there."
Cyrus: "Will you be here again?"
Charon: "I don't imagine it's going to matter shortly. But. Here I am talking about what you'd need to do and not telling you what we'd be able to give you."
Cyrus: "Yes."

All politics is local:

Charon: "We can give you a knot in your pattern seeming ways, reality set right."
Cyrus: "What do you mean seeming?"
Charon: "The places you go when you use the power of the pattern are but shadow, thin things, brittle real wit."
Cyrus: "Yes."
Charon: "You could have your daughter back today, only not really."
Cyrus: "Yes I know."
Charon: "Well then. I'm promising something real. There is of course the necromantic route, if you'd prefer that, in which case I'd leave it to you."

So I'm just the sales engineer, really:

Cyrus: "How can you make things real and we cannot?"
Charon: "I don't believe we have the time to explain that sufficiently, nor do I believe that my appreciation of it is as deep as some others."

If it sounds too good to be true:

Cyrus: "And for all of this, you merely want me to be less useful."
Charon: "Spend some time. Figure out if we are telling you anything remotely approximating truth; I imagine your sense of family will guide you from there."

Not comforting:

Cyrus: "How will I find you from there?"
Charon: "We'll find you."

Character-trend-based assumptions:

Cyrus: "Will you be needing your cloak?"
Charon: "You can chop me to bits if you like."
Cyrus: "No, I figured I needed something for the bones."
Charon: "Ah. He drops the cloak."
Cyrus: "I finish digging and go back to the castle by a roundabout way."

The GM tends to mark off key plot points per session - plot point A, plot point B, etc. I worry when he starts out this chipper:

GM beams: "That was A."

And to think I married this man:

GM: "Finndo goes, "I can spin that."
Rob: "That's not the worry."
Lydia: "Finndo has been spending years figuring out how to spin that."
Rob: "Oh, that's not even an issue."

Actually, conducting them while he's unconscious doesn't help win arguments with Rob, let alone with Finndo:

Jarrod: "How did you convince Oberon to agree to not having the jewel?"
Rob: "When he was unconscious?"
Jarrod: "Now I've finally figured out how to win an argument with Finndo."
Rob: "Why do you think Finndo is only spending time unconscious surrounded by machine guns?"

Finndo and Rilga (who is really Sonnet) are still in the Bond shadow. Rilga is restrained and in her room for the nonce. Flexibility a Sonnet specialty:

GM: "Sonnet, you're in bed with the laptop. Power goes out."
Shai: "Wait for it. No flicker, emergency lights?"
GM: "You heard gunfire outside your door."
Shai, cheerfully: "Laptop makes a great weapon."

The sad thing is that she could:

GM: "So you're out of bed, you've got a laptop clutched under your arm. It's a pity you haven't been allowed any weapons."
Scott: "That's why you're a ninja."
Jarrod: "She's got a laptop. She could kill you with that laptop."

Calling cards, upper right hand corner bent down:

GM: "There are a few muffled thumps, like -"
Shai: "Like my guards?"
GM: "Like explosions heard through many solid layers."
Lydia: "Selm!"

Congratulations; you are now dealing with Finndo's precautions. Thankfully, you have Sonnet's delicate approach:

Shai: "I crack the door open; what can I see in the hallway, other than the dark?"
GM: "The door appears to be locked."
Scott: "They're not electronic?"
GM: "Yeah, but guess what. They have a physical backup."
Rob: "In addition there is not one single point where you could drop a photon torpedo and blow the whole building."
Shai: "I will take the bed rail to the lock."

Shai rolls a superb on her 'bash in the lock' roll. Right. It's always *something*:

GM: "Dent the door, Finndo's paranoia bears up and it's still attached, but you get a small gap.  Gunfire continues, approaches."
Shai tries another whack at the door
GM: "Gap widens, door is tough -- you can probably squeeze out but it'll take a while; there are small amounts of emergency light"
Shai: "Is the door hanging out in the hallway, though, or is it just gaps?"
GM: Well, you knocked it out but the problem is that it has these mother-long bolts for just this sort of -
Shai: "FUCK."

Taken by your own dice:

GM: "You do see some very clearly down the hallway  - "
Shai: "Time estimate?"
GM: "Not more than a minute."
Shai: "Give the door one last try. Forget the bed. Hope it's good and it's ... not."
Rob: "You just cannot roll."

Uncomfortable realizations that you don't /want/ to go exploring:

GM: "Shapunk! Shapunk! Ow!" He mimes holding his nose.
Shai: "The bed! Son of a BITCH!"
GM: "There's another one of those shoop things and near as you can tell from the gaps that end of the hallway just lit up. "
Shai: "No, I think I'll just stay where I am."
GM: "Which is where?"

Timing. It is everything:

Shai: "Bed against the door, me against the far corner."
GM: "You hear a tumptumptup and someone starts tugging on your door."
Shai: "Wait for it..."

What, no one stops to strip search a girl anymore?

GM: "The last bit gives way. The door swings open a bit, some large silhouette with an assault rifle jumps into the room, vaults over, hunkers down by the bed, reaches up, gets the door back closed."
Shai: "Didn't search the room. Just opens the door?"

Please move along, move along, no time to stop to think:

GM: "What are you doing?"
Shai: "Oookay..."
GM: "THUMP. Another flare of light."

Not the damsel in distress you think you're saving:

Deborah: "I feel sorry for the guy. This is going to hurt him."
Shai bursts out laughing.
Jarrod: "Oh boy."

So maybe not a guard. Maybe a wandering lost person who just happened to find himself in an incredibly secure facility with a machine gun in his hands:

Sonnet: "So how's it going out there?"
Guard, tense: "You a patient?"
Sonnet: "Yeah."

Audibly belieing the claim:

Guard: "What is this place?"
Sonnet: "A medical facility."
GM: "More gunfire more gunfire thump."
Sonnet: "And research facility and university. And a jail."

Karm was brought to the Bond shadow for treatment after he was bitten and paralyzed (with possible nerve damage) by an Ildrosi serpent. Okay, maybe he _did_ get lost, wander in, pick up a rifle...

Guard: "This belong to the Prince?"
Sonnet: "Yeah."
GM: "At that point you realize it's your dad."

Father and Daughter, working together at last:

Rilga: "Lord Karm?"
Karm: "Who are you?"
Rilga: "Rilga."
Karm: "Who?"
Rilga: "I was the physician who sent - "
Karm: "Oh right."
Rilga: "I was injured recently."
Karm: "You know how to use one of these."
Rilga: "I believe so, yes."
Karm: "Can you tell me?"
Shai: "She proceeds to, in clipped terms."
Karm: "Oh. There. Got it. "
Deborah: "That is SO Karm."

Determining one's obligation to give up one's security, sally forth and rain death upon the opposition:

Karm: "Is the Prince here?"
Rilga: "Yes. He is injured."
Karm: "Hm.  I suppose I can't stay in this fortified position, then."
Rilga: "I believe he's unconscious. I have not communicated with him in the past half hour."

And why would we want to save Oberon?

Karm: "Is there anyone else from the royal family here?"
Rilga: "Not to my knowledge."
Lydia: "Oberon is here."
GM: "Yes. Her official story is not to her knowledge."

Acquire a sense of urgency:

Karm: "I believe it is our duty to go to see to his safety." THOOMP. Reasonably, "Soon."
Rilga: "Very well. I can lead the way."

TOYS:

Karm: "What's the effective range on this?"
Rilga: "I tell him."
Karm: "Ooooh."

Whatever warms a girl's heart:

Rilga: "Did you pick up any spare cartridges?"
Karm looks blank.
Rilga: "Never mind; I'll pick them up on the way."
Lydia: "Great. Karm with an assault rifle."
Shai: "YES!"

They slip out the door and head towards Finndo. A twelve foot tall man on fire steps out.

Karm: "I think they've spotted us."
Rilga: "Very likely."

Karm is known as the deadliest man in the kingdom. He never backs down from a fight - except when it's a spectacularly good idea. A large part of success is knowing when to cut your losses:

Karm: "Allright." Calmly, "The running."
Scott stares: "That's /Karm/."
Rob: "Yes! Twelve foot tall guys on fire!"
Scott: "Just - those words coming out of Karm's mouth -"
Rob: " - indicates that it's a very good idea!"

Turning our assets into liabilities:

GM: "You come up to your first locked door. "
Shai: "And this is probably built to withstand gunfire."
Rob, sheepishly: "OH yes."

What, left em in your saddlebags? Oh, no, wait, we took them:

Deborah: "Why don't you try trumping Finndo?"
Shai: "Because I haven't got any."
Deborah smacks her forehead.

A man facing death should do so from comfortable footing:

Karm: "Hrm. Back against a wall, certain doom coming towards me, this is certainly familiar."

Karm is a Knight of the Realm. He deals with swords. He has never met a modern electrical light fixture. Next excuse, please:

Karm: "Found a way through the door yet?"
Rilga: "The power's out -"
Karm: "The what?"

Dammit, Dr. No, NO HELPING:

Rilga: "I suppose the ventilation system -"
Jarrod: The ventilation system? You've read the handbook!
Rob: "The problem is it's a mix of lasers and razor wire and the lasers aren't working!"

Getting down to practical matters, choosing between Instant Death and Merely Immediate Death:

Karm: "So stabbing and slicing traps but no magic ones."
Rilga: "Right. Or we can knock this door down."
Karm looks at the door. Taps it experimentally with the gun barrel. Looks up at the ventilation system. Looks at the door: "You sure you can't knock the door down?"
Rilga: "We could look for explosives..."

What we need to do is clone a counter-Rob. A sort of Rob-buster-buster:

Karm: "Let's try the door."
Deborah: "The hinges. Don't shoot the lock; they always shoot the lock. They never reinforce the hinges."
Rob: "I do."
Deborah: "/Shit/."

They shoot the door. Never getting off that pedestal:

Shai rolls fair on her gun skill.
GM to Shai: "Your dad still beat you.
Karm: "That did a whole lot of nothing. Why don't you deal with the door and I'll try to slow them down."

Rilga triggers the fire system while Karm, ah, slows the opposition down by killing scores of them. Enthusiasm:

GM: "The gunfire goes on for a while; there's a thump, there's a pause."
Karm: "Where's the clip go?"
Rilga tells him. Loud.
Karm: "Kachick. Kachick. AHA!"

British Surliness:

GM: "More gunfire."
Rilga: "Now. The ventilation system."
GM: "You're in it with all it's wonderful lethal razor wire. It's more a vertical U. It's not a straight small pipe and you're in the next room kind of thing."
Jarrod: "_Damn_ Finndo anyway."

Breaking a lifetime of habit, somewhat a gun-point:

Rilga opens the door; Karm ducks through, they slam the door closed.
Karm: "Yeah, that's not going to help much, keep moving."
Rilga: "I do NOT say Yes Father!"

Karm does not know that his daughter Sonnet survived to be reshaped by plastic surgery into the alias of Rilga. Karm believes that Sonnet is dead, and Sonnet cannot blow her cover even to him. And the thing to realize that Rob and Shai are responding to very different worries:

Guards: "FREEZE!"
Rilga: "WAKE UP THE PRINCE!"
Guards: "WHO?"
Rilga: "THE BOSS!"
Guards: "Can't get in his room?"
Rilga: "KNOCK! LOUDLY!"
Rob: "Oh Fuck."
Shai: "Shit. I'm using the Karm voice."

Finndo, meanwhile, has gotten his hands on a machine gun and then gotten to his father. Finndo is being rolled around on a bed by his attendant. Oberon's standing next to the door while all hell is breaking loose in the corridor. Casual greeting of the day:

Finndo: "Hey."
Oberon: "It doesn't sound good out there."

Father and Son:

Finndo: "Okay. Know how to use one of these?"
Oberon: "What is it?"
Finndo: "Gigantic handgun."
Oberon: "That all you got?"
Finndo: "No, but I'm keeping the rest for myself."

AAARGH:

Oberon reaches for his chest.
Finndo gives him the real jewel.

Rilga and Karm find their way to Finndo's door and attempt to gain entry. She did tell him earlier:

Finndo: "Dad, open the door."
Oberon opens it: "What!"
GM: "That's Oberon's voice before Finndo's."
Karm: "The King is here?"
Rilga: "Apparently."

Ask not, for you shall receive knowledge and it will make you bitter and guilty:

Shai: "Is Finndo standing up?"
Deborah clamps a hand over Shai's mouth; "Don't ask that."

That's the kind of acute summation of a scenario that I pay you for? Give me your dental designation right now, soldier:

Finndo: "How much time we talking about there, folks?"
Guard: "Whatever it is is bad..."

We need less imagination on these people:

Karm: "Fire elemental as far as I can tell."
Rilga: "They're in the twelve point range."
Finndo: "I need someone to get me in this chair; we're falling back to section B - 27."

Pssst:

GM: "What's B-27?"
Rob, helpfully: "The liquid nitrogen tanks."

Yeah, Dad, it's kind of like a really icy magic 8 ball:

Oberon: "You think the nitro thing'll work?"
Finndo: "If not, it'll buy us enough time to get out. We can get out now but I'm going to see if I can destroy this thing."

They get Finndo into the wheel chair and set off for B-27, the hapless attendant rolling Finndo along with Oberon, Sonnet and Karm alongside. Once in the hall, they have a view of the large burning figure eating up the hallway - literally:

Oberon: "Oh shit."
Finndo: "Uh huh."
Oberon: "That's a big guy."
Finndo: "Fire retardant spray concrete. See if you can contact the boys down the building."

Not a bad plan, really (and they never are until the not so working and then the running):

Rob: "Basically the goal is to put a great big steaming tank of liquid nitrogen between it and us."

A little small talk while they hope the elemental can't get through the fire retardant concrete wall that has just been sprayed into existence between them and it:

Finndo: "So, Lord Karm, good to see you on your feet. Sorry I can't say the same."
Karm: "This garment has no BACK."
Finndo: "You're right. We'll grab something on the way. Actually body armor would be appropriate for all three."

Way to stay calm, Dad:

GM: "The door and bits around it [the wall] start to sag."
Finndo: "We're backing away..."
GM: "Oberon is getting a lot more tense."
Oberon: "Why is he attacking here why is he attacking here?"
Finndo: "He's after you or me."
Oberon: "He's after this [the jewel]."

You don't say:

GM: "Oberon's doing the 'I have a million gears spinning' thing; the guys are spraying concrete, there's a SCREAM beyond the door and the spray concrete starts to glow."
Oberon: "Right, look, I'm going to catch up with you." The jewel flashes and he's gone.
Rob: "Shouldn't've given it to him."

From primary to secondary target is still a target:

Finndo: "So. Lady Rilga, Baron Karm. I am now afraid that he is not pursuing us but, uh,.."
GM: "There's rolling behind you. They rolling it into place and set it with spray concrete."
Finndo: "Right we go down the hall and set up mirrors so we can watch it as safely as possible."

Terminator 2, ala fire elemental:

GM: "Concrete glows, glows red to white to blue and explodes and it strides forward and the nitrogen starts to chink chink chink -"
Finndo: "START FIRING NOW."
GM: "Karm's gotten to be a quite good shot very quickly. There's a bright flare of light and a lot of steam and you can kind of see an orange flickering through it which gets dimmer but doesn't appear to have gone out."

The guards in question are in the awkward position of choosing between their own demonstrably-likely-to-end lives and the deaths of their family as payment should the guards try to preserve their own lives. The downside of EvilCorp:

Finndo: "Gentlemen, foam it."
GM: "THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP AAAAAAAH!" A guard screams.
Another guard panics, choosing: "My family, my life, my family, my life, my family!"
Rob: "Loyalty is job one."
GM: "We're a family corporation - or else."

Live EvilCorp employees are not useless. One of these two things must change:

GM: "Right. They're doing the foaming and then one of them starts to scream."
Finndo: "Well, that slowed it down but didn't do the job. Signal retreat - any closer to starting to have power?"
Guard: "Sir, the generators just aren't working. I've had the second in charge mechanic - probably shot the first one -look at it and he says it should be working."

The EvilCorp Performance review:

Scott and Deborah squint at the GM.
GM demonstrates: "I'm sorry, sir, the generator should be working!" *BANG*. To the second one, "Figure it out."

Neither do I!

Finndo: "We could try the beanstalk railgun."
Guard: "What? I mean, I don't think I have clearance for that, sir."

Finndo orders the evacuation. The half empty / half full glass dilemma:

Guard: "Thank god I got the easy job thank god I got the easy job oh wait they shoot messengers here!"

Meanwhile, back in the Hall of Mirrors, Benedict and Osric have just brought Piero back from the dead. One small catch: he's not Piero. He's Dworkin. We didn't have a plan for _that_:

GM: "I believe it left off with 'let's have a chat'. What do you do?"
Scott: "I'm throwing it to the dice on this one cause I can't decide."

... or are you just happy to see me?

Benedict whips out the sword and then just kinda deflates.
Dworkin just _looks_ at it.

Etiquette, only a contact sport in limited locales:

Dworkin: "Have a seat."
Osric tugs Benedict back by the shoulder.
Osric sits down.

Not being dead really is a good start:

Dworkin: "I suppose you have a few questions."
Benedict: "Yeeesss. Hang on a moment."
Dworkin: "No no no, I think I should probably give you a picture to answer your questions ahead of time."

Thank you, nice Mr. GM man:

Fred: "My notes read, 'write Dworkin's full spiel here; you owe it to yourself - and Deborah.'"

'I'll never be hungry again!' (and raise your hand if you got this one and you're /not/ a southern belle):

Scott: "The light at the end of the tunnel is a train."
Fred: "Sit down and have a chat with it."
Jarrod: "Nice train. Goooood train."
Shai: "Don't pet the Dworkin."

Dworkin spiels. And spiels. And spiels.
Scott squints more and more through this monologue until the GM snickers.

"Here's the picture, kids. Listen up; we've got time for me to tell this once.

Long time ago, your father and his brother Malachai came to me as students. Their power was far greater than mine, but unrefined. In time, I gave them the knowledge that allowed them to control and focus what they could do. They became as gods, and strode through the planes of reality as if they were tissue. And, thankfully, they saw fit to leave me alone after that... at least for a time.

I suppose it was jealousy of a sort -- I wanted a bit of what they had, but as a simple sorceror, there was little I could do -- from within -- that would approach what they had managed when simply pointed in the right direction. But I had had time to study them, to get a glimpse at their souls, as it were. I knew that under it all were the beginnings of a design -- a Pattern -- that, if completed, put into physical form, could grant some measure of their power to those who could hold it within their minds. I undertook the drawing of it.

My boys, it was a thing of beauty, and I say that with all modesty, for the art, though presented through my hand, was not my own. It was portraiture -- and something Primal, at that.

What price is there, then, for offending the gods? Originally I thought it was the both of them, who'd decided my work was an affront. They came for me, and I was a dead man for sure -- a dead man, if I hadn't studied them as I had. I knew how to turn their power in upon itself, by using one brother's against another. And when they came at me, that is what I did.

It left my work shattered into three pieces, which I cast to the winds. It left your father irrevocably drained, your uncle apparently dead and cast into a tomb he'd meant for me. I used every bit of power I had left to make myself disappear, to take on a new identity. I had nothing left to finish the both of them for sure, so the best thing left was to find a rock and be under it.

That rock was a necromancer named Piero. It was easy to take his place after his untimely death; I saw that I could enter into your father's service when the time came, so I might watch my enemies from close by, and know the full shape of their treachery.

In time, I came to realize that Malachai had duped Oberon, painting me a villain larger than life, with supposed plans that -- I suspected -- were actually Malachai's, and not my own. Malachai had always been a bit of a braggart, and I suppose that by delineating his plans as my own, he got the satisfaction of seeing his brother's reaction.

But I remained a villain by this face, before your father, and could not reveal myself without great risk. Time passed; I watched and helped as your father reclaimed one of the pieces of my work, unaware that it was only a fragment and not the whole. He did not search further.

More recently, signs of "my" return began to appear. In fact, they were signs of Malachai, but as it was before, he was dressing me up as the villain, with capabilities far greater than I actually had. Better to point Oberon at the wrong target again; the dupe continued.

And I doubted. As much as I'd come to hope that Oberon was duped -- I wasn't certain. And I wasn't going to let him out of my sight.

In time, we resolved to recover Malachai from beyond the ends of Shadow -- an enterprise I had to undermine without revealing myself. In the end it was, I think, my error that allowed it to happen; I hadn't seen the trap from the way Malachai had laid it. At the exact wrong moment, I was struck dumb, and he stepped in your father's place, inflicting his own wounds upon Oberon by way of healing himself, casting Oberon into the Cask of Time.

You see, Osric, yours was not the first incidence of twins in the family -- it was Oberon and his identical twin, Malachai.

Even I was fooled for a few brief moments, but the awful truth -- and its irrevocable nature -- was soon apparent to me. Malachai covered the ruse by pretending to collapse -- I imagine it gave him crucial time to assimilate the memories and personality he stole form your father in the transfer. I would have undone him there if I could, but it was all I could do to keep our ship from being engulfed ... which I knew would have left only him alive, and I unable to counter any move. I elected to bide my time.

Finndo called us back. Proximity to Oberon I could survive; proximity to Malachai, who had come back from the grave, whose power had not been broken by the conflict of ages past...? I wasn't going to try it. So I took my next move in this death game -- and as Malachai called forth his next distraction, the Mountain -- I arranged to die as best as I could.

I suspect you can fill in the rest.

So there it is, if you'll believe its telling: I am not your enemy. The one with your father's face is. He means to use the shattered bits of my design, reflections of his own soul, to rip down the barriers of reality, to make himself be everywhere at once -- truly a god, rather than merely a close approximation. Pity that it will be a ruin he'll govern, if he succeeds. Things don't handle being in the same place as one another quite as well as he hopes, if indeed he hopes at all in his madness.

Of course, there's a better than even chance you don't believe me. If that's so, please, kill me and get on with the destruction of your universe; I'm tired, and I'd like to be done with this, one way or another.

It's time to choose."

What, you want an Oscar for it:

Benedict: "Wait. When was that"
Dworkin: "Long ago."
Benedict: "Before the dragon thing."
Dworkin: "Yes, that was my work."

Careful with those assumptions:

Benedict: "Malachai's island, not yours."
Dworkin just smiles.

[After Twins] Knowledge is not always with the helping:

Benedict: "Who - who -?"
Dworkin holds up a finger.
Benedict: "I'm not sure I want there to be more."

[Transfer] Really, our wants are simple - information and violence:

Benedict, interrupting: "When did this happen?"
Dworkin: "Listen up."
Deborah, impatiently: "I need to stab something."

So what do you do when the world slides to the left and the guy you've been defending turns out to be the ultimate evil? Well. Mostly you look a bit unsurprised, really:

Benedict and Osric just look at each other.
Osric: "I never liked him [Oberon] anyway."

~How looooong has this been going on?~

Benedict: "So how long has Malachai been our father, since the fire incident when Finndo pulled him back?"
GM: "Since session 11 or 12?"

And then the other shoe falls:

Shai: "So Malachai's the fucker who wanted to marry me to Osric."
Deborah: "FUUUUUUUCK! Malachai has my true name!"
GM: "YES!"

And then the next shoe:

Dworkin: "I did what I could to keep you all from returning with your father's body to turn it over to Malachai because I believe it's an important lynchpin, but you were all a bit too clever for that."
Benedict: "So assuming what you say is true, where is Dad now?"
Dworkin: "Wherever Malachai stashed him."
Benedict: "Shit."

Sympathy. Not quite:

Dworkin: "Yeah. Shit. I was only able to touch you in the place beyond shadow. I'm afraid I killed myself a little two well. Stings a little."
Osric: "Yes I know."

And a new pair:

Benedict: "Where do you expect Malachai to attack next?"
Dworkin: "Here."
Benedict: "Right. So I should be about getting the army ready."
Dworkin: "I'm not sure that would help."

Sharing:

Benedict: "Well, I leave the cosmic battle to you and my brother."
Osric: "Oh, thank you."

Taking a page from Cyrus in the book of denial:

Dworkin: "Here's the problem. Finndo and his allies are off in shadow with the /King/."
Benedict: "That does pose a bit of a problem."
Dworkin: "Mm."
Deborah: "Lies, lies lies."

Puzzletime:

Osric: "Do you know where the pieces are?"
Dworkin: "I don't know what the pieces are? Oh. Yes, my pattern bits are somewhat difficult for me to reach for a short time, but they are not the only pieces that Malachai needs. Otherwise why send you off to reclaim your father's body?"

On credibility:

Osric: "Well, he certainly won't believe me."
Benedict: "Right. Finndo. I try to trump him."

So, being chased by an enormous fire elemental through his own Dr. Evil Underground Complex, Finndo stops to study it before fleeing. 'You've performed very well, Mr. Bond...':

GM: "Okay. Lots of things keep blowing up; this thing keeps coming. What the fuck are you doing?"
Finndo: "Let's experiment a bit. We'll get up on ground above the complex. I'm just mostly fascinated by this. Finndo has trumps on hand to pop to another shadow; he's very curious to see how fast this thing is."

So Finndo and Rilga and Karm climb up to the roof, so to speak, of Finndo's Dr. Evil compound. That intellectual curiosity Finndo's got going is not helping with the sense of urgency. Keeping a sense of scale:

GM: "Apparently outdoors this thing can get bigger."
Rilga: "Are we on an island?"
Finndo: "In a continental sort of sense."

The mark of intelligence is taking complex concepts and reducing them to easily understood, basic shapes. To wit: a ten foot tall flaming elemental is chasing you through an underground structure on an isolated island in a not quite real shadow. It may or may not be after you, your father, your siblings, your uncle, a jewel, sent by someone who may or may not have created or stolen the Pattern, the sign of original order - or, to put it differently:

GM: "The thing THUMP THUMP THUMPs."
Finndo, calmly: "We're playing race the Godzilla."

Two guys are running from a bear. One says, "We'll never outrun it!" The other guy says, "That's okay; I don't have to outrun it. I just have to outrun _you_." Rilga and Finndo get in the EvilMobile with Karm and lead the thumping ten foot tall fire elemental a merry chase that heads further into Shadow. Duty is, we gather, not outrunning the King:

GM: "It's keeping up with you at top speed."
Finndo: "This is fascinating. Now the curious thing is it seems to still be pursuing us. Either it is not pursuing father or it does not know well enough to pursue Father. As such, we're going to be driving for a while."
Rilga: "So I'm in the back seat with Dad [Karm]."
Finndo: "Let's do a minor shift to the land of empty superhighways."

Most dangerous thing you can do while driving is sneeze - or:

GM: "You get a trump call."
Finndo: "Question is, relax a bit and see if this car now works."

The elemental has continued to increase in size and heat. That's _salamander_, not ringwraith:

Rilga: "Great, it's an EMP wave radiating off the creature."
Finndo: "Go across a bridge, it should slow it down a little."

Benedict, back home, has been talking to Dworkin. Dworkin has convinced Benedict that the real enemy is not Dworkin himself, but Oberon, who is actually a shapeshifted Malachai. Benedict has called Finndo (who is busy playing Race The Godzilla through shadow with the fire elemental to keep the elemental away from his father, Oberon) to persuade Finndo that Oberon is the enemy. This would be a difficult tale to sell if trust were not an issue. However, Benedict has been told by Osric that Finndo tried to kill Osric, Quinn has mind-controlled individuals before - Rilga and Cyrus - and, well, trust is very much the issue. Cracks on every side:

Benedict: "Come through."
Finndo, driving: "I do not have that option. I have only 30 seconds. I do not have that option."
Benedict: "Right. Dworkin's not the enemy. Malachai is. Malachai and Oberon are twins; Malachai is Oberon right now."
Finndo: "Evidence supporting this?"
Benedict: "I cut off the contact."

Or, more succinctly (he's got a point):

Deborah: "WHY? Why did you do that?"
Benedict: "He's not going to believe me." He imitates bright eyed naivete: "Dworkin told me; I'm having coffee with him?"

Speaking of fundamental expectations:

Benedict to Osric: "We're not going to get help from that end."
Osric: "This is my shocked face."

All of this, the reader recalls, the whole fricking apocalyptic mess, is over the Pattern (and isn't it always?). Theoretically, the story now goes, Malachai (who possesses Oberon) made the Pattern in order to remake the universe in his image. Oberon-as-Oberon stole it, broke it into pieces and flung it out of reach - then parked his castle right on top of it to protect it. Malachai has come back for it and has begun consolidating the pieces, the better to remake the universe. The one that was in Fae has been hidden under the waters by Oberon, there's one in the sky (Tir'na N'og) and there was one under the Castle. The one under the Castle is now missing. Time to start converting to liquid currency:

Dworkin: "The best advice on fighting these folks is to turn their own tricks on them, to fight them using their own tools and to that end, our best bet is to get to the pieces first."
Osric: "But you said you didn't know where those were."
Dworkin: "Well, Malachai did toss one into the ocean. And I suspect he needs Tir'na N'og to show up once more."
Osric: "And the one here?"
Dworkin: "Oh, and the one not being here means he's started."

Speaking of trust being the issue:

Finndo: "So Benedict is either quite deluded or possibly insane."
Rilga: "I'll opt for option 1."
Finndo: Just so you know where things stand."

Kobolds ate my brother's sanity:

Rilga: "So things are bad?"
Finndo: "I don't know; it's very hard to tell. From the brief exchange, he [Benedict] thinks Oberon is the enemy and Dworkin is not."
Rilga: "Mind control?"
Finndo: "I don't know; we've had experience with that lately."

Benedict comes out in the courtyard (he and Osric are at the castle). Well, hell, they're your men:

Benedict: "Where's Sejak?"
GM: "Sejak's doing cleanup somewhere. Osric's small company has just started entering the courtyard. "
Jarrod: "I'm not sure whether that's good or not."

So much for the temporary lull before the storm:

GM: "Cyrus is coming in behind them. And one of them, a Lieutenant possibly, comes up to you. Sir!"
Benedict: "Lieutenant?"
Lieutenant: "Arden's on fire."
Benedict: "Coordinate with the castle guard, prepare the defensive positions, the invasion isn't over yet. And I go to call Dorr."

Hey, take your happier family relationships where they're not melting your brain into tiny pieces:

Benedict: "Surrogate Dad!"
Deborah: "Non possessed, non identical evil twin -"

Okay, at this point, I've run out of synonyms for paranoid, but I expect the reader gets the idea:

Finndo: "Benedict initially wanted me to come through. "
Rilga: "A briefing or -"
Finndo: "Either that or flop over there with no legs."

Finndo's legs don't work because Rilga, possessed by Quinn, stabbed him in the spine. No need to be bitter:

Shai: "Sorry about that."
Rob: "Well, we deal with what's on hand."

Arden is the vast forest land that covers one of the approaches to Amber City and the Castle, and thus strategically critical. The realm closest in is called Homewood, and Dorr is the Duke in charge. Benedict is married to Dorr's daughter, Alyra. So, having been informed that Arden is in flames, Benedict tries trumping Dorr. On top of everything else, the in-laws are upset:

GM: "The contact comes quickly and angrily."
Dorr: "Is Quinn alive?"
Benedict: "No."
Dorr snarls: "Then I am betrayed."

Yeah, well, my day's been rough too!

Benedict stares: "Are you it?"
Dorr: "What? Yeah, the problem is you play dumb real well, kid."
Benedict: "It seems there has been more than one betrayal happening and it started a long time ago. It wasn't me and we're about to be invaded again and I heard Arden's _on FIRE_."

The trouble with picking surrogate father authority figures to turn to is that, eventually, you're the only one left standing:

Dorr: "Yeah. My wife's gone. So are quite a number of my men. Alyra's fine because she didn't listen to her father for once and decided not to stay put."
Benedict: "Where are you, how many are you and can you get to a place where I can pull you out?"
Dorr: "We'll be fighting this one on our own. Sorry. It was trust got us here in the first place."

The things we do and know not why:

Benedict: "What are you facing?"
Dorr: "Your pet faerie bitch."
Deborah blinks, surprised: "I am?"

No, no - the TOWN. Not the forest, the TOWN - get it RIGHT. Burn the fucking TOWN down:

Benedict: "OSRIC!!!!!! Sybil's burning down Homewood!"
Deborah and Shai start laughing.
Dworkin, mildly: "Oh, that's not good."

Benedict and Osric and Dworkin are pulled through the trump by Dorr. Benedict's got this down to a succinct description:

GM: "There are a bunch of crossbows trained on you; the air is thick with smoke."
Benedict: "The threat that was Dworkin is really Malachai, and Malachai is a twin brother to Oberon."

Not that we hold this against you, but we hold this against you:

Dorr: "So how does your faerie bitch figure in?"
Benedict: "Oberon has some sort of control over her, which Malachai picked up. I need to stop her."
Dorr: "Yeah you do."

Smart horse:

Benedict: "You have a horse?"
Dorr: "They aren't handling the fire so well."

Follow the really hard to miss glow:

Benedict: "Very well. Which way - where is she [Sybil]?"
Shai laughs.
Jarrod: "See that wall of fire?"

Benedict the Terminator:

Dorr: "She doesn't just have fire with her."
Benedict: "Doesn't matter what she has with her."

Benedict went off after Sybil without giving Osric a heads up, leaving Osric with Dworkin in a burning Homewood. Don't leave me here with the guy who out-creeps me!

Scott to Jarrod: "Sorry."
Jarrod: "So just run off like that."
Scott: "Sybil's burning down Homewood!"
Jarrod: "It'll grow back!!"

Sybil has been cut loose and is pursuing Benedict with intent to kill as well as turning elementals loose on the rest of the party. We can safely say we're in the endgame now. And we _still_ have too many enemies to count:

GM: "You have definitely worked out how to slow its pursuit at various points but it still seems to manage to slide back to you."
Cyrus: "I'm going to trump Osric."
Dworkin: "It's not Quinn. So it has to be Malachai."

My crystal ball, it speaks to me:

GM to Osric: "You're getting a trump call. It's Cyrus."
Osric: "Yes."
Lydia: "You get a conversation that does not start with fuck."
Jarrod: "It's about to."

Thanks, Boss:

Cyrus: "Status?"
Osric: "Yes, we're doomed, next."

Osric decides to bring Cyrus into the loop (Oberon is Malachai who is actually the prime evil about to destroy the universe; Piero is Dworkin, who is going to try to help us, anyone heard from Finndo, who tried to kill Osric and Sybil's burning down Homewood.) Who's on First, What's on Second:

Osric: "Where are you?"
Cyrus: "In the castle."
Osric: "Oh, so am I. Good job, that. We have reason to believe that our dear father is actually Malachai."
Cyrus: "Dead?"
Osric: "Dead?"
Cyrus: "Malachai was dead."
Osric: "Not so much it would seem. That was Oberon."

Remember that Cyrus is the bastard son of Oberon and Osric is the son of Oberon who defied his father. And to Cyrus, Dworkin is still the Ultimate Enemy. Theirs is an adaptable universe (kinda has to be, past a certain point).

Cyrus: "I can't say I'm regretful [that Oberon is dead]."
Osric: "Nor can I really but that's really beside the point."
Cyrus: "Why?"
Osric: "Malachai is the one coming to blow us up."
Cyrus: "What happened to Dworkin?"
Osric: "Well, that's rather an interesting story, but suffice it to say we're having tea at the moment?"
Cyrus: "What? Has everyone lost their mind?"
Osric: "Well, why don't you just come and tell me?"
Cyrus: "Do you have any brandy?"

Cyrus comes through the trump and encounters Osric sitting down to tea with Dworkin. What do you do with evil? Apparently you offer it a drink. Etiquette in the Cyrus universe:

Cyrus: "I take the brandy from my liquor cabinet."
GM: "A small wizened wrinkly man is standing there."
Cyrus offers the bottle of brandy.
Osric: "Cyrus, this is Dworkin. Don't kill him. Yet."
Cyrus: "Can't say I'm delighted."

Well, that does sum it up nicely:

Dworkin: "I'm not going through that spiel again."
Osric: "Give him the quick precis."
Dworkin, to Cyrus: "It has been Malachai all along; I'm the guy who got dressed up as the big bad villain thing."
Cyrus: "Why?"
Dworkin: "I was convenient and Malachai is arrogant."

Remember the hooded cloak who wanted Cyrus to bug out of the final fight in the name of the three becoming one? For once, Cyrus is a step ahead of Osric.

Cyrus: "Do you represent the three which become one?"
Osric: "_What?_"
Dworkin: "An interesting way of putting it; that would be Malachai."

Aren't they always?

Cyrus: "What does that mean?"
Dworkin: "Bring the three of them together and then use Oberon's blood, essence, that sort, as a lynchpin and destroy all of reality."
Cyrus: "Why?"
Dworkin: "Because he's /nuts/."

Remember that Sybil is controlled by Malachai and is off burning down Arden. It's so hard to get good help these days:

Cyrus: "What happens when reality is destroyed?"
Dworkin: "Gets pretty theoretical at that point." To Osric, "Is this guy supposed to help us?"
Osric: "Well, the other one [Sybil] ran off, you see."
Scott: "Well, which do you prefer? Sybil with us or Sybil against us?"
Jarrod: "Details."

Finally, they have to ask:

Cyrus: "What's in this [stopping Malachai] for you?"
Dworkin: "I live here. I LIKE that."

Still hoping:

Cyrus: "I don't suppose you know what happened to my daughter."
Dworkin: "Sorry, that happened when I wasn't around."

Working on it!

Cyrus: "What are we doing?"
Osric: "Yes, well, right. Working on a plan."

Define 'safe':

Cyrus: "Where is Oberon - well, the guy who looks like Oberon, not the real Oberon, you know who I mean."
Dworkin: "He's with Finndo."
Cyrus: "That seems safe enough."
Dworkin: "Rather unfortunate for Finndo if he is who I say he is - and he is."

Do you sense sarcasm? I sense sarcasm and a touch of mockery:

Osric to Dworkin: "Will you STOP that. You're giving me a headache."
Dworkin: "I'm merely  trying to respect your reasonable doubt."

TOWN. Dammit. TOWN (stupid fae never can take direction):

Cyrus: "Where's Benedict?"
Dworkin: "Trying to stop your faerie person gone -"
Cyrus: "What did she do now?"
Dworkin: "Burning the fucking forest down, I believe she would put it."

Curiouser and curiouser:

Cyrus to Osric: "Where did he [Dworkin] come from?"
Dworkin: "Through the looking glass."
Cyrus: "Hall of Mirrors."
Dworkin: "Yes."
Cyrus: "Crowded in there, wasn't it?"
Dworkin: "Was."

Remember that Dulcea, sister of Cymnea (the ex-Queen turned traitor) was held hostage by Finndo. Cymnea wanted Dulcea for a blood sacrifice to heal their ghost brother Quinn, but she didn't get Dulcea. Dulcea was dragged into a mirror instead and never came out. Who else is thinking Godfather:

Cyrus: "What happened to Dulcea?"
Dworkin: "Kind of misplaced her."
Cyrus: "Permanently."
Dworkin: "Not looking to go back."

Translation, please:

Cyrus: "Quinn's dead?"
Osric: "Think so."
Dworkin: "Neck wasn't working too well when I dumped him in the ocean."
Osric: "I'd say yes."

Delegation:

Cyrus: "So I'm assuming the current plan is to find Oberon/Malachai and run him through, burn the body?"
Osric: "What a great idea. Why don't you be about that?"

And Dworkin's the expert. Not reassuring:

Dworkin: "I'm not sure that [running Oberon/Malachai through and then burning the body] would be affective."
Cyrus: "How do you kill him?"
Dworkin: "I've been working on that for a long time. The best answer I can give you is 'huh'."

All politics is local:

Cyrus: "Presumably what we want to do is find the real Oberon, point him at Malachai, and have him go kill him."
Dworkin: "Except that would be telling Oberon to wake up and go get killed; his power is n where near where Malachai's is."

Brothers, not allies, and not friends:

Cyrus: "What happened to Osrat?"
Osric: "Well, I'd kinda hoped he'd have called in by now, but... "
Cyrus: "We know he's alive."
Osric: "I don't know where he is."
Cyrus: "He has Sybil's power."
Osric: "In part."
Cyrus: "In part or all of it?"
Osric: "Not anxious to tell me."
Cyrus: "He might be more effective, if he can be suitably bribed."
Osric: "If the opportunity presents, I'd happily pursue that, but it hasn't."
Cyrus: "I suppose it's Finndo who's got the means of contacting him."
Osric: "Maaaaaaybe."

Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats and we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after ('Lie to Me' - Buffy):

Dworkin: "Honestly, kid, I make this shit up as I go along."
Osric: "Lie to me."
Dworkin: "Oh. Oh. Allright. Uh. We get up there, we send a portion of our forces to try to hold the pattern, with the other part, we run off and try to scare up a few tools of the trade that we can use against him."

Read. The. Fucking. Manual:

Cyrus: "Do you want Sybil stopped alive or stopped dead?"
Dworkin: "Unfortunately Benedict ran off before we had any chance to instruct him. I imagine trumping him now would cramp his style."

Required: ingenious problem solving not threatened by halts to physical reality as you understand it:

Cyrus: "The issue with Sybil is of course that presumably he is controlling her faerie nature, not her mortal nature."
Dworkin: "Yes, so if we can split off her faerie nature from her other nature - oh. I suppose we can put her across the Pattern."
Cyrus: "It's gone."
Dworkin: "There's the one under water."

To each man in his turn:

Cyrus: "Bit difficult to get her across that."
Dworkin: "Oh, I can get there."
Osric: "Really."
Dworkin: "/Yes/."
GM: "You dumbass."

Specific, technical doom:

Cyrus: "Are we really sure bringing all three patterns together will destroy reality?"
Dworkin: "/No/. Bringing them together and hitting them with the right tuning fork, if you will, and sacrificing a being of great power at the right point of resonance in just the right way /will/."

While Cyrus and Dworkin discuss theories on stopping Sybil (still in Malachai's control), Benedict has rushed off to fight her himself. This involves dodging an awful lot of elemental firepower. Sybil has a Legendary Glamour and a Legendary +1 Elemental skill. Benedict has a Legendary +1 Sword skill and an equally appalling Unravel skill. Pot, kettle, black:

GM: "You're fighting the stat twink in the game!"
Deborah: "I am NOT the stat twink!"
GM: "Legendary +1!"
Deborah points at Scott indignantly.
Rob, soothing: "The two stat twinks are fighting."

Benedict starts out dodging. Then he gets down to business. No more Mr. Nice Sibling-Equivalent:

GM: "You are scratched by a fist of earth. You wheel back and forces are rising up against you and Caliban rises up in front of you."
Benedict: "Unravel!"
GM: "What've you got?"
Benedict: "Superb!"
GM: "That all you got?"
Benedict: "I burn another connection to the Dorr family. "
GM: "You manage to nail him in the flank. You kept him from actually clobbering you. You do seem to be faster than him but you do not know how quickly he moves through earth."
Benedict: "I'm charging the sword. Legendary +1."

Case-by-case environmental adaptation, minus bushes:

GM: "He [Caliban, the earth elemental] does the elastic arm attack at you thing. There's a huge cloud of dust; you have to close your eyes to keep from being blinded by tiny bits of stone; dust clears... you don't see him. What are you doing?"
Benedict: "Up a tree."
Rob: "A burning tree?"

Better part of valor:

Benedict: "Is there a non burning tree?"
GM: "There's a lot of burning in the area but it's kinda spotty. You can probably get up one but you don't know how long it will stay intact. Still want to do that?"
Benedict: "I'm running. I'm just booking."

While Benedict is hip deep fighting Sybil, Osric trumps him. Gee. THANKS:

Benedict: "Great."
GM: "Running running running TRUMP CALL."
Scott: "FUCK! Now we go up a tree!"
Jarrod: "You don't /have/ to..."
Scott looks flatly at him.

Benedict takes the trump call. When you order pepperoni and get extra cheese instead:

Benedict answers: "Quickly. Caliban's after me."
Osric: "Yes, well, it would seem Malachai's controlling her [Sybil]; what would you like me to do to help you? I can do something bout the fire maybe."
Benedict: "Come through. If there's anything you can do, you can do it here. I need to get to Sybil. I need distractions to get to Sybil."
Osric: "Hrm. Then I need to stay here."
Benedict stares.
Osric: "Sorry."

Still in the trump call, no time to chat:

Benedict: "Very -"
GM: "Roll Alertness. You manage to hold onto the tree when it gets buffeted by high winds."
Benedict: "Here comes Ariel!"

Putting this all in perspective. His problem is our next problem:

Cyrus: "How is Benedict doing?"
Osric: "Not very well."
Cyrus: "I'm so sorry."
Osric: "Yes, well, you don't want him to lose one."

Benedict is trying to dodge the attacks while getting closer to Sybil, and the forest around him is on fire. My god, actual useful helping:

Benedict: "I'm jumping from the tree."
Rob: "/Jumping/?"
Benedict: "Getting down."
Rob: "You're welcome."

Benedict is rethinking the plan to get closer in to Sybil. Jarrod's had a bit too much Eddie Izzard:

Benedict: "Here's what we're going to do. Hanging onto the branch -"
Jarrod: "Le Benedict est sur la branche."
Benedict: "We're going to hold onto the branch and do a tactics roll to see where she's coming from."

Whose side are you on anyway?

Benedict: "Legendary +2."
GM: "That all you got?"
Deborah: "Scott, be careful, because if you spend now, you won't have them to send against Sybil."
Scott turns his head, "I'm SORRY, I have to GET to you first."

Sejak (who is at the castle and has been holding it desperately during all this) gets trumped by Finndo. Status report about par the course for the end of the world, sir:

Finndo: "Sejak, how do things stand?"
Sejak: "Shakily."
Finndo: "Fill me in on what I've missed."
Sejak: "Not sure where all your companions are; Osric and Benedict managed to bring Piero to bear and with his help I believe they have managed to drive off the threat of Quinn. Quinn is believed dead, dumped in the ocean, along with his castle. Lady Ismerelda helped out quite a bit there and right now we are primarily dealing with - oh, right, Arden's on fire. And Osric's men have shown up in the castle to deal with all the men being dead."
Finndo: "I'm coming through; I have my secretary and Baron Karm with me. "

A man's priorities change with experience:

Finndo to Sejak: "Think about this: there is likely no reward beyond your reach now. Think about it because we all have to survive first."
Lydia: "I want QUIET."

Osric invokes Finndo to get Benedict his distraction. Playing the trump card:

Osric: "Finndo, I don't suppose you have a means to distract Sybil?"
Finndo: "I suppose I could pull something together, but why -"
Osric: "She's burning the forest, see. And our brother with it."
Finndo: "Aaaaaaaah. That may explain - well, the good news is that Town is out in shadow at the moment."
Osric: "I suppose that's a good sign."
Finndo: "Or possibly not.  That explains that."
Deborah: "I was afraid of that."
Finndo: "Out comes Sybil's trump then."

Meanwhile, in Benedict's corner of reality:

GM: "Running, running, running. That might be Sybil airborne up ahead but the heat waves are making that difficult to determine."

The GM does not quite cackle. Getting a clearer picture:

Sybil: "Benedict is here, no one is my friend, and what is my objective?"
GM: "Destroy the kingdom, starting with Arden."
Sybil: "How's the kingdom?"
GM: "Not good, but there's still more to be burned.  Sybil sent Caliban and Ariel off to deal with Ben, and Town's burning everything down.  Yeah, there was this wild theory that Town was out in shadow."

Let's play chess - oh, screw it, let's play checkers:

Sybil: "Sybil is conjuring up elementals and not giving them limits.  She's dropping trees and having the earth grab Benedict. Ow, the pain. She's trying to corral him into a corner."
GM: " Ben's not able to make forward progress, although he's not dead.  "
Sybil: "Sybil's trying to block him in."
Benedict: "Ben's just trying to stay alive at this point."
GM: "Ben's pinned down as far as location, but he's dodging what's being thrown at him.  His sword is full of death.  He's smacking down air elementals with his sword when he leaps into the air."
Sybil: "And when he lands, the ground explodes in fire."
GM: "Because of the time delay, Ben gets singed, but does not set on fire."

Well, subtlety was never the claim:

Sybil: "I'm not actually trying to kill you."
Benedict: "Yes, you are."
Shai: "Because he's bad.  He killed Sonnet!"
Scott points at Shai and mutters dark oaths under his breath.
Deborah laughs.

Benedict runs through hell, falling trees, exploding earth, gale force sheets of fire -- and something drops over Sybil like a bag.  Finndo has drawn a circle around himself and then trumped Sybil. Sybil proceeds to cuss Finndo out, using everything she's learned from Sonnet and Cyrus; Finndo makes the contact real, grabs her by the hair, and bonks her on the head. He drags her through right as Benedict was going to shoot her with an arrow. Rilga is sent to find someone to tell Osric and to carry Sybil. Turnabout and fair play:

Deborah: "Rilga gets her revenge; does Sybil get kicked in the crotch?"
Shai: "No, but Sybil might bump her head against a few doors."

Hey, it's a perk of the job:

Rilga: "I can carry Sybil. I really can."
Jarrod: "She might get a few nasty cracks around the head."

A little too much OOC honesty:

Deborah: "That was fun!"
Scott's eyes widen.
Deborah, hastily: "I mean that in the kindest way!"

Prioritizing news releases:

Osric tells Dworkin that he should be Piero for a bit longer.
Dworkin: "Don't you think the cat's out of the bag?"
Osric: "One crises at a time, please."

Osric has a new watchword:

Osric: "If I pass Cyrus in the hall, I tell him not a word about him [Piero] yet."
Cyrus: "Isn't he spending a decade dead?"
Osric: "Later."
Cyrus: "What happened -"
Osric: "Later."
Cyrus: "That's creepy."
Osric: "One crises at a time. Please."

Explaining to the in-laws how their home forest got burned down:

GM: "And you all are basically converging in one place except for Benedict who is off to deal with some pissed off Dorrs."

It's not paranoia. At this point, it's mild caution:

Rob: "Oh, and Finndo burns his blood. Takes a lighter to the circle of blood."
Jarrod: "That's creepy."
Shai: "With Ismerelda in residence."

Well, there's no need to get _tense_ about it:

GM: "She is symbolically, psychologically, physically bound..."
Deborah, a little startled: "They've done a very thorough job."
Jarrod: "WOULDN'T YOU?"

Finndo, having been stabbed in the spine by Rilga, cannot move his lower body or legs at all. Leaving out the part where they both just tried to kill each other:

Finndo: "Gentlemen, you'll forgive me for not standing."
Osric: "That [stopping Sybil] worked very well, I gather. Thanks."
Finndo: "Not at all."

It's quiet time! Stay there and think about what you did wrong!

Osric: "Well. Where do we start?"
Deborah: "Can someone wake me up?"
Jarrod: "/No/."

I want to direct my hate accurately, dammit:

Osric: "I take it that ball of chain over there is 0beron?"
Finndo: "Yes."
Osric: "How sure are you that what you saw as Oberon is really him?"
Finndo: "That is an interesting question and I think requires some elaboration. In what context are we speaking?"
Osric: "The man I truly adore; is that still him. Is it the same person? Was it someone just appearing to be him?"

How deeply do you really want to explore this topic?

Finndo: "If it's someone appearing to him, they are a most convincing actor, have access to information sources that are boggling to me, and are capable of fooling the trumps."
Osric: "That's a fairly limited list isn't it?"
Finndo: "As a reasonable expert on the subject, I consider it safe to say that yes, I've been dealing with Oberon."
Osric: "Is there anyone else with Oberon's powers?"
Finndo: "You. Osrat, I suppose."

Stay with me here, even if your common sense tells you to run away:

Osrat: "I was speaking of Malachai. Whom we went to get, you may recall."
Finndo: "I recall."
Osric: "I have it on some bit of authority that they are very similar and are in fact twins."
Finndo: "Allright."
Osric: "So there's a very good chance that the person we've been going about with for a while has in fact been Malachai."
Finndo: "Allright. That's interesting except for the fact that that would require a spectacular recovery on Malachai's part."
GM: "See, it's like this. We fight vampires, but we're not crazy!"

THAT explains it:

Shai: "Microsoft is owned by Malachai."
Jarrod: "An EvilCorp company."
Rob: "EvilCorp. Even WE don't do Windows."
Rob: "A whole advertising campaign with the windows thing up: Try EvilCorp. The lesser of two evils."

Finndo wants privacy. Achieving it in the Karm universe is very simple - 'please go kill over there':

Finndo: "Karm."
Karm: "Sir."
Finndo: "Guard us in the hall. Take these men with you."
Karm: "Yes sir."
Finndo: "Anyone else we need to kick out?"
Osric: "I think we're fine."

The current theory now is that Oberon is in fact Malachai and that what they believe to be Malachai - the corpse referred to as a ball of chain - is in fact Oberon. On extreme measures:

Finndo: "So something happened while they went off to rescue Malachai."
Dworkin: "I believe a switch occurred at that point. It was necessary to protect myself from that knowledge by faking my death."
Finndo: "There is a bit of a time gap there."
Dworkin: "Yes. It took a bit of time to set up."
Finndo: "I see. Allright. Keep goin'."
Osric: "Yes, it would seem that what we in fact went to rescue was possibly Oberon; we brought him back to Malachai. Or he had him all along; net result is the same."

When they say firewall, they mean firewall:

Finndo: "How did he get him there?"
Osric: "You're asking me?"
Dworkin: "They swapped."
Finndo: "I'll state for the record quite clearly that that coffin was as far from anything as... anything."
Dworkin: "Yes. That's about as far as Malachai can reach."

Finndo tries to verify the source. Semantics:

Finndo: "Where are we getting this information?"
Osric: "Sitting right here."
Finndo: "He was dead."
Dworkin: "No, I was dead afterwards."

Taking his own medicine:

Finndo: "Yes, however, the fact that you [Piero] were dead has put an interesting spin on things."
GM: "Piero is giving Osric the Osric look."

Considering the source:

Osric: "I've been seeing him [Piero] in mirrors, you will recall."
Finndo: "Yes, along with Dworkin and Quinn and the Prince of Colors and I've forgotten who else -"
Cyrus: "Little green men!"
Finndo: "Little green men!"
Rilga gives Finndo a look that isn't going to say a damn thing.

Delicate sensibilities:

Osric: "Allow me to demonstrate how convincing someone can be. If you would please?"
Piero hacks until he's Dworkin.
Finndo squeezes his eyes shut. "CHARMING."
Cyrus: "That really is creepy."

Osric should never serve as a character witness for Finndo:

Dworkin: "Please don't make me go through that again."
Osric: "It was necessary; you needed to speak before he tried to kill you."
Finndo: "Yes, if I was not in this chair, the beatings would begin. I assume you are implying that Piero has been Dworkin all along?"
Osric: "For quite some time, yes."

Having established that Oberon is really Malachai, the bad guy, and vice versa and that Piero is Dworkin, who is the good guy, the characters try to figure out who yanked Tir out from under their feet. I don't think there's a _term_ for this much paranoia:

Finndo: "Who was in Tir?"
Dworkin: "It wasn't me."
Finndo: "So it wasn't you."
Dworkin: "No."
Finndo: "Oberon was not in good physical shape when you were there. I do not think Oberon could ascend the stairs."
Osric: "Why not? I could."
Finndo: "Not in the state he was in."
Dworkin: "Not in the apparent state."
Cyrus: "Can he make himself corporeal?"

Spin:

Osric: "The fact that he's managed to stay near you for so long is troubling to me."
Finndo: "Doesn't bother me at all since it was the other way around."

The Pattern in the castle has been stolen. It comes down to this:

Finndo: "What does this have to do with the missing Pattern?"
Dworkin: "The missing Pattern is a sign that Malachai's plan has started."
Finndo: "His plan to..."
Dworkin: "Rip apart reality."

We got the first part, no problem:

Finndo: "There's a jump of cause and effect I'm missing there."
Dworkin: "He's nuts."
Finndo: "Not motivation. Cause and effect."

There's solutions, and then there's solutions:

Finndo: "Okay, let's set this aside for the moment. We do have an immediate concern in the shape of Sybil. There is some sort of secondary evidence supporting your claim by virtue of the fact that Oberon has her name."
Dworkin: "We need to get her onto one of the remaining patterns before Malachai vibrates it out of this plane."
Cyrus: "Are there any other ways to rip her faerie nature away?"
Dworkin: "Yeees." And he draws a dagger.

Seems a self-correcting problem to me, sir:

Finndo: "Osric, you will be responsible for walking her across."
Cyrus: "Once on it, she will have to walk it, yes?"
Finndo: "Or kill herself horribly."
Cyrus: "Either way, yes?"

It's so nice to have good people working with you:

Finndo: "Incidentally, I assume someone has figured something clever to do about the fact we will be under several hundred feet of water?"
Dworkin: "Yes, I have."
Finndo: "Charming, charming."

Finndo trumps the King of Colors. Enthusiasm:

King of Colors: "It's you again."
Finndo: "Your Majesty."
King of Colors:  "Yes."
Finndo: "I was hoping to arrange a small diplomatic visit."
King of Colors: "What now."

On faux pas:

Finndo: "Ah. Well, let me begin with the short form."
King of Colors: "Listening."
Finndo: "A being of phenomenal power is seeking to destroy all of reality, including your piece, my piece and every other piece."
King of Colors: "Not very gentlemanly."

And again with the local politics:

Finndo: "We are naturally enough trying to stop him."
King of Colors: "Good."
Finndo: "However, said person also has access to Sybil's true name."
King of Colors: "Really."
Finndo: "Yes."
King of Colors: "Ah."
Finndo: "This has naturally complicated things."
King of Colors: "I agree."
Finndo: "Therefore, I have an exchange to propose that I think will benefit us both in addition to working against the destruction of all things."
King of Colors: "Go on."

Just to sum this up, Finndo is not only proposing to shove Sybil across the pattern, live or die, but in the process he is selling her in marriage for his convenience. And this is the /good/ brother:

Finndo: "I propose to separate her - while her claim has been given up, there is something of her faerie blood and nature left to her."
King of Colors: "Yes."
Finndo: "There is a means to cleave it from her."
King of Colors: "Which part does she get to keep?"
Finndo: "That is a fascinating question. As far as I know, the non fae part."
King of Colors: "I see."
Finndo: "Now, I'm not sure where the other part would go. And the subject of who has claim on it is up to question."
King of Colors: "I was about to raise that."
Finndo: "I believe you need a queen. An alliance between our two nations..."

Finndo needs to come with a handy roll of emergency duct tape - for use on /him/:

Finndo: "And should all turn out well, I would cheerfully welcome a royal cousin into the navy."
Scott facepalms.
Finndo: "Acceptable?"
King of Colors thinks.
King of Colors: "Fair point."

Practicality:

Deborah: "Rob, I'll kill you."
Rob: "Yes, but if I let you go you'll do that anyway."

Picking a guinea pig:

Finndo: "I'll need access to the Pattern."
King of Colors:  "The squiggly."
Finndo: "Yes. That. Allow me to pass through our envoys. Will iron cause you any difficulties at the moment?"
King of Colors:  "We haven't tested that."
Finndo: "We have her constrained with that at the moment. We could test with a needle."
King of Colors:  "You could pass through someone and pass her to him."
Finndo: "Fair enough. Osric?"

Establishing the Rebman air spell:

GM to Osric: "You're through and you have one brief thrashing moment and then you hear a snap just as though you came through air. Dworkin goes 'Ah'."
The King of Colors jumps and looks around warily: "That will do, thank you."
Dworkin: "We'll arrange some sort of trade later. What?"
Osric: "Allright."

Feeling the love:

Finndo: "Would you like to oversee Sybil's security through the course of this?"
Deborah: "Oh thanks Rob."
Cyrus: "/Please/."
Cyrus: "I am ALL in iron."

It's not that we don't trust her; it's just that he still has some mobility in half his limbs:

Finndo: "I'll stay here. Rilga, would you like to stay with us? Or go? I have Karm on hand for protection."
Rilga hesitates.
Finndo: "Perhaps you should go observe."
Rilga: "I'll go observe, yah."

Benedict, meanwhile, has been hunting through burning Homewood for his father-in-law Dorr and his wife Alyra. Post mortems ala world shaking disasters. Why we avoid explaining that we powercycled the rack:

GM to Benedict: "You find them. You find Alyra allowing herself to look scared. She usually tries to do the whole Dorr implacable thing these days, but she's actually freaked out."
Benedict: "Benedict probably looks like shit. "
Dorr looks you up and down: "Yeah, that'll do. She's that way."
Benedict: "Thanks. The problem has been taken care of."
Dorr: "What's happened?"
Benedict: "Apparently Oberon hasn't been Oberon for a while. Oberon has a twin brother named Malachai who has taken his place."
Dorr stares.
Benedict: "And he had Sybil's true name, which means he can control her, and he did and he told her to burn everything, which she did."
Dorr: "Right. So the next the time Oberon walks up, make sure he's carrying a big thumping flag that says The Real One. Otherwise, he's dead."

Using what you've got:

Benedict: "I'm worried one of her elementals is still running around, named Town. She is unconscious right now and in Finndo's hands. I'm sorry."
Dorr: "See to my forest not burning down any further, would you?"
Benedict: "Working on it."
Jarrod: "I've got a bucket!"

Benedict trumps Finndo to let him know where things stand. Calling for the firehose and getting told the trucks are already out:

Finndo: "Hello!"
Scott: "Benedict looks like shit - soot, burns, cuts."
Finndo: "How are you doing?"
Benedict: "Dorr's wife is dead."
Finndo: "Great."
Benedict: "Homewood is -"
Finndo: "On fire, I imagine."
Benedict: "Mostly on fire. Anything we can do to stop that?"
Finndo: "Directly? No."

Euphemism for 'shove across the Pattern and see if she lives':

Benedict: "Where's Sybil?"
Finndo: "They're in the process of attempting to enact something of a cure."

Can I borrow your bucket?

Benedict: "Good. Dad probably shouldn't visit here for a while."
Finndo: "Getting that. Uhm. That's ... I'm going to attempt ... Town is probably running around at large. I'm going to try to nail him down. This is a little on the odd side. Pray for rain."

Finndo manages to get in touch with Town, who is merrily still rampaging. Bribery works on any form of sentience:

Town: "Yeeeesss?"
Finndo: "Stop."
Town: "Why? "
Finndo: "Because if you do not I will drive a nail through this contact and bind you to a bucket of water for the rest of eternity."
Town: "I wouldn't like that."
Finndo: "No."
Town: "You're not her."
Finndo: "That is correct. Would you like to test me?"
Town: "No."
Finndo: "Go off into shadow and burn something else for a while?"
Town: "No restrictions?"
Finndo: "You may burn one continent."
Town: "Oooohkay."
Finndo: "Be sure that it is not one that we have trod upon."
Town: "Okay."

Don't sweat the small stuff:

Scott: "Fire stops?"
Rob: "I just committed genocide to do it, but well."

Benedict trumps the Geomancer, a witch who was rumored to have been at Oberon's side when he took Amber. Retired:

Geomancer: "Yes, who is it?"
Benedict: "Prince Benedict."
Geomancer: "Don't think we've met."
Benedict: "We have not. There's a situation where your talents -"
Geomancer: "Talents? no no. No talents. That was long ago."
Benedict: "So you can't. What can you do?"
Geomancer: "Well, I've gotten very good at crocheting?"
Benedict: "So if there were a big forest on fire, you would not be able to do anything about it?"
Geomancer: "No. "
Benedict: "Know anybody who can?"
Geomancer: "Big guy. The one with the funny little jewel around his neck?"
Benedict: "Riiiight. Enjoy the crochet."
Jarrod: "Do you have anything helpful to say?"
Rob: "I'll make you a sweater!"

Idle hands:

Deborah: "I'm trying to drown Osric."
GM: "Drown Osric."

So much for that:

GM to Osric: "You feel like someone's trying to force a lot of air into your lungs. You're not having a lot of success exhaling."
Dworkin looks over at Osric.
Dworkin: "Cyrus. I believe the term is headbutt."
Cyrus: "I just whack her."
GM to Sybil: "You're unconscious again."

Punishment fitting the crime:

Deborah sighs.
GM: "You were fucking with Dworkin's spell, which persists to the modern day!"
Deborah mutters: "It's not as bad as what Shai did."
Jarrod: "You keep saying that."

On Transvestite Fae Fish Kings:

Jarrod: "Eddie Izzard as the King of Colors. Executive..."

Stupid, stupid, stupid faster villain:

GM: "You get to the Pattern. Someone's standing in the middle of it."
Jarrod: "And who might that be?"
GM: "With a great big red glow happening from his chest. And he's holding a mallet that probably would belong in the hands of Thor, carved with runes and all sorts of badness, and he raises the mallet above his head, and hits the pattern. And there's a chime, like a single planet sized bell. It knocks all of you off your feet. And. The under-lighting of the Pattern casting a blue green glow across his face. You see him grin as the Pattern vibrates and fades, as does he."

Self interested much?

Dworkin: "He's [Malachai] got to collect Oberon and have him with him; he's got to make Tir be and there is no full moon tonight. Hopefully we've got some time."
King of Colors: "Ooooh. Uhm. Hope this doesn't invalidate our arrangement."

Osric trumps Finndo to let him know they're not going to get to use the Rebman pattern. Still looking for that connection:

Finndo: "Ask Dworkin about the mallets."
Osric: "The what?"
Finndo: "The mallets."
Osric: "The things the goblins were using in the castle."

Day late, a dollar short, and right on par:

Osric: "Finndo, it seems we were just a bit too late. He's gotten the second one."
Finndo: "Allright."

Sybil gets a trump call.  Knives, knives in the brain!  Or bees.  We're not sure.  But, it's Finndo!

Finndo: "Hi!"
Deborah: "Sybil likes him, and hates him, and likes him, and hates him."
Sybil: "That's a very interesting perspective."
Finndo: "You've been named and bound."

Sybil realizes that what Finndo wants is her Name, so he can override Malachai's control of her with his own. Trading on the NYSE:

Sybil: "By you?  I can kill you now..."
Finndo: "Sorry.  I don't know your name."
Sybil: "You're trying to get my name."
Finndo: "Yes."
Sybil: "A binding for a binding."

The small dilemmas of a girl's life:

Sybil: "How stupid do you people think I am?"
Finndo: "Smart enough to understand that it's better than Piero's option."
Sybil:  "Piero's option?"
Finndo: "Separating you from your name with a knife."
Sybil:  "Yes, I'd considered that option.  I'm not sure if I should kill myself, or kill you."

This is not the time to get snooty:

Finndo: "Let me put it this way. I'm not sure you're going to have that option. I'm not sure if we have any options other than this, other than killing you."
Sybil:  "You've only threatened me during this conversation.  You've not given me any reasons to cooperate."
Finndo: "Well.  Ignoring for the moment the fact that you are bound to kill us all..."
Sybil:  "Why?"
Finndo: "...I like having people like Benedict around."
Sybil: "Why? He's not exactly socially refined."

Except that he doesn't. Not always:

Sybil: "It's my name, jackass."
Finndo: "If it was anyone else, would I be having this conversation?"
Sybil: "Of course, you always talk before you kill."
Finndo: "Except ..."

Winning as a matter of who wants it more:

Finndo: "You're not sure how much I want this."
Sybil: "Sweetie, all you have to do is lie back."
Finndo: "Is that what it would take?"
Sybil: "You're not half the man you used to be."
Finndo: "That's quite literally true.  Would you like me to have Baron Karm put me on my knees?"

Not so much with the gracious:

Sybil: "That will not be necessary.  The name is Deirdre.  Keep in mind that when I'm done, I will be killing you, then killing myself."
Finndo: "Why?"
Sybil: "Because I have given you myself, jackass."
Finndo: "Deirdre. Deirdre."
Sybil: "I hate you."
Finndo: "Deirdre."
Sybil's eyes close in defeat.

Soothing words ala Finndo:

Finndo: "I absolve you of your binding by Oberon. Pull me through."
Sybil: "I /hate/ you."
Finndo: "I know. Pull me through."
Sybil: "You'll have to bind me against killing you after this."
Finndo: "I know. Pull me through."
Sybil pulls him through.

Reassurance ala Osric:

Sybil: "Why are you here?"
Dworkin: "This is Dworkin."
Sybil: "Finndo, would you care for an explanation?!"
Osric: "Later!"
Sybil, relieved: "I /am/ with the right people!"

Understatement of the minute:

Sybil to Osric, worriedly: "Benedict's going to be cross with me..."

Irony, sweet irony:

Sybil snaps at Rilga: "God, I wish Sonnet was here. Not that you'll understand this, but I gave the man my name in order to break myself of the binding. I sacrificed myself to free myself to be used by you people. No one appreciates a good sacrifice anymore."
Rilga: "No, they don't, do they?"
Shai and Deborah dissolve in laughter.

If the motto works, stay with it:

Jarrod: "Yeah, Osric's going to /tell/ Sybil that Benedict killed all her friends, no."
Scott: "Well, that's knowledge you have -"
Jarrod: "One crises at a time."

Finndo tries to trump the real Oberon. Not the heroic rescue we'd hoped for:

Finndo: "Helloo...."
Oberon: "Whaaat?"
Deborah: "This is to the real Oberon, right?"
GM: "You think so."
Oberon: "Who's that?"
Finndo: "Finndo."
Oberon: "Who's that?"
Finndo: "I see. Who am I speaking with?"
Oberon: "Not sure."

Because we had to:

Finndo: "Where are you?"
Oberon: "It's dark."
Everyone: "I may be eaten by a grue."

Well, at least he didn't argue:

Finndo: "I just realized that oh my god what a bad idea this would be. Allright. I'll try to get back in touch again."
Oberon: "Okay."

The light, it hurts us:

Finndo: "I contacted something, but it occurred to me that if I tried very hard, pushed very hard, I could potentially bring him through to here."
Benedict: "/Oh/."
Finndo: "/Yes/."

The party is trying to make it up to Tir to a) get Sybil across and b) prevent Malachai from stealing it, too. Important details:

GM: "The stairs are resolving."
Osric: "Osric is doing his best to make the stairs not quicksand."
Deborah: "That would be good, yes."

Things we failed to mention in the job interview:

Finndo: "You may see visions. They may be disturbing."
Rilga: "This job is disturbing."

You. Wise Man:

Finndo: "Question for you, Piero. Dworkin."
Dworkin: "Whichever."

Do _you_ want to take a snake to the drain pipes of Darkness?

Finndo: "Is it possible to point Eagle's Peak at him?"
Dworkin: "The question is not whether or not it is possible but whether or not it would serve his ends. I think in the more focused means I am proposing here -"
Finndo: "Question B. How effective a drain would Eagle's Peak be?"
Dworkin: "Oh. Depends."
Finndo: "Mmmhmm."
Dworkin: "Where the plumbing goes."
Finndo: "Any idea?"
Dworkin: "Few theories. Haven't really gone sliding down the pipes."

Finndo is trying to pull in any and all resources that he can think of. He's referring to Grevlok, the enormous guardian of the place beyond the fire from which the party retrieved Malachai. Grasping at huge metal golems:

Finndo: "The place where everything turns into fire."
Dworkin: "Bit difficult to reach."
Finndo: "I know a guy."
Dworkin: "Oh. Do you mean who I think you mean?"
Finndo: "Yes. Or the people who he reports to? I imagine this has something to do with the family tree. Could they be involved?"
Dworkin: "Not their nature. Not as much their concern."

They blast into the pattern room in Tir. Small problem controlling the small woodland resource - she can't resist it. Baaaaad Sybil. Under the table!

GM: "And there's the pattern. It's musical. And silvery."
Sybil's head cocks. She meanders straight towards it.
Osric reaches out and grabs her by the collar.

Reasoning with the Pattern-tranced Fae is harder than you'd think:

Deborah: "Are you going to let her go? Because she's just going to walk onto it."
Osric: "Well, he's going to instruct her first. He will go through the standard spiel, stay within the lines, do not stop, and continually  move forward. Do you understand?"
Sybil: "Prettttty."
Osric snaps his fingers.
Sybil: "Silver. Pretty."

Or maybe not. Osric drags Sybil out of the Pattern room and repeats his instructions. Objections not considered relevant:

Sybil: "I could die on this?  Finndo didn't say anything about dying!"
Osric: "Keep going forward, or you will die. In a permanent sense."

It's for your own good, dammit (even if you die, which works out too):

Osric shoves her back into the room.  
Jarrod: "And frog-marches her toward it, if necessary."
Deborah: "Which isn't necessary. PRETTY.  SILVERY.  FULL OF MUSIC!"

And then the reality check:

GM to Sybil: "The trance stops when you step onto it."
Sybil shrieks: "WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING!"
Osric, in very patient, calm Osric tones: "Going forward." He points toward the center of the pattern.

We need Pattern walk learning permits:

Sybil: "I squeeze my eyes shut, and takes two steps forward."
Osric: "WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING!"
Jarrod sighs: "He follows her."

Sybil's two selves - mortal and Fae - are soon engaged in an argument as she walks the Pattern. The first step in any plan is determining what you want to achieve:

Sybil-Faerie: "I should not be here, I should not be here, I should not be here!:
Sybil-Mortal:  "I should not be here, but I want to stay alive!"
GM: "So, yes, the argument about staying or going.  She's babbling to herself in tongues."

Cyrus, meanwhile, is outside, guarding the steps to Tir's Pattern room. He encounters some ghost people at the top of the stairs. One looks like Kipwyn. Cynicism is the only appropriate response after a point:

Lydia: "Cyrus draws his sword, because, well, it's Cyrus."
GM: "And gee, people who look like Cymnea and Quinn are coming up behind Kipwyn."
Cyrus: "Yeah, well, it's a welcome party."

Fool them once, good for you, fool them twice - are you sure you wouldn't rather just run them through?

Cyrus: "It's quite simple; we'll explain that we're after Oberon and they should help."
Deborah: "That's not going to work this time."

Quinn controlled Rilga, having her stab Finndo in the back and cause other complications. No doubt he knows other awkward things, like the fact that Rilga is Sonnet. Durnit, when we killed you, it's cause we wanted you to Go Away:

Shai: "Oh shit. I'm hoping Quinn keeps his mouth shut."
Deborah: "Why would - oh shit."
Shai: "Yeah. That."

Sensing the not-caring:

Cyrus: "We've BEEN BETRAYED BY OBERON!"
Kipwynn looks at you. Flips him off.

Nod's children - Kipwyn, Cymnea and Quinn - are joined by Nod, summon lightning bolts. This isn't JavaOne, folks:

Benedict: "Oh Dworkin!"
Dworkin: "Yeah?"
Benedict: "Anything you can do about that?"
Dworkin looks up. Comments: "He's good."
Jarrod: "A little less mutual admiration..."

Dworkin joins Cyrus on the stairs to face Nod and his children. Better part of common sense:

Dworkin: "You might want to get a little bit further away from me." He hunkers down and he starts to turn into steel.
Cyrus: "Okay. Running up the stairs!"
Rilga: "Following Cyrus!"

Sysadmins to the universe, trying things on the fly:

GM: "Nod goes like this -" and he gestures, "and the lightning bolt arcs towards you and right into Dworkin, who sucks it up."
Dworkin: "Hehehehehe. It worked. YEAH!!!!!"

Priorities:

Benedict: "You get in front of me!"
Rilga: "Gladly!"
Jarrod: "Send the doctor up first!"

Cries for revenge - where have we heard this before?

Shai: "Quinn must die! Again!"

There's a battle on the steps on Tir. Rilga finally gets a good clue combat roll, just in time to, well, see Cyrus not:

Scott: "I'm letting them rush forward, stopping, and charging up the crossbow."
GM: "Okay. You two rush forward; roll alertness."
Shai: "Yes! Finally! legendary +1!"
GM: "What are you doing to do about the fact that Cyrus has just fallen through stairs that aren't there anymore?"

I've got ten two-hour meetings in an eight hour day and three deliverables due and you want me to worry about sharpening a pencil? Give us this much - we're resourceful:

GM: "You punch a hole. And it's like you threw a large ball through a lazily exploding fog bank; there's a smoking wispy hole and she fades... away. And the stairs stop fading and there's kind of an insurmountable gap between you and the next stairs."
Finndo: "Finndo slaps a card down on the stairs and he's going to replace the missing stairs."

FEEEEEED ME (can you get high on lightning?):

GM: "And his lightning bolt goes off and BZZZZZ "
Dworkin: "KEEP IT COMING!"

And meanwhile, Sybil is still bickering her away around the Sign. Support, not our specialty:

GM: "Sybil!"
Rob: "Have fun walking the Pattern!"

Sybil appears to be losing the battle between mortal and fae as she walks the Pattern.  The memories of being a mortal child in Faerieland, and of her love/hate/mostly hate relationship with the Prince of Colors doesn't help a bit. Osric's not sure he can do anything about it, and since he is walking the Pattern behind her, he is concerned that he's going to go right through her. Motivation appears to be an issue:

Osric: "Keep going. Keep going. Keep going."
Sybil: "Who wants to be alive with these people?"
GM: "You see the first veil."
Sybil: "Oooh, pretty, sparks!"
GM: "And then, there's the veil."
Sybil: "OWWWW!"
GM: "And the two minds begin to drift apart."

Timing:

Deborah: "What if I don't want to give up the other half, Sybil wonders, while she's being ripped apart."
GM: "What an interesting time to be thinking about that, as you hit the first veil."

The moment he was waiting for:

GM: "You're first onto the landing."
Cyrus: "I kill Quinn."
GM: "NOW you can roll dirty fighting."

It's Tir. We're fighting /multiple/ ghosts of pissed off vengeful Nod-children. Accepting what you cannot change:

GM: "Cyrus is pinned down and there are six Quinns and there's Nod bringing up the lightning again."
Rilga: "I could throw my shuriken at Quinn's heads."
GM: "That's true if you want to ignore Nod."
Rilga: "There's not much I can do about Nod."

GM: "Rilga throws shuriken, takes out three Quinns, then rolls out of the way of the lighting.  Great reflexes.  Benedict continues to be at a stalemate with Wendra."

Osric sees two overlapping women coming out of the Veil, theoretically mortal and fae.  One of them (the mortal) decides to move more aggressively toward the center of the Pattern, in the theory of killing the other one (the fae).  The fae runs to catch up.  And the mortal Sybil realizes that she can't kill the fae one, because she's the powerhouse against Dworkin.  And the fae one mocks her, and tries to get ahead.  And they keep pace.  And the fae continues to mock her. So now we try diversion:

Irrational, wacky and downright weird - but sadly, not entirely stupid:

Sybil-Mortal: "Oh, look, shiny object!"
Sybil-Fae: "Yea, yeah, like I don't know what you're going to try."

Sybil-Mortal argues with Sybil-Fae at some length. Experiencing what everyone else has had to put up with over the game:

Sybil-Mortal: "What if we stuck together?  Nobody would have to know."
Sybil-Fae: "But I'd be the pretty one."
GM: "Sybil-Mortal gets the feeling that the Sybil-Fae was just trying to beat her just to beat her.  And reverse psychology fails."

Twisting the knife:

GM: "And Sybil-Mortal hits the second veil, and starts feeling the pangs of conscience.  She's killed a lot of people.  A lot of people."
Deborah stares at the GM.
GM: "And she realizes that if the fae bitch reaches the center of the Pattern first, _she_ may be the only one surviving."
Deborah bangs her head on the table: "ARGH."

A partnership made in purgatory:

Cyrus: "I feint for the Quinns and go after Nod."
Rilga: "I feint for Nod and go after the Quinns."

It seemed like a good idea at the time:

Finndo: "I scry the pattern room."
GM: "You have no idea what's going on."
Finndo: "But I'm scrying -"
GM: "You see what's going on in the pattern room. You have no idea what's going on. It looks like a train wreck."
Deborah: "_You_ put her on the Pattern. It's not my fault."
Jarrod: "Yes. Yes, we did."

Not that he's bitter (but is he bitter she didn't finish the job?):

Rilga: "He turned his back on me. He's getting one in the spine!"
Jarrod: "You're good at that."

The problem with fighting ghosts on Tir is that there's always _more_ of them. Degrees of infinity:

Lydia: "How many times do we have to kill these people?!"
Rob: "Lots."

Benedict, on the steps in the battle, is at the point where he has to start throwing Aspects into the fight. Unfortunately, he's starting to have to stretch for them. He didn't want to use the Dark Powers connection. There comes a time in every man's life:

Scott: "Connection to the dark powers -"
GM: "Oh, they're always willing to help."
Scott: "Fuck it."

The question is: 'The dark powers are always willing to help. How much of a bonus would you like?' Temptation with delicate sensibilities:

GM smiles: "But I won't ask you the question."
Scott lets out his breath: "Thank you."

Sybil - two Sybils - are still walking the Pattern with Osric right behind them (and desperately trying to not overrun them). Logic never was a Fae specialty:

GM To Osric: "What the hell is going on here?"
Jarrod: "Weird shit. So there's two of her, and I have no idea which one of her is which."
GM to Finndo: "It's making your eyes cross."

When Sybil lost her fae-glamours, the Prince of Colors asked her three questions. One of these was 'Are you a pair or are you apart?'. Damn logic!

Deirdre (fae): "Are you a pair or are you a part?"
Sybil (mortal): "What?"
Deirdre: "Are you a pair or are you a part?"
Sybil: "Hrmmm."
Deirdre buzzes ahead.

And on a personal level, the problems with dealing with Sybil. Women are _hard_:

Rob: "I've got the faerie half that wants to screw me and kill me and I've got the mortal half that just wants to kill me."
Lydia: "Life is just a sugarbowl for you."

Taking advantage of the moment:

GM: "And you [Rilga] get there in time to see Sybilssss rounding the grand curve."
Rilga: "I'm doing some math. I'm guessing she's dividing into mortal halves and fae halves and perhaps the fae half will still be controlled."
Finndo: "Or that two are not coming out."
Rilga: "I could throw a rock at her. Or I could throw shiny objects at the one who's distracted..."

Malachai is on his way down to the Pattern room. Finndo summons a flying carpet card. Sacrifice and duty:

Finndo: "Rilga. One more thing is getting passed through. A trump deck. A very large trump deck. Malachai is on top. Make sure they get through."
GM to Rilga: "You are clever enough to realize that you're holding a suicide note."

No Killing The Fae Bitch. Make sure they (Sybil and Osric) finish - and then what?

Rilga: "The Prince's last instruction: make sure they finish."
Cyrus: "I see."

Dworkin, meanwhile, has gone into the city of Tir with Benedict. Artisans, temperamental:

Dworkin knocks on the forge's door.
Benedict looks impatient.
Dworkin: "Don't rush this guy."

Shopping, the mythic dead way:

Dworkin: "I believe I placed an order two millenia ago."
Blacksmith: "Is it time?"
Dworkin indicates the red sky: "Yes. It's time."
Blacksmith: "Oh. Allright, then."
GM: "Rummaging clatter, clang clang clang, yep, that'll do it. He walks back out and hands you a silvery sword."

Legend in the making:

Dworkin: "Greyswandir. The guardian sword."
Benedict: "I /like/ this sword."
Dworkin: "I think you'll see that a few bits of the pattern are in there which I think will make it strike true to Malachai a bit more than any other sword. Furthermore, it will stand up a bit more to the sort of resistance you will be charging."
Benedict: "Allright."
Dworkin: "I will caution you. This is not the kill strike. Do not behave as if it is. Do not leave it in him unless you are certain that he is dead."

Dworkin turns into an eagle. Pattern Recognition:

Dworkin: "I always forget I can do this; spending too much time as that skinny freak."
Benedict: "You'll have to teach me that some time."
Rob: "Cause instruction in the forces of darkness went so well."

Finndo is throwing himself at Malachai to buy time. Speaking of ill timed distractions:

Dworkin: "Boy is going to get himself killed."
Benedict: "Yes, he is."
Dworkin: "We need to make our fight down here."
Benedict: "I pull my trump out of Finndo."

Benedict argues with Finndo in an effort to save Finndo from self-sacrifice. Finndo, always the talker:

Finndo: "Sybil and Osric are on the Pattern."
Benedict: "More reason for you to be down here."
Finndo: "If the fight starts while they're on the Pattern, they're dead."
Benedict stares.
Finndo: "I'm not planning on dying."
Benedict sighs. Looks at him skeptically.
Finndo: "I'm going to see if we can talk to him."

Finndo goes up on his flying carpet to chat with Malachai, who is visible as a huge corona of red light. Sound Check:

Finndo: "Can you hear me over there?"
Malachai: "Yep."
Finndo: "Can you explain?"
Malachai: "Go things to do. You should get out of the way."

Wait. It's the end of the world as we know it and the evil insane destructive god wants us to play 20 questions:

Finndo: "Yeah, I get that sense. Want to know what's going on."
Malachai: "I'm remaking it all."
Finndo: "Into what?"
Malachai: "I'm not telling."

And Finndo /argues/ with him. First, try to establish obligation:

Finndo: "I pulled your ass out of the fire."
Malachai: "Things were arranged to pull your ass out of the fire."
Finndo: "If things were arranged, than that red rock would never have left your possession."
Malachai: "Believe what you will."

Then he tries to find a hook. No need to get sulky:

Finndo: "What are you doing? What are you - look at this. You turned the moon red. What do you need? You've got everything; what are you looking for?"
Malachai: "I want my soul back. He stole it."
Finndo: "Which he?"
Malachai: "The one you're working with."

How about we just buy time here, or you maybe give me an angle on you:

Finndo: "Okay. Now I'm very confused. Is your soul the pattern? Look, I've been told five different stories of this."
Malachai: "I'm not in the mood to explain. Should I go through you?"
Finndo: "Absolutely no way you'll take ten minutes to explain?"

Yes, well, Malachai's got Finndo there:

Malachai: "I know you."
Finndo: "Then you know I'm a talker."
Malachai: "Yes, and I know what you do behind your back when you talk."

Now we're just getting petty:

Finndo: "Then you know the extent of my wizardly abilities."
Malachai: "It's not your wizardry so much as your random ... notions."
Finndo: "Then make it make sense."
Malachai: "No."

And the theme comes up, perfectly timed:

Finndo: "Allright, Uncle." Long, thoughtful pause.
Malachai: "He has the air of someone granting you -  Mission impossible."

Gee, heartening:

Finndo: "What will happen when you're done?"
Malachai: "Won't really matter to you."
Finndo: "That much'll happen, huh? Is anyone going to be left?"

At last, maybe a weakness! Or a glimmer of a hint of a weakness! Something!

Malachai: "Do you want to make a deal?"
Finndo: "I do kind of favor the survival of a few people."
Malachai: "Then help."
Finndo: "What can I do?"
Malachai: "Get rid of the squat little man helping you."

Mission part 1 of 2835764 accomplished:

Finndo: "Fascinating. I am skeptical of you holding up to your side of the bargain."
GM: "And the two of you [Sybil and Osric] enter the final veil."

True to form to the end:

Finndo: "Can you offer any guarantees? Going against Dworkin scares me almost as much as going against you."
Malachai: "You're starting to bore me."
Finndo: "Allright. Then the last thing: where's Dad?"
Malachai: "He'll be along shortly."
Finndo: "And we'll drift down to the surface of Tir. Out of the way. And we'll launch the attack when he passes overhead."

The GM checks in on Dworkin and Benedict. What do you do when handed an ultimate weapon, a Pattern sword? You make it more ultimate:

Scott: "We are charging the sword."

Buying time, and other famous last words:

GM: "Something a little further down back by the sea has just streaked up into the sky; Malachai doesn't appear to have noticed it but he's doing something with the hammer."
Rob: "Then just let's start bombarding his ass."
GM: "And you are storming him with flak."

Rob checks off _everything_ on his sheet. Desperate last stands, too:

GM: "Finndo lets loose the works on him as far as the rest of you can tell; there's a blur of card decks, a shuffling that echoes all the way down to the city - the real one - there's a red ball of light in the middle of it that appears to realize a little too late what Finndo has done. There's a pop motion when it relocates itself a little bit and lots of explosions."
Rob: "Since I know I can't stop him, my goal is to slow him down."

It's always something:

GM: "A burning figure steps through the final veil and goes running off the pattern, burning more and more as she runs to the sparkly thing. And then another figure steps through the veil. And it's Sybil. Looking as she does when she has no glamours up. One other small issue, tho. She's kind of see through."
Deborah squints: "I'm _what_."
GM to Osric: "She's kind of see through. And you hit the final veil."
Osric: "Busy!"

Thanks, Caesar:

GM: "What are you doing, Rilga, Cyrus?"
Rilga: "Preparing to die. "
Jarrod: "We who are about to die salute you."

Meanwhile, the battle (such as it is) up in the sky between Finndo and Malachai continues. A pale streak had cut across behind them. Any port in a storm:

GM: "And then that pale streak in the sky launches towards Malachai very quickly."
Finndo: "Hitting him from the other side."
GM: "Finndo focuses the remaining of his resources up there, and pummels it into Malachai in the front and forces Malachai to focus away from the figure in white armor from the back."
Rob: "It's Osrat."
Scott: "I can't believe I'm saying this: GO OSRAT!!!"

Superior technology:

GM: "You hear Osrat shout: 'Hey Dad, Looks like you're on the outs!' A whirling set of fire elementals streak in and hit Malachai on the side. Malachai is pincered in between, gives out a yell, your last bits flutter to pieces and he struggles to turn around."
Finndo reaches in and pulls out a gun.
Rob: "I know one trick Dad never taught you, asshole."

Opportunists:

Rob rolls three pluses.
GM: "His gun goes off; Malachai jerks forward, and that's when Osrat swoops in through his directions and grabs Malachai by the shoulders and the red glow shows through his Osrat's bones and some of it starts to transfer. Sybil would recognize this - he's vampire feeding."
Rob: "I'm cutting the chain on the jewel."
GM looks surprised: "You can try."

Desperation narrows the field of vision:

GM: "The chain appears to have been at least partly damaged by it, but his back is to you and Osrat is holding on and Malachai is thrashing, half kilometer that way, half kilometer that way, moving in fits and bursts, "HOW DO YOU LIKE IT NOW, DAD!"
Finndo: "I gotta keep trying; it's my best option."

Capacity. It's a bitch:

GM: "And during all this, Malachai keeps jerking forward, he looks like he should be dead, unconscious, something from his posture but judging from the struggle, it's not that at all. Ultimately they stop jerking at one point. Malachai's head lifts. And the rest of the deck arrives, there's a blur of cards and Osrat suddenly shoots away from Malachai into the distance and there's an explosion."
Jarrod: "Oh dear."
GM: "Boooom!"
Jarrod: "Whoops."
Malachai: "Too much." He turns around, and the bits of chain are dangling from this jewel that has embedded itself in his chest. He just starts walking across the sky towards the pattern.

Finndo trumps Rilga to ask if the Pattern walks are complete. Describing train wrecks:

Rilga: "One's out." She squints. "One's... burning. I think Sybil's -"
Finndo: "Bring me through. "

Never a dull afterlife:

GM to Sybil: "You can see through yourself."
Sybil looks through her hands: "Well, that was unexpected."

Honest understatement:

Finndo: "How are you feeling? "
Sybil: "A little puzzled."

And the new plan:

Dworkin to Benedict: "You want to recover your father. We need to let him succeed here. If he doesn't have your father with him right now, we need to go get him for the final bit. But we'll cut that fine."

Sybil steps off the Pattern to find everyone there. Reunions:

Benedict: "I'm sorry about Ariel and Caliban."
Sybil: "Oh, dear, I'm so sorry I tried to kill you; I'm so /sorry/..."
Finndo: "LATER. Sybil, summon something."

No chassis, and log messages are scrolling by, but critical systems are online - somehow:

Finndo: "LATER. Sybil, summon something."
Sybil: "Ah, small problem. I don't know if I can..."
Cyrus: "Try."
Sybil looks at her insubstantial hands. "There's a technical issue here that we might -"
Cyrus: "TRY!"
Finndo: "TRY."
Sybil: "Ah. Yes, my Prince, I just -"
Finndo: "TRY."
Sybil: "FIRE!"
Town: "Yes, boss!"
Sybil: "Holy cats! Now if I just had /skin/..."

And the battle ensues. They summon clouds to cover the moon, throw the coffin lid at Malachai - and miss. It goes into the ocean and the air elementals go about recovering that. Malachai knocked it aside and is still trying to shake it off. Benedict charges. Contributing:

Finndo to Rilga: "Tell Benedict to aim for the gem at least once or twice."
Rilga: "bah bah bah bah."
GM: "I've got ONE JOB on this damn ship. It's stupid but I'm going to do it."

Doing what he does best:

Dworkin: "You. You like to tackle things."
Cyrus: "Yeah."
Dworkin: "DO IT!"

Sink or swim, the extreme version:

Finndo: "Rilga! Get Cyrus on the lid!"
Rilga: "Lid!"
Sybil: "Cyrus! Get on the lid; you're going to learn about waves!"

Translating parameters:

Finndo: "Tackle his fucking ass, rip that gem out, and throw it to the sea!"
Cyrus: "Too complex."
GM as Cyrus: "I will Tackle him. If a jewel falls into my hands, GREAT!"

A day in the life of Cyrus:

GM: "Cyrus manages to steer the slab right into his Malachai's chin. Malachai ducks to the side, and Cyrus swings the sword and you see the red aura around him part and there's a clang and you can't quite let go of the sword and the sword tries to burrow in and Malachai doesn't look very happy with you now and you get backhanded to the chin - and you're getting a trump call now but your head HURTS and there's this indestructible lid on you now -"
Finndo: "Save the lid."
Sybil: "I save the lid."
Cyrus: "I hug the lid."

Directives in ten letters or less:

GM: "There's a flash. Rilga, you stand between Malachai and the Pattern, what do you do?"
Rilga blinks: "Get the jewel."

Doom with style:

GM: "To summarize, Malachai's being beset by a storm of -"
Shai: "Women."
GM: "Primarily air elementals - because you're worried about fire - with legendary plus five effects with an alphabet of hurricanes and somehow sliding through that storm is Rilga who is attempting to use fancy footwork and sleight of hand to get the jewel out of his flesh."
Rob: "For the record, Ben and Cyrus, we're watching this on big screen TV."

Will to power:

GM: "And you get the jewel and it's hot and it drops."
Finndo: "Cards catch it!"
GM: "It burns through them."
Finndo: "Then I badminton them down the fucking mountain towards me."

Better part of valor, not really the time for it:

Malachai: "Heheh. This should look familiar." He uppercuts Rilga; she sails through the air.
Sybil: "I collect her; and get the /hell/ out of there."

Sysadmins. Senses of humour. Clocks. Hunh:

GM: "Up above, there's a WHAAAAAAAANNNNNNNG, and there's this under-tone to it that's not quite right and the fireworks go off. And Tir goes from silver to red very fast and you hear someone yelling and Dworkin snickers and the cloud covers the moon."
Dworkin: "So that should be fifteen minutes."

This is what we call goal-oriented:

Finndo: "Is there a better plan than running with this?"
Dworkin: "Nope."
Finndo: "I'll be seeing you."

Benedict was yanked out of the fight with Malachai. Occam's razor:

Benedict: "Rilga, I assume you were under orders to pull me out. I wasn't ready yet."
Sybil, deadpan: "Oh, yes. Absolutely. Finndo gave orders."
Benedict eyes her straight face skeptically.
Finndo, in Cyrus contact: "Tell them yeah, it's all my fault."
Cyrus: "It's all Finndo's fault."
Benedict: "That explains things."

But Rilga attempts to explain, anyway.  While she's rubbing her nose and wondering why it isn't broken.  Wow, Malachai must have hit her harder than we thought. It isn't?

Rilga: "When someone who understands the enemy better than we says to get you to a secure location..."
Benedict: "That isn't your prerogative!"

We retreat to Amber Castle. Benedict organizes the troops. On not arguing:

Benedict: "GRIEVES! Evacuate the fourth quarter!!"
Grieves points up: "But - "
Benedict: "Yes, it's coming this way! Evacuate that fourth quarter!"
Grieves: "Right away, sir!"

Hey, if you want to try your chances with certain doom

Benedict: "Did Grieves have a plan in case the city's evacuated?"
GM: "Large, sharp pointy things. They're pulling what they're doing in Europe. You can go if you like; you can go if you don't like."

Finndo has the jewel and he wants it out of Malachai's reach. Finndo manages to get into trump contact with Grevlok, the huge golem at the end of shadow. And this is why we love Grevlok:

Grevlok: "SMALL MAN!"
Finndo: "How are you doing?"
Grevlok: "I STAND HERE AND WAIT."
Finndo: "Mind if I put something on your shoulder?  Somebody's after me, and they're bigger than me, and they want this."
Grevlok: "NOTHING'S BIGGER THAN GREVLOK."

Shameless bribery is the best kind:

Finndo: "Do you recognize this [the jewel]?"
Grevlok: "Oh that. Something's coming after that."
Finndo: "Do you know this?"
Grevlok: "I'm supposed to keep this safe."
Finndo: "I've got this epoxy glue. My press for 9 story books is a little behind, but I have a present coming for you."

Knowing your appeal:

Rob: "Finndo's the most interesting thing in his life."
GM: "CONVERSATION MAN!!!!!"

Finndo makes it back to the party at the Castle. Pessimists:

Finndo: "He recognized it [the jewel]."
Dworkin: "Huh. He /recognized/ it?"
Sybil: "I have a bad feeling about this. Does anyone else have a bad feelings about this?"
Shai: "Rilga's hand goes up."
Cyrus: "I have a bad feeling about EVERYTHING."

On the family tree:

Benedict: "We seem to have grown quite a bit in the last few years."
Finndo: "Just in time for a pruning."

Lalala, excuses excuses:

Benedict: "Wait. You walked the Pattern."
Sybil: "Yes. Where have you been?"
Benedict: "Saving reality from certain death?"

Sybil and Finndo were both responsible for selling Cyrus's daughter to Mount Kolvir. Finndo is expecting to die, so it's time to not so much 'fess up as point Cyrus in the right direction. Consequences come round:

Finndo to Cyrus: "I am reasonably certain that your daughter is held by Mount Kolvir. I was not going to tell you until I knew a way to get her out but I think it is important for you to know."
Sybil pales and steps back through a chair.
Cyrus does not look surprised.
Rob: "Finndo is just a tired man in a wheelchair."

There are degrees of wistful thinking:

Finndo: "While all bets are off -"
Sybil: "Finndo -"
Finndo: "No, just the bets that matter. There is something that Benedict and I know that the rest of you should know."
Sybil: "Can't we just die with comfortable mistruths?"
Rilga: "Oh just you wait!!"

Faithful is not really Oberon's by-word, so to speak:

Finndo: "It regards Baron Selm. He has also negotiated the pattern."
Cyrus: "How many bastards does your father have!?"
Dworkin: "I'm sure plenty."
Finndo: "I don't know."

Re-examining a premise:

Finndo: "I'm hoping he's [Selm] our ace in the hole."
Sybil: "Aren't we making an assumption of sides?"
Finndo: "Yes."

The pattern must etch cynicism into the blood:

Benedict: "I had the opportunity to kill Selm."
Sybil: "And you didn't? I'm surprised."
Benedict: "I had a very good reason."
Sybil: "And Finndo supplied it?"
Benedict: "... yes."
Sybil: "I'm not surprised."
Jarrod: "So much for fawning on Finndo."
Deborah: "Oh, that went away the moment she Pattern walked, you notice."

Not precisely sane and kind of see through, but coherent, thank god:

GM: "Fitting you should end the game with yet another personality shift."
Deborah: "Yeah, well, I like her this way. Coherent and intelligent."

Finndo is pulling in all the resources, including the Summoner's brother, Beast. Know thy pets:

GM: "Something that looks like a cross between King Kong and Godzilla is coming your way. Its distorted face looks like a man's."
Finndo goes up in the air, waving the handkerchief around.
Finndo: "SIT!"
Beast roars defiance.
Finndo: "And I'll smack it across the nose with a card."
Beast:  "ROAR!"
GM: "It's throwing more masonry at you."
Finndo: "I lead it towards the countryside."

One. Thing. At. A. Time:

GM: "There are bulges of earth coming down Kolvir towards you guys, like you hit the ground and shockwaves. "
Sybil: "That might be Kolvir... it's possible it made a deal with Malachai to get rid of the scar, the Pattern, if you will. That could be problematic. I'm not sure I could broker a superior deal; do you want me to try?"
Benedict: "No, I think we'll deal with that later."
Sybil: "Oh, _dear_."

Never hand your boss a magic wand:

Finndo: "Sybil! Call the mountain back!"
Sybil: "Uh, Allright."
Finndo: "Tell it I know how to kill it."
Sybil looks worried.
Osric: "That might just piss it off more."
Finndo: "Or! Better yet. Replace it. Call something else up in its place."
Sybil's eyes widen: "OH boy. Allright. I'll... try." Her eyes squeeze shut and she tries it.

We were given red chips as the ultimate last stand sacrifice fudge points. Throw in a red chip to determine something of enormous effort for your character - and pay a price in coin of that character's destiny and desires. Time to pay the piper:

Sybil: "I am throwing in the red chip in return for Kolvir being my bitch and something more primal than Kolvir being my bitch."
GM: "Rolls of shockwaves rolling back up the mountain meeting it halfway and rolling through; Sybil's eyes roll up and she starts speaking in tongues communing with this thing."
Scott: "Holy sit."
Jarrod: "Oh dear."
Deborah winces.
GM: "She starts drifting away towards it, back through walls, a little disconcerting. She fades out of sight."

Heartening. Oh, wait. Not at all:

GM: "The earthquakes have stopped, thanks to Sybil sinking into the earth and merging with the spirit she called up."
Deborah: "Oh shit. I hope I unmerge at some point."
GM: "Yeah, me too."

Malachai is sailing overhead towards his goal. We are desperately trying to prevent that by forcing him down to us. Osric and Finndo plan a flanking maneuver, where Finndo attempts to force a trump contact for Osric to take advantage of. She's got a point:

Shai: "Oooh, brothers working together; the world _is_ coming to an end."

And for a sense of scale:

GM: "And the sky lights up like you have never seen. Take every single lightning storm you have ever seen at once. The lightning bolt has struck overhead; and this happens on top of itself over and over in the course of just a few seconds."
Dworkin: "Go!"
Finndo: "Do it."
GM: "Spots are clearing from your eyes, there's a red figure in the sky and you reach towards it. Finndo, you open the best channel you have, and Osric, roll."
GM: "He senses something down the thing; he wavers in the air and descends a few feet; you aren't sure you can hold him off."

Please tell me there's a step two to this plan:

Benedict: "When the time comes, grab Oberon's body away from Malachai."
Cyrus: "And -"
Benedict: "Get it to Finndo."

We spot a figure coming in from the sea. We're not expecting it and we think it might be another ploy of Malachai's but the ship turns out to look like one of ours. Still holding out for that ace in the hole:

GM: "He gets to the thirty foot mark -"
Rob: "Selm brought cannons."

The only man who fights in a giant iron stove arrangement of armor is Rast, whom we thought killed by Karm, burned to death by arson. Cavalry!

GM: "You hear a twang. You've heard that twang before; it's the kind of twang you get from a catapult, only you don't think you've heard a twang pulled that tight before and a man in a giant iron stove flings through the air - "
Rob: "YES!"
Deborah: " - HOW!?"
GM: "Rast isn't smart enough to fake his death!"
Shai and Deborah: "YES!"

Fillet of Villain, anyone?

GM: "And Rast is clinging to Malachai who sinks as Rast WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM beats on him. "
Finndo: "And we hit everything we've got."
GM: "You, Osric, are in a position to do something."
Osric: "I'm going to barbecue him. "

Every woman has her price:

Shai turns in her red chip. "You know why."
GM nods.
Shai to Scott: "You're not going to die."

Denouement:

GM: "Well, he's at a pretty significant disadvantage considering that he's grown a Rast on his shoulder. And oh the roar that comes out of the din of the clanging fist of Rast. Sonnet, you're next. She comes in towards Malachai, he 'oh crap' flings something at her, the cracklin' badass comes towards him, shatters into shards and some of them stick to you and you manage to get the other sword in and he's wearing it through his side and Rast goes AHA! and starts to stir. Cyrus appears in a window that Malachai is sinking past and black streaks go across the sky into Malachai's back.
Shai: "Oh good. I grab one and hang on. Half AHA! and Aaaaaaaah!"
GM: "The mountain shudders and shakes annnnnnd -"
Rob: "Bring it!"
Scott: "Legendary + 8."
GM: "And Rast knows when he should get out of the way. "
Finndo : "Rilga! The body!"
GM: "There's a moment frozen in time. Rilga shifts off the bolts in Malachai's back, tumbles towards the body, wraps it in a hug, rolls it away as Benedict, over her back, swings down, through Malachai's sternum. The blade buries itself in his chest, buries itself in the street. You're holding on to it in his chest and the jewel fades; the light is dying."
Malachai, in a death rattle: "May all your hopes be as dust." And the light leaves his eyes.

Trying to breathe:

GM: "And that's where we end the session."

Even at game end, we need the double-checked confirmation:

Lydia: Is he really dead?
Jarrod: "As dead as I could make him."

This is the point where I just leave the quote as an exercise to the reader:

GM: "Next session is character vignettes, discussions, tying up loose ends."
Everyone nods.
GM: "And now I adjust my version of reality to suit the people who survived that I didn't expect to."