Session 56: "I must not have noticed when my arm grew back."

	Morning dawns.  Pages are sent around to everyone with invitations
to dinner with the King of Chaos.

	Claudio spends the morning practicing the Chaos method of jousting
with Julian.

	Merlin faces Ryan Chanicut (Nathan's brother) in the three sword
competition.  Caitlin is his second.  Ryan fares better than Nathan did
against Melanie, but Merlin is eventually victorious.  It is three hours
before the next event, since another group of the three sword contestants
are pulling what Archi and Roland did the previous day.

	Cameron faces Caldreth Vertix in the knives competition.  The
first round is throwing knives, the second is combat.  Cameron wins.

	Sky faces Sanat Joachim in the archery contest.  The first round
is firing at targets while standing, the second is firing at targets while
mounted, and the third is firing at each other while mounted.  Sky wins.

	The rules for Shadow racing are as follows: go from Chaos to Ygg
and back.  No use of Trump is allowed.  It's a test of psyche and
endurance.  Ulysses is facing Alana Helgram, sister of Alane.  She
Logruses away, which startles Ulysses, but then he realizes that's OK, and
takes off.  He reaches Ygg first, dances, then realizes that he still has
to go back.  On his return, he is tripped by a Logrus tendril.  He brings
up the Pattern, and finds that Alana is 15 minutes behind him, so he
smacks her Logrus with the Pattern.  Ulysses stumbles over the finish line
looking rather dazed, but smug.

	In other news, Maron wins his one sword competition, Lisandra wins
her shapeshifting competition, Sylvester wins his Shadow racing
competition.

	Lists are posted for the next day's events.  Hildreth Jezetti is
facing Claudio in jousting, Bianca Jezetti is facing Ulysses in wrestling,
Lisandra is facing Kaedric in shapeshifting, Ranen Jesby will face
Laughter in force sorcery, Maron is facing Melanie in illusionary sorcery.

	Claudio seeks out Archi and Laughter.  He wants some of that milky
stuff she gave him before to use on the Jezetti.  Laughter points out that
one doesn't usually dope up your opponent in a friendly competition. 
Archi begins looking at Laughter.  Laughter says she cannot be the
engineer of his dishonor.  Archi won't help, either.  After Claudio
leaves, Archi asks if this falls under the category of things related to
the Rebman trial that he didn't want to know about.  Laughter admits that
they're kissing cousins.

	Melanie spends the day practicing and preparing for her
competition with Maron.

	Fey grows bored with its shinies around mid-morning, and heads off
to the weapons tent.  Archi is informed of this during Sky's competition,
and is brought to Fey.  It offers him a shiny weapon.  He refuses, so it
leaves and begins knocking down tents.  Archi tries unsuccessfully to
dissuade it.  The falling tents attract a crowd, including Melanie, who
finds it amusing.  She suggests that if Archi doesn't want to deal with
it, he just kill it.  He'd rather not, and explains privately that it
brought him his children.  She offers some other suggestions.  He likes
the idea of holding it in a force field, so she does this thing.  Fey
likes this not at all.  Archi sends the page to find someone who knows of
Fey's species.  A man eventually arrives, and explains that Fey is fairly
young, and hasn't determined a sex, yet.  Her species is called Mala Res
(meaning evil creature).  There isn't a real good way to imprison them. 
They're not supposed to be able to shift Shadow, so Archi dumps it a few
Shadows over.  Of course, Fey isn't exactly typical of its species.  Fey
spends several hours killing a lot of people, then shifts back and begins
tearing apart the weapons tent again.

	The King's dinner.  Archi and Laughter are sitting at the high
table.  Archi is next to the Crown Prince's seat, which is empty, as is
the Queen's.  Claudio and Kaedric are at the second highest table, which
includes higher ranking Chaos nobles.  Caitlin is at the third, which
consists of children of the eldest children of the house.  Ulysses is at a
mid-level table with Merlin.  Melanie sits with Kaedric, since she's his
betrothed.  Roland Sawall is also there.  Claudio finds the discussion on
the Logrus to be a bit above his head.  Most of the people there have
guarded the Logrus at one point or another.  At the high table, the King
asks Archi about the tournament.  Archi explains about his difficulties
with Fey.  And how are things in Amber?  Fine, at the moment.  Swayvill
wasn't expecting Amber to send anyone, but sees it as a good sign.  He's
using the tournament to look over the youth in hopes of finding a new
heir.  His son died in a duel some years back, and his wife killed herself
over it.

	Archi is approached at about eight by a page.  It's regarding the
creature...  Archi puts his head in his hands.  Laughter offers to take
care of it.  Archi is out of ideas, so sure, but he wants to go with her. 
They make their excuses and leave the dinner.  Archi comments that it
would be easier to deal with the creature if it could speak.  Laughter
suggests giving it a Speak and Say.  Since she doesn't feel like
Hellriding the night before her competition, she figures that Kaedric can
Logrus out for one.  She borrows Archi's Trump of Kaedric, and explains
the situation.  Kaedric fetches the item and leaves it with her, while his
technique critiqued by the others at the table.  Laughter decides to call
it Fey, since that's another name for its species.  The chiming of the
device distracts Fey from digging, and it quickly grabs the neat toy.  It
likes the chiming noise a lot, and quickly begins imitating it.  It only
occasionally says the words that follow.  Archi conjures it a large bag of
M&M's and leaves.  Fey braids the M&M's into its hair.

	Caitlin seeks out Archi after the dinner and asks for a favor. 
She wants him to talk to Random about removing the Ty Dahl law.  She's not
planning on seeking out Sandr, but Fiona thinks Benedict might regain his
memories, and she fears what he might do.  Archi will do this.  He also
congratulates her on her performance of the previous day.

	Melanie is studying, while Kaedric makes snide comments.  She
scolds him for slipping up in his Trump contact with Laughter and calling
her "My Queen."  She also points out how everyone critiqued his Logrus
use, which amuses him and her.

	Fey "sneaks" into Archi's bedroom, with the Speak and Say, and
wakes Archi.  Archi summons Song, which startles Fey.  The Speak and Say
keeps going off as Fey looks at stuff.  This is too silly to take down. 
Archi hand feeds Fey steak.  Fey exits less than gracefully.  Archi and
Laughter play twisted sex games.  Sequence is sent to follow Fey, to keep
it out of trouble.  Fey chases it, but doesn't catch it.  Much zany
hilarity ensues.  Make that much zany, noisy hilarity.  Melanie eventually
gets sick of it and casts a cone of silence around the two offenders. 
Peace reigns once more.

	The tourney resumes again, with the Joust.  Claudio manages to
bust up a bunch of eggs before they hatch into opponents, leaving only the
Jezetti bi-otch.  He ducks the first pass, on the second pass, he scores
on her shield, and on the third pass he knocks her out of the saddle, into
the Abyss.  The woman offers herself to him, as she has been bested by a
man.  He wants to say no without dishonoring himself, but can't.  The
intense moral debate wages within Claudio's feeble mind.  He retreats to
his room, only to be followed by the chick.  He Trumps Caitlin for advice. 
If he doesn't nail her, he becomes Public Enemy #1.  He sleeps with her,
hates it, and goes to Mecca to purify himself.

	Ulysses is up next.  He wins the demon form round easily.  In the
human form, Bianca wrestles naked.  She attempts to distract him sexually,
but he's not into that.  He slaps her into a full nelson, and swings her
around.  She doesn't yield, so he breaks her arms.  Then her legs.  She
yields as he's about to snap her neck.  He looks to Beauty for a choice,
and she suggest artificial insemination.  Bianca assents, and he drags her
over to her second by the hair.

	Claudio talks with Archi about shaming Sky.  Archi laughs as he
points out that Ulysses found a cooler way out.  Claudio is annoyed, but
decides that he needs Caitlin to explain the rules to Sky, to save his
butt.  Later, he has Caitlin explain the rules of the Jezetti to Sky, to
help explain his dilemma.  He tells her the story, and hands her his
sword.  She smacks him on the head with it, and he goes to get drunk.

	Laughter tricks the Jesby into treeing himself with a spell
bounce.  She is upset that she'll never be able to use this in Chaos
again.

	Maron faces Melanie in illusion magic.  He looks stern at the
resemblance, and she suggests they talk after this.  They wait for the
other to make the first move.  Booring.  Maron makes the first move after
an hour, much to all our delight.  Much casting of illusions ensues.  At
one point, Maron becomes a fey, so Melanie changes to something with a
powerful tail and slams him into the wall.  He felt that, and changes to a
stegosaur.  Melanie responds by dropping a rock on his tail, so he's
pinned, then pecks his eye while he's changing the illusion.  She is
declared the victor.

	Fey chases the sun until noon, then grows bored and crashes to
earth in the middle of the Hendrake pavilion.  That actually hurts, so it
lies there in amazement.  Archi is informed of this, and asks Ulysses to
Trump it away.  Ulysses places it someplace equidistant from Amber, Ygg
and Chaos.

	The next day's matches are: Archi vs. Maron in the one sword
competition, Caitlin vs. Corliss in the two sword competition, Merlin vs.
Jurt in the three sword competition, Cameron vs. Roy Halybard in knives,
Sky vs. Corliss in archery, and Ulysses vs. Sylvester in Shadow racing.

	Kaedric stops by Melanie's quarters to discuss wedding plans.  He
wants to get married as soon as the tournament's over.  Melanie wants to
put it off.  No such luck.  He also wants far more people to be there then
she does.  The King may even be interested.  She asks about the ceremony. 
He explains that at the end they are brought in to look the Serpent in the
eye.  Melanie likes this idea not at all.  Kaedric plans to have Claudio
stand up with him, along with Archimedes, and maybe some of his cohorts
from guarding the Logrus.  The only people Melanie can think of to ask are
Laughter, Caitlin and Sky.  She gives in and lets Kaedric set the date he
wants.  He tries to get her to sleep with him.  She claims she's waiting
until the wedding.  Yeah, right.  He attempts to convince her otherwise. 
She pretends to be engrossed in the wedding plans.

	Archi and Maron face each other, with Claudio as Archi's second. 
Maron is not as good as Roland, but not bad.  Archi draws first blood
within half an hour, but manages not to make Maron look too bad.

	Caitlin faces Corliss, who gives her a slightly contemptuous
salute.  He's almost as good as Archi, and they go back and forth for a
while.  He seems to be hesitant to dishonor a woman who was foolish enough
to fight him.  Caitlin pretends to tire faster than she really is, but he
doesn't buy it.  Eventually, he locks blades and disarms her of her left
one.  He hesitates to draw first blood, though, and would rather that she
yielded.  She attempts to use this against him, but fails, and he manages
to disarm her of her second sword.  Caitlin still won't yield without
first blood.  Her honor demands it.  He mentions that he'd heard that she
was considering joining the Jezetti, and he looks forward to sparring with
her should that occur.  Then he kisses her hand and nicks it.  Caitlin
points out that she was only considering joining, and leaves.  She's not
happy.

	Cameron loses to Roy Halybard.  Merlin defeats Jurt, barely.  They
both drew blood, but Merlin scored first.  Sky beats Corliss in archery.

	Ulysses faces Sylvester in the Shadow race.  Sylvester is all
decked out in racing shorts, etc.  Ulysses makes it to Ygg ten minutes
ahead of Sylvester.  On the way back, he senses something keeping pace
with him from just a Shadow away.  He checks, and it's not Sylvester, so
he keeps going.  As he nears the end, he checks on it, and finds that it
is a large cat.  Er.  He wins.

	Claudio checks in with Sand, but she still hasn't started working
on the ring he asked for.

	Archi decides to make use of the upcoming free day and takes off
with Laughter for Foil.

	Fey returns to Chaos, heads for the weapons tent and begins
destroying things.  A page finds Caitlin, who is busy throwing crockery
against the wall, and informs her of the problem.  She agrees to be taken
to it, and tells it to stop.  It smashes another weapon.  She repeats.  It
says, "*bing* sword!"  She tries to get it to put the weapons back.  No
such luck.  Caitlin says "No," which makes it stop, but she can't get it
to put the weapons back.  Caitlin has a bowl of fruit brought.  Fey begins
flinging the fruit at the page.  Caitlin suggests getting something more
palatable.  The page fetches a haunch.  Caitlin manages to teach it that
good means put your weapons away.  Eventually she tries "follow," and
indicates that it should.  Then it says, "go," and leaves.  Caitlin
congratulates herself on a job well done and goes off in search of Merlin. 
Fey quickly realizes that no one is following it, so it returns and begins
destroying all the weapons that don't glint like Caitlin's Pattern swords.

	Caitlin finds Merlin and offers her swords to him for the
remainder of his participation, since she's out of the tournament.  Merlin
comforts her by pointing out that Corliss is doubtless going to win the
whole thing.  Caitlin's never lost before.  Good thing she isn't a
Jezetti.  Merlin tells her a story about some Jezetti who made war on
another house, and at the end the Hendrakes surrendered, and every single
Jezetti was given over to the other house, en masse, to be used by the
victors.  He's not sure that he'd like being a Jezetti.  Caitlin has been
considering this, and she doesn't think she's likely to join, at this
point.

	A page finds Caitlin and tells her of the continuing Fey troubles,
so she Trumps Archi.  He holds her off, until Merlin joins in.  They are
making progress until Laughter aids Archi, which stymies Caitlin again. 
Caitlin Trumps Benedict and explains the situation.  Benedict comes
through, seems intrigued that Archi is ignoring his duty, and asks to be
taken to the creature.  The page does so.  Fey looks innocent.  Benedict
calls it over, then picks it up by the nape of the neck.  It claws his
arm, but he doesn't release it.  He Trumps Archi, and forces his way
through, tossing the creature onto Archi's bed.  Laughter likes this not
at all.  Archi draws Song and drives it from the manor.

	Benedict has Caitlin bind his wounds.  She asks if he knows what
happened.  He saw her fight.  Doh!  He tries to comfort her with the story
of how he lost his arm, then realizes that it shouldn't have grown back
yet.  This understandably distresses him, and he ponders this for a bit. 
He explains that he lost an arm to a Helgram Hellmaid.  Caitlin is amazed. 
He says he was distracted at the time.  He was bested twice, and he's
pretty sure a child was conceived of him on both occasions.  The other one
was a daughter he never knew.  Is she still alive?  Probably.  Caitlin
asks who Benedict was talking to while she was scalping Orrin.  His
mother.  Caitlin is not his daughter around her.  Because of the shame? 
No, because Cymnea will do her best to kill Caitlin if she knows of her. 
Benedict explains how Cymnea kills all of her female descendants, and that
Caitlin is free to kill Cymnea if she must.

	Fey trashes Laughter's flower beds, eliciting a scream from her. 
Archi promptly corrects its behavior with Song.

	Kaedric finds Claudio, tells him that he's getting married, and
asks him to stand up with him at the wedding.  Sure.  Claudio is quite
drunk, since Sky isn't talking to him.  He figures he needs to go to some
higher tech Shadows.  Kaedric says he'll leave Claudio to continue
drinking.  Claudio asks if Brand knows about the wedding.  He's one of the
strongest backers.  Uh-huh.

	Claudio looks up Orrin and wants to talk.  Orrin figures, sure, he
has several brothers to kill before he's in charge.  Um, maybe he might
not to do that this time.  True, he'll have to be more devious this time. 
And he's realized that Laughter is not the key for getting to Archi.  Now,
there's an understatement.  At least that will keep him alive longer. 
They decide that they were both equally screwed, seeing as how they are
both under orders not to kill each other.  Claudio figures that if they
can't kill each other, they may as well be friends.  They go drinking.


Quotables:

"You're the King." -- Claudio
"No, Claudio, I am not.  That was in the future, remember?" -- Archi

"You must either impregnate (the Jezetti) or kill her." -- Kaedric
"Do I have to do that here?" -- Claudio

"Caitlin, I have a Jezetti in my bedroom." -- Claudio
"Congratulations." -- Caitlin

"Where do you Trump (Fey)?" -- GM
"Very far away." -- Ulysses
"That would be Amber?" -- GM
"No, that's too close to Amber." -- Ulysses

"I'm not sleeping with you to have sex with you." -- Kaedric to Melanie

"I must not have noticed when my arm grew back." -- Benedict to Caitlin

"If I can't cut (Orrin's) head off, I guess I'll have to do the
befriending thing." -- Claudio to GM

"Well, Laughter keeps giving me chocolates, so I don't trust her." --
Orrin to Claudio