From Kris.Fazzari@um.cc.umich.edu Tue Sep 14 14:33:14 1993 Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 10:15:56 EDT From: Kris.Fazzari@um.cc.umich.edu To: thari@umich.edu Subject: Kris' Campaign Log Chapter Thirteen Everyone decides to go to bed, hoping things will look better in the morning. Present at breakfast the following day are Driscoll, Eris, Benedict, Ahab, Alex, Heather, Bleys, Brand, Jasra, Gerard, Isabeux, Flora, Random, Vialle and Martin. Felix and Ariana show up late. The only people who sit by Brand and Jasra are Bleys and Heather. Ahab sits at the head table with the elders. Alex is sitting by himself for a while, until Martin joins him. Ahab talks with Benedict about Dalt's possible allies. Felix and Ariana both wind up sitting with Martin and Alex (the only other option was the table full of red- heads). Ahab discusses conjuration with Driscoll. The head table starts to break up as the elders finish breakfast. Ariana, Felix and Alex discuss the Logrus for a while, which bores the Hell out of Martin. Bleys leaves the red-head table, and is immediately followed by Heather. Heather asks Bleys if he'd mind stopping by her room. Bleys asks why. She claims it's nothing serious, but she'd like to talk to him alone. Bleys walks her back to her room and asks her what's wrong. Heather asks his opinion of Jasra. Bleys says he would not want to be locked in a dark room with her, but he thinks she'll make an adequate addition to the family. Heather is worried, since Jasra was the one who got Brand mixed up with Chaos prior to Patternfall. Bleys says he is more worried about the new trouble, but he won't say what he is referring to. They reach her room and she gives him a wine goblet as a gift. Bleys asks why she's doing this, but she won't say. Ahab gets some food and takes it up to bribe Dworkin. Dworkin insists on a cheese danish with strawberry jam before he'll talk. Ahab asks Dworkin if the Logrus is sentient, since Ariadne told him that Coral was kidnapped by the Logrus, not by masters of the Logrus. Dworkin says that it is. Ahab asks if the Pattern is as well, and Dworkin tells him to ask it. Ahab decides to walk the Pattern and do just that. Back in the dining hall, Alex leaves the table and eventually goes back to his room. Martin is relieved to have no more Logrus discussion going on. Martin, Ariana and Felix talk for a little while longer. Martin mentions that Orkuz and his family have left. Felix looks surprised and asks if Coral went with them. Martin says yes and asks why Felix is asking. Ariana says that Felix just wanted to say good-bye to her. Felix agrees, but it's obvious that he's hiding something. Martin leaves. Ahab reaches the center of the Pattern and starts talking to it. He asks if it is sentient, and gets a spark in reply. He asks some more questions, but he is unable to determine if the sparks are random or purposeful. He asks to be taken to a place where they can communicate better, and is surrounded by a shower of sparks. He catches a glimpse of the unicorn and asks to be transported to the passage where he saw her. He follows the passage down to the sea where he finds the Unicorn waiting. She stares at him. He asks her some yes/no questions about whether there is a safe way to rescue Coral and whether he's likely to pull it off without the Logrus noticing. The Unicorn shakes her head no for both questions. He asks if there's any way that she or the Pattern can protect him in an emergency, and she snorts. As Ahab ponders this disquieting information, the Unicorn starts dancing around. Ahab says he'd better start planning (which earns him a nod from her) and thanks the Unicorn. She takes off down the beach. Ahab realizes that he doesn't know which passages to take to get back to the Pattern. He tries shifting shadow and gets a headache. He gives up on this and trumps Gerard who pulls him back. He warns Gerard to make sure he knows the way back from where he has the Pattern send him, which earns him a confused look. Ahab looks up Ariana and asks her to join his rescue effort. Having nothing better to do, she agrees. They discuss their options (not many). Ahab suggests finding Ariadne and asking her some questions about the Logrus. Ariana tells Ahab that Ariadne has left with Orkuz's family. They decide to find Driscoll and see if he has Ariadne's trump. Felix knocks on Heather's door and asks her whether she's drawn another trump of Ariadne yet. She says she hasn't, and proceeds to insult Felix's intelligence. He asks how Orkuz could have left with his entire family when Coral is missing. Heather tells him that Ariadne has taken Coral's form, and makes him feel like an idiot again. He tells her he'll say hello to Aunt Jasra for her and leaves. Heather is not pleased at all by this. Felix looks up Ariana and finds she and Ahab are still planning in her room. Felix tells them of his talk with Heather. They decide tell him of their plans to trump Ariadne. As they leave to find Driscoll, they run into Shard and Battlestar. They fill him in on what's been happening. Felix asks Shard if Julian has sent anyone to rescue Eric yet. Shard says no. Felix is upset to hear this. They decide to talk to Eric to see if he needs assistance, and to learn what he knows about his captors, in case they are the same group that is holding Coral. Felix trumps Eric, who says that he's escaped, so they can call off the rescue party. Felix lets slip that there was no rescue party, which puts Eric off a bit. Ahab joins the conversation and tells Eric about Coral's kidnapping. Eric doesn't have much to say about his captors. They used some sort of poison pill to kill themselves before he could question them. Eric asks to talk with Ahab privately. He is concerned about Deirdre's disappearance, and they talk about her for a while. Felix trumps Driscoll and asks to borrow Ariadne's trump. Driscoll hands it to him, and Felix gives it to Ahab. Ahab trumps her, but gets the impression that now would not be a good time. They decide to start tracking Coral and start heading for the stables. Heather finishes her trump and tries it. She gets through but feels as though Coral is drugged. She finds Bleys and asks him to help her find Coral. Bleys agrees. The others decide to see what progress Heather has made before they leave. Battlestar leads them to Bleys' door. They knock and ask if they can speak to Heather. She hands them the trump of Coral, but won't say what happened when she tried it. Felix, still upset over her earlier comments, storms off. Ahab eventually gets her to tell him what she's learned. Ahab tries to trump Coral and finds that she is drugged but not comatose the way Ariadne was. Heather storms out. Ahab and company go looking for Felix. They find him sulking on the fourth floor. Heather encounters Alex in the Great Hall. He asks her what's wrong. She won't say, but asks him to come horse riding with her to an undisclosed destination. He agrees, since he's been looking for something to do, and they ride off. Ariana trumps Martin and asks him to join them. He asks why and she tells him they're looking for Coral. He says she left with Orkuz. No she didn't, says Ariana. She offers to fill him in if he comes along, so he does. They start tracking Coral. Heather and Alex come across a twisted shadow of Amber. Heather apologizes to Alex for dragging him into this, since she didn't think it would be this serious, but keeps going. Alex uses Logrus to determine where they are, and finds that they are on the Amber side of Ygg. He continues following Heather. The second group finds this twisted shadow as well. Alex notices that them in the distance and points them out to Heather. Heather opts to wait for them, since she figures she'll need some cannon fodder. They all continue onward. They come across a large hole in the ground going straight down. Ariana tosses a pebble down and it takes 5 seconds to hit...something. Shard has some rope, but they're not sure it'll be enough to reach the bottom of the hole. Ahab rides off looking for some more rope. The thing in the hole comes up to investigate. It starts advancing on Martin. Heather decides that now is the opportune time to check out the hole, so she climbs down, while Ariana holds the rope. The thing notices this and attacks Ariana. She yells a warning to Heather and attempts to dodge out of the way, dropping the rope in the process. Alex shifts to a flying form and catches Heather, landing at the bottom of the hole. Despite Ariana's efforts, the creature grazes her, and cuts right through her armor like it didn't exist. Shard shoots it with a crossbow, but the bolt just bounces off the thing's armor. It slashes Ariana again. Ahab attacks it with Morglyph while Shard pulls Ariana out of the way. Morglyph is able to damage it, as is Shard's whip. They start chipping away its armor. Ariana and Felix stay back and start firing their crossbows at the exposed spots in the armor. Heather and Alex find a passageway leading away from the hole. They start following it. Meanwhile, up above, the creature decides that it doesn't like the way things are going, and jumps back down the hole. Heather and Alex hear a growl and are quite dismayed to learn that the thing is now attacking them.