Damarian Game Log
Ambercon précis and GenCon Sunday afternoon writeup
I suppose I shouldn’t’ve volunteered.
I know, I know; all the stories and jokes about volunteering in the army (no matter which Shadow’s army, they’re all the same) are pretty lame. But no army sergeant would ever be looking in my direction the way Fiona and Benedict were that time in Fiona’s bungalow after we had rescued Harlan.
Oh, I haven’t said anything about that, have I? Well, that was originally Bronwyn and Eleanor’s adventure, and I just showed up to help out near the end. I prepared the essentials for their trip and remained behind to keep an eye on them and on Amber. I showed up just in time (having left Amber in a bit of a rush, which is a story in itself that I’ll get around to recounting later) to be there when they actually found Harlan, all laid out on his back on a bier as if in a tomb, but still alive, with these slimy tendril things attached to his head and back. They weren’t too difficult to separate, but the animated stone guardians in the tomb were a little hard to take.
That’s when I lifted Harlan over my shoulder and Bronwyn and I Trumped back to the edge of the Abyss. The guardian things followed us through another Trump gate and attacked the three of us (plus Harlan) there at the edge of the Abyss. I learned one thing then: psychic combat doesn’t work with things that have no mind to begin with. (Maybe that’s why I’ve never bothered people like Godfrey and Harlan before?) Bronwyn and Eleanor managed to physically defeat the things while I played halfback and hauled Harlan’s body out of the way, then we Trumped mother and got her assistance, and when she couldn’t help enough, I Trumped Benedict back at Castle Amber. (Talk about going from the frying pan to the fire.) That’s when Kayen and Godfrey and the rest showed up to help out, too.
The reason I went to the Abyss in the first place was that I had apparently angered that great passionless warrior Benedict himself. We all saw a side of Benedict that afternoon that we’d never seen: Benedict the father, with Kelcey the grumbling center of attention. His one mandate on the subject of Kelcey’s recuperation was rest, rest, and more rest, undisturbed by anyone or anything. Including us.
Note: this scene is described more fully in Never, Never, Ever Anger a Shapeshifter!.
We all had been sitting in Kelcey’s room, arguing (the usual family pastime, you see) about a lot of subjects, including Bronwyn and Eleanor’s search for Harlan and Godfrey’s and Kayen’s proposed trip to Chaos in the company of a disreputable Chaos lord named Jayson. (Where he came from and what he was doing in Amber I had no idea, and I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t do much about it. He did, however, manage the best put-down of Godfrey I’d heard in a long time, to give him some credit.)
Harlan was always dressed in pontifical robes and always accompanied by his silent shadow Harlan, the son of Dworkin and Trump Artist. Jayson’s character happened to say something about Harlan’s priestly office: “The only time he’s on his knees is when he’s buggering Harlan.”
Kelcey, in the argument, was giving as good as she got, as usual, except no one (with one exception) was throwing anything her way, when Benedict walked in and ordered everyone out. That apparently was the signal for all of the parties to depart on their appointed quests, myself included.
I walked back to Bronwyn’s room with her and Eleanor, but I left to raid the kitchen and the armory for some essentials. I returned with a basket and a couple of swords, but they appropriated both and left me with nothing, Bronwyn invoking the Abyss to transmit the two of them away. (Daunted, me? Probably, especially around more powerful women; a legacy from my mother, if you know what I mean. I had been planning on waiting in the center of the Pattern, playing a game of Family Solitaire to keep an eye on people and holding the food and weapons as a reserve, but that was too much.) Instead I returned to my room to think.
That’s when Caine Trumped me and asked me to deliver a scroll to Kelcey. I didn’t think anything of it, but Fiona stopped me in the corridor before Kelcey’s room and tried to talk me out of it. During the discussion the seal broke and a translucent fairy burst out of it, similar to ones I’ve seen Caine use in the past, trying to get to Kelcey. I put it into a psychic cage to keep it from flying off; I was planning on communicating with it, but examination later indicated that even a light psychic contact would destroy it. But even then I was unable to get into Kelcey’s room, and in my attempts angered Benedict. Thus my little trip to the Abyss and to Bronwyn and Eleanor’s side. Which, in retrospect, was probably the most intelligent thing I did all day.
Well, after a great amount of work and a few medical miracles from the elder blood of Amber, we did finally manage to restore Harlan, much to Godfrey’s delight. I’m sure mother had a great deal to do with that; medical matters of a higher nature than simple battlefield surgery are a good bit beyond my capabilities or interests at present, but even I could tell that the damage to Harlan was very extensive, and by all rights, the blood of Amber not withstanding, he should not have recovered so quickly. When he was conscious, Harlan thanked me for rescuing him; he also thanked Bronwyn and Eleanor, too, since they did most of the heavy work, but without me they’d have been in dire straights indeed! (Okay, I know I’m gloating, but I think I’m entitled to a little ego-boosting.)
That was about the time I noticed Fiona and Benedict consulting and looking in my direction. Know you know why I went to Godfrey and volunteered to accompany them on this mission Benedict had given him. Benedict had given Godfrey a Trump of this place and instructions to “see what’s wrong” and to “take Harlan and a redhead.” Harlan, as Godfrey’s shadow, was assured of going, as he was apparently fit enough to do so, and Bronwyn had also volunteered, but a second redhead, and this one with the Pattern, too, was also acceptable. I must have been tired at the time; that’s the only explanation for this unexpected show of Amber solidarity called volunteering.
Surprisingly, Kayen and Eleanor also agreed to come; apparently Kayen’s trip to Chaos was apparently completed, but I never heard the results. Well, we used the Trump and got to wherever it is that we were supposed to go, when we saw them: duplicates of each of the six of us, Godfrey and Harlan, Eleanor and Kayen, Bronwyn and myself, plus another person, a blonde woman, hanging onto my arm. (As I recall, the only thing I could think of saying was that blondes were not my taste at all, so this couldn’t be me.) The duplicate Godfrey waved to us and they all smiled and left in a characteristic Trump rainbow. That’s when I heard Bronwyn saying that the duplicate Bronwyn was wearing her body and she wanted it back! Needless to say we couldn’t even get close to them before they disappeared, to who knows where.
That wasn’t the only strange thing about this place. There is this humongous tree (which, I learned later, from Eleanor’s conversation with it, is named Ygg-Mother and is apparently the parent to the tree Oberon planted at the boundary of Amber and the Courts of Chaos) which was indicated by the Trump. Harlan, Eleanor and I tried talking to it, but it apparently is doing this Zen thing and is almost impossible to contact, let alone talk to. The only person having any luck apparently was Harlan, and he was spacing out seriously and shapeshifting into a tree to boot. (Which may be the reason Godfrey was instructed to bring him along. No word on what the redhead is for yet.)
Eleanor, for some reason, asked Ygg-mother for a branch, just as Oberon and Corwin had done years before. (Corwin had gotten a branch of old Ygg, remember; I guess Oberon got his from the source itself.) The strange thing was that she got one. Well, actually she got the right to take one; she had to do the trimming herself. I boosted her up the trunk to the nearest large branch and she went a‑hunting herself. She picked a fairly long piece of wood and returned to the ground and started trimming it into a usable length. She had a little company; a smart-mouthed raven, possibly related to the one that accompanied Corwin on his expedition to create his own Pattern. I was ready with a rock to knock it out of the sky if it bothered Eleanor, but once she got the branch it flew off in quite a hurry.
Of course I was curious about the power inherent in such a staff, but Eleanor wouldn’t let me investigate it thoroughly. I think she was more spooked by the reaction Harlan had while touching a piece of the trimmed branch than by any doubts she had about a redhead; I know I was a little disconcerted by his reaction to the emotions of the branch when he spaced out again. I know that for a fact because I went in after him and found the same vast empty psychic space that I had earlier found in the tree.
Well, when Godfrey (which reminds me, he was off chasing Bronwyn, who earlier had run off for some reason) saw Harlan and I in psychic communion, he apparently thought I was somehow controlling Harlan (Fat chance! As if I’d want to plunge my mind in his Trump-crazed brain!) and came running towards us, Kayen in tow. I dropped the contact, since I was literally going nowhere. It took a touch of the branch Eleanor had hold of to waken Harlan. That’s about when Eleanor noticed Bronwyn running off and took off after her, hanging onto that branch, and both of them disappeared from sight. I never did get to check out the branch, although I know it has some dark and dangerous power hidden inside, just from a precursory examination.
Godfrey and Harlan reported finding that Trumps were more difficult to use in this place; Harlan was most displeased on that regard. Kayen was also having some problems with his Pattern which may have been a result of a trap laid for Benedict or any of his children in this place. (I said it was weird, this place.) Or perhaps it was the axe that Kayen normally keeps at his side; he was saying something it not having the complete Pattern on it, which was strange, since it was supposed to be a Patterned weapon.
When Kayen said he was having trouble using the Pattern, and after Godfrey saying that he had tried to use the Pattern when we first arrived, only to have the Unicorn appear and do something strange to his memory, I decided to see if I could attempt the same. It took Godfrey’s verbal nudge to get me to open my eyes (I closed them in order to concentrate better, of course) to see the Unicorn about thirty feet before me. I tried to approach it, since the Unicorn shouldn’t have any fear of me, a child of Amber and itself, but it backed away from me as I walked towards it. Attempting to use the Pattern as a lens or resonator to communicate with the Unicorn didn’t seem to have any effect. Walking the Pattern in my mind has been, before, a theoretical exercise that circumstances forced me to attempt this time, and no one was more surprised than I that I could actually do so! Taking the easy road out, I used the Pattern to transport myself to the Unicorn’s side.
The world turned inside-out. Everything was dark, a negative image of the area around the tree. (I’ve seen enough negative photographs, even though the process isn’t used in Amber, to know what I was talking about.) The only light was the image of the tree itself, as if it were cut away from the background. As I stood there, this titanic ogre appeared behind me and reached for me, just as these things started emerging from the ground, clawing and grabbing at me. Since I didn’t have much in the way of weaponry (not that I ever really do), I was unable to pull free, but I was able to use the strength of the ogre behind me to pull away, as he was pulling me up into the sky.
That’s when the big silvery dragon flew down from the sky and the ogre put out its hand with me clenched inside it as an offering to the dragon. I was unable to break free of the grip; I had hoped to make some last ditch effort to defend myself, as befits a child of Amber, when a blade thrown from below struck the dragon below the wing. It appeared that I had a companion, although I don’t know how long they’ll last against the minions crawling through the ground, nor how long I’ll last as dragon dinner, either, but we’ll find out soon, won’t we?
As it turned out, these plot points never got resolved, although Damarian was rescued. The whole thing with the tree and the mysterious others who smiled at us and Trumped out, especially the blonde woman, were never brought up again, although she did make another appearance when Damarian essayed Tir’na Nog’th in a later game.
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