07.04c: Meetings and Reflections

[Rasanam]

"I see no particular reason to keep it secret... but I also see no particular reason not to. If we are keeping it to ourselves, however," Rasanam glances at Harrune, "I would ask permission to share it with my wife; I prefer not to keep secrets from her when I do not have to, and I am willing to vouch that it will go no further than her."

He'll wait a moment for a reply, and then focuses on Alystrakos' card for a few moments.

"Alys says she'll be up in a bit - she wants to avoid demonstrating Trump in front of our guests. Or in earshot of our guests. Oh, and Ossian: she said to tell you that the answer is Lyra and the Raven."

((In case it's not clear - which it should be to Ossian, but us players are mere mortals - the question involved is "Who did you leave to keep an eye on Krajk / make sure he's shown a reasonable degree of hospitality?"))

[Wyvern]

Alys shows up maybe a minute later*, walking in the door and closing it behind her. She looks over the assembled nobility... and pauses when she sees Cassandra.

"The matters Morgana has asked me to discuss pertain to Pattern and its implications, as well as certain secrets that Dworkin has so far kept to himself. Harrune, are these concerns that Cassandra should be present for? Or is there someone willing to vouch for her?"

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* Arriving from here.

[misfit]

(OOC: For the first part I am backing up to before Alys' arrival because it would make more sense that way.)

"Rasanam, this is already an 'open secret'. I was thinking that we should probably keep it to those present...and any of the Amberites. Of course I won't object to sharing it with Lyra. I just don't feel a need to share it with all and sundry. Hopefully we never get to a point where you have to keep a Court secret from her, or vice versa."

(Later, to respond to Alys' concerns).

"Alys, that is a reasonable request. Cassandra, would you mind giving us some privacy here? I would like to ask you a favor of you though, or rather a riddle for you to solve if you will. I would like to know exactly who sent that message. It would seem that someone is challenging you for being our provider of riddles...it would be good to at least know who the competition is."

[Wyvern]

Cassandra huffs in that way that cats do when they're annoyed, but not annoyed enough to get out the claws. But she nods politely in response to Harrune's request, adding, "I'll look into it," before stalking over to stare pointedly at the spot on the walls that the apparition had come from. There's a hunker, and a tail twitch, and a butt waggle, and then she pounces her reflection... and somehow tumbles out of sight entirely instead of merely bouncing off the wall.*

Alys stares after her, taking a bit to bring up her sensory Power before commenting, "Well, she's definitely not here anymore. But I'm not quite certain where she went... the connections in this room are a bit complicated." She looks back over the assembled Amberites before actually shutting the power off again.

Alys starts with a repeat of the basic information she told Morgana in the Private Conversation thread:**

"So. I'm sure you've heard Dworkin say he created Amber, the Pattern, and all of reality. From a certain point of view, he's probably right. However, I - quite literally - don't see things that way. If we call Amber and all of its shadows... 'yellow', for lack of a better term - well, I'd be willing to believe that Dworkin is responsible for the existance of everything that's reality-yellow."

"But Amber isn't the only place casting shadows; there's also Chaos - call that reality-blue. The two are largely orthogonal; Dworkin, for example, is entirely both, and a half-dozen other 'colors' besides; I can't get a good read on what he is - but I do know that he came from Chaos, and that whatever he did to create Amber ripped the power of Logrus away from the former ruling clan. Logrus is their equivalent of Pattern, a Greater Power that cannot be opposed by lesser means and capable of reshaping or destroying entire shadows; I can give you some idea of what it could do later. Or you could ask Dworkin for a demonstration; he's probably still the only one attuned to it."

"Chaos is divided into clans, based on natural form; it's a land of shapeshifters in much the same way one might call Amber a city of sorcerers - again, I'll go over what an expert shapeshifter can do later. That means clan membership is somewhat flexible; if you're good enough, you can change your natural form and become something greater than what you were. And the greatest clan, of course, is the one that holds the Serpent's favor and has access to Logrus."

"I will take a moment to comment on what shapeshifting can't do: it can't replicate or fool a Greater Power. No matter how good the shapeshifter, for example, they can't mimic one of us well enough to use Pattern or hijack a Trump connection - though Dworkin could probably manage either. And shapeshifting should offer no advantage for trying to survive attunement to the Pattern."

"So, long story short? There's maybe a billion insane shapeshifters out there, who'd loving nothing more than to kill Dworkin and tear down everything he's built. They don't know how to find us, they'd be hard-pressed to get here even if they knew exactly where to go, and they're busy fighting all the other clans to try and hold together what used to be an empire... So we should have plenty of time to prepare. But even if they fall, whoever comes out on top will not remember Dworkin fondly."

"I had expected we would have some time - years or decades - to prepare before we had to deal with anything related to this; it took me quite some time and effort to get as close to Amber as I did before Dworkin escorted me the rest of the way, and I would not have expected anyone else to have had better luck. That Odin arrived so soon after myself implies that he found some way to cheat; to travel faster through the disconnected shadows of Amber than I was able to. Perhaps it has something to do with his bodyguard; Krajk is entirely or almost entirely reality-yellow, and I would not have expected Odin to acquire a local retinue without good reason. Also, Krajk is significantly more real than I would have expected of someone from Amber's shadows. And," Alys looks at Ossian, "There was clothing for him in the coat room. But none for Odin."

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* This section was run past the GM before I posted it, since Cassandra is an independent NPC.
** Though with a few subtle edits - mostly removing information about specific people that was in the original.

[Joshua]

Ossian sighs. And nods...

Darnell will speak up, "I can talk to Dworkin. We're having a meeting before Rebma about the trump decks. Perhaps he will be able to explain why he found clothing for the guard?"

[misfit]

Harrune chuckles. "And perhaps you will even be able to understand the explanation. If this guard is as 'real' as you say then no doubt Dworkin has plans."

"Alys, is this a serious threat? Should be we scrambling our forces to defend against an attack? Or do we have time to gather information and do things in a more reasonable manner? Or are defenses needed at all?"

[Wyvern]

"Yes. No. Maybe. Absolutely."

"To elaborate: Yes, this is a serious threat; it may be possible to avert at least some of that, if Odin is here as a diplomat as he claimed. Or it may not. Certainly, if he can get here, then some members of the former ruling clan should be capable of making the trip and causing trouble, even if Chaos as a whole remains unthreatening."

"No, scrambling our forces would accomplish nothing; if they somehow have an army already on the way... We simply do not have the ability to meet that with proportionate force right now. Pattern would decide such a conflict: it should be possible to use it to destroy whatever shadow or shadows such an army occupied, and thus end the immediate threat. There would be some survivors, of course, most likely including their champions - but one on one, I'd bet on us over them; reality-yellow is incredibly concentrated, and there are few among them who could match any of us at even a dozen against one. Odin, unsurprisingly, is one of those few; while I would expect to win a straight up fight against him, there are any number of ways he could 'cheat'."

"As I said, I expected we would have years, perhaps centuries to prepare. It is possible that whatever method Odin used to get here simply will not work for others, or will not work on a large scale, in which case we should still have that time. Or it may be possible that there is an army nearly on our doorstep; perhaps one Odin does not even know about."

"And for the last, even if Odin is here as a diplomat, and somehow represents all of Chaos, and we can negotiate some peaceful resolution... shadow is not a finite thing. Somewhere out there, there will be powers with both the capability and interest in causing us harm. Most such - infinitely many, in fact - will simply remain potential - insufficiently real to pose a threat even if they could get here. But there will be some exceptions, even if no-one with the power of Pattern goes looking for 'a threat' or 'a worthy foe' or the like."

[Veyska]

"The clothing could well be something as simple as Dworkin not liking Odin or Dworkin expecting Odin would have proper clothing already but his guard wouldn't. Just because everything around here's usually complicated doesn't mean it always is." A thoughtful pause, and then, "Whatever the case may be, Dworkin's almost certainly Up To Something, as Harrune says."

After listening to Alys' explanation, "If this... Krajk is as 'real' as you say he is, I suspect that does in fact have something to do with why he was hired in the first place. Not all of us were brought here by Dworkin and Pattern is not the only way to cross shadows, though local magics do tend to be limited to their respective plane's cosmologies. Maybe this guard was used as a lodestone of sorts, or maybe he's intended to be assumed as such. Or maybe he's a peace offering of sorts, a 'Here, I peacefully brought one who bears the marks of your power here.' " Asai will shrug without making her chair wobble in the slightest. "With regards to this particular puzzle, I suspect the best next step is to badger Darnell once he's had a chance to try and get useful and hopefully comprehensible information from Dworkin." Asai seems entirely too cheerful about the notion of badgering Darnell as she says this...

[misfit]

"So it would seem that all we can do at the moment is stay alert, learn what we can and roll with whatever comes...in other words: business as usual. Have we missed anything important or should we wrap this up and go about our business?"

[Wyvern]

"The only important thing missing is a bit more detail on what I know shapeshifting and Logrus can do."

Alys will fill people in on what she knows. For shapeshifting, this is roughly equivalent to having read the rulebook on both Shapeshifting and Advanced Shapeshifting, though she'll note that any truly good shapeshifter (and she assumes Odin is that) will likely have a few personal tricks or abilities beyond the normal.

For Logrus... she's a lot less accurate. It is known to grant personal longevity, it flat out beats any lesser power in a direct conflict, it can be used to create, reshape, or destroy entire shadows, it looks like the tentacles the "Krampus" used the previous night, Pattern should be roughly equivalent in power (even if it's a bit different in how it's used) and that if you want better information you should ask Dworkin, given that he has Logrus - and may be the only person who does.

She'll also volunteer to at least try to answer any particular questions people might have about Chaos.