Mykal’s Journal – Entry 19

After a rest at my townhouse I went back to Castle Amber and debriefed with King Random on Rand and his people, he was especially interested in Kwai and the sword he carries, Doombringer. I get to witness more vagaries of the family, it seems Queen Vialle has been “adopted” by Dworkin recently and Dworkin fixed her eyes. She is now learning how to see with real eyes rather than whatever sensitivity she was using.

I then took off for a vacation in Naipon, too much Trump work recently had me “itchy”. I got a whole 3 days of R&R before I got interrupted, 3 days of fun and sun and dark-eyed Naipon geisha’s. The interruption was Mom, and it wasn’t pretty. Someone had put some rockets into her townhouse in Shadow Earth, she was injured, in a burning, half destroyed building, and someone was trying to use her trump to block contact. Fool. I grabbed her card from my deck, pulled up my trump energy, used her card as a focus and the energy as an conduit, and I amplified her tenuous contact into one I could reach through and snatch her out. She was injured pretty badly, but nothing that seemed life threatening within the next couple minutes. I started to reach for a trump to her Advanced Clinic Shadow, but she wouldn’t let me, too dangerous…shadowpaths directly there from Shadow Earth. So I grabbed a trump for Rebma, and she demurred again, wanted me to Trump ahead so they could prepare a place…. I guess she really didn’t want to experience salt water on her wounds. (Dang! I wasn’t thinking straight if I didn’t think of that first) I Trumped Llewella and got her to prep an infirmary, then had her pull us through. Got Mom on the table and the medics went to work, she did pass me her Trump Box with her Shadow Earth contacts in it, wants me to get her people out. I quickly briefed Llewella, then Trumped Random to let him know of the attack, I also indicated a suspicion that it was probably the Black Watch fellow they call the Hunter. He’s got a reputation of stuff like this.

I then trumped to my Townhouse in Amber and started making trump calls to her people, I got them started on the evacuation plans Mom has on standby and got my people moving to get space to put them temporarily, they wont all fit in my townhouse. I never expected this place to be used for a hotel. Had to get them out first, then I could worry about getting them somewhere else. I passed a trump of my townhouse to Mom’s head aide and got them moving on their own as well. Things were getting rather crowded when I was interrupted on the Amber end by some of Mom’s sensitives showing bad reactions to something, seizures and headaches and such. Having seen too many shapeshifter bloodbeasts lately, that’s the first thing that I thought of, and sure enough…they have some type of mindworm in them. Not wanting to tempt fate with my poor expertise in using the pattern to attempt to kill them without killing the hosts, I decided to call in Andre to see if he can do something with them without killing mom’s people. He was a bit surly at first, made a poor joke about what was in it for him (at least I THINK it was a joke), then dove in and started working on pulling the things out, and doing stuff with them that I’m not really sure I wanted to know about. As long as Mom’s people are all right then I’m not too unhappy. (Mental reminder to do something nice for Andre soon)

I did make arrangements for a skeleton crew of Mom’s contacts to remain in place, and there were actually quite a few volunteers when they found out that she was injured. I had a suspicion that I would be needing them shortly. I decided to go on the offensive, I know that moron is sitting somewhere in Shadow Earth just waiting for a certain Hot-Headed young Amberite to come charging in to avenge his mother, so I think I’ll just do something else. I Trumped Gerard and explained the situation, he was more than willing to assist going after Mom’s attacker. Soon we were deep in counter ambush planning and others of the family started showing up, and being called in. We got to have another family outing; nearly everyone was getting involved in taking this guy out. The plan we came up with is not one I really prefer, but I acquiesced to the judgment of the rest that this is the BEST way to make sure the bucket-head doesn’t escape. We were going to set off Nukes in Moms Shadow…She was REALLY not going to be happy about this. Using Mom’s contacts and people, and the Family’s skills we acquired a suitcase nuke and two rockets, I then tracked the moron (he’s got Thera’s Trump Deck…with trumps that I drew for her in it…I can find him anywhere he runs) and found him in Geneva. We got Selene to place the suitcase and got her out, then got the aircraft with the rockets inbound. Auntie Fi blocked his escape with her Arts (she did seem to enjoy his attempts to escape, alot) and the nukes went off, killing the idiot right there. Along with Geneva and A lot of innocent bystanders. I’m sad for them, but its’ a nasty world that Shadow Earth has turned into.

I would have rather gotten a blade on the Hunter, but realistically doubt that I could have managed it alone, he’s not the type to stand up and fight. I pulled Selene off to the side and thanked her for her participation on my Mother’s behalf, then thanked all the elders and assistants. I got mom’s people to start spin-doctoring the tragedy as an act of terrorism and supporting lobby groups for nuclear disarmament, and gave them the news that mom’s attacker is dead.

I then headed to Rebma to brief Mom, I was right, she wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t upset to the degree I expected, she told me that she was pretty sure that by his reputation and actions, The Hunter was more than likely deeply involved with planning the death of Benedict. And I could see her start to plot on how she could use the “Terrorist Atrocity” to start building momentum on the nuclear disarmament talks. King Random had Mom’s [Trump Shadow]? cleared of possible Chaosite infiltration and spies by Aunti Fi and Mom suggested that some of Her people could relocate there, until she gets her Shadow Earth locations rebuilt or replaced. I headed off to assist in that, and gathered her case and our trumps back up, I returned the box to her in Rebma so she can contact her aides, and I assisted a few dozen of her people moving out of my townhouse and to her villa in [Trump Shadow]?.

While there I got a trump call from Bleys, seems there is some kind of Airship that showed up at Black Keep and he wants some backup for checking out the thing and dealing with the Chaosites who own it. Intrigued by his description I agree and join cousins Sam and Archie in going to the Keep to assist Bleys. The ship is a marvel, a cross between Antigravity technology, Hydrogen, a Liveship, and Bloodbeast, it was well worth the trip. The Ship uses the void between shadows (I didn’t even know there was a measurable space between) to travel, and intrigued… Sam, Archie, and myself talked the captain into a quick trip into the Void to experience it. He agreed, and we set off, a unique experience, it sort of felt like being sucked through a pinhole, and we were in the void…black, gravity-less, with a huge sphere in front of the ship. The captain said that the sphere was the representation of that shadow on this side. He also told us ANY Logrus use would boot the user back to the nearest shadow, and he was curious if Pattern was the same. We interrupted Archie who was playing with matches…actually he set off a primer charge of powder to experiment. He said it burned way too hot, and way to slow. We got Archie to attempt to shadow shift the Voidship but as soon as he pulled up Pattern with us in close proximity, we got booted back to the Keep shadow. Very shortly we had to move so the ship could return, and thanking the captain we departed. Leaving Bleys and Him in negotiations for supplies.