Blake watches and listens, then chimes in.

"I had nobody before I was brought here, so I'm happy to devote all my time to the cause, though I'm not quite sure what it is, yet.  But I'm curious, why did you pick this place to settle, if being land-locked is a problem?  Is it because of that... um... that black thing?"

"We didn't specifically, it sort of picked us, albeit indirectly, given that my mother resides in the tower, and the city proved useful early in the war."
"And the 'black thing' you speak of is the Abyss, or rather an intrusion of it into shadow. At the Courts it intrudes from below, here it sort of is like a split that occurs in a drying ball of clay if it's not prepared properly primarily being to wet. As to what the Abyss actually is you'll have to ask Charlie, she's probably better placed to comment than anyone else but as we" she indicates the rest of those sat on her side of the table "understand it, the Abyss is what exists outside of shadow.

Cormac finds this talk of the Abyss troubling. Interesting to be sure but extremely troubling. His eyes dart to Isla for a moment, remembering what Cordelia had told him regarding her and sorcery. Now probably wasn't the time to bring that up though. Maybe he could manage to speak with her after their meal.The rest of the conversation required some response in the immediate moment.

"It sounds as if the job can be what we make of it," he says thoughtfully. "I'm still a bit fuzzy on all the particulars but it sounds like a good way to learn and master our powers and do some good at the same time."

Good being a relative term of course. Cordelia was not exactly the sort to earn a lot of trust he thought. But that seemed to be a family trait so she came by it honestly. What role he would ultimately play was yet to be decided but for now Cormac was willing to go with the flow while he learned more about whatever was really going on.

"Once you understand the basics of Shadow Walking there will be plenty of opportunities for you to practice 'on-the-job'.
It's another on of those skills where the more you practice the better you get at it. You also need to have a reasonable degree of mastery in Shadow Walking before you can Hellride. "
This message was last edited by the player at 16:40, Mon 03 Apr 2023.

'love me some eternal void' Cassandra thought as Madison explained. She then blinked at Cordelia's next sentence.

"Who came up with the names for these things? and were they into Heavy-Metal music?" She ask amused 'Hellride, sounds cool but good lord even I'm not that emo'

"The name reflects the reality of the experience, although you either need a very well trained and experienced horse, or a ship to reliably execute the move.
On a ship its usual to cover the phenomomen with a severe storm, otherwise you send the crew completely mad. Of course if you've sailed through a force 10 or 11 storm you'd how applicable that label is."

Rhiannon listened quietly to the interesting turn the conversation took. She knew that she was conscripted to help piece back together Humpty Dumpty. For that she would be accepted into her true family as princess of Carnelian and Amber. They would - and have already - teach her the nature of her legacy and how to wield powers she could still scarcely imagine. Though she was getting better at that last bit. The use of Trump had already opened her eyes to the real risks of going into this unprepared, but it just kept getting darker, and stranger. Cordelia hadn't yet explained what a hellride actually was, but it didn't sound like something to be taken lightly.

"Cordelia - or anyone else," She found a moment to jump in. "Would you please explain in as much detail as you can what a hellride is?"

"An analogy will have to suffice for the moment, as it's difficult to explain without being able to perceive the structure of shadow."
"Imagine you're in a dense forest at night with only a hand held flash light. Shadow Walking is like proceeding through the forest on foot, the flash light provides enough illumination for you to see where you're going."
"Now imagine you're in the same forest with the same flash light, except you also have a motorcycle but that it has no lights. Imagine also that if your speed drops below 50mph the motorcycle will explode, and that you have to navigate through the forest without hitting a tree."
"If you envision the forest as shadow, and the flash light as the Pattern you should get the idea."

Blake looks quizzically at Cordelia.  "So I take it running isn't fast enough.  Can you use an actual motorcycle, instead of a horse?"

"You can in an emergency and you've a great deal of experience in using the Pattern. It's really difficult to maintain the Pattern image and run at the same time."
"You can Shadow Walk on a motor bike , but you can't hellride. Combustion Engines only work in may be 10% of Shadow, so you can suddenly find yourself without motive power.
"An example may suffice. You can get from London to Sacramento in a couple of hours by Shadow Walking on a motor bike; Helliding takes about 5 minutes on a horse, assuming of course that the horse has been trained or your a very good horseman."

He wasn't too proud to admit that the idea of a hellride sounded terrifying. While Cormac could see that it had it's uses he wasn't too keen on trying it anytime soon. Mentally adding that to the list of things he would need to be wary of the young prince heard something else that piqued his interest.

"You can shadow walk between cities on the same shadow world? Would it then be the same world or a new one altogether. Or is this one of those things we will just understand as we get more practice?"

He was assuming the later, at least for the moment.

"Yes if you're familiar enough with your destination, and you can chose to either walk to the destination you want or a shadow of it, which can sometimes be useful. Its true in both versions of the example I gave you. You need to know your destination well enough to be able to manipulate shadow from your starting point to get there from where you start, and that sort of trick does require a decent level of understanding of shadow, which is very much down to experience."

As lunch finishes Cordelia will stand.




Madison, Isla, Gabriel, and Scott will then depart.



This message was last edited by the GM at 14:20, Thu 06 Apr 2023.

With Lunch concluded and the hosts departing, Rhiannon stood as well.

"We will see each other at dinner then. I need to go get some rest. See you soon everyone." With her goodbyes she went back to her room to sleep for a few hours.

Cormac too excuses himself. His plan is to go back to his room and try to get through at least one session of summoning the patterns image before he would need to get ready for dinner. Before doing so though he writes a note to Isla, asking for a private meeting the next day to discuss his questions regarding sorcery and how he can learn to use it away from his home shadow. This note is given to a servant with the request that they deliver it to her when they can. With that concluded he will then take his time and try his best to improve the time of his mental pattern walks.

Four hours of sleep later, Rhiannon opened her eyes and rolled out of bed. She was in a new environment, but she felt good enough about mind walking the pattern that she settled into a meditative state and did it again. This one wasn't for the purpose of getting faster. She was already well under the thirty minutes Cordelia prescribed, and she dd achieve image even faster this time, but what she needed from this run was the end result. The image of the pattern floating in the air before her eyes. Only she could see it, but this time she also wanted to see through it. The center, previously a dark void, was also a lens. It was a viewport through which she could assess powers and attributes associated. To what extent, she didn't know.

With the glowing swirls and curves hovering in her view, Rhiannon used it like a looking glass, observing her surroundings through the pattern's center. She wasn't sure what she would see, or what it would look like, but the only way to find out was to go try. She would try to move, keeping the image before her like a portal as she moved around the castle

Blake decides to rest his mind but exercise his body, something he's been slacking on the last couple of days.  After lunch, he heads out on a long run, testing the limits of his physical endurance and exploring the new world; but making sure he's back in time to get cleaned up and be presentable at dinner.

As noted earlier, that having spent all day learning to use Trump you're all going to be mentally exhausted, so no Pattern runs until you've had a few hours sleep, and almost universally that means 3.5 to 4 hours.

There is a pull cord attached to a box in the ceiling in the entry rooms to your suites, that if pulled will causes a servant to appear in 10 to 15 minutes, so sending the note to Isla is reasonably easy to accomplish.

I think all the run numbers are correct. If they're not then send me a PM.

As the Pattern image flares into existence in front of Rhiannon she has no idea what she's going to see. Suddenly off in the distance two huge power signals flare and dominate the scene taking her completely by surprise. What they represent she has no idea. One is dark and menacing, the other completely unreadable.
Despite the shock she just about manages to hang onto the image as it momentarily wavers. Buoyed up by her success she attempts to stand, but dividing her attention to do so causes the Pattern image to waver and flicker out of existence.

Descending to the ground floor Blake exits via the Grand Hall into the bailey of the castle. A little over 120 yards away and slightly to the right the Gate House and it's open gates beckons.
The Gate House is huge some 180ft high and 250ft wide, the four 50ft diameter corner towers standing some 30ft above the main structure. The 20ft wide 30ft high arched tunnel, through the 100ft thick structure, has 2 sets of iron reinforced bound oak doors at each end backed by 2 sets of portcullis.
The four guards on duty make no attempt to either hinder or delay Blake's egress into the street beyond.
The first thing that Blake notices, other than the down slope, and the smaller gatehouse off to his right is the 80ft high wall, possibly some 330ft away.
The 'street' slopes down for about 150ft as it passes the buildings on the left, before possibly levelling out.
Descending the slope, Blake ways his options. To his right is the smaller gatehouse, whilst to his left the street appears to bend away from him to the left. He notes that maybe about 10% of the actual buildings in the vicinity of the gatehouse are in-use/occupied.
He takes the street to the left as it looks possibly provide the best option for the 'long run' he's seeking.
The street continues to curve left, circumscribing both the castle wall to his left and the plateau. After about 300 degrees the black wedge of the Abyss looms back into view, along with a pair of gatehouses, one directly ahead and one to  his right. Unlike most of the buildings along the street he's just traversed, there are a few buildings here that appear to be in-use/occupied as opposed to appearing completely deserted.
Traversing the gatehouse directly ahead he appears to be in some sort of short dead-end street which runs to his right. He backtracks and traverses the gatehouse on his left (which would have been on his right as he came down the street). As before the street slopes downwards about 30ft as it traverses the buildings to his right, the street turning right at the bottom of the slope.
As on the previous level the street traverses a 300 degree arc, before ending in a pair of gate houses, one to his left, and one straight ahead.
As previously the gatehouse straight ahead leads to a short dead-end street, where as the gatehouse to the left leads to another street which turns right. The buildings in this street are different to those on the previous 2 levels being much larger and more substantial. At least one of the buildings looks like it may be some kind of administrative centre, whilst several of the others look like they may be warehouses of storage facility.  The architecture of all the buildings appears to be 17C Medieval European in nature.
There are 7 levels to the city in total, before the final gatehouse leads to the switchback which descends to the canyon floor some 700ft below.
Blake estimates he's travelled about 4 miles although only a two thirds of a mile radially. It's taken him about an hour and a half to reach this point.
In the distance, perhaps a mile away a bridge is visible which spans the river which cuts the canyon in half radially, and a mile beyond that the far wall of the canyon. The road appears to snake up a switch back on the far side before disappearing from view into a forest.

Aside from the sparsity of population, and the most densely populated 'street' encountered is the outer ring, especially close to the main city gatehouse, is that not all of the population is human. Apart from the 'grey leathery skinned demons' (which look a little like Gargoyles), there are a variety of other reptilian like demonic like entities which unlike the 'Gargoyles' have a significantly greater diversity.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:12, Sat 08 Apr 2023.

In reply to GameMaster (msg # 74):

Annoyed by the sudden dissipation of the pattern, and with still more than enough time before dinner, Rhiannon went through another iteration. She knew it would be draining before dinner, but she was frustrated and felt like she was on the verge of something. Once the manifestation returned, she went through exactly the same steps, turning slowly to view the two distant power signatures. From there, she turned slightly, making sure she kept the pattern. With that slow progression, she looked around, being careful not to move anything besides her head as it followed instinctively behind her eyes.

Cormac awakened after his short nap, remembering the old adage about the best laid plans of mice and men. His intent had been to practice summoning the pattern image but he just didn't have the mental strength for it. The trump practice earlier had taken more out of him than he had supposed. More mental exertion was going to have to wait until after dinner at the very least.

After his rest he still had the time to prepare for dinner so he would be presentable. Freshening up a bit he reflected on the events of earlier in the day. Assuming that Isla had gotten his message he might get lucky enough to speak with her a little later in the evening. With that in mind he put his spell rack in a pocket with the hopes they could discuss it later. He would feel a lot better about everything that was going on if he had the full range of his powers available to him. While he wasn't a powerful sorcerer, at least by Amber standards, he wouldn't feel quite so defenseless if he could summon his magical powers if in need.

Checking his look in the mirror he deemed that he was as presentable as he was going to get. With that he left his room and headed in the direction of the dining room. He had the feeling that things were only going to get more interesting in the next day or so.

Cassandra knows that she won't be able to walk the pattern before dinner, with that in mind she takes a nap. Four hours later she wakes up, she still has an hour or so before dinner so she spends some time going over everything she learned today.

About 45 minutes later she got up and headed to dinner.

Knowing better what to expect Rhiannon isn't surprised this time as the Pattern flares into existence. The two distant power signatures remain unaltered as before.
With care she scans her room, managing to maintain the Pattern as she does so, but doesn't see anything out of the ordinary.

After scanning around from where she was sitting, Rhiannon learned that the castle itself was quite ordinary. She knew that because the two giant power signatures loomed, showing her what she might see, but didn't anywhere else. It was possible that the strength of the power sources affected the range at which it was visible. It was likely that Madison, Gabriel, Isla and Scott all had trump decks. Those had to radiate some kind of energy, but perhaps they were too faint at this distance. Or maybe smaller sources would become visible as she got better.

Rhiannon was satisfied. She was able to advance her ability and use the Mindwalk to summon the pattern much faster, and then use Patten Sight to see something. One of those sources had to be the intrusion of the Abyss to this shadow. She would have to inquire about the other. Both actually. But dinner would be served in less than twenty minutes.

Sweeping away the summoned pattern, Rhiannon went to the mirror and made she looked presentable. She's looked better, but beautification could wait until later. For the moment, brushing and pinning her hair back would have to suffice. Looking as good as she would until after a bath later, she went out and knocked on doors. She could have just went on to dinner, but she felt like she should accompany her cousins.