Horse Of Another Timbre, Log 20

    The following is the campaign log for the 20th session of my current Amber Diceless RPG campaign, entitled A Horse Of Another Timbre. 

You might want to Start from Session #1 or check out the index of my Amber articles. 

Campaign log: 24 May 2021, turn by turn

I don't get around to posting these very often, so I'm nearly a year behind. Details below the fold:

Scene 1. Maarit and David follow the pendant
After failing to open the door, they try another route by following Maarit's pendant. They begin to hear some rhythmic drums in the distance and do not think of African Talking Drums, but they would if they could. The two groups communicating are both ahead, but distinct. The pendant seems to be pulling them toward the drums.

David notices something small off the direction the drums are coming from. It's hard to determine the size of the thing -- it's maybe basketball-sized. It moves like a drone, going from platform to platform with multiple doors. It seems like it is following them. Maarit stops to check whether they're making progress, and when Maarit inquires with her pendant, the drone goes a little crazy, and doesn't stop.

Then it changes course and begins approaching them with red lights activated. They open one of the doors and find themselves in the Gothic Industrial world, where people are walking and wearing respirators. Maarit and David step through the door and David holds it ajar to keep an eye on the drone. As it approaches, David notices that it is a Beaded Drone. It hovers around the platform and swivels around to try and see them.

They close the door as the drone speeds toward it. David re-opens the door and they find that it's the outside of a cathedral with music playing.  Maarit starts to notice the air getting to her, so she uses her magical concentration to re-open the door with purpose, and connect to the mysterious realm once more. The drone is still there. Maarit interrogates it -- "friend or foe?!" It reaches out toward her with its little limbs. Maarit reaches out to 'boop' it's finger with hers (keeping her pendant in the other hand) and it holds on to her finger, tries to bring her back through the door. David comes through the door and the drone tries to grab his head. He evades. Then it tries to reach Maarit's head, and she moves it away from her.

The second drone drums and the closer one lets go, then shifts away. It begins drumming VERY loudly. A few drumming noises come from elsewhere. Maarit and David spread out a bit, and the drones separate and one covers each person. They move up the stairs to another platform, and approach another door. Maarit asks the drone if it will mind. When Maarit opens the door, the drone looks through the door. Hunks of rock are tooth-shaped.

Scene 2. Nix and Abn Haram at Oberon's Loupe
Nix prepares some spells for casting and gets ready go to go bed when Bellantine knocks on his door. She reveals that she is very distrustful of Fiona and thinks she shouldn't have access to the secret archive. She confesses that she's torn about keeping the archive from Nix, but he's suspicious of her. She tries to keep him out of her mind. She mentions that Osric has come up in books quite a bit lately, while Fiona has not been mentioned much at all. Belle is torn about having had to give up on Oberon.

After some sleep, Nix and Abn Haram meet for breakfast. After some pleasantries, Nix reveals that someone was attacked in the acquisition room and accuses Abn Haram of having hurt his employee. Haram says he did not do those things and that he didn't take anything from the archive. (Also says the doors to the archive were unlocked.)  He says that the books he was looking for are in the archive. Nix says he hasn't had a chance to catalog the archive yet and can't give Haram the books. He then says Haram needs to leave, and suggests Haram go on a pig hunt. He arranges for supplies for the journey and sends a page to get Bellantine to go with (because Dictionary can find Brute).

Meanwhile, Chef Raym Sahey shouted at some people in his kitchen, and it turns out that Derin duPont St.Peter has been spreading pessimistic rumors and causing disruption in the kitchen. Suspicious.

Bellantine is nowhere to be found, but she could be in the acquisitions room (the page wouldn't have been let in there). Haram goes to the stable to wait (and begin crafting a communication device), while Nix goes to look for Bellantine.

Scene 3. Dalziel leaves Medore
Dalziel receives a tarot card from a half-person of Margholo: she's been bisected and is trying to use a card, and is speaking in half-words. The connection starts to fade and Dalziel reaches out to increase the strength of the connection. The woman he's connected with seems to be trying to reach him. He reaches through and when he connects, he hears "Dworkin is broken, Dalziel. I'm broken too, I'm ripping apart. Help me!"

He asks her about the pattern and the compromised patterns. She says the immune system of the pattern is under attack. She directs him to a map, and they walk through a forest, and she tells him she's running out of time. She says her body is "inflamed" and has been so for a very long time. Cosmic Anaphylaxis. The Fault started years ago, a new pattern body / parasitic embryo broke the mold. Something within is bursting out and something else is coming in. YIKES.

She tells him about the invading antibodies and foreign matter and she's in distress. He picks her up and sprints to the destination. He wonders if the Amberites ARE the bacteria. He asks her how the anti-inflammatory response might work. He asks how he can make another jewel. She says it's "not a jewel, it's an optic interface" and suggests the eye can see the health of the universe. She says it will reflect back toward the brain. There's a bucket with paint on it running down and hanging from the sky. He sees the image as a strange mathematical thing, the Painted Board. The new painting occupies the space where the pattern should have been.

Dalziel recognizes that things are bad but sees nothing in his ability to do anything about it. He checks to see if she has any cards or knows where Random is. She says Random is responsible. He asks her which Neuron has the Optic Interface, she gets out the card of Julian and holds it over the transparent half of her head, facing outward, like Julian is looking away from her. Margholo begins vibrating (and Dalziel backs up to avoid it if she explodes).  Dalziel uses his pattern lens to examine the pattern. Blinky the multi-eyed dragon walks out of the cave mouth and Dalziel sees him and recognizes that there's more of him than what we usually see. Dalziel realizes that Margholo manifested in multiple places at once and the fabric of the universe is dissolving.  Binky the dragon tells Dalziel "you have been given permission to be within the brain."

Dalziel makes sketches of the Painted Board. He takes some Tarot from her deck, so he has all the PCs except himself, which he leaves in case she calls him. He enters the cave, which is dark, but the Pattern Lens can see it. There's a door to an apartment, but it's not the same as the one at the Primal Pattern. It's homier, better decorated, but doesn't have a painting studio. There's another door, which leads to the Oddly-Colored Castle. Dalziel observes this place with the paint bucket is in a pocket universe (a single shadow world) hanging off the outside of another pocket universe (the oddly-colored castle) which in turn is hanging off the outside of the main universe.

Scene 1b. Maarit and David and the Teeth and Eyes.
Maarit and David pass through the door, and let the less cautious of the two Beaded Drones follow them. The other side is A Perfectly Normal Entryway, in the middle of an old stone village-and-temple complex. The drone flies high, and starts drumming while observing the area. They close the door, and it freaks out. It flies over to the door, and drums as loudly as it can, while trying to open the door with its tiny pincers.
The noise attracts a native. The GM starts to describe their primitive clothing, then realizes he's burying the lead. All that matters is their Teeth and Eyes. The native drops a bucket of water, and starts screaming. He's terrified and terrifying all at once. More Teeth and Eyes show up.
One of them draws a knife, and makes threatening gestures at the PCs. Maarit and David run to the left, hopping over the short wall. Two of the creatures chase after them, David disarms one of them and throws them both aside easily with no more than a bruise, but there are more pursuers so they keep running. Someone hurls an atlatl at them.
Maarit starts shifting shadow, starting with small changes. They pass through flower gardens, and she just knows these pale blue flowers are what they make their body paint from. The ground gets softer, and an old gardener (still all Teeth and Eyes, but droopier and wrinkled) stands up and rather than running, makes supplicating gestures to them. He takes a knee, and puts both hands palm up.
Another atlatl is thrown, and it would have hit Maarit if she hadn't turned around just in time. But now the old guy is angry with the spear-throwers, and well-equipped to give them a tongue-lashing. The chase or fight transforms into a negotiation. The old man supplicates more, and repeatedly says "Uu-berine" which doesn't really sound at all like the other noises of their language. He means "Oberon".
Talking is hard, but a crowd gathers. Maarit starts drawing family trees in the dirt, and trying to indicate her status as a grand-daughter of Oberon. The old man's toothy grandchild figures it out. Due to knowing Thari (the one true language of which all others are reflections) Maarit and David start to slowly puzzle out the native's tongue. (It's a slower than normal process because they didn't arrive by shadowwalking, which usually fixes the local tongue to closer to Thari.)
With a crack in the distance, the PCs are reminded of the Beaded Drone, which apparently a native back by the door has knocked out of the air. David goes back to find the creature trying to suck the marrow out of it. It shocks his tongue. David takes the drone from him, and starts examining it's innards. Hand-built, and hand-decorated. A strange mix of high-tech processor and power source, but no radio-frequency transmission, only audio. It's not armed, either, other than tiny sample-taking claws that couldn't do much to a healthy adult human, let alone an Amberite.
The creature who broke the drone leaves and comes back with a small drum, which he gives to David, wordlessly indicating "Dude, I'm sorry I broke your flying drum. This one doesn't fly or anything, but please accept it by way of apology."