As the session began Frederick, who as you may remember was accidentally(?) dropped out of the hellride on the previous session was sitting in Amber wondering why everyone else had disappeared.
Never at a loss for what to do
in a situation like this, however, Frederick decided to make a change from his
normal day and go and hunt out some oppressed people in a shadow to
free.
Again.
After some interesting exchanges of opinions between the shadow dwelling oppressors and Frederick's axe, there wasn't really much else to do until he noticed a large red cloud approaching on the horizon. A local shadow dweller didn't seem to know anything about this cloud, as a quick poke around in his mind demonstrated (whilst trying to ignore the terrified gibbering) and Frederick was at a slight loss for appropriate action. However, on closer inspection the cloud seemed to be giving the weather a break and doing the job of several hundred hurricanes - all at once.
Frederick realised this may not be a healthy place to linger, and promptly left the shadow. As later attempts to return to it were unsuccessful, implying it no longer existed, this may have been a wise decision.
Meanwhile, those remaining in chaos (
Faustus, Ulrich and Danville) finally met the lord of chaos
responsible for sending the diplomatic mission off - Vassenago.
Ulrich explained the situation, and a short recess was called during which Haplo
contacted Faustus and was informed of recent events. After the recess Vassenago
was keen to settle diplomatic affairs with the party and sent them back to their
rooms to await another meeting.
It was at this point that Frederick contacted Ulrich via a trump contact, and requested to know what was happening. A slight panic ensued, given Frederick's somewhat unmoderated responses to chaos, but eventually it was agreed to pull Frederick through the contact. The party was then called for a meeting with another chaos diplomat, Bariman, and spent the next 2 hours debating the number of shadows around Amber, after which there was a break for lunch, during which Haplo and Volkazz also decided to join the party via trump.
At this point Frederick was introduced to Atathon, the chaos lord who originally met the party. Unfortunately Frederick made the slight mistake of deciding he had been insulted by Atathon and was about to respond in kind when Faustus and Danville decided to work together and knock him unconcious before things turned ugly. Frederick was instantly overpowered and collapsed on the floor, avoiding an almost certainly sticky situation. Frederick, as can be imagined, was not as satisfied with this outcome, however he was hardly in a position to portest.
At this point Ralthus decided to join the rest of the party - at which Atathon seemed remarkably surprised. He expressed his opinion that Ralthus should have stayed where he was very strongly, but Ralthus hinted he would be safer with the party than in his previous location. After this point the party were shown to their rooms again.
The next group to visit the party seemed decidedly less friendly, seemingly consisting of a sea of tails, fangs and various spikey bits. They "requested" the party to follow them. At this point Frederick woke up - took one look at the situation and jumped out of the shadow.
Follow the creatures the party were led to a shattered world, where the creatures demanded to know why the Amberites were "destroying shadows", the party not knowing what to say. Then the group was lead to a red line, glowing and hovering about a foot off the ground, going to the horizon in each direction, where the creatures left them. It was discovered that this line causes objects touching it to simply cease to be. When this began to pulse in a rather nasty way it was decided to exit. Rapidly. The resulting explosion behind them made it all seem worthwhile.
The party were scattered, all running to seperate shadows. Frederick immediately found Ulrich, who then recieved a request for a trump contact which he accepted. And discovered someone trying to do nasty things to his brain. Frederick tried to help his brother, but they were both unable to keep the presence out and were both overcome.
Various events presumably occurred here, but since both Frederick's and Ulrich's memories of the previous paragraph were wiped from their mind this section will remain, at least for now, known only by the GM. This is not a typographical error.
Shortly after Frederick joined Ulrich, he recived a trump contact from VolkaZZ,
who was pulled through the trump. Fasutus and Danville shortly arrived as well,
after which
Ed. Sorry about this, two people appear to have two different
versions of the events which followed:
Ralthus informed the party the red line was destroying shadow - but did not reveal the source of his information. Faustus also contacted his mother, Fiona, who was most interested in the red line, and requested to be pulled through the contact.
The party took Fiona to see the red line, and it began to pulse again. At Fiona's previous request (and a healthy dose of self-preservation instict) the party once again fled leaving Fiona concentrating on the line. After meeting up again it was discovered that Fiona could not be found, the only clue to her fate being that her trump was hot.
NB - An ordinary working trump is cool. A trump of a dead person feels just like card. A hot trump has not been experienced by anyone in the party.
Frederick decided to try and find some elder Amberites to try and find the reason behind a hot trump - finally he managed to track down Corwin, who being his usual merry self (the author apologises for the flood of sarcasm) merely sighed a lot and eventually told Frederick to leave. Frederick also informed King Random of the recent events, who was most troubled to hear of shadows being destroyed, but responded that he couldn't comment until he had consulted with other sources.
So the party were left without knowledge of Fiona's whereabouts, and only knowing that the line emanating from the Abyss was somehow destoying shadow and enlarging the abyss as a result. It is perhaps worthy to note here that Brand, the pivot of the tarot reading previously, was thrown into the abyss after he was shot. Thus stands the situation at the start of the next session.