Not A Snark

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
====== Johannes of Amber ======

===== Of the Events occurring on the 10th October 1993 =====

I have spent the last few weeks here in Castle
Amber. It seems that the lull following the
Pattern Wars has come to a close, at least for
those of us who are the children of Amber. King
Random has called us together to start a search
for the other children, wherever they be in the
countless shadows. He informed us also that he
had received word from Corwin, who spoke of
having found his kingdom - whatever and wherever
that is. Oh well, things are bound to get clearer
as time goes on. Assuming of course there isn't
some malicious person stirring up the mud at the
bottom of the pool with a big stick.

Our first destination was one of the many
reflections of late 20th century Earth. There, we
met Corwin, Randoms's missing brother. He seemed
much older than last time he was seen, and hinted
that a great amount of time had passed since he
sent that message. Anyway, he directed as to one
of those places who cater to the insecure and
egotistical who try to find refuge in high
fashion and outward appearances. As any sensible
person knows, such outward appearances are merely
of use to the weak minded. Not so surprisingly,
we encountered the first of the children - a
young lady who goes by the name of "Blue". Her
annoying insistence on fashion (she has insisted
on changing my clothes to so called 'fashionable'
items) is rivalled only by her awful american
accent.

===== The 17th October, 1993 =====

Blue vanished into who knows where, so I was
saved from having to wear 'tasteful' clothes.
Kriss decided he wished to go to a flying party,
except he found a note from Corwin (or so he
claimed - I don't trust Kriss anymore than, well,
I don't trust him full stop). From this, we were
told to seek out Benedict, which we did using
Trump. With Benedict was Ash and Teramon. The
latter was a warrior from a shadow of Earth, a
child of Amber and hence one of the people of our
search. The former is also a child of Amber, but
also a person of Chaos. Teramon seems okay, but I
have never been happy around chaos.

Eventually, we returned to Amber, going via a
shadow that belonged to Kriss - a Victorian steam
punk Earth with great airships and other
oddities. During our stay there, I was contacted
by another. It felt a bit like trump contact, so
I pulled the contacter through anyway to find out
who disturbed me. He called himself "The Son of
the Spirits" - a sioux indian from 19th century
Earth. It definitely seems to be family reunion
again, for he was yet another cousin. Kriss
rather foolishly swore a blood oath to help the
sioux (a shaman poor fool), to free his land of
the white man. Considering most of us can be
considered to fall into the general category of
'white man' I don't know whether this was a
sensible thing to do, but oh well, they are only
shadow people.

We returned to Amber, reporting the success of
our mission to Random (hardly the stuff Kings are
made of if you ask me), and then setting some
plans to help "The Son of the Spirits". Kriss
decided to get drunk (as usual) then stormed out
in a huff. I followed him - truthfully I wouldn't
have bothered if Julian hadn't insisted - but was
so kindly told to 'piss off' that I left him to
his moods. I did briefly return to my own shadow
for a brief experiment to see if I could get the
Imperial fleet to rid the sioux of the white man
menace. As expected, the shuttle sent through
failed to function properly, and since I can't be
bothered to exert any of my own powers helping
him (it wasn't me who made the promise), I left
things as they were. Kriss returned in a bad
shape - walking shadow while drunk is not a good
idea. Bloody fool.

I made an interesting discovery in the library at
Castle Amber. I was looking for any information
on the Chaos Courts, when I happened across a
book written by Dworkin. It contained little of
interest, save for the very last page which had a
picture of Kriss. My first thoughts was surprise
that he (of all people) should appear in a book
written probably long before he was born.
Surprise became suspicion, so I examined it for
any mystical significance - it was a trump card
of sorts. It probably wasn't Kriss I thought, but
always one to go in feet first I tried to make
contact - wumph! - he turned to face me then
promptly yanked me through, with Lilith trailing
behind.

Kriss was sitting there, at a desk in a small
room. Shelves were filled with bottles and other
implements suggesting some interest in alchemy or
chemistry. This wasn't Kriss. We talked, and he
told me some information I found hard to believe,
and still do. I won't record it here, save that
to say at the end he changed his form, and
introduced himself as Dworkin, before sending me
back home. It seems I was away for a couple of
days, and though some suspicions were raised, I
have kept quiet about my little 'chat'.

===== 24th October 1993 =====

Ash came to see me today to suggest a little
'jaunt' outside of Amber. He cannot walk the
pattern himself, despite - or maybe because of -
his chaos spawned powers, and needed someone to
tead him to beyond Amber's reach. I agreed,
though decided to have some fun at the same time.

We left Amber, and I slowly shifted to a rather
nasty region, a world of dark clouds and deep
swamps, with lurking castles and dark shapes
swimming through the waters. He made to contact
one of his Chaos Masters, and I decided to go for
home, letting him make his own way back. Before I
could return, chaos tendrils grabbed at me, and
there was nothing I could do to stop me being
forced back. I think it was Ash at first who
tried it, but there was someone else who
interfered. It was time for us to meet the chaos
pawns with the 'K' emblazoned on their breast
plates.

Another stood before us, a Lord of Chaos he
claimed, and I was willing to believe him. He
named himself Lord Karse, son of Lord Karwan, a
Duke of Chaos. He threatened us with a crossbow,
and had his men coming down from the castle to
surround us. Some minor fiddling with reality on
my part ensured his crossbow would misfire, while
huge bulbous gelatinous blobs hauled themselves
up out the swamp and devoured his men. Ash
started to run, and so did I. Lord Karse tried
his crossbow, which failed (of course), and we
made ourselves scarce on our horses. Karse tried
to follow, but I summoned further blobs to waylay
him. We past through the gates of a huge wall,
leaving the swamps behind, and returning to Amber
to relate our tale.

The others were preparing themselves for the
freeing of the Sioux from the white man. Fiona
was convinced to come with us, to aid in the
reallocation of the Sioux. We arrived at the home
of the SotS just as the white men were attacking
his tribe. Again, I exercised my talent and
prevented the white man's rifles from working.

Ash rather foolishly turned into his demon form
and earnt the wrath of Kriss - not that that
isn't too difficult. We won of course, but after
the battle I discovered that the guns were marked
with a 'K', and that they had the touch of magic
about them. On relating this to Fiona, she
remarked that they were enchanted for accuracy.

We reallocated the Sioux without further hassles.
Afterwards we set about discussing what to do
about Duke Karwan and his cronies. As usual,
Kriss got into a huff and went off shadow
walking. No further decisions were reached. That
day.

===== 7th November, 1993 =====

We decided to take the war to chaos. We gathered
together and gained the aid of Julian in case
things went wrong. Our plan was to return to the
swamp world where Ash and I were attacked, to see
if the Chaos Lords were still there. I scouted
out that world, and found it was high in magic,
lacking in civilised technology. We went first
then to a similar world, and stocked up with
weapons which would work on the swamp world -
magic wands and so forth. I then teleported
through to the world, and brought the others
through via trump.

It was much as we'd left it, so we made our way
up to the castle on the hill, from which the
chaos pawns had come from that first time. We
obtained some ropes, and I a wooden stake (the
atmosphere of the place was getting to me), we
found on some conveniently dead adventurers). A
single light blazed in a window, and a figure
stood there. He returned my wave, so didn't seem
immediately anti-social. Which just made me all
the more cautious. I still went in through the
front door of course, while Teramon insisted on
climbing the wall.

Ghouls were in the courtyard, who approached us
with malicious intent. We got to use the wands -
and they worked. The rest dived for cover. The
figure in the window called down to us to stop
hurting 'his pets'. They didn't seem like they
would harm us anymore, so we left them, and
climbed the stairs to his study.

He introduced himself as Ver Shade, a haemovore
(probably called himself a vampire) by the looks
of him. He owned the castle, and had done for
some time. He knew of the Duke, and sometimes did
business with him, though there wasn't much
friendship between them. The chaos people
sometimes stayed here for reasons unknown to the
haemovore. It was sometime around here that Ash
summoned one of the Duke's soldiers. We
questioned and then killed him, then decided to
bring through Lord Karse and 'have it out with
him'. We linked our minds via Kriss'
all-singing-all-dancing cloak, and Ash used the
logrus to pull the lord through. We then set
about killing him.

It was hard work, but we finally vanquished the
demon. I built a big bonfire to burn his remains
so he couldn't reform. Then we ran into a
problem. The elder Amberites were dying. They had
become sickly and old. Benedict whome Teramon
summoned at the end of the fight was practically
useless. I called up Dworkin to see if he knew
anything. Apparantly Duke Karwan had put a curse
on Oberon's children, which was why they had aged
so much.

We returned to Amber, to find them all sitting on
their thrones, dying of age. Random tried to give
someone the Jewel of Judgement, but collapsed
before he could. I gave the Jewel into the
keeping of Blue (who had returned to us by this
point), since she was the only one I didn't not
trust. Kriss agreed and said he trusted her also,
which was a point against her, but I let it pass.

Teramon then had the brilliant idea of contacting
Corwin, since he was the only one (excluding
Dworkin and Dad of course) who wasn't here dying.
Corwin was okay, but a bit worried, and invited
us all through to his shadow, which was protected
by his own pattern. Somewhere oZombies along the
line, Andar disappeared - someone was blocking
him when I tried a trump contact. Corwin now has
the Jewel, for good or ill. Now we await the next
move.

===== 14th November 1993 =====

Andar is back, but still no sign of Ash. Teramon
and I (using my ability to scan other shadows,
with Teramon tagging along in trump contact)
scouted out the vampire's castle and found the
armies of chaos massing here. A large gate was
opened to Chaos itself, and beast creatures of
all sorts were coming through, readying it seemed
for a march on Amber.

After a stroke of brilliant thinking on my part,
Teramon and I set about laying a trap between
here and Amber. We both returned to the Wall
which Ash and I encountered when we first
withdrew from the swamp world, and organised the
people there into defence, since it lays directly
on the path from swamp world to Amber. Armies in
swamps, plains and forests were set up, and
weather traps prepared across the seas which
Chaos will have to cross to reach Amber.
All this will come to naught of course if Chaos
takes a different route, but that cannot be
helped. I will keep my sight open for further
developments in this area.

Journeyed to the aquatic reflection of Amber, to
check on the condition of the Lady there. Alas,
she sickens also of the curse which ages the
Elders. All but her are now moved to Corwin's
Paris, for safety, since they are useless now in
the coming battle between Amber and Chaos.

===== The 21st November 1993 =====

It appears the Chaos Lord we killed was not who
we thought it was, a fact which merely added
another enemy to our already extensive list. His
forces were soon to join those massing at the
swamp world. It wasn't much longer before they
decided to begin their march on Amber.

We found Ash. It turned out he had been captured
by Chaos - not much of a surprise really
considering the circumstances he vanished in -
and, um, shown the full extent of their
hospitality. When discovered he was tied to the
front of a rather large battering ram which was
being carried at the head of the armies of Chaos.
They had managed to reach as far as the Wall, and
were massing on the plains between the forest and
the Wall. Obviously they weren't settling down
for a chat and a cup of tea, so I trumped in
Teramon to help take charge of matters.

Kriss is back on the scene, and it was he who
bravely volunteered to lead the assault force to
rescue Ash. I got the distinct impression he had
ulterior motives for this, considering his
dislike of Ash, but he nonetheless carried out
the assignment effectively. I managed to get
together the sorcerers of this land - it seems
they are exceptionally good at mind effective
magic. Some 300 of them were summoned to the
wall, and through their aid, Kriss and 30 other
volunteers rode out, grabbed Ash and wrecked the
battering ram. They returned with half their
numbers slain, and Chaos reeling from the blow.

Lilith has made a new friend - Kriss' mount - a
large purple cat the size of a horse. They seemed
to get on quite well, though Kriss seemed rather
distressed about something. Can't imagine what.
It wasn't much later that the attack on the Wall
began. First, bird riders were launched from the
cover of the forest, taking to the air in droves,
and raining a hail of bolts down on the defenders
on the wall. It was here that the sorcerers
really came into their own, using their magic to
seed confusion among the ranks of the riders,
turning them upon their companions. Before long,
with the combined might of both our own archers,
and the spells of the sorcerers, the bird riders
were no more. The generals of the Chaos armies
must have been a bit peeved by this, for they
chose this moment to chuck subtlety out the
window and launched a full scale assualt of the
Wall. It was at this time that I decided to
leave, not being too versed in the ways of
warfare, and returned to Amber, to view things
from there.

Eventually the Wall was taken, with the beastmen
climbing over it, battering through it, and
probably burrowing under it as well. With our own
troops in retreat we initiated plan B - we blew
up the Wall.

In a ditch behind the wall was a river of naptha,
which was ignited, the explosion from which
totally shattered the Wall sending a sheet of
flame high into the sky, immolating any beastmen
too close, and crushing others as rock and stone
came thundering down atop them. The survivors
retreated into the forest, clearly deciding that
though the one major obstacle was now no more,
they had had enough. It didn't save them. With
Teramon's use of the Jewel of Judgement, we
caused a wind to blow the flames from the Wall
into the forest. Further breezes fanned this
flame until we had a nice bonfire going. Any
Chaos beastmen still alive either died from fire
or asphyxiation (do they breath I wonder?).
Whatever their fate, the battle was won.

We returned to Amber victorious (well, I stayed
in Amber victorious). Kriss stormed off in a huff
about something (I think Lilith knows, but she
isn't telling), which is getting to be a common
thing. Anyway, we got new from Merlin. It seems
he has been busy over the past few days, and has
managed to sow confusion within the Courts
themselves. Lord Karwan had been made to lift his
Blood Curse on Oberon. The Elder Amberites are
now slowly recovering. It remains to be seen what
their next move will be.

===== The 28th November, 1993 =====

Kriss has returned with a new friend - Dierdre!
Last everyone had heard she had fallen into the
Abyss with my father, which suggests some rather
interesting possibilities. Not surprisingly,
everyone is rather surprised by this turn of
events, and some (including me) are also
suspicious. Dierdre has been more or less
accepted back at Amber though.

Lilith has got a new playmate - Gaspode - a
rather scruffy dog with the ability to say
"woof". Lilith has been worried that his fleas
will find her obviously superior fur more
comfortable, and has complained with having to
share a castle with slum dwellers, but other than
that they seem to be getting on like a house on
fire, except a fire would probably cause less
damage to the furniture.

Got a Trump contact from Teramon. Wow! I hear you
say, what's so special about that. Well, just
before contact was made, an unknown psyche butted
in, and a voice cried "Son, Help Me!", then
contact was gone and I was left talking to
Teramon as normal. Seems like Dad's gone and got
himself into trouble - or maybe he's still in the
Abyss? I tried getting in touch with Dworkin, but
he refused my call. Unsociable git. Means I'm
going to have to do some hunting myself. Ahh!
Some action at last!

I checked with Dierdre about where she had come
from, which she didn't know the answer to. I
offered to try and follow her trail back using by
abilities to shift pattern, and she agreed,
though suggested I took someone along with me. I
would prefer to go alone, especially if I were to
find what I expected to find, but decided some
hired muscle would be in order. Teramon agreed to
accompany me. I asked Kriss if he wished to come,
but he declined, as expected. So far so good.

We followed Dierdre's trail back to Jervan (a
tacky place if I ever saw one, no wonder Kriss is
so moody if he has to live here!), and after a
few calculations (which where right, except the
universe was wrong), found both the asteroid
Kriss found Dierdre on, and also the wreck of a
ship which bought her here. Nothing was found, so
we hopped aboard the ship (Cylon Raider, rather
outdated model, but it worked - eventually) and
followed the trail further back - to a black
hole. She had come from a black hole! To enter
would be suicide - so we went in, much to
Teramon's discomfort. You only die once after
all.

We survived (obviously since I'm writing this),
but the ship was damaged beyond repair. The
'other side of the singularity' opened up next to
an asteroid though, which we landed on. Well, our
craft ended up on the surface at any rate. I was
okay, but Teramon had the stupidity to break his
leg. So much for hired muscle. There was no sign
of Dierdre's trail any more, but the asteroid was
very real, as if someone of Amber had been living
here quite some time. I found the most real area,
and we moved towards it - a castle, apparently
dead and deserted. We entered.

A search of the ground floors and those above
uncovered nothing, a rather bland place in my
opinion. Which left the dungeons. Now they were a
lot more interesting!! In the lowest dungeon,
chained to a wall, was Dierdre, looking rather
the worse for wear. Now things are getting
interesting.

The most obvious conclusion is that this is the
real Dierdre, and the one back home is a fake -
Brand maybe? If this is the case, then they're in
for some serious problems back at Amber.

Alternatively, Dierdre could have been captured
and taken down here while we were in the Black
Hole (you can never be sure of Time when in one
of those things), though I doubt this.

Thirdly, the Dierdre back home could be real, and
this one here could be a fake. Again, a
possibility that she is in fact Brand. But why
would Brand be down here? Captured by someone
else, and maybe changing his form to make us
rescue him?

I think most probably the first idea is the most
probable. Which begs the question - what do we do
with this Dierdre? Free her? That could possibly
blow Dad's plans, unless he expected us to come
here and discover her. Teramon is going to want
to rescue her of course, but a quick knife across
the throat would solve a lot of problems, and
make things easier in the long run. I doubt I
could handle Teramon though - even with his
broken leg and with surprise on my side. I think
I'll just wait and see what turns up next.

===== The Events of the 12th of December, 1993 =====

Teramon went to check Dierdre #2, and I went to
look around the cavern. I found nothing else
here, except for some strange basalt figures
which pulled themselves away from the wall and
came to attack us. Teramon quite happily disposed
of these with a few shots from his gun (well, we
know technology works here at any rate). Teramon
and I decided we needed to know more about
Dierdre #2 before freeing her, so we agreed to
mind rape her together. We took our trumps of
each other to form a link - but no trumps. Or
rather, our trumps were there, but they were all
black, apart from the one of ourselves. Bugger.

Anyway, we exchanged trumps, made the link, and
plunged into her mind. She was definitely female,
but very cold and unemotional. A warlike mind
though, which could be Dierdre. We left a
suggestion in her mind - an instruction to freeze
if she ever heard a certain word. It was the word
for 'Hunter' in Teramon's language. Well, if
something goes wrong, we've got an easy way to
prevent her going wild - hopefully.

We freed her anyway, and woke her up. She seemed
quite confused, but glad to see us once we
explained who we were. Like Dierdre #1, she had
been tormented by Brand while in the Abyss, and
thought that maybe she was still there - I hoped
not, because if she was in the Abyss, then so
were we!

Next problem - how to escape. Easier said than
done. The asteroid was too real to shift pattern
easily, and with no trumps of anyone who wasn't
here, we couldn't trump out. With hindsight, I
should have simply teleported, but instead I fell
back on the Trump of Dworkin I had - this one was
not blank, but was simply of his study. I made
contact, and we went through. It led to his study
and a bedroom, but no sign of Dworkin himself, or
anything really interesting, though Dierdre #2
picked her axe up out of the cupboard. There was
a pack of trumps sitting on the desk, which I
took - it seemed a fairly complete set, and made
by Dworkin as well. If he wants them, I'm sure
he'll come asking, since I pocketed them. Well,
first we used them to get back to Amber.

We checked the throne room via Trump first, to
see Kane and a servant chatting there. They
talked about somthing having happened to Random,
and mentioned other interesting stuff which for
the life of me I can't remember. The servant, who
looked a bit like Eric, said he was going to go
hunting after his brother - no names
unfortunately. He teleported out - by means which
looked like pattern mastery, but I could be
mistaken. Anyway, we continued hunting the rooms
until we found Jerard by the Pattern of Amber. He
was there with Andar. Teramon and I decided
Jerard might be the best one to go to first. We
Trumped through - all three of us.

Jerard was a bit surprised to see us. Especially
so when I introduced Dierdre as number 2. I asked
Jerard if anything had happened to Random - not
mentioning the conversation we overheard.
Something had - he'd been murdered. Ah. A though
suddenly occured to him - apparantly Dierdre #1
was guarding the Primal Pattern with Kriss. Oops.
I've never seen anyone 'run' round the pattern
before. He reached the centre and teleported.
Teramon trumped out with Dierdre. Andar ran out.
I was last to leave, to make sure everyone else
had. Then I mind walked the pattern and
teleported to the Primal.

Dierdre - both of them, were there, with Kriss et
al. What a reunion that was! Can hardly say it
was a happy one. At least no blood was shed. We
retired to the throne room, and tried without
success to sort things out. It seemed that BOTH
Dierdres were the real one - just two halves of
the same person. During this time Son of the
Spirits got in touch (he'd been away during all
this) via Trump. "Son! Help Me!" he cried when
contact was made, then asked to be taken through.
Dad butting in again.

The final solution was to take them to may
Shadow, and with the use of some high tech
medical care, dump both minds into one body. So
we set off, clambered into my TARDIS which was
parked at the edge of the Forest of Arden, and
slipped through shadows to Coruscant, where
through a bit of high tech, the minds of Dierdre
(both of them) were put into a third body -
together. So Dierdre was now back together.

On the way back, Ash disappeared (getting to be
all too common I think), then returned a bit
later. He claimed to have found Brand - stuck in
the Abyss it seemed. I managed to follow the
trail Ash had taken, which went off in the
direction of the Abyss, but I couldn't find Brand
anywhere. Oh well.

When we all got back, I decided to try and little
experiment. While alone, I took out the Trump of
Dad I had and tried to contact him. I succeeded!
At last! It seems he is fine, in fact, he's been
doing quite well for himself. He's found out how
to control the Abyss, but was very interested to
hear about his cries for help, and the 'him'
which Ash found. He thinks bits of him are still
floating around with their own agenda in mind.
His plan - he couldn't give a pig's fart about
the other Amberites now, he's found other things
beyond the Abyss which are far more interesting.
He agreed to teach me about it at some point.

This could be fun!

I've hidden the Trump of him away from the rest
of the deck - Dad doesn't want anyone else
getting hold of it. I'll just act surprised and
confused when I find it missing if someone wants
to use it. Dad also claims he didn't kill Random,
and doesn't know where the Jewel of Judgement is
- he isn't even attuned to it in fact. Ah! Should
I believe him? Well, what the hell, things will
get interesting if I do. I'll just play both
sides of the fence for now, and side with whoever
gives me the biggest advantage.

===== Sunday 16th January, 1994 =====

For once everyone has a purpose - to find the
Jewel of Judgement, and therefore Brand. Well,
that's there idea at any rate, though I know that
Brand hasn't the Jewel of Judgement - well, the
real Brand hasn't at any rate. Kriss, Teramon and
I set off on our own to track down the Jewel,
Hell Riding in the hope that maybe we'll find it.

A long journey, in which we were followed by
someone (or something?). Eventually, we tracked
it down to - Random! It seems he isn't dead as
we'd thought, and was most displeased with us for
finding this out. The snivelling coward had faked
his own death in an effort to hide from Brand. I
wonder how he would take it if I told him father
wasn't interested in him?

Anyway, after giving us all a good telling off,
Random set off to hide once more. I myself
wandered off into Shadow. After much travel I
found myself near the Courts of Chaos, not far
from the Abyss. An uneventful place, except Kriss
was there, weapons training he said, but there
are a lot more suitable places a lot nearer to
Amber. I would say I didn't trust him one bit,
but that's taken as the default where Mr
All-Singing-All-Dancing-Tacky-Black-Cloak is
concerned. I gave him a lift back to Amber.

And there we found we'd missed out on all the
fun! Julian was dead, his hearts and other useful
organs ripped from his body. Kriss seemed most
upset about this, and went off in a sulk. Strange
guy. Anyway, it seems Andar and Julian had both
gone missing. Ash had tried to find both, but
found only Julian's body. Where Andar and Julian
were last seen (the Pattern Room) some of Andar's
trump cards were found. The trump of Andar had
changed into a green crystal, which I found most
disconcerting for some reason. Leaving Amber to
make Pattern Travel, we were interrupted by a
great surge of power that seemed focused on
Amber. Someone had called down a Blood Curse.
Kriss of course. He seemed to think Brand had
killed Julian and was going after him to avenge
his death, so he'd Cursed Brand for good measure.

Travelling to where Julian had been found, I
reached out with Pattern to try and discover the
events which had happened here. It wasn't too
difficult - the killer had been Brand. Not the
real Brand, but one of his psychopathic shards.
He seemed quite mad, and I broke contact before
he could drag me to the Abyss with him. I found
Kriss, and teleported to him. He was with some
other guy I didn't recognise. I informed him of
what I had discovered - but didn't tell him the
full truth, only that Brand had killed Julian,
and was probably in the Abyss. Kriss told me that
Julian had been his father, which was the reason
he'd thrown a tantrum when Julian had been
killed. Much later we all received trump contact
from Kriss, he just told us to "Go Away". Some
people are so unsocial. Anyway, I informed father
of what had happened - he didn't sound too
pleased, but he was grateful for the info,
apparently he'd got some hate mail from Kriss
earlier for reasons he hadn't understood. Typical
of Kriss to be so bloody unsubtle about it.

===== The Events of Monday, 24th January, 1994 =====

I had a rather unusual conversation today with
Ash. Unusual, but also very interesting. It seems
like the bloody fool thinks that Antony would
make a good king of Amber - and intends to try
and see this come about. Surprisingly enough, he
seems to think that he could actually pull it
off. Anyway, he was foolish enough to come to see
me about it - to see if I wanted a part of his
plan. I informed him that I wasn't interested
unless he could prove that he could achieve what
he wants, though he refused to be forthcoming on
this issue. I said I wouldn't stand in his way at
any rate, which is a total lie but he doesn't
know that. He intends to start my killing Random
and taking the Jewel of Judgement. Should I warn
Random? Might be an idea, but I think I'll pay a
little visit to Gerard at some point, I'm sure
he'll find the information very useful....

===== Sunday, 30th January 1994 =====

My training has partly paid off, in that I have
some control over my body's shape. Still needs a
lot of work though before it becomes really
useful. Anyway, the day started well, with a
major alert and all the elders running around
like headless chickens as it was Defon I or
something. Even Corwin and Cain (or was it Eric?)
making up. Anyway, it seems Chaos have decided to
do something interesting and are causing the
collapse of the universe. So much for a nice
peaceful day in front of the mirror.

The Elders have rushed off to do battle with
Chaos, leaving us lot to protect Amber. They seem
to have overlooked the fact that neither Teramon
or Kriss were with us, leaving only Antony as the
best candidate for working out the defence. Some
hope of that.

Finally, Andar has returned! I stumbled across
him, Ash and Blue having a friendly reunion,
though the fact that Blue had just sprayed Ash
with her mace suggested Ash was up to no good.
Wonderful! Ever one to be helpful, I stabbed Ash
through the back of the head, forcing him to use
logrus to escape. Bugger. At least shadow people
have the decency to die when you do things like
that to them.

It appears Andar had been held in a trap trump,
by Brand (the nasty one) - in Dworkin's study no
less! Now, this tudy is just off from the Primal
Pattern - which means we could have problems.
Eventualy, Kriss arrived, with an undead army
(totally lacking in taste as usual) to play with.

At least our defences are a bit better organised
for now. Julian also turned up at this point
(can't anyone stay dead in this place? And I
though Dallas was bad), though he didn't
recognise me, and his body was still down in its
sarcophagus. Hmm.

Anyway, time for Plan A (sub section 2). I
informed Kriss about the possible whereabouts of
Brand (if he knew I had him in my jacket
pocket...), and also the traitorous plans of Ash
and Antony. Rather predictably, he got me out of
the way before doing anything about it. The exact
details are unknown to me, but it seems Brand #2
made 'friend' with Kriss, and he is now here
amongst us, with a lovely half-void look to him.

So much for him killing Kriss.

The battle against chaos isn't going too well.
Several Elders have 'vanished' (dead? I hope so,
and hopefully they'll stay that way), though any
connection - trump or pattern - is getting
difficult. Indeed, the entire pattern seems to be
suffering problems. Time for something to be
done.

===== Sunday, 6th February 1994 =====

Kriss had a plan, and for once in his miserable
life, decided to let everyone else in on it.
Together with Brand, we were invited to Kriss'
rther gruesome shadow, in an attempt to do away
with Ash once for all. Well, Brand used his trump
ability (look! no cards!) and summoned Ash into a
pentagram, whereupon Kriss quickly got violent.

Apparently things were a bit more complex then
we'd though though. Remember that big nasty demon
thing which attacked us at Ver Shade's place?
Well, he hadn't been destroyed, but had taken
over control (more or less) of Ash. Brand
banished him from Ash's body, and we promptly
blasted it to pieces as it tore free, until Brand
dumped it into the Abyss. Ash survived, and is
still with us, claiming he had no control over
his actions previously. Kriss seemed most upset
when Brand told him not to kill him. I was
surprised when Kriss obeyed, since last thing I
knew he'd put a blood curse on him. Anyway,
enough of that.

With the demon lord destroyed, the attack of
Chaos was stopped, since their attack had been a
distraction to allow Ash to do something or
other. Since he'd failed, there wasn't much point
continuing. No sign of any of the Elder Amberites
though. At least, not until...

Andar approached me with a surprisingly good
idea. I still had copies of Deirdre stored away
back on my shadow after we'd put her back into
one body. A quick hop there found both the bodies
and memory dumps stolen, though the memory cubes
weren't beyond the reaach of Andar's strange new
powers. So, we now have Dierdre back, alive and
well - but in a computer. She didn't fancy the
idea of a different body (since we didn't have
any of hers), so she stayed in a portable,
carried around by Antony.

Anyway, Lilith has just done her
jump-on-back-of-silly-human-with-claws-fully-exten
ded trick, and is demanding a saucer of milk. Oh,
with a drop of brandy as well. I suppose I'd
better go and feed her.

===== Sunday, 13th February 1994 =====

I'm writing this while recovering in my home
shadow. My apologies to whoever may be reading
this (in which case who the hell do you think you
are reading MY diary?) for any poor handwriting,
but I am having to write with my left hand,
having lost my right a few days ago. It's growing
back nicely though.

It all started when Amber through a party - one
of their normal mindless binges headed by Kriss
and Anontony, so it had to be crazy. It would
have been fun to watch if Chaos had decided to
strike at that moment, but alas they did not.
But, I was not there, for I had more important
matters on my mind.

Having already tried normal means of locating the
elders, I decided to try my luck with a Hell
Ride. Keeping the Elders in mind, I set off for
lands unknown, letting fate guide my steps. The
first land I came to consisted of a huge savanah,
where I was set upon by the most unsociable
robots I've yet to meet. Needless to say, I lost
my hand in that battle, but escaped with my life.
Using my shapechanger powers I cauterised the
wound, and shut off the pain, and carried on. I
came to a city nestled on a river, populated by
black skinned men who worshipped me as the 'One
Handed One'. Most unfortunate that they wished
only for my sacrifice. I fled from there, making
my skin as theirs and leaving in a land speeder
some kind soul had left behind.

My journey eventually took me into mountains,
where science soon failed, and the laws of
physics broke down. I was getting close to chaos.
I spent the night in a hut belonging to an old
woman who gave me shelter, but could provide no
information on the land about. Eventually I left
the mountains, on foot by now, and descended into
a forest within which I could make out the spires
of a great city, below a sky of ever changing
colours.

Within the forest I met a great wolf, who spoke
to me and asked me my business. I told him I
sought the Elders of Ambers, and he agreed to let
me pass, and told his brethren, who had been
hunting me since I'd entered the forest, to cease
and hunt elsewhere. Eventually I came to the city
I'd seen - the Courts of Chaos. At the end of the
bridge that led to its gates I waited while a
mounted Knight rode out and asked me my business.
He declined to offer me information, but by now I
was sure that the Elders were held within, alive
as far as I could tell. The chaos knight called
up two great demons to battle me, but I left to
return here to heal my wounds and ponder what I'd
learnt.

I've since returned to Amber, my hand now healed.
I informed the others of what I'd found, and
Teramon and I have a plan to work on to rescue
them. It will take much time to prepare for it,
for we will need to learn some power words to
boost our abilities. The idea is a 'commando
raid' into the Courts, which is incredibly
dangerous and can only work i we know exactly
where the Elders are. We have a general idea
about Corwin - his wife has him we think.

===== The Events of Sunday, 27th February, 1994 =====

I returned to Amber to find that Brand had got
there first, with an army, and evicted everyone.
My father seems to have vanished from the trump,
so whether he has been 'removed from the game' or
the three (+?) Brands have joined together can
only be guessed at.

We decided to go in search of the Unicorn, to see
if we can find a way to defeat Brand (who again
wants to destroy the universe, shape all patterns
in his own image, control the cosmos and have
infinite rice pudding etc etc). We managed to
find a herd of unicorns - not the original, but
shadows of her), and from them we got the idea
that she might be found in Tir-na-nog, or a
unicorny version of said place.

We traversed many shadows, slowly shifting to a
celtic world, that seemed to be some version of
Ireland. We met with a warrior (whose name eludes
me for the time being) who had recently left the
court of his queen after accidently killing her
war chief in circumstances best left unmentioned.

After much travel, we reached the Mountains of
Desolation, where the path to Tir-na-nog was said
to be. After fighting our way through hordes of
nasty swamp creatures, undead and other horrors
(well, okay, after Teramon, Kriss and the celt
fought their way through, and the rest of us
followed), we reached a great lake, where we
settled down for the night. A bridge formed over
the lake, cast by the light f the full moon. We
crossed it, and came into a new land. Within a
forested grove, we found a gravestone, marked
"Corwin". Corwin was not within though, just a
collection of empty bottles.

It was then that The Unicorn came into the glade.
She forced both Ash and Kriss' friend to reveal
their Chaos forms, then she turned to Blue, and
touched her forehead with her horn. The she
turned and fled.

Whether anything has been gained from this
encounter is unclear, but hopefully Blue has been
given 'something' which will aid in the coming
battle.

We all returned to out own shadows, to raise an
army ready to retake Amber. I'll conscript some
wookies and noghri to begin with, and wait for
the others to raise their own armies.

===== The Events of Sunday, 6th March 1994 =====

The armies of shadow did march to liberate the
people of Amber-On-Sea! Amber on sea? WHAT?! Um,
yes. And what a dismal failure that was. After
going to all the trouble to gather our armies, we
marched as far as the Forest of Arden, and sent
some scouts on ahead to find out defences and
general status of Amber. they returned reporting
that the village seemed more or less undefended,
and the fort didn't look too hard to take.

Village? Fort? What village and fort? Teramon and
I decided to take things into our own hands and
see things for ourselves. We arrived to find a
hill top fort - a motte and bailey fort rather
than the grand sprawling stone montrosity which
was Castle Amber. Below it, was a village, of
about thirty dwellings. not far away was a
shepherd herding some sheep. As he came closer we
saw that he was Benedict!

Ug.

Ah.

"Hi Benedict" We both walked out to talk to him,
though he failed to recognise us. Yes, he claimed
he was Benedict, and that this was Amber, and
that Oberon was king. Naturally our suspicions
about the reality of the situation were aroused,
so I did a rather more detailed check with
Pattern Mastery, which turned up the fact that
this was Amber. Now for the good bit!

Just to test Benedict, Teramon challenged him to
a game of chess. Teramon won. So I challenged
him. I WON! I BEAT BENEDICT AT CHESS!!! Which
just goes to show how really screwed up reality
is becoming.

We quizzed Benedict some more, and found that
Brand was dead, he had dyed saving Amber from the
Hordes. He is generally considered a hero. His
body was entombed not far off, so we paid a
little visit. Skeletons are so difficult to
recognise though. Maybe I should have taken a
piece to do some carbon dating on it. But Brand
would have though of that.

Amber still had a pattern of its own, which I
visited, shown the way by a very helpful Martin.
It was powerless, and didn't even react to Ash.
Finding a pick axe, I set about destroying it,
with the small hope that something interesting
might happen. Nothing. It seems though that
everything here is an opposite of reality - well,
of what we call reality anyway. Benedict is
useless at tactics, Random is a bureaucrat,
Oberon is indecisive, Merlin is useless etc. My
guess is that Brand has created this version of
Amber to keep us occupied, except there is no
sign of him anywhere. The real Amber seems to
have vanished.

We journeyed to the Primal Pattern to see if that
still existed. It was still there, and seemed
unchanged. Within Dworkins study there was
nothing of interest. It was then that Kriss did
something which could be described as silly,
though it got results. He walked the pattern, and
when he arrived at the centre, he yelled
Brand's name and vanished.

We finally caught up with him to find him
battling Psycho Brand. Kriss won, but not before
having his face ripped off. Psycho Brand was
dead, decapitated - though how long he'l stay
dead is another matter. Kriss was in a very bad
shape, and trumped back to his own shadow. It'll
probably be a while before we see him again (at
least his face, at any rate).

We now need to find out what's happened to Amber,
and where Brand is. I'd like to know where Dad is
- there is still no sign of him. I may try Kriss'
trick, though there is a 50% chance of getting
the wrong Brand, and even the right Brand might
not be quite as helpful as he has been in the
past. Then again, maybe he's in need of rescuing.
Then again, he may be the one behind all this
trouble. You never can tell with Brand.

===== Events of Sunday, 13th of March 1994 =====

It's been over a month between the events that
happened here and now, as I write it., so I'm
bound to miss something out. Anyway, we have
still been unable to find the real Amber, though
have taken to staying here at Amber-on-Sea for
the time being at least until some probable
course of action crops up. Kriss has finally
returned, though not in very good health since
his fight with Mr Psycho. Now we're all together
again, I think it's time for something stupid.
I retired to my room for some peace and quiet and
opened up my mind to the Pattern, reaching out to
try and find a trace of Dad - anything however
slight. After much work I finally located -
something, a mind which matched what I was
looking for. I teleported, deciding to worry
about the consequences of exactly what I had
found when I got there.

It was Brand. Not Father Brand, not Psycho Brand
and not Half-black Brand, but - Farmer Brand!
Brand, a farmer? He was friendly at least, though
cautious about who I was. I introduced myself, as
Johannes of Amber. He didn't recognise me, so I
didn't elaborate that I was his son. I now wonder
just how many Brands there are. Each one seems to
be a facet of his personality - just like Dierdre
was, just there are a lot more of him than there
were of Dierdre. Does this mean that Father Brand
is his trustworthy side? I'm not taking the risk
of assuming something like this. As least not
yet.

Anyway, I informed Brand that there were others
of him, a fact he seemed aware of. I asked if he
could help with our current dilemma - the
location of the true Amber. He thought for a bit,
and found the answer quite quickly - Amber hadn't
been moved, but the shadows had. To shift to
Amber we do so my moving through the shadows,
navigating amongst them to reach their centre.
But they had been skewed. All we had to do was to
unlearn our normal routes, and just head for the
centre of it all, finding a new route to navigate
by, forgotting our old paths. At least in theory
anyway.

I thanked him, and he asked me not to tell anyone
else of his existence. He was quite happy tending
to his sheep without interference from outside.
Informing anyone else wasn't what I intended to
do anyway, so that was an easy reassurance to
give.

So I returned to Amber, and informed the others
of where Amber was, and how to find it. I told
them not of how I found out these things, just
that I had been 'thinking on the matter.' It was
at that point that I had to leave them for
reasons of my own. What they do next is up to
them.