The Adventures of Keverian, Lucius, and Mikele

During his bath, Mikele shows up in his room, sporting a plain metal wristband with no seams, which she claims keeps her from shapechanging while making calling up the Logrus very painful. After Mikele calms down, they decide to go to this dinner which everyone is talking about. Mikele wears black, as a sign of protest about her ``confinement.''

Lucius (without wristband) is already seated when Kev and Mikele arrive. As they enter, they are announced as ``Lord Keverian, Knight of Amber and Avalon,'' and ``Lady Mikele of Chaos,'' respectively. More people enter, including the knight who threatened Rina's life on the road, who is introduced as ``Lord Liesl, Knight of the Thorn and Lord of the Blood,'' the Black Knight, ``Sir Phaedron, Knight of the Thorn,'' and Rina, who is introduced as ``Lady Krista, Knight of the Thorn and Lady of the Blood.''

Lucius apologises to the Black Knight for using the poisoned dagger. The Black Knight says that he was fortunate that it was a fairly common poison, and that the antidote was on hand. Lucius tries to make peace with him by telling him that Bandit, his horse, is back in Avalon, which makes Phaedron (your friend and mine) quite happy. Liesl is seen to give Lucius money at some point in dinner.

Corwin arrives, announced as ``Corwin, Emperor of Avalon.'' Deirdre follows him, announced as, ``Deirdre, Empress of Avalon.''

Dinner ensues. After a couple of courses, Corwin explains that the drawing of his Pattern has raised his Avalon to a status equivalent to that of Amber. He further explains that no Pattern is a complete and whole symbol of order if there is more than one of them, and that he plans to rectify the situation. He says that Amber is no more real than Avalon now, and implies that things could be very good for us in his version of reality, under the proper circumstances... He answers in the affirmative when Mikele asks him if he engineered the drain on the Pattern and the Logrus.

He says that he is not ready for the location of his Avalon to be revealed yet, and that he is willing to keep us there, as guests, prisoners, or rotting corpses, our choice. He says that he wants us to think over that things could be good for us, if events go his way.

Keverian points out that several members of our party escaped, and that even now a force could be mobilizing against him, and how could he think to gain anything but trouble from Amber and Chaos for holding us captive. But Corwin seems confident that some measures he is taking will make it very hard to find the pass again, and that we won't be escaping.

He claims that the dragon was a present for a certain enemy of Amber, and claims responsibility for the dogs, who he was sikking on the Courts to make trouble. He also says that the dogs will also attack any groups of two or more Amberites they happen to come across.

At one point during dinner, he calls Reynard ``a nuisance that needs to be dealt with.''

Finally claiming that he has pressing business elsewhere, while we have thinking to do, he ends dinner. People leave fairly rapidly thereafter. Keverian goes off to find Corwin, and Lucius and Mikele stick around to try and get her free of her unwanted jewelry. This is the last time Keverian sees Lucius (as such).

After unsuccessfully removing the wristband, Mikele gets a trump call from Martin, who is still free and roaming around the countryside. Mikele says that the contact is ``odd'' and ``transparent, sort of,'' and that Martin couldn't pull her out or trump in, but that he will call back regularly.

Mikele complains of the lack of a window in her room, and Kev offers her use of his bed (his room has a very nice view). He sleeps on the floor.

That night, Keverian is awakened by Mikele, ``Wake up, Keverian, you'll never guess who called me, and from where...'' As it turns out, it was Dara, and she was calling from somewhere inside the shadow.

As the two head down to breakfast, Kev orders that the room next to his be opened and Mikele's things moved into it. People are once again deferent, and it gets done quickly.

At breakfast, Martin approaches a surprised Keverian and Mikele. He claims that he had to leave his hiding place to collect a few things, and well, there he was, so he got captured. Kev sends a messenger off to find Liesl and Lucius. Martin and Mikele go off for a walk, with Kev nearby, but out of earshot. Just then, Mikele gets a call from..... Martin, who is still in his hiding place. Hmmmmmmmm............. It is discovered that the Martin here is in fact a shape shifted Dara. Mikele is very relieved.

By then it's lunch time, and Kev and Mikele meet up with Liesl, who tells them about the contest associated with the title ``Knight of the Thorn,'' that he's a great-grandson of Corwin's, and how nobody knows exactly where Krista is from. He also mentions a bit of a problem in the castle last night, some sort of disturbance, which gives Kev a bad feeling about Lucius.

We take our leave of Liesl. Kev leads the others down to the dungeons where, sure enuf, he finds a wolfish Lucius chained in a cell with a big wooden bar across it. He decides that Lucius must have finally flipped his lid and decides never to learn shape shifting if it gives you multiple personality complexes. The guard near the cell is oddly friendly and helpful. Kev decides to try to use whatever influence he has to get Lucius out of his durance vile, instead of just snapping the chains.

They split up for a while, ``Martin'' and Mikele together, while Kev tries to find Corwin or Deirdre, to try and convince them to let Lucius out. Mikele manages to swap her annoying wristband for one that doesn'thurt her or block the Logrus, thanks to certain friendly parties, whose identities remain unclear. When they get back together, ``Martin'' tells them that there are spells on them that are not yet active, and Mikele and Kev start to wearing them down with the Logrus and the Pattern.

People spend the rest of the afternoon before dinner doing vaguely random things (like Kev fencing with Mikele and ``Martin'').

After a long, hard day of being captured by the bad guys, our heroes go to dinner. Well, not Mikele, since it was decided that the bad guys might notice and take exception to the fact that she wasn'y wearing the bracelet any more, and not Lucius, since he was otherwise engaged. Well, Keverian goes to dinner, at least.

Corwin, Dierdre, Phaedron, Liesl, Krista, ``Martin,'' and Keverian are those in attendance. Things go fairly calmly until, for slightly unclear reasons, ``Martin'' slashes Phaedron across the side of the head (yaaaay!!), knocking him down. ``Martin '' then proceeds to display much more prowess as he engages Corwin than he displayed that afternoon while sparring with Keverian (successfully giving Keverian a much-needed ego boost). Corwin and ``Martin'' go at it for a while, while the other people at dinner stand up, perhaps to pay their respect to the combat at hand, but do nothing else. (Liesl is not seen to make any bets on the outcome of this battle.) Just as things are beginning to look bad for ``Martin,'' he begins to shift shape until he is seen to be Dara, fighting Corwin. This gives Dara, a useful little boost, and allows her to gain ground on Corwin for a while. Unclear on the plan, Keverian asks Corwin whether he requires any assistance, but when Corwin says that everything is under control, Keverian decides to sit back down and finish his dinner.

Corwin starts to wear Dara down, forcing her into a corner of the room. When things are beginning to look bad for her, she declares, ``Didn't think so,'' and promptly disappears. Whereupon Corwin (number two) appears standing in the doorway of the Dining Hall.

``Ah. There you are. Well, it's a good thing you're here. I was going to have to destroy you shortly, anyway,'' says Corwin one. ``I created you, so it's fitting that I destroy you.''

``Of course you're lying. I would be, right now,'' says Corwin two.

Upon which they engage in sword battle, in inestimable Corwin-esque style, which is all quite dazzling and interesting, at the cost of quite a lot of (undoubtedly expensive) fine china, not to mention whatever else wasn't nailed down. The two Corwins battle back and forth across the Dining Hall, while Rina readies a dagger for throwing, and Liesl pays a lot of attention to Keverian.

Corwin one suddenly throws his sword at Corwin two, which misses, of course, but causes Corwin two to duck long enough for Corwin one to pull out a submachine gun and open fire on Corwin two. Just then, several things happen. Rina makes a decision and starts to throw that dagger she's been readying. Keverian, seeing this, whips his plate at Rina's arm in the hopes of spoiling her aim, and Corwin two dives out the door. The dagger hits Corwin one, just as Keverian dives through the door after Corwin two, cautioning Corwin one that the dagger is probably poisoned, and yelling for guards to stop Corwin two.

Kev thinks that he sees Phaedron stab Rina, as he dives through the door, and leaps for the rainbow-edged figure of Corwin two, but he can't be sure. Much to his surprise, (leaping for a person trumping out just never works) he catches Corwin two and ends up in an attic with Corwin two (now getting good odds as the real one), Dara and Martin. (yaaaaaaay!)

Meanwhile, Mikele gets a trump call from Martin (the real one, this time) telling her that now would be a good time to leave. She is trumped into Grand Central Sta-- I mean the attic, along with Keverian, Corwin (two, the real one), Martin (one, the real one) and Dara (erstwhile Martin, who presently looks like herself (we think)).