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Post by Katerina on Mar 12, 2023 10:07:03 GMT
"Don't use the I'm older and wiser than you line on me! I've seen plenty of older folk make horrendous mistakes. Besides I'm sixteen now and not a child any more. So Mr Clever Clogs how many broken Patterns have you tried to repair?." Kat replies. She is fed up with people keep telling her she's a child. She turns to Nat who seems at least a little more sympathetic.
"Your father is Prince Corwin of Amber? The one who wrote the book that I read in Amber?" There is a slight sound of awe in her voice. "When exactly did he destroy the Mirror Maze? Our historical records say that it has always been on Eshanta, but for what you say to be true it would have had to be destroyed a long time ago, before our historians would have been able to record it. Unless of course their history was fabricated by someone. If it released these Spirits of Chaos then it would have been a prison for them and someone came here to try and free them. The Mirror Maze would have been holding them and there would need to be a guardian over the place to keep them in."
"Since it was there in my time it must have been recreated after your father destroyed it somehow. My father is reported to have left me here and all he left me was this stupid little sword that I can't even read the writing on it. Perhaps my father left me here as its new Guardian?" Kat unsheathes her sword carefully showing it sideways in two hands so as to show the blade to the others in a non threatening way.
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Post by Admin on Mar 13, 2023 5:08:27 GMT
#s://i~ibb~co/KFmPccS/Natalia~png "Repair? None. Destroy? Many. It's the method we used to first visit this place."Jaxiam is on the carpet now, starting the incantation that will begin the flight. "King Corwin of France," Nat corrects her. "But he was from Amber, though the way back to Kolvir has been lost. I can't see how he found time to write a book. Was it poetry? He once told me he used to be a famous musician but he also enjoyed making up tall tales for me.
"As I said: centuries ago, according to the legend. Spirits, guardians, I know nothing about.""C'mon, Nat, time's wastin'. Let her fail with the Pattern. At least she'll have some translating to work on until she starves."Nat goes to him and then tosses a loaf of french bread to Kat. "You'll need this. Conjuring doesn't work quite as you'd expect in this place." |
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Post by Katerina on Mar 13, 2023 7:43:11 GMT
So they don't know the full story either. Kat thinks to herself. There is however one piece of key information that she is missing. She puts away her sword, seeing as they don't seem to be able to read it either.
"Sorry it must be a different Corwin then. I don't know if its a common name or not out there. A couple of things that are still puzzling me though. You seem to know precisely where this is. I've made some assumptions that might be wrong. So where are we and how did you get here?"
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Post by Admin on Mar 15, 2023 6:38:11 GMT
#s://i~ibb~co/KFmPccS/Natalia~png "Words like 'where' and 'precise' have no meaning here, similar to how they have no meaning in Shadow. But this place isn't a shadow or in Shadow. I've heard rumours of something called Undershadow, but this place doesn't conform to those tales either. This is why conjuring is so difficult because there isn't enough shadow material to mould into new forms.
I think it was all rocks and black skies at first, but then the actions of powers resulted in some new features. You saw the red lightning? Those mountains are where it struck, but it was a flat plane before. Natalia explains. "So if you can generate enough juice from the Powers then a way through can be opened." Jax says as the carpet begins to rise. |
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Post by Katerina on Mar 15, 2023 7:32:23 GMT
Kat is very confused now.
"So we're not in Eshanta any more then and that's not the Mirror Maze?" It was hard wrapping her head around all this. "If that's the case then I'll glady accept your offer. I'm not going to try to repair something else that's not the Mirror Maze. That would be a futile waste of my time and energy."
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Post by Admin on Mar 20, 2023 5:19:16 GMT
#s://i~ibb~co/KFmPccS/Natalia~png "Then hop on," Jaxiam says but doesn't slow down the rising carpet. Kat has to jump to take hold of the edge and then pull herself up. A difficult task when missing a thumb. "That might be your broken Pattern but viewed from the other side. Don't ask for reasons or rules or order because we haven't been able to discover any."The carpet drifts slowly towards the mountains. Or rapidly - time and distance do not seem to have any relation to each other in this place. The craigs do loom larger as they approach. What was bare rock a short(?) while ago now seems to have acquired snowy peaks and hints of greenery in the valleys. "Jax look! Trees might be starting to grow!
"That's the first sign of plant life we've seen in this place. Things are changing," Natalia tells Kat. |
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Post by Katerina on Mar 20, 2023 7:58:23 GMT
Kat hesitates just for a second. What if this was the other side of the Maze? She should stay and help! But given she didn't have the power to help, what could she possibly do here?
She shook her head and jumped up onto the carpet, almost too late. She pulls herself on and looks at the view as they travel. Then once the new greenery shows up she examines the carpet. Probably something more useful than a bird, she tries to memorize it for future reference so it might be possible for her to conjure.
"Sometimes after a disaster nature grows back stronger. It does seem much faster though here than I've ever seen back home." Kat comments. "If this is a mirror of Eshanta then there should be strange buildings dotted around." She adds keeping an eye out for one of the monuments from back home but this time on the land.
"So how did you two end up here?" They hadn't answered this the first time she asked, but this was such a strange place it seemed more than a co-incidence that they had come here by accident.
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Post by Admin on Mar 23, 2023 6:33:32 GMT
#s://i~ibb~co/KFmPccS/Natalia~png "It's a trick of the Logrus you wouldn't understand.""I can't say that I really understand it either, but I'm going to tell her what I know," She tells her boyfriend. "Never mind him. He gets in these grumpy moods now, and then when he is concerned or confused," Nat tells Kat loud enough to be overheard by Jaxiam. "His trick is to use some trick of the Logrus, which can destroy a shadow. Just grind up and disperse whatever a shadow is. By finding one with a Broken Pattern and taking necessary precautions, the Pattern resists the Logrus power for a time and then is destroyed but not in the usual way. A path is opened up. Or maybe it is a pit or a gate. Whatever you call it, it does allow us to get into here, this place that shouldn't exist.
"The limits on how long we can keep the gate open limits our time to explore here, but what we've seen points to something involving the Pattern. This place we are approaching was flat rock until that red lightning struck, and now it grows. Do you have any idea what could cause this to happen?" |
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Post by Katerina on Mar 23, 2023 8:23:12 GMT
She takes a look at the regenesis though her broken Pattern lens to see if she can see more of what is happening as they fly. She envied the pair having each other to depend on and love.
"I guess my answer depends on which Broken Pattern you tried to destroy and where we are now, but I will tell you a few things and make some educated guesses as well as I don't have all the answers. Hell at the moment I'm not sure I have all the questions that I need to ask either, but I'll try."
"I'm guessing that the Broken Pattern that you tried to destroy to get in here was not the Mirror Maze. The Mirror Maze itself was broken by a member of Amber's family using their design to break it, obstensively to rescue me from myself. That I'm afraid is another long story that I'll not get into now as it is only peripherally important. The thing is that the Mirror Maze is not just any old Pattern, there is another component to it that I'm not sure a lot of people are aware of. Now that part of it may well have been used to trap these spirirts of Chaos in during the past as some kind of Prison, but I don't think that this is its primary purpose. I think whomever was the Guardian of the Mirror Maze at the time used it as a convenient way to solve a problem, but that it wasn't its primary function."
"Now you tell me that Corwin destroyed that version of the Mirror Maze, yet the Mirror Maze was back and here in its day. What we saw here was regeneration of a Broken Pattern and the symbolism of the bare land being scarred and then renewed is similar to when a great fire destroys a forest, but it soon grows back. My guess is that what you're seeing is a Broken Pattern being reborn. The Mirror Maze did it to itself way back in the past and it is doing so again now. That part of the Mirror Maze wasn't destroyed and is bringing itself back from a copy that it holds within itself. Just as I wonder at whether it is trying to do the same for the Broken Pattern you destroyed."
"Whether we are at the one that Jax destroyed to get here or the Mirror Maze itself I can't be certain, but that's what it seems to me. My suspicion is that once the process completes then you'll be thrown back out of here to where you came from. I'm here as the Mirror Maze, that part that is partially sentient wanted me to see this. I thought that it was to help repair it, but now I'm starting to see that it might have had another motive."
"My father, whoever he was placed me here as the new Guardian of the Mirror Maze, but I got no instruction. I don't know anything like what I should about this place and all that my father left me was this short sword with some writing on that I can't read." She shrugs inching Tempest from its scabbard to reveal the writing but not take it fully out. "It's a nice sword for killing, but if there's anything useful on this it might give me some pointers. I feel that there is something more to this."
Kat wondered to herself why Jax was doing this and investigating the inner workings of the Universe, other than the obvious answer that he had an enquiring mind.
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Post by Admin on Mar 24, 2023 9:09:18 GMT
#s://i~ibb~co/KFmPccS/Natalia~png "This place here isn't of our creation. The red lightning was something we witnessed in our exploration. Nothing else we've found has grown at this scale. Whatever power crossed over, it is something greater than our Broken Patterns."
"This isn't our first trip here. We've always needed to find our tunnel again to get back to the normal world.
"So you really have no idea what the writing says? No one could translate it for you?" |
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Post by Katerina on Mar 24, 2023 16:14:57 GMT
Kat wondered what else could have come here other than them and her. She certainly didn't fit Jax's description.
"No idea, sorry. No one on Eshanta could read it and no ones even been able to tell me what language it is even." She replies.
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Post by Admin on Mar 27, 2023 0:07:41 GMT
#s://i~ibb~co/KFmPccS/Natalia~png "Let Jax take a look at it when we land; he's good with that kind of stuff," Natalia tells her. The carpet approaches and then is amid the mountains. Cold winds shriek between the peaks making conversation impossible. They pass through a couple of squalls of sharp, dry snow. Natalia grabs Jax's shoulder and points to a flat outcrop of stone on a mountain's face. He nods and lands the carpet there. The winds are lessened in this place. "Now we climb," Nat says pointing up the side of the mountain. "You need to see what is at the top. I hope." |
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Post by Katerina on Mar 27, 2023 16:59:35 GMT
Kat nods. Its the first offer shes had to read the writing on the sword.
She then wants to say something when the winds whip around them and make talking next to impossible. Once they land she goes to talk and realises that Nat is about to say something so she waits.
"I guess so. I have no idea what we'll see up there. Perhaps its a good chance for Jax to look at my sword now before we get up threre and something bad might happen?" She suggests. If Nat agrees, then she will hold the sword for Jax so that he can see all the writing on it.
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2023 1:34:06 GMT
#s://i~ibb~co/LRYXrT4/jaxiam~png Jaxiam takes the sword and looks over one side and then the other. "This side says Warning! Sharp edges watch your fingers. The other reads Property of Calvera Barimen. If found, send to P.O. Box 1970 Amber Castle. Truthfully, I can't make out what it says. It is a mirror image of an ancient Chaos lolographic writing system. The only word I can translate is 'tiger.'"He gives the sword back to her. "Either that is a very old weapon, or someone wanted to keep the message obscure. I suppose it is some super magic sword given to your parents by a wandering wizard?" |
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Post by Katerina on Mar 29, 2023 7:39:58 GMT
The writing is a mirror image? Did Tak switch blades on her or was she the mirror image?
"Well I have no idea, but thank you for trying Jax. The story I was told is that it was given to my adoptive father by my father when he left me in Eshanta to give to me when I was old enough to know better than to touch the sharp pointy bits and do myself an injury. Sounds like the only place I'm going to get an answer to this is in the Courts, though I am loathe to go there."
Kat puts the sword back away disappointed and wondering what a tiger was. She looks up.
"Come on lets start the climb and find out what is on top of the mountain then." She smiles and them a sad lonely smile and begins the climb with them.
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