There and Back Again

Life has been a whirl since I got to the monastery, and I haven't really had a chance to collect my thoughts. So, before I forget...

"Previously on Abby's life..."

I woke woke up in a hotel room, and, after asking at the front desk, figured out I was in the city. It seemed they had me listed as a Sprottle ambassador, and Zalon as an Eaton one. I went to speak with him. We found out from our assistants that they had done blood tests before they got there, and that's how they found out what families we were in. We were also told that we just had to wait until Her Holiness decided to meet with us. I asked who else from our family was there, and was told my Uncle Anthony was. Since there wasn't anything else to do, I decided to go see him. I was hoping that he would be able to get us an audience, but he said he couldn't help. We decided that we wanted to leave, but it seems you needed an "exit code" to leave, and neither of us had one. I told Anthony, and he was angry. We weren't about to just sit around, so we went to question our assistants. Mine gave me my code, but Zalon's couldn't. When Zalon asked even further, the assistant shot himself! When I tried to take Zalon with me...

I woke up again, naked, in some weird goo. It seems this "city" was all just some type of pattern/machine creation. But Zalon was still in it. I went to the real embassy, and talked again with Uncle Anthony. First things first, he took a trump of me, and gave me one of his. I was gonna ask him about how we could help Zalon when we heard a commotion outside. I went to investigate, and saw some type of SWAT team going into the buildings. It looked
worth checking out, so I went. When I got there, they were surrounding a closed door, and I could tell from their conversation they thought Zalon inside. Over their objections, I went and opened the door, to find Zalon, also naked, apparently having just emerged from his "pod." His assistant was cowering under a table. I invited Zalon to the embassy, where Uncle Anthony gave him some clothes. He tried to take a trump of Zalon, but I guess he was missing something. I took Zalon to the Eaton embassy, and we parted ways.

I was tired of being yanked around, and feeling like I was stuck, so I decided I wanted to walk the pattern. I went to Anthony, who told me I needed to learn more about it first, and gave me some books to read. I got bored with them after a while, and went back to see Zalon. He had found his spear, so we got Anthony to make that trump, and exchanged them. We also decided to spar, which drew an quite a crowd, including Emily. Zalon is my better at the sword, but can't match my strength in hand to hand.

I finally finished those books, and asked Uncle Anthony about the pattern again. It was then he decided to tell me that he can't get me to the "public" pattern because it's under seige, and he won't take me to any of the hidden patterns he knows about because he doesn't trust me. He was willing to give me the oh so generous concession of helping me get through the guards if I manage to get through the seige. I was, to say the least, pissed. How dare he refuse me my birthright? I was tired of a bunch of elders just sitting around, doing nothing, not willing to help me, just sitting around to die. I was going to find that pattern, or another, with or without his help.

First, I went to talk to Nero Eaton, to ask him if he would help me. He was looking for people to band together against Brand, so he might have some inclination to assist. He was willing, but he said he didn't really have the means to help me. When talking with him, I remembered that Zalon had mentioned basically stumbling upon a pattern, and that's how he learned, so I went to talk to him. Maybe he could help. He was more than willing to help, but the pattern he had talked about was one in the abyss, which Brand threw him upon and forced him to walk. I went ahead and told him about the one under siege, to see if maybe he could help there. We talked over options for a while, and decided that we were going to try and get some people together, and take back that Pattern in the Abyss.

Before I left, though, I wanted to find Hanu. I talked with the guards at the gate where we parted, and they said that he left after talking with Emma. So I went to talk to Emma, who told me that they told him to leave before Emily decided to kill him. She is definately the more sane of the two twins. She also mentioned that she thought either Uncle Anthony or someone named K'tzl'trx would be able to summon him, as she'd seen him in the Oasis before. I asked Uncle Anthony about it, and he said he couldn't summon Hanu, just a generic demon. So I asked him about K'tzl'trx. He knew "Trixie" quite well, and he said he thought she could do it, but I should bring a gift first. Something "enlightening." After a little confusion, I figured out what he was talking about and got a bottle of Magras' wine, then headed over to the Tzl embassy.

Trixie was quite a character. She was passed out on the couch when I got there, and was more than happy to drink most of the wine I brought. I asked her about summoning Hanu, and she was able to use the logrus to pull him from whatever dimension he was in. We talked, and he told me he had been asked to leave rather insistently, but had been looking for me since then. I asked Zalon to come to the embassy, and we talked about what to do next. No one knew where we could find any other relatives, so we decided to ask the twins, Emma and Emily.

To my surprise, they were willing to come to the Embassy to talk to us, and even talked to us with Hanu there. Emily was her usual self, but Emma was willing to help us some, and after they asked why we were looking for relatives, and we explained ourselves, they agreed to help, *If* Her Holiness agreed that Zalon was trustworthy. Looks like another trip to the City. Ugh! My hair barely survived the first one.