When our story picks up, Ronan and Dalena are in Helmwind

Erin is at the Church of the Unicorn.

Kira is in Amber.

Elio is in Refuge.

Maladin is in Amber City trying to find some information re Random's spy network but doesn't get very far. He just doesn't have enough time to get hooked into it. He found a few contacts and will start them working on spreading rumors about Brand, but that's about all he can do.

Dalena talks with Galen about getting the troops prepared, and he tells her it's already done. 250,000 troops will be ready to Wave in if needed. She actually was expecting an argument, but Galen has decided that relations with other nations falls under her Destiny, and so he'll support it, even if reluctantly. He shows her how to use the beacons, and then they call it a night.

Erin is trumped by Maladin. He asks her to ask Merlin to get some dirt on Brand's Logrus sword. After he closes the connection, Erin trumps Elio who just Waved into Helmwind. He pulls her through, and they talk about a whole bunch of things including whose handwriting is on the note which was left at her house. Elio doesn't recognize it.

Kira visits with the People's Republic. They have decided to back Maladin, and have ponied up 70,000 troops as Maladin has agreed to back them as well. Most of the troops are dilettante nobility who wear swords because it looks good. They may not be usable as front line troops, but they can at least be used to guard the other nobility who will come out to watch the festivities … I mean "battle".

Ronan joins Elio and Erin, and tries his mojo on the note … it's been chaffed with informational magicks so there's nothing to dig out from all the static.

Erin trumps Flora who is in one of the Castle solariums. She's having a book club meeting and they're talking about herbals -- foxglove to be precise. The mother and daughter head to a separate room where Erin asks her about the Bible passage, Marcus and whether Flora is a member of the Dark Brotherhood. Flora is all put out that Erin would accuse her of "Satanism", but won't actually answer the straight up question of "Are you a member of the Dark Brotherhood?" Finally, tired of Erin's persistence, Flora walks out, quite peeved. During the whole time, Flora just could not (would not) give a yes or no answer to anything. Everything was qualified. Flora wasn't the only one who was peeved.

Maladin finds Kira and asks her about the Church's support, and where the hierarchy is currently standing on the question of succession. He gives her the final draft of a declaration for her to have printed and distributed.

Dalena's research in the library of the Church has revealed some small juicy tidbits to follow up on later, but nothing hugely revealing. Her research supports her own theories that the Abyss' nature is to "consume," and any power it grants (if it can) would be to support that nature.

Morning of the Day Before the War

Maladin moves his troops from Garnath into the Vale of Belial, and does a rudimentary deployment. Ronan will be his shadow until the war is over.

Dalena heads back into the Library.

Elio scouts around Belial but doesn't find much as there's a lot of sorcery going on, area spells which obscure the area.

Kira reports that the Church's troops, at Gerard's request, will stay behind to safeguard the City. However things go down on the battlefield, Gerard is serious in his declaration that this will *not* spill over into Amber.

Erin trumps Brand, and asks about the Biblical reference. He doesn't know it, but thinks it's highly dramatic. They meet cordially and they part the same way. Brand does say that if there's something which comes up that threatens Amber, he's pretty certain both he and Maladin will set aside their differences to fight it.

Maladin checks out the status of Random's spies. Three are "honest" and one is "duplicitous." One of the honest ones he assigns to have information passed to the Church's Pattern Knights that if they wanted to meet the troops at Belial, they'd be welcome. Ronan looks at the probability of that message being delivered, and in some lines the message is delivered, in others the messenger is killed for various reasons.

He then goes to visit Llewella, and asks to borrow her Pattern sword. She uses some blatant sex ploys on him and the usual arch commentary is present. She says she can't let him use the sword without Moire's permission. If the Queen of Rebma agrees, then Llewella will loan the sword. Despite Llewella's straight forward invitations, Maladin leaves Rebma without a roll in the seaweed or the Pattern Sword.

In the evening, Dalena is contacted via Misha by Ronan. They pass Maladin's armor over to him, and bring her through to Belial to look at the battlefield. It's a big nexus point of possibility and probability, and Dalena won't be able to affect that nexus without major shifts in rules and reality. Smaller shifts are doable though. Big effort involved but doable. Dalena then tries to wash the area with Vitae, to remove the sorcerous chaffing in the area, and gets swapped by a Logrus tentacle and thrown against a tree for her pains. Someone didn't like their spell being screwed with.

Before evening falls hard, Maladin talks with Galen about what the Shaman can do to combat the various sorceries.

In the morning, the war starts. Short story: Shit happens. Long story: Brand is very, very prepared. We're not. Shadow storms, raining vitriolic goo.

Galen and the Oleai do not show up as expected, a quick Trump call reveals rolling chaos and Moonriders flying through trees at high velocity. A quick "Don't let anyone waveride!" comes from Galen before he impacts with something and the connection is lost. It is later found out that Brand has set mechanisms in place that introduce Chaos into the Oleai's ability to control the waves, few are able to make it to the battle and over 60,000 are killed in uncontrolled re-entry.

Near the end of the fight, when things are going Badly for Maladin, in a complete surprise (to all but Kira and Maladin), Bleys comes through a huge trump gate along with a great number of troops, evening the odds. Apparently he had set this up with Kira earlier but had demanded that she tell no one so Brand would remain unsuspecting.

Erin casts her "do not notice me" spell and trumps to Castle Amber. She reformats a wave, blowing out the chaff and clearing the corruption that was affecting the Oleai with the help of the Unicorn; help she finally comes to terms with needing and wanting. The Unicorn who wondered what took Erin so long … and who was glad to help. Many of the Oleai are able to return to the battle.

With the chaff being gone, the Vitae cleared out and the Oleai a force once more, Brand's sorcerers decimated and Bleys on the scene, the battle quickly turns to Maladin's favor. Brand is allowed to retreat, leaving Maladin to be proclaimed victor of the field.

And King.

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