Player Characters:
Brigid, Natasha, Gerhardt, Bree, Jericho, Isabelle
Everyone who had trumps by Dworkin find that they are all missing. That even includes copies that were made!
Elodie seeks out Isabelle to help her with the residual Brand in her head.
Brigid tells her mom, Fiona, that her trumps have gone missing. Fiona says they're not missing — they have been stolen. And it's been done across the entire family, which means they are very powerful. Who could do this?? Fiona is livid with Dworkin because she's sure he has done it.
Jericho is looking for "one of these things" our in shadow.
Brigid gives her info to Silas and then she joins Natasha in the search for Dworkin. They start at the primal pattern. They go to a cave where someone has been living here and has only been gone about half a day — the same time the cards went missing. Brigid finds that he was researching how to manipulate something within trumps. She plans to contact Gerhardt to get help understanding it.
A mini Dworkin glares at Natasha from under a bookshelf. It chucks a spear at her defiantly.
Gerhardt is at Erewhon working on things. He gets a call from Brigid. She's showing him different drawings, and she shows one of Ygg. She gets sort of entranced and disappears. She is unconscious. Having lost touch with her, he heads there to check on her.
Natasha is captured by Dworkin
Isabelle finds in Bree's memories that there is a connection to "a Brand of sorts", but it only activates when they are physically touching. It basically sounds like she is caching memories, etc from their contact.
In Bree's head there is a lot of resistance to opening the "core". It doesn't answer and she can't get in easily. Gerhardt asks to step in. He sees that everything about her passes through this spot. As much as is channeling through, there seems to be more that he can't see; more to her than just this. He considers using Eidolon to "repair" her.
Brigid wakes up tied to Ygg.
Jericho finds a cerebral parasite on someone. Only one person in the group has it. It's a pretty high tech world. He thinks they're pretty close to the Phoenix Empire. Dale and Jericho strike up a conversation and end up talking to the ship captain. Dale gives a subtle indication to Deca that Jericho is very dangerous and associated with the Empire.
Dale explains that his cerebral parasite is not one of the bad guys, the Ascendancy. He believes that the AI that supposedly makes the decisions for the Ascendancy is not actually in control. Every so often there's a directive that really doesn't seem in the best interest of everyone. The Ascendancy works with the Dark Empire, which is part of what made Dale suspicious, too.
Jericho decides to find the AI and talk to it. He goes to the world
Brigid sees Dworkin, but she can't get his attention because of the apple jammed in her mouth. She spits it out and yells at him, but now her mouth is tingling and there are rainbows at the side of her vision. He tells her that he doesn't think she is "one of the useful redheads". He's almost done manipulating the cards in front of him.
Things that could break in Bree: 1. Blood Pattern, 2. Artistic Ability, 3. Unknown. The twins in their mad space proceed to break: something that was holding someone in place — the connection to BRAND. Now she remembers everything! She came into existence with all the other clones and has been in touch with that "core" her entire life. It turns out these copies are basically horcruxes, the same with Oberons. Bree needs to seek and destroy the key that finishes the merger of all Brands! It becomes evident that Brand worked with Osric; he had a backup too and is in his son now.
Brigid somehow gets in trump contact with Gerhardt, who pulls her through and tends to her. She shares what she saw at Ygg with Dworkin.
Dworkin is unpleasantly surprised at the arrival of Bree, Gerhardt, and Isabelle. He doesn't know where the Brand key is. It occurs to her now that a lot of what she has done was due to manipulation from him! She doesn't want to go back to her former self, but he doesn't care. He keeps talking about a next time and backing up Jericho and Benedict. Dworkin seems to want to destroy reality YET AGAIN.
Bree and Isabelle are going to figure out how to make merged trump/icon cards.
Jericho hints at the idea of killing Dworkin, who actually seems a bit excited at the prospect. After arguing with Dworkin, he trumps Oberon and tells him everything. He also receives a message that he should take the shot if he gets another chance at Osric.
Bree finds there is a memory that has been blurred by her mom. She's dizzy and disoriented and finds herself looking up at the ceiling. Stupid memory was booby trapped. Ugh, this gets old.
Together Bree and Isabelle figure out how to dissect trump like Dworkin did.
Bree has to tell Elodie there is a complication in the plan to kill Dalt. They have to find the key first and then killing him is still on the table. Apparently there was an open door where the Pattern is now. It did a great job keeping out the Abyssal stuff, but it's just not strong enough. That's why rebuilding kinda makes sense.
Isabelle continues to tinker with the trump layers.
Gerhardt is at Olympus researching the technology there.
Brigid wants to talk to "mother". She trumps Gerhardt to get advice before "doing something stupid". She explains that the first time she tried to use pattern for this purpose, she said, "Take me to mother" and that did not work as expected. What should she do differently? What happened?
Jericho gets to his destination and through security as Dale instructed. The cerebral parasites convert into neural nets once they get into a host. (Did someone in Amber get an implant?) They're going to find a way to inoculate someone going into a high risk environment. If they do get compromised, removing it is a very risky procedure.
Brigid gets Gerhardt to help her use pattern to not repeat the last mistake. They end up somewhere unfamiliar, though Brigid does feel closer to "mother" as they get further and further from reality. The only reason they're able to get here is because Brigid already has a path of sorts. Pretty crazy stuff. It is getting harder and harder to close in on their destination. It may become impossible.
Someone appears to be hiding behind a rock. He looks like he's been sewn back together. Brigid and Gerhardt talk to him. He says his name is…. What? It's just a symbol in their heads. He does know "Alyss" — he says she's naughty. He offers to take Brigid to mother, but Gerhardt recommends she not go. The man seems delighted at the idea. He says she definitely has a connection to this place. He loves that she is bad at lying…?