Kill Brand II

The King has returned after a year's absence following an assassination attempt. Random's attackers have been traced to a distant Shadow that bears an odd resemblance to Shadow Earth's 1980's Tokyo. If you were there for the initial attack, here is your chance for revenge. If not, earn the King's gratitude by acting against those who would dare strike at the throne of Amber.

Dress to kill in a Hong Kong Action Theater mindset. Cinematic action both promised and rewarded, regardless of approach - Warfare and Psyche opportunities will be very much a part of the story. Part 4 of the Random Gambling series [unconnected]. Participants from Part 3 are encouraged to return, but no knowledge of previous events is necessary.

Mechanics/Restrictions: Abilities from Shadow Knight and powers with a technological bent require GM approval. No regicides, please.

Players must have e-mail access.

Charcter Generation: Before Con based on 200 points

Play Level: Beginner

GM(s): David Vandenabeele

Daniel Howethorne son of Random
played by Simone Cooper

Psyche: 11
Strength: 14
Endurance: 24
Warfare: 101

CONTACTS: Ubiquitous in Shadow; bars, taverns, casinos, brothels, music clubs, etc.
TOTAL: 6

Partial Pattern: emphasis on minor local Probability Manipulation, Pattern Defense, and a rough, hard Hell riding style approximately the equivalent of Item transferred Hell riding but faster and more dangerous
TOTAL: 25

Personal Sword: deadly, unbreakable, better with Daniel's style than anything. (4 + 2 + 2)
TOTAL: 8

Pattern Words: Distance; Ambience; Pattern; Iron Curtain; Magic Bullet
TOTAL: 10

Good Stuff: 1

Height: 5'7" Weight: 150 lbs. Build: wiry

Light auburn hair, grey blue eyes with hazel flecks, light complexion. Will wear any clothing style as appropriate; prefers 'winter' colors - forest green, dark burgundy, warm dark browns - and usually manages some main piece in the colors of his crest, forest green and gold. Wears an Italianate, epee like blade with a complex silver basket hilt set with cabochon emeralds.

Notable skills:
Cards and gambling; con artist; oratory; romance / etiquette; sexual prowess; art appreciation; literature; business, law, and contracts; drinking (and feigning drinking); oenology; chess and board strategy games; ballroom dancing; club dancing; jazz and classical bass and cello; electric bass; acoustic and electric guitar; violin

Daniel has continued to train himself in all aspects of being a Renaissance man. While he prefers jazz and blues, he has trained himself to appreciate other music as well, and his rendition of Dvorak's Cello Concerto was a celebrated recording on Shadow Earth. Another part of being a good host or guest is to partake in drink, food, and 'substances' offered and still not puke on the carpet. Daniel is expert at this, and also quite good at combining drugs for best (or worst) effect and testing drugs for purity or quality.

Aikido (not being the strongest person in the universe, an art that turns the opponent's strength moves around on him appeals); formal fencing (epee and foil); field sword fighting; sharp shooting (rifle and handgun); tactics (ancient to post modern); hang gliding; wind surfing; equestrian arts; polo; rugby American football style games; athletics

Daniel will try his hand at any sporting contest that looks fair, and to him, fair means he has at least an equal chance of not getting squashed. He does a daily workout, usually in aikido as it is quite aerobic and keeps up his flexibility. He finds 'real' fighting a grim affair, and would rather maneuver his way out of such a situation. If forced to fight in a 'street' situation, he won't play around.

Daniel is also a fully trained field medic. He is no heart surgeon, but he can do advanced first aid, sew deep wounds, prevent spread of infection, and basically keep people alive given poor operating conditions. His expertise peaks in the area of chemistry: hangover cures, quick sobriety fixes, recognizing and evaluating drug symptoms including overdoses and poisonings. That he would make an expert poisoner has only crossed his mind in the most fleeting of ways.

That damned Pattern thing
Daniel was forced to develop his Pattern skills independently of any training or even much example. He has found shifting shadow to be dangerous, if exciting, and unpredictable. Besides, until he felt he was ready to track Random down and prepared to possibly face him, he had little motivation to go anywhere anyway. Other than his second-hand observations of the shadow manipulations his father did in his presence when he was younger, he has had no model, nor anyone to tell him what he should be able to do with the Pattern he feels growling around inside him.

Thus Daniel has focused on Pattern effects that he can effect quickly and for himself without regard to qualities of his shadow environment which he lacks the skill to test. Over time he has developed a series of short burst effects, similar to Power Words, which depend specifically upon his Pattern Imprint and which have effects related to Pattern manipulations.

For example:
Distance inserts or removes a distance between you and a known point useful to complete that lunge just a bit before your opponent expects it; or to get yourself out of the way quickly; or to give yourself time to do something else; it probably can't give more than a few dozen yards, and it probably doesn't work across a Shadow veil, though of course I won't have practiced much of that one.

Ambience changes the 'tone' of a place for a distance of several miles around useful to lower tensions in a crowd; or gather friends around you; or make a place nondescript; the effect is temporary, perhaps a few hours.

Pattern brings the Pattern to mind quickly; uses are obvious.

Iron Curtain raises a Shadow veil; useful for simply obscuring a trail through Shadow, or for raising an instant barrier; adepts could hell ride around it, but it could sure slow them down. By that time I could be back 'home'.

Magic Bullet is a probability deus ex; lends deadly force/accuracy to a single, instant, physical act like flicking a playing card or rolling a grenade; sudden, fatal, cool, easy to walk away from.

So, these are basically like Power Words with the added restriction that they only work where Pattern manipulations work, i.e. not near the Primal Pattern or other Patterns; faintly or not at all in Amber itself; and erratically or with unexpected side-effects too near the Courts of Chaos. They are also often unconscious.

Daniel is guy is a good stuff character, but only slightly. He's a gambler, but also a keen observer; a ruffian, but also a chess player; beer drinker and oenologist. Etc. etc. He's Random, if Random had time to sit back and think on something he wants to do for a long, long time.

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Daniel / GM correspondence

For the record, the assassins were a half-dozen supremely talented individuals. The assassination occurred in an area of Primal Proto-Shadow with its own Shadow echoes. Random was visiting there for his own purposes (officially to host an annual high stakes card game) when the assassins descended upon him and his party. The assassins apparently had / have a roost within those Shadows, so they would not have been far afield.

Has Random seemed different as Daniel's spied on him the last couple of years? "Rumors of marital difficulties" doesn't sound all that different.

Random seemed pretty happy and settled (!!!) until four or five years ago Amber time. Around then, he started spending more and more time out in Shadow... often in the area around where the assassination attempt finally occurred. Daniel's first theory would be that the old man had a new woman out in Shadow, but you could never get a line on her, especially since some of Random's haunts appear barred to Pattern.

Huh. I don't suppose I got a line on how he was getting there?

Apparently, it was a Trump-based commute. For card parties in previous years, he's given out Trump to get there, so you probably "acquired" one from somewhere (or someone). Most of them depict a smoky upstairs room in an unremarkable brownstone. Funny how the backs of these Trump have an abstract design on them instead of a unicorn (or a serpent)....

Daniel Howethorn - Background

Some history on Daniel T. Howethorne, son of Random:

Born on Texorami to Random and a native woman, Jen Howethorne, I grew up with her in a rush of adrenaline and fun. She was a loving mother, and her arguments -- and passionate amends -- with my father formed the emotional whirlwind in which I spent my early youth. I loved them both, though Random was often absent -- hence the arguments.

When I was fifteen and just graduating high school, Random decided we needed to move on, not 'him' this time, 'we.'

Expecting to be back within a few months, I agreed, and Mother, though angry at the abruptness of it, did not object. She had always tried to keep us close in spite of Random's tendency to wander. When, later, I mentioned returning to check on her, Random only shook his head. He explained to me about time flow and Shadow, and how, really, there probably wouldn't be anyone left there who remembered me.

Random led me around through Shadow for some years more. How can I describe it? My first experience of something that is beyond experience. I wasted much of that time alternating between being furious at him and hating myself. I had dreams of returning and finding Mother's corpse, waiting up in the dining room for me as she used to do, dealing out complicated Solitaire hands while I danced the night away or played trumpet or French horn in the jazz cellar of some filthy club Random had got me into, underage.

During this time Random did probably the best thing he could have done; he apologised once and only once, saying he knew I wouldn't have come if I had known. Then he let me work things out on my own while he continued our travels, and, looking back, what must have been my education. Hell-rides and Shadow-shifts subtle and gross, and always moving on, moving on. It was Random's great talent. I came to realise he must have loved us, to have stayed on so long in Texorami, though of course much of that was his love of the place as well.

While I grew up he expected me to be his companion, not his son, and I worked at that role with all my energy. At the price of a comforting father I gained a friend in him closer than a brother. We were quite a double act, I suppose. The scams we ran! card games, trade runs, triangles of wealthy women. And the best one was 'dispossessed Prince Random' and his son, looking for support in a bid to regain their place on the throne of one Shadow after another. I lost count of the number he sat, the names and languages we learned in order to sit them, the hands we shook and backs we stabbed. And of course, conquest over, we would move on.

On occasion I'd ask Random about Amber itself; always he put me off. "Amber's not ready for us, Daniel, nor I for her, the old whore." If he was quite drunk, he'd let his poker face slip, and it would become obvious that a return to this 'Amber' was a frightening prospect to him.

The story of our parting is still painful, and it reads like bad television drama, so I'll keep it brief.

I was about twenty three. We were back on Texorami; Random said he 'had the taste for it again.' Things were so much changed since my childhood there it seemed like just another Shadow, though we quickly found those bars and clubs with that just-so atmosphere -- the reason Random returned, as he said, inevitably, every five or ten years. He'd addicted me to hang-gliding by this time, and Texorami was ideal for that as well.

So, for the next few months, we lost ourselves, or should I say, ourself; by this time we were so alike people often mistook us for one another even though my hair was clearly redder than his and I was about an inch taller. They said it was our manner that was the same, the walk, the talk, the laugh. This suited and amused us; I suppose we were in love with our own image. We could do anything. Everything we touched turned to gold or music. Both of us in the same room produced a constant buzz of trouble, sex, good liquor, and admiration or jealousy bordering on awe.

That was a long time ago. If I met the person we were on the street now, I'd probably kill them just to be on the safe side.

It's odd how trivial a turning point can be, traced to its source, and how much it comes to in the end. Random won a woman in a duel. Yes, really, an illegal street duel fought with ugly short knives. Random was hardly sober enough to stand and I was too stoned to help him, so he was lucky, I guess. He'd requested a some torchy jazz tune be dedicated to a woman by the bar, one of his future victim's stable, as it happened.

When he was done he came back in, declared his undying love for her, and fell down stone drunk. I remember her laughing, and my thought, "She's too drunk herself to realise what's just happened. We have got to get out of here."

I couldn't get rid of her, even when I shouldered Random and headed for the door. As it turns out we'd done her a favour by removing her pimp from the picture. She'd been skimming, and she was pretty sure he was catching on.

For the most bizarre couple of weeks, Random spent every waking moment with her. Genevieve was her street name, and until much later I didn't know her real one. He dolled her up, and she returned his attention with a more than professional zeal, though at first I doubted it.

They were in love. Random consulted me about 'another Texorami wedding -- I love these women!' which I admit hit me low for a few days.

It happened. I played with the band for their reception, something I'd done for him on so many Shadows in so many 'wealthy widow' joints I can't count them all, though this time I wasn't casing the guests for suspicious bulges, and I didn't have the adrenaline high from being committed to an outrageous and dangerous lie. I didn't see the happy couple for nearly a week afterwards, though they didn't go on holiday. Random wore a daft grin around for ages like a teenager who'd only just learned what his dick was for.

For a while, his happiness was contagious. And Genevieve was so vital and there. I liked her. She could be both stylish and crass as the mood suited her.

Maybe six months later Random and I were in that same bar together where he'd first espied her. I was working the crowd after the gig and had maybe three hot prospects for late evening company. After sowing the seeds of hope in their girlish hearts I rejoined Random at our table near one of the speaker stacks.

We went through the girls' merits, various interesting and aesthetic combinations, talked music and sex and drugs and sex and politics and sex so comfortably it was just like we were on the move together again. My brain kicked in when he ordered our next round. Genevieve wasn't here. She ought to be here; she had been many times, laughing it up with us and one-upping Random's rude anecdotes. "Hey, Random," I said soberly. I remember this clearly. "Genevieve would say we're taking this joke too far."

"Genevieve's not here."

I got up, bothered. Analytically looking back it's obviously something to do with re-living my loss of my mother, blah blah blah, but at the time I hadn't a clue. I was angry, almost violently angry, with Random for being Random. In the Gents I ran cold water over my hands and splashed my face. By the time I got back he had one of the girls we'd been eyeing under the table. I left.

Over a next couple of months Genevieve started noticing Random's distance. She bore up. "The honeymoon's over, kid," she'd tell me. Afternoons if Random was off somewhere I'd teach her hang-gliding or spec her on one of Random's better scams or tell her about other Shadows. She wanted to know everything she could about him, so she could, when he finally settled down, make it last. I didn't tell her about my mother except to say she'd died a long time ago, which was the truth.

When Random started making plans for us to move on in a couple weeks' time, I found myself morbidly fascinated by this repetition of history. He suddenly made time to be with Genevieve again; he even told me he thought this trip would 'just be a dash out for a last taste of the life'. A couple of times he kidnapped Genevieve from the jewelry shop he'd set her up with just to spend the afternoon. And she knew it for the ploy it was. As soon as he'd leave for the night she'd come straight to me, finding me in whatever hangout I was frequenting, fishing for information about his plans.

By three days before I knew we'd be gone, I couldn't keep the truth from her. She was desperate. Truth was, I didn't want to leave Texorami, I told myself then. Truth was, I know now, I didn't want to leave her. So I told her we were going back into Shadow.

She nodded as if that was the answer she expected. "Does he expect me to wait for him?"

I couldn't answer.

She nodded again, and sipped her drink, Sapphire gin and lime, with only a slight tremor. She put it down and wiped her lips with the back of her hand, started to speak, cleared her throat, faced me, and began again, "Do you want to go?"

I couldn't answer.

She smiled. I died. She stood and came around the high table. She took my hands, which could have been made of wood for all the control I had over them, and pulled me off my barstool. "Take me home," she said.

This was Genevieve: blonde hair cropped close to show the grace of her long neck; collarbones revealed over strapless midnight blue; long legs draped in satin; a diamond anklet; lips a bit too full; the perfect combination of experience and need. But there was more; she was in love, perhaps with Random, perhaps just with the idea of him, but in any case also with me, and that made all the difference.

She didn't tell me she was expecting Random back that night. I don't blame her for that; she wanted to hurt him in some small way as much as she needed me for comfort.

He opened the door on us and stood, for a moment, silhouetted in the light from the hall. For a bizarre moment I thought he was going to join us. After a time in which we all were frozen in place, he said, "Ah. When you're finished, then," and left.

When I got up and dragged my trousers on, Genevieve sat up in bed and with her forefinger touched my sternum. "I do want you to stay. Or I'll come with you, if you'll leave him."

When I reached the living room he was sitting in one of the deep leather sofas, smoking a cigar and blowing poisonous blue rings at the ceiling. "Good work. You almost missed your shot," he said without looking at me.

"Random . . ." I began with absolutely no idea of what the rest of the sentence would be.

"She was mine."

I sat across from him so I could see his face. "You were leaving her."

"No, dammit, I was not. I told you I was coming back and I meant it."

It wasn't what I'd thought he'd say, and I was left with no rejoinder. "That's not the way it looked to me."

"You saw what you wanted to see. What did you say to her to get her into bed with you? Or did you just have to meet her price?"

If I'd been a fraction faster, the marble ashtray would have hit him square across the bridge of the nose and Amber would never have had him for King. But I wasn't that fast, then, and in truth I'm glad of it. As it was a gash opened up over his right eyebrow pouring blood down that half of his face. He didn't even get up. He just sat staring at me, his face pale where it wasn't gaudy with blood.

He spoke, his voice calm and low. I'd only ever heard him use that voice on men who cheated him at cards, dead men. "An interesting choice of outfit for walking the Pattern in, Daniel. Though you might get cold."

"What?"

"We're going to take a little ride, now, and you're going to walk the Pattern and get the hell out of my life."

In spite of the fact that the depth of his emotion was obvious, I could not believe he was serious. In hindsight, of course, I can see that he was right about me. In spite of his dalliances, he did love Genevieve, and he would have come back to her in time this time. The evidence was all there in the nature of his plans; I just didn't want to see it at the time.

"Get up," he said from that same, still place. "Get the fuck up before I change my mind and just kill you right here."

"Random?" Genevieve stood at the entrance to the room, wrapped in one of Random's terry towels.

"The slut speaks." She blushed, furious. I saw Random flinch from his own words. I was beginning to understand that he still loved her. He continued, "You haven't got up yet, kid. The idea of you dying with the stink of my wife on you is starting to have some appeal."

Genevieve was a statue in a tableau.

I stood, because it wouldn't get any better while we sat here in this room watching steam come out of each other's ears. Maybe on the way to the Pattern . . .

Random stood also and took my arm. "This way." He didn't even do Genevieve the favour of holding the shift until we were out of her sight.

In spite of Random's close scrutiny I could not walk out of there without looking back. I smiled at Genevieve gently, trying to give the impression that I'd work something out and be right back. As the Shadow veils fell between us I saw her mouth the words, "Don't leave me." Whether that was a plea to me or Random or both of us, I'll never know.

I tried several times to talk to Random in the two hour Hell-ride he led me through. In that time the only thing he said was, "Two of us is too much of a good thing." I was still sure it was all a mistake, that it would work out, we'd go back, I'd give up Genevieve (no! a part of me yelled) or not, whatever Random wanted. Things would be what they were again. In my youth I could not believe that anything could turn to shit for us. Random and I, we were made better than that.

I kept believing it right through Castle Amber, which I barely noticed, and through my initiation to the Pattern, where I saw the whole truth and felt the world fall mercilessly on all the petty facts of my life so far.

In the centre, dazed and panting, I looked to Random for some guidance. "Tell it to take you the fuck away from me." There were tears on his face with the blood that had dried there.

Knowing he had too much pride to return to her now, I thought of Genevieve and asked to go to her. Nothing happened. Embarrassed, I called across the sea of sparks, "How?"

Exasperated, he blustered, "Just think of someone or someplace and will yourself there."

I tried again with no result. "Um, I did."

He nodded. "She's dead, Daniel. Time. I slowed it as we rode to be sure. I couldn't go back there with her waiting."

"Oh." I do believe that was my stunning response to this news. I willed myself to a hotel lobby in Shadow Ventia where I remember getting some very fine cocaine once. I arrived exhausted, and the dealer wasn't there, and the room I got on such short notice was cramped and over-hot.

The things I've learned since then, come to grips with -- I am not the man I was, as they say. I found and committed myself to this Shadow, just a stumbling, accidental walk from Ventia, which I now know is part of Amber's Golden Circle. I've given my people the taste for knowledge and taken them to the stars, and in the process come down a bit myself. Okay, come down by 60 years, give or take, my appetites more in control, my ambition more directed.

I've watched the little dance between Eric and his brothers from a distance, and spent some time deciding between murdering Random in his prison cell or helping him escape. Time and circumstance brought the Black Road and the war before the sticking point of that decision, and I realised that, whatever Amber meant to me, I couldn't leave her to sink in the mire of Patternfall. Unobserved in the background, I threw myself in.

There was plenty to do in the supply lines: ugly work and bad fights and unspeakable, unprepared-for battles; and I suppose I did pretty well there -- saved some lives, paid some dues -- it's all I had hoped for. Managed to keep out of the light, though maybe it's time to come back in.

Funny how, when two men owe each other, the debt doesn't just zero out. Each has its own life and must be paid its own way.