From the Boss' point of view, it all started with a mysterious woman calling him in the middle of the night. That's utterly incorrect of course, but that is the Boss for you. He wouldn't know the truth if it walked in and sat on his lap. In reality, it began with Corwin and Deidre, Lord and Lady of Amber. They couldn't keep their hands off one another, despite the fact they were brother and sister. So it was that hot hands and wet nights resulted in Sarah, a daughter. That is the real beginning of this history.
Sarah was born on the same shadow Earth that Corwin resided in for so long, but she was 'lost' by her father during the Black Plague of the 13th century. Sarah grew up there knowing nothing of her Amberite background, despite skipping out to a few nearby Shadows by accident every now and then. Finally, she learned magic and plane traveling and headed out on her own.
After several hundred years of reasonable life, Sarah's world was shattered by the arrival of a motley band of characters in her supposedly secret home in the Shadow of Faerie. She had actually constructed this made Shadow herself, having learned by this time that her magical talent for creation was extremely strong. This was the time traveling crowd that Ziactrice had sent back … but she will pay for that later.
Sarah fell in with them, and with Weylin and Darcy Keenan most of all. They shared a bit of dalliance in the gardens of Faerie. All parties enjoyed themselves; too well. A bit of flux used at precisely the right instant, and Randolph was conceived. Not that any of the principals knew it at the time; Ziactrice may not be able to lie, but she can leave holes in the truth quite well. I hadn't thought her ruthless enough to do what was necessary to Weylin, to make this past occur. Not that it will help her; I'll just make sure she pays for it by dying only after seeing the suffering she herself has caused. It hurts her more deeply than my own doings.
This time traveling bunch headed out finally, after destroying Sarah's home in Faerie and dragging her hither and yon across the multiverse. Before they left, Weylin brought up a shadow analog of his named Blake, as a sort of guilt assuaging gigolo for Sarah. Fortunately, I was there by this point, and got to drink of the distraught emotional storm Weylin loosed upon 'losing' the 'fake' Sarah. Amazing what a few guiding remarks on the nature of Trump can engender, now isn't it?
Sarah found out she was pregnant a short time after Weylin left, when she was running for her life. Old Ones, ancient creatures created by primordial chaos, were chasing her. She had Randolph literally on the run. While visiting George on a low magic Earth, a servitor cultist managed to send a Death Ninja upon her. Despite Herth's intervention in the fight, Sarah was near-fatally wounded in the resultant contest of blades. I was even worried she might die with Randolph, rather than just after. I had little doubt at that point the wounds would eventually prove mortal.
Unfortunately, with Herth present, I couldn't interfere directly and make sure. Suffice to say, she decided to leave little Ran with the only friend she'd ever managed not to get killed; George Scott. George was probably the only man she'd ever met that didn't want anything from her and simply helped out. It took me a long time to discover just what George was, but that's another history.
Note from your scribe, Reginald:That's how the Boss got this start in life, dumped on a low magic plane with his mother running like a madman. She stopped in now and again when she had the time; we all did. But Sarah also lived out 800 years of life in faster shadows. She fought, loved, and kept the Old Ones at a distance from Randolph while George brought him up.
Actually, according to verification of this writing with James, the one Patterned person I felt I could entrust with this writing, Meg is simply lying here. She knew that Sarah had been taken to the Fleet universe by Herth. There, even the superior technology combined with Herth's superb skills as a healer, it took 57 years to finally get her healed. Blake remained locked with her mind. Both Sarah and Blake dreamed together as the years passed; Blake's determination to keep her with him the real reason she survived, according to James. I haven't yet had a chance to inquire about it with Herth while Randolph was not in residence.
Finally, however, she got caught.
Again, is Meg lying. Or at least, I prefer and think more logically supported the version James has related to me. Blake and Herth got "caught". Sarah was in mid-rescue using both Lens and Helm when Blake, bound and helpless to move, was threatened by a "disintegration" weapon. Her own weapon empty, and other recourses unavailable, she chose to fling herself before him to take the weapon's force herself. Blake ordered Herth to stop her; thus ensuring his own demise. Herth, though likewise bound, still had enough psionic strength to paralyze her for an instant.
Of course, Blake actually narrowly escaped his own true death, but no one knew that until much, much later. I doubt Meg ever really realized his survival was the first step on the road to her own doom.
Blake got killed and Sarah snapped. She tried to kill herself by walking the Amber Pattern and that launched all of Us. We're a multiple personality group, and as loony as toons. I know because I'm her, a part of her at least. The best part I think. Certainly the most fun part. Zia and all of Us came to a reasonable set of Terms and We even cooperated some.
"Of course, Meg wasn't REAL until after Weylin tried to heal Zia's mind several months ago in Camber. When he coalesced them to four, Meg was one of the ones he choose to create. Not realizing that before that point, it'd been Zia acting in Meg's role by way of a duplicate android body called a Term." James explains to me, as he reads this. "After that, however, Meg wasn't effected by time, so could return to the past, and do whatever she wanted. It was her attempt to destroy Zia and ruin Ran that finally made the other persona 'turn' on her, and Zia map out the route of her "undoing" at the hands of Weylin, Ran, and Herth."
Sarah still checked in on Randolph occasionally, while the rest of us led our own lives. Until we got into time travel that is. That was a bit sticky. We ended up back in time, creating the shadow Earth Ran lived on, becoming God and watching the Fall of the Angels. This wouldn't have been so bad, except we knew what Randolph was turning out like and Lucifer ended up being a shadow analog of him. Luc was way too charming. That led to all sorts of fun and games. But enough about me. Us. Whatever.
So Randolph was growing up with George and his wife Cynthia, in a place called Monfort, Missouri. It was a piss-ant backwater town is a piss-ant backwater shadow. I still can't believe George gave everything he had up to become a baker and raise kids. Sarah can be pretty persuasive sometimes. That and George is a pretty good guy. George and Cynthia already had two kids, George Jr. and Alan. A new baby didn't even cause a blink in those days and ages, most kids were still being born at home. George ran his little pastry bakery and Cynthia was a housewife. No one would have ever suspected that an Amberite lived there. Which was the idea of course. George and Cynthia had another kid a few years after Ran showed up, Karen, solidifying the illusion. The other two kids were solid if uninspiring, but Karen had George's spark.
Randolph was, not surprisingly, considered a problem child. He had Sarah's natural ability at charm and used it at every opportunity. George and Cynthia both turned out to be immune to it however, imagine that. He was held back in the fourth grade two times. Indeed, Randolph was not a recognized as a particularly bright child, although his natural charm made him quite popular. In reality he was screwing his teacher who didn't want to let him go for fear of losing him to the fifth grade teacher. Naturally, Randy was in hog heaven and would have been happy to stay in the fourth grade forever. George had to get her fired to allow Ran to move up in school. I, of course, followed his true education with interest, in between other projects, and made sure that he would find his efforts well-rewarded.
Ran grew quickly; I'd made sure to keep the local magic level higher than the general. The dragons about helped as well, of course; they couldn't tolerate it low either. The two efforts worked together wonderfully; Ran was man-tall at twelve. He often did odd jobs for the wives around the town, and kept himself in spending money and bed partners. Randolph was able to convince many of the wives that he was simply the greatest thing since Tupperware. It took a bit of work on Sarah's part to make sure he didn't get anyone pregnant. Now that was enjoyable to watch her and George scramble to keep up with him, especially on those rare occasions he did something overboard enough to embarrass her in front of George. That took some doing, but Ran had a lot of natural talent. Randolph's ability to charm and sweet-talk people was amazing, even more powerful than Sarah's.
The funniest occurrence was when Randolph laid his (foster) aunt, Cynthia's sister, Beverly. Bev was ready to steal young Randolph off to Europe; she had already given him a great deal of money. Cynthia took it pretty poorly; she was ready to shoot him. Worst luck, though, before I could see what his powers would do to Cynthia to save his hide, George and Sarah managed to get things straightened out. Unfortunately, Randolph was watched much more carefully after that. That's where I got into the picture. I was on the Shadow Earth anyway, for reasons of my own, and started to look after the Boss more closely. It was easier than a full cover with them watching like that, too.
Reginald notes, 'This is also where James states she began to slowly poison Ran, trying several varieties, and minor brainwashing techniques.'
George was solid and dependable as foster father (although we never told Randolph who he really was). He bollixed several of Randolph's schemes. Like the time he tried to become mayor of Monfort. Ran was 14 and got his name on the ballot by bribing officials. He was running pretty strong (women having gotten the vote just the year before) until George found out what was up. He got a legal injunction against Randolph and brought in a federal judge (Randolph had the local one by the balls) to enforce it. Randolph was locked up for extortion and fraud and George was looking to have him do some hard time, as an object lesson. I passed on the skinny to Sarah, who went soft and bailed him out under the nom de plume of Mrs. S. Rose.
James' comment on this was, "Actually, I do believe 'tormented Zia with the fact a son of her flesh, if not her own SELF, was in jail' would be closer to an accurate portrayal. At this time, Sarah was no longer directly available. And Meg was bedeviling Zia something quite fierce."
There was another time, when Randolph decided to take over the Bank of Monfort. Somehow he'd managed to get a floozy to pool all of his cash and invest it. He was wealthy before anyone figured out what was going on. Randolph took the cash and bought out the bank owner using a front business. George figured it out when he got a mortgage foreclosure on the bakery. That took a bit of undoing, Randolph had a pretty good lawyer. Sarah had to kill him.
"Since Sarah was submerged from shortly after the Logrus walk up until Ran reawakened her in the course of that Dreamhealing adventure, I imagine that this was probably Herth in disguise, or Blake taking over Morgan's mind and shapeshifting abilities to fool Meg and scare her a bit more cautious. Considering Zia's distress with Meg at the time, I would favor the latter." James commented.
Not that I understand his full reference. Perhaps I shall ask Ran to dictate something on this dream-healing adventure James refers to.
I'm not sure that Randolph ever understood what was wrong with what he did. Ah, well, understanding isn't required. He has such a native talent for evil that I don't understand why the others even still bother opposing me. Although, the Boss was pretty much a dilettante, lazy to the core except when he was working one of his own schemes. About the only thing he'd shown interest in was music, and he was damned good. But he was too lazy to shoot for a concert life.
George tried to get him to learn hand to hand combat, firearms and the blade, but Ran was pathetic in his efforts to avoid the work. Finally, George got a few toughs from the west-side and had them beat the crap out of Randolph. Sarah was all in favor, of course.
"Like fun, she was." James retorted upon reading this passage. "George never told her about that, I'd be willing to bet heavy money on."
I merely fixed him another martini, since I've long ago learned listening teaches more than asking questions. Nika made sure my training was very good and thorough.
That managed to get him interested in self preservation. He learned slowest and softest martial art George would teach him, Tai Chi. Ran did become a pretty good shot, though. The only thing it wasn't hard to get the Boss interested in, other than skirts, was magic. I stashed a small book of charms in a cave near Monfort. I made sure he dropped into the cave and he was off. The book was minor, but that didn't seem to matter. He devoured it. Ran was practicing the spells in just a few days. When Randolph earned a scholarship in debate and attended the Kansas City Law School, I stashed a few more magical books in the KC Law School Library, to keep him moving along the path to a master wizard. It was tough deciding what to let him learn. Charms weren't too tough, but Oracle chose summoning, said it would be good practice. Naturally, Randolph managed to convince the Board of Regents (in particular a Mrs. Janeway) that the entire library should be at his disposal at anytime. There, he experimented with magic and took his favorite dates. He excelled at school and graduated with honors, passing the Bar on his first attempt. Randolph was a natural at magic and loopholes, just like his mom.
It all came a bit too easily, though, always. As a result, the Boss is pretty much still lazy as sin. It takes quite a bit of kicking him in the ass to get him moving. That's going to be painful one of these days. For him. I can't wait to see it happen. Also, Randolph's Amberite heritage meant he was disgustingly lucky. Every break that could fall his way, did. It meant that weird things happened around him all the time, weird even for me. Once an angel fell into his lap, a Seraphim. Ran was delighted of course and promptly took her out to dinner. He started calling her Sera, which was a riot to me, and she took to watching out for him. A guardian angel all his own.
It's a good thing I like crepes. That and the thought of his face when I arrange her gruesome death one of these days. Make it look like Sarah did it, or Weylin. Or better yet, George. Killing a saint who is also your father would be JUST the right touch. Glad I wrote that idea down. The Boss is silly enough to think I don't know about an ANGEL being here. Like I'd really believe that line he tried about a long haired cat. Sometimes, I wonder if he'll ever be smart enough for what I have in mind. I guess we'll find out, or he'll die.
During the what was called the Great War in Randolph's home plane, Randolph joined the Army. He was too young, but he lied about his age and falsified papers. I got him assigned to the Intelligence Branch, because Sarah was afraid that he'd get shot up.
James snorts in amusement. "Again, Sarah wasn't around. I read this as: 'because I had PLANS for Ran, that didn't include him dying TOO soon,' actually, Reginald. Ah, thanks for the drink."
Turns out she was right. Randolph spent most of the war working breaking German codes, but eventually got bored. While none of Us were looking, he sneaked out and got a field assignment to Germany. Charmed his boss to get it, no doubt. It took Us months to find him, he had gone under so deep. He was smuggling code wheels back to the United States, while living high on the hog in Munich.
When I finally got there, his luck had finally managed to turn sour (even Amberites can push it too much) and he was in deep. The German Secret Police had him marked for assassination and got to him before I could. They shot him up a bit, but he managed to slip out Germany, chased every step of the way. The only good thing about it was I had been able to stash a few books of magic in Munich for him to find, beforehand. Maybe he would have made it clean, without lugging them along. Strange how these things work out, isn't it?
"Also strange how you could stash books in a place you supposedly didn't know where he was. And just how, I wonder, did those Germans catch on to Ran's double-cross?" James asks to himself; he sounds a bit annoyed.
Of course, I was the one who showed with the bandages when he really needed help. Not some prissy caroling angel. He'll remember that for a while, that she didn't come and help him. Of course, he doesn't know that they're not allowed to show themselves to most anyway, anytime. But it was quite entertaining to listen to him try calling her. Then resort to calling me, again. Of course, he'd called me first, but one has to make sure one is properly appreciated. Heh. I even got another syllable of his true name, THAT time. If he only knew I already know the whole thing. It's hard not to say so, just to savor the panic and despair on his face, in his emotions. But I will wait until there is no chance he can escape me, first.
After the war, Randolph started a law firm (Scott Legal Professionals) and began work as a trial lawyer. He never lost a case and quickly rose to renown as a lawyer. Randolph became a charter member of the Barrister's Club in Kansas City. It's also when he started to generate contracts with nether creatures. That gave me the opportunity I needed, and I summoned and cut a contract with him, posing as a succubus. I became his secretary.
"I wonder if Meg is lying again? Or did she really summon Ran? Now that would sting his pride. She would have enjoyed it, too. He tried to summon her in college, but Zia's attempt to turn Ran's interest away failed. Then Meg the true one showed, and we had all that difficulty in the Bahamas, then her with his athame... perhaps this is just when she insisted on moving in with him. Having gained MUCH more influence than any other demon, and Ran not having been quite foolish enough to allow any this close before? Hmmm." James said, then went back to his reading.
I just kept taking notes.
I didn't expect what happened. I'd never been subject to Randolph's charms. Not like Zia or even Sarah. It took everything they had to keep their hands off of him. But when I showed up and we cut a contract, I started calling him Boss. He asked me too, but I couldn't help it even if I didn't want too. He was too close to Luc. Or Luc too close to him. That's when we started plotting together, even though he didn't know it. I wasn't sure how long we had before the future Zia showed back up and the Boss was so damned lazy! I started to work on him right away. He'd have made one hell of a Prince of Hell, with the right woman behind him that is. He still might.
In the meantime, We were all wandering around and doing our thing. Zia, and Oracle got together and started to cheat. Sarah had sort of lapsed into the background after we all split out, except for the occasional checks on Randolph, and Oracle started to feed information to Ziactrice. Zia went over to the Inn of the Open Flame, a sort of interdimensional gathering place and mercenary emporium. She went there to find Professor Weylin Keenan, future husband, who had no idea who she really was. She also met Vanyel Whitehair, a sort of schitzo priest shapechanger, and a paladin by the name of Lathee. They all launched in to what came to be called the Immortal Hunt.
"Actually, Zia was created by Weylin's subconscious just before she showed at the Inn. So, the feeding of info, and person checking on Ran in between these times would have been Morgan or Herth. Or Blake, as he was free to transfer his awareness from mind to mind. Usually he remained in Morgan, however, as no other psi could possibly detect him there, and Morgan had no chance of actually noticing. Not that we were looking, or knew to look. Although even out-timed I had odd incidents of black-outs, those are common to most of us when another steps in too forcefully. Not expected when I was out of my own timeline. Perhaps it was Blake. Not that he'd admit it."
After that joke of an adventure, Zia had pretty much driven a ring through Weylin's nose. He was pathetic following her around. But that's not all that uncommon with US. Men do that. It can be funny if you lead them off a cliff. I did it once to the Boss, when he thought the deal we made had given him the edge, finally. But I did make sure there was water under that particular one. Waste not, want not. Besides, if he does need killing, I'll do it in my bed. If only to see his face when he rises again as a full vampire. But having him completely under my thumb wouldn't be as much fun.
As I was saying, the High Hunt group sort of started hanging out together. Vanyel had this ex-wife Sapphire and a goddess named Isha. Sapphire wanted her husband back and Isha wanted her high priest. Vanyel didn't want either of them and wasn't all that stable anyway. He turned to Weylin for help. After a few failed diplomatic efforts, Sapphire lost her temper and tried to kill Zia. Weylin took this poorly and went after Sapphire's entire planet. Weylin can be such a sweet guy at times. It's too bad I'll have to kill him, too. At least he'll enjoy it.
Vanyel managed to get Zia back on her feet and Isha managed to put Sapphire back together, or at least her clone back together. All of this resulted in some rather unpleasant arguments between Isha and Weylin and pretty much started the war.
That's when the Boss got his call in the middle of the night from that mysterious lady and things began from his perspective. Zia had gotten Weylin back and was returning to claim her son. I think she thought she was going to get a white picket fence and a loving little family, just like George had. Considering the son we'd raised I kept my trap shut on the likelihood of that.
So, the Boss takes this mysterious lady out to dinner. He never could resist a skirt and Zia looks like a lap kitten even when she's trying to cut your head off. Zia gamed him into joining up with Weylin to provide legal advice and contractual support. All for the price of a cheap bottle of wine. I don't think the Boss is ever going to forgive himself THAT lapse. I'll treasure the look on his face when I pointed it out to him forever, myself. Anyway, Ran had accepted Weylin's employment, although he still thought he'd be returning to Earth soon, and refused an offer to join the crew. I had a long laugh about that one.
Zia convinced Weylin that the only way to beat a god was to be a god. Weylin never much cared for gods, but would turn himself into a cockroach if that's what Zia wanted. So, he starts on the path to becoming Vengeance. He and Isha forge a limited agreement that they wouldn't try to clobber one another, although this was more for each of them to gain time so they could clobber each other better.
Meanwhile, Weylin's daughter Darcy had worked her father around to the point that she was able to convince him that he loved her. Not all that difficult, it only took a very large iron frying pan. Given that he also loved Ziactrice, they all just decided to get married. The ceremony was nice, I even sniffled myself a bit, even though they left out the blood-sacrifice.
The Boss kept his word and developed several contracts for Weylin while he worked at information gathering. The Boss is pretty tricky, but even he couldn't have known what was coming. Zia managed to do a Trump fortune-telling on Randolph which shook him. His other attempts at divination had gotten the diviners killed. When Ziactrice seemed to be able to pull it off, the Boss, bedrock of the universe, himself, was cracked. He wasn't sure that he knew who he was. It was truly hysterical.
The little band of adventurers, led by Lathee, went to Raven's Bluff and after some kidnapped kids. Unfortunately they ran into something far more dangerous. Isha had produced clones of Vanyel, Quentin (a member of Weylin's crew), and Micheal (Nail's husband). She'd also drummed up some souls from Lastel's and Mikael's past. Lastel's lost love and Mikael's demonic brother. All this was to keep the intrepid heroes occupied while Vanyel's clone deflowered Lathee and produced a child.
Lathee managed to resist Vanyel's combined charm and physical assault, with a little help from her friends. This ticked Isha and her backer, the mad god Cyric, off to no end and they tried to swamp the party with undead and demons. The pseudo-Vanyel used his priestly powers to call upon Vengeance, negating the tenuous agreement that Vengeance and Isha had forged. Which was what she'd planned all along, of course. A pretty fair plan. Lastel and Nail got them out, although Micheal's clone got killed holding back the hoards.
With the agreement broken, Isha launched an attack on Weylin using Fire Angles. The creatures attacked Weylin's spelljammer, the Memory. Weylin was new to his godly powers, but the combined force was able to defeat the angels. However, the Memory was killed by radiation. It's screams of pain as it died were VERY sweet.
The fight on the Memory convinced Weylin that he needed to gather more power in order to offset Isha and her new backer, Cyric. He and Zia came up with the idea to have him travel back in time so that he could build up worshipers. Also, so he could plant a spelljammer seed and grow a new Memory. On a side note, Zia needed him to go back in time to meet herself so she could birth Randolph. Not that she told him that.
Or the fact that she wouldn't exist unless she tore Sarah's mind apart, tormented Herth, tortured Blake with a slow and ugly descent into madness, and made sure he'd not know his only son until that son was already grown as a stranger to him. She knew, and she did it anyway. She may be a pacifist, but even I had to compliment her on the amount of pain she'd created with THAT action. Heh. She couldn't even hit me back - she can't hold the body against me. I'm stronger by far.
Weylin handled the trip back in time, taking Lathee, Randolph, Vanyel, Vanyel's clone Iivan, Nail and Micheal, plus Darcy and himself. They ended up in Sarah's home on Faerie and everybody got confused. Weylin and Darcy thought that Sarah was Ziactrice. Sarah immediately recognized Randolph but for all the wrong reasons, which I'd had a hand in. The Boss bears a striking resemblance to both Corwin and his brother Random. Sarah thought that he might have been Random in disguise. Everything was pretty topsy-turvy for awhile with Weylin and Darcy doing their best not to muck up the time-line by giving out too much information, Sarah trying to figure out who everyone was, and the Boss generally making a nuisance of himself by probing for information.
Weylin's lies fairly well broke down, as I'd planned. But he confessed to Sarah the whole of it. Sarah took it fairly well, mostly because she started to fall in love with Weylin herself. She even started to believe that she might actually BE Ziactrice. The three of them got Weylin's new spelljammer seedling started growing. The Boss saw what was going on, and knowing that Weylin HAD to return to his own time and leave Sarah behind, began to work to separate them.
First, he tried by enticing Sarah with thoughts of traveling to Amber. The boy has learned a lot under my tutelage, hasn't he? He even gave her a set of Trumps to see if she'd bite on going immediately. Second by convincing Weylin that he didn't really know anything about Sarah and getting him to mind probe her. This naturally resulted in Weylin mind-probing the Boss as well, something Randolph had already figured had occurred. The odd thing was, that the Boss actually liked Sarah quite a bit. He was beginning to fall in love. Or at least into intrigue with her. But he'd contracted with Weylin and that meant doing whatever to make sure Weylin succeeded. I enjoyed watching them both squirm under that mutual lash. Truly wonderful irony, I thought. Ran was convinced that Weylin would leave a part of himself behind in one way or another for Sarah. It turned out he was right; Weylin left Blake and Herth. Which probably saved the multiverse, worst luck.
As all this was going on, Vanyel kept pressing Randolph about being an Amberite. The Boss was dead-set against it, and fought all the mounting evidence. However, when Faerie was destroyed by thousands of Shogguths and a huge black wave, everyone had to get out in a hurry. Sarah got everyone onto her star ship, Babe. Then she and Randolph managed a shadow-walk with Weylin's godly assistance.
Ran picked the spot, which sent everyone back to the future and Randolph's home in Kansas City. I got everyone settled in, but weird things started right away. For some reason Sarah reacts badly to time travel and tends to start warping the reality around her. People started to experience random flashbacks from their past. Weylin put Sarah into a temporal stasis to stop the acceleration of weirdness, which turned her into a sort of towel rack. I couldn't stop laughing about that.
Another problem was that the Boss lived in low magic plane. Many of the crew were high magic creatures and were DYING there. I love the taste of slow death. Weylin and Randolph decided that they had to take a shot at trying to move again through shadows. It was fairly successful, only nearly killing Randolph. Weylin managed to get to one of his stashed spelljammers. A dwarvish citadel which he later named the Sarah. So the crew began a slow plane shifting trip towards the Circus, Ptah's massive library where they hoped to find more information on how to make Weylin a more powerful god.
About this time, the Boss broke down and contacted Random in an effort to reach the Amber Pattern. He'd given in to what he was and was determined to make the best of it. He and Weylin trumped over to meet Random and managed to convince him to let Randolph take a crack at the Pattern. Mostly it was the Randolph's similarity to Random which made this happen. Random thought Randolph was his son. The Boss made it to the Pattern and then just flipped a coin. He bet that he was an Amberite and that he could make it through. He was right and he did. I've looked for that coin several times. Randolph tossed it over the Pattern to Random but the Pattern made it disappear. I'm certain it's still out there somewhere. If I can find it, I can make some history myself.
While he was doing this, Weylin wandering around town and found himself a soul to save. It turned out to be a virgin girl and when he brought her back to Randolph, the Boss learned about his weakness to virgin blood. Close offspring of the Unicorn have this failing, they are drawn to virgins and try to de-virginifiy them. The Boss kept himself under control, but only barely and mostly by keeping away from her.
With Randolph to do the shadow walking for the group, they made better progress. The Boss was thrilled with his new-found abilities and started taking wild jaunts off into shadow. At first he went with me, but soon he started these trips with Nika. I wasn't too concerned at the time, waving a skirt in front of the Boss was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. But after the third or fourth time, I started to get worried. Not that she was spending so much time with him, women always did that. But that she'd ignore him pretty much totally after they got back. That's when I realized that she was after him.
As they traveled through the planes, the group ran into a few bumps and jars. Notably, they got themselves in a plane where gods had no corporeal bodies and didn't interact with people. This was highly annoying to Weylin to say nothing of how Darcy took not being able to touch anyone. It also sent them plummeting towards a planet. Iivan managed to control the fall, but only barely. Then Cyric and Isha managed to pick up on where they were through "tags" on Lathee and myself. Mine was deliberate naturally. I wanted them banged around enough for MY plans to have a chance to succeed. Cyric sent a Primal Chaos creature, a black blob that tried to devour the citadel while everyone was working on the spelljammer seed. Pretty good timing on their part.
Imagine my surprise when the Boss got into Sarah's space ship and attacked it. He did a suicide run at the thing and destroyed it, just getting away by wildly shadowshifting. Must be Zia's weakness leaking over; he was never that stupid before her. It was everything I could do to make sure he ended up back at home and not in some crazy chaos plane. The other's got away with only Dana getting killed and Lathee ending up a bit stir crazy from trying to touch the mind of the black blob. Of course, the Boss didn't thank me; he even was singing a HYMN. Of all the insults. He'll pay for that one. Soon.
For the next shadow shift, the Boss got a good idea. He does that on occasion, even all on his lonesome sometimes. Not too often; usually I have to prod him. He figured if he dreamed up a shadow which was "awaiting the return" of a god, he could create a ready made group of worshipers that Weylin could draw upon. It worked like a charm. Weylin got an entire planet full of rabid fanatics and Darcy also managed to ascend as Death. A pretty fair trick on Randolph's part. I told you.
He will be a damned evil Prince of Hell. Soon. Or rather, King. With a Queen. Then the Others will learn what it's like to burn, too.
The future, as We say, is history.
Megan Yaawenaeldles
"And I'm damned pleased that I can say you're history yourself, now, demoness." James notes in relief. "Thanks, Reginald. This should be safe for general purposes, but I don't know if Ran should read it or not. Probably wouldn't harm him, but since Nika died I just don't think he need the extra strain. I'll finish reading this later; I've got somewhen I have to be." He nods at the Trump of himself Reginald holds, and then shakes hands before heading back out of Camberlot Castle again.
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