"Ballad.  That's a beautiful name for a beautiful woman.  Quite fitting for a princess.  I'm quite new to Amber, and know not what Arden is, but indeed it is I who is at your service, Princess."

  Lance reaches out, takes Ballads hand gently (if she allows it), bows deeply and kisses the back of her hand softly before rising.

  "Flora was just about to show me something amazing and awe inspiring down here, but I imagine it will now seem eclipsed, having met you, Princess."

Flora looks mildly amused.

The guard looks a little crushed, probably thinking Ah, right then, there goes any chances I might have remotely dreamed I had there... Back to reality... Or rather, back to lonely daydreams...

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting—a couple of extroverts!

Ballad does allow Lance to take her hand; studious, when he kisses it, because this must be the custom of his shadow. Ballad is usually adept enough at brazening through. Confidence! Self-assurance! A will to take pleasure in a moment! He's pretty enough he's welcome ot keep her hand, too. The laughter stays in her eyes.

“You are charming. Why, I do endeavor to inspire more awe than a dungeon cell,” Ballad says, with every appearance of sincerity; she is, however, teasing. ‘Amazing’ and ‘awe inspiring’ is certainly (probably) the Pattern Room. “Just ‘Ballad,’ if you please, Lance. Are you going back into shadow once your tour is complete?"

A gesture, indicating his backpack. Ballad is ready to, at a moment's notice, rope Trent and Flora properly into the conversation. Extroversion!

  Lance smiles.  "And you succeed, Ballad.  Oh, the backpack.  Just a few things I brought with me.  We really just arrived, within the hour.  I wasn't planning on leaving anytime soon, and even less so now.  Too much to see and learn here!  I mean, this place is magnificent!  Secret stairwells. beautiful princesses, hard working castle guards, and a real dungeon!!  I mean, I've only seen a fraction of what there is to see here, and it's all been amazing so far.  Oh, and speaking of hard working guards, you haven't introduced your friend here."

  My gods, she's adorable.  Cousin though...damn!  Wait, who is Julian, and who are his full siblings?

  He extends his hand to shake with the guard.  "Who might you be, good sir?"

"I am the guard posted down here. My name is Trent, m'lord," the fellow says glumly.

How people were standing: Ballad and Trent; Lance and Flora. Lance took Ballad’s hand, now holds his out to Trent; Ballad—who really seems fairly happy, energized by the crush of people—shifts so she is standing nearer the stairs and her aunt, also allowing Flora and Lance better access to the guard and what he’s guarding. Her lantern is a halo.

“He is very helpful, and a knowledgable guide,” Ballad says, throwing Trent some good word-of-mouth.

But to Flora (or Lance! Truly, Ballad is an everybody-jump-in conversationalist) she says--openly curious--"Are you just showing him the, er, thing the family keeps in the basement which is awe inspiring and amazing," (if "the Pattern" is a surprise, Ballad's not ruining it for anything) "or does he mean to assay it now?"

"Just a preview," says Flora. "He's a little tired to take a try at it right now... but I thought that as long as we were on a tour anyway, that I would show him what it is that's so important... since when we're ready to leave, I can use Random's card to pull us back upstairs once more, so we don't have to go back up all those stairs again... You're invited on that offer of skipping-stairs too, dear," Flora makes clear to Ballad.

  Lance chuckles.  "Well, to be fair it's not every day that you have some grey skinned alien try to gut you for no apparent reason, so today is just sightseeing.  Tomorrow is to be the real test.  So Ballad, if you'd care to join us, I'd be overjoyed.  Trent, if your duties allow, I'm sure your guidance would be welcome as well."

"My duties allow, m'lord."

Flora heads off down the tunnel.

Various other tunnels are passed, but the group of four moves in pretty much a straight line... until they reach a great, dark, metal-bound door.

From a pocket, Flora produces a key. "All of us in my generation were given our own key to this door," she tells Lance. "I don't have a spare... I'll see about getting you one..."

She unlocks the door. Opens it... and extinguishes the lantern she carries. Trent extinguishes his, as well.

The glow within this chamber is from the Pattern itself. When eyes adjust, you see it in the center of the room. It appears as a shining, shimmering mass of curved lines, inscribed into the stone floor, lines that fool the eye as it tries to trace them.

https://img00.deviantart.net/3...darkmane-d4yxb4l.jpg

https://vignette.wikia.nocooki...st?cb=20100806021454

https://img00.deviantart.net/3...r_by_crimsongear.png

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f9/7...-ambre-labyrinth.jpg



"To a Amberite non-royal, the lines are almost blinding," says Flora. Indeed, Trent is shielding his eyes. "To anyone not of Amber, they are not only bright, but hypnotic, as well. This room is not for casual visitors."

The Pattern begins in the far corner. "From there," says Flora, pointing, "the walker places one foot down carefully after the other, until-- after expending great physical, and emotional energy-- the Pattern’s center is reached. Upon reaching the center, the walker, by an act of will, can go, instantly, to any desired location-- upstairs, to the castle, or to the docks, or to anywhere on Earth, or to any of the Golden Circle kingdoms, or to any other Shadow-- anywhere. But only those whose veins bear the blood of Amber may walk the Pattern and live."

"After completing the Pattern for the first time," she sighs, "one may be taught to walk-- or ride-- between Shadows on one's own..."

Who’s Ballad to say her aunt and cousin nay? Ballad is as curious and interested in the walk this second, less meandery time as she was the first time, and she occasionally touches a wall, peeks down at a tunnel, marking steps in her head.

She sets her lantern down just outside the door, so there's a beacon of light in the tunnel beyond the eerie glow coming from the open Pattern Room. She does stare at the Pattern, too, tracing its curves with her eyes.

"It seems an awful lot of effort to project yourself just upstairs, unless you mean to be dastardly," Ballad says, with the quick flash of a smile.

Ballad is a lady of action so further into the room she goes! She means to get perilous close to the design. The leisure to study it is novel; Ballad means to enjoy it, although she is also curious (she is always curious) about Lance's reaction, so attempts to divide her attention a little.

"Hello, Pattern," says she, quietly and privately, just Ballad and the Pattern. "Long time since we were last intimate."

Circle, circle. Ballad peers at the ceiling above the Pattern--does it have a ghost Pattern, burned into stone?--and pokes here and there before drawing close to Flora, Lance, and Trent again.

"What do you think, Lance? What adventure do you want to find first, once you walk through Shadow?"

  It's a solid minute of staring slack-jawed in wonder before Lance exclaims "Whoa.....that... is...soooo...cool!"

  Lance stares at it in wonder, trying to take it all in.  Then begin the questions.  "So do you follow the line, or cut across them?  What makes it light up like that?  How does it work?  Do you have to know where you want to go for it to send you someplace?  Is it like an astral projection kind of thing where you go but your body stays here?  How did it get here?  Who made it?  Is it magic, or science?  Can I touch it?"


  When Ballad asks him what adventures he wants to find, he shrugs.  "I really don't know.  I mean, every day is an adventure, isn't it?  Every person you meet, every place you go has the potential to be something incredible.  Have you walked it?  Where did it take you?"

"You definitely follow the line," said Flora. "As for the rest: Magic, magic, you have to know the sort of place you want to go for it to send you somewhere... with the exception of Coral, who trustingly told the Pattern to send her anywhere it wanted her to be... I advise you not to do that. It's not like astral projection-- you go somewhere else, body, mind, and all. Dworkin drew the Pattern. It's magic, as far as I know. Don't touch it."

Ballad sounds wistful. “Yes, I have. And as I stood at its center, exhausted but happy—you feel it in your marrow, you know, in your bones and your heart—I had just come from a tempting conversation with a, hm, a stranger who seemed to know me well, although I did not know them. They described where we met and things I was very curious about, so that description was in my mind." Ballad claps her hands together. "Ahoy, strange Shadow!"

Even just in this truncated retelling, there's this sense of Ballad: quicksilver impulsivity, measured recklessness. "It was fortunate Dad gave me a rigorous primer on the basics before I walked, else I might have been thoroughly lost. We both expected me back in Arden.”
This message was last edited by the player at 02:41, Thu 04 June 2020.

  Lance walks around, looking at the Pattern from various angles, not getting too close.

  "I know not where I'd go, for I haven't been many places.  Just the journey here, and the world where I grew up in, but I'm not sure I'd know how to find my way back from there....and there is so much here yet to explore, so much wonder....so much beauty."  With the last he turns and gazes back from where he stands that he can see both Ballad and Flora.

  "So much beauty." he whispers to himself a second time.

  Lance turns back and regards the Pattern once again, walking around it farther, towards the far side where it begins.  He touches the spot where the grey man had stabbed him.  It was a little sore, but nothing that wouldn't heal with a good night's rest.  From the way that Flora had described it, walking the Pattern was an extreme test, one which he had best be fully prepared for.

  He stands tempted, but finally continues his walk around, back to where the others are.

  "Tomorrow, after a hearty dinner this evening, a good night, and breakfast in the morning, I will do this thing."

"Well then," says Flora. "Anything else? Other questions? If not, shall we head back up upstairs...?"

  Lance shakes his head, and walks back to Flora.  "No other questions for now, although I may think of some by tomorrow.  Ballad, are you coming with, or are you taking the long way up?"  He extends his hand in invitation to his newly met, fabulous cousin.

Flora, too, looks at Ballad, perhaps interested to see if Ballad will have any questions, or mention anything else down at this level worth discussing.

Lance’s response to the Pattern has chased away the wistfulness; replaced it with an air of Taking Pleasure and Gladness, because she finds the dramatic declaration pleasing, the conjuration of ‘beauty’ pleasing, and Ballad seems to wear her feelings on her sleeve.

No questions for Flora about the Pattern.

"Of course I shall come with you! I don't want to see you vanish into air and brightness so soon after we've just met." Ballad: gracious. She gives Trent a fare-thee-well waggle of fingers, earlier statement about adventure and city still standing.

And so, all ready to go! If it's hand by hand by hand then of course Ballad will take Lance's with a mischievous side-look once Flora gets things started.

Flora takes the card she'd shown Lance earlier out of a pocket, and she looks at it. "...Random? I took Lance down to see the Pattern. I thought he had a right to see what he'd be up against, ahead of time. Do me a favor and pull us back up? I'd do it for you..." she coos.

Apparently the answer is yes, because she reaches out for Lance's hand. "Oh, and niece Ballad was here, too. Pull us all to you, please...?"

Hands are joined, and there is a shimmer, and the light becomes brighter, and everyone (but Trent) is in a hallway just outside the library. "The guard will replace the lanterns we took down," Flora says idly.

"What did you think of the Pattern?" Random asks Lance.

  Lance upon seeing Random once again takes a knee, and still holding Ballads hand answers, “Well, it’s pretty inspiring, and a little bit frightening.  Where I grew up, Magic was just slight of hand, smoke and mirrors, special effects.  This...this is real, and potentially lethal, and beautiful.  It represents our family.  It commands awe, and respect, and it’s the biggest challenge of my life.  I suspect that after tomorrow I’ll understand it a little bit more, but never entirely.”

  Somewhere he registers that he’s talking as much about his newfound family as much as he is Amber and the Pattern.  Interesting.

  He gives Ballad’s hand a slight squeeze.  His hand is warm, perhaps a touch sweaty.

  “Like all else here, it’s beauty is beyond measure, and certainly my words could never express it adequately though I might try for the rest of my life to do so.  There’s so much that I want to see and explore and learn about.   I believe I’ll need someone to help guide me for a while so that I don’t miss anything.”

At that, Flora glances at Lance, at where he's still holding Ballad's hand, then glances at Random.

Random seems to be thinking something similar, though neither of them says anything as such...

Ballad is very still as she acclimates to Here (hallway outside the--library, is it?) instead of There (the eldritch brightness of the Pattern and the gloom of the dungeons). Lance going immediately to his knee, still holding her hand, causes her to glance at him with bemusement, then look all curious and bright-eyed from Lance to Random to see how her uncle takes this. Does he like it? Seem to notice it at all?

Ballad does not follow suit. Only, when Random looks at her, gives her uncle a sunshine-y spark of a lopsided smile, and quirks an eyebrow if he still hasn’t told Lance to rise. She squeezes Lance’s hand back (supportive!), then extricates her hand.

Were those significant glances getting shared? Ballad is not an oracle of significant glances.

However, she says with an air of Dashing Aplomb: "How dare you, Lance! And me, standing right here. Say 'want' rather than 'need' and you're welcome to join me. I was on my way to the city when you two wandered into my path. Or, should it please Princess Florimel and Uncle Random, I could play guide tomorrow."
This message was last edited by the player at 22:49, Sun 07 June 2020.

  Surprised by Ballad's response, Lance takes a few seconds before replying.

  "Of course, cousin, you are correct.  Need is perhaps the wrong word.  I've spent a lot of time travelling on my own over the last thirteen years, seen some wonderful and amazing sights, but without anyone to share them with they tend to have less luster and magic about them.  It's like having marvelous photographs without anyone to show them to.  So yes, I want very much to share the beauty and splendor of this place with someone, and if you'd be so inclined I would be very much honored.  If you choose not to, I will find my way around.  I might get lost or miss seeing something amazing, but I will somehow find my way."

Ballad listens to Lance and it is true that she does not quite manage to be solemn; still, she is attentive. So yes, he says, I want, and she beams. "It will be my pleasure, Lance."

If Lance is still on his knee, Ballad offers her hand again to help him up. "Although I will warn you that, though I may play guide, the emphasis is on 'play.' I haven't spent very much time in Amber at all."