By the time dinner has finished,, and everyone has returned to their rooms and then Natsuki, Rhiannon, and Cathal have gather themselves and are seated in the ante-chamber of Cathal's room the time is approaching 9pm.

All settled in Cathal's ante-chamber, Rhiannon noticed how it looked pretty much like her own. In that regard, it really didn't matter where they were.

"Well, it's quite easy actually. We will summon the pattern, as you know, walking it in the process. A successful run will have that image that only you can see, but you will notice that there is a void at the center. You should do this ahead of time, but orient yourself so that you can see in the direction of the abyss and the prism. Those have distinctive auras, that will shine at you like a beacon. If you can see that, then you know it's working right."

"As I said earlier, if you try to do anything like walk around, you'll probably lose the pattern, so it's best to get oriented now. I don't know if we'll be able to talk. The pattern lens will give you aura sight. We should be able to look at each other and see a colored aura. I am human and Amberite. Cathal has Chaos heritage. Natsuki, I'm afraid I don't recall all of your lineage. But we should be able to see those layers as colors and understand what they mean"

"Actually, Cathal, I don't know if we can see our own auras. Maybe they show up in mirrors? We can get one in her and test that. We might be able to just look down at ourselves as well. That's something else to experiment with. Shapeshifters, sorcerers, there may be other things we can't know just yet. I bet the unicorn, and the serpent have some interesting auras. But we can only start with what we have."

Rhiannon looked over at Natsuki, thinking. "And Cathal and I are both from Dublin, Ireland. I wonder if there might be a difference there as well."

"Cathal, could you bring in a mirror?"

"I would do if I knew where to get one. Certainly not one in here. We'll just have to manage without.."

"Right, well that was just an idea for seeing our own auras. It probably wouldn't work anyway. One thing at a time, I suppose, Let's just keep it simple. Summon the pattern, visualize a lens at the center and view your surroundings. The Abyss and the Prism are like controls. If you see those, then it's working and you can probably trust what else you see. But if we can see the auras around us, that should be good enough evidence."

"Right then. Are there any other questions?"
This message was last edited by the player at 02:05, Wed 12 July 2023.

"Only the obvious one, how will we know if we're looking at the Abyss or Prism?"

"Well, I could tell you what I saw, but according to our more experienced cousins we all see the colors differently. What I can tell you is that I could tell. The abyss was darker. And you know where the prism is. You've been there. "

Rhiannon will find that she has the Pattern up in less than half the time it takes Cathal to bring the Pattern up in the 'new' form, at least the for Cathal and Natsuki, and that Cathal is several minutes quicker than Natsuki.
Rhiannon will find that Cathal has 4 bands in his aura, and that Natsuki has 3. None of the bands match either the Abyss or the Prism, both of which she knows from previous experience. Cathal and Natsuki have 2 bands in common.
Cathal and Natsuki will find that Rhiannon has 4 bands. Cathal will note that Rhiannon and Natsuki have 3 bands in common, and Natsuki will find that both Cathal and Rhiannon have 4 bands, but that they only share 2 of them.

When Rhiannon brought up the pattern, she used it to scan her cousins as the worked. There were bands in their auras, appearing as colors. Natsuki had three bands, but Cathal had four. One of the bands they had in common must have signified their Amberite heritage. For Cathal, one of those other three was from his chaos heritage, but the other differences would need to be discovered. He was a shapeshifter, but without another in the room, she wouldn't be able to tell which signified that.

These were things she could ask only after they were done, knowing how much concentration was required for what they were doing.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:57, Fri 14 July 2023.

For Rhiannon watching the other two work time ticks by, extortionately slowly.
Eventually Cathal will shake his head, stand up and stretch, although he refrains from doing or saying anything as that would obviously disturb Natsuki's concentration.

Several more minutes go by, before she slowly changes her posture, sliding the palms of her hands between her crossed legs and her body, placing her palms flat on the ground. She then slowly lifts herself and inverts her position before uncrossing her legs, and then slowly lowering herself back to the ground in the splits position. She then very slowly makes a 360 degree revolution, surveying both Rhiannon, Cathal, and the room.
Slowly she says "The box on the wall from which the cord hangs has the same aura as part of Rhiannon's aura. Am I correct in thinking it is a Trump device?"


This message was last edited by the GM at 08:58, Sun 16 July 2023.

In reply to GameMaster (msg # 11):

Rhiannon looked up at the base of the cord. "I didn't even think of that. yes. I believe it is. I've been working on my trump skills and it's all bleeding together. But, good call, Natsuki"

"Thankyou. I will stop now. This is hurting my head. Maybe tomorrow we will get more time to continue."

So ..  9:30 ish .. everyone is gathered..

"Okay just as warning. I could not keep the Pattern lense up while talking." Cathal reminds all.

Once everyone was situated, Rhiannon went right into her description. "So, my cousins, despite the enormous build up, this is not that complicated. You've already done the difficult part: conjuring the mental image of the pattern. Now, what you may have noticed is that there is a dark void at the center. We will focus on that. It will take a different amount of time for each of us, and once you summon it, your concentraiton must remain on the task at hand, so I'll explain now."

"When your pattern is complete and vivid, you will concentrate on the center. Instead of being dark, you should visualize a lens, no different from, say, a magnifying glass. If you're careful, you should be able to turn your head. Looking through the lens, look at everyone else. What you should see is a colored aura around each of us. Further, you will also see trump sources, but for now, you should focus on us. You should already know our different heritages. I have a parent from Amber and one from Mizzurian Earth. I can also create trumps. SO you should see those in my Aura. I can't tell you how to distinguish them because they appear different to each viewer. But by deduction, knowing where we are all from and what we can do, you should be able to distinguish Amber, human, Trump, Courts of Chaos, Shapeshifter, magic user, etc."

"For now, I suggest you do not try to speak or move more than your gaze and perhaps a slight turn of your head. I suspect we will all be able to do that without losing the pattern at some point but for now, stay focused on the auras."

"Are there any questions?"

"If you want to know how the pattern band look like." Cathal adds. "It is the big bright as a sun thing below your feet. Be careful."

"I have a parent from Amber and one from the Courts and I'm a shapeshifter. So only 2 of my bands will be the same as Rhiannon, Amber parent and pattern band. Edward will most likely have all 4 bands the same as me."

None of the PC/NPCs will have any questions

Edward is not part of the group.. he hasn't yet reached the point where it would benefit him to join the group.

Other than practice Cathal won't get much from the session as he pretty much got everything at breakfast. The only thing he's really missing is Logrus, which will apply to everyone else in the session.

You can get Pattern from the Pattern, Amberite as a differential from Cathal. You know he has Pattern, Ammberite, Chaosite, and Shapeshifter. Once you eliminate Pattern, by using the Pattern itself as the aura source, then the only other aura element he has in common with everyone else in the group is Amberite. Once you have Amberite you can get human, easily as Natsuki only has 3 bands. As Rhiannon said Trump is easy as Natalie, Cassandra, and herself  have it and there are a number of sources close by. Blake and Cormac have Magic, so that just leaves Logrus.

Blake will take 27 minutes to manifest the Pattern image, Cormac 16 and a half minutes, Natalie in 29 minutes, and Cassandra in 25 and a half minutes.

Natsuki makes this run in just under 10 minutes, which is marginally faster than Rhiannon.

The session will take at most 1 hour.. so it's down to people what they want to do after that.
Everybody has the sets of 'mental exercises' given them by Cordelia at the start of the Introduction to Trump session. The ones relating to mental shielding and attacking require a partner to do. Cathal and Edward have a significant advantage here as they can already do most of what is in the exercises, they just need some practice against somebody of an equal mental strength.
The Trump users also have all the Trump exercises to get them to the point where they can acquire the 'Imbue Power' ability and produce shadow spanning trumps. Note, and I forgot this earlier, you're not going to be able to do any of the trump exercises within half a mile of the Mansion. It was difficult but not impossible for Rhiannon to find a place in the Octagon tower in Elysium where she was clear of significant Trump source interference, but the Mansion is a different kettle of fish.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:59, Sat 26 Aug 2023.

Cassandra settles in for the discussion with her sketchbook in hand, as she listens she makes several shorthand notes, mostly for her to use when practicing later. From what Rhiannon is saying though, this shouldn't be overly difficult.