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MMI
A Twinkie in AmberThis important historical account of the attempted assassination of the King of Amber has unfortunately been lost to the ages. We shall unfortunately never know what the good Prince Dexter thought of the goings on of that fateful day. All that has survived of the account is its title, and we can only wonder at what it might mean.
Loose Lips Sink Ships
Our story starts off with the Mistress of the Seas, Grace, proving her capabilities by captaining her ship into a storm and going down.
We continue with Alexandria, Galen, and Caitlin interrogating an unconscious woman for some reason.
Carton then blithers and blathers on at some length to a clueless Root, who doesn't seem to understand the depths of Carton's insanity.
Later on, Gustav pawns off his king-given responsibilities on his nutcase brother. This is a characteristically severe misplacing of Martin's trust. One does not utter the word "treason" at times like this, though.
Dexter, furious at Gustav for failing his responsibilities, makes him the subject of his deadly wit. Dexter then heads into town looking for Mauresha Leshanti, the member of Caitlin's Shadow Guard that is always getting involved in bar fights. Unfortunately, Dexter can't find her, so he amuses himself by alarming the local citizenry.
As we resume Grace's story, it turns out that her ship does not go down. Deirdre falls off the ship, but manages to get back on deck somehow or other.
Later on, after much back and forth dealing with Shadow Guardswomen and such by Caitlin, Alexandria, and Galen, the real action begins. Dexter and Carton meet at the HMS Rebecca and set sail for Antioch. Dexter is cleverly disguised so that no one will know that Dexter is even in Antioch, but Carton foolishly tells everyone on the ship, thus necessitating their deaths. Gustav pulls Carton away via Trump, then later crank calls Dexter by Trump while Dexter is cleaning up after Carton's indiscretions.
Dexter damages the ship well enough to ensure its eventual sinking, then shifts it into an iceberg. While rowing toward Antioch in a lifeboat, Dexter and half the crew are attacked by a Giant Shark. Dexter lets it eat the crew before dealing with it.
The Belly of the Beast
Our story starts off with the Mistress of the Seas, Grace, once again. Grace does some minor investigations. Deirdre then contacts her and tells her to walk the Pattern. Grace then starts to walk the Pattern.
Gustav, continuing his traitorous ways, contacts the Captain of the downed Rebecca instead of our hero, Dexter.
Dexter swims away from the carnage, shifting as he goes. Eventually, however, the proto-shark heads for Dexter. Dexter spins about and punches the shark mightily in the nose and stabs it with his kukri. Dexter grabs hold of the proto-shark and stabs it repeatedly. The proto-shark descends into the depths and Dexter lets it go, swimming to the surface. After a single gasp of breath, Dexter is swallowed by the proto-shark. He continues to fight on, though, even as he passes into its gut.
Galen does something or other. He goes to Antioch, which is obviously a misuse of forces.
Caitlin reviews the troops or something.
Grace walks the Pattern. In doing so, she catches fire, but doesn't seem to mind. Furthermore, she distresses Deirdre for some reason. She disappears.
Gustav messes around with his mistress, abandoning his mission despite orders to the contrary.
Dexter then fights his way out of the proto-shark by forcing it to vomit him out. He breaks the surface, but contracts the bends in the process. He makes his way toward shore and is in sight of both shore and two fishing vessels when he blacks out.
Galen joins his evil masters at the Church of the Crimson Flow. His masters commend him on a job well done.
Caitlin searches in vain for Alexandria, who has gone missing in order to hide her involvement with the assassination plot.
Grace meets up with Deirdre. Mysterious occurences abound. Deirdre has been working on a trump of Galen.
Gustav trumps the seditious crew of the Rebecca to Amber.
Dexter wakes up. He is being held by a pair of miscreants who have chained him up. They believe him to be a member of some noble family and intend to ransom him, but their plans are waylaid when Dexter breaks out of the chains and steps on one of their necks. After they run off, Dexter eats their fish and steals their boat. It is while he is on the boat that he receives a trump call from Galen, who asks to be pulled through. Galen then seems upset to be in the waters of Cataan instead of Antioch, but Dexter assures him that the crux of the matter lies in Antioch.
Caitlin does something or other. It involves Root and casting suspicion about Alexandria.
Fun in Cataan
Cataan is just the kind of place Dexter enjoys. Dexter sailed in to port, then continued past the area that most ships of his ship's size dock, entering the main seaway. He sailed close to a ship rowing away from Cataan, then was rammed by a Cataani ship leaving port.
Dexter leapt onto the masthead, but was unable to find purchase on her bosom and fell into the water. Swimming toward the docks, Dexter was bitten by many Barracuda. He pulled himself onto the dock.
A trio of Cataani came upon Dexter, who had disguised himself as an Amberite. They asked him a few questions, but were put off guard by Dexter's ingenious interrogation technique. A fight soon broke out, and two of the men were thrown into the water. The other was used as a human shield by Dexter and died. In the course of the fight, many of their friends were also thrown into the water.
Dexter dragged the corpse into an alleyway and stripped him. Unfortunately a group of the Cataani's friends located Dexter. Two had crossbows and fired them, missing Dexter. Dexter charged, snapping the neck of one of the crossbow men and taking another man's sword. He cut the other crossbow in half and then let the Cataanis flee. Dexter clothed himself and then disguised himself as an Antiochian.
Dexter headed for a seedy bar. He found it. Once there, he engaged the locals in discussion about the crazy ways of Amber. The Cataani sailors showed up and they talked about how bad Amber is. Dexter then explained that he had been sold the clothes he was wearing by an insane Amberite and the men demanded that he turn over the clothes.
Fun in Cataan II
Dexter agreed to give the Cataani sailors his clothes. He went out into an alley with them and exchanged the clothes for a loan of one sailor's shirt. They then went and bought new clothes for Dexter.
Dexter found another seedy bar. In it, men were fighting in a pit. Dexter bet on one of them and won. Dexter then announced that he could defeat their best man and bet all his money on the fight. He then drove the man's testicles into his abdomen.
Dexter collected his winnings and cunningly ingratiated himself with the seedy, anti-Amber segment of Cataani society.
Dexter went to another bar where he was planning on continuing his espionage, but was contacted by his full brother Galen via Trump. Galen was looking for Martin, who had been acting strangely and who he had tracked to the extent of his ability.
Dexter saw that the King's tracks lead off the edge and realized that the King had either turned into a bird, learned to fly, or entered some sort of pocket dimension or other. He told Galen some of his suppositions but climbed down nonetheless to make it look good.
Dexter climbed over rocks that no mere mortal could ever hope to stay on, then climbed back up.
Back in Amber
Dexter climbed back up to the ledge to find that Galen had spoken with King Martin and that they were to head down to the castle. Galen produced a Trump of Mirabelle and the two used it to check in on her and make sure she wasn't behind the plot. The two of them lead the horses back and then headed off to meet with Alexandria.
Along the way, Martin's latest wife cornered them and invited them to some dumb dinner party or other. Dexter tried to get away, but Galen wasn't good enough at stalling Martin's latest wife.
Dexter continued on in search of Alexandria. He met up with Grace, Mistress of the Seas. She debriefed him on the loss of the Rebecca.
Dexter also ran into King Martin, who told Dexter that they needed to speak later on. Dexter agreed and said he would meet with the King once he was done with his important business in Arden.
Dexter then finally met up with Alexandria and asked her about the infiltrators. Unfortunately, Alexandria was of little help.
Dexter headed out to Arden, where he reviewed the troops and set them about the task of checking everyone for infiltrators. He then headed back to Amber to meet with the King.
Along the way, he was rudely interrupted by Gustav. Apparently, Gustav didn't think that Caitlin could handle an old man and his butler. It was terribly disappointing. Dexter said he'd help after he spoke with the King.
The King and Dexter had a secret meeting. The King told Gustav to buzz off, and they were gone.
And away again
Dexter and Martin decided to head back to Amber in time for the Feast of the Unicorn. The 50 or so advancing tigers were a key factor in their decision-making. Unfortunately, the Trump Martin intended to use wasn't working too well, so Dexter helped Martin make contact. As they were going through, Dexter was able to feel the connection fraying, so he dropped back out of it and fought the tigers.
Dexter had fun fighting the tigers and headed for a deep pond. He leapt from treetop to treetop and then cannonballed into the pond, splashing three of the tigers. He then started swimming for it, killing another tiger and starting to shift shadow.
Dexter finds a shadow with a platform floating in the middle of the pond. He reaches up and begins to pull himself out of the water, but realizes that it is squishy and a tentacle pulls him under. He fights his way out and continues on to a shadow with wooden floats and children who swim there. The "children" turn out to be psychotic pygmy spearmen, and Dexter dispatches them handily.
Dexter finishes off the spearmen's tiger companions and carries one with him through shadow to a village where the people are adept at skinning tigers. Some amusing miscommunications later, Dexter secures for himself a fine and noble cloak made of tiger skin. All seems well in the universe as Dexter is missing the Feast of the Unicorn and having fun at the same time. He starts walking home.
And back again
Dexter is enjoying the long walk home when he is contacted by a Trump. Being the polite and good natured soul that he is, Dexter accepts it only to find his brother Galen claiming that Martin needs to see Dexter right away and that the Feast of the Unicorn is still going on. Disgusted and disappointed, Dexter goes through to Amber.
Dexter takes some time washing himself off and getting dressed and then puts on his new cloak. He then heads down to the feast.
That bitchy stepmother Elanora cuts Dexter off as he heads toward his father. Unsurprisingly, she rudely ignores Dexter's explanations of the seriousness of the summons he received and blabs his ear off. Then she has the unmitigated gall of suggesting that Dexter's beautiful new cloak is not appropriate for the occasion and demands that he change. Dexter ignores her and heads over to speak with Martin.
Martin has nothing interesting to say. Apparently the summons was hardly the emergency Galen made it out to be. Martin then asks more of Dexter than anyone ever has, or than anyone has a right to. He asks Dexter to please Elanora.
Dexter agrees, despite himself.
A great darkness overcomes the world as Dexter is forced to humiliate and degrade himself at the foot of the lapdog empress. Dexter soon finds himself wishing that another, less accurate assassination attempt would be launched which would happen to claim Elanora as its victim. But alas, no such event occurs unaided. Dexter begins thinking of how such an event might come about in the near future. Certainly Elanora would never have survived long after her eventual and certain parting with Martin, but Dexter for the first time began thinking of earlier measures which might be taken.
Just then, Dexter's reverie was broken by Galen yapping about needing to track down some guy named Oscar, but not wanting to leave until midnight. Dexter actually went and got permission from Elanora, which must certainly have hastened her demise.
Dexter rode out with Galen to track down this Oscar fellow, meeting up with some Rangers and Hounds for support. Soon, Caitlin and Gustav came through via Trump. Gustav went off to deal with a painting, such as befits his capabilities, and Caitlin joined the hunt.
After most of a night of searching, the hunt came upon an ambush. Dexter and Caitlin charged forward while the Rangers let loose a hail of arrows and Galen cowered in the back...
The Shoe Drops
Dexter and Caitlin manage to scare off Oscar while Galen cowrs. Oscar disappears in a Trump-like nimbus of rainbow colors much to his own apparent surprise. Not long after dealing with Oscar, signals come that indicate several patrols have gone missing. Caitlin and Galen head back to the Castle to gather forces while Dexter rides down to the fort to investigate.
The fort is being harassed by riders, who strike quickly and effectively and then disengage. Dexter attempts to give chase, but their mounts are better suited to night riding, and he is forced to let them escape when flaming balls launched from the South start pelting the fort.
Dexter organizes the evacuation of the fort even as he tries to deal with as many of the harassing riders as possible. He manages to pull the Army of the Valley north to meet Caitlin's reinforcements just as dawn is breaking and the riders break off their attacks. Giving chase, Dexter is confronted with the sight of an approximately 50,00-man army, complete with cavalry and artillery.
Dexter attempts to parley with the officers of this invading army, but to no avail. Dexter regroups with Marshall Caitlin, who asks him to ready the Rangers and be prepared to flank the invading army once it has driven past Arden toward the city.
Dexter rides off to Arden.
Battle Royale
Dexter assembles the Rangers in Arden and briefs them on the plan. Once the day begins, the invading army pulls to a halt outside arrowshot of Marshall Caitlin's main force. The army bombards the castle, which Dexter and Caitlin are content to let it do. It is only once the Ranger saboteur guerillas arrive at the back of the invading army that the battle is joined. First the Rangers charge at the army's left flank. In support, Marshall Caitlin gives the order for the army to charge as well and the battle is begun in earnest.
The Rangers have great success chewing away at the left flank, as the invading commander over-commits himself to the defense of his siege engines. Unfortunately, much of the cursed luck that has been following Dexter seems to be hampering his Rangers as well. In addition, the elite troops of the enemy are foiling all attempts by the Ranger guerillas to sabotage the catapults. Dexter makes a difficult decision. Realizing that his mark of doom is weighing down his men, Dexter goes against his nature and his duty and assigns the Rangers to Caitlin's command in the hopes that they will no longer be pulled down by his doom.
Dexter charges the catapults and, leaping gracefully over stunned opponents, lands atop one of their platforms. With due dispatch, he manages to disable the catapult and defeat a score of the enemy elite. With a graceful leap, he manages to get to the next platform over, but at the last minute decides to go under the device. From there, Dexter is able to see how these crazy contraptions work and he scuttles out from underneath it on the other side of the machine. Dexter then leaps up onto the platform and slays the evil Os-kar. As his momentum carries the two of them to the ground, Dexter feels a sharp pain in his gut...
Here ends the account of good Prince Dexter's trials and tribulations such as were found at the archaeological excavation of the year MMI.
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