Quotes from the session:
"Oh yes, and do have a drink with Gerard. He is a sweetie." Hazard, knowing full well that Jessica thought her capacity for alchohol was above average. Bitch."Vialle must die, and Jessica will do it." Brand to Fiona, knowing Jess was listening. Nothing like an EGM for railroading plots.
"How does it feel... to have killed.. a blind fifteen year-old?" Vialle, last words.
"Hang on, wasn't Random supposed to marry Vialle?... Oh..." Bleys
Jess woke one day to find a note on a black dagger pinned firmly to her ceiling. A mild screaming fit later, she got together the guts to read the note, pulling out the dagger to find a small part of the ceiling came with it. The note read "Meet me at the end of the road outside the Tavern."
After puzzling over the note for a while, Jessica walked to the tavern road and found a redhead with a huge black horse waiting for her, pacing up and down. At her approach, the girl looked up.At this point the campaign, "Brand Name Products Inc.", really begins.
Jess arrived in Amber to be left neatly outside a room where two people just happened to be talking. She overheard that somebody would have to die, but just when she heard the words "Rebma" and "Vialle" mentioned, Hazard came back with the news that Oberon would see her now.
Oberon took virtually no notice of Jess, but told Hazard to report her to the Pattern room and tell him if she survived. Hazard, knowing Jess had had a long journey, decided to introduce her first to some of the family. Jess got drunk, asked very unsubtle questions about her father's identity, and just before she passed out, challenged Gerard to a fight, and woke the next morning with the dreadful feeling that she had promised to kill somebody for someone or other, as well as having a hangover and an Uncle on the other side of the door inviting her out for a quick sparring match. Hazard had gone out into Shadow for a holiday, or so she claimed.
While Jess was in traction, she was visited by her uncle Brand, whom she asked, "Who is my father?" thus revealing the sum total of her knowladge as nil. (The sheer lack of subtlety of this girl has made most of her family think she is playing a very clever game)
Brand refused to tell her, citing the bargain made when she had arrived. He told her that Vialle had to die, as a danger to Amber, and she was the only person who could kill her. After that, he would tell her who her father was.Jess, having never hurt a soul in her life, immediately found Hazard, now returned to Amber, and asked her about what she could do. Hazard, in on the plot, told Jess that she was an Amberite, and as such, over and above Shadow people. How she could live without knowing who her father was was quite beyond poor little Hazard.
Jess was still loathe to kill somebody she had never met, so Hazard was forced to forge a note from Vialle, insulting Jess for failing to turn up for the duel which Hazard had arranged.
Hazard then managed to persuade Jess to murder her. Jessica had a great discussion of philosophy with Vialle, who seemed positively eager to die, thus making Jessica more guilty than ever, by her standards. It was only as Vialle was bleeding to death that she revealed she was blind.
Jess, rather cut up about murdering a blind fifteen year-old, when she herself was only fifteen, mooched back to Amber, to be informed that her father was Caine. And no, the name was not a coincidence, he had indeed killed his brother Aybel, but they don't mention that bit of history to anybody. Oh yes, said Brand, Caine hasn't been seen in ages. Never mind, he probably isn't dead. He's too nasty to kill.
Under Hazard's influence and urging, Jess and Hazard broke into Caine's room late one night (the spells on the door should have killed them but failed to. Odd, that...) Inside, the only thing of interest was a paperweight which hummed when Jess walked near it, so Hazard made sure Jess pocketed that.
A short time later, Uncle Eric reported having been contacted by Caine, who only had time to show him the landscape before the contact collapsed. Eric obligingly showed Jess what the place looked like, Jess being good enough to borrow the picture from his mind.
Jess immediately set off to rescue her father, prompted only by Hazard, Random and Eric. For her, this was a quick decision. Hazard had to trump her and give her a sword and show her how to find a place in Shadow by changing things to what they should be like, but hey, Jess was well prepared by her own standards.
When Jessica eventually reached the place, the rocks which were gliding along the ground almost made her turn and go back, and the huge white serpent sleeping beyond the rocks was just the icing on the cake.
A few dicey leaps from rock to rock later, she faced the snake, which seemed to regard her both as a snack and a threat, much to Jess's puzzlement. As they stood there in a standoff, Hazard trumped Jess on the grounds she was going to fail, and as Hazard was watching her trump, with Fiona's aid, she felt obliged to help.
Hazard thought for a few seconds, then took the paperweight from Jess and lobbed it at the snake. The demon keeled over, as per instructions, and the fact that Hazard then killed it, she put down to her natural paranoia. Hazard then told Jess she was on her own, as she had no wish to face an angry Caine and explain certain matters to him. She made a lot of these 'matters'.
Jess was then left with the problem of a locked door, so she lay down and went to sleep. And the incensed Hazard sent Martin to wake her up and help her with the locks. Martin, good little boy that he is, did as he was told, and let Jess find her father.
Caine then explained that he had no idea who had imprisoned him, but he had plenty of enemies, so revenge could wait.
At the end of the session, Hazard was getting a lesson in swordplay from Benedict, and Caine was escorting Jess back to Amber.