We began the ritual for summoning the unicorn, once the 13th hour had ended. It quickly became a point of interest for just about every being in reality. The first onlookers to arrive were a dozen winged beasts from castle Amber. I did my best to keep them distracted and between Cordelia and myself, we made pretty short work of them. I flew to a good vantage point and kept a look out for anything else on its way. Alfred was still in a very bad way and may not have survived another attack.
Things didn't appear to be going too well for Sorcha inside the big energy dome surrounding the unicorns' grove. She was being stretched to some ridiculous proportions.
After a while we noticed a large number of troops marching our way from Amber. They looked a bit too much for us to handle, so I flew out to see if I could keep them away long enough for us to complete the task. The initial plan was to strike from above and take out their leader, but they spotted me and went into a defensive position. They stayed like that for a while then kept moving, so I tried a few more tricks to keep them in their place. It worked and became obvious that the ritual was nearing completion, the climax was a bit unexpected, a huge shock wave emerged from the grove and blasted everyone off their feet. My suit was knocked out of commission, but luckily the troops were all knocked out of commission as well, I took advantage of this on my walk back to the grove and dispatched all those I could find.
When I returned to the grove, everyone was unconscious. Alfred was embedded in a tree and Sorcha was bleeding. In the centre of the grove there was a unicorn and we were able to have quite a long chat. He wasn't very impressed with being bound and didn't seem keen to help us in any way. We began discussing pattern and the book of Selheim to pass some time while the others regained consciousness. Things deteriorated slightly when some nasties emerged from the black road and came up to see us. I couldn't shadow walk or drag 3 bodies and a unicorn away to safety, so I dragged everyone into the grove in the hope that they wouldn't be able to enter. This seemed to work, but it didn't mean we were safe from projectile attack (no plan is perfect). Luckily they were sent by the Kraken to help us and they took us down the black road to the relative safety of another shadow. There, they protected everyone while I went and arranged for us to stay somewhere. It took a bit of probability manipulation, but we got into a small farm house, where we rested until everyone regained consciousness.
Sorcha was less than impressed when she woke up. In fact, she was downright pissed off at the unicorn (who seemed quite pleased with himself). Apparently she had thought her first time would involve, dinner, wine and candles, not a large stone slab, a bunch of onlookers and a pointy horn! At least she learn't a valuable lesson, when someone says we need a willing innocent to sacrifice, you don't jump up and down and say "I'll do it", "I'll do it".
I seem to have been getting along quite well with the Unicorn, he has been teaching me how to mould shadow. Who better to teach you than the one who created it? He also taught me the principle behind shadow pockets and we talked for a while about the binding of Rodian.
We all seem to have agreed that Brand is being tricked into releasing Rodian as he will have no way of really controlling him once he's out. He must have been promised something really nice though. We ended up trying to get a message to him, telling him this. Let's just hope he gets it and at least stops to think for a while before breaking the seal.
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| Hero of the Hour - Allagahn | The Keep of the Thirteenth Hour |