So, Castagir, you want to know what has been happening over the last few days? Well, this is a very long story for such a short period of time. So, why don’t we order a few drinks and i’ll get started.

Aaaah... that hit the spot, thanks. OK, as you know a few days ago the family had a little gathering and as usual, noone turned up. The only suckers were myself, my sister Autumn, Athena, Benedict, Julian, Gerard, Random, Vilorn, Falbir, Aldric, Dargon, Delphine and Tristan. The meeting was of the martial sort, suffice to say, there were big scary army coming to pay a visit and we couldn’t zap them with the Jewel if we tried.

I walked out of the meeting with mixed emotions. This is mainy because I have been through the length and bredth of shadow (although I do admit not to all of them) and have not had even a whisper of creatures of a shadow being able to perform the feat of HELLRIDING through shadow, especially in such a large group. I'll definitely have to look into this.

Well, time to bum some help from pops. I finally managed to get dad into a corner and ask him a few choice questions about the shadow army storming through shadow. Namely what, when, why, how and most importantly who. And of course, being Gerard and all, he knew absolutely nothing about this.

So, I went to find my sister and see if she wanted to join me on a little excursion to this army. Unfortunatily, she wouldn’t come with me for some reason, that namely being : “heading off to annoy an army that is moving faster than the Jewel is NOT my idea of fun, more like suicide!!!!! even if they were a bunch of stoopid wusses, you and I can't squish an ENTIRE army (they have pointy sticks or something) (just most of it) before they reach Amber. Besides, if they are hellriding, they're likely to go straight past us without stopping. Or do you have a way round that? I know I'm not as smart as you, which is why I'm going to see if I can help Gerard or Benidict or someone, where if things go wrong, I'm not the scapegoat!!!!”

Well, if that’s not forceful I don’t know what is. So, I went to Random to see if there was anyone else willing to come with me. There was. Tristan was in the throne room at the same time that I was heading into the room. So, after talking to Random for a bit, we decided to head off together. Since we were in a bit of a rush we decided to hellride to our objective : that of the army. By the time we got there I was getting a bit tired and so we rested up for a bit before getting to the so that we would be in top shape. The enemy was very strange indeed. They were large manlike creatures with three eyes, one on the back of their heads and were wielding swords and round shields. They moved very swiftly and as long as we kept our distance they pretty much ignored us. In fact they ignored us even when we came right up to them as long as we didn't attack them. When we attacked, they continued to run, but rotatae their bodies and fought us while they continued travelling.

Unfortunatley, I was met with a hail of arrows and several hit me and so I was forced to retreat. From a safe distance I watched as Tristan hacked the head off of several as though he was cutting through butter. Although he wears no armor, the repeated strikes from arrows and swords did not afftect him. Tristan finally noticed that I was not up with him and so he stopped fighting and returned to me. We spent the night and returned to Amber via one of my spells. It was the next day that we has the second meeting with Random for the war.

This time there was only six, me, Random, Benedict, Falbir, Vilorn and Gerard. Of course I understood the others’ reluctance to appear after meeting the invading army face to face. Unfortunately I was unable to do the same as I hold The welfare of Amber in my interests. And this army was definitely not good for Amber. Random recapped on what Tristan and I learnt and then he quickly told us that if we won there would be another meeting. Then the meeting was over.

After being rudely awakened by a guard I quickly prepared myself, gathering Holdt, rushed outside the palace. The three of us (me, Tristan and Autumn) met at the bottom of Kolvir and rode down to Arden together. Once there, there was noone to tell us where to go and what to do, so we just created our own front to kill dem baddies. With my new (enchanted of course) suit of armor, these guys didn’t find me as easy to hurt as last time. In fact, it seemed as though they were, in fact, not attacking us three at all. They were actually avoiding us completley. A short time later we noticed our army was getting a lot smaller around us :(. So we retreated to find Benedict and his mob which would be winning because everyone knows that he is invincible in battle. Unfortunately we were confronted by a man on a huge black horse and armor. He, alone did a very good job of humiliating me by winning and tying me and the others up. While I was loosing in my fight with the black knight, I tried to loose my escape spell but inexplicably it failed. Thus I was carried to the throne room of Amber palace where, to my shock, everyone else, namely Benedict, Athena and Falbir were in the same situation as me. Soon after, Gerard and Julian arrived along with a three legged Morgenstern. Kyle, Dargon and Delphine arrived shortly after. For once, Aldrick was in as bad a situarion as I was and not pleased about it.

The black knight then removed his helmet, revealing himself to all by saying “Random, surrender to me, Finndo the crown of Amber." Of course he did and we now have ourselves a king (dictator) which I was forced to accept as I couldn’t not swear allegiance as I would be imprisoned and that would _not_ be fun. Of course Vilorn, Taking after Dworkin the loon said : "I told you all! Nobody listens to me, I TOLD you not to fight him!" He then bowed low and swore alleigance to Finndo. "He is an Amberite, he isn't going to destroy the pattern! You are fools! How could you think to oppose the one that taught Benedict to fight?" Benedict and Gerard and Julian and several others glared at him and he shut up and finally left. Kyle, Benedict, Random, Autumn, Tristan, Gerard, Julian and I swore while the others disappeared.

Nobody told ME that people that disobeyed his order would be whisked away, oh well such is life. We that swore were then released and that is where things stand at this point in time.