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I'm not sure we are getting out of this one, we've been lost too long. Amber has just kind of checked out and I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but for now I thought I'd read through the things Amber's been writing. Before she kind of retreated into a haze, Amber told me that she was writing down my story. I had no idea she would put it in such flat, third person terms. There isn't much I can do right now, but I thought I would at least go through and add some more to what Amber had to say. I got the knack of writing, at least a little, waiting for Indigo to recover. Never underestimate an Oread with thousands of years of experience. On the other hand, never underestimate the kind of trouble two kids can get into who don't listen to adults.

Once upon a time a girl and her family moved to a new home.  On the lot where their home was, they had many trees and an old storage shed in the back.

My story ought to start with moving to the city and this wonderful wooded lot that our house is on, with a creek running through the back three acres and the time I spent playing back there. I must have been about twelve when we moved to Canada with my Dad's job, my brother was busy, and I didn't have any friends. I felt kind of isolated and alone, but it was wonderful to get out and just be in the trees. Depending on how you look at it, three acres and a creek is either a lot or just a tiny bit, but for me, it was a lot. The green of it was just so whole, and I loved the soft feel of the grass and moss under my feet. While I was looking around, kind of tucked into the slope as the ground dropped down to the creek, found this old storage shed. Seemed a little "out there," if you know what I mean, it was an acre from the house (our house sat on five acres, nestled near, but not quite in, the city where my Dad worked), so to speak, which seemed far, and almost hidden the way it just sat as a part of the landscape.

When the girl looked in the shed, she saw it was filled with rope making equipment and the tattered remains of an unfinished rope.

She felt sorry for the rope and felt an urge to finish it.  There was nothing to work with so she cut off her long hair and wove it into the rope.  When she was finished she had about three feet of silvery blond rope.

I was a honey colored blond once, before I ended up with this almost white hair.  I don't quite know what got into me, but that rope seemed alive (heck, now I know that it was alive) and I just had to do something.  I couldn't think of anything else to give it except for my hair.  Boy did that make a change.  I *used* to have hair down past my waist -- so long I could sit on it if I wasn't careful.  After I cut it off, my hair was"short as a boy's" (shorter, actually, than some boys I know). It has grown out some, but I may never have long hair like that again.

When I look back, it seems strange, but at the time it seemed perfectly normal. I just cut my hair off, and twisted it into the rope with the machinary that was there. Guess if there hadn't been so much magic in the air I'd never have done it, and it wouldn't have worked, but I was lucky that I did not just end up standing there with a mess and my hair all over the floor. But that rope seemed more like a hurt puppy than anything else -- I could sense it, I'm not sure how to explain it -- and it needed me.

What she didn't know was that the rope was a living thing, a magical creation, begun and never finished or given form. Because of this, the rope was wasting away and was close to dissolution.

By her act of charity, and the magic of sacrifice, she had saved the pooka rope and it became her rope.  This was the call to adventure and she accepted it, binding the rope to her as her rope, and giving it some of her personality as well as her hair.

When I was finished, I knew there were some issues. It suddenly hit me, how was I going to explain cutting off all my hair and making about three feet of rope out of it? Sure, it made sense at the time, but could you do that and explain it to your parents? I just knew I was going to be in trouble, but as I reached out and picked up the rope, suddenly everything was going to be ok. I could feel it.

Her immediate needs gave the rope the first form of power that it had.  She needed no one to notice that she had cut off her hair, and that formed the rope's expression of power so that it had the power to blend.

Blending is like invisibility, except in some ways it works better, in some ways not so well.  With blending, unless you call attention to yourself, or make changes in things, you just blend in.  So no one noticed that her hair was gone, or that she was using a rope for a belt -- it just blended in and everyone thought of it as normal.

Things did get off to a slow start for an adventure.  I found that rope, saved it and started wearing it instead of a belt -- I wanted to keep it close to me.  I had no idea that find the rope was going to lead to such changes in my life. All I knew is that I didn't have my hair anymore, people quit noticing me at school (and quit picking on me) and I had a new favorite belt. As I looked back, I sure learned a lot about magic from this experience, and I'm sure glad that I was lucky with the kind of magic I ran into and that it belongs to me instead of me belonging to it. I've since learned you can really get into trouble just picking up or getting involved with random magic. But I'm sure glad I found that rope and that it decided to belong to me.

This is the first adventure.  At its end, the rope was three feet long.

Well, that is about all that Amber wrote in her first chapter. Guess I'll get to the next in a bit. There really isn't anything else to do out here.

Sure was stupid to try what we did. Guess I might as well write something about that here too, in case someone does find us, or what is left of us, some day, and wonders what happened.

After we had finished with the gates, Amber was just sure that we could find the way for another link. So, after we got everything settled down at school, she decided that the two of us ought to try to sail our way across the desert her father crossed when he was younger and recreate the link there. We had a loadstone and as fast as the boat could go, she figured it would be a couple weeks. We would sail and work on the homework self-study assignments we had been given and it would be nice and peaceful and quiet -- and we would have something to show everyone.

I sure wanted some quiet, and we had a siddarth crystal to power the laptop, the boat was still packed with supplies (and we added more) and we did have at least two weeks worth of work we had to get done. It did seem like a great way to avoid interruptions. Indigo even checked over our stuff and gave Amber a hug at the send-off.

The void was pretty neat. Emptier than it had been the last trip we tried through it, with energy just flowing into any magic. Amber changed into fire and just stayed that way in all her spare time. She didn't need to eat or anything and except for the times she zoned out a little, said it was a rush having the magic just flow into her. She was the brightest I've ever seen when she was turned into fire.

Everything was great. I had to remind Amber to turn back into a girl in order to study and write down her homework answers. But we got started and were doing really well, working on the study materials a good eight hours or more a day, and then, about a week into the trip, the loadstone fizzled into nothing. Then we were lost in the void with no way to tell which way we were going. And we had been going really hard and fast. I'd say that boat had gone as fast as a small plane, 24-7 as my brother would put it.

At first we just kept going, we had a two or two and a half week trip and maybe if we just went straight (there are currents in the void, and stuff, and "straight" isn't always straight, but sometimes it is). Well, after three weeks, all the homework and all the extra credit and all that extra void, there wasn't any other end in sight, so we stopped and started to float. Amber had written the stories down about me, we are the best of friends, but after another week, she just kind of stayed in fire form all the time and didn't have much to say.

Now she is kind of checked out, I'm not sure she is going to have anything to say for a while. So, with no one to talk to, I decided to read these stories and having read them, I knew that I needed to add something to them.

At least I have plenty of light and there is still a lot of food left. I can summon ice for my familiar, and I guess at some point I'll need to start eating ice. Amber may still be left when we get found, if we ever get found.

If you read this, what looks like a six foot flame at the end of the boat is really my best friend. Make sure she changes back.

Please.

[These stories have a lot more text when told live, and lots of digressions, talking about what it means for a magic item to belong to someone or be bonded them, versus being something they can use, or worse, something that belongs to someone or something else {like the Aes} and is using you.]