Left to her own devices, Thera let the tears fall. For losses too numerous to even begin counting much less to name. It made no logical sense to her that she was the only survivor of an ancient kingdom of millions. Surely others had gotten away. There were always ships out at sea, traders in other ports, and there was that festival in Persa that Lothian and … she squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t think of it now, and thinking of him right now tightened a band around her heart that caused her physical pain.

She rubbed the bruised space just below her collarbone again. The loss of the gem bothered her as much as any of the rest. Since recieving it as a baby on her Naming, it had never been off of her, and now it was just … gone.

Thera’s fingers grazed over the planes of her crystal dagger and she held it up to the light. Light that glinted over the tracery of flames along the blade that would flare to life when activated; thin lines of gold wound through the hilt and caught the eye. The naked eye couldn’t see them, but Thera knew there were ancient runes of power engraved along every one of those gold lines.

This was it; the only artifact remaining of a proud and ancient people. She wanted to stab herself through the heart with it.

Her fingers wrapped around the hilt and she actually held the point to her breastbone, but a memory stayed her hand…

The Obelisk of Rememberance had been ancient when Ashram was born, he told her, and Ashram was the oldest Arch Mage in Atlantis-the oldest person in Atlantis. So old that he had stopped counting the passing of the years.

Atlantis had once been two islands; Atla and Atlantis. When the crystal technology was still new, there had been a cascade failure of the matrix of Atla. They had time to evacuate because the Crystal Mages had sacrificed themselves to stay behind and hold back the inevitable crash that had literally torn Atla apart and severely damaged Atlantis’ eastern coast when the tidal waves hit.

One of the Crystals of Power had been housed on that island, and many had feared it lost, destroyed, and concern grew for what an unbalanced Tetra would do. How could the Heart continue when part of it was missing? But then, several months later, the Crystal of Gaia had just appeared in the middle of a field near the Eastern Seaboard. The temple had been built around it when it
was discovered.

“Atlantis,” Ashram had told her in his soft voice that resonated with power. “Finds a way. Always has been, always will be. Atlantis finds a way.”

If her initial self scans were to be believed, Tetra was no longer just an imprint within her. She carried Tetra itself inside her. If he was right, if her scans were correct, then Atlantis had found a way. She was that way.

She had been accused once of arrogance. But it would have been the height of arrogance indeed to end her life in a fit of dispair if the memory of Ashram’s words were true.

She had to believe it. It was the only hope she had.

[…]

She closed her eyes and took a breath. “I am not sure what there is to say. My entire civilization is gone. A whole race of people, ended. A place so imbuded with magic you could feel it on your skin like the sun, sundered to fragments by the rending of the earth. All I have to show for it is a dagger that I only hope I can activate again one day soon, and waterlogged robes. Even my magic seems out of sorts.”

Thera gestured at the maps again. “You show me a world so unlike what I know that it cannot even be the same place. You don’t look the same, sound the same, dress in any way that is familiar. Your naming conventions are… harsh. Your accents are foreign, and I am not sure how it is we speak the same language. You even move differently. I do not need to see the outside of this vessel to know that is is unlike any I have ever sailed upon. I can tell by the structure of this room, the woods, the way it moves and creaks. My mind just will not …. wrap around this idea. Not completely. Oh, it is not the idea of other worlds; scholars have theorized on that for centuries. It….it is the being.”

“Do you understand?”

From the discussion on Shadows of Amber forum on What Kind of Amber Characters Do You Play

My characters are, with only one past exception, always on the side of Amber. They do what they think is right for Amber.

But now, I’m going to make a confession.

I used to play mostly very straightforward characters. More often then not, it was ‘what you see, is what you get’.

But I was surrounded by characters who had so many layers, and so many plots in their heads, that they were sure my character was up to something, no matter what she said or did. I was hailed as brilliant when no one was ever able to figure out what my characters were really up to by the time the game ended. As I didn’t participate heavily in the end game wrap up threads, people were still unwilling to accept that I wasn’t up to anything.

So, the next time there was an end game wrap thread after a game was killed off by the GM, and everyone was coming clean with their plots and plans and hidden stuff, I made up the biggest lie off the top of my head that was so ridiulous, so outlandish, I expected people to laugh along with me.

Only, they didn’t. The believed me and congratulated me on my cleverness once they stopped staring stupidly at their monitors and raising a hue and cry to the GM. The GM and I were both rather taken aback, as neither of us had considered trying to pull off what I was claiming. But it was a cunning idea so we agreed that if he ever ran another game, we would see what we could do with it.

Over time, enough people started accepting that my characters were all just as they appeared to be that there weren’t many characters eyeballing mine suspiciously anymore.

And then, just to see if I still remembered how to build a Ventrue or a Silver Fang, I built an Amber character that even I thought was brilliant in her complexity. No one suspected a thing. “Oh, that’s Theresa. If she says Tempest is straightforward and likes everyone, then she is.”

And, lo, Tempest had people telling her everything, and coming to her for help when the fires of suspicion crept too close. I cackled insanely and Tempest told them everything would be alright. She went behind their backs and got them free from the current suspicion while moving attention to someone Tempest felt needed to be taken down a notch. When Tempest was left standing with the victors among the ruins, people wrote it off as her just being a blameless, paragon of virtue.

The GM and I laughed so hard, and neither of us ever admitted to the cast that Tempest was a devoted follower of a certain long dead Italian, and truely hated every single one of her cousins.

I still, ocassionally build the straightforward, shoot from the hip character that is no more then what she claims to be. They’re easy to play and there’s less to remember to play them. Every once in awhile, I will dust off Portia and bring her back into the active character realms, and that seems to reassure people. “If Portia is still her favorite character, then we can be sure of her other characters”.

On the other hand, I have dusted off Aura more then once and while she has been left alone on the surface, she is not always what she seems. The sweet, fun loving hedonist could never have pulled off the planning of the mass bug out from Amber that she is responsible for in Exodus.

I have rediscovered my inner Silver Fang, my closet Ventrue, and I find I have missed them.

Having a few open book characters in play elsewhere allows me to devote the time and mind power needed to pull off a many layered character. One with nine dozen irons in the fire, who has told so many different stories, whose public persona is crafted with so many layers of lies and half truths, that she sometimes can’t remember what the truth is either.

Granted, sometimes I find them a challange to play. I find myself anxious for The Reveal. Sometimes I have given too much away too early to too many. It’s a behaviour that’s a hold over from my LARPing days, when my circle of friends and in game allies would get together at my house and we would reveal all and bounce ideas off each other over pizza and margaritas in order to better situate ourselves in the world of the game.

So, you can never be too sure anymore. Portia is pretty much what she has always been. Her honesty has always been one of the things that made her so fun to play. But can you be as sure about dear, beautiful Daphne? For the blunt and neutral Petra? For the flightly actress that is Rochelle? What about Circe? Morrigan in her original form? For Cara, singer on the run? Or even Layla?

No, I am glad to say you no longer can be as sure with the same degree of certainty you once could.

Her fingers wound through the dark, damp hair that framed his face. Her eyes drank in the sight of him and the naked desire and emotion on his face, in his eyes. She engraved them in her memory, these moments, to sustain her when they couldn’t be together.

“We only truly live when together,” Petra whispered.