Dear Diary-

Back in Amber. Skin finally a normal color after Cibola. Starchart now correctly labeled CIBOLA instead of SUKHO.

Still need to go to Sukho to get inks.

While in port, a military seascaptain approached me about wanting to convert the Lovelace C231 Reflex Conditioner with Reciprocating Mallet Targets into an amusement attraction, replacing the stumps that pop up for people to hit with lifelike heads, hair painted blue or green. He wanted to market it as a "Whack a Rebman" game.

I told him no thank you, I like my ship without all those holes in the hull.

Meanwhile, the bucket fountain sprung an odd leak that's causing it to move backwards and forwards in rotation, at apparent random intervals. You'd think there would be a pattern, but I've yet to indentify one. This needs further study.

Alright, he wasn't really blind, but he did have a squint. And he sold me a starchart to Cibola which was marked as Sukho. I wanted to go to Sukho to get some quality inks.

What I got was a Cibola dream vacation. COME SEE MIGHTY CIBOLA, full of snakes that make you blue, death frogs, corspes having tea, and something Jeremiah, may he rest in peace, called a St. Benard Llama.

I did learn a valueable lesson, though. Do Not Stand Near A Prince of Amber When He Needs A Ritual Sacrifice.

He did manage to get the door open, though. Apparently, the secret to getting a good ziggarat is location, location, location!

Molly finds out who her father is.
There was much rejoicing.
One of the two above lines is a lie.

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Looks like we're heading for Alhambra. Riya's gone missing. This may be a good way to get Molly to meet her father. Hopefully, this will not result in needs to use a wrench. I'll invite Master Glanworth, but I doubt he'll want to set foot on the Basilisk.

THINGS TO TAKE:
> Molly.
> Bedouin Night Suit And Assorted Accoutrements.
> Badriya location device. While I haven't invented this yet, I have a feeling that if I just use a man, it should work. She always got all the boys when we were younger.
> Orientation pamphlets for anyone we're putting on board. DO NOT TOUCH THE SHINY BUTTONS, for starters. Perhaps also explaining that lexicon bug in the difference engine status reports I haven't been able to fix. If anyone sees an error placard pop up that says anything weird, like POKE THE WAX BUNYIP, contact the navigator. It could mean we've sprung a leak, or that we're out of coffee.
> A present for Syd.

PS: Bruises from the Self-Securing Auto-lacing Coventry Corset Mark I seem to be healing.

Infernal Contraption: The Home Card Game!

"The box has everything you need for 2-4 players to endulge in some mechanical mayhem. Infernal Contraption is designed to play quickly - the more players the faster! This allows you to play several games in a strech of a few hours.
Players alternate taking turns to add consumables,contraptions, upgrades, and power sources to their respective machines to bolster its power. When cards are discarded they form a common Scrap Pile.

Tips:
Never touch an unshielded Core. Remember there is an "Ow!" in "power"!

Remember there's no throttle like full throttle. If it won't go, then give it more power!

If you can't build it, bodge it! A contraption made from scrap is just as good as a new one. Well, almost.

Two halves make a whole. So if your machine half works, then perfect it by making it twice as large!

The best things in life are often the small things. You know, the ones that are likely to melt, explode, disintegrate, or all three at once.


 http://www.privateerpress.com/infernalcontraption/default.php

http://www.privateerpress.com/infernalcontraption/cards.php

Written in a self-ratching reciprocating lock scroll, in indigo ink on the cream surface.

Enroute back to Amber on the Bassilisk.

My father's ship, once a terror on the seas, now sails muzzled, the weapons all removed.  It is still dangerous to pull any levers or push any candylike buttons, because his genius knows no bounds...including personal safety.  Aside from the auto-repellers, the auto-swabbers and other devices designed to Improve the Quality of Life can be life-threatening under the wrong circumsatnces.

Still, it is a ship of wonders. I may consider renaming it, now that it is mine. It is no longer an oversized yacht become the Monster of the Seas, designed to Turn Men to Stone at a glance. Once more it is a pleasure craft, simply with oddly retrofitted rooms.  A combination of Begman and Alhambran know-how.

I will have to get used to things being mine now, instead of my being just a caretaker for my father, since he is not allowed in Begma. I always knew I'd be Duchess one day, but I was not fond of the price of the title. Still, I suppose it could be worse...he could be dead, instead of mentally unsound. He could be unstable all the time, and not have periods of lucidity. He could have fought the transfer when he slipped back, and didn't.

 Suprisingly drama free on that end. Then again, he does have someone he wants to meet.

The Mesh-Enabled Flexible Compression Bladder (Mark II) is ready. I think I'll put it in a DO NOT OPEN UNTIL NIGELMAS box for Master Glanworth.

Adapted from a list Annaroxiel keeps on file to calm down her father.


Reasons why using souls to power machinery is a bad idea, even if Addison supplies the means:
1) Boom.
2) Boom Boom Boom. (With you as the second boom.)
3) Peasants. Pitchforks.
4) Mass uprisings making number 3 look like nothing, which results in a change of government and you seeking refuge in a foreign land.
5) Inciting cackling.
6) A large bill presented to you for damages.
7) A rather perterbed master duelest &/or necromancer showing up asking what the hell you're doing, sir.
8) Big Badda Boom.
9) Becoming the star in a cautionary tale told around campfires of combining good solid engineering with Things Man Was Not Meant to Know.
10) Becoming the star in a penny dreadful &/or play about the above, but without being alive to collect the royalties.
11) Laws of dramatic irony dictate you would be harvested to run a machine.
12) Biomechanical design for host of soul  (aka Lich-bot) goes on rampage, resulting in #2, #6, #10, and #10 when #7 occurs.
13) Lich-bot likely to have massive angst issues. It would be like having a teenager.

Synopsis of order:

Several bolts of wire mesh of various and sundry metals, thickness of wire, and density of mesh.

Several bolts of cotton.

Several bolts of silk; preference to Mandrake spider silk if in stock.

One rubber squiddie, blue.

20 design-your-own gyroscope, mini.

Machovic's Big Book of Chaotic Destabilation via Vibrational Variables

Adhesive and Glue variety pack

Sealant variety pack

Mix Your Own Rubber Paste Kit, with a variety of recipies for viscosity

A mixture of rubber hose spools

Personal Med Kit, now with 20% more solutions for explosions.

up-nature/1: You know the dif between animal, plant, and mineral. Fungus still confuses you. 
up-nature/2: You now know fungus to be from the space between shadows, possibly brought over by the Portafada. Of course, if you mention this, a Karm glowers at you.
up-nature/3: You know how to get blood from a stone. See UP-Fight/1.

ao-romance/1: You're PRETTY sure you can't get pregnant from french kissing, but do you really want to risk it?
ao-romance/2: You can use decolatage in a sentence without stuttering it.
ao-romance/3: You know all the best places to buy bodices that artfully rip when tugged on.

up-art/1: You own a painting of dogs playing whist.
up-art/2: You've upgraded to the velvet version.
up-art/3: You can toss paint at a canvas randomly, and make a living at it.
up-art/4: You can draw people fairly well, as long as they're hiding their hands.
up-art/5: You can mix your own paints, and know JUST what colours give you the best contact high painting experience.

up-covert/1: You know enough not to ask.
up-covert/2: Despite your better judgement, you asked. Now you know enough to get you into the speakeasy.
up-covert/3: We can't tell you.
up-covert/4: No, seriously. We can't. We don't know, either.
up-covert/5: You know where the bodies are buried. See ao-ygor/4

up-physical/1: Grunt.
up-physical/2: Ow.
up-physical/3: You can't feel your legs. But don't worry, you will tomorrow. Trust us.
up-physical/4: Olivia Newton John comes to your windows and serenades you to sleep.