The day was getting old already and evening was setting in by the time they reached the mansion. Kate pulled around the side right to the back of the mansion where, as they suspected, Max was overseeing the set up of the night's activities.
"There's the guy," Zach said, pointing out a weedy character in smart casual attire.
"Theodorus, how soon we meet again!" Viktor's table greeted the truck.
"Oho! That's it! How did he sell anyone on this?" Kate eagerly hopped out of the cab and strode towards the party.
"Hardly seems fair," Theodorus answered. "Although I do have an answer for you."
"Kate! I'm so glad you're here!" Max growled. "Let me introduce you to Guru Bruno!"
"There's no shame in taking enough time to carefully consider a move," Viktor's Table assured Theodorus. "Great games are not built of hasty moves."
"Charmed, I'm sure," Kate purred as she shook the Guru's hand. "I'm here to sign up for the biting contest. I'm a bit shy about my war form. D'you mind if I try out in private?"
"Oh, of course," Theodorus agreed. "I have actually given this particular game a lot of careful consideration. However, it has been so long since I met you last, I predicted some of your possible choices so that I may also prepare further moves."
"Well now, little lady, there's no need to by shy! We're here to help. How's about we have our own little contest right here, right now, before anyone else gets here?"
"A true strategist never has a single plan," Viktor's Table said.
"She also wants to sign up for the pissing contest," Zach interjected.
"No I don't," Kate quickly responded.
"Qe6," Theodorus gave.
"That sounds great!" Kate agreed enthusiastically. "Can I go first?"
"Interesting," Viktor's Table mused.
"Of course!" Guru Bruno beamed, giving Kate's shoulder a reassuring rub. He stifled his surprise – she had arms like an oak had branches. Tough cookie! "Then afterwards you can join our little party and we'll just wash those worries away! Are you ready, now?" He gave her a smile, then assumed a full, monstrous Gurahl crinos form.
'You're not surprised?" Theodorus asked.
Kate gave Guru Bruno an impressed frown. "Wow!" She exclaimed, craning her neck to look up at him. Then: "Warning. I am about to bite you."
"Uh, Guru Bruno-" Max tried to interrupt.
"I was wondering to myself if you would take the offensive or the defensive," Viktor's table replied. "I knew you would be working to strengthen your presence, but I could not decide if you would miss the opportunity to castle." The table spoke without concern for the screaming that had commenced somewhere on the far side of the truck. "Although I may not have suspected this. Am I to understand from this maneuverer that you have finished deploying?"
Zach and Max cringed in unison. "That's gonna hurt," Zach observed.
"I'm sure you can see how this has opened up the game, as opposed to increasing defences," Theodorus replied.
(Whoops!) Kate lost her balance and stumbled slightly, rattling all the windows in the mansion and causing nearby trucks, garden furniture and onlookers to rock slightly. A sofa-sized piled mass of fur fell at her feet like a rug, and something much smaller appeared to have been flung in to the garden.
"Hmmm." Viktor's table reflected on the implications of Theodorus's move.
"He's in the garden! He's- not a wolf!" Zach called, scrambling towards the fugitive Guru.
"A novel move, maverick, even," Viktor's Table remarked.
Something much smaller than a bear zipped through the garden, shortly followed by Zach with all the spirit of a parkour expert, who himself was reluctantly watched by Kate. As a dinosaur she could not follow due to Theodorus taking up the space she'd need on the road around. She gave a huff and turned around in search of a clearer path on the other side of the mansion. Theodorus watched her tail swing past while he waited in silence as Viktor's Table considered its options.
"Would it be premature to call the guests and inform them tonight's meeting is canceled, Sir?" Jeeves prompted Max.
"Er... probably not," Max conceded.
"Very good, Sir," Jeeves left the bewildered Garou.
"I'm reminded of a classic game from 1634 between Xu Yuhua and Dieter Svetushkin," Viktor's Table presently offered.
"Kate! No stomping over my patio!" Max growled.
" Svetushkin had an aversion to overly defensive play, and drew a reputation as an unorthodox master of the game."
So you can do vertical walls? Zach thought, impressed. I can do them better.
"I believe I may be calling on a move not entirely unlike something he encountered in that fateful game with Yuhua." Viktor's Table added.
(I wasn't stomping!) Kate called back over her shoulder to the Garou marching up behind her.
"What was remarkable about that game?" Theodorus asked.
"Kate, lookout!" Zach yelled. Too late.
"Svetushkin had been accused of insulting the honour of Yuhua's daughter, the princess Chaw-Xing. He-" the table paused its explanation while the overshadowing sound of a nearby explosion died away. "-was playing for his life. He lost."
(Aaaaaaaaaargh!) Kate screamed. She was at the edge of the grounds. Her claws dug deep furrows in the neatly manicured lawns, her eyes wide and full of panic. She was was hanging over the cliff from the shoulders down.
"Such is the peril of over-estimating one's ability," Viktor's Table finished.
"Right..." Theodorus responded. He was growing slightly more distracted by external events.
On the other side of the mansion Zach reappeared over the garden wall to the sight of Kate clinging on to the edge of the cliff. "Not good," he muttered.
The table remained silent, oblivious or maybe indifferent to the drama.
Within a couple of pounding heartbeats Zach had reached Kate. He glanced at her hands. Every tendon and every vein was raised and visible, her knuckles pale, her hands locked in to the earth like roots.
"You're going to have to shift..." he urged.
(I can't! I'll lose my grip! And I'm bracing myself with my tail,) she strained.
"Pull yourself up!" came Max's voice. The Mokole exchanged confused looks. The voice seemed to come from over the cliff. Zach peered down.
Max was skewered on spines a little higher than Kate's hip, just out of reach. It didn't seem to be bothering him. "You could just pull yourself up if you were on BEAST TANK!" Max announced. He flailed his arms a bit. "Huuurrrrr!"
"Okay, shifting not an option," Zach agreed.
"It's all about your ATTITUDE, Kate!" Max asserted.
"Zach!" Theodorus called. "I have a winch."
Jeeves appeared from within the mansion and took in the scene. "Shall I call the groundskeeper and see if he is available for overtime, Sir?" the butler enquired.
"Can you hold yourself for a few minutes?" Zach asked Kate.
(What!?)
"I have to retrieve Max," Zach explained unhappily. "Once he is off you, you can get smaller and I can help you up."
Kate gritted her teeth. (Be quick!)
"I'll just go ahead," Jeeves decided, turning back in to the house.
The wall of the cliff was unstable soil. Zach tested it, found it lacking, and was overwhelmed by another wave of impending doom as he realized the cliff would not hold Kate for very long at all. "Okay, Kate. I can't get a grip on this cliff. Hold still." Zach trepidatiously picked footholds between Kate's spines over her shoulders and down her back. Hundreds of feet below him the ocean crashed in to the base of the cliff with a distant but persistent roar. Only a few feet down Max dangled like a worm on a hook.
"I'm glad you're here, Zach," Max was growling. "I know how it feels to be humiliated by a wussy war form. You should try Beast Tank!"
Max was hooked on a spine curved downwards towards the ocean. If he slipped any further he'd be sleeping with an untold number of historical former Shadow Lord enemies. Zach sighed inwardly. Nothing about this was easy.
"If I used Beast Tank and it did to me what it did to you, I wouldn't be able to be here saving you right now," Zach pointed out as he struggled to unhook the Garou while maintaining his grip on Kate's armour. The wolf continued babbling about how he could drag the dinosaur up himself largely ignoring the fact that his middle was mostly mashed and several of his limbs weren't working. Zach strenuously hauled the wolf back up over the hazardous plates of armour before dumping him on the lawn. That's one, he thought glumly.
"Okay, Kate. I'm going back down the cliff. I'm going to support you from there. Take your suchid form. You should stay exactly where you are, but if you don't, I'll be right there to push you up. I think this is our best plan."
Kate nodded frantically. Her expression was utterly miserable. Zach delicately climbed back over Kate, acutely aware of her muscles twitching slightly under his padded grip. As quickly, as cautiously as he could he picked his way over her skin. He crawled to a secure station by her side and made himself as tightly adhered to the wall as he could. With one arm he gently supported her flank as she breathed panicked breaths. "Are you ready?" he called.
(No!) she replied. Then (Yes. As ready as I'll ever be...)
"Okay then..."
(One... two...three!)
In the split second that followed, the giant dinosaur that had been clinging to the cliff for her life was replaced by a significantly tinier lizard, who, with a frantic wriggle, slipped cleanly off the edge of the cliff out of the reach of the waiting were-chameleon. Zach had severely misjudged how much space the monitor lizard would not be taking up.
"Kd5," Viktor's Table decided.
Fortunately, split-second responses and inadequate limb-reach are not stumbling blocks for a chameleon's tongue.
"I'm so glad I was unconscious for that," Kate said with a shudder.
"You think it was bad for you," Zach answered. On the list of things Zach disliked being smacked in the face with, Kate ranked third position. "It could have been a lot worse. For both of us."
"What a crazy day. Max, Daedalus, the Quarter, the Brew'ry..."
Delores, Merlin, Sport, Deckster, Trashmouth, thought Theodorus. And a garden table who is beating me at chess.
"What happened to that coyote in the end?" Kate asked.
"He escaped. I could continue chasing him, or I could catch you. I decided you were a higher priority."
"I'm thankful for that!"
Me too, Theodorus thought.