[Notes for the run of May 6, 1999.]

End of the week; discussed how to spend cards.  (Can get +1 for week of
training, then can add cards to get levels or skill up to one less than
instructor.  Stats and END reserve can be bought for cards at any time.)

Six days of training (and trying to catch thief, etc.).  Seventh day most
of us go to "church".  (Mia goes elsewhere.  Brillig apparently does turn
up at church.  Red's still not back.)  At church an amazingly gorgeous
woman says hello to Paris.  Long sleek black hair, fair skin, blue eyes...
Paris introduces the woman, Lorraine du Gryphon, to the rest of the group.
Lorraine flirts quite skillfully with Calais, and then also with Anton.
Paris eventually fills us in that Lorraine's parents have been training
Paris at the palace.  (Later, when we tell Mia and Brillig about the day,
Claire tries to provoke Calais and Anton by slanting the description to
suggest to each that Lorraine paid more attention to the other.  But both
Calais and Anton get so dreamy over the mere memory of Lorraine that they
refuse to rise to the bait.)

We talk to Genelle about why she wants to return to Jouet.  She says she
plans to stay there.  She says there's no place for a woman in the
established church hierarchy.  She's vague about how she expects to survive
there.  Somehow it arises that Mia mentions she found a tarot card reader;
Mia "is" the ten of cups.  We tell Genelle what the Magician told us about
the Tarot, mirror, etc., but she doesn't know anything about the Tarot
deck.  Mia says the reader told her the Magician was behind her, and the
High Priestess is in front of her, so we expect to meet the High Priestess
soon.  We ask Genelle if she's the High Priestess, but she doesn't know.
She does ask about the Magician's pool being a mirror, and muses whether
the old swimming hole near Jouet would be a mirror.  ("Hey, I didn't think
the girls knew about that place!" exclaims Calais.)

Early morning we get to the gate ready to set out.  We see a bunch of the
Duke's riders setting out for the day's patrol.  One of them comes over and
hails Paris; she hails him as "Sir Marion".  He warns that the orc packs
are getting larger, and they seem to be coming from the north and west, so
he suggests we cut south of the road if we want to avoid them.  The patrol
sets out; 16 of them this time (twice the size of the patrol that met us on
our first approach to the Duke's new city).

Toward the end of the day, Calais, scouting out in front, spots a dust
cloud against the late afternoon sun.  He waits for the party to catch up,
and Anton flies up to get a look.  He says it looks like a cloud being
raised behind a party of some sort moving rapidly up the road toward us.
We decide to move south a ways and conceal ourselves while Calais stays
nearer the road to see what it is.  (Anton hovers his way into a tree near
the party.)

At a distance of about 100 meters Calais makes out at least a dozen orcs,
riding the biggest wolves he's ever seen.  PRobably more behind them.  He
stealths away from the road, and about the time he estimates the orcs would
be reaching where we left the road we hear a wolf howl.  Calais breaks into
a run and returns to the party.  We dither for a bit about whether and how
we can set up a defensible position, but it doesn't look good.  Genelle
asks if we can keep them from following us.  All we can think of is to find
a stream (there are no bigger rivers nearby) and running along it.
Eventually Brillig adds that tracking through burned out areas is harder,
so Anton starts a fire behind us.  There's little or no wind, so the smoke
hangs around that area, and the wolves seem to lose the trail there.  But
we continue to run down the stream until dark.

That night, first watch (Genelle, Paris, Calais) is quiet.  Second watch,
Mia and Claire spot a pair of bats apparently scouting the camp.  They
quietly wake Paris, then Claire waits for the bats to swoop down for
another pass and sets off her racked force wall in front of them.  The
rocks of the wall leap up to intercept the bats, stunning them, and Paris
and Mia dispatch them.  Third watch, having been told about this, spots
another pair of bats.  They wake Claire and repeat the process.  Brillig
reports that the bats "feel wrong" when they get close, but nobody checks
for magic.  In the morning Calais asks if they were magical, but they don't
seem to be magic any more (if they ever were), and Brillig says they no
longer feel wrong.