[Notes for the run of May 20, 1999.]

The fire clears the greenery from the top of the pit; some of it smolders
but some is dry enough to burn.  We're careful not to make too much smoke.
(Brillig's cardboard warning about alerting the Spider Lord comes too late,
but we don't particularly even want to attract orcs.)  The webbing does not
burn, but sort of melts wherever we set a fire.  The pit goes down a ways
at a steep angle.  None of us can make out anything of the bottom.

Brillig and Genelle stand guard while Anton casts an "image of a torch"
spell and the rest of us rest for five minutes.  Anton floats his torch
down into the hole and he and Calais peer in.  About 12 feet down, Calais
sees something glint like metal; then a ball of glop flies through the
false torch, from right to left.  Calais also sees multiple small forms
moving.  The spider is not visible, presumably hiding behind brush or other
cover.

Anton moves the torch toward the right.  Calais hears a faint sound, and
there's no sign of the spider over there.  Anton starts to cast a second
torch spell, while Paris tries clearing the web from the top of the pit,
borrowing Calais's spear.  As she does so, she spots a "small" spider
(foot-wide or so) scrambling out of the goop and trying to take cover under
some roots.  She clubs it with the spear.  Squish.  Paris continues to
scrape up more web, making the spear resemble a giant cotton candy.

Fortunately, this is one of Anton's few spells that doesn't require total
concentration, so he notices the giant spider as it pops out of the pit
next to him and tries to bite him.  Anton aborts the spell and dives aside
as Calais draws his sword.  It tries to bite Calais instead; Calais blocks,
but notices the spider's jaws are dripping some sort of green ichor that
sizzles a bit on his blade.  The two are too close for most of the other
characters to get a clear shot.  Paris runs over, switching the spear to
her off hand (with some difficulty, since it's so sticky) and readying her
pick.  Claire asks if Calais needs help, and then risks a magic missile
bolt, which hits but glances off.

Segment 4.  Paris swings a might blow (crit, armor piercing) and buries her
pick into it.  The spider collapses, pulling Calais's sword out of his grip
as it falls.  Paris asks, "Are you all right?"  "I think so.  None of that
got on me.  I'd better retrieve my sword and clean it off quick."  He does
so.  The sword is stained a bit.

There are still little ones in the pit.  We can't think of a way to wipe
them out at range, which makes retrieving silver cards from the pit a bit
problematic.  Calais wonders if sufficient armor is proof against them.  He
was thinking of Paris, but Claire notes that her magical armor is even
stronger.  If we brace her with a rope she can walk down the side of the
pit so as to maintain contact with the earth.

The small spiders aren't able to harm Claire, but they do have some sort of
poison that eats small holes in her clothes.  She finds a sword, something
shiny, and a skeleton of someone skinny.  Also six silver cards (yay!).
Anton moves the torch around to help her search.  She finds a sac of eggs
and zots it.  Eventually she asks to be hauled up.

Paris thinks she could eventually concoct an antidote for the spiders'
poison if we could take a sample.  Since the stuff eats through clothes and
metal, we wish we had something of glass, but nobody does.  Mia suggests
wax-lining something.  Calais manages to hollow out a candle and stores a
small sample inside, wrapping the fragile container carefully and storing
it in the orcs' lockbox.

The sword is double-edged, of some unusual metal, like a broadsword but
lighter, and shows no signs of spider poison.  Brillig studies it.  It
seems a bit harder, but when it breaks it'll shatter.  (Treat as broadsword
with higher DEF, lower BODY, same STR min, 1.5kg instead of 2.0.)  He
doesn't recognise the style or workmanship.  Where the maker's mark should
be there's a sort of triangle, with one edge thicker than the others.
Anton and Mia check and report it is not magical.

The shiny thing resembles a Mayan dreamcatcher, with a central hole.  The
threads appear silver.  It's probably worth a pretty penny (but Calais
isn't immediately sure how much).  It is not currently magical, though it
could perhaps be used as a focus.  The mages report that silver cards are
in fact magical (no surprise).

Mia figures the six cards and the sword should be divided among the seven
of us, but Genelle declines any of the booty.  After some discussion,
Calais takes the sword, as (of those who wield broadswords) he is more
likely to wield it with extra strength (so the extra sturdiness could
matter).  Paris takes Calais's original sword to keep his weight down.

We continue on, angling slightly north of west, with people on the alert
for whether the eerie feeling of the forest increases as we travel.  The
forest continues to get darker, and the bad feeling increases (for everyone
except Paris, who continues not to notice it).  We pause to check for
magic, and after a bit Mia determines that the feeling eats at our
equanimity.  In game terms, it is draining 1 PRE per phase, which we
recover each turn.  But if it gets stronger we'll eventually go running in
terror.  We wonder a bit why Paris seems unaffected, but she doesn't
comment.

We angle south of west for a while.  The mages report the effect is staying
at about the same level.  After a while, Calais hears the buzzing of flies
off to the left, and goes to investigate.  It's a dead giant spider.
Calais creeps up to check.  The spider has a single arrow sticking out of
it.  He goes back to meet up with the party and leads them to it.  Paris
checks for tracks.  Calais figures out where the shot came from, and
figures it was a few days ago.  No tracks but his.  The fletchings are
white and silver, unknown to Paris.  The arrow apparently hit with enough
force to knock the spider back about three feet.

We set off again, this time due west.  After a bit we come to a small
trickle of water.  On the other side, the forest seems still darker.  Anton
reports that on the other side of the trickle the effect is stronger (1/2
die of drain).  The trickle flows from SW to NE, so we follow it to the SW.
After a while the other side of the trickle seems no worse, but we continue
SW a while longer before switching to west again.  Toward dusk we find a
clearing large enough to camp in; we check for pits, spiders in trees, etc.

Genelle puts up a circle of protection that relieves us all of the creepy
feeling.  During first watch, Calais notices that the forest is unusually
quiet: no wolves, no birds, no frogs, no crickets, nothing.  The other
watches notice this also.  (Oh, and Calais does clean the webbing and
spider guts off his spear.  Ick.)

In the morning, Paris draws water duty.  On her way to the stream, she
hears a child's voice, saying "Please stop right there, or I shall have to
kill you."  She stops and asks, "Am I intruding where I should not be?"  A
slender man steps out and asks, still in a child's voice, "That depends.
What is a keeper of the key of man doing here in the forest?"  "I am taking
a friend to [Don didn't catch how Paris described the destination]."  The
man asks to meet the friend, but Paris doesn't want to lead him to us if he
is inclined to kill us.  He says he needs to "find out why your friend
needs to intrude."  "May I ask if you have more authority than just that
bow for asking such questions?"  "We _are_ the people of the forest.  We
have been watching your camp all night."  "To the best of my knowledge we
have harmed none of your forest, save for spiders."  "Ah.  Spiders are not
in our forest.  They occasionally cross the line into our forest, and then
they are not in our forest any more."

After a bit more discussion, Paris returns to camp.  "It appears we have
trespassed on a forest that belongs to others.  They wish to ascertain why
we are here.  I suggest that we let them determine that we do not intend
them any harm, so they will not harm us."  (So far the party does not see
any sign of these folks.)  After a bit of discussion, Calais calls out,
"We're just trying to get to Jouet.  Hello?"  A slender man appears, with
his bow lowered, and asks of Calais, "Is he the one you are taking to
Jouet?"  We indicate Genelle, and ask her to explain why she wants to go to
Jouet.  She walks over to him.  "I... have to go there.  There is no place
else _for_ me."  The man looks confused.  "You're not one of the guardians
of the keys.  You're different."  He reaches a decision.  "The queen will
have to decide.  Pack up your things.  Come with me."  As we get ready, we
can see about a dozen of them, braced on various trees, many of them up in
the trees.

Mia mutters about being hungry, and Calais asks if it will be long walk,
and if so can we break fast first.  "It's not a long walk, but you may eat
first."  They fade into the trees as we prepare and eat breakfast.  The man
reappears and says, "Ready to go then?  Come on."  He leaps up into the
trees and starts running along the branches.  "Oh right.  Humans."  He
leaps down and starts walking.  The party notices that the forest does not
seem at all dark and forbidding today, almost as if it's a different forest
than where we went to sleep.  (Nobody has a good enough memory to know for
_sure_ that we're in the same spot as where we set up camp.)

As we walk, the man keeps getting ahead of us and has to wait for us to
catch up.  (Extra running? only in forest?)  Eventually we come to their
village, which is built up in the trees.  (Imagine the Ewok village in
Return of the Jedi.  But without the Ewoks, thank heavens.)  Our escorts
pull their hoods back from their cloaks, revealing pointy ears.  We're led
to their queen.  The head of our escort says we appear not to be
forest-burners, and Paris is a guardian of the key of man, and "we don't
know _what_ she (Genelle) is."  Paris manages Courtly Graces and introduces
us to the queen.  The queen calls over her spellweaver to examine Genelle.

The spellweaver has a large staff with a clear ball of crystal; he also
wears an item that looks a lot like the dreamcatcher we found.  Paris tells
the queen that we have some items that appear to belong to these folks.
Calais rummages about and shows the sword and dreamcatcher, which Paris
gives to them.  Apparently the dead one was this spellweaver's apprentice.
They ask us the details of what we found, and we tell about the skeleton.
They say the dreamcatcher should be burned, but we may keep the sword,
and they thank us for bringing them.

The spellweaver finishes examining Genelle, and the queen speaks to her.
"You are not all that you can be.  But we will not keep you from your way.
We will escort you to the edge of the forest so you may continue on your
journey."

To all of us, the queen says, "I understand you humans dine at about this
time of day."  It's a bit early, but we agree.  "We will feed you then
before you go."  We thank them for this, and she has someone lead us down
to where we can more comfortably eat.  Before we leave the queen, Paris
asks how one can identify the edge of the forest.  "You have maps."  (We
look nonplussed.)  "You have _had_ maps."  "If so, I know not of them."
"Ah, you are a newborn."  (Nonplussed again.)  "You are only... 40 years
old?"  (Snort.)  "30?"  "I am 17."  "Oh."  We settle that we'll have the
duke map it out.  Or maybe have the map duke it out.  They thank us again
for "returning the sign of he who will not be named", from which Calais
concludes that the magic focus thingie is a religious symbol of some sort.
(But a later reference makes clear the name they are avoiding saying is
simply that of the apprentice.)

They bring us to a place where they offer us bread and wine.  We fret a bit
about whether legends warn against eating fairy food, but Anton thinks
that's only if you go into a fairy hill.

We ask our host, Thallion, how his people are known.  "Well, we are Clan
Kelly.  And this is deForest Kelly."  (And the first one we saw was just
Bones.  Sigh.)  He does eventually give a name for his race: elves.  (Duh.)
He calls the food "waybread."  It's quite tasty, and remarkably filling.
Mia asks what herbs are used in it.  "Well, uh, it's waybread."  (Clearly
Thallion is not the baker.)  "Oh, right, you're a newborn.  40?  No, 17."
"20."  "You're 20, you're 17.  You don't look any different."

This leads us to ask Thallion how old _he_ is.  He gives a date relative to
the reign of some king.  Genelle digs up her knowledge of kings of Torat.
There's a gap between the kings she knows about and those Thallion can
recall, but we conclude he's at least 400 years old.

Further discussion determines there are guardians of the key of man, who
don't usually come into the forest, and guardians of the key of nature.
Paris confirms that's what Rory's symbol denotes.  Paris asks if there are
other types of guardians, but Thallion doesn't know of any.  Calais asks if
there are other races besides elves, humans, and fell.  "Oh, lots."  Calais
tries to find out which are around here, but Thallion doesn't name anything
new.

They escort us to the edge of their part of the forest.  They invite us to
keep the rest of the waybread.  On the walk, we find we can keep up better.
In game terms, the waybread temporarily adds 2 REC, which means we can use
1 more END per turn without burning long term END.

We ask where the spider forest is in relation to theirs.  It's due north.
(Players -- particularly those who weren't present -- are encouraged to
come up with additional questions to ask the elves.)

He leaves us at last, telling us we're mostly wooden -- er, west (human
isn't his first language) -- of where they found us, and a bit soggy -- er,
south.  We look around, and Calais spots a rock outcropping to the north
that he thinks he remembers seeing to the south on his furthest excursion
from Jouet.  He goes up for a closer look, and on the other side of the
hill sees lots of orc encampments throughout the clearer areas.  He stops
the party before we crest the hill.  "Lots of orcs?" says Brillig.
"Great!"  Calais emphasises: "LOTS of orcs."  Brillig goes and has a look
over the hill.  Looks like 300 to 600 of them.  "Hm, we'll need to find a
way to surprise them."

For now, we furt through the forest to avoid the orcs.  We spend a nervous
night.  (We all hear wolves, no perception roll needed.)  Since Brillig is
cardboard we manage to keep him from sneaking off to kill orc sentries.  We
clarify our goal with Genelle: we need to help her find the "right" body of
water near Jouet.  Rousing the orcs before that is done seems wrong.  We'd
like to check whether they're camped permanently or passing through, but
decide not to risk getting that close again, especially since they do seem
to be either moving or patrolling during the night.  Indeed, third watch
wakes the party a bit early, reporting that the howls have moved to where
they're between us and the elf forest, and that Anton heard them getting
further away, but then a wolf howl was cut off suddenly and since then the
howls have been getting closer.  Sounds like the elves turned them back,
and they might have picked up our trail.  We start moving, Calais again
scouting ahead.

Still a mile or so from the old swimming hole, but closer than that to the
mill pond (remember, we're not sure which body of water we're looking for),
Calais pulls up as he sees about 25 orcs in the process of gathering
buckets of water from a stream.  A couple of them are sergeant types, but
no really big orcs, no goblins, no kobolds, and no wolves.  We wind up the
run here as Calais goes back and tells the party so we can plan how to mow
them all down.  (But the wolves _are_ clearly on our trail, and getting
closer.)