[Notes for the run of June 17, 1999.] Anton remarks, "That's the first human reaction he's shown." Paris turns to look at the Baron, but can't spot him now. "In my opinion, it's the most suspicious thing he did." Why? "A man who has just spent a day fighting the creatures who destroyed his town, and had no thought but to come here and raise an army to rescue his people and his family, gets this close and suddenly decides to take the time to clean up?" There are a lot more guys in green than we remember, and we discover a new concept: bureaucracy. They look around to find someone who remembers us. As an accountant finally arrives who actually recognises Paris, the party spots a familiar figure descending the palace steps to the yard. It's Red. He's clean (wow!) and is wearing the green of the prince's men. We start to exchange tales, and he mentions that he's just seen the Baron, inside. We're surprised, and urge him to get us in quickly. He looks confused for a moment, then says briskly, "They're with me," and leads us into the palace, heading for the Duke's working room. As we walk, we continue to exchange a few tidbits about our respective adventures. Red mentions an Orc city, and a capital that moved (maybe the same place?), but there's no time for details. Red confirms that the Baron was wearing armor matching the description we give him. He asks what the problem is, and we explain that we had escorted the Baron here, and he's been acting strangely. Calais says "There may be someone impersonating the Baron, and he may be the one here, or he may be outside, or we may simply be confused. We need to clear this up." We barge into the Duke's audience room, weapons sheathed. The Duke is no longer in his armor. The Prince is there, along with a lady also wearing green. The Baron, wearing the armor we remember, turns and tells the guards to seize us, saying we're doppelgangers. (Whatever that means.) We start to object (whereupon he also says not to let us speak, as we may be spellcasters). The Prince says, "I'll settle this." He tells the guards not to interfere with the one in armor (Paris), and prompts Paris with a bit of Latin as he draws his sword. The sword glows blue, which seems to puzzle the Prince. Paris responds in Latin, and many things happen. The Duke doubles over, the Prince swings his weapon at where the Duke was, the Baron grabs the lady, the lady uses her saved move to claw at the Baron's face, and the face comes off and falls to the floor with a sickening plop. Underneath is a horrific face, mostly red, like bits of bloody flesh, with glowing red spots instead of eyes. The not-really-the- Baron chortles at the Prince, "This time _I've_ got the girl!" and flies out through the balcony. The Prince tells the guards to kill the spiders. (Spiders?) We recover from the presence attack but are still facing the guards, who haven't had a chance to react (and who are clueless anyway since their back was to all the action). The Prince runs onto the balcony. Paris, unhampered by the guards, runs to the Duke, whom she finds clutching at a lump on his leg. As she aims at the lump, the Duke falls and a spider crawls off his leg. Paris skewers the spider and kneels to tend to the Duke. Red runs after the Prince and Baron, managing to confuse the guard who tries to stop him. Mia wants to cast Combat Heal but can't see the Duke, so she tries to push forward. The clueless guards tell her to stop, ignoring Claire's protestations. Mia keeps pressing forward, and a guard stuns her with a hefty sword wound. Out on the balcony, Red sees the flying figure cross the castle wall, at which point his illusion spell fails, as apparently does his flight spell. But the real figure also has bat-like wings, so he descends with some degree of control. The Prince says, "Damn!" and turns back to the room, telling the guards to release us. Claire attends to Mia; Brillig goes to the Duke but his healing spell fails. Paris chants again, and a glow goes from Paris to the Duke; some of the Duke's wound seems to heal, but a glow also bounces back to Paris and she looks stunned. Red returns to the group around the Duke and, seeing that the swelling -- which Paris' spell seemed to have pushed back -- is growing again, shifts to aim one of his sharp small axes, intending to amputate the Duke's leg rather than allow the poison to reach his groin. The padre finishes his chant, and a white glow from him goes toward the Duke but runs into a black barrier, which shrank from Paris's spell but is growing again. The padre tells the Prince, "I cannot stop the venom." Calais asks whether a sample of spider venom would be helpful. The padre says yes, and starts to ask for people to search the remains of the spider, but Calais offers the makeshift vial. The padre asks for a gold cup to put it in, but nobody has one: all the Duke's goldware has been used to pay for food. After some thought, some people remember that we used a gold cup to drink from the Priestess's fountain, and Mia recalls that Calais was the last to drink. Calais, when prompted, finds the cup and offers it to the padre. Brillig casts a spell to keep the poison at bay a while longer. Claire revives Paris, who also casts her spell again. Again a backlash stuns her. The padre administers an antidote, and Mia finishes her moby healing spell, which now does not backlash. While the healing was going on, a commander comes in and the Prince orders him to seal the city, and to have the archers ordered to shoot the thing if it tries to leave, even if it has the Princess. Silverlock, armed with a sword but clothed in a bath towel, comes in and the Prince tells him to find the thing before it gets dark. A runner enters and says the Archpriest is approaching the gate, and asks whether it's okay to unseal the city to let him in. "Damn strange timing," mutters the Prince. Since Red seems to know Silverlock, Anton asks Red to offer him our help in the search. Mia first checks whether the padre thinks she can offer further help to the Duke. He thanks her but declines her aid, and we set out. Outside, we find people being assembled (but we don't know who tore them apart), some with horses (that must be how you create centaurs! assemble people with horses!). Red requisitions a horse, as does Paris. We exit the palace grounds, and head toward where Red saw the creature landing. This part of the city is deserted, since it's not on the main drag. Red organises a cordon line. Calais climbs to the rooftops to get a better view. Brillig concentrates for a bit, then runs straight up a wall to another rooftop. As we get to the right general area, Anton casts Detect Magic and notices a spot where something seems funny. "Something semi-magical happened right here." It's about a man-sized area. The other mages agree, something disturbs their magical sight in that spot. Mia casts Dispel, and the area is no longer magical. Paris grumbles that it's too late now to have Brillig come down and sense whether it was like the tears between Tarot and Torat. Anton remarks that if Mia's strong enough to dispel the tears, we can fix all the world's problems. We're about to split up to search doors and such, but Mia has us pause (and gathers the two from the rooftops) so she can cast a blessing on us (extra luck). This does the trick for Paris, and she spots a tiny spot of blood on a doorway. Mia meanwhile gets on Paris's horse, so she can move along without getting tired (since she's maintaining the Luck spell). Paris finds a typical unoccupied room, but with a chair knocked over near the stairs up. She starts cautiously up the stairs. Claire appears in the doorway, and Paris whispers to her to have someone go around to the back. Claire passes these instructions to Red, who goes into the building and heads toward the back room. Anton heads around the building. Paris finds a window open upstairs. Across the narrow alley is another unshuttered window, and there are shards of wood below. Claire arrives upstairs just as Paris is about to try jumping across the alley. She has Paris wait while she looks for magic, etc. She spots another dab of blood on the windowsill. Claire gets Calais's attention and suggests he leap across to the next building and climb down into that window, while she and Paris go to the next building. He signals this to Brillig on roof across the street. Calais jumps across and gets into the room. It's a mess. Among other things one of the draperies has been torn down. Red and Anton head for the back door of the new building, as Paris and Claire head in the front. Claire notes that the front door is hard to open, so it's unlikely anyone came out this way. Red finds the back door is latched. He waffles over whether to force it open. He seems more confused than usual, or perhaps it's just that he's been away so long we've forgotten what he was like? Anyway, Anton suggests Red break down the door, and he does so. The room looks like it's been inventoried, but that doesn't fit with the door being latched on the inside. Anton detects magic, and finds a man-shaped hole in the wall covered by an illusion of the wall. There's some rubble on his side of the hole. Claire finds the same thing on her side, minus the rubble. They meet at the hole and compare notes. The rubble indicates the monster went to Anton's half of the building, but the door there was latched. Anton quickly checks for invisible beasts sneaking toward the door they came in by. Seeing nothing, they conclude the beast must be upstairs on that side. Upstairs they find another hole into the next house, and downstairs there the door is unlatched. We gather in the street there. Red and Calais team up to search, Claire and Paris ditto. Anton fetches the horses (and Mia) and tells Brillig where we've gotten to. Red goes up to the roof of another building, but finds nothing unusual. He does find some pigeons, and looking around he notices that another nearby roof has no pigeons, though pigeons are on every other roof (even Brillig's, though they've moved to the far end from him). We recall that horses also didn't like the creature; maybe animals can detect evil? Red falls off -- er, gracefully leaps down from the roof, and goes to tell the others about the pigeon-less roof. Calais climbs down as well, and we move to encircle that building. This time Anton takes the roof, hoping to get off his Flash spell if the monster tries to fly away. Paris and Claire find a door where some threads seem to have gotten caught. Claire checks if they match the missing drape (which Calais has described), but there's not enough to make it out. They go inside and creep upstairs. As Paris rounds a corner, she is struck in the shoulder for a whopping 13 body points. Claire, who was prepped to scream, lets out a holler as Paris tumbles past her. Anton, hearing this, waves at the archers on the castle walls and points down at the building below him. Claire sees the monster poke its head around the corner. Seeing there are two of them, the monster mutters, "Oh shit," and ducks back again. Claire frantically tries to wake Paris up. Calais and Red race down to where they went in. We hear the sound of wood splintering. Apparently it's making its way to another building. Claire shouts out which way she thinks it's going, and heads upstairs, finding it partway through another hole. Brillig moves in near Paris, ready to heal her or head upstairs. Calais resists the urge to check on Paris and heads back where Claire indicated, watching the alley. Red also runs down, non-combat, and ends up at the next door down, along with Mia. The monster throws open the door, says "Oh shit" again, and throws something at Red and Mia, something rolled in cloth. Red drops the smaller of his axes (luck helps!) and catches the bundle. Brillig tells Paris to pause a moment while he pokes his finger in the wound. She feels somewhat better. Calais, having heard the unfamiliar deep voice, comes back along the wall, hoping to be able to catch it by surprise if it steps out. Mia screams "It's here!" and tries to cast her Slow spell, but fails the casting. Paris hears the scream and heads outside. Anton continues to wave to the archers, some of whom seem to have noticed him. Signal horns are being blown. The monster turns around and heads back through the building, and Claire, who was at the top of the stairs, hears it crash through yet another wall. Brillig heads up the stairs and through the previous hole, meeting up with Claire. As Paris runs up, Red tells her the thing went back through the house, and asks Mia to help him unroll the bundle to make sure it's the princess and that she's okay. Mia unrolls enough to find a female hand. Red finishes unwrapping her, and exclaims "Oh no! It's not the princess!" Calais heads around to try to catch it if it comes out the far door. But Claire, inside, sees it head upstairs again. Claire races after it. The monster has cleverly arranged to be at the window at segment 9, so it can use its extra speed to exit and start flying before anyone can react. But, seeing Claire arriving behind it, it starts to mutter some dark incantation. Claire tries to guess whether to dive for cover (vs an area effect) or dodge (vs individual target); she elects to dodge, hoping the corner of the wall will give her some cover either way. The spell turns out to be a fiery explosion, doing some damage to Claire and blowing out most of the wall and floor in the upper room. Anton, seeing his roof disintegrating, leaps to the next building over. The beast then flies out the hole and ducks around a corner. As many riders and soldiers converge on the area, Mia examines the princess (upon re-examination, Red _does_ think it's the princess) for injuries, finding only a couple small cuts where she probably got banged against walls (hence the occasional blood spots we found). There's no serious injury, so Mia doesn't know why the princess isn't waking up. Detect Magic might tell us more, but that's for next time.