[Notes for the run of August 4, 1999.] The book's cover has a key and bow, like Rhori's emblem. Rhori looks inside and sees the title is, The Order of the Etteillan Guard. Rhori is disappointed; he'd hoped the book had to do with his Order. Paris says, "But that IS your Order." "It is?" "Yes." "How do you know?" "It was on the door of the room where you first got your weapons." "Where?" Much confusion later, Rhori agrees it's a book about his order, and seems to have forgotten that he ever thought otherwise. (Intelligence transfer! Rhori ends up understanding what's going on, and everyone else is confused.) The book appears to be instructions for training people in the Order. Paris thinks the book is what Rhori needs for his quest, but she still needs to find Strength as part of her quest for Justice. Mia does some more healing on Anton and Paris. Her ice armor's gotten a bit slushy, too, so she also recasts that. Anton recasts his invisibility. He also checks for magic. The corridor we came in by is just stone. The room has some odd criss-crossing effect, where the two directions seem like Tarot and Torat. The gaps in the criss-cross are easily large enough to admit a hellhound. The effect is also in the next corridor, and it's stronger there as well. We advance into the next corridor, Anton taking the lead with his magic sense still going. After several turns he comes to another room, so big that he can't see the back wall. His magic sight spots an invisible lion watching the corridor. He quietly tells the rest of the party, then steps into the room and to one side to see if it reacts. It continues watching the corridor. Rhori steps forward and tries to speak calmingly to the unseen lion. Anton is ready to call a warning if it moves, but when it moves it moves really fast. Next thing we know, Rhori has a lion's paws on his shoulders and a big set of teeth in his face. Rhori hesitates, then raises his visor; the lion licks his face. Rhori says, "Nice doggie?" It growls back, "I'm not a doggie, I'm a lion." Only Rhori can understand it though. A moment later, it jumps away and turns up with a hellhound in its jaws; the hound breathes a cone of fire up into the air. Rhori spots a second hound; it's apparently still invisible and/or desolid but Rhori got close enough to see it. He swings at it but the blow doesn't affect it. The lion mauls its capture some more. (It too is speed 4.) Paris can't see the new hound but steps forward to near Rhori. Calais comes into the room and keeps his back to a wall. Claire, Mia, and Brillig likewise enter and reserve their actions. Anton, with his magic sight, thinks he saw the lion's hellhound come out of the floor, and also spots Rhori's target as it takes off toward the side wall. Anton draws his sword but the lion doesn't seem to need any help. Rhori tells us the lions are good guys and we shouldn't hurt them, and they're not doggies. The lion seems to approve. After a bit the lion stands up from the carcass. It looks at Mia and Claire and rumbles appreciatively. Rhori picks up the lion's thoughts through the mindlink; Rhori blushes. The lion continues to chat with Rhori; apparently it was told that it would get a companion when it got older, and Rhori is to be that companion. The lion has a blotch on its face that looks like Rhori's birthmark, but on the other side. The lion's confident that its brawn and Rhori's brain will be a great pair. Rhori asks the lion its name, but it says Rhori needs to name it. But it won't accept "doggie". The lion understands that we need to find Strength. It indicates that we have to get up to a ledge. And it says we should hurry before the dogs come back in greater numbers. Anton drops his invisibility and levitates up to the ledge, carrying Brillig and a rope. At the top, they find a doorway leading to a very colorful land, presumably part of Tarot. Calais climbs up, and uses his climbing and artificer skills to figure out how many ropes it takes to support hauling up Rhori and the lion together. We all make it up just as a pack of hounds comes up out of the floor in the room below. It occurs to someone that it's too late now to sift through the lion's dead hound looking for cards. But since nobody was watching Calais while Rhori chatted with the lion, it seems likely the cards got picked up. We enter the Tarot area and find a woman with a big lion. Rhori's lion identifies it as grampa. "I should probably bow." The two of them flail a bit trying to coordinate bowing. The woman welcomes us. "Greetings, Rhori Miller. You have passed." He thanks her, and asks what to do next. She produces an oversized card that looks like a big silver mirror and tells him to bring it to the commander of his Order, who wears a gold badge. (This is presumably Silverlocke, who wears a gold version of Rhori's badge. Prince William wears a gold version of Paris's badge.) "This will allow him to make more of your Order." The book is part of it, too. "Did you create the Order?" "I am Etteilla. I lead the Order for the Emperor." Is the Emperor really caught? "He is ill. He will die soon." Do we need to go help him? "He is in the land of Torat." She confirms that the sceptre and orb have been separated from him, but the Conqueror doesn't have them either. The Hermit will be able to tell us more. To find him, we need to go "as far to the north in Torat as you can go. North to an island, to the far north of that island. North even beyond the Wheel. You will recognise the lights of his lantern." She says that in theory it is possible to defeat the Conqueror in combat; Death might be able to do so, but such a fight has never occurred. Rhori asks her her lion's name. "He is Strength." Anton asks if the Conqueror is responsible for the worlds coming together. She's not sure why the worlds came back together. He asks if the worlds belong together; if that's a good thing. "They were meant to be together." Mia asks what the choices were that caused the worlds to separate. Etteilla is not sure. The minor arcana have choice, but she doesn't know what choices were made that caused it. Anton asks how to get the worlds together again. "You will need to understand Tarot. Understanding is key." Mia asks why the churches split. "I know there was some consternation in the nine because two of them chose to join against the other seven." She says that the nine gods are nine of the twenty-two major arcana. Anton ponders which nine they might be. Anton asks if the Emperor is one of the gods. "No, he is of the Key of Man." Rhori remarks to Paris, "Oh, so he's important to you, huh?" The gamemaster bites his arm to stifle a retort. Paris conjectures that the Empress is of the Key of Nature, but Etteilla corrects her. The Empress's plants are all cultivated; she is wedded to her husband. The Hermit is of the Key of Nature. All paths seem to point to finding the Hermit. Anton asks if we can get back to Torat via another path. Yes, Strength can do that for us. Paris asks if we can return to Torat near where the Hermit is. But we're told there are barriers between parts of Tarot. She takes us to the hillside, lifts up an enormous section of rock, and shows us stairs that lead out between the paws of the lions where we got in using riddles. Rhori asks if she has anything for him to carry the mirror in to keep it safer. He tinks experimentally on the mirror and discovers that it's probably stronger than his armor. Oh. Then he asks about protecting the book from the water that we're going to have to pass through. She encases it in packed dirt, which will protect it (and make it considerably heavier) until he cracks it open again. We thank her, and take our leave, heading down the stairs back to the lake. Claire starts her tunnelling spell before we enter the water-filled tunnel; she also sucks another card to make sure she'll have enough magic to make it. Anton steels himself again. The lion is not pleased about going into the water; he feels he looks really stupid when he's wet. We get back through, and Claire is out of magic for the day (even after the extra card). Rhori and the lion scout ahead to check for bears. No sign of them yet. The lion thinks the colors are dull here. Rhori tells the lion to travel invisible for now. We get out of the cave, and start out down the path. As we walk, fish start appearing out of thin air at Rhori's feet. Apparently the lion found the bears were catching fish, and is stealing some for us. Eventually, as we set up camp, a dead deer starts dragging itself into camp. Rhori mumbles something, and the lion becomes visible, dragging the deer. It waits patiently while we carve the venison, then eagerly eats the parts offered to it. We, or at least some of us, need to go back to Lions to get our horses. Paris notes that if Rhori wants to take the book and mirror back to Westmore, others could go with him. She also wonders whether we should look for the Emperor first. But some of what Strength told us was that the Hermit would help us find the Emperor and/or find the sceptre and orb. So that seems to be our next step. Rhori asks the lion if he can understand Paris when she speaks. The lion says yes, usually, though sometimes she uses really big words. Rhori sympathises. We set up watches. Apparently they changed some time back; Paris and Rhori quietly swapped watches, so it's now Calais/Mia/Brillig, Claire/Paris, and Rhori/Anton. The lion takes a watch different from Rhori's. (Which watch does a magical invisible lion take? Any one it wants to.) Back in Lions, Paris wants to check the library again to see if there's a map of the north. Anton asks if he can go with her. She hesitates, and explains that she's concerned that the librarian would accept Anton on her say-so, and she and Anton don't agree on many things. He asks her to elaborate, "Accept me about what?" and she hesitates even longer, until finally Anton snaps out, "That's okay, it's obvious you don't trust me, so just drop it." Mia and Claire decide to do some shopping. While they're at it, they acquire a stray dog to use as emergency cat food. The lion, whose invisibility has no fringe effect and includes hearing and smell, wanders about town with Rhori. It's thrilled by all the livestock just sitting around, and is disappointed when Rhori tells him it's not his to take. The night passes uneventfully, except that the lion (a) snores and (b) becomes visible when asleep. We move it from the rafters of the common room before anybody else spots it, and hide it in the middle of our gear. The horses don't like the lion, of course, but it's only a problem when it's visible. Rhori rides out ahead with the lion, and deliberately works to get his horse accustomed to it. The dog tries to run back to town, but Mia's grown attached to it and hauls it along in her lap. She names it Bozo. (Claire names it Dejeuner.) Eventually the lion tells Rhori there's a guy hiding next to the road up ahead. Rhori has the lion sneak around behind him, and tells him to make some noise when Rhori gets close, to chase the guy out. The lion takes this to mean it should rear up and roar full out. The guy leaps out of the bushes, dropping his club. The horses are not pleased, but fortunately all except Rhori's aren't too close, so we manage to hang on. The guy is nearly incomprehensible in panic, and smells bad now, too. Amidst much hysterics, he eventually stammers out that some sort of monsters have taken over the mine, killing someone named Kenny, so now they can't mine, and they needed food, so he was going to try to attack us to get some food. Apparently he comes from a town somewhere north of here, called Etienne. We escort him back to the town, which is indeed rather morose over their mine being closed. We ask Anton to chat up the locals. He learns that, a week or so ago, they were in the mine chipping out silver ore, when "things" appeared. Glowing white man-shaped things with horrible howling mouths. Short things with pointed ears and odd sticklike limbs. And something large that ripped Kenny apart, and out of the ripped body rose another of the glowing white things. They sent to Dungeon for help, a four day round trip, and there's been no word, so possibly the messenger didn't make it. Claire thinks the short ones might be kobolds, but doesn't recognise the white things. Anton thinks those sound like wraiths, which are said to appear when people die, but the stories he's heard don't tell much about how to deal with them. The stories do say that being in good standing in the Church helps protect against being turned into a wraith when you die, but they don't say that it helps keep you from being killed by one. (If you're just trying to scare people, you leave out the part about the Church. If you're trying to scare kids into going to church, you leave it in.) It's late on Sixthday when we finish learning this, so we figure we'll go battle the evil monsters after going to church tomorrow. We do manage to talk to the local vicar, but he knows nothing of wraiths. He knows rituals for laying a body to rest, but it takes a priest to do that. Mia might be able to do it. Mia also prays to her gods for information about dealing with wraiths, but gets no reply.