[Notes for the run of September 10, 1999.] Much back in time discussion of whether we should go into the dungeon, and/or what else we're doing during the week. Paris decides to sit in on the sessions training the Teacher skill. (Rhori sits in for a little while and then wanders away.) We also offer various suggestions to the Baron's forces to try during the attack. Anton suggests possibly setting up to sneak into the cave while the orc army is out attacking, but we note that we don't really know how large a force they might leave behind. Brillig's idea of suckering the orc mages into shooting so we can shoot back at them, won't work because the Count doesn't contribute enough mages; most of the Guild mages aren't willing to be that close to the battle. The attack comes. The giant breaks through, and the Baron's forces pull a rope across to trip him, and then whang him with a ballista. They soak him with oil and hit him with a flaming arrow. This illuminates the battle enough that some people are able to spot the clump that likely includes the leader. Anton tries to blind him but his spell fizzles. Claire tries an Entangle, which grabs something and nets her some magic missiles in response. Rhori hits something else with an arrow. Rhori's victim turns, and Paris and Anton see that it has wings, reminiscent of those on the demon we fought in Westmore. (Anton of course leaps to the conclusion that it's the same one. After all, recurring villains like that always turn up that way in stories.) Whatever it is, it moves away from the fighting, putting more Uruk-Hai between it and us. It might have gone airborne once out of the giant firelight, but none of us could see for sure. In any event, with their leader gone, the orc army breaks in confusion and runs. Here and there an Uruk-Hai manages to organise a small group and herd them along. Claire says she'll try to get Pierre to send a short message to the Duke in Westmore, giving a summary of the military situation here and other such status. Paris suggests directing it to Lord Gryphon instead. (Mia asks if she can have him take another message, which we all realise is for Henri. Claire says maybe next time.) Claire asks Anton to arrange for her to meet with Rune, the local earth mage they met at the Guild. She tells Rune about some of the spells she's run into, some of which are new to him. They discuss whether our existing knowledge of such things can be used in place of finding dungeon books as a basis for gaining access to the Guild's books. He says he'll bring it up at the next meeting of the magistrates. (But they don't think to ask when that will be.) They also discuss using the telluric communication spell to set up an information network for use by the Count and such. The spell does require a special focus, though (a bar magnet). Sixthday, Brillig finishes up his first week of training, and takes his fledgling monks to the dungeon to let them try their hand against the skeletons. Brillig finds that Etienne's staff is indeed quite potent against skeletons, though he feels that a rock would've worked fine also. The new monks aren't nearly as proficient, but get the job done, and then get to practice their new healing spell for real. Calais firms up plans for Attila to travel with us, provided we leave soon. (He's really antsy.) Calais says he doubts he could get Paris NOT to leave soon. Attila also warns that it gets a lot colder in the north than we -- or our horses -- are used to, so if we might be out past summer we should get some blankets for our warm-weather horses. Calais gets some blankets. He even remembers to pay for them. Claire and Paris meet with some of the Baron's more magically knowledgeable lieutenants to discuss the use of the telluric communication spell for military purposes. (Paris has apparently used up her brownie points here and can no longer get an audience with the Baron himself.) One thing leads to another: one of the lieutenants asks to see the message Paris was going to send, and verifies that it does not give away details of the town defenses. He asks about the "doppelganger" mentioned in it, and gets the abridged story of the demon's attack in Westmore. He's concerned about the link not being able to verify the identity of the person at the other end, and asks to add to it. He adds a question regarding a fine detail of the palace in Pelier, something only the Prince (or perhaps the Duke or Silverlocke) would be able to answer. (What's on the back of the door in such and such a location?) Pierre is rather taken aback by the length of the message, but agrees to put it in the basket to be picked up by the daily croissant delivery girl. As the week rolls to a close, we determine that we're all prepared to leave on Firstday, except for Brillig, who wants to stay to teach for another week. On Seventhday, after church, one of Brillig's irregular students comes to him and says he had a vision of Saint Etienne while in church. Etienne told him something that sounded like a spell for dealing with poisons. The student didn't catch it all, though. Brillig assures him it's okay to have such visions, though Brillig himself saw Etienne only in a dream. (The student isn't really sure whether he saw a vision or a dream; fasting through breakfast might've caused him to fall asleep in church.) In turn, each of his irregular students (the ones who had cards to spend and thus have already learned the full Monk skill) comes and says he's had a vision of Etienne. It appears that perhaps his students do have a way to learn more Monkish spells and such without Brillig having to stay behind. Late in the day a messenger arrives from the Baron's camp, giving Paris a well waterproofed packet to be delivered to the Prince in Westmore, along with the verbal instructions to "move column B down one" (so if the papers fall into the wrong hands, without the verbal bit, they won't be interpreted correctly). Off we go (including Brillig). The Baron sends six irregulars with us who can act as messengers if Claire gets a reply to her message. As we go, we take a couple side trips to kill off small groups of orcs. We hope that they become less prevalent after we pass the area of their cave, else it'll start slowing us down too much. Except for the time spent, the orcs aren't much of a challenge to us; we get no cards from them. That night, Claire gets a reply from Pierre. The answer to the odd question was "Father Guido's bathrobe". The reply includes a similarly obscure question. Pierre says that Silverlocke actually came out to talk to him after hearing about the message. He wanted to know if Pierre could get a message to Pelier. Claire says that it was weird, but there were absolutely no mages in Pelier. The six irregulars head back the next day with the message. After the pass north of Dungeon, the valley opens up. Attila is more familiar with the area to the east. He doesn't carry food, but forages as we travel. He wonders a bit about the dead deer that keep showing up along our path. Eventually he does get introduced to Hobbes. Attila also asks Rhori if any of the women are "taken". Rhori of course does not understand, so who knows what Attila ends up concluding. By the fourth day of travel, we come to a region where, at regular intervals (about 100" apart), we pass a mound running east-west with bushes growing on it. Attila says they were built by the Snakemen, who lived in the mounds. The Great Bear (which you can see in the night sky) drove them away to the lands in the north. He says that you can still hear the sound of slithering at night. Claire figures this is just a story to try to frighten the women into wanting protection at night. We wander over to one such mound and check it out for magic, IR, tracks, sensitive, and so forth. Nothing. It doesn't even seem like a focus. In the distance we see a north-south mound cutting across them, or perhaps sealing the end. We make camp near one mound, so Claire decides to tunnel in and have a look. Attila tags along behind her. She finds that it appears to be solid dirt. We find that the east-west lines go a mile, then there's a north-south line, then an open space to another north-south line, and beyond that another set of east-west mounds. Anton flies up to get an aerial view, and it looks like quite a large area has been marked in this way, dividing it into lots of rectangles about a mile east-west and a couple hundred yards north-south. Calais asks if the pattern suggests anything in the Tarot, but nobody can think of anything. Fifthday we see a group of flying things; they land in a copse of trees about a mile away. Attila says they're more of the flying things Calais had heard about from the other barbarians. They have a harsh cry that bothers the horses. We camp a bit early so we can have some cover from trees against any aerial attack. Second watch, Claire doesn't want to admit it at first, but she hears a slithering sound. She tells Paris, who listens for it but doesn't immediately set out to investigate. [The main reason she didn't set out was because Sheryl was too timid to interrupt and Marian/Pat proceeded with more of Claire's actions.] Claire then tells Hobbes (also on watch), but he doesn't understand what she wants, and Rhori has told Hobbes not to mess with Claire at all. Hobbes wakes Rhori to ask for advice, but since Hobbes didn't really understand Claire, Rhori doesn't catch on and doesn't get up. Claire next wakes Attila, and tries to indicate to him that there's something out there. She intended to get him to listen to it, but he instead nods, grabs his armor and axe, and heads out. A moment later he swears an oath and there are the sounds of battle. Claire wakes the rest of the party as Paris heads off to help Attila. She finds him in battle with a figure with the upper body of a man and the lower body of a snake. As the rest of us wake up, there's a bright flash. Apparently the snakeman cast a spell of some sort, but Paris is protected against flash and is not affected. The snakeman tries to disengage, but Paris follows it and swings her hammer at it. It blocks her with its shield. Various of the rest of us start getting up and readying weapons. Paris swings again and is again blocked. The battle proceeds a while in this vein. Attila swings blind but manages not to hit anyone. Eventually there comes a time when the snakeman chooses not to block a hit by Paris. This makes Rhori nervous, so he has Hobbes jump on it to keep it from doing whatever it was planning. Eventually we overcome it. We notice that it seems to be smoking; it looks like it has some sort of caustic venom, but it's mingled now with gore and so cannot be taken for analysis. Hobbes declares that it's neither Fell nor Dark. He asks Rhori if he can pee on it. We find two silver cards on it. Rhori tries to track it back, but he can't follow it back very far. It does seem to have been ground-based. Attila expresses interest in celebrating the victory, but none of the women take him up on it. Mia does blush prettily. Rhori asks Hobbes if he can track the snakeman back any further. Hobbes growls softly, which Rhori hears as "What a smart idea! Smells just like snake." He even remembers to stay visible as he leads a small number of us away from the corpse, through the bushes, to the side of one of the long mounds. "This is it." The soft earth looks no different from the rest of the mounds, although Hobbes has picked a spot nothing grows on. There doesn't seem to be a hole in this mound either, at least not a man-sized snake one.