[Notes for the run of September 16, 1999.]

While Rhori and Hobbes backtrack the snakeman, Paris asks Attila if he's
all right.  Then she asks for some more details of the snakeman-vs-the-
great-bear legend.  The discussion gradually drifts into creation myths and
other such stuff.  He goes into some details about what the snakemen are
said to do, like sneak into camps and steal babies.  Generic boogieman
sorts of stuff.  Since he thinks all the women have gone back to camp
(Paris being in her disguise), some of his descriptions get rather risque.
Paris maintains her composure.

Rhori and Hobbes return and explain where the trail led.  Rhori asks if we
should have Claire tunnel in to look around.  Claire wonders whether it
might be better to wait until day.  She asks if snakes sleep during the
day?  Rhori doesn't know, but also wonders whether it's really important to
go look.  In the end we decide just to settle down again and resume watch.
The remainder of the night passes uneventfully.

We look again in daylight at the mound where the snakeman's tracks came
from, but still don't see anything of note.

We continue north (and very slightly west), that being the direction the
mounds are aligned along.  Attila says they extend almost all the way to
the City of Ghosts.  We see harpies a second time, but they don't come
close.

After about a week, we come to a gap in the mounds, and Attila has us head
due west for a bit.  For the first time in rather a while, Claire spots a
telluric current, and takes the opportunity to check in.  It being morning,
she contacts Rune, the earth mage in Dungeon.  He tells her that people
aren't able to get between Westmore and Pelier because of the orc army on
the plains at Pelier, and that Westmore has also been repelling orc
attacks.  He explains a bit about an experiment he and Pierre are working
on.

That evening, we're still along the current, and Claire reaches Pierre.  He
confirms that there've been orc attacks at Westmore.  She tells Pierre
about the mounds and the snakemen, alerting him to the possibility that
snakemen may travel by tunnelling.

The next day is Seventhday, but we decide to keep moving anyway (after some
appropriate observances), partly because we don't want to sit still in
possibly hostile territory, and partly because Paris reveals that she has
some sort of deadline by which she needs to be back in Westmore.  We head
north again, into an area covered with knee-high grasses.  It rains.

After several more days, we come to an enormous body of grayish water,
which is in constant motion.  Mia is fascinated.  Attila warns against
drinking the water.  He says the ghost city is some ways away.  We travel
half a day to the west, coming to a rise.  We look across the water where
Attila indicates, but can't see the island he says is there, about twenty
miles away.  Down on the coast is the haunted town.

We go down to have a look at the town.  The sign outside gives its name:
Calais.  Rhori wonders whether this means Calais is supposed to go in by
himself.  Calais doesn't think so.

We all go into the town.  There are no doors in the doorways, and only some
of the windows have shutters.  Some of the buildings have numbers.  As we
explore, several of us hear something moving down a side street, but when
we go to look there we see nothing, and no tracks or scent (except the
pervasive smell of sea water).  Next we hear the sounds of conversation,
but again find nothing.  This routine continues through the day.

Mage sight reveals that this place has an effect similar to the transition
between Tarot and Torat.

The buildings are deserted, with no signs of habitation, though there's
some crushed glass.  Finally we find a building that looks different from
the others, perhaps a town hall.  It's made of granite and marble instead
of wood.  It has a tower on it with an odd shaped top, and no arrow slits.
On the outside is a round spot with some numbers on it: 1, 2, 3, 6, 9.
(The 1 and 2 are really close together at the top.)

We go inside.  In the tower is some machinery that's sort of like a mill,
but made of iron instead of stone.  Again we find nothing useful.  We
decide to head down to the beach, but after travelling about 5 blocks and
going around a corner we find another similar tower.  Another five blocks
brings us to yet another.  It dawns on us that they all looked alike.
Anton flies up to see how many such towers he can see, but as he flies up
the clouds come down to meet him so he can't see much.  He says we seem to
be in the center of the town.

We decide to set up camp in this building.  We stick to the ground floor
since getting the horses up the stairs would be tricky.  Attila and Rhori
chop up some wood for a fire.  Mia takes a piece of charcoal and draws a
circle of protection against evil.  Alas, she can draw only three each day,
and her first two attempts failed.  The one successful circle isn't large
enough for both us and our horses, but it does block the doorway.  She also
casts Bless on the party.

As the sun goes down, we start to see transparent figures of people.  They
do not appear magical.  They are dressed strangely, with no shields or
armor or swords, and some odd sort of leggings.  They seem not to notice
us, and they pass unhindered through Mia's circle, and through us.  They
feel cold, but not as cold as the wraith did.

After a time, a ghostly barbarian approaches, and actually stops and talks
to Attila.  Calais, who has picked up some of the language, can tell that
they are exchanging names of clan members and such, as a form of greeting.
The ghost then says (in barbarian-speak), "They hide in the light.  From
dusk to dawn, they rule."  As he turns to go, we see an enormous gash down
his back, revealing ghostly guts.

Outside, coming down the street, is something as big as a house, with one
leg, three eyes, one horn, and some number of clawed arms.  It moves up the
street, grabbing screaming ghosts and popping them into its mouth.  Rhori,
who apparently hasn't quite grasped that the "people" outside are already
dead, grabs his bow and goes outside to help them.  Hobbes leaps out and
knocks him out of the way of a white lizard-like thing, which dashes away.

Paris asks Mia if it breaks the circle to have her go out and bring Rhori
back.  Mia says it's okay, so she heads out.  Paris sees a large set of
jaws, about three feet wide and five feet long, attached to a large white
lizard, with three glowing red eyes.  The jaws head for Rhori, who dodges.
The lizard passes through Rhori's shield, then Hobbes passes through the
lizard, with no effect in either case.

Claire lobs a volley of magic missiles at it.  One hits, and it disappears
in a swirl of mists.  But more monsters appear, all different.  (The three
eyes on each of the first two was apparently coincidence.)  None of them
leave any tracks.  The ghosts all flee in panic, but the monsters catch
several of them anyway.  Rhori calls to the ghosts to take shelter in our
building.  Then he, Paris, and Hobbes all come back in.  The ghosts do not
take him up on his offer; we suppose it might be their lot to play out this
scene each night.

Finally one of the monsters appears in the doorway and swings a claw in,
but fails to reach past the circle.  Brillig bonks it with the staff, and
it too vanishes, to be almost immediately replaced by another.

Though the circle seems to keep the monsters from coming in the door,
eventually some claws reach in through the windows, shredding some of the
horses.  Anton, Mia, and Rhori lose their horses.  (Rhori is particularly
distraught, having spent considerable time training his horse to put up
with Hobbes.)  We determine that firelight doesn't discourage the monsters;
apparently the "light" they hide from is sunlight.  Anton determines that
his magical flash (gaseous, not light) works on them, but doesn't make them
go away.  Mia tries healing one (using her ranged healing spell), but
there's no obvious effect.

After a sleepless night, we watch the monsters vanish at the crack of dawn.
Things look like they did yesterday; we're still in a transitional place.
Calais examines the mechanism inside the tower, and concludes it's intended
to turn gears and stuff, but he can't tell for what purpose, nor what would
power it.

Rhori wants to leave.  As we pack up, Paris discusses how we might find a
way to Tarot in here, but nobody has any suggestions.

We head out, and after five blocks with some bends here and there, we come
back to the tower.  We try heading a different direction, and after five
blocks we come back to the tower.  Hm.  We try stringing people out along
the path, but don't have quite enough people.  Anton suggests splitting up
and leaving some people at the tower while another group goes to the "next"
tower.  Calais points out that we might come back and find the tower but
not the people, and says that he wants to be in the group that includes the
protection from evil spell.  Nobody seems to want to volunteer for the
other group.

Claire considers tunnelling out.  But she can't take us all at once, so
this again would split the party.  And she realises it's much too far for
her to tunnel all the way out of town.

Brillig prays for guidance.  He glazes over for a moment, then pipes up,
"All roads lead to the center during the day."

Mia prays to ask how to deal with the ghost-eating scourge in the town of
Calais.  She too glazes over, then says she doesn't think we'll be able to
solve the infestation.  A woman told her to journey, that that which she's
asking to solve is but a memory from the time before Tarot.

We conclude that the only way out is to try getting out at night, and the
only way to get past the monsters is to run like heck.  Well, ride like
heck.  We're short two horses (we had one spare), but we can double up.  We
have two people with full Riding skill who can carry the extras.  We decide
to head toward the ocean, since we might find a bridge there.  If we run
into docks while still in town, though, we might have to stop and put up a
circle in a hurry.  We finish making our plans, then get some sleep.

As the sun sets, Mia casts her Luck spell, and we mount up and ride like
the wind.  Many of us are indeed lucky, and we find ourselves outside of
town, at the shore.  As we start to hear ghostly screams from the town, we
find three tunnels going under the water.  The left and right tunnels are
big, and the middle one is smaller, though still plenty large enough for us
and our horses.  Brillig holds back to cover our backs, and Anton heads
into middle tunnel.  (The argument that only smaller monsters will be able
to follow us momentarily makes him forget just how low the ceiling looks in
there.)  The rest of us follow.  Hobbes says it smells a bit like bear.
(?)  The rest of us think it smells like chalk.  Indeed, we find we can
break off some bits of the walls, and they look like chalk.  Brillig and
Calais each pocket some.

There are rivulets of water here and there.  One of them runs into a drain
in the floor.  We try not to think about that too much.  Hobbes warns Rhori
that the bear smell is getting stronger.

After five or ten miles, we come to a place where the tunnel opens into a
room.  Anton's magic sight reports that the walls have not been magical,
but the light in the room ahead is.  Inside are 15-20 foot mounds of dirt,
and a bear with a spear walking toward us.  We look at Attila, but he's
befuddled.  The bear walks up to Rhori and says GNAR!  Rhori mumbles at it,
and it repeats GNAR!  Rhori says we want to go past to get to the
lighthouse and the building [or circle? wheel? I forget just what he said].
The bear shrugs and turns and walks back to the mounds.  We follow, and see
that the mounds like little individual caves.

Several other bears come out.  One is wearing various regalia made from
bits of snakes (or snakemen).  This one seems to speak a little bit of an
older version of barbarian.  We find that they call themselves "dwarves".
They guard against the snakes.  We say that we killed a snakeman back where
we came from.  They're confused; nobody lives that way -- it's dangerous
out there.  We ask if the dwarves have protection against snakeman poison,
and they say something that Attila translates as "bear magic".

Rhori asks if a fellow with a yappy-dog came through recently, and the
answer appears to be yes.  They say he went out by the big tunnel on the
left.  (All three tunnels empty into this room, and all three continue
again on the other side.)

The shaman invites us to stay for some soup.  Some party members want to
hurry on, not wanting to be in the tunnel come daylight (or not wanting to
find out what bears consider edible), but others are hungry and suggest we
stay long enough to eat and perhaps learn a bit about the land to the
north.  They serve us a sort of squash stew.  We chat a bit but don't
really learn much.  The bears/dwarves/whatever don't travel, but just stay
here and keep snakes from travelling south.  They warn us that once we
enter the north tunnels they will keep us from travelling south again as
well.  (We hope we'll be able to find a different way back, perhaps via
Tarot.)

We head up the left tunnel.  After a long night of travel, it's almost
mid-morning when we reach the surface.  We see white cliffs facing back
over the water.  The colors are vibrant, especially the greens, but it
doesn't seem quite like Tarot, and Hobbes says it doesn't smell like Tarot.

We climb up the hill a bit to get out of the open space around the tunnel
mouth, and find a defensible position, and crash.  That night, far to the
north-northwest, several of us see a star that is too low to really be a
star.  Perhaps the Hermit's lantern?

[We had stopped here, but then Pat noted that he'd hoped we'd get a bit
further since there was a Rhori-Hobbes-Calais bit coming up, and Michael
won't be present next run.  So we skipped ahead to run through that part.
I wasn't taking notes, since I expected Calais to be needed and wanted to
be alert, but I went back later and typed it up.  Hopefully Pat or others
will tell me if I missed something important.  And I'm not really sure why
it was a Calais bit, though Calais did happen to come up with the answer.
Next run we did come to this extra bit, so I'm moving it to its proper
place.]