[Notes for the run of October 28, 1999.] Back in time, we get answers to some questions Brillig asked of Justice. (Some of these questions might've been better suited for the Hermit, but we didn't know to ask them until we saw the trial involving Sir Juda.) "Is there a way to restrict Fell and Dark to Tarot without breaking the mirror again?" There are no laws restricting the Fell to Tarot. "Can the mirror be broken 'nicely' without causing all the 'havoc'?" The laws regarding the Mirror are outside Justice's jurisdiction. "Is the effect of Tarot/Torat only in 'our lands' or does it also effect the 'distant lands' we have heard about (Arabia, etc)?" We (the Tarot Justice) do not enforce Justice in those lands. "Who is the second who can write magic books?" The two are he who writes what was and she who creates magic. "Why have we seen no magic books that teach 'white church spells'?" The books of the Church are not magic books. The Church of Order has its own rules about access to its books. Back in real time, Alexis talks to her mother about promoting Paris. I didn't listen in so I don't know what was said, but apparently her mother agreed to it, at least in part. Late that night (Sevenday, actually in the wee hours of Firstday morning), Hobbes leaps onto Rhori, shouting mentally, "Look out." Rhori, waking from a sound sleep, says, "Not now!" Hobbes says, "No, I mean it!" When Rhori is finally able to see more than fur, he sees there is a fire in his room. We're on the second floor, where there are eight small rooms. Rhori tells Hobbes to wake the rest of us, as he looks around. He sees a puddle of liquid and some shards of pottery by the window. A roar wakes up the rest of us, but startles us enough that we all take a moment before we can move. Rhori shouts "Fire!", then tells Hobbes to get outside. Hobbes leaps out the window, still visible. Rhori hears Hobbes complain about landing in dogpoop again, then the mindlink goes dead. Calais, who has the other room facing the front courtyard, sees the same thing as Rhori: two pots that contained oil and coals have shattered and started a fire. He's not sure if it's containable, so he shouts that there's fire in his room too, and grabs his gear and his stash. Brillig also grabs his stuff. Anton goes to his window and starts casting a spell. Mia starts casting her ice armor spell. Paris grabs some gear and heads for Calais's room, where she starts trying to beat out the fire. Calais picks up a blanket and joins her. Meanwhile, Rhori has grabbed an axe and leaped out the window. He is singed by the fire as he runs through it, and lands badly, but is not seriously hurt. Then he is stunned and nearly knocked out by a crossbow quarrel. Brillig runs to Rhori's room and finds it empty except for flames. He grabs a blanket, dumps the chamber pot on it to get it damp, and starts beating on the flames. Attila joins him. Rhori recovers from being stunned, and looks up to see the entire front of the building is aflame. He doesn't shout out anything immediately, but lays still and catches his breath. He tries to tell Hobbes that if he wakes up he should hold still, but there's still no reply. Anton and Mia finish their spells. We start to hear movement in neighboring houses. Finally Paris realises that the outer wall is on fire from below, and tells Calais we need to get out. Anton looks out the window, and sees the glitter of little bits of metal on the ground. He grabs his stuff and prepares to exit. Mia grabs her rainbow robes and runs downstairs. She sees that the entire front of the building is on fire. Rhori makes a dash for the fountain in the courtyard. Another crossbow bolt hits him, this time in the arm. He thinks it came from the unoccupied building across the way. He's not stunned this time, and splashes into the fountain, using it to gain some cover. Mia shouts out that the front is on fire, and heads for the back. As she steps out, she's shot in the head and stomach. Fortunately, with her armor, she's not immediately killed, but she is badly hurt. The head wound is impairing, but not quite disabling. But together they are definitely enough to knock her out. Down she goes. Calais tells Paris he's going to try to exit via the roof, and heads back a couple rooms (to Attila's, as it happens), and adjusts his gear to free up his hands. Paris heads back to her room to get the rest of her gear, having originally grabbed only her sword and belt, shield, and blanket. Brillig and Attila finally notice that the front of the building is on fire. Brillig tells him to grab everybody's stuff and toss it out the back window. Paris goes downstairs and sees the open back door, and Mia with two crossbow bolts in her. Some gear clatters down on one side, from Brillig's window. Calais climbs stealthily to the roof. Anton moves stealthily toward the back. They are quite close before either notices the other. Anton asks Calais what's going on, but Calais makes no reply. Anton continues on. Paris calls out that Mia's been shot, then hunkers down behind her shield and heads for Mia. Two bolts whack solidly against the shield, but bounce off. Paris breathes her thanks to the Lady who gave her the shield. [Later, we inserted a back-in-time in which we got to notice this spiffy new shield. But due to its being sandwiched in amongst other action none of the players thought to ask for any explanation or details. Spot obvious tells us it has a metal front.] As the neighbors start to show up with buckets and such, the attackers fade away. Paris pulls Mia back through the doorway into the kitchen passage, where she is able to concentrate on a healing prayer. The head wound is much improved, and stops bleeding. Paris then heals Mia's stomach wound completely. Rhori tries to go over to Hobbes, and steps on a caltrop. He yells for Mia. Brillig hears and goes out front. Finding Rhori and Hobbes both hurt, with Hobbes in worse shape, he tries to heal Hobbes, but the heavenly white light comes down and doesn't seem to work. He shrugs and heals Rhori. The Jouet midwife (who trained Claire) comes over and also treats Rhori. Rhori tries to object and have her treat Hobbes first, but she tells him to hold still. "I'll get to him in just a minute, dear." She patches up Hobbes, who starts to come to. Rhori feels his pain, and asks Brillig why he can't heal him. Brillig explains that God doesn't seem to be willing to deal with the lion. Rhori tells Hobbes to contact Rex, but Hobbes says he can't while Rex is inside the castle. The guards show up. "What's all this then?" Eventually they find a paper posted on a nearby wall. It says, "We always get our man." It's got the sign of the cockroach, or maybe it's supposed to be a raven. Paris tries to heal Rhori, but Rhori won't let her unless she tries to heal Hobbes first. She tries, but as with Brillig's white light, Paris's healing blue light finds nothing in Hobbes to "latch onto". She then looks around for Rhori, but discovers that he has gone off somewhere. Calais checks a bit, and concludes there were about ten in front, and ten in back, and they'd been waiting for an hour or two before they attacked. It's also obvious they knew who to expect, since they allocated an extra bolt for Hobbes. Eventually Hobbes tells Rhori that Rex is on the way, and what did Rhori want to tell him? Rhori tells him to tell Rex he's hurt and needs help. Ow-okay. As Calais continues his investigation, he is momentarily taken aback by the sudden appearance of Rex. Rex snuffles around where Calais was looking, then heads off again. Calais follows him to a sewer grating, which seems loose. The other group apparently used a similar route. Silverlocke arrives with a large troup of cavalry. He spends some time tending to Hobbes, who soon feels much better. Rhori decides he'll have to learn that spell. Mia comes to and is okay, though her vision is blurred for a while. She sees two of Paris, which of course isn't unusual, except Calais isn't there. (When Calais does show up, she sees five. Calais wants to know which the extra one looks like.) Brillig notes that the use of crossbows is restricted by the Church. That means that anyone who uses them without the Church's permission is a criminal. Well duh. Paris says it's as she told Calais, the Prince thinks the first attack, and thus probably this one, were aimed at kidnapping or killing her. Anton asks why the Ravens would want to do that, and Calais explains that they are thugs for hire, so the question is really who would hire them for that. He suggests maybe someone wants to keep Paris from winning, or perhaps even participating in, the knighting contest. Someone points out that tonight's attackers didn't wait to see who was coming out the back door before they shot, so it's clear they've given up on kidnapping and are settling for killing. Paris volunteers to move out so that the rest of us won't be targets, but we'll have none of that. Eventually the fire is put out, we get assigned to another building, and we advance to Firstday morning... Anton meets Alexis as usual. He tells her about the attack last night, and the earlier attack on Paris. He mentions the Ravens, whom Alexis has not heard of, and relates that they are thugs for hire, and conjectures that they've been hired to keep Paris from winning the contest. After listening a while, Alexis excuses herself, and goes off to report to the Duke. (She realises that Silverlocke reports to the Prince, so she wants to make sure the Duke is also informed.) The Duke had gotten a report, but listens to her information as well. She suggests moving our party to a more secure location. The Duke says no; choosing his words carefully, he explains that even though there's no such thing as the Royal Secret Service, if there were, they'd probably be watching in case there were to be another attempt. Alexis passes on the conjecture about the possible reasons behind the attacks, and the Duke says not everyone approves of the changes our Prince is trying to make. As the Prince says, "Not all of the orcs wear pig faces." Alexis mentions that her family has undertaken to assist Paris. The Duke cautions her not to overstep her bounds. Alexis then goes to tell her father, since her protection is his responsibility. Back in the library, Anton continues his research. Looking for things that might make a Sceptre, he finds a book about wands. The Wand of Rijthor seems to call up some sort of air sprite to do one's bidding. The Wand of Font is a source of additional power. Apparently, the higher up you go in the mountains for the wood, the better the wand. Best of all is if you can get wood from a tree above the tree line. You can find such trees around the City in the Clouds, which is inhabited by cloud giants, who make all the storms. There are a few stories about that place. A staff from such wood would probably work as a Sceptre. Alexis finds reports about the spider forest, including the mention of the aura of fear around it, and the fact that not everyone seems affected by it. (In short, she finds the report that our party gave about the place.) Other parties have gone in since. One report mentions spiders with swords on the front of their legs. One group got lost and went deeper in by mistake, encountering spiders whose chittering drove people mad. They found webs in the shape of a massive dark building, and something climbed up it in the light of the full moon, and looked at them with intelligent eyes. One man fell into a river and got washed out, hence surviving to give the report. Calais, who had collected some of the caltrops, brings one out to examine with the Duke's artificer. The artificer remarks that it's old, so it's not from the stores that showed up when New Westmore appeared. Paris tells us that the Prince has asked her, and by inference the rest of us, to bring back objects to serve as the Orb and Sceptre, and to be back before the Harvest Festival, which is just under six weeks away. We need to decide how much time we'll spend training. Calais, upon hearing about the chittering spiders, discusses earplugs with his master, and stocks up on some wax and other materials for making such things. We discuss how to deal with the Ravens. We think about deliberately trying to attract another attack while we're prepared, perhaps by going out looking for them less discreetly. Alexis says she can't give any details, but "people are watching", so we don't need to be quite as paranoid. But she also relates the Duke's warning that the gang must be getting desperate to have tried such a blatant attack, pissing off the townspeople, the Duke, and the Church. So if they try something else it's likely to be even more desperate. As for the quests, Alexis suggests finding the guy who gave the spider report. Maybe we can find the river he got swept out on, and sneak in that way. She also says the nearest really big mountains are to the southwest. They're called the "Teeth of the World". Anton reminds everyone that the objects need to remain untouched. Calais makes sure we have extra bags. We reminisce over a story of a hero who had Knowledge of Transporting Monster Eggs. :-) Apparently Alexis's subtle assurances did not convince Rhori. Secondday, after we drop Paris off at the palace, he states his intention to go around to bars and announce that he's not afraid of Ravens, challenge them to meet him someplace, and wait for them to come after him there. Alexis warns him that if this plan leads to anyone other than us or the Ravens getting hurt, the Duke will be upset with us. She tries various arguments to dissuade him, but Rhori doesn't get it. Finally she suggests he ask Silverlocke what he thinks about Rhori's plan. Rhori bumps into Silverlocke at some point and manages to describe his plan without confusing Silverlocke too much. Silverlocke says they won't come. He also says he has men scouting out where they are and such, and when he finds out more he'll make sure Rhori's in on the pinch. Rhori mentions that he wants one of us to pursue another line, trying to find out more subtly where they are, but that the person is hesitant to try it because he looks a lot like the person they're trying to get. The Baron goes, "Oh, you mean her brother." (Rhori thinks, wow, he figured it out; boy, he's smart. That's why he's the captain.) Silverlocke warns that Calais should be careful; they might try to kidnap Calais to force Paris to come rescue him. Rhori passes along this advice to Calais. So, we set up rules about not traveling alone. Calais arranges to have Attila get some sparring practice at the Adventurers Guild to keep Calais company during his afternoon training. Brillig escorts Mia to her Church. (Brillig blends into a crowd a lot better than Ms Rainbow Robes.) And Rhori escorts everybody everywhere. Having heard Alexis idea of looking for the Spider Queen survivor (who was apparently just a civilian adventurer), he tries asking around the training grounds, but doesn't pick up any leads on the chap. Maybe tomorrow. That evening, as Calais is stowing his gear back in his room, he finds he has somewhere acquired a fine metal mug, the sort of thing that's likely to be someone's personal special mug. He decides to post a notice on the message board at the Adventurers Guild to locate the owner, and eventually a hulking fellow named Gunther turns up and identifies it as his. Calais manages to return the mug without Gunther wising up to exactly how Calais likely acquired it. [Note: This item may've come out after some people left:] On the way home one night with Rhori and Calais (and Hobbes, don't forget Hobbes!), Paris shares a thought. (Wow!) When we get back to our quarters, we have her share it with the others who've waited up. "It occurred to me, when I was puzzling over the prophecy from the hanging, that there are other possible kings and queens in the world. It struck me there's another whole category: the kings and queens of the minor arcana." Rhori asks what's that? She explains about the kings and queens of swords, etc. Anton says we don't know who they are. She says the cards that Silverlocke and the Prince got were gold, not silver, and that this might mean they are kings of the minor arcana. Anton and Mia think about this, but reach no conclusion. We should plan for another week of training. Whether we leave after that or train for a third week will probably depend on whether we learn enough this week to be ready to set out. In the previews of coming attractions: Next Thirdday evening, we come home for dinner and find Silverlocke waiting in our building. He tells Rhori to get some sleep, and to be ready to get up for some action at two in the morning.