[Notes for the run of November 11, 1999.] Various of us hesitate for a moment as we see the dead rise. In the rooms where the dead outnumber the soldiers, many of the soldiers are frozen for even longer, and are basically screwed. Anton, in the hallway upstairs with a few soldiers, and Brillig, down in the basement, don't have any dead bodies present, so they don't yet know what's going on. Brillig, who was holding his latest attack so he could get his victim to block, swings and hits the fellow in the wrist. Rhori hears a warning from Hobbes that the bodies on the roof have stood up again. Hobbes soon adds that they're not falling over very well now. Rhori tells him to be careful. Silverlocke orders everyone to fall back and retreat. Rhori tells the bad guys in his room, "YOU guys are going to have to go out the window." He grabs the nearest soldier and shoves him back out into the hallway. Paris tells Calais to get out, saying she'll cover him. Calais, being slower than Paris, does not immediately respond. Anton, who also had a saved action as he saw the black spell pass by, casts magic sight. Likewise Mia, not knowing what the black wave did but figuring it to be a black spell, decides to put up a circle of Protection from Evil near the door, even though it'll take her a full minute to cast. Calais decides his hesitation leaves him unable to fully disengage and run before the bad guys get to swing, so he answers Paris, "I will when I get an opening," and waits to see if his attackers will miss. Anton backs up toward the stairs, and looks into the first room that Rhori dealt with. He sees a fight involving the soldiers who went in after Rhori left. Several soldiers go down; one of them drops a lamp, which shatters. He can see one zombie that's missing an arm; the arm is on the floor crawling toward him. Another zombie has a gaping chest wound that doesn't seem to be slowing it down. Anton pauses in shock. Rhori gets piled on both by zombies and by live attackers, several of whom hit. A zombie gets in a particularly solid blow, but Rhori remains standing. Outside, the Raven who was shot full of arrows gets up and jumps through the window to reach the archers. A bunch of soldiers who've been dancing with a bad guy in the basement finally put him down. Brillig hears screams coming from the sewer. Paris and Calais's live attackers miss, but the zombie on Calais crits; Calais succeeds in blocking with his shield, but the shield is shattered. Brillig finally connects solidly with his opponent. Silverlocke starts instructing specific people to jump out windows in his room. Rhori knocks the non-weapon arm off a zombie; the arm keeps moving. A sergeant comes out the door, shouting for reinforcements. He doesn't see Mia in time and stumbles over her, disrupting her Protection spell. Alexis gets a solid thrust into the vitals of her victim, who seems unfazed by it. "This is not good," she mutters. She exhorts her guards to snap out of their surprise and help. Calais disengages and slips into the doorway behind Paris. Several Ravens, live and otherwise, swing at Paris and miss. Anton makes it partway down the stairs. On the ground level he sees more zombies, and another broken lamp. Each of the zombies has at least two guards fighting it, but most of them also have a guard lying at their feet. At the base of the stairs are various parts of a zombie, crawling in different directions; the guards who apparently dissected that zombie are staring at the bits in horror. Brillig, seeing no opponents left standing in the basement, takes a moment to look down the nearest sewer hole. He sees some light, but cannot make out the reason for the screaming. Paris swings and cuts off a zombie's non-weapon arm. Then she disengages back, crowding Calais, but leaving both of them free to run, hopefully before the Ravens can react. Rhori backs into the hallway, and calls up the hall asking if there are any good guys left to shepherd out. Silverlocke shouts back, "Miller, get everyone OUT of here!" Brillig tells the guards in the basement that he's going to go see what's going on. He jumps down, and sees various partly disconnected bodies fighting the soldiers. He's not fazed by the zombies because his magic staff lends him extra presence. He shouts up that the guards down there need help. Some more guards jump down. Upstairs, Calais zips down the stairs, and Paris and Rhori follow suit. A sergeant who'd been in a doorway calling someone's name, says "Shit," slams the door, and joins them in the retreat. Apparently the last soldier in that room finally went down. The sergeant who bowled Mia over apologises quietly, then resumes shouting for reinforcements. Mia moves away and tries again to start her spell. She sees some soldiers jumping from upstairs windows, but they keep running so she can't see if they need healing. Alexis and her guards keep swinging, and finally split their zombie into a pile of still-twitching parts. Brillig waits a moment so he and a guard can run forward together, but finally realises that the guard is frozen in shock. He runs up alone and hits a zombie, but not for much damage, though there is a glow of holy white light where he struck. Anton splits off from the pack heading for the door, and shoots a magic missile at an as-yet-undamaged zombie (fighting some likewise undamaged soldiers). He hits in the vitals, but for no real damage. That zombie and its opponents continue their ineffective dance. Various of the other zombies start to get taken down, though. The pack on the stairs continues down, with Calais, Paris, Rhori, and the sergeant bringing up the rear. We hear soldiers in the basement relaying Brillig's call for reinforcements. Paris heads down and tells them that Silverlocke has ordered a retreat. Rhori follows her down. Hobbes tells Rhori he and Rex have killed their guys again, but they're still twitching. He says Rex says to get away from them. Rhori says Rex is right. Anton shoots again, this time hitting the zombie in the hand. The hand is charred to a stump. Simultaneously, the guards remove its other hand. Meanwhile, Calais heads out the door. Brillig and a guard swing again. The magic staff drives the zombie's shield arm well into the body, and the white light covers that whole part of the zombie now. That part doesn't seem to be working right any more, as though the white light is cancelling the black spell. Paris hears a voice call back, "But they're fighting down in the tunnels." She continues the rest of the way to the basement and jumps down through one of the holes. Rhori follows, but takes a different direction. They move up and start swinging. Brillig sweeps with the staff, and takes out two zombies, which do NOT keep twitching. (Indeed, Brillig doesn't yet realise that this is unusual.) Anton sees some zombies coming down the stairs. One of them is partly on fire. He thinks of shooting one, but realises that there are no guards between him and it. He shouts a warning about the approaching zombies and the fire, trying to make it loud enough that the people in the basement will hear also, then heads outside. Paris's sword glows blue, and she hears the Hermit's voice telling her these things are evil. Gee thanks. She sweeps and whacks two zombies, but neither goes down. A second sweep does the job, but the small extra effort spent to (involuntarily) invoke the Hermit's magic has exhausted her, so she takes a bit of STUN damage making the second swing. Brillig asks if they're all, um, terminated. Paris says hers are still twitching, and adds that Silverlocke called a retreat. They climb out of the sewer and find zombies starting to come down into the basement. They manage to hold the stairs for a while, restricting the zombies to coming down one at a time. This gives them time to catch their breath, and Brillig is able to heal some of their more serious wounds. Eventually the smoke gets so bad they have to retreat. Upstairs, the soldiers have gotten organised, and any zombie that tries to get out gets hit by about twenty arrows, while any living Raven who jumps out gets hit by about ten arrows. Since the building is on fire, that doesn't leave the bad guys many choices. Rhori tells Hobbes to tell Rex to tell Silverlocke the situation in the basement, and that they're okay and will retreat up the sewers. (Presumably their holding action there means none of the Ravens, live or otherwise, escaped that way, though we can't know for sure whether anyone got by before Brillig jumped down.) Mia almost finishes her spell, but the building gets too hot and she has to move away. She sighs and goes around to see who needs healing. Eventually, it's determined that at least one and maybe two zombies are unaccounted for who jumped out of windows early on. We put the lions on their trail. As for the guy who cast the spell, Silverlocke says he saw a guy in black robes in a room with a pentagram, and a guy with a dagger in his heart who Silverlocke thinks was probably the Ravens' leader. The robed guy in the pentagram then disappeared, and the dead leader stood up. Mia remarks that the disappearance sounds like a teleport spell; she's seen such a spell in the Water books. (Which is not to say the guy must've been a water mage, of course. The Black Church might have its own version.) Calais and some guards join Hobbes in tracking one zombie. Eventually they catch up to it and dispatch it. Alexis tells Silverlocke she was pleased she could be of some help, and that she's heading home now. He says he'll be sure to tell the Duke about her help. She adds, quietly, "Whoever did this needs to be stopped." Silverlocke replies that it's the Black Church, and they're already outlawed. The sewer group makes it back. Hobbes has some choice remarks about Rhori's new scent. Rhori ignores that, but is quite upset at having left some people behind who didn't make it out. Silverlocke manages to convince him that it was important that he followed the orders to retreat, and that by doing so he saved some people in the basement, and so forth. Rhori is still very unhappy, though. Brillig demonstrates that his staff makes the zombies stop twitching. Silverlocke finds that extremely interesting, and asks him not to leave town for a while. Brillig takes the opportunity to mention that his other monk friend, who lives out in the woods, told Brillig about a big trampled area in the forest, and when Brillig went to look at it it felt like bad juju. Silverlocke asks to be shown the area tomorrow. We mention that we had intended to leave in the morning, and Silverlocke tells us we should make a report to the Duke before we go. For now, we head off to get what's left of a night's sleep. In the morning, we give a full report to the Duke. He's disturbed that the Black Church is being so active. Mia warns if they find any black robes or such, they shouldn't burn them, because they'll turn into black cards. The Duke asks how she knows this, and Mia says the Emerald Baron told her. It dawns on Rhori that the Black Church probably has books, too. The Duke says they haven't found any, but Rhori mentions that he's seen one. He explains that this too was at Dungeon. Paris adds that we'd been asked not to speak of it, which is why it had not been mentioned before. The Duke asks Brillig and his staff to stay in town to help deal with the black church. The Duke offers us one of his padre's students to bolster our ranks of healers in Brillig's absence. The fellow also has some small knowledge of magic. We say we'll happily take another healer along. Rhori asks the Duke if he can ask Justice for Rhori's favor. The Duke says he'll have to ask the Prince. Rhori is puzzled for a while, but that's not unusual; eventually he remembers (well, is reminded) that Prince William heads Paris's Order and thus is the liaison to Justice. At first Rhori decides not to bother the Prince on such short notice, but then it occurs to him that maybe Paris would like an opportunity to see the Prince anyway, and though Paris makes no comment given the public setting, Rhori asks if it would be possible to see the Prince before we leave. [I didn't hear if there was a response, but I also didn't hear anyone meet with the Prince.] Calais asks if he can replace his shattered shield; the Duke winks at Silverlocke and says he thinks they still have a few. Calais asks for a larger one this time, since he's stronger now. Silverlocke arranges to have a runner bring it to us on our way out of town. Paris mentions to the Duke that another of the Minor Arcana is now known. At his interest, she goes on to say that the earth mage Pierre is the Three of Pentacles. This inspires Mia to add Henri to the Duke's chart, as the two of cups. He asks what it represents. Mia blushes, and eventually explains: "Love, passion, unity, the interrelation of the sexes. That desire which is not in nature but by which nature is sanctified." The Duke checks his box to reward us, and is puzzled to find seven cards, as there are only six of us there. (Alexis is not part of this audience.) Paris says she knows who the seventh is for, and the Duke gives her all seven. Anton looks around and spots Alexis standing off to the side, in her official Herald paraphernalia. He sidles over and quietly asks if she's gotten permission to come with us. Alexis maintains her official stance, acting as if she doesn't hear Anton; he eventually takes the hint. We meet the new healer, Luke; he wears the double circle of the white church, plus a small sword on a chain, marking him as a fire mage. He also has some knightly skills, and can supply his own horse and armor. Paris requisitions horses and food for ourselves, and (at Mia's suggestion) waterproof bags to hold stuff. Anton makes sure she includes a bunch of rope for when we get to the mountains. Calais and others who know a bit about climbing try to think of other relevant equipment, but we don't have any experience at mountain climbing, and such supplies are probably rare, too. We'll just have to cobble stuff together as the need arises. Mia makes a detour to the Rainbow Church, where she stammers out a goodbye to Henri. He almost kisses her, but at that moment someone comes into the church and he pulls back. She joins us at the gate, where we also meet up with Alexis. Her father is there as well; he bids her take care, and then leaves, taking the two bodyguards with him. Paris then hands around the seven cards. Mia, who had borrowed some from Calais, gives hers to him. Paris does likewise. Paris also asks that everyone, especially the mages, tell what new skills or spells they've learned. We exchange brief summaries, but Mia doesn't fully describe her "raise dead" spell, as she and Henri have realised that having the existence of such a spell widely known could lead to trouble. Silverlocke joins us for the first leg of our journey, as Brillig leads us to the trampled area with the bad magical aura. Silverlocke examines it carefully, and concludes that 30 or 40 people were gathered for some sort of ceremony. It seems likely it was the Ravens (the numbers match), and he suggests the ceremony may have been a prerequisite for the zombie spell. We check for existing magic, but there's no magic now, and though the area looks like it was used as a focus it does not appear to be a permanent one, as we've occasionally seen elsewhere. Paris's sword glows, but she doesn't mention if she senses any evil still present. [We don't know if the sword glows when it's checking for evil, or only when it actually detects something evil. I asked Pat at the time if she heard the voice telling her something was evil, but I didn't get an answer.] On the road at last, we head west toward the spider area. Hobbes, out ahead, tells Rhori there's someone shouting. Rhori tells him to be careful, and heads forward. Eventually, he hears a tired, ragged voice shouting "heeeeelllp!" The voice sounds more tired than urgent, so Rhori lets the rest of us catch us before investigating. We head to one side of the path, where we find a clearing with one tree in the middle of it. Hanging from it, by a rope around his feet, is a guy calling for help, with a moose calmly nibbling at his clothes. Rhori goes, "Cool! A moose!" and follows it as it wanders away from us. The rest of us set to work letting the guy down. He says he was out hunting and was trying for this moose when he got caught in the snare. He also says that he can't believe the other guy wouldn't let him down. We determine that the other guy he's referring to said a lot of silly things and had a yappy dog -- the Fool. Anton checks his knowledge of Tarot, and decides this guy doesn't seem to quite fill the role of the Hanged Man card. We ask what the Fool said. "It was something about some knight, and a queen of sores, and something like that, and some crazy stuff about some night that was the dark of the moon, I couldn't make it out." The Fool was heading West; he said he had a hole in his teeth or something? Paris nods in understanding. We've heard about the Teeth of the World (the mountains to the southwest), but this is the first we've heard of a hole in them. Sounds like we'll need to stop off back in Westmore for more research before heading out for the Sceptre. The fellow starts to head back toward Westmore, and we continue on our way. Before we're out of earshot, though, he calls back, "The knight alone can keep the dread from the queen of swords in the dark of the full moon." We stop and ask him to explain, and he looks nonplussed, apparently unaware that he's said anything more unusual than a simple goodbye. We continue on, wondering who the queen of swords is. Paris says maybe it's the spider queen. This is a disturbing thought, since all the other Tarot have been human. Could the spider queen have once been human? We wonder about the rest of the fellow's prophecy. Calais points out that Paris is a Knight, the knight of swords.