[Notes for the run of January 20, 2000.] Rewinding a bit because we need to wait for various bits of armor to be repaired, we decide to spend a full week in Westmore before setting out. So we plan a week of training, except for Rhori and Hobbes, who take off after three days to go visit the elves, and Lucas, who as usual simply returns to his regular duties for the padre. The evening of the day after Rhori leaves, in Jouet Square, there's the sound of trumpets a little ways off. It sounds like the military is being called up for something, though it's not a general alert. We go off to have a look. We find a crowd, and a bunch of the Duke's soldiers who are enforcing the peace. One onlooker tells us that a fight in the inn sort of snowballed (whatever a snowball is). He thinks it was the "Crownies". The who? "One of those who thinks that just because Louis was named Crown Prince, he ought to be made King. Another onlooker breaks in. "Oh yeah? You must be one of those guys who thinks that just because the old King gave the sword of state to Prince Martin, Martin should be the new King?" The two continue to argue as we move away. On other topics, Paris wonders whether the "long tunnel" Pyotr came through is between Tarot and Torat, or whether there's in fact a long tunnel in Torat linking Bolon to Pelier. Pyotr says the tunnel came out in the mountains, near a volcano. We tell Claire about it, and she and Pierre investigate a bit after dropping off the Princess and others at Pelier. [Question for Pat: Did they return in time to tell us anything before we set out?] Anton spends evenings entertaining at the inns with his tale of Pelier. He makes a good living at it: 30-50 coppers a night, plus meals and drinks. He's also asked if he knows any songs about priest cups (which he doesn't), but he can't quite spot who's doing the asking. He makes up a song based on what he does know about the Tarot, especially the two cups of Temperance. On the second night, Anton catches a glimpse of a handsome rogue ducking out at the end of the performance, and near the end of the week he overhears one listener remark, "I like the other bard's version better." Alexis and Anton continue their research. Finding next to nothing about Temperance or the Corustran elves, Alexis concentrates on learning about the other adventuring groups. She notices that none of them have figured out how it is that a cleaned-out orc hole, where they're sure there are no hidden passages or other such ingresses, somehow gets reinfested. We tell Pyotr about the rainbow-inked books we found in Pelier, that we think could be read using the same crystals that reveal the "book" in the floor of the church. He's never heard of such books. He does go check at the Rainbow Church to see if anything about Temperance has turned up in the daily floor readings. (Apparently he finds nothing.) We get our armor back from Lucas's sister. We ask him to ask her how much we owe for it, and she says a silver a day, so 7 silvers. Calais digs it out of the party treasury. Catching up to the stuff at the end of last week's run, we camp a night at duBois. Calais tries poking around to see if there's anything interesting in the rubble. He doesn't find anything, and gives up his search after nearly twisting his ankle on some loose rocks. Next day we go on to the Magician's garden. Just as we're getting close, we realise we forgot to bring the duck he'd said he wanted. Drat! As we arrive, the Magician is attempting his most difficult trick, juggling the four magical symbols. As he concludes, we applaud, and he waves us in. We notice he has some scratches on one arm, partly healed. Anton asks how he got scratched, and the Magician says he tried juggling a cat that strayed by. Rhori is offended at such mistreatment of an animal, and offers to find him a bear instead, but the Magician doesn't appear to notice. We ask if he's written any good books lately. He looks around but can't find the one he wrote most recently. No surprise, that. We ask about Temperance, and he says he hasn't written any about her, since she's not here yet. He mentions that he wrote a book of magical songs a little while back, but it was taken by some Fell creatures who teleported away with it. (Oops. Oh well.) Calais asks if the Magician writes any books from before the World was broken. Alexis elaborates: such as where cities were, and where they are now. He could, but hasn't. He remarks that his most recent book was about glassmaking: all sorts of things you can make out of glass. Anton asks if there's anything we can do for him. He's startled by the offer, but can't think of anything he needs. He says he has enough ink and paper, and pauses to think. Rhori cuts in and asks if he can juggle axes, and offers four of assorted sizes. The Magician says he'd need four of the big one or six of the smaller ones to make it come out right. Multiple conversations ensue. Somebody asks him if there's a book about Rainbow Church. Alexis asks about how the church of nine split up, and he says he doesn't think there's a book about that. There are books about the White Church, and about the Black Church. Rhori asks if there's a book about the head of the White Church being the head of the Black Church, and is told there's no such book. That satisfies Rhori, though the rest of us are left wondering if the lack of a book necessarily means it isn't so. We ask if there's a book about Llyurylly'yl, and are told the elves don't tend to write many books. They live so long, they just remember things. We mention that we're going to be seeing some of the other Arcana, and the Magician sends his greetings to the Emperor, Empress, and High Priestess. He remarks that he saw the Emperor fairly recently himself. The Charioteer was not with him. As to the cat, he says she seemed to like being juggled at first. It wasn't until he tried to add the four magic symbols that the cat got nervous and grabbed onto his arm. He thinks the cat belongs to the Queen of Wands, especially since the cat ducked out of the juggling just as he was trying to add the rod to the mix. Finally, someone hits on the idea of asking if he could write a book to replace the ones missing from Westmore's library. Alexis gives enough of a description that he's pretty sure he can do it (but only because there are still other copies of the book in existence), though he can't be sure he'll be in this same place tomorrow. Still, that seems worth waiting for, so we opt to spend the day seeing if we can get the glassmaking book, then come back to stake out the rose garden tonight. (Rhori doesn't see the point of a book on glassmaking, but is happy to kill some orcs.) We go first to the hill at the top of the churn, to see if the most recent book-stealing orcs have gone there. We find nothing there, but Hobbes picks up a trail going south. Not surprisingly, it leads to the cave where we fought once before. We find two orcs on guard outside. Pyotr casts his PD/ED blessing. Then Rhori and Calais and Hobbes sneak up, then Rhori sends Hobbes forward to take out one guard while he and Calais shoot the other. The two are taken down cleanly. Rhori says he thinks he had a dream about this place. He starts to explain the dream, and we realise that he's actually recalling our previous battle here. Since he brought it up, though, we quickly fill in Alexis, Lucas, and Pyotr on what happened that time. (Lucas, who has studied the party's history, knows the story already, and even helps with some details. He also knows that it's unheard of for us to think to fill each other in on stuff like this, so he realises he's fallen in with a gang of imposters. :-) We enter the cave. Rhori sends Hobbes forward to scout, while we sneak closer to the side room. Anton prepares to cast Silence on the corridor beyond the side room, to block the sounds of battle from reaching deeper. Before we get to the room, though, Rhori hears a telepathic "oops" as Hobbes trips an alarm. We rush forward. Rhori and Paris take full moves to reach the doorway, Paris drawing her spiffy sword on the way. The orcs are dismayed; Calais hears the orcish equivalent of "oh shit." The orcs start screaming for help, but Anton has lobbed his silence into the corridor beyond the room, so they presumably go unheard. Three orcs rush up and all swing on Paris. Two hit, including one crit, for a total of a single stun pip. (We note afterward that, if not for Pyotr's spell, the orcs would have done _five times_ as much damage! :-) The other orcs in the room panic some more. Paris sweeps, killing all three orcs, and Rhori advances into the room. The remaining orcs scatter to the corners, scrabbling at the dirt trying to dig their way out. Lucas and Calais continue down the corridor, with the others moving up behind. Alexis moves out in front, still holding her bow, but planning to switch to (magic) sword and shield after the anticipated reinforcements get too close for bowfire. Pyotr goes into the room to see if he can get some experience by killing a panicked orc. Rhori doesn't understand why Pyotr's in the middle of a combat. Paris has more of a clue, and waits to give him a chance to swing. Pyotr's opponent turns and dodges, though, so he misses. Paris sighs and kills it. They finish off the room, and come out to help form up in the corridor. The reinforcements haven't turned up yet. Calais switches to his spear. We start to form the same sort of line we used last time, but then we remember that we need to cut through quickly to be sure of getting the book before they can destroy it. So as the next orcs and orc sergeants finally show up, we rush them. We mow them down in short order, but two runners at the back manage to take off before we quite get to them. As we clear the back rank, Alexis races down and engages the runners, stunning one. Rhori throws an axe and kills the other. From further down the hall, two kobolds fire arrows at Alexis. We continue forward and kill them as well. Lucas and Calais run down and turn the corner. From down the next stretch, a fireball shoots out and hits Lucas, doing maximum damage. Fortunately, he has protection from fire spells, and is virtually unhurt, though he is stunned. The goblin mage squeaks and ducks back into the room. We continue forward and finish him off before he can do any further damage. We loot the place, finding some coppers (only Calais knows how many), and indeed, a scrollbook about glassmaking. Calais claims the book; he intends to learn it to augment his artificing when dealing with glass. There are two cards; from where they turn up, it seems they were "most earned" by Lucas and Pyotr. Since they have had relatively few cards (Pyotr has none), this seems like a fine way to allocate them. [Lucas presumably keeps his. I'll assume Pyotr keeps his own. Calais does make sure Pyotr understands how to use silver cards, and passes along what we've been told about having to earn them, and how a group can earn them together and share them. But again, it seems reasonable to let Pyotr use this one.] We don't bother running the night in detail. We're careful not to wait in the garden itself, and not to take off our armor. The orc raiders are no problem, and we end up with a book about Friar Gerald and the founding of Westmore. Yay! It describes the authorisation the Duke got from the King to go conquer the area, the supplies they set out with, and the battles against the barbarians. The Friar then circulated among the barbarians and learned something of their legends, which are included in the book. Alexis skims looking for a mention of a priest's cup, but doesn't see anything. She finally spots something about a parson's chalice? That rings a bell with Pyotr, who says it must be Parsonius' Chalice. Parsonius was a mighty water mage of the empire, a learned man. Pyotr recalls that the chalice was a water magic item that conferred wisdom or great sight or something like that. It was gifted to the White Church as it was being started. He recalls his mother being disappointed about the cup being given to them, but doesn't remember why. The tale in the book, though, sounds like it has some currency, i.e., it's not just a legend from thousands of years ago, but seems to imply that the Chalice has been around in more recent times. Meanwhile, Calais has been skimming the book on glassmaking. Toward the end, he finds a section about making and maintaining flat pieces of glass with a silver coating on one side. He tells the rest of the party that he's found something that might be useful when dealing with the capital-M Mirror. (Lucas is even more convinced that Calais is an imposter.) Calais will continue to study the book. [I'll put a point into it, and perhaps even another point specifically into Mirrors.]