[Notes for the run of February 3, 2000.] We expect it'll take at least a few days to see the Duke (to tell him we want to go to Tauban to solve the mining problem), and to gather up the horses that we hope he will then issue to us. Anton goes to the library to look into geographical stuff, especially about Tauban. Rhori looks up Lucas Tanner, whom he met while off with Silverlocke a while back, and whom Rhori had helped train at some point. Tanner is now a member of the Order of Etteilla. Rhori gets an update on some stuff going on, but I missed most of the details. Lucas says there are several new members, but none of them are ready yet to go off in search of Strength. He asks Rhori if he knows anyone who can read Orc; he's got some stuff that needs translating. Lucas also remarks on the difference in Rhori. As it turns out, Alexis manages to see the Duke the morning after our arrival. She tells him about the missing book, whichis apparently news to him. He says he hasn't heard anything about people looking for a "priest's cup". Duke Evan personally has never heard of the so-called Parson's Chalice, either (i.e., he doesn't remember his grandfather mentioning it, for instance). She explains what that's about, and they discuss how to conceal the fact that the book has been replaced. Among other things, the book shouldn't go back into the main library. [There's more discussion that as usual got drowned out, but I gather it included asking for a mission to Tauban. (And if it takes a bit longer than expected to return with the horses, that's okay.)] Meanwhile, as part of the usual, more public reporting-in procedure, we also find that the Duke's box contains a card for each of us. Rhori, remembering that he tended to embarrass himself whenever he spoke up at the public debriefing, stays quiet this time, which is itself unusual. Lucas reports to the padre, who asks for Lucas's take on what the party is doing. Lucas explains that Paris wants to go where Sir Juda went (the padre saw that during the Trials of Justice) but to get it right this time. He says he feels we're doing other fine work in the meantime, and the padre agrees. The padre asks Lucas if he's comfortable travelling with us. Lucas says sure. (It beats mopping the floors!) The padre says that Paris seems to have the kingdom's best interests at heart, but he's hoping Lucas can back up this insight. He concludes by telling Lucas not to trim candles and such in the outer rooms today, but to go tidy up his private study. Lucas asks where that is, and heads off. There's a pile of books in the study, and at the top of the pile are some books that Lucas has never seen. Lucas is surprised; normally you'd have to go to the church to get a look at those books. One of the books is even sitting open. Lucas carefully refrains from looking at those books, since the padre's broad hints weren't specific enough to override the rule against reading them. (Thus the party misses its chance to get background info on how to deal with demons. Sigh.) Calais checks in with Irolo. He tells Irolo about the glassmaking book, but Irolo is more interested in gears and other such mechanisms. Undaunted, Calais takes some notes on an item or two that the book explains how to make; maybe he'll be able to work on one of those at some point. (The book itself, of course, is added to the library.) Eventually Rhori finds Calais and asks him to come translate the stuff Tanner mentioned. When Silverlocke infiltrated the orc camp before the big attack on Westmore, and came away with their battle plans, he also brought back other papers. These are what are now being translated. These papers talk about the orc city. They refer to it as "Borlon", which is apparently what the human slaves there call it. The humans are working to grow food for the orcs, since the humans themselves aren't numerous enough to support the orcs for as long as they need. (Orcs are, it seems, omniverous.) The Borlon orcs are required to ship off a quarter of everything they grow, sending it north to the city we figure is Paris. They also get orders from there. It appears that all the administration of Borlon is being handled by orcs, i.e. not by Umim or Thumin. We bundle up this information and send it off to the Duke's mapmaker and other tacticians. Alexis joins Anton in researching geography. Father Gerard's chronicles of the Tulus mention another place called Tarn, but there's no indication where it is. Paris is off at the deLacey's, arranging for someone to tend to the olive tree. (There's a relevant book in the library already, which Paris checks out the next day, giving her another excuse to visit the deLacey's. :-) We leave Westmore the third day after we arrived (i.e., after spending two full days plus the half a day when we arrived). It rains. (It's the rainy season; it's likely to rain a lot.) Rhori leads us along the route he followed before. He remarks on one place where he ran into an ambush, but there's nothing there this time. We arrive in Tauban without incident. It's at the top of a hill, with a great wall around it. It reminds us of Baron duBois's place from before the change, which is a bit discomfiting. The mines are a day or two away. The Baron here is a very tall man. He has a very tall daughter, who seems to know Paris. Paris greets her, "Cynthia! So good to see you again!" We get invited to dinner, but most of us have only had four and a half days of training in High Society. Lucas ducks out to talk to the local priest, and Calais likewise manages to disappear (trying not to make a fool of oneself at a fancy dinner is too much like work, and Calais's always been good at being elsewhere when there's work to be done), and Pyotr also dodges somehow, but Paris firmly ensures that Rhori attends. Alexis and Anton of course go as well. Rhori ends up seated across from Cynthia. Hobbes, drying out near a nice fire, wants to know if Cynthia is one of Rhori's. We do get the story about the mines. It sounds much like what we found at Etienne as far as things driving workers from the mines, and one miner being lost in it. Reports say that even the mining town itself is a bit scary at night, and about half the miners have moved back to Tauban. The patrols sent to investigate haven't found anything, except some tracks that they said might be from wolves. Alexis asks what was here before Tauban was built. There were some old abandoned huts on the hillside. Perhaps that was Tarn? The name rings no bells with the locals. The mine foreman sent a note that was found in the mine. It's in French, and says, "The one between Justice and Law." It looks like a fragment of a larger text, but it doesn't look like this particular phrase is part of anything longer. The party discusses various interpretations, but nothing convincing. (No Major Arcana near Justice seems to embody Law. Maybe it's referring to a Judge, or even Judgment? Maybe we're looking for a word that starts with a K? Etc.) Lucas talks to Tauban's priest about what's been going on. He tells about what happened at Etienne, and asks if anything similar's happened here. Though miners have died occasionally, that's not uncommon in the profession, so it's not clear there's any connection. Lucas checks whether the priest has had any odd dreams. He hasn't. (Paris has had odd dreams, though -- something involving Ewen and olive oil...) When they meet up again, Anton asks Lucas and Pyotr if the Justice/Law phrase is from any religious text they know. It rings no bells. We head off to the mining camp. It's raining especially hard; we have to concentrate on keeping to the path, and not slipping, etc., so we're not able to do any further training in High Society on the way. After a day and a half of miserable slogging, we squelch into town. Half the houses are empty. There's a barracks section filled with soldiers from the Baron. There's a church area that we don't immediately get a look at. At the inn, we find the common area mostly full, because there's another adventuring party here. One fellow is singing to pass the time. Since there's no room there, we check the barracks. Those are full too, but the Baron's letter of introduction (written based on the Duke's letter to the Baron) is enough to get the barracks master to assign us an empty house. Alexis recognises the singer at the inn as being the bard she talked to. Having studied the reports of other adventuring groups, she knows this group is not the griffon-egg group, nor the umber-hulk group, nor the spider-panic group (well, there's only one survivor from that one). She warns us that their bard is good at pumping for information, and that we should be careful not to give away the various bits we've learned from the replacement Tulu- legends book, in case this is the group that stole it. Anton, Alexis, Rhori, and Calais head back to the inn. Only Anton and Calais bring their weapons. Remember what happened another time in a strange inn, Calais leaves our card and money cache with Paris and the others in our rooms. The bard is a good singer. As we arrive, he's wrapping up his tale: "... and that's how they failed to save the King." Rhori doesn't realise what's being referred to, which may be just as well. Alexis whispers to Anton that maybe he should make up a song about a group that didn't even _try_ to save the King. There are two big bruisers in chain (there's additional armor off in a corner), three lighter guys in leather, two guys in warm, quilted clothes who seem to be carrying almost no metal. One of those has a sword, the other a pentacle. They also have a priest of the White Church. We sit down at a table separate from the raucous group. The bard, having been asked to sing a standard tale about a barmaid, finishes his performance and starts chatting from table to table, clearly headed our way. When he gets to us, he greets Lady Alexis, and makes a bit of small talk. Calais keeps his replies brief; Anton just studies his beer. "Here for the treasure?" the fellow asks. We act puzzled. "Where there's danger, there's always treasure." Alexis says no, sometimes there's only death. Rhori says, "I know a place you'd like then." The bard looks at Rhori and apologises for not having introduced himself. "I'm sorry. I'm Singer." Rhori goes, "I'm not sorry you're Singer. You're actually okay." Rhori continues in standard Rhori fashion, though some of us might wonder whether this is from slipping into old habits, or whether it's putting on an act, since we know Rhori's been acting sharper than this recently. Eventually, Rhori returns to the point and asks Singer if he knows where Jouet used to be. "Small town, out west in the boondocks, a few huts?..." "No huts, not any more." He tells Singer about the orcs near there. Singer suggests that the best treasure is found in the holes, not in the open like that. He gets very condescending, and suggests and that Rhori start out with something simple, like a cave south of the duBois place; only about forty or so orcs there. Singer does say that he's here to deal with the problem in the mines. They weren't sent by the Duke; they came because "it's the right thing to do." He says things come out at night. Rhori asks if they're Fell, Dark, or Undead. Singer says they'll know that after the "doctors" (indicating his group) get through picking it apart. The rest of Singer's group occasionally laughs and such; we suspect that they're making jokes at our expense, but we steadfastly refuse to get into a brawl. As time goes on and evening approaches, more and more miners crowd into the inn. We buy some food and drink for the rest of the party and head off to our dwelling. Meanwhile, Lucas goes off to talk to the padre here. The padre says the miners had been getting increasing nervous over time. They saw things, heard things. Things started to disappear from inside the mine overnight. They were digging deeper, following a rich vein. Then a fellow named Roget screamed, and everyone ran out and hasn't been back in again. (A group armed with picks and shovels went in a little ways to look for Roget, but didn't find him.) "Last night it was raining real hard and everything was okay. But the night before that there wasn't much rain, and there was a howling in the night; scared everybody. But what really scared me was, well, see these candles? The night of the howling, they stayed lit but didn't burn down at all." The troops in the barracks searched and found some odd tracks. What seemed strange was, each of the footprints was followed by, like, a spike behind the heel, i.e. three toes, a heel pad, and a spike behind that. Doesn't sound like troll tracks, but Lucas will check with Rhori later. What did the miners see and hear before they quit going into the mines? Howls. Little men. Things catching on fire. What sort of things went missing? Shovels, jars of water (one came back filled with dirt). Lucas also determines there were no new veins opened up recently, and nobody found any triangular tunnels. The padre remarks that miners are always superstitious; that's why the statue has no face. Seeing Lucas's confused look, the padre leads him outside to see a statue. Each miner, before going into the mine, touches the statue before going in, for good luck. There are two statues: Gillian, who was the first miner here, and the first Baron Tauban. Gillian is buried in the church here. Over time, the touches have worn off one side of the statue's face. The padre asks if Lucas knows Father Maythias? Nope. "He's also here, investigating this. Lucas presumes Maythias must be one of the guys staying at the inn, and the padre agrees. He goes on, "Do you have any idea why he'd be asking me what I know about demons?" Lucas says, wow, "I've _heard_ of demons, but I don't know anything _about_ demons. _Do_ you know anything about demons?" The padre answers, "Just the usual, that they're created by evil to tempt man, and they do horrible, nasty things." Lucas asks him what spells he knows. The padre knows the basic day-to-day ceremonies, but no spells. Lucas thinks a bit and decides the padre isn't ready to learn spells yet. Lucas invites him to meet the rest of us, but the padre feels, perhaps a bit more strongly than expected, that he _ought_ to stay in the church. Lucas says maybe we'll come by in the morning. Back with us, Lucas confirms that the track doesn't match troll tracks. He asks about the Devil. Those with knowledge of Tarot do recall that the Devil has feet with three claws, but the card doesn't show the back of the foot. There's also Umim/Thumin, but we don't remember their feet. Lucas mentions the padre's staying adamantly in the church, and also mentions the incident with the candles. He thinks about white spells, and figures maybe it was a protection spell that kept the candles burning that way. He asks us if we know Father Maythias. Nope. Calais wonders how a young (adventurer-aged) fellow could already hold such a rank in the church. Rhori asks if it would be appropriate for us to stay in the church tonight. According to the padre, the church is always ready to succor people. (Lucas resists the obvious pun.) We decide to move over there. Calais rigs something to let us know if anyone enters our building in our absence. During the first watch, Hobbes and Anton hear a howl outside. It sounds neither human nor animal. Hobbes wakes Rhori, who starts armoring up. Rhori asks Anton if they should wake up the rest, or whether just Rhori and Hobbes should go investigate. There's another howl. They wake us. Lucas asks Pyotr if he thinks his rainbow spells will work inside the white church. "Why not? All gods friendly." Pyotr thinks a bit and shrugs, adding, "Gods may disagree..." Lucas suggests that Pyotr cast his Presence blessing, in case we find ourselves faced with something really startling. Lucas also remembers something he meant to ask Alexis earlier: whether any of the adventurers in the inn had crossbows. She doesn't remember seeing any. Anton pops up to a window and looks outside. This side faces the mountain, and he doesn't see anything moving out there. He tries a window on the other side, looking back towards the town. He sees a black area in the middle of a row of houses; the blackness draws away, revealing another house. The darkness seems to retreat from one house as it expands over another. He tells us about that, and we suggest that he cast magic sight. It takes him a couple tries. (He must be rattled.) He sees we're in an area of white church magic, and also in an area of rainbow church magic, but the darkness outside doesn't appear magical. Rhori watches a while; it seems that whenever the darkness fully engulfs a house, it howls. We think maybe it's looking for something, like maybe for food, and when it finds the houses empty it howls. It seems to be moving more or less in a straight line, except for veering to go from house to house, moving generally from the mine side of town down the hill. Eventually it passes out of sight. As we mull what to do, we notice that the padre is counting noses and looking confused. We ask him what's wrong, and he says "There's an extra one." We look around, and realise that there are two identical padres. We start to challenge them, but one of them speaks. "I will help you as much as I can, but it controls anything I write its name on, and so..." and he fades away. The remaining padre looks dumbfounded. We ask Anton if the apparition was magical, but he can't tell since everything's magical in here. That leads us to ask about the magic, and he tells us, and we ask the padre what the white magic spell is. The padre looks blank; Lucas fills us in that the padre doesn't know any spells. Rhori asks if anybody thinks it would be wrong for him and Hobbes to go take a closer look, and maybe to see if it'll notice him. Since Paris is cardboard, we manage to keep her inside. Rhori steps outside, and asks Anton if the spells are still working on him. Anton says no, the white and rainbow spells stopped working for him soon after he stepped outside. His ranger spells are still there, though. We ask Pyotr, and he says the Blessing should work at a great range once cast. "Maybe something funny about church wall. If walls secretly force wall in strange way?" There might also be a suppression field outside. Rhori heads off. He notices his badge is glowing a bit, and he's feeling more nervous. The path the darkness is taking doesn't happen to go near the inn, and Rhori sees no sign of the other adventurers. He swings past the inn, and checks for tracks, but can't make anything out. He moves over near the barracks, and asks someone on the walls if he saw the dark thing. The guard doesn't know what he's talking about. Rhori tries describing it, and the guard eventually concludes Rhori's had too much to drink. Rhori heads off to one of the houses that had been enveloped, and this time finds tracks: three claws, a pad, and a rear spike. The prints are scattered, though, not in orderly sequence like normal tracks. Rhori is getting very nervous (PRE drain, perhaps?), and heads back to the church. During second watch, another howling darkness moves through the town, this time from left to right. On third watch, a howling darkness moves from the downslope end of town back, generally toward the mine, though not clearly headed there. Those of us on third watch don't bother waking the rest of the party for this one; might as well get some sleep if we can.