[Notes for the run of February 9, 2000.] Rhori wakes the party a bit earlier than usual, to get a head start on the day. We notice that the candles in the church have not burned down at all. Pyotr feels something is nagging at the back of his mind, that he can't quite remember. Calais suggests he try praying to the gods, like Mia did, and see if he gets an answer. Pyotr figures it's best to be out where the sun is coming up, so he steps out and prays to the yellow god (god of learning). [Note: This fits with our conjecture that the yellow god's card is the Sun.] Given that the padre said Father Maythias was asking about demons, Pyotr asks for guidance about demons, and whether these clues we have are meaningful in that regard. Meanwhile, Paris goes off to the inn, but she doesn't say anything about where she's going or why. Rhori notices, though, and sends Hobbes to keep an eye on her. Lucas goes off to look at some of the other houses. Calais goes to check on the telltales he rigged at our assigned dwelling. In his trance, Pyotr remembers himself as a little kid, overhearing his mother giving some kind of instruction to someone, about how each of the gods has a right-side-up and a reversed way. The reversed way isn't just one, it's one hundred eleven, and these are what are known as the demons. These demons kind of oppose what the right-side-up god is doing, and they have many powers that make it difficult for anyone to combat them. Their names are really important in some way, and they can control anything on which their name is written down. The right-side-up god also has folks that help, that aren't always that numerous, but Pyotr doesn't remember much about that. Pyotr relates this to us, or at least to those still around. Paris finds the inn extremely crowded. Everybody's asleep, except the fellow who got pushed out of the way when she opened the door. She backs out and goes to the back entrance to find the innkeeper. He stammers out an offer of breakfast (porridge with moose bits, yum!), but Paris says she's hear to ask about the guests, including Father Maythias. The innkeeper says they're in the nice rooms, upstairs. Paris declines to climb over the sleeping townsfolk to go check there. Calais checks the dwelling. Everything he set up (the leaf balanced against the door, etc.) is still in place. The interior, however, has been trashed. Everything that was stacked up has been thrown to the floor. Calais can't tell whether the place was searched, as opposed to simply being savaged. We all return to the church, and Pyotr explains again about the 111 reverses of each god, called demons, and how they control things where their names are written. Anton asks if demons are from the place where the White Church says bad people go, but the answer is no. Pyotr realises that, in his dream, he was much younger than he ever was when he actually heard about such things, but he doesn't know what that means. Anton explains how, when using a Tarot deck to tell fortunes, the reversal of a card is generally a more negative interpretation of the card. It's not the same as an opposite, though; the reverse of the Devil would not be "good". Pyotr gets very mystic about the significance of the number 111 and the number three (in Roman numerals), and the symbol of the White Church (two concentric circles with three connecting segments). He points out that the symbol has nine distinct segments (three arcs of each circle, plus the three connections). We muse some more about the clues, but don't come up with anything convincing. Paris says she'd gone to see if Father Maythias was around, but says she didn't get to check. Calais tells what he found. Before we set out from the church, Rhori takes a look at the statues. Most of us touch the statue's face. Calais and Paris do not. We dither about how many of us -- if any -- should go into the mine, until we know more about how to deal with the presumed demon. Anton keeps asking why we can't just kill the demon; Pyotr has to repeat several times the part about demons having powers that make them hard to fight. Rhori suggests waiting another night to see if the apparition appears again. Paris still wants to ask Father Maythias for help, but the rest of us are dubious about how helpful Maythias's group will be. Alexis takes Paris aside to talk, presumably about Singer and his group. Eventually Rhori joins Paris and Alexis. Shortly thereafter, Paris leaves that conversation, shaking her head. When Rhori returns to the group as well, Paris can tell that he is upset but gets distracted by the group's plans before she thinks to follow up on her observation. Finally, we head off toward the mine. Rhori spots some tracks indicating people have been through here already this morning, headed back toward the town. We continue to the mine. The entrance is wide enough for two carts at a time. There are timbers fitted into the opening; one shows some slash marks; a rock adjacent to the timber is also slashed. It's as though something was sharpening its claws on the rock and clipped the timber. The marks are about six feet off the ground, and go from right to left (not angled down), so it's not like a bear, which would reach up to sharpen its claws. Anton casts a Light spell (his usual illusion of a torch over his invisible head), we add a real torch or two, Pyotr casts the PD/ED Blessing, and in we go. Calais takes the lead this time, to watch for alarms and other such traps, especially since the ground inside is packed too hard for tracking. Then Alexis and Paris, Lucas and Pyotr, Anton, and finally Rhori and Hobbes. We wonder which sword Paris should carry. Her spiffy sword's heavenly choir will make it hard to sneak up on any kobolds or such. She decides to borrow Alexis's spare sword. Hobbes sniffs. He tells Rhori there's something burned. He sneezes. Rhori asks what kind of burning. Out loud, Rhori tells us, "Smells like burned troll." (Rhori no longer speaks aloud when talking to Hobbes. We're not sure whether Hobbes still growls audibly when talking to Rhori, since he's always silent when invisible.) Calais finds the mashed and mangled body of a small kobold. Its pockets are empty. He finds another, then we reach the main gallery. We find a depression with a smouldering troll carcass. Paris's sword starts to glow a faint blue as she passes it over the troll, and it continues to glow as we go on, much as it did when we found the traces of fading evil at the "Black Circle" outside Westmore. We come to the area where the mine was being worked, and find various equipment in a state of disarray, tossed every which way. Since there's nothing to sneak up on anyway, Paris switches to her Holy Sword. The choir warms up, and she notices that the PD/ED Blessing seems to have faded from her. Anton casts Magic Sight, which is more difficult than usual because of all the iron around us. The spell won't stay up, but he gets a look around. For a moment he thinks he sees a pattern to the native iron, but the sight fades before he can figure it out. Calais suggests Anton try again to get a second look. It's even harder this time, but he manages it. There's a lot of iron along the wall, but out of the corner of his eye he thinks there's less iron near the end. He goes down there and tries again; this time he fails to cast the spell, and yelps as he takes damage from the attempt. He explains that the iron is interfering with the spells; he doesn't know if it has anything to do with the demon or not. He removes his armor to improve his magic skill, and takes five minutes to cast it again. He spots what looks like a filigreed pattern in the iron, with a gap sort of like a door, and more filigree on the other side. He walks to the wall and says, "Over here, everybody!" Paris goes toward his voice; as she moves up to Anton, his spells stop running: he becomes visible, and the illusionary torch disappears. We examine the area Anton indicates. Calais takes a stiletto and inscribes the boundary. There's no sign of a door, a lock, a depression in the rock, or anything else of that sort. He muses that if we build an iron grate over this spot, we might keep something imprisoned behind it. It looks like this is where the miners were last digging, so maybe they broke through some iron and let something out. Rhori takes a pick and chips away for a while. But after digging a foot into the rock, it's still just rock; it doesn't open up into anything. Calais takes some pickheads and loose timbers and rigs them to block the area with iron, to see if that will have any effect. We head back to town. We see some townspeople on the far side of town, who've packed up their stuff and are headed off toward Tauban. We head for the inn. It's lunchtime. We see the fighters from Singer's group, but not the mages, or Maythias, or Singer himself. Rhori goes up to one of the fighters and asks, "Where's Singer?" "Ahh, sleepin'." Rhori adds, "Good job," and turns around and walks off. The fighter is nonplussed. Anton asks the innkeeper about the folks we saw leaving. The innkeeper names three families who just couldn't take it any more. Though nothing ever actually attacks the inn (the shutters are closed every night), the howling gets to people, and there's no work, so people gradually get fed up and leave. Anton asks if Singer's group stayed in their rooms last night; the innkeeper says they must've gone out, since they came back soon after "some knight" had come round to ask about them. Rhori goes back to the mine and starts checking further afield. He finds the tracks of a lone kobold. Anton asks if anyone's seen the monster. The innkeeper's eyes bug out and he gets very quiet. "Monster? What monster?" Anton says, what do you think makes the howling sounds at night? "That's just the wind. Isn't it?" Rhori comes into the inn and heads upstairs. One of the fighters calls up, "Hey, don't go up there, they're sleeping!" Rhori continues on. The fighter heads up after him. "Hey, those are _our_ rooms!" More of the fighters head up. Rhori asks which room is Singer's, saying he talked to Singer last night. When there's no reply, he reaches for a door, and the fighter grabs him. Rhori continues to reach, and the fighter strains but manages to stop him. Another fighter grabs on as well. Rhori asks Hobbes to help. Hobbes appears and roars. Rhori tells Hobbes to turn invisible again and move out of the way. Downstairs, Paris leaps up from the table without making too much of a mess. Without breaking free of the grabs, Rhori kicks the door open and asks, "Singer? Can I talk to you?" One of the guys in leather draws his sword (he appears to be speed 4). Segment 4, Calais gets up. A fighter upstairs is waving his sword around feeling for Hobbes, and shouts a warning about an invisible lion, and calls for the mages (I didn't catch the names, but they were obviously the mages) to get their butts out here. Paris calls up, "Rhori, don't make any trouble! Let the man sleep." One of the fighters tells Rhori, "Freeze, a**hole." Rhori feels something poking him in the back, and another voice echoes the first. Rhori stands still, looking in the door. He sees a fellow in a nightshirt, with a staff and a medallion. Someone in the hallway says, "Take his weapons." Rhori says, "You don't need to take my weapons away; I'm not going to hurt anyone." Paris goes to the foot of the stairs. A fighter at the top warns her not to come up. Some of them start to divest Rhori of weapons, as others keep him covered. Alexis steps up, and in her best heraldic voice, says, "Enough!" It doesn't have much effect against the tension already present. The fellow in the nightshirt asks the immortal question, "What the hell is this?" (He might've asked "What's all this then?" but it's hard to be that polite when you've just been awakened by a roaring lion.) The other two doors open, and someone asks, "_What_ invisible lion?" Paris shows her empty hands and says to the fellow upstairs, "He won't hurt you." He warns her again to stay where she is. Calais moseys unobtrusively toward the stuff the fighters left downstairs to get a look at it. Anton hears a Magic Sight spell being cast. Rhori asks if they want him to go downstairs. They tell him to hold still. From one of the other rooms, someone asks what's going on, and the fighters in the hall say that it's some sort of ambush. Rhori orders Hobbes to head to the church. Rhori also calls down to us that everything's all right and he'll be down eventually. Calais looks over the stuff left downstairs. There's an intriguing sack, but under the circumstances Calais resists the temptation to pilfer it. (Calais later spends a card to finish buying his "habit" down to 5 points.) Father Maythias appears and asks Rhori what's going on. Rhori explains he came up to talk to Singer, but these guys grabbed him. After the traditional confusion, they let Rhori go downstairs, and toss his stuff down after him. One of their mages reports the lion seems to be gone. Paris asks the rest of us to leave so she can talk to Father Maythias. She says she wants to apologise. Rhori asks what _she_ needs to apologise for. "For not being wise." Calais uses their body language to say, "Be careful." He looks like he might've wanted to say something more specific, but shrugs and leaves, along with Pyotr and Anton. Rhori also goes outside. He finds Hobbes, who went to the church as ordered but then came back. Hobbes jumps on him and they start wrestling in the mud. Calais, Anton, and Pyotr head off. Paris apologises to Maythias. She adds that she had hoped to ask him some questions about her own skills, but that her comrades have made our presence unwelcome. She apologises again. Maythias grumbles that they'd been up all night. Paris says she knows. She asks if it might still be possible to talk to him later, and Maythias says maybe, and tells her to come back tonight. Paris thanks him and leaves. Lucas and Alexis remain and finish their lunch. The fighters watch them carefully the whole time. Paris goes to the church and stays there in meditation and prayer for the rest of the day. The rest of us hang out at the house, and Alexis belatedly finishes our training in Social Graces. Eventually Rhori turns up at the house, and Calais asks him what he was doing at the inn. Rhori gradually explains that he wanted to talk to Singer because the things Singer was saying were harmful to some important people. We bat it around, but actually have trouble nailing down anything specific that Singer said. Rhori heads out again to continue tracking the fugitive kobold. Paris goes to meet Father Maythias. He's sitting with his back to a wall, so she has to put her back to the room, and several of his friends are outside her peripheral vision. She does her best to remain at ease despite their obvious edginess. She explains that she was hoping for a chance to talk to someone of the White Church -- Father Maythias, corrects her, "The Church." -- to find out more about some of her skills. Over time, he pumps her about all the abilities she's got, but Paris limits herself to describing certain powers she's curious about: healing, power defense, and flash defense. He suggests that she visit Batica, and as quickly as possible. "As quickly as my duties will allow." "Is there a greater duty than to God?" "I believe my duty to God and Country are one." "Then you must go there quickly to find out what that duty is." Paris asks Maythias if he's been to Batica, and how long ago. He left there about three years ago (well before the Change), after studying there for six years. She asks if the Change affected Batica; he says he hasn't been back there since then. She asks if he's heard anything; he repeats that he hasn't been back there. (I.e., he avoids the question.) He offers to write her a letter of introduction, if he can enclose a personal note as well. Paris says she cannot promise when she would be going there. Maythias insists that the powers Paris describes must come from God. "Do you not feel Him when you use those powers? Is there not a white glow?" As it becomes clear that Paris is not going to tell him anything more about herself, nor agree to go directly to Batica, Maythias loses interest, and Paris finally extracts herself from the conversation. Meanwhile, Rhori followed the kobold tracks a ways, but eventually realises he's found a demon track instead (the print with the extra claw mark behind the pad). He finds some more. He realises that there's something odd: it looks like all the prints are left feet. Hobbes thinks the kobold tracks are pretty old, and the demon tracks have no scent at all. It's getting dark, so they head back. Rhori explains what he found, and we wonder if there's a kobold pretending to be a demon. But of course, in Etienne, there were kobolds making pretend wraiths, but there were also real wraiths. We decide to go out, even though it's dark, and follow the tracks a bit further. Hobbes was just telling Rhori how happy he was to be able to sleep tonight, and is dismayed when Rhori starts putting his armor back on. Rhori tells Hobbes it's okay, Hobbes can stay behind, it's probably not that dangerous. Hobbes leaps on Rhori just as Rhori has one legging on. Off we go. Rhori finds the track, and we continue along it. Over the mindlink he hears a "Whoops!" There's a clattering, and Hobbes thinks, "I meant to do that." He says he fell in a crevasse. Rhori has him jump out again, and we head over to it. Rhori's sure that the crevasse wasn't there before, or if it was it was covered up. Rhori tells us Hobbes fell in a hole ("I didn't fall in a hole! I meant to go there! I was tracking the kobold!"). He says he's not sure if it was a trap. Calais looks, but it's hard to be sure now that the lion has fallen through. He spots two rocks that look like they had been adjacent, judging from the lichen growing on them, but are now on either side of the hole. That suggests that the crevasse opened up, breaking the rock, but it doesn't say how long ago. Paris's sword detects some degree of evil. We cast the PD/ED blessing, Lucas's protection from fire, and Anton's torch spell. The twins go down first. It's a tight fit: about six feet tall and three feet wide (half a hex). Paris takes the lead at first, but once at the bottom and entering new territory (not already "checked out" by Hobbes), Calais contorts past her. Anton sends his torch forward so Calais can check for traps as we advance. As we reach a place where the crevasse opens up into a chamber, Calais finds a kobold trap of the sort intended to be set and unset frequently. There is some light in the chamber, by which Calais sees two trolls over at a side wall, working at something, accompanied by a few kobolds. Calais's pretty sure they haven't spotted him yet.