[Notes for the run of March 8, 2000.]

Rhori, with infravision running, stealths in a ways to look around while
Calais is checking out the bodies.  After a while the tunnel opens out to
reveal a large area with one or more structures made of fitted stone,
perhaps some kind of buildings.  There are two large statues flanking the
end of the tunnel.  Mostly it's dark (i.e., cold).

Calais examines the now open door but, despite the mechanism on the inside,
still can't figure out a way to open it from the outside.

We figure we still have a couple hours before the demon-tracked kobold
returns, so we have time to check out what's inside.  We start a fire and
get the trolls burning (downwind of the door), and prop the door open with a
spare log.

The statues of are eight feet tall and six feet wide, depicting stocky
people with beards, wearing chain mail and holding big hammers in an "en
guard" position.  They face us as we come in.  Each is carved from a single
piece of stone.

In the cavern, the floor continues to be worked stone tiles.  There are
several rectangular buildings.  It's not like the orc village we saw when we
went after the giant ring; this one looks well made and permanent.  The
doorways are six feet tall, four feet wide.  We can't see the far side of
the cavern with the light we have.  Though the floor and buildings are
clearly worked stone, the cavern itself appears to be natural.

We circle around the edge of the cavern.  Alexis figures it's about as large
as the old Westmoor.  The buildings have sconces, but without burn marks, so
either they've never been used, or it's been cleaned since.  (Or the lights
placed in them were magical.)

Paris's sword is no longer glowing blue.

We find two other roads leading out, equally spaced around the perimeter.
They both end at rockfalls.

We start toward the center of the cavern.  A short ways in -- about sixty
feet -- at some sort of junction [I missed the description of various
roads], Hobbes reports the trail of the trolls ends -- well, starts.  Anton
checks it out; he finds faint traces of black chalk that look like they've
been dusted off, as though someone drew a focus and later tried to erase it.
It's no longer focus quality.  Rhori wonders why that particular spot was
chosen for the magic.  Anton can't think of any magical reason, but Calais
observes that it's a good spot for keeping an eye down the tunnel while
casting.

We look in some buildings.  There are stairs going up; the buildings
are two or even more than two stories high.  They all appear empty.

We go further toward the center.  After another little distance we come to a
small courtyard with a pool of what seems to be fresh water.

At the very center, the three main roads meet at a larger courtyard.
There's a statue 24 feet tall and proportionally wide.  The base bears a
chiseled inscription in some alphabet that we do not recognise, let alone
understand.  (Even Pyotr doesn't recognise it; but then, he was never very
widely traveled in his day.)  Anton copies down as much as he can.  There
are also three wedge-shaped buildings much larger and more monolithic than
the others.

We check out the large buildings.  Each one starts with a huge hall, at
least 30 feet tall.  One of them (the one whose entrance faces the tunnel we
arrived by) has carved, on the wall as we come in, a shape that looks like
the fantasy map Anton found.  We call Pyotr over and he says, "Is map."  It
shows what the players know as France and Italy.  North of France are two
islands, a big one and a smaller one.  There's no Spain; just a row of
mountains at that border.  We ask Pyotr if there's more; he says, "Is
world."  But is there more beyond that?  "Is world."  There are some special
locations marked in Italy with small gems worked into the stone.  There are
also some holes in the mountainous part of France.  Alexis and Paris (our
geographers) try to decide where those are.

We notice that the diamonds marking places in Italy are the right sizes to
fit the holes in France; the sizes do vary so we can match them up.  22
diamonds, 22 holes.  [NOTE: I don't recall anyone mentioning it at the time,
but doesn't that number match the number of Major Arcana?  Do the locations
of the holes bear any correspondence to where we've found the Majors?  Of
course, this being an old map, maybe it has to do with the previous set of
Majors, if there were 22 then also.]  There are also faint hash marks in the
stone in some places, perhaps matching up with cities, such as the old city
of Paris.  Many of the holes are in the Massif (i.e., around these parts),
some east of the Rhone river, none in the Pyrenees, some in the Alps...

Alexis identifies which hole corresponds best to where we are now, and
where the matching diamond is, and notes the information for reference.

Calais asks if there's any reason to leave all these diamonds here.  We
decide to have Anton check for magic first.  He finds that there is indeed
magic here.  He's not familiar with the type.  It's not just the map; the
whole wall is magical.  Calais decides he'd better not mess with it.

Pyotr doesn't want to just shrug and walk away from this, since we might not
be able to get back.  Anton suggests praying for guidance.  Pyotr says
that's best done outside at dawn, which will be soon now.  Reminded of that,
Rhori sends Hobbes off to intercept the kobold.  Hobbes sets off but keeps
bumping into buildings since it's too dark, so Rhori goes off to lead him
out.  The rest of us follow.  Calais does not take any of the diamonds.

On our way out, Anton also checks the statues.  The statue in the center is
magical, the two near the entrance are not.

Pyotr prays to ask what the map and the diamonds represent, but receives no
insights.

Hobbes does not find the kobold.

Calais muses that the roads at least vaguely resemble the white church
symbol (which is two concentric circles with three equally spaced lines
connecting them).  We didn't follow the roads enough to know if the
resemblance is really strong.

Rhori argues for breaking the magic wall.  The fact that it's a marvelous
work of art doesn't sway him; he's worried about evil people maybe knowing
how to make use of it.  After some argument, Calais makes the point that
Hobbes said the Dark creatures hadn't been that far into the city, and for
all we know the magic is what's keeping them out.  We don't know if the
magic is for good or evil, but if we break it and that turns out to be wrong
we don't know how to fix it again.

We close the door.  We still can't open it from the outside.

As we approach the town in mid-morning, we hear a lot of noise from the
direction of the inn.  There are people gathered there singing and cheering.
They've got a big foot with a pole sticking out of it, and pinned to the
dartboard in the inn is the biggest kobold we've ever seen.

Rhori examines the kobold.  Calais examines the foot.  It's made of wood and
plaster.  (The foot, not the kobold.)

Of course, Singer is telling the tale of the amazing battle in which they
took this thing down.  We're not impressed, but we buy him a drink to get
more details.

The miners are happy that the thing that's been terrorising the town is
dead, and look forward to going back to work.  The only issue is that they'd
still like to know what happened to Roget.

Alexis goes to talk to Father Maythias, and asks if he will now encourage
the miners to go back in the mine.  He says that's up to the civil
authorities.  She asks about the thing that comes out of the mine between
dusk and midnight.  He asks her what she means, but does not volunteer any
information.  She mentions the door we found, and he's interested in that,
but Alexis isn't willing to tell more without some indication that Maythias
is ever going to give any information in return, and he isn't interested in
talking further if she won't tell more about the door.

Alexis tells the rest of us about the conversation.  This leads to a side
discussion about why (and even whether) it was okay for Alexis decide
unilaterally to talk to Maythias even though we agreed it was bad when Rhori
went to talk to Singer without talking it over with the rest of us first.
Given that she didn't actually get anything out of Maythias, it seems that
once again going off to talk without a plan didn't work.  The main
discussion, though, is whether we can get some more information out of their
party.

Anton volunteers to suck up to Singer, tell him that we think there's some
remaining danger, offer a lot of our information (the demon doorway, the
apparition, the clues), and suggest we cooperate to come up with a solution
to the remaining problem.  Paris says that's not hitting Singer's weak
points; it works only if they cooperate.  Perhaps we'd get further by
suggesting there's more loot to be found.

Pyotr also suggests that getting all the townspeople to pray to Gillian, to
strengthen the apparition.  Paris points out that the padre can lead the
townspeople in that.

We also confirm that the piece of paper the miner turned in to the foreman
was indeed the Justice/Law clue.

Paris is concerned that if we do start to bargain with the other party,
Maythias will make it a requirement that she agree to go to Batica.

After lots more dithering about how to approach them, we decide to offer a
trade: a clue for a clue.  Anton again volunteers for the task, but Alexis
pushes to do it herself, and Anton shrugs and backs down.  Alexis takes the
"Ending. Final." clue.

Singer finds the idea of a trade interesting, but claims _his_ paper is more
valuable because it is torn on only one side.  What a coincidence, so is
hers!  They slowly trade bits, checking the handwriting first to confirm
authenticity.  Finally, they trade the actual slips.  His paper, torn at the
top, says, "A letter most common to the nine ninety nine."

Alexis asks if there's anything else they want to exchange.  As Singer seems
about to respond, she adds, "For information."  Singer suppresses whatever
he was about it say.  He doesn't offer anything else.

We decide to see if they have more to trade, by having Calais offer to trade
a double-torn clue for another, if they have one.  Acting as though he may
have been concealing this clue from our party, Calais approaches one of
their light fighters.  The fighter says he knows of another clue but doesn't
have the actual slip to show.  Eventually, Calais decides to take what he
can get, and offers "At the next, start of everything" (i.e., getting the
phrasing slightly wrong).  The fighter responds with, "The one between
Justice and Law."  Calais asks if there'd be anything else he could trade
for if he managed to run across more.  The guy says, find more and then
we'll talk.  How long will you be around, though?  Not long.  Calais feels
crummy about having hedged it, so before he goes he adds that he thinks he
may've gotten the last word wrong, and corrects it to "all".  The fighter
realises what Calais did, gives him a foul look, and leaves.

We conclude that we've gotten all the clues we're likely to get from the
other party.  If Father Maythias has information about how to deal with
demons, we see no way to get him to tell us.

After much thrashing, we decide what we think the letters are.  We work a
bit more and figure out an ordering for them.  We're not absolutely sure of
the ordering, until Paris observes that the first words of the clues have 1,
2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 letters.  That actually matches the ordering we had.
Without actually writing it down, we believe the name is spelled N, A, K, R,
U, and Z.

We suggest a candlelight service with all the townspeople giving thanks to
Gillian, and figure to slip off to the mine while Gillian's gotten that
boost.  (Having Gillian strengthened while we take on the demon can't be
bad.)  We take front row seats for the start of the service, in case the
apparaition appears.  Sure enough, the padre is accompanied by a second
figure, but this time it looks like the statue outside, except with a whole
face.  It cries in anguish, "No, you must kill it in the heart.  It hides
its heart behind the gold plaque protected by its name."  It then looks past
the congregation and shouts "No!", just as we hear a noise from the
direction of the inn.

We head for the inn.  Alexis and Paris arrive first.  The innkeeper's
daughter comes rushing out screaming.  Over by the dartboard where the
kobold was is a nine-foot-tall rip in space.  Through the triangular opening
is coming a second troll.  The first has already shredded the innkeeper.  As
the third troll comes out, one of the trolls knocks over an oil lamp.
(Alas, Steve left too soon, and thus missed the burning of the inn...)