[Notes for the run of March 23, 2000.] (We started by backing up a bit to fill in various events that got rushed through at the end of last run.) Though the cavern now appears ordinary in every way, we still seem to hear the demon's death-roar, though lower-pitched than before. As we exit the mine, we find that the noise is thunder. Though there is a lot lightning, there is no rain. We notice that the hillside, which in daylight looks merely like ordinary rolling hills, seems to be shaped like a reclining goat-shaped demon. Anton manages to find a lightning-struck tree from which two shards look suitable for use in casting his lightning bolt spell. As we return from the mine, we have the discussion (mentioned last week) about whether Mia should bring the innkeeper back from death. When Rhori decides to head off and let us catch up, Paris goes off with him for a time, and among other things discusses where we're headed next. (Since we need to get some armor repaired, we'll be spending some time in Tauban doing that.) By the time Paris returns, Mia is already preparing for the ceremony. Paris says something to Mia, but Mia does proceed to raise the innkeeper. Alexis gets a few more details about the goings-on of the nobility. She learns that the Princess was at the council, but Mia doesn't know what became of her after Mia, William, and Martin left. Mia also doesn't know where the entire Second Cavalry is. A group of people led by the mine foreman go to check out the mine, and presumably return unscathed. We decide to keep the shard of Mirror, especially since Calais recalls that his readings include instructions for how to repair a mirror, and the first step is to gather the pieces together. Calais rigs a safe way to carry it with us. Paris notes that there may be another shard at Baron duBois's castle, where we heard there was a rift to some sort of Plane of Earth. Ewen, Mia, and Lucas accompany us part of the way to Tauban, but eventually bear off southward to tgake a more direct route back to Westmore. Paris and Ewen perhaps hoped for a private moment before parting, but the rest of the party exhibited normal teenage peer group behavior, watching with avid curiosity, so nothing interesting happened. (And Ewen didn't think to try the standard dating tactic of bribing the girl's brother. Or maybe that's just not a knightly thing to do?) Sir Ewen also gives Paris a great-axe to give to Rhori to replace the one that got half-melted killing the demon's heart. Rhori and Hobbes are relaxing and enjoying simple hunting. There are far fewer rabbits and deer in the area than there were a day ago. Rhori asks Hobbes if he knows why he couldn't go into the demon. Hobbes says it's because it wasn't really there. Rhori isn't sure what that means, but advises Hobbes to be careful and not to go anywhere he can't go. Hobbes, being immune to the Rhori confusion field, agreeably accepts the advice. Eventually, Hobbes sniffs and remarks that someone's coming. "Anybody we know?" "Yeah. You want me to surprise them?" "Only if you want to get up." Hobbes mulls this over. "Gee, you're so smart." We meet up, and proceed the rest of the way to Tauban. Without the rain, we get there in just one day of travelling, arriving at the end of Fifthday. We Figure it'll take a week to repair Paris's armor. Paris doesn't want to stay that long, which leads to some argument as the rest of us try to convince her of the importance of being well armored. Eventually, due to other studies (such as Pyotr needing a week to receive a new spell from the gods), we do end up staying the week. Paris and Alexis (and whoever) give a private report to the Baron, so we're able to include details about the demon. The Baron can decide what to do with that information. Calais gets Alexis to help train him to run faster. Alexis and Anton also spend some time seeing what's in the Baron's library. Calais spends the rest of his time working on his telescope. Pyotr finds a multicolored building and spends some time praying there. Calais also asks Anton about the three rings he found. Anton wonders what three rings he's talking about. Calais is sure he mentioned them before; he found them on the trolls. Eventually (particularly when Paris says so) he becomes convinced he forgot to bring them up earlier, and is embarrassed about that. But anyway, here they are. All three are gold. One, from the first pair of trolls, has an opal, and some sort of markings that don't quite look like writing. The other two are from the set of four trolls. One has no stone; the other has an obsidian or onyx. Both have markings sort of like the inscription on the "giant dwarf" statue, but again they somehow don't look like writing. Anton examines them. In each case, Magic Sight reveals additional markings filling in the gaps to form writing. The opal ring carries a spell that reminds him of Mia's water-breathing spell. Various of us try immersing our heads while wearing the ring, but it's hard to force oneself to "inhale" water. Finally Calais manages it, and confirms that's what the ring does. The second, stoneless ring carries some fairly minor arcane power. Anton puts it on, intending to try exercising various abilities it might bestow, but can tell immediately that it offers the ability to detect magic at very close range. (The wearer has to be near enough to touch the source of the magic, though actually touching it is not required.) Anton makes a note of the dwarven runes to compare to the runes he knows for making a similar such ring. The third ring is also water magic of some sort, a defensive spell. Anton tries it on but feels no obvious effect. Calais suggests he try putting his hand near a candle. Anton still feels the heat, but realises it's easier for him to put his hand there. Others of us try, and we conclude it bestows +3 EGO, though apparently with some limitation we don't quite understand yet. After some discussion, we end up having Calais wearing the second and third rings. Anton ends up with the water breathing ring for now. While we spend the week in town, Rhori and Hobbes go off to find a group of elves near here whom they've visited before (with Silverlocke), to find out more about the direction where we'll be going. In the local library, Alexis and Anton find out something about the Tulus, but I missed it. Anton learns that the area around Tauban has lots of interesting cloud formations, and on nights with a full moon you can see a castle on top of them, a very graceful thing with a single spire. Alas, it's about three weeks until the next full moon. Maybe another time. A few days to the north is a river that runs extra fast in the springtime. There's a letter from Silverlocke in the library archives talking about running into orcs near here earlier this year, and mentioning a group of elves to the west in the area that foresters should be careful not to approach uninvited. (Not the Kelly. These are the as yet unnamed Elves Rhori was going looking for.) North and west of here is some sort of dark forest. There's no specific mention of the Vampire Lord (Anton was looking out for that), though there are tales of bats. The Elves greet Rhori, and ask him "How is Martin?" "I am not sure that he is well, but I hope that he is physically safe." They offer their best wishes for him. Rhori asks how things have been around here, and asks particularly about orc activity. The elves say the "pig-faced ones" have pretty much stayed on their side of the river, though that may change as the rains stop and the river level goes down. There's a large group of them to the west. He asks if they've seen any of the other elven clans. They say one of Clan Corustran came through here. "Recently?" "What do you mean by that?" They don't know where he was going; he was travelling. Rhori asks if his name was Llyurylly'yl, and they say, well sort of, but of course it might just be that Rhori's not pronouncing it right. Rhori asks if these elves have a Great Tree or something that leads to Tarot. Yes, they do. He asks if they use it to communicate with the other elves. They say all the Great Trees are connected, so they can communicate through them, but the opening to Tarot is not needed for that. Rhori eventually remembers to let the elves know to expect the rest of the party to show up at some point. He's not sure how to describe us to them, since all humans look alike to them. Eventually he hits on mentioning Paris's badge; that's something the elves know about. Back in Tauban, the Baron asks Paris about "that nice young man" who was with her last time (i.e., Rhori). She explains that he's off scouting and talking with the elves. This leads to a her mentioning where we're headed, and the Baron makes some remark about how she'll presumably be using the bridge then. Bridge? Apparently Silverlocke asked some time ago to have a bridge built, in secret, across the river. The Baron gives Paris the passwords to clear us with the troops who are guarding it. We buy some heavier armor and a bastard sword for Pyotr (for slightly more than 14 silvers), and also get some heavier clothes and other such preparations for winter weather. (We're high enough in the mountains that the locals actually understand such things, plus we remember some of it from our travels with Attila the Barbarian.) Paris gets her 4 cards from Calais, and also one of Anton's (who apparently got some from Paris a while back and has offered to repay her) to help buy her strength up. We rejoin Rhori and Hobbes; the elves stop us at the border but hold their fire while we identify ourselves. (And thereafter, too.) They are Clan Jatal, or Jatala. Paris tells Rhori about the bridge. Rhori tells us about the travelling elf. We backtrack and angle north, and cross the bridge. We head northwest. (By this point we're north of the suspected vampire forest.) It snows. Calais spends the travel time working on his telescope; Anton teaches various other folks what he knows about Tarot. About one day in four the weather is too rotten for such training, though. After ten days, mostly down out of the mountains but still slogging through some snow, we see to the north a haze of smoke as though from a town. We get close enough to see figures walking about. Even with Calais's newly finished telescope, we can't make out whether they are humans or orcs, since they're all bundled up. Rhori sneaks up and determines they are orcs, a whole town of them. That's enough that we don't think we can kill them all; even Anton and Pyotr resist the temptation to try it. Fortunately, it's cold enough that the orcs aren't patrolling as much as they're probably supposed to, so we're able to sneak by undetected. We decide to head west at this point to hit the coast and then follow it north. After four days of following the coast, it starts to bend northwest again. We run into lots of rabbits and deer, but no monsters. Eleven more days of travel (we will have to figure out what training we're doing: Geography and Teaching? again, about 1/4 of the days are too yucky for training), and we reach a region where we can tell we're on a peninsula (we can see both sides). The sky is almost always overcast, a uniform gray color. It rains on alternate days. The wind blows continuously. We spot an apparently abandoned city ahead of us. It has no wall. It's bigger than old Westmore, smaller than the current Westmore. Anton flies up to try to see beyond the city, but the low cloud cover keeps him from seeing much. He tries the telescope as well, but it doesn't seem to help. Calais figures he's just not using it right. We camp for the night outside this city, and take the opportunity to tell Pyotr about our experience in the town of Calais. Anton theorises that, as we've heard there are actually two large islands to the north, perhaps this town has a tunnel leading to the second one. The night passes with no hideous screams. (Though there is some loud snoring.) As we approach the town, we see that the city actually extends into the water; parts of it are submerged. We skirt along the northern coast (in case Anton's right about the tunnel), following some sort of major road. At one point we spot a building that looks to all of us -- even Pyotr -- as though it were designed to be a church. There are nine windows. Anton checks for magic but finds none. We enter, each of us being respectful in his/her own way. It reminds us a bit of how the rainbow church in Westmore looked at first: stripped of most of its trappings, some of which were later found in the basement. We decide to see if this church has a basement. Since a basement is likely to be full of sea water, we give Pyotr the water-breathing ring for now. Nope, no basement. But there are crypts in the back. There's one that's more impressive than the rest. It has a number of cups engraved on it. It takes a while, but we eventually work out that there are 64 cups. There's even a cherub holding a cup. Anton tries pushing that spot, but nothing happens. We clean off the inscription a bit. Very little is still readable, but we're able to make out the name of the person buried here. Parsinius. Rhori and Calais examine the engravings some more, and spot some letters on the cherub that were sheltered and thus have survived the elements. It's hard to make out the tiny letters, but we read: Eight from forty. Seven and nine. Four and four. And four again. We note that these are 32, 16, 8, and 4. There may be further lines of even smaller text that reveal 2 and 1, but if so we can't make them out. And of course there are 64 cups engraved on the crypt, and the cherub's is in some sense the 64th, since it's the smallest and thus hardest to spot. A clue! But to what? We decide to continue for now. Rhori spots a recent hoofprint of a horse. He thinks it might be Llyurylly'yl, but Hobbes can't be sure from the scent. At the very end of the peninsula is a pale, slim figure on a slim horse, looking out to the west. The elf glances over his shoulder at us, but then returns his attention to the west. He greets Rhori as a Guardian of Nature, and asks if the others are Rhori's companions. He doesn't offer to shoot us. Rhori asks him if he's waiting for Temperance, and the elf gives him a blank look. Calais reminds Rhori that the gods are a human thing. The elf says, "No, I'm waiting for that boat." We see no boat. Even with the telescope it takes Calais a while to spot the sailing ship, far off over the water. As the afternoon wears on, the boat gradually draws closer, not always approaching directly. (None of us know why not, since we don't know anything about sailing. We speculate wildly.) As the sun sets directly behind the boat, framing it in bright orange light, we see there is a lone figure aboard. As the boat gets close to land, we hear a horrible grating noise and the boat starts getting broken up. The figure leaps off into the water. We tie a rope on Pyotr, who's still wearing the water-breathing ring, and toss him out, and eventually Paris and Rhori haul him back in, holding the figure from the boat. It's a woman, wearing dark blue pants of some strange material, an orange shirt of some sort, a jacket that looks like leather armor, and a backpack. She thanks us for hauling her out, and joins us by the fire. Rhori asks if she came here to meet him (the elf). She doesn't directly answer, but does greet Llyurylly'yl, whom she seems to recognise. She introduces herself: "I'm Cora, Cora Stran." Someone remarks on that being the name of the elven clan, and she says they've helped her on occasion. In response to some question, she takes out a square box with triangular top, flips up the triangle, looks at the orange glow for a while. She asks what happened to Brest (indicating the nearby city). We explain about the broken Mirror. She can't believe that we really mean the capital-M Mirror was broken. We convince her we mean it. She asks what idiot did that. Sir Juda gets named. We ask if she knew Sir Juda. She says no, she was off checking the other tessera. We ask what the tessera are. They're like this, only different? Tarot and Torat are a tessera. The land of Arabian Nights (Knights?) are another tessera. "Tessera one was really peculiar because it was abandoned, then I went to six, which is a bloodthirsty lot so I was glad to get back, then when I came back to one there were people there. From someplace called Uttuh. Merrans?" We ask which tessera we're in and she says this is tessera two. She asks about Italy. We tell her about it now being the Isles. Suddenly she asks after her cups: the cup of earth and the cup of heaven. We ask if this has anything to do with Parsinius. Yes. But where are the cups now? One was in Tarn. She asks us to retrieve that for her. We dig out a map and ask her to show us where Tarn is (or was). She fiddles a long time with her glowing box, and finally indicates a place near Westmore. Anton asks what the cups do. She reaches out and touches his forehead; Anton acquires a knowledge of the cup of earth, which can be used to see things on earth. She's says she's going to go get the cup of heaven herself. Anton describes the dwarf city we recently found. She recognises it, and calls it Kellidem. She's surprised the dwarves have moved. "What a mess somebody's made. I'm going to go kick some butt." Rhori asks where the cup of heaven is; she indicates somewhere in the Isles. We recall that Pyotr remembered a chalice being given to the White Church. Rhori asks why she wants to kick butt. "When things get too static, then I need to change things. People fall into ruts and they start to draw lines of us versus them, and I've got to stir it around." "Are you going to stop the civil war, too?" She asks what we mean, and we tell her about the war. But she's far more worried about the Mirror being broken, orcs running around, and so on. We ask how to find pieces of the Mirror. Anyplace there are lots of Fell or Dark running around. Anton, forgetting what we'd worked out, asks if she's of the keys. "No, I'm Chaos." We remind Anton that she's the orange goddess. Rhori asks, since we've been seeing lots of changes, even though the changes are killing people and stuff, if her job is to make things change, why is she trying to stop it? She says it's not change that's killing people; it's the order being imposed. "If you've ever seen a river ice over, it seems like things are changing as the ice grows and grows, but eventually the water stops flowing and kills everything." We try to find out what she knows of the old vs new Tarot, but she was traveling at the time of the last Choice. She didn't even recognise the name Temperance. [Not true, as it turned out. More on this later.] She asks about Nature, which used to be a single Tarot. Paris says either it's been divided up, or else it's what we now call the Devil. "I can't imagine Lucky Morgan being the devil." Paris thinks she might mean Murphy, but Calais points out the name sounds like Lucifrus Morgan, who is indeed the Devil. We want to ask about "the two who became one". Anton misremembers, thinking that line was from the start of the Book of Chaos, and this leads Pyotr to recite the first page of the Book of Chaos: Before the first, In the time before time, There was All. There was Nothing. They were One. In Time came the three: That which Is. That which Becomes. Both became One. In the Time of Man each Three became Three. And they fractured and changed and flowed. Nothing old destroyed, nothing new created, But no One left the same. In the Time after Now, Seven will remain.