[Notes for the run of June 14, 2000.] [Note: I've included, at the end, a threaded-together version of the current email discussion, "What are we going to do when we get there?"] Since nobody goes to the White Church to challenge the priests to mortal combat, the next week passes uneventfully. There is much training and shopping fu, including picking up components for spells and more of the magic-enhancing herb. We also purchase ridings horses. Various people think they've learned new skills and are later perplexed to discover they don't work because they never asked Calais for the necessary cards. :-) Per Pierre's request, we destroy the Umber's Hulk bits. Or at least, all the bits that Calais produces. :-) Paris seeks out the Duke's padre. She finds that he has NOT been excommunicated. (Paris's own spells also still seem to work.) She asks where the excommunication mandate came from: the priests at Westmore, or outside? The padre isn't sure, but he hasn't heard of the excommunication happening anywhere else, even though there are Rainbow Churches elsewhere. A number of cells of the Black Church have been found. If they've been holding any meetings or ceremonies, they've been doing it outside of town. Whoever's in charge of them is sneaky, and tough to track down. Rhori asks Mia to talk to the excommunicated priests (who've been teaching White Church ceremonies to the rainbow priests) and find out what they know about who ordered the excommunication, or anything of similar import. They tell her that it was signed by the local head of the White Church (somebody named Ontharius), but it almost certainly required a council of all of the elder church members to agree. (Including, presumably, the ever-popular Father Maythias.) On Sixthday, we hop into the lavatrack vehicle and head out. Paris suggests that we discuss the Devil as we travel, so we have some idea what to do when we find him. In particular, if the Devil is the result of binding Nature, it may be that unbinding him merely gives us the Devil, unchained, and does not turn him back into Nature. Rhori confirms that we all agree on the basic, um, nature of the Devil: he represents the perversion of Nature, and thus is associated with, perhaps even in charge of, the Dark. (Trolls, for example.) We recall that the Fell were trying to get into Dungeon because they could do something there that would get all of the Dark to ally with them. This again suggests that we might want to be wary of releasing the Devil, since that's probably what the Fell intended. Rhori notes, though, that the bad guys at Pelier were trying to conduct a ceremony to bring Death onto their side, but we got Death on our side anyway, so it may be that we can do something similar again. On the other hand, Death is more passive to start with. Paris says something about the White Church being a perversion of what it used to be. (What brought that remark?) Mia is staring at Rhori, and finally asks how it is that he's now using bigger words and making more reasoned arguments. Rhori explains that, as a minor arcana, he got to make a choice. Justice owed him a favor from when Rhori aided Paris in her trials, and he said there was an injustice in Rhori's past, and he sent Rhori to see the High Priestess, and she gave him some choices as to how to fix the injustice, and he chose one. "The decision I had to make was basically did I want to not have the things happen that made me this way, or did I want to rescue my father from Hell? And for various reasons, such as being able to do a greater service in our quest, I chose not to rescue my father." "It must have been a hard choice." "Yes." On a more practical turn, Paris says we should think about what questions to ask the Devil. Hopefully the answers will tell us whether we should free him. He's tricky, though. Calais asks whether Anton's truth-spotting spell will work on a Major Arcana. We don't know, of course. As we pause at the first node along our route (under the Tomb of the Lost King), Rhori notices Hobbes is pawing at some of the supplies. "Oh, Rhori, catnip? For me? You shouldn't have." Rhori goes over and hauls him away, resulting in a bit of a tussle. Rhori asks us to look into it. We find some bottles of wine from the deLacey vineyard. Mia goes to investigate and perhaps purefy it, but due to her pregnancy she's more sensitive to odors, and feels ill when she gets too close. Paris and Pyotr go look. Eventually they find that some jugs have had catnip rubbed on them. We conjecture that someone intended Hobbes to break the jugs. Calais looks them over. The original seals are gone. He notices there's something attached to the corks, leading inside. After some thought, we remember the poison gas in the sealed room in the library at Pelier, which perhaps had been originally in bottles. Calais investigates the jugs more carefully. It appears that some of them probably contain a burning oil, and some are gas. They'd have made a real mess of the inside of the LTV. None of us remembers including any jugs like these in our provisions; we're not sure when these got added. Best guess is someone did it in Jouet Square when we were suiting up. The trigger was two-way, too: if Hobbes didn't break the jugs because of the catnip, Paris might have noticed the deLacey labels and opened them, thereby triggering the trapped corks. Rhori asks Paris a bit about the deLaceys. She says they are good people. "They discovered that I brought the vines that saved their livelihood." She says she can't believe they would do anything like this. Pyotr prompts her, "Please share with us. Some of us have more capability of belief in some things." Paris explains that Ewen's father was one of the people who at first opposed her attempt to become a lady knight. Rhori says, "He's not the one who tried to kill you, right?" Paris goes, "Right," but then stops short of elaborating on that. After some more prodding from Rhori, she explains. Back when the Ravens attacked her -- we digress to explain that event to Alessandro and Pyotr -- she later learned that they had been hired to do that. "By whom?" Anton says "That we don't know," but Paris corrects him. "We do know. The person who hired them died at the Black Church's hand." The rest of us make the connection: Jules's mother. [See 99-12-09 notes.] Paris insists that Jules and his brothers and father are all honorable members of the White Church and loyal to the Duke. Pyotr asks, "Before discovered it was Jules mother, would have thought she was capable of such things?" Paris answers, "Yes." Pyotr is surprised to find Paris capable of thinking this of anyone, and she adds, "She was a person who had her own goals, and did not care who got hurt towards them." Paris does have trouble expressing such an opinion of anyone, and breaks into tears at the memory. Hobbes bumps up against her to get her to scritch him and feel a bit better. It works a bit for Paris; works even better for Hobbes. We ask who else might hold ill will toward Paris. She again mentions Ewen's father, but says she does not feel he is against her any longer. The only other she can think of she describes as "an honorable knight and a close councillor of the Duke." Paris objects to this focus on her personal enemies. Calais agrees: the trap was aimed at both Hobbes and Paris as triggers, but that could easily have been just a matter of convenience. The trap itself was designed to hurt or kill the whole party. (It could even have been aimed at Pierre, using the party just as a means of ruining the lavatrack vehicle.) Calais doesn't know who could've rigged the traps, but the knowledge of the poison gas can't be widespread. We know the Church of Nine knew it at one time. (A side discussion leads to Pyotr learning about the rainbow-inked books we found at Pelier. We don't know if the books are still there, buried in the ruins, or were taken out earlier by either people or orcs.) We notice that both this trap and the one en route to Carcassone were taking advantage of weaknesses of Hobbes. Who knows that much about lions? Even back when we were attacked by the Ravens, a large part of the trap was directed toward him: caltrops and crossbows. But that's just a matter of being prepared to deal with a known dangerous beast. The other stuff could have been gleaned from our reports, filed in the Duke's library: the fact that we usually use Hobbes as a scout, and the time we got catnip from the Empress's garden. Pyotr asks about the prediction regarding Mia's baby. There have been only a few such predictions, such as about not being able to stop the Charioteer until we met the Emperor. Pyotr says such predictions tend to be about ikmportant stuff. What's so important about Mia's baby? We of course do not know. Calais finishes his investigation, then carries the jugs carefully to a safe distance away in the plains near the Tomb, where Jarvon blows them up with a lightning bolt. The gas looks greenish. We hop back into the LTV and make it to the node near Martin's camp. We find there's been a boat built. We're told it's Prince Martin's, but we manage to convince the guards that it's for us, and they release it to us. We have to decide whether to enchant the boat and take it, with or without the horses. Paris says she won't leave her horse anywhere except here; if she takes it past here, she wants to keep it with her. The boat is only at best twice as fast as horses, unless crossing difficult obstacles such as orc territory. There is also an instruction from Martin to Rhori that he wants him to try to get Cordelia to her father after the boat is enchanted. The time is not urgent, but it needs to be before midsummer. So sooner or later we will need to enchant the boat. Eventually, we observe that we can't take the boat into the dungeon at Dungeon, which means it would probably go out of range and the spell would fail. So we don't enchant it now. And Mia reminds us that there's an earth mage at Dungeon who knows the telluric communication spell, so we might be able to get the LTV if we find we have to leave in a hurry. We wonder, if we leave the boat here, will Martin maybe move to a new location? Rhori evaluates the camp's status, using his professional soldier skill, and decides that the garrison is not setting up for a campaign yet. The midsummer deadline presumably also means Martin doesn't need Cordelia's father's cooperation befrore midsummer. It takes us nine days to reach Dungeon, including a brief stop in Etienne. The town of Dungeon looks mostly similar to how it looked before. The northwest wall looks recently rebuilt. We fill in Alessandro and Pyotr on the layout. We have a letter from Martin to the Emerald Baron, who controls access to the dungeon. We discuss whether to tell him what it is we're seeking in there. Even Paris is reluctant to reveal too much in advance; we've had trouble before from people knowing our plans. Pyotr points out that anybody who knows the Tarot knows the Devil is next on our list. The Emerald Baron looks at Paris, and says, "Well damn, he did it." He goes on, "I'm sorry to hear about William... He was a very good." After a moment of reflection he shakes himself and asks, "Well, anyway, what does Prince Martin want now?" "He sent you a letter. And we would like to enter the dungeon." Rhori adds, "He's trying to put his nation in order." "I wish him luck. Have those six rocks I sent in done any good?" Apparently the Baron sent six magic stones to see if they'd be useful, but we know nothing about them. We ask about the trouble they had with the wall. They've checked to make sure they know the names the turncoats were using, at least. The Count wound up fighting on the wall of Dungeon. They've instituted better checks to make sure at least half the people at each watchtower are well known. They're kind of worried that some of the Fell might have gotten through and into hiding; the Baron doesn't have trackers good enough to find them. He guesses they're up in the western mountains; he's sure they didn't get into the dungeon itself. There's been no signs of their activity. They've heard some strange wolf howls, but that's about it. The attack was about 8 or 9 weeks ago. The Baron asks why we want to go in. Paris explains we've had experience with problems of our intents becoming known to the bad guys. He says we should tell him to help him decide what magic items to give us. We're alone with him, but in a tent, so we're concerned about possible eavesdroppers. Mia suggests writing it down. Rhori says maybe we could go out for a ride in the open. The Baron steps out for a moment; when he returns he tells us he's changed the guard, and assures us we can now talk freely. Rhori also tells Hobbes to go out and keep an eye on the guards. Paris then quietly tells the Baron that we intend to go into the dungeon to find the Devil of the Tarot. He's flabbergasted. We explain what we know of the Devil, i.e., that he is Nature, chained and perverted, and he is in charge of the Dark. Anton starts to say that we intend to set him free, but we kick him into shutting up. We ask how far down people have managed to explore the dungeon. He says they've mapped the first two levels pretty thoroughly, and partially mapped down to the fourth level. We ask what they've run into so far. He says, two kinds of things. One kind is undead. The first couple levels have skeletons, third level has wraiths, fourth level more wraiths. Then there's little stuff like kobolds, then trolls, then trolls with shoulders. Where the Fell seem to be bigger when tougher, the tougher Dark just seem to be weirder, not bigger. We ask about traps. There aren't many on the early levels, and they mostly seem to make undead appear. "Did the trolls ever run out, or were they like the skeletons and they keep coming back?" The first level seems to have stayed clear, but they've never completely cleared the other levels, so they're not sure what makes them appear. He considers the magic items available. "We don't have very many of these, but I can loan you one. The mages call it a Word of Recall. You have a mage, right? Unroll it and read it out loud, and it will bring him and everyone touching him back up to a pattern up top." Pyotr asks, "Know how long it takes to read scroll?" The Baron's not sure, so Anton says he'll check out the casting time, and also the range. The Baron is concerned about giving us all his best stuff, and wants to know our plan. Mia starts to explain, but Paris suggests letting Pyotr tell it. Pyotr explains Cora's spell. We ask if anybody here has learned any Dark language. He reminds of the black books he has, but they were printed black on black so nobody knows how to read them, let alone understand them. And Rhori says he doesn't want anybody he cares about to even try to read those books. Rhori asks if any of the White Church folks here know anything about what's going on in the Church. Maybe the Baron can find out while we're going in. Pyotr worries about the spell going down while we're en route; we probably can't camp, since recasting the spell is loud and magical. So we will want to do the whole descent in one day. Since it's late afternoon, we figure we'll get a good night's rest and then head in. If necessary, we have some herbs we can use as stimulants; we also have some waybread. Anton says he'll spend the afternoon asking about the Word of Recall. Paris asks the Baron to suggest a trustworthy mage to talk to. Mia wants to check in at the local Rainbow Church, but Paris asks that we put off any such nonessential business until after the main event. Pyotr prays before bedtime, but to whom? Cora, of course, but anyone else? Anton suggests Murphy. The real question is whether he prays to the black god, which to him is Nature, not the Devil. He ends up deciding to pray to the seven Rainbow gods. Mia, on the other hand, prays to Murphy and to the Black God. The question gets batted around, who is the god worshipped by the White Church? Paris says her sword has the magic of the god of death, and it seems to be the same magic as the White Church. She thinks that the Church is perverting Death in some way, as they perverted Nature. Each of the gods of the Rainbow Church has been uniquely identified with a card of the Tarot. So if there are white and black gods from the Church of Nine, they are almost certainly associated with cards of the Tarot. Lucifrus, the title of the Guardian of Fire, got added to Nature in the course of twisting him into the Devil. Parsinius is the keeper of the cups. Justinius is Jarvon's title as Guardian of Air. Jarvon says that the Keeper of the Stone is Dubious. They were the Aces of the minor arcana. Brillig is now the Ace of Swords, but the Ace of Swords is no longer the Guardian of Fire; that's Lucifrus Morgan. It also occurs to us, belatedly, that we could've brought the Morganti dagger with us for the Devil to destroy. Martin has it, but most of us either didn't know that or had long since forgotten it. Oh well. We study the dungeon maps of the first four levels. Calais notes that the path between the stairwells on each level runs in a straight line. The lines run in the same direction for the first three levels, but a different direction on the fourth; alerting us to the change, perhaps, is the fact that the stairs to the fourth level (and the first) are circular instead of straight. We try to figure out how one knows which direction to go from the base of each stair; Rhori observes that it's always a left turn. Paris notes that it's also a left turn to get onto each new set headed down. We also note that there have, as yet, been no traps on the routes between the stairwells on any level. ================================================================ Filling in earlier discussion, at some point during our travel, Alessandro again brings up the opic of questions to ask when we get to the Devil. "I was a-wonder what we do when we get to bottom of dungeon. Do we ask questions of the Devil? Of his prisoners? What questions? We 'usually' get some pointer towards the next major, so I guess we look for that -- maybe we ask for directions, no?" "There's a lot of information we'd like and I am not sure what approach will be necessary if the Devil is uncooperative," Paris muses. "In much the same way that it is not clear how to actually question the Hierophant. Nonetheless, it is necessary to bring the Devil," she winces at this, "into Torat in some way." She looks at Pyotr [or Rhori -- Sheryl forgets which first brought up the necessity in the earlier conversation, and Don doesn't seem to have it in the notes]. "It's hard to imagine a -- safe way -- that will happen, given -- as you have pointed out already -- there seems to be no dearth of the Devil's influence on Torat now or even during the time before the Change, before last year." Paris continues, "Nonetheless, it would be good to find out if the Devil has any notion that he was once Nature and has been corrupted. It would be interesting if we could determine how long it took to twist Nature into the Devil. It would be wise to try to learn if there is any way to control the Devil or his minions out in Torat -- some version, perhaps, of the cleric's circle of safety? Something powerful enough to stop -- a wraith lord at least." Almost unconsciously, Paris has started stroking her arm. "Pointers to the Tower are really necessary, I think. What he knows of becoming Lucifrus as well as the Devil would be interesting. Somehow I cannot believe that it was originally Lucifrus Morgan, Nature, that was corrupted into Lucifrus Morgan, Devil. The title seems to go so much better with the latter's domain. Understanding what he believes his relationship is to the other gods, to the other majors, and -- particularly perhaps -- to Death would be more than interesting, I think." Anton pipes up, "I thought he was named Lucky Morgan when he was Nature?" Calais agrees, "Yes, that's how Cora knew him. She was surprised to hear that Lucky Morgan had acquired the Lucifrus title." Paris responds, "That was one of the points I was hoping to make. I felt that in our discussions the other night there seemed to be a conscious or unconscious assumption that the 'folding in' of parts of one card into another was something that happened the last time Choice was made. I think that it seems much more likely that this 'folding in', this acquisition of a title by Morgan, was something that happened in the processes of 'commonly held belief' creating change in the Tarot from without. Forgive me if I misread this group's understanding, but I suppose it does no harm to state this outright. Lucky Morgan, Nature, seems to have become Lucifrus Morgan, Devil, by the process of 'commonly held belief' creating change." She pauses for a moment and looks at Rhori. "Hard as this is to say outright, it seems that the evidence points to this 'commonly held belief' being started, preached and maintained by what we knew most of our lives as The Church. Somewhen, someone in authority within the Church of Order seems -- I am extrapolating -- to have started teaching the rank-and-file padres and preachers to vilify Nature and to see Death -- god of Heaven -- as THE god _we_ grew up believing in. Those rank-and-file padres were, to my mind, undoubtedly innocent of ill intent. The message they were taught to teach probably became stronger and more virulent over time and generations, as people started to forget what the gods _had_ been like. Nature -- to those who live in towns and cities, and even to those of the countryside in times of hardship -- DOES seem to be a villain when people are suffering from drought or storm or frozen crops or hungry locusts. I can almost see how it happened. I just cannot see who conceived of the plot and saw to its implementation and perpetuation." "What could possibly have had gain from such?" asks Pyotr. "Who thinks nature chained, corrupted, better than free? May ask why split from Church of Chaos in first place, suppose." Paris answers, "I have said before that Death is a passive god. Being an Ultimate god -- all things come to Death in the end, after all -- it has no need to be active. That is likely to limit its sphere of action." She smiles slightly at the almost-redundant statement. "However, being an Ultimate god, there may well be a great deal of power in the White magics. We've seen it in my sword, in the resurrection of the dead at Pelier, in the Dispel of the Church priest. And a great deal more power in simply hoarding knowledge. Death does not seem able to do much to limit the usurping of its power by The Church which no longer teaches, directly, about the original white god. What temptation might there be in utilising that power for a more limited concept of Order?" She continues, "What greater temptation there must have been when the Mirror Broken meant that all power that was left to Torat was either that generated by right of arms or that contained in hoarded knowledge? We do, after all, have some evidence that The Church's books have been hoarded even in part away from their own priests. "As to who thinks Nature corrupted is better than free? I think the answer to that may be 'no one.' It does not take visualising the end result of Corrupted Nature to vilify nature in the abstract. Did we not think hard thoughts about the weather when we were struggling from Brest back home this last winter? Is it not natural to fear and bemoan an environment that came that close to killing us? _That_ is how the vilifying of Nature would come about naturally. And if it was done deliberately, it was done in the same way that Princess Katherine called me the -- whore of my prince. In war, one vilifies one's enemy because it is easier to try to kill a monster than a friend, neighbor, or," she hesitates, "or brother. Prince Louis and Princess Katherine have to make Prince William and Prince Martin into monsters as part of keeping their own troops committed and in order to justify what has been done to Prince William." Her voice drops into a softer lower register but she manages to hold on to her presence of mind noticeably better than she would have a month past. "Thus was it when The Church decided to suppress its origins as the Church of Order. Having no longer the Rainbow Church to vilify, it cast off the good of Nature and turned it into a monster. After all, some aspects of Nature _do_ appear chaotic to ignorant or superstitious Man. "And that last may explain at least in part the 'why' of splitting from the Church of Nine, Pyotr. There were seven gods of chaos. There were but two gods of Order. Order may have felt rather overwhelmed and outnumbered. Order may have needed to break away in order to maintain itself as Order, rather than let the numbers of Chaos overwhelm it. Change from the Outside _could_ have worked the other way, you know. Chaos _might_ have sucked in and destroyed Order. I would guess that the Church of Nine was basically unbalanced -- and would be again were it to be established again. It might be better if the Church of Nine had had three groups of three: Chaos, Order, and -- and, I don't know, Neutrality, perhaps?" Calais nods. "Interesting. I don't know that I believe yet that this is what happened to the churches, but it is possible. One question that Pyotr might be able to answer, though it was from his mother's time, not his, is whether the Church of Nine was called the Church of Chaos, or whether that name was used only for the Church of Seven that remained after the split?" Pyotr answers, "Was Church. When only one Church, don't need name." Calais goes on, "The idea of grouping the nine gods into a better balance is an intriguing one, and something to think about for when the time comes for The Choice. Even if it's not three groups of three. Hm, Order, Chaos, and Change? Even Order can stand being changed, in an orderly manner, or with careful consideration. Chaos seems to me to be less predictable. So Murphy is clearly chaotic, but Temperance, Learning, and Marriage are more about changing. "Still, it sounds like one very big question that we need the answer to -- and the Devil might very well be one who could answer it, if we can trust his answer! -- is exactly WHY the two split from the Church of Nine. The idea that the two felt somehow overwhelmed is one possibility, but it's clearly just a guess. We need to KNOW why it happened, so we can decide how to keep it from happening again, or indeed, to decide whether it is better that they remain separate." Paris nods thoughtfully. "Very good points. And a very good question." Pyotr adds, "Yes. Was question I asked. Why. Is still good question." Mia remarks, "I would also say that Birth and Dying are more about change than chaos _per se_." Calais replies, "Birth is change, but the creation of a new person to be born seems more like chaos. And, now that I think about it, _getting_ married is a change, but _being_ married seems more orderly. So perhaps a balance could be: nature, marriage, and death; temperance, learning, and dying; birth, magic, and luck?" Paris adds, "I too would count Marriage as Order. What with marriage contracts and the expectations that the union is to provide a stable foundation for the formation of a new family, it would seem necessarily an institution of Order, to me." Her voice drops low and soft again. "It is Love that seems to be a creature of Chaos." Mia suggests, "This may be tangential, but could it have been Juda or someone from his time who used the breaking of the Mirror and the destruction that caused, as well as the length of time before a new Choice became possible, to set the Change-from-without in progress? Perhaps we ought to do more research into who Juda came into contact with and who might have been able to predict the delay of the next Choice as an outcome of breaking the Mirror. Come to think of it, we may even meet Juda tomorrow -- after all, he has been Judged and presumably now resides in Hell....humm, I wonder who was the Ace of Swords in Juda's time...?" Rhori says, "Oh, yeah... that makes sense. I think I even knew that at one point." (The rest of us don't know what he is talking about.) So the White Church made nature a slave to the death god and changed the perception of natural life and death. And let's not forget that Juda, as a member of the 'new white church' -- ummm, that is, if I have my history in order -- was the lone decision maker at the Mirror. While what he did did what happened we don't really know exactly what he did or what happened, do we?" [Rhori feels like he should have added one more 'did' somewhere but he couldn't fit it in. So he, uh, didn't.] Paris says, "I think it would be fairer to say that the _power_ of the white god was made a slave to the White Church. And that Nature was 'locked away in a closet' where there was no church and his power was corrupted to the Dark. "It is not clear that Sir Juda was a member of the 'new white church'. He lived in Pyotr's time. After the separation of Order from The Church and before the separation into what we call the White Church and the Black Church. Far before the binding of Nature was completed, by my theory." She continued, "We _do_ know something of Sir Juda at the Mirror; he told us himself. He was under orders to destroy the Tarot. I did not ask who gave those orders; he would not have answered if I had. They were dead and judged long ago. My guess is that it was one of the Royals of his time. It no longer matters who. Sir Juda followed his orders, he told us: he tore up the card of the World. The only _decisions_ he made at the Mirror, judging by his own words, were, one, to break the Mirror to get to the cards, and two, to tear up the card of the World. He intended to tear up more, but the destruction of the World card seemed to have been enough to separate Tarot from Torat. Choice was made with actions in his case, not words."