Sheryl A. Knowles - Paper & Pixels tarot card




Tarot Campaign

Interlude          Orc Forest Planning

Conversations After Leaving the Forest Orc Lair
[Don] As I said last night, it seems like a good idea for the characters (and/or the players!) to review the battle. The run actually ended not long after leaving the cave. [Aside to those who left a few minutes early: Pat said we found all four foresters outside, waiting to give us covering fire if we needed it.] In-character discussion of the battle probably doesn't take place until the evening camp, but it feels more reasonable to try to hold the discussion by email rather than taking up a run with it.

The Party, having reassured the foresters that no horde of orcs would emerge soon, let the woodsmen choose a place to rest and lunch.

Calais spoke up. "So, the battle went well for us, but I get the feeling a lot of us were pretty worn out by the end, so it could've gone badly if we'd been a bit less lucky or there'd been a few more orcs. Still, I think we did a lot of things right. Maybe we should go back over it and figure out what we did right, and what we could've done better." Calais paused to see if anyone thinks this is a stupid idea, or if someone else wants to offer some observations before he brings up his.

"Man," Kivan said, tossing another log on the fire. "I was watching in disbelief when you guys ran in there. Ralf and Claude had been watching the cave for the last couple days, and knew there were thirty-forty orcs in there." He grinned. "Ya did something right, that's for sure, but I sure would have looked around more before charging on in."

Brillig looked back at the cave through the trees. "Shouldn't we be thinking of doing some more things? Oh, like:
1) getting some torches from the orc cave
2) hiding the orc cave? (which may be impossible)
3) cave in the entrance of the cave?
4) destroy the symbol (which might be advantageous, and might not)
5) draining the foresters' brains about what is at the other end of the orc trail
6) setting up an ambush, in case orc patrols come back? so we can kill them and they can't report their base has been wiped out?
7) head straight back to the Duke, since we have books now?
8) send 2 of the foresters back to the Duke with the books? And they can tell him about what happened at the Baron's etc"

Mia looked aghast at the monk. "No-no-no-no-no to number eight - I am not giving up my new-found water book to the Duke until I've read it!! Any of the first ones seem like a good ideas..."

Unnoticed by the others, some of the foresters stared hard at Mia.

Calais nodded to Brillig. "Those all sound like plausible suggestions, though I'm not sure I understand what "symbol" you're referring to -- the place where Anton noticed a scroll-teleporting magic? I didn't find anything in the circle when I searched the room. Maybe we should delay caving it in until we check the circle more, if we can do anything."

Calais smiled at his sister. "I also don't think we should send the books back with the foresters. They-" and there was an imperceptible pause that only Paris will catch, "they are safer with us. Though I grant that all four of you have survived this far." And it will be better for us, he thinks, if we bring the books back ourselves.

"We definitely need to talk to the Duke about better quality bowstrings," Anton grinned. "And it was a damn shame we let one of those magic books get burned, but I'm not sure how we could have prevented that, maybe I should have cast Mace without setting a round. But it will make a great ballad, I'll work on it tonight." He paused, munching on a potato. "Oh, and I'd like one of my silver cards, please."

Calais nodded. "Or Mia could've lobbed her slow-'em-down spell down the corridor, hoping to catch the guy in the area of effect. But there was a lot of obstruction, so it probably would've missed anyway." He continued to dig under his armor for a bag. "What silver cards?" he said with a grin. "Here you are." Anton took the card, rolling his eyes at the joke.

Red slowly joined the conversation. "Well, I suppose it's a good thing that you ran after the orc and saved the books, but that was really dangerous. Come to think of it I suppose it was really dangerous of us to just run in this cave and kill the orcs without any planning or anything. I'm sorry I should have known better, sigh."

While Red was talking, Anton took the card in both hands and appeared to concentrate, and the card disappeared. He smiled, and sat back down.

Calais responded to Red, but his eyes were still on Anton, looking for any obvious change. "Yeah, given that we took out the outside guards without them being able to sound an alarm, we should've at least checked tracks and stuff to get a better idea of what might be inside. And if nothing else, we could've stopped for a minute to catch our breath." (In game terms, from what Pat's told me, if we'd rested for one minute we'd've all recovered LTE equal to our REC, which probably would've gotten everyone back up to full.)

"Right," Red nodded. "That woulda been smarter than heading in like we did. I suppose. We will learn as we go along...or we will die." Red continued, quietly and diffidently. "Um, the thing that really bothered me and Paris was when you all ran after the giant orc without us. Dunno if it was a good idea or not but it seems that it was a good thing this time...I guess its hard for a big guy like me to see that you all can take care of yourselves better than it looks. But you all could have died and we wouldn't have known. Seems that sometimes there are no good plans. What now? I don't think the books came form the book carrying guy did they?"

Anton shook his head. "I don't think so - we didn't find any signs of a body, even the bones, and it seems these books could have been sent through the circle. I'm in favor of continuing our hunt for the guy with the books."

Paris spoke at last although her voice was as quiet as usual. "There are no further clues as to the whereabouts of the alleged man with books. Unless.." she looked at the foresters, "our friends here have seen any indications of a man with books wandering these woods since the -- night of destruction and change." She glanced back at Anton. "Although I search and found no sign of human captives in those orc caves -- fearing," she smiled slightly at Kivan and his companions, "that the foresters who had gone south might also have fallen to those foul creatures. It seems entirely possible to me that any remains the orcs chose not to keep might well have been turned over to the great slug and disposed of so. By the evidence of Rhori's arrows," her smile turned to Red," its skin was capable of disintegrating a great many substances."

Paris shrugged lightly. "At any rate, we have no indicator as to where he has gone or even if he truly came into these woods. It seems foolish to me to seek further on no further clues. Particularly when we can at least return to the duke with news of what has been done here, of the orc trail from the empty clearing, and bring him the books we have found. He never specified what sort of books he most needed and we gave our word we'd bring him the books we found in his lands."

Anton nodded. "Another interesting question is who is causing these orcs to appear, and why. If some or all of the foresters are going back to town, we should send a message with them to the duke telling him what we have learned." He frowned. "What were those orders again? Calais, do you have the note?"

"If you mean the piece of hide with Fell Tongue written on it," Calais said, still staring at Anton, "it said: "To Glar: Take tribe to the place, dig in, wait for signal, then attack. Find ??? get all of his ??? keep them from ??? keep it secret."

Calais, unable to stand it any more, blurted out to Anton. "Are you willing to say what you used it for? Like, is it something that you think needed improvement based on today's fighting?"

"I can cast more spells now. It worked just like Kivan described." Anton answered.

Calais seemed relieved. "Cool. Were you actually able to learn a new spell from one of those books, or do you mean you can cast the same spells but more often?"

Anton says "Same spells but more times in a day, I just thought hard about that while I was holding the card in two hands. All the spells I've seen would take more than one card to learn, I think. And I think you need to read the books or something like that too."

Calmer, Calais continued. "Also, I don't think we ever discussed what to do with this last bunch. Since we all helped, and the cards happen to come out evenly, I think we ought to divvy them up like we did the first ones. But I'm hoping to save my share until I can talk some more to Genelle about them. 'Course, people should be free to let others use their share, 'specially when it makes sense. But we ought to be careful not to let anybody fall too far behind, or we might get into trouble if somebody can't hold up their end of things."

Anton looked at Calais quizzically. "Red proposed last night at the lodge that we split all cards we obtained equally, I thought everyone heard that and agreed. I think the suggestion that people hold off on using cards until we get back to Genelle is reasonable, but I will choose when and how to use my share, and I accord the same right to everyone else."

Calais replied. "Guess I didn't catch that discussion, or thought it was talking about the ones we'd found up till then. Anyway, it's okay with me."

Calais turned to Red. "Speaking of which, you're right that it was risky for us to charge off after the last orc. But it looked like a good idea to try to stop him from reaching whatever he was running for, whether it was to sound an alarm or, as it turns out, to burn the books. I figured if we ran into another bunch of orcs, we could turn around and outrun 'em back to you and Paris, and meanwhile you'd have had a chance to get your breath back. Still, it could've been trouble; we were lucky.

"But it's also true that most of us can take care of ourselves better than we used to. Having you and Paris holding the line so that Brillig and I could fight without shields helped a lot, but once we got to the mopping up so we mostly didn't have to worry about being swung at, yeah, we can do okay. Anyway, I guess my point is that having you two take the front line in a fight is still usually gonna be right. But you need to realise that the rest of us really can help, like when Paris paused to recover and ducked down to let Mia and Claire fire past her." Calais nods to Anton. "Timing your spell to come just as she reached that point was one of the things I think we did right. It meant nothing swung at Paris while she recovered, and the missiles were more effective."

Anton answered. "Actually, I couldn't tell whether Paris needed to rest or not, she hadn't said anything. I cast it when it seemed right in the tempo of the battle, and it seemed to work out well."

Calais: "Good! That's the sort of thing I was hoping to learn when I suggested we discuss the battle. If we continue to travel and fight together, these things will come more naturally, but for now I think we need to talk more during combat, to coordinate stuff. Like, you could've warned Paris that your spell would provide her a breather, and she could've let you know how close she was to needing one. But yeah, you're right, I think Paris could've gone a bit longer. But you cast it just as the orcs were about to clear their dead out of the way, so messing them up worked out just fine. Still, the break came at a good time for Paris, and she was able to drop down and give the archers a clear shot. Let's remember that sort of tactic, so we can do it more smoothly next time it looks right."

There was a short pause in the conversation. [During which, I hope, characters might continue to discuss the battle tactics, if they're not all totally focussed on the goddamn -- sorry Padre -- that's all right son -- books and cards.]

"Back to the book guy," Calais finally said. "Gosh, I hope the book guy isn't sending books to the orcs. I'd hate to think a person was nasty enough to be working with orcs. Though I guess the fool's description wasn't real clear; it could be he never got a close look, and it was really an orc or some other creature that was carrying off the books. In any event, I don't know how many more days we can keep searching without risking running out of provisions before we could get back. Still, we could look a bit further."

Calais turned to the foresters. "I think Kivan said he hadn't run into any signs of a lone traveler heading south from the Baron's. But maybe one of you others did?"

The foresters looked at each other and shook their heads.

[Don: Though I suspect the later rose-petal clue is what we were looking for, it still feels like there ought to be some negative comment from the foresters here. Unless they're all staring sullenly at Mia or something, in which case their unusual silence is worth noting.]

Anton spoke up. "I've been thinking about the orc orders. So the question is, who wrote that, and what and who is going to be attacked? Perhaps indeed we should go back to the Duke and keep him informed. I guess all we have to go on about the guy with the books is the word of the fool. We've found no traces of the guy so far (unless, as suggested, he's an orc), and the foresters didn't know of any obvious place he would have been traveling to south of here, so we'd just be blindly wandering the wilderness if we continued."

Anton continued. "And indeed we should present the books to the Duke. Before we go to him we should definitely talk to Genelle, who may have further insight into both the message and the books, and also consider studying from the books - we may or may not have access to them after we give them to the Duke. "

Paris said, with gentle firmness, "If you do not believe the Duke will allow you access to the books after we turn them over to him, what gives us any right to use them now? Bringing books to the palace was the only price asked of us when our village was given a place in the town. You, Anton, volunteered that we would seek books for our Duke further afield than his town. How can you then seek to use what you have promised another?"

Mia spoke up again. "I agree, studying them before we hand them over seems wise to me. I don't remember it being a 'price' at all, but as you say, Anton volunteered us. I doubt the Duke would be adamant against us reading the books, but I do expect that we would be unlikely to see them again soon, as he undoubtedly has more important people that he would want to have read the books first. Besides, one doesn't use up a book by reading it, it's not like eating food you've pledged to another."

"Can you say that for certain concerning books of magic?" asked Paris, showing no sign of accepting these arguments as yet.

Mia interrupted, an unusual fire in her eyes, "No, but one doesn't know without trying. I'm willing to promise, if sections of the book disappear after being read (or after a spell was learned) that I would stop reading the book, and hand it over to the Duke, along with that information. But I do think that not attempting to learn what we can from these books, while we have them, is a waste of valuable resources, as far as we're concerned. It is possible that the information contained in some of these books could be used to save lives someday, ours or those around us."

Calmly and evenly, Paris continued. "And I certainly recall the duke's seneschal specifying that any books found should be brought to the palace. If you will not think of that as a 'price', than should you not think of it as an order?"

Quickly and sharply Mia replied, "Even if I thought of that as an order, there is no time frame specified."

The foresters moved away to have a short conversation, unnoticed by the others. Kivan and Ralf returned to the discussion.

"I hear nothing so far to convince me that we need these books more than the duke does. Your promise is respected but would do the duke no good if, indeed, portions of these books disappear after being read. I repeat: it seems the duke has need and we do not." To most, Paris appeared as calm and as cool as ever, but Calais began to be worried.

"I don't think either of us has enough information to judge that," Mia replied. "Or the Duke either, frankly, given that we don't really know what's in these books -- we are simply debating whether or not to find out what's in them. Or perhaps we're debating what you will do if one of us tries to read them...? As I do intend to read this one," indicating the book of water magic in her possession, "before I give it to the Duke, presuming of course that it behaves like a normal book and doesn't loose any text or magic due to being read"

"I agree that we lack information," Paris replied. "I am suggesting that we err on the safe side. I am furthermore suggesting that you consider whether the thing you claim you will do is, in fact, the right thing to do. "

Mia replied, "To use your own reply, you haven't said anything that convinces me that it's not the right thing to do. If information gathering is what we are out here to do, then let's do it."

Paris continued, "I ask that you consider that all here helped get you that book that you are so -- interested in." She looked around at the others. "It is entirely possible that you all will choose to disregard what I have been saying. But look into yourselves and come to terms with what motivates you to disregard what I've said."

Mia looked straight back at Paris. "I have nowhere said that I'm not perfectly willing to share this book with anyone else, or do not fully intend to hand it over to the Duke. I am simply unwilling to let possibly relevant knowledge pass out of my -- or rather our -- hands unlearned. If I seem a bit proprietary towards this particular book, it's because it seems to contain knowledge most pertinent to myself."

Calais spoke, trying to smooth things over. "Frankly, Sis, I think Anton's concern is misplaced, and thus so is yours. I think the Duke will allow us continued access, especially if it seems likely that we will continue to use our skills in his service. And if there's any chance that studying the books now might help us before we have a chance to confirm this with the Duke, I think we should study them. Particularly as it could even improve our chances of making it back alive. Of course, this assumes that the books aren't damaged in some way by being read, but we've already looked through them somewhat just to ascertain their contents, and they did not suffer from that."

Paris, unconvinced, shifted the subject and looked at Anton who has used a card, expressionlessly. Quietly she said, "Has it not occurred to any one that these cards may themselves be a means of releasing our Duke from the armor that now imprisons him? If the cards can be used, perhaps he can use them to gain mastery of his armor. Is that more important than any small personal gain any of us might get at this time? We are not in need; he is."

"Well, I don't know," Calais replied. "His armor is an irritation, and might over a long time lead to major problems -- madness? lack of an heir? -- but Anton's running out of spells too soon could get us all killed, in which case nothing would make it back to the Duke at all. And we don't even KNOW that the cards can help the Duke. It sounded like he thought he needed books. Maybe once he has a book that tells him about the armor, then a card can help him learn from it? Anyway, I don't see the point in holding off on using the cards, and maybe dying because of it, just because a pile of cards MIGHT be of use there. But sure, I do intend to hold off using mine until I know more about what they can do, or until an emergency crops up."

"If Anton is running out of spells maybe he should stop showing off his magic and save them for when we need them" Red said with some degree of firmness as well as some envy.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind the next time you're being swarmed by orcs, Red", said Anton, clenching his left hand.

Paris continued in the same quiet firm tone. At no point did she raise her voice or appear emotionally upset. "We have none of us died yet, given our new powers. We have none of us actually been much in danger of dying, by what I have seen, although I will agree we may have had luck both good and bad at times. I do not yet accept the argument that we need to use the cards in case we meet danger someday. At least not until we have a fuller understanding of what can be done with the cards. There is time to plan for "someday" and the duke is but two days away now."

Anton: "Well, the Duke didn't seem in much danger of dying from his armor, either, and he asked us for books, not cards. If he wants to send us out after cards, I'm sure we can go find some more, there seem to be plenty of orcs about. Until I hear otherwise from the Duke, I'll use my share of the cards as I see best, just as I'm sure Kivan didn't feel he had to run off to ask the Baron or the Duke before he used his cards."

Exasperated, Mia continued. "Paris, none of us are going to have a problem with you saving your cards."

Calais muttered, "Speak for yourself."

Mia continued, "but as we have already decided to split these up amongst us they are, right now, our personal property. As I remember, Calais has promised to turn them over to us when we ask for them. I don't believe their use or lack thereof is something that we have ever promised to determine as a group, or even implied that we would determine it in any way other then individually."

Red spoke up. "Umm, we decided that each of us can have 1 of the first 7 we found. Maybe we should decide what to do with the next 7 before getting into a fight. Those who want to use them to help themselves can if they want. Some of us," he said nodding towards Paris, "will do what they think is best for all the people. I think we will be heading separate ways soon anyway so I suppose we should just split the silvers like we did before. I don't know what is right."

"And yet it was Calais who found most of these cards." Paris answered mildly. "I am merely surprised that everyone is so willing to claim for themselves that which has no label and has been found on our Duke's land amongst our Duke's enemies. Particularly you, Widow Mia, who are eldest and therefore to be presumed wisest of us all. "

"As Brillig says," Calais replied, "I found the cards mostly because you all left it to me to look, because I'm good at, um, finding things. And I think having me look but agreeing to share them is a good idea, since otherwise we might fall to squabbling over who gets to look for them. We would probably have failed to rescue any books today if we had felt that it mattered who first got to loot the dead orcs."

In an 'I should probably keep my mouth shut tone of voice,' Red added, "Umm, Parris aren't we the ones who are out here doing the Duke's work for him for no other reason than we think it's the right thing to do? We aren't the same as the Duke but we are in his service, at least for now. I think if we just head back to the Duke now then we can sort it out later, but if we continue on we should do whatever we can to help stop the orcs. Don't you think? For all we know, we are the only real foray party (whatever that means the look on his face says) doing more than scouting. We are actually causing the orcs serious problems."

Kivan and Ralf exchanged glances. There was a slight relaxation about Ralf, although he continued to stare at Mia as he sharpened his hunting knife.

Calais continued Red's thought. "Yes, when the Duke sends his soldiers and other agents out, I truly doubt that they are required to adhere strictly and only to their assigned orders. They have to be able to make some decisions based on their situation. If we came across a child being attacked by a bear, would we have to ignore him because trying to stop the bear might get us killed and thereby interfere with our assigned task of bringing back books? If the mages feel that studying the books could aid us, and that the risk of thereby ruining the books is small or can be minimized by trying it out on one book first, what is wrong with that?"

Red: "That makes no sense to me, Calais. The bear thing you talked about sounds nothing like what's going on to me. This seems more like if a war party came across some of the duke's protected deer. If there is an *urgency* to kill and eat them it's OK, maybe? This is not a decision that has to be made or "the bear eats the kid" so I don't think you are thinking what I'm thinking . I dunno maybe I can't come up with a better example either, sigh. Ummm, well, if we head back to the Duke anyways it doesn't matter. I don't think we will ever find the book guy and we found some books so let's just go back to the big tower now, OK?

Calais: "But if you kill a deer, it's dead. If you read a book, it's PROBABLY not gone. I admit we don't know, but we could try it to find out and only risk a little bit of one book. I guess my bear example isn't good either, 'cuz it's obvious that stopping the bear is a good thing, and we don't know that reading the books will help us. But it might. And it seems to me more likely that reading the books will help us, than that it'll hurt the books."

"Regarding the books," Calais asked Paris, "Why are you so concerned that reading a magical book might cause the text to disappear? We might at least ask those who now have knowledge of magic whether this is at all likely. For all I know, a magical book might be like a living creature that wastes away if not given suitable attention, so the text could disappear if it is NOT read at regular intervals! Anyway, I think Mia's approach sounds reasonable: stop reading if reading appears to damage the book, and be prepared to recite to the Duke any parts that disappeared due to having been read."

Paris, still quiet and not a bit cowed by all the arguments against her stand, says, "What is wrong with that is that I did ask a mage, someone who might know, the Widow Mia, what would happen. Her reply was that she didn't know but," she bowed slightly towards the widow, "forgive my paraphrase, please -- but that she was willing to take the risk and gave that promise she gave. My answer is still -- there is no good reason not to let the Duke decide who should take the risk and who should use the books. This in no way abrogates our use of our own intelligence in undertaking the duties assigned us by our Duke, in my opinion."

"Perhaps," said Paris, "the situation would be clearer if everyone realizes that these books are not ours to use." She repeated, enunciating each word carefully, but still quietly. "They are not ours." She looked at each of her companions. "Any more than finding a crown in that cave makes it ours. A crown we would try to return to its lord; so too should we view these books. You know that books are valuable."

Brillig asked, "Paris, if a crown we found we would take to the Duke (or the Baron, it is his land) shouldn't we do the same thing with the Cards?"

Calais turned to Brillig. "Oh sure, and while we're at it let's bring him these berries, and any rabbits we happen to catch, and who knows what else. Gee, maybe we're in trouble for killing that big slug; maybe we should've taken it back to the Duke, too." Calais's tone was sarcastic, but now becomes more serious. "Yeah, I know, the cards are more valuable. But who decides what's valuable and what isn't? Until we're told that we can't keep the cards, they're ours to use, just like the berries and rabbits." He looked at Red. "Or even a deer, given that we have permission to be in these lands and could be expected to need to hunt a bit for food. If that means some cards have gotten used up before we get back, it happens."

Red replied to Brillig, "Ummm, isn't that what Parris already said? Sigh. I though she said that already and that why I plan on bringing 'my cards' to him as well as all of his other stuff we found. This is the Duke's forest and" nodding to the foresters, "all the stuff in it is his just like all the stuff near our old town was the barron's, right? I hope Gertrude is OK..."

Calais: "Actually, I think this is the Baron's forest, unless we've gone so far south that we're outside his domain. But still, like I said, how much of what we find has to be preserved to bring back with us? The books, yes, since we were sent specifically for them. The cards? The foresters seem content to use the ones they've found, just like they know it's okay to use most other stuff they come across. Why all the fuss?"

Mia, timidly: "I would think we should take the cards to the ch-- a religious authority, rather then to the Duke... they seem to be much more of a spiritual matter then a mundane one..."

Red: "Are you saying the cards are holy, Mia? If they are holy things... I'm not supposed to touch them...I'm gonna get in trouble...for...touching all those cards...in the cave...aren't I???" Red gasped out; he was starting to have extreme breathing difficulties.

Paris patted the big lad's shoulder and said softly, "Calm down, man. Breathe."

Mia: "I don't know Red -- I thought Genelle said they had to do with the soul... but I don't think you'll get in trouble for touching the cards."

Paris seemed to have finally found an argument that at least made sense to Calais. On the other hand, Calais isn't exactly known for paying attention to who things "belong" to. :-) "Sure, the books aren't ours, and we'll get them to the Duke like we're supposed to. But I don't see why we can't use 'em in the mean time, s'long as we're careful. Yeah, a crown wouldn't be useful. But if we'd found a good sword, and it was the only weapon we had, we'd use it against orcs while we had it. And if we found a magic sword that was a lot more effective than the swords we have, and we ran into a buncha orcs and weren't sure we could kill them all, we'd use the magic sword to see if it turned the tide, even though for all we knew "using" a magic sword might somehow use it up. The books are the same: we don't KNOW that it's safe to use them, but using them might help us in case we run into trouble. Unlike the sword, books are best used ahead of time, before we know for sure if they'll be needed. But also unlike the sword, we can be careful and check to see if we're hurting the books before we've used them much."

Anton listened and nodded at Mia and Calais's answers. "I have never read a book that disappeared when read, what an odd idea. If the Duke had intended for us not to look at them, I'm sure he'd have told us that. I see no conflict between examining the books ourselves and delivering them to the Duke afterwards. As others have suggested, we can be careful on reading them and stop if something happens, if we are the first to discover such books, I'm sure the Duke will be interested to know about it."

Red was tired of arguing and confused as hell. He moved away to avoid further arguments. Those who knew him could see that he was thinking of and tensing up to grab various people and shaking them till they understood him.

In the short pause as others prepared to debate more with the still-stubborn Paris, Brillig turned to the foresters to, as he quaintly phrased it, drain their brain. "Do you think there are more orcs in the forest? How many? Were they all "based" here? (i.e. have you seen evidence of orcs in the area that weren't based here?) What is at the other end of the "churn"? Have the foresters seen slugs or kobolds at all? Other kinds of creatures they haven't mentioned yet?"

Ralf, the dark haired forester, shook his head. "No, Brother Brillig, all we sarw were pig faces. Orcs. Mostly they went out huntin, groups of 8, taking back game, out 'n back insida the night. They liked to move around at night, mostly. Couple of groups would be out at a time." He turned back to sharpening his knife. "That group that got back this morning, though, they'd been out more than the night. Didn't look like they'd gotten any game." He put the knife back in the sheath, the whetstone back in his pouch. "'Course, Kivan, you and Georges ran into a group pretty far from here to be huntin."

Kivan nodded. "We were north of where the churn stops. Or maybe that's where it started. It's just the top of a hill, nothing special." He snorted a laugh. "Not like it's hard to find."

Red looked over at Kivan. "We should find out about this area later, especially if we decide to chase after the book man some more..."

Calais looked at Kivan, thankful for the interruption. "The group that got back this morning? Would those be the ones whose trail we followed to find this place? They seemed to be coming from the northwest. What's in that direction? Oh, yeah, one of the scrolls had a rose petal in it. Mia, you still have that, right? Can we see it?" Calais asked the foresters, "Where might we find flowers like these?"

Mia replied. "Yes, of course, it's right here in the book." [GM: Um, comment here-the petal fell out, you all went "Awwww how sweet" but no one said they were doing anything with it. For all I know it is on the floor of the cave; or you picked it up and put it with the shiny rocks, but I really don't think it is back in the book.][Don: On the contrary, I did explicitly pick it up, and asked which book it had been in. Upon hearing it had been in the water book, I said we might as well keep it with that book, so I gave it to Mia. I believe Sunny actually said she then put the petal in her cup. But we definitely do still have it.]

Paris turned an attentive face to the foresters to hear what they had to say about the rose petal Calais remembered. She looked particularly at Kivan.

Ralf grinned at Kivan, who was keeping an excellent stone face. "Thar's a spot with a whole lot o' wild roses growing. Pretty nice spot with the ladies, eh, Kivan? It's kinda northwest of here. Didn't go looking there, not many in the town would know ta head there. Would they?" He placed a not-so-gentle elbow in the ribs of the other forester.

Kivan nodded. "Yes, it is a nice, sheltered little area. Never figured out why so many roses grow there. It will take us most of the day to get there. Roses are rare everywhere else here in the forest, if there was a petal in the book, it probably came from there. Or at least the book was opened there."

Red: "Well if the rose place might be a book place or a place to start looking for more book places, let's go there when we are done with lunch [the 1 hour LT recovery, of course]. If we don't find any trail to follow I think that we should bring the books to the castle and see what else is happening there." Red said this in such a way - and will reiterate it from time to time when the opportunity arises - that Paris and Brillig (at the least as Red is not hard to 'read') will know that that is what Red is planning on doing, on his own if necessary.

"These books better be important..."

Calais: "If the book was opened there, sounds like a good place to go check out. And the sooner the better, in case whoever's there has some way of finding out that the orcs down here have been wiped out." Calais turned to Kivan. "Since you said it will 'take us most of the day', can I assume you're offering to guide us there? I hope so, 'cuz that sure sounds easier than us trying to find it based just on some directions."

Anton: "Ahh, that seems promising. I agree, let's head for that spot, if you'll guide us. As to Brillig's other suggestions:
1) getting some torches from the orc cave - sounds easy and good, I'll do it if someone else doesn't.
2) hiding the orc cave? (which may be impossible) - I think we have a good idea where to go now, we should move on, plus we're not, as a whole, very good at hiding.
3) cave in the entrance of the cave? - I don't think we know how?
4) destroy the symbol (which might be advantageous, and might not) - I certainly don't know how do to do that, though it's possible that simply scuffing around in the dirt there might mess it up. But on the other hand, since it seemed to be for receiving rather than sending, if we leave it alone, it may take longer for whoever's sending stuff to realize there's no one on this end.
5-8) those cover what to do next, I'm in favor of going to the rose garden, and suggest possibly one or two of the rangers head back to the Duke with a report, since I'm sure they travel faster than we do."

Brillig: "We could also 'cleanup the crime scene', and possibly confuse any arriving orcs? i.e. take all the bodies, etc, away. Orcs don't seem to be very observant, etc, and might not be able tell there was a fight, and wonder where everyone went. This might make it more likely that new orcs will take up residence? Which is a place we would then know they are, and we can kill them off again? Or we could do the opposite, and make it obvious we killed everyone? Hoping to demoralize the orcs, and make them harder to order around? Make the little orcs more scared of us than the big orcs? Chop all their heads off, and arrange them in a double circle? :) COOL!"

Calais, with disgust: "I ain't hauling out that dead slug!! Somehow I think we've left enough blood'n'guts strewn about that there's no hope of 'cleaning up' the scene. Something like chopping off their heads like that might work, but (a) we'd need someone with Orc culture to know what to do (e.g., for all we know, putting their heads in a double circle is a sign of respect to honored foes), and but I only have the language, not the culture, and (b) mutilating them in the hopes that it'll strike fear into some hypothetical later orcs feels too much like stooping to their level. Next thing you know, Brillig will suggest we eat the orcs. (Yeah, I'll bet he thinks that'd be cool, too!" :-)

Brillig: "The 'cave' isn't actually made of stone. It is covered with a coating from the slug. The blood may not be obvious, or we throw some dirt on it. It isn't like the orcs can do chemical analysis, and figure out it was blood. The slug will be obvious, but not why it died. The arrows have already dissolved away. The 'double circle' is the sign of 'our' religion, so I doubt it is 'good' for the orcs. Even if it was, we probably wouldn't 'get it right', which might be an insult. NOT eating the bodies might be an insult!

Stoop to the level? If a wolf came and ate your cow, and you could stop the next wolf from eating your other cow (or your sister) by killing the first, and leaving it out where the second would find it. Would that be stooping to the level of the wolf? Or just smart?"

The party shrugged in disgust and Anton went back after the unlit torches, having observed that the lit ones had almost burnt themselves out already.

[Steve: If we are serfs, we never left the Duke's? Leaving the Baron's was pushing it? Serfs are "tied to the land". "Resident farmers" don't own the land, but aren't tied to it?
And some peasants actually owned the land; well, until someone says it is their's (it isn't like they actually had rights or anything).
Therefore, back in time, we are all still at the Duke's, farming?]
[Sheryl: My take on it is that Pat is envisioning a feudal structure where the lowest rank is a cross between the classic serf and the classic yeoman. And where the feudal hierarchy is clear: peasant is obligated to the knight or above; knight is obligated to the baron; baron is obligated to duke; duke is obligated to king. And, technically, all are in some wise property of the ranks above. The relationships between the nobility may be less "property" and more "oaths of fealty" with property being exchanged for service, but some of the results are the same. If the Duke ordered one of his barons to lead a force of knights into what turned out to be a death trap, the baron probably would go -- and the Duke probably would be very upset at the results. However, if the Duke knew it was a death trap and gave such orders -- instead of asking for volunteers to be a decoy or whatever -- the baron (or his heirs) could appeal to the king on the grounds that the Duke was violating his oath of protection to the baron.
And because all actually belongs to the king, there is some leeway for the peasantry to move around, specialize in tasks other than farming, etc., as long as all the ranks above feel that there is a balance. If, for example, Jouet and the Baron's Village and several other villages had decided to move en mass to the Duke's immediate properties (before disaster turned them all into refugees), then it would have been probable and proper for our baron and others to have complained to the king about their duke disrupting the local economies. And for the king to have come down hard on the duke.
But for a peasant of Jouet to marry into a family of Orleans and move to Orleans -- that probably wouldn't be considered significant as it is just as likely that there will be some other peasant marrying to/moving to Jouet within a reasonable space of time. So only the most grasping of overlords begrudges his peasants the "freedoms" our characters have known heretofore.
So-- it is our Baron's hunting preserve. In his absence, it falls to the care of his Duke -- thus becoming the duke's land as well (assuming the baron received his properties from the duke rather than straight from the king) and, were the Duke to fall without heir, it all would revert back to the direct protection of the King (whoever he is:-)
However, I agree with Steve that most of our characters may not have understood all the technical details of feudalism or cared -- before the advent of the Font of Chaos, and, unless it got written into the character afterwards, may not understand or care about it now. Although I am not sure that should hold true of anyone who took "scholar"...:-). Just my opinion.]

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