Photographs of Mirari (27 Nov 2001) Sorceress Nymuae, Agatha and Alice look over some recently developed photographs. Note: Mirari players other than Agatha and Alice should not read this log.

The Sorceress's Study
Golden light pervades this chamber, where boxes, jars, vials, and cabinets full of oddments line the walls, along with bookcases and cubbies filled by scrolls and books. The long curved window against one wall shows a view of the dark lake beyond it, shadowy shapes and ordinary fishes occasionally swimming past. Tall tables of carved wood, matched by padded stools, are the primary furnishings.

Three people -- a young blond girl, a red-headed teenager, and an ageless black-haired woman, sit on stools gathered around a volume bound in white leather. The raven-haired woman lays her finger alongside one photograph in the book. "House April," she repeats. "I trust them no more than House October."

"Well, I still think we'd better keep this quiet for now," Agatha says, looking at the odd creature superimposed over the image of Simon in the photograph, "which means we can't tell Tom or Simon that these pictures developed at all."

"I don't know," says Alice quietly. "Is Simon really a kitty-man? He's always really nice to Tommy. I think he's Tommy's best friend, and I don't want to make Tommy more sad than when Elinor was something else."

Agatha just shakes her head, and says, "We can worry about Tom's feelings later. Let's see if anything showed up in the pictures of Anastasia's stuff."

The sorceress nods, and turns the next page. It takes a moment to identify the picture therein as the one Agatha took of the Harcourt toys: the toys seem strangely out of proportion. There is the toy box, but arranged around it, as if a scene from a book of Sleeping Beauty, is an arrangement of almost full-sized soldiers sleeping as if they had been standing guard, and fallen asleep en masse. They do not guard a sleeping princess however; atop the box is the body of a knight with a bear's head, apparently sleeping, with his hands folded over his chest where a sword lies with hilt at throat and point between his knees. The kaleidoscope seems to be a long telescope with mystical carvings along its length.

Kuon lies down next to Alice, head on paws, and flicks his tail occasionally.

"Wow!" Agatha gasps. "I wonder if they'd wake up if we brought them back here. What do you think, Nymuae? Are these guys still alive?"

Alice stands on her toes so she can leeean and get a better look at the pictures within the leather bound book. "They're all asleep." She reaches back for her bag, rummages around and pulls out her stuffed unicorn and then Sir Teddy Bear, putting each on the table in turn. "Why don't they wake up, Rebecca?"

Nymuae tilts the volume to one side, studying the figures. "In a sense, yes. They must be dormant now, but waiting for the cue which will awaken them. Bringing them to Mirari might be it. Yet ... I wonder ... " She frowns, as if trying to recall an elusive memory.

"Well, Alice has brought Sir Theodore," Agatha notes, patting the teddy bear on the head. "Could you tell more by examining it here?"

"But wasn't Sir Teddy Bear ... um, bigger a long time ago? He wasn't a Sir Teddy Bear ..." The little girl's eyes cross. "... teddy bear. A Sir Teddy Bear human-bear."

The sorceress reaches for the bear, but hesitates before she touches it. "The bear must be like your unicorn doll, Alice. It is not the real person, but it has a close connection to him." Instead of taking the toy, she stands and walks to one of her bookcases, searching through the racks of scrolls.

Agatha whispers to Alice, "Better be careful not to stick any pins into the dolls then, or get them wet or anything."

Alice looks up at Agatha and looks startled, then horrified. "I'd never do that, Agatha! That's mean and not nice to dolls!" she promises.

"A long time ago," the Lady Sorceress says, slowly, as she trails her fingers along the edges of the scrolls. "Ah, yes, a long time ago. When Lady Angelique of April passed out of the land of Mirari, on to parts unknown, she left behind her faithful servants and soldiers, wishing them to remain and protect the land." Nymuae takes down one of the scroll cases, nodding her head at the inscription along the side, and carries it back to the table where her friends sit.

"I don't suppose they disappeared too?" Agatha asks.

"People in Mirari sure disappear a lot! Daddy says when things disappear you need a detective," comments the little blonde. She scoots to sit at the edge of her stool, arms wrapped around her collection of stuffed animals, head resting on Lord Mel's head.

The greyhound looks up at Alice curiously.

Alice turns her head to smile down at the canine and explains, "Detectives are people who find things and smoke big pipes."

"No," the sorceress answers, shaking her head, "but the years after Lady April's departure were peaceful ones, and her faithful soldiers and servants had much time on their hands to mourn for their lost mistress. At length, they came to me, and asked me for a boon." She opens the scroll case and shakes out the parchment inside. "Sir Theodore told me, 'It is only by the gifts of Lady Angelique's hands that I still draw breath, and I would devote that life to service of her. I and my companions do not wish to grow old and die, useless and unneeded. Is there no way we could save our strength, against a time when my lady needs us again?'"

One gets the impression that if Kuon had eyebrows, he'd be raising them.

"You mean ... it's like Sleeping Beauty?" Agatha asks. "They're waiting somewhere for Angelique to return and wake them up?"

The blonde girl nods a bit to Kuon, then looks up and again rests her head on her beloved doll as she watches the Lady Sorceress. "Did you put them in the freezer? When my mom wants to make things last a long time, she puts them in the freezer."

Nymuae unrolls the scroll, revealing a lithograph of a scene eerily like the photograph Agatha took. In the lithograph, the figures are in a sunlit clearing, shaded by trees, and the sleeping soldiers surround a raised dais, on which lies the body of the great armor-clad knight. "Yes," she answers Agatha. "Though not exactly like that, Alice. They are waiting against the time that they are truly needed again, either by Angelique returned, or one of her descendants."

"Like King Arthur in Avalon," Agatha mutters, looking at the drawing. "Did Angelique have any descendants, though?" she asks.

"Yes. She wed Lady February's brother; the whole of the line of House April is comprised of her descendants," Nymuae answers.

"Lady Angelique was from House April, right, Rebecca? Maybe someone from House April could help us. But ... I don't think they'd be very nice about it because of all the problems," says the little girl. She untwines her left hand so she can reach down to pet Kuon, who happens to be just out of her reach at the moment.

"What about Alice herself, then?" Agatha asks. "Isn't she supposedly from House April too?"

Alice purses her lips, brow creasing with uncertainty. "I can try, Agatha! But, I don't really know if I can or if I am from House April. And I'm from ... from ... House Westfield too, kind of," she explains.

"Lady Angelique founded House April, Alice. Before she and Lord Bram came, and brought the other lords and ladies with them, there were no Houses of Mirari." The dark-haired woman hesitates, then nods to Agatha. "If Alice is truly Princess Angel, then yes, she is of the line of April and Angelique."

Agatha grins and asks, "Do you remember where you put Sir Theodore and the others then, Nymuae?"

Alice sits up and bows her head a little, a sort of seated curtsey. "I'll try my best, Rebecca, Agatha! But ... how do I try? Do I need to say something or get an alarm clock or a bell?"

The sorceress considers the matter gravely, brushing her fingers over the bottom of the lithograph. Traced in black letters there, it reads, "We wait for the time of April's need, and the Word that shall be spoken." "Yes," Nymuae says at last. "I recall where I left them. They are in a hidden glen at the Green Sward, April's ancient seat, protected by an enchantment that keeps the passing eye from finding their glen. If Alice is of House April, and she has need of them, then she will be able to find and wake them." She turns her gaze to Alice, looking serious. "Do you have need of them, Alice?"

"I don't know. The Year's End is being mean again but I don't know if now is the right time to wake them up." Alice looks between her friends, Kuon too, then back to Rebecca. "I just don't know."

"Then it's probably not the time to wake them up," Agatha says, looking at Alice. "It makes me wonder about something, though.... Nymuae, is Sir Tristan a shape shifter?"

"Sir Tristan?" Nymuae quirks an eyebrow, then shakes her head. "No, I am sure he is not. And I agree -- until you are certain, it will be better to leave Sir Theodore and his companions to their rest."

Agatha relaxes a bit upon hearing Nymuae's assertion. "That's good. For a while, I was beginning to wonder if all of Mirari's knights were shifters."

With a nod the blonde resumes her comfortable rest upon her stuffed animals. "Okay," she says. A moment later she reaches a hand out and traces the edge of the white leather tome. "Can I see more pictures, Rebecca?"

"There should be pictures of Souhait and Scare-Crow next," Agatha says.

Souhait is next, as Agatha said -- four pictures in all, and Nymuae smiles as she looks at them, turning the pages quicker than she had on the rest to show them all. From the front, three quarters, the side, and rearing up, all of them identify him as a large white stallion, though his proportions are somewhat different from the norm: longer legs, a more delicate conformation of the face, blue eyes. He looks much the same as when Agatha first saw him in Mirari -- though perhaps a bit of a ham, looking his most impressive for the camera.

"No dark shadows or anything sinister there," Agatha says with relief. "Just a faerie stallion."

Alice giggles. "That's a pretty horsie, but he's kind of a camera-hog," she says.

"He is. I hope we won't find ourselves wishing later those shot went to someone else," the sorceress agrees, turning to the next page. The next picture was taken in the forest clearing they briefly visited. At the boulder where the Scare-Crow had crouched, a large archway of twining vines and flowers spreads, and through it shines a golden light so strong nothing can be seen beyond it. Before the archway crouches a horrific demon, even larger than the kids remember.

"Holy ..," Agatha says, and actually draws back a bit from the photo. "Is that the Siege gate behind it?" she asks, trying to focus on something other than the monster.

"Eee--!" The little girl sits up with a sudden start,lifting her hands to cover her mouth as she gives of a sudden cry of fright. She holds her hands there, as if holding in the rest of that noise, watching the picture with wide eyes.

Kuon stands up as soon as Alice cries out, with a surprised bark. He looks around for the evident threat, then growls at the picture.

"Yes, that is definitely the Siege." Nymuae breathes out the words, gesturing to the archway. "The Siege of the Forest, I would judge, by its locale. But what ... that thing is -- " She frowns at the terrible demon. " -- I cannot say."

Nymuae turns the page quickly, to a side view, further back, of the same setting. The archway looks similar from a different angle, but the demon is transformed. He looks as though he's all front, no back -- the back makes him seem hollow, as if there were nothing within at all.

"Bram's letters described the Scare Crow as something that used a person's deepest fears against them," Agatha says. "But there it just looks like ... a scary mask."

Kuon leaves off growling after a while, as it doesn't seem likely the photo is about to spring up and attack Alice.

"So," begins Alice as she hands fall back around her stuffed animals whom she holds tight, "it's only scary from the front? Only scary if you don't look behind the mask?"

"Maybe it means that fear is hollow?" Agatha asks, shrugging.

"This must be how the Optikon shows the truth of it," Nymuae says, giving a nod to Alice. "I think the latter of your suggestions is the more likely. Certainly the Scare Crow looks less frightening in this light."

The sorceress turns to the next photo, a picture of a four-poster canopied bed. Anastasia's, apparently, though it seems to be sitting in a room that is fit for a princess, and not the rather more prosaically decorated room Agatha remembers. Instead of dust and cobwebs, budding flowers and vines trim the furniture, as if the room were touched by spring.

"Looks like we cleaned it up better than we thought, Alice!" Agatha jokes to the younger girl.

"Wow," exclaims Alice as she looks at the next picture. "My mom would never let me have that many plants in my room." She looks over to her red-haired friend and nods agreeably. "Mr. Kuning was sure right; it needed a lot of cleaning up."

A frown forming on her brow, Nymuae turns to the next page. The picture of the painting takes a moment to recognize -- it looks less like a painting, than a picture frame surrounding a window that looks onto Elysia. This is the Elysia of springtime, and not winter. It seems amazingly realistic and detailed.

"Does all this mean there is magic in the room and in the painting?" Agatha asks Nymuae.

Nymuae shakes her head in response, looking disturbed. "I do not understand," she admits, not looking happy about it. "These are all Anastasia's things, are they not, Agatha? The toys, the bedroom, the scene of Elysia?"

Alice tilts her head and squints as she examines the picture more closely. "Maybe it's not a picture, but a door or a window? Like a Siege? A Siege of Home and Garden -- to a warmer Elysia," she suggests.

Agatha nods. "But she was really Lady Angelique, after all."

"Then where did she go? I don't think I ever met a Angelique my age at school," asks Alice.

"Is this, then, where she went when she left Mirari?" Nymuae shakes her head. "Why would she choose Ainigton, of all places?"

"This would be in your grandmother's time probably, Alice," Agatha says, then looks to Nymuae and notes, "Because that's where the Sieges go, of course. Do you have a map of Mirari handy? I'd bet the Green Sward or whatever is right where Harcourt Manor would be if the two overlapped."

After adjusting her head so it now lays between Lord Mel and Sir Teddy Bear, Alice blinks sleepily and muffles a yawn before asking, "Can I see where our homes would be, too? I think the Siege of Angels would be where the castle is, so that should be the center of the map."

Nymuae shakes her head. "No, it is not. The Green Sward is in the West. Mirari is ... like and unlike, to Ainigton." She retrieves another scroll case, and unrolls a map for them. "See? As Angel said, the Siege de Anges is near the heart of Mirari, too, as it is with Ainigton. The Palace covers a lot more area around it, though. Elysia and the Green Sward are to the west, here, but before the mountains," she gestures to the edge of the map.

"Where are we now on the map?" Agatha asks, looking it over.

"Oh, Rebecca? If I'm really from House April and I'm really the princess does that mean we can use the Siege of Angels to get to the castle and go back to Ainigton? Maybe if it was okay, o- " She muffles another yawn. " ... if we held hands?" asks Alice.

"That depends," Nymuae answers, looking away from the map for a moment, "on whether or not the Queen will acknowledge you."

"Maybe we should break until morning," Agatha suggests, noting the tired Alice.

"That seems wise, though I think I will look at the remaining photos before I rest," Nymuae says. Almost absently, she flicks to the next page after pushing the map aside. This photo is another of the "kids:" it shows Tom, Alice, and Nymuae. Or rather, Lord Explorer Thomas, Lady Sorceress Nymuae, and Alice as the princess. The layering of different images present in some of the earlier pictures is conspicuously absent in this one.

"You all look pretty sure of your roles in this one," Agatha comments.

"Oh," says Alice, quietly. She nods a little to what Agatha says, and adds, "Tomorrow, can I go meet everyone? I want to meet the houses and g-" She yawns again, blinking sleepily. "... go to the castle ... and ... and be a great healer too and ... " Her words slow now as she sounds more and more about to fall asleep here and now. "... and things," she finishes with. She drops her head to somewhat crush Lord Mel as she uses him for a pillow. Given how often Alice is seen with the doll it likely wouldn't be the first time he's served as knight protector and royal pillow.

Lady Sorceress Nymuae settles the two girls in a surprisingly comfortable room with two large, low-lying beds piled in dark, soft furs. "My home is not constructed for entertaining," she admits, "but I hope this will suffice." She says this to Agatha, as the two of them have already settled a sleeping Alice into one bed.

"Well, at least the rooms are dry," Agatha says with a grin as she sits on the other bed. "I don't suppose you have any local clothes we could wear if we have to go out? And maybe some face powder to make us look paler and ... uh ... hide my freckles?"

Nymuae nods. "I will have clothing prepared for you." She almost grins at the latter part of the question. "In the morning I can compose a minor enchantment to serve you as ... disguise? If you like."

Agatha smiles and nods. "Thanks ... and if you have any weapons that would be ... OH!" She smacks herself on the forehead in realization of something. "September is allied with October, so would it be suspicious for me to be seen with Alice??"

Kuon settles in next to Alice's bed, keeping a half-lidded watch on her.

The sorceress quirks an eyebrow at Agatha. "Suspicious? Ah -- because of your coloration?"

"Yeah, Elinor told me I looked like someone from September," Agatha answers.

Alice remains sound asleep, unstirred by the sound of voices in the room. She lays curled up under furs much larger than she is with her arms wrapped around her favorite stuffed animal Lord Mel. It's almost difficult to see her, tucked snuggly under the warm furs as she is. Sleeping, she barely makes a sound save for the steady whisper of her breathing.

The sorceress nods. "I would not be unduly concerned about that -- Mirari does not judge too much on appearances. As for weapons -- " She motions with her head, indicating the large wrapped bundle Agatha had brought with her. "Did you not bring your own?" she queries.

"I have my wooden sword," Agatha says, and gestures to the bundle. "The rest ... well, it's not exactly useable. There's a long iron bar that I could probably use as a staff if I had a way to carry it, but I imagine that would stand out a bit."

The dark-haired woman nods, glancing curiously at the package. "You must show me what it is you've brought ... in the morning," she adds, with a glance to Alice. "For now, I should let you both sleep. Please bring it up to breakfast with you, if you would."

Agatha starts to unlace her boots, and says, "Sure thing, Nymuae. I brought some candy bars and pop along too, in case you missed 'em."

The sorceress walks to the door, and turns there, smiling back at Agatha. "Bring those, too," she requests kindly, then is gone.

The next morning, Agatha awakens to a chamber bathed in blue-green light -- sunlight filtering down through the waters of the lake. A glowing will o' wisp bobs at the foot of her bed, up and down; its strobing light probably added some odd twists to her dreams. After she stirs, the ball of light floats to the foot of the Alice's bed and bounces there, making the sleepy blonde girl yawn into wakefulness. By its glow, Agatha can see a trunk with a pile of carefully folded clothing on top.

Agatha stretches and finishes waking up, then tests the floor for coldness with one bare foot. Nifty alarm clock, she thinks, watching the bobbing light.

The little girl murmurs as she stirs to awaken, and she lifts a hand to wave the glowing orb away. "Go 'way, Gabriel," she mutters. She opens one eye slowly, peering at the orb for a moment, then sits up to blink and look around, clutching her doll to her chest. "Good morning, Mr. Light."

The light bobs over the pile of clothing on the trunk, then wanders to an open closet door and bounces up and down in front of it, illuminating a gown and a pair of cloaks hanging there. After making these items thoroughly obvious, it wanders over to the door leading out, and waits by it.

"Maybe it's a fairy, like Tinkerbell?" Agatha suggests, making her way over to the pile of clothing while tying her hair back into a ponytail. "I think the gown is meant for you, Alice."

The clothing provided, in Agatha's size, is sturdy and androgynous: brown leather-reinforced pants suitable for riding and thick enough to be protective, a loose blouse of green linen with gold laces, a leather jerkin to go over it. The longer of the two cloaks hanging in the closet is thick and green, of wool and lined with golden fur.

Agatha can't help but grin. "Nym knows me pretty well, I guess," she says, and starts to get dressed.

The gown seems fit for a princess, of white satin trimmed with blue lace, cut warmly with a full, sweeping skirt of ruffled lace. It even has a train, though it's pinned up to the back of the skirt to keep it out of the way. The Alice-sized cloak is of blue wool, with silver-white fur lining it.

"Oh-kay," says Alice, blurring her words as she tries to wake up. Her doll is put down just long enough so she can rub her eyes and then she pushes the her covers off before getting up and wandering over to the closet. "Le's get dressed an' go see Rebecca."

"I wonder what the bathroom looks like in this place," Agatha says as she finishes up, strapping on her sword and turning her attention to her pack to dig out some of the special rations she brought along.

Alice stops at the opened closet and stares sleepily at the gown in front of her. It seems to take her a moment to register the extravagant clothing, and she just peers at it half-awake until she blinks once and her eyes open wide. She points. "Look, Agatha! Wow! Isn't it pretty, Agatha?"

"It sure is!" Agatha comments, grinning. "I bet your mother would even approve."

"Oh yes! She would, I think so too," agrees Alice. She peers around for a moment as if searching for something, and spots a trunk which she sets Lord Mel on. She studies him a moment, considering, then turns him around to face the wall and nods approvingly. "Can you help me, Agatha? I don't think I can put this on without help. It's so ... complicated!"

After the two girls have dressed, the will o' wisp leads them back to the moving spiral staircase, and escorts them into a well-lit dining chamber, whose table is laden with food: ordinary items like pancakes, scrambled eggs, waffles, sausages and fruits, as well as an assortment of pastries, hot soups in tureens, and some oddities that Agatha and Alice can't be sure if they're meant for consumption or not. It seems like far more food than three people could possibly consume. Their raven-haired hostess is present in the room, but she's not seated at the table -- instead, she is fixing photographs into a mural across one wall. She pauses as the two girls enter, and nods her head to them. "Good morning, my friends."

Agatha leans her burlap-wrapped collection of iron against the wall, and holds a paper bag in her other hand. "Good morning! This is quite a spread, Nymuae!"

Kuon barks in after Alice and wags his tail, looking obviously hopeful that he will be treated to some of the sausages.

Alice lifts a hand from where she had folded them in front of her in an effort to appear more "princessly", and gives a little wave with her fingers to Nymuae. "Hi ... I mean, good ... good morn, Lady Sorceress Nymuae. Thank you so very much for clothing you gav- ... pro- ... provided for our ... comfort."

"Thank you. Hopefully most of it will taste all right. The kitchens aren't quite normal yet, I'm afraid, assuming they ever were." She curtsies in answer to Alice. "Thou art most welcome to it, my friend, and I am glad that it pleases thee."

"You mean this was all made with magic?" Agatha asks, giving the food a second look, and sniffing at it.

"All of it. Even with the kitchen acting up, it's still a better chef than I am," the sorceress says, matter-of-factly. She turns back to the mural she's erected on the wall behind her, adjusting the final picture. It's composed of a number of pictures of Ainigton -- or at least, what might be Ainigton. To some degree, they look exactly as Agatha remembers seeing them from the top of the Sherman Tower, but there are things of Mirari that blend themselves into the landscape ...

Of the nearby surroundings, what was Government Circle to the northeast seems to have become the garden before a royal palace, with the center being a sculpture garden; a broad street wide enough for a parade connects this to a fortress that stands where the grade school was, apparently guarding the Royal Siege. Where the flagpole would fly in the Siege des Anges stands an arched portal reminiscent of the one at the forest, save of ornamented gold-veined marble, without the decoration of greenery.

East is a monastery where the library would have been, and farther beyond is the massive tower, fog-shrouded, of the Church of God's Word, now become a majestic cathedral. A scattering of houses in all directions are in fact, ducal manors, though all seem to have become deteriorated with age. and some of the shops, such as Kia's Restoration, seem to have taken on different proportions, squeezing aside others, but the picture doesn't show enough details to be certain what those changes are.

Of the farther surroundings, the whole town appears much larger than Agatha remembers, with the west and northwest most changed. An odd trick of perspective makes the lake and the island within seem to be much bigger than they ought to be, and One-Eye's Hill has become a series of mountains surrounded by foreboding dark forests. One shadow rising over the faraway mountain range might just be the wings of a dragon....

Alice curtseys back to Sorceress Nymuae. "It does please thee- ... I mean, please I--" The girl wrinkles her nose. "It does indeed please me, Lady Sorceress." She beams once she puzzles out the correct words, and then sets her bag down that she had been carrying in her other hand before walking forward.

"Whoa," Agatha says as she sees how the pictures came out, nearly forgetting about breakfast -- not enough that she doesn't put down her bag of junk food and grab a muffin before going over for a closer look at the mural, though.

Alice turns her head to look at the pictures as she makes her way to be seated at the table. When she arrives at the first chair she comes across, she studies it for a moment, pulls it out, then very carefully brushes the length of her gown just so as she settles to sit down.

"I should have gotten a separate picture of the tower," Agatha says as she looks over the altered landscape in the photos.

The sorceress stands back from the mural, looking at it along with Agatha. "Like Mirari, only not Mirari, and like Ainigton, too, only not it, either. The truth is more curious than I had ever imagined ... and less enlightening."

Agatha grins, and notes, "It could be pretty handy, though. I mean, if we know what area in Ainigton matches House April here, maybe we could spy on them by taking pictures of the place."

"Does this mean Ainigton has the soul of Mirari?" asks Alice from where she's seated at the table. She doesn't appear to have put anything on her plate yet, though.

Nymuae makes a face. "Perhaps," she says, cryptically. "You said you brought Cokes, Agatha?" she asks, her voice wistful.

"In the bag," Agatha says, thinking about Alice's question as she heads back to the table where she left it. "Can a place have a soul?"

"Yes," the Lady Nymuae answers, sounding certain of that fact. She fishes a Coke out of the bag, and frowns. "Though for Ainigton to have a soul like this ... " She shakes her head.

"Maybe it's because of the traffic between there and Mirari?" Agatha suggests as she takes out a bite of her muffin. "There are some candy bars and licorice rope in there too, Nymuae."

"Oh!" exclaims Alice, as if suddenly remembering something. "Can I ... May I please ... view the re- ... remainder of the pictures, Rebecca? I did not ... not quite manage all of them before I fell asleep."

"That's most of them up on the wall now, Alice," Agatha says, and picks up a plate, deciding to try rest of the food since the muffin hasn't turned her into a toad or anything.

"All but one," Nymuae says, seconding Agatha. "This is the last." She picks the pebbly leather volume up from the floor, and opens it to the final page, in front of Alice. It shows a now-familiar Princess Angel, posed prettily before the Harcourt window. Her arms are drawn across her chest, hugging to her the great head of a black unicorn with a mane of bright red flames. He stands behind her, as if to defend her, his neck bowed over her shoulder for the embrace. His horn glints like pearl, and his eyes shine with a protective fire.

Alice tilts her head to the side as she regards the image quietly. Her smile widens, just a touch, and when it seems like she might not say a thing about the picture she asks, "May I keep this, Lady Sorceress? Knight Redmane?"

Agatha sneaks one of the sausages to Kuon while she fills her plate with eggs and pancakes. "What?" she says, not having seen the image yet.

"If Knight Redmane has no objections, I do not." After taking a chair herself, Nymuae tastes the corner of a waffle, nods to herself, then smothers it in strawberries and cream.

"Would you dis- ... display the photograph for our friend, Lady Sorceress?" Alice asks as she looks to Rebecca.

After coming around the table to look at the photo, Agatha grins and nods. "Yeah, you can keep that one, Alice. It's good to see Lord Mel, that's for sure."

"Your doll is not the same as Lord Melchizedek," the sorceress observes, scooping some ice cubes from a silver bucket into a glass. "But the two are strongly connected. He protects you through that talisman." She cracks open the Coke and pours it, fizzing, over the ice.

"It's ... fine that he and my Lord Mel are not the same. To me, I like to ... like to believe they are." Alice looks around the table, frowns briefly, then bows her head and folds her hands in front of her on the table, closing her eyes.

Nymuae pauses, then sets her fork down, letting Alice say grace before she resumes eating herself.

Some of the food, as Nymuae warned, doesn't taste as good as it looks, but for the most part the dishes, both ordinary and unusual, are appetizing and filling. When everyone has had their fill, Nymuae claps her hands, and the plate and dishes float from the table and off down the hall, clearing the table. "Will you show me what you've brought with you, Agatha?" she asks. "Apart from the candy, that is." She smiles.

The greyhound licks his chops after having been fed a sausage, though he looks as if he wouldn't mind another.

Agatha unwraps the burlap covering from her bundle, and lays out the contents on the now-cleared table. One iron bar, a little over four feet long, and an wrought-iron tooth from a harvester comb that's just over three feet long. "I got them from the junkyard, but it was sort-of during a quest, and I thought they could made into something useful."

Alice daubs the edges of her mouth with a napkin, cleaning a face that doesn't need it. Throughout her breakfast the young blonde girl had been especially careful not to make a mess, and she seems to have taken to putting extra effort in her speech and posture.

Agatha lays her bundle on the now-cleared table, and starts to unwrap it. She pulls out the first piece, saying, "I found this lance amid the armor of some fallen knights outside of a forbidding keep guarded by three-headed dogs," she says, trying to be in character about it, since she was when she found the items.

Beneath the burlap wrappings, the red-haired girl finds, rather to her surprise, that she has pulled out a lance. It's over eight feet long and doesn't look like it should have fit in the case provided. A flag of green is bound about its sharpened steel shaft by gold cords, and silvery script traces faintly down it. The handle is of wood, wrapped in leather, and the whole feels lighter than Agatha would have expected -- lighter than the iron pole she remembers. For all that, it seems curiously right in her hands, as if it belonged their in a way an ordinary bar never would.

The little blond girl's eyes widen a touch as Agatha draws forth a lance from seemingly nowhere. She looks about to comment on it, mouth opened, then she turns to look at Nymuae in askance. "Lady Sorceress, what would be the proper way to inquire about what happened?"

Agatha is struck speechless for a moment, then carefully sets the lance down on the table. Still somewhat dazed, she starts unrolling the burlap further and says, "I also recovered an ancient broadsword that had been buried in the ruins of the keeps curtain wall."

The sorceress looks from Alice to Agatha, then replies, quite composedly, "It would seem Knight Redmane has found a highly serviceable lance among certain ruins. And ... a sword." The latter appears sheathed in a scabbard Agatha also has no memory of stowing. Its green leather is chase by gold trim in a curious, curling script, reminiscent of the writing on the lance. The hilt matches the sheath, green and gold, with a great green gem, smooth as an egg, set in the pommel, and faceted ones adorning the cross guard.

Mesmerized, Agatha draws the blade out of the sheath. "This is amazing," she says, wishing she'd brought her costume armor along as well.

Alice too looks back to Agatha, and says, "It would ... appear so. Yes, verily, it would appear so." She smiles and nods.

Kuon gives the weapons a wide berth. Transformed they may have been, but to the greyhound, evidently, they still smell quite dangerous.

"Is this more magic," Agatha asks, "or is it ... because we're supposed to affect things here by what we do ... " She isn't quite sure how to put the latter into words, it seems.

The double-edged broad sword gleams, mirror-bright in the golden light of the dining room. It feels perfectly balanced in Agatha's hand, the hilt sized to her grip. The blade has weight to it -- inside, the girl senses, enough to hurt or kill a man -- but she feels no difficulty in managing it. Like the lance -- it feels right.

Agatha sheathes the sword and sets it next to the lance somberly. "Holding them is almost like ... like riding Souhait. I think I'd better see what I can find out about Knight Redmane while I'm here."

"What you have found," Nymuae says, her voice even, though suppressed excitement gives an edge to her words, "you have found because it is yours. Someone or something may have tried to disguise these objects -- but you sought them out, anyway. Uncovering their truth is your reward."

"There really was a Redmane then, and I'm her?" Agatha asks, recovering a little. "Just like Tom and Thomas, and Alice and Angel?"

The lady sorceress nods. "There was a Lady Redmane of Mirari -- and like Thomas, like myself, even like Angel -- she has been gone a long time from the land. Now, it seems," the sorceress says, inclining her head to Agatha, "she has returned."

The blonde lifts her hands and claps quietly, tapping the fingers of one hand against the palm of the other, looking delighted. She smiles at her friend's fortune. "I always knew you'd be a good knight, Agatha!" She blinks, blushes faintly, and then corrects saying, "I am very happy for you, Lady Redmane."

"There's nothing wrong with calling me Agatha," the redhead says. "I still need to learn more before I'll call myself Redmane."

"On that matter, I am sure I can -- " The sorceress's words are interrupted by a pleasant chime -- not loud, but carrying. Nymuae frowns.

"Visitors?" Agatha asks, sitting down at the table and idly folding the burlap her weapons had been wrapped in.

Alice just looks at Nymuae curiously, blinking.

"Yes." Nymuae doesn't sound very happy about it. The chime sounds again.

"Who do you think it is?" Agatha asks. "Someone from October, coming to ask about us maybe?"

"Most likely." The chime sounds again, and Nymuae grits her teeth. "We might as well see who it is." She stands and walks from the room, gesturing for the others to follow.

"But we haven't been here very long," says Alice, apparently dropping her attempt to sound like a princess for the moment. "Could maybe the owners of the Siege have come to see who came through?"

The young girl gathers up the length of her gown so she can stand without tripping over it, takes a moment to smooth the garment down so as to look presentable, then folds her hands in front of herself as she walks after the Lady Sorceress. "I do hope I they like me, Agatha. I'm trying really hard to sound proper," she mentions to her red-headed friend as she follows along.

The greyhound gets up to follow Alice, looking quite proper.

Agatha grabs her new ... old ... sword and follows along.

The sorceress leads them into a room like a parlor, across the hall. A great crystal ball is mounted on a stand of wrought silver, and Nymuae waves her hand over it as the chime sounds a fourth time. "Enough," she says, and the chime cuts off mid-ring. In the clear depths of the ball, an image forms, the setting that of the break in the ice where Agatha and Alice had entered the lake the previous day. A curious collection of people have gathered there: a group of four of the stag-headed centaurs, armored and bearing halberds. Behind them range six men like ambulatory trees, bark-skinned with 'hair' like leaves, of green or red or brown. Before them all stands a tall armored woman, holding the reins of a bay Knightsteed. At first, it appears that she's wearing an antlered helm -- then they realize that her brown hair is tied back by a leather cord, and the antlers spring, not from a cap, but from her own forehead.

"Nice armor," Agatha comments quietly, and whispers to Nymuae, "Is that Lady October?"

After having made her way over to the crystal ball, Alice raises herself on her toes to look into its glossy surface, looking long enough to give a startled "Oh," and then she drops back to her feet. "Are ... are they here to welcome us, Lady Nymuae? Do fey always wear armor when coming over to bid someone greeting?"

"No," Nymuae answers Agatha, her tone normal. "That is Captain Morrigan, first among Lord October's handmaidens, and leader of his soldiers. As for the armor -- in this age of Mirari, it is not unknown. But I do not take it as a good omen." The figure of Morrigan is saying something in the crystal, but there doesn't seem to be any sound to accompany the words.

"Is there any way to hear what she's saying?" Agatha asks.

"Why would Lord October send the captain of his soldiers here? Maybe he could have sent one of his other handmaidens, one ... one in charge of something nicer," Alice says, and her voice carries a tone of worry.

"Yes." Nymuae gestures to the ball, almost irritably, and suddenly a voice, deep but not masculine, fills the room. " -- rigan, am come to you on an errand from the Lord of October. Will you not hear my message?"

Kuon barks alertly, as if to suggest that with him and Agatha at her side, and Nymuae in her own home as well, there's no need for Alice to fear. He presses his head up against her side.

Alice abandons her lady-like demeanor long enough to drop down and ruffle up Kuon's fur. "I'm sure it will be okay," she says, though she still carries that hint of worry that suggests she isn't entirely sure. She also gives the canine a little smile, as if trying to show she can be strong too.

"We'd better hear her out," Agatha suggests. "If they lock us out of the Siege of Stone and Water, it would be ... awkward. And Alice and I don't want to start off on the wrong foot with October either."

The antlered woman falls silent after delivering her speech, and the soldiers arrayed behind her shift in their positions, looking nervous. The Knightsteed shakes his mane, whuffling against the woman's hand. A moment after Agatha makes her reply, Morrigan starts her message again. "Lady Sorceress Nymuae, Lord October sends his greetings. I, Captain Morrigan, am come -- "

"I will hear your message," Nymuae interrupts her, glancing to Agatha. "What brings the Captain of October's guard and ten of his armed men to the Lake on this morning?"

Alice looks up towards Agatha from where she kneels beside Kuon. "Agatha, I wonder if other Houses have horns too?" The girl lifts a hand and waves it over her head. "I don't, do I? They look heavy!"

Agatha shakes her head to Alice, and whispers, "I'd think tails are probably more common than horns."

Nymuae gives a little jerk of her head and a motion to indicate that the woman can hear them now -- which is further reinforced by the way all eleven of them shift in sudden nervousness.

"Thank you, Lady Sorceress," Morrigan says, the first to recover her composure. "My lord wished me to inquire as to the nature of your recent guests; it is so rare that we see visitors from the mortal realm."

Alice starts to blurt out how she wouldn't know what to do with a tail, but then falls silent and turns to regard the orb again.

The troop of October's people look especially puzzled while Alice is speaking, and Morrigan's speech hesitates a few times in confusion, but she manages to carry through with it. Nymuae looks to the other two, then says, her voice normal, "And it takes eleven of October's arms to inquire after two mortal girls?"

"The lands are dangerous today, my lady," Morrigan answers. "Will you not show us hospitality, and allow us to meet these visitors who have passed through my lord's gates, and sojourned in my Lord's -- "

Alice rises again, and whispers over to Agatha, "See, Agatha! They probably know you're a tough knight. Kuon too! But in a doggie way."

Agatha frowns, and doesn't reply to Alice this time. She could be right, after all.

Lady Morrigan loses the thread of her speech for a moment, then recovers it, blinking. " -- in my lord's lands? We have come a long way and only wish to satisfy an honest curiosity."

"A moment, Captain Morrigan," Nymuae says. She makes a gesture, then continues to Agatha and Alice, "She can't hear us now. Sorry about that. So ... Ugh. It would be graceless of me to refuse them entrance."

"How do you suggest we meet them?" Agatha asks. "I mean ... do we tell them Alice is really the lost Princess Angel and I'm a returning Knight? They already know about your return, so they'll probably suspect as much anyway."

Alice returns her hands to lay folded in front of her as she turns to face the woman with a swish of her gown. "Well," she says, considering, tilting her head. "I don't ... do not think we should deny them. I ... I do not mind. I can will try and present a ... a good impression. Yep!"

"Too true. Phah, the meddler!" The sorceress glares at the ball. "This is why I brought you to my stronghold and not his in the first place. But he would send a squad after us. I suppose there's no use in postponing the inevitable now."

Agatha nods. "We would have needed to meet them eventually anyway," she says. "No sense in ... heh ... locking horns with them over something trivial."

Alice turns back to the crystal ball and takes a step forward, reaching so that her hand passes across the orb without touching it. "Then we will just have to do what we can to give a good impression. Perhaps if they find us suitable, they will be far more willing to aid us in the future." She glances back, and smiles. "And I bet she knows a lot about Mirari!"

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This site serves as a chronicle of sessions in an online roleplaying campaign moderated by Conrad "Lynx" Wong and May "Rowan" Wasserman. The contents of this site are (c) 2001, 2002 by Conrad Wong and May Wasserman except where stated otherwise. Despite the "children's fantasy" theme of this campaign, this site is not intended for young readership, due to mild language and violence.