Welcome back to Thaumaturge! Yesterday, Bumble managed to achieve a rare moment of mastery over the strange new magic he's found, and a temporary victory over his pursuers.

Let's see what happens next:

[Image description: The Page of Coins, here depicted as a Sisyphus figure rolling a coin / boulder up a hill. Above is a notepad full of squares with ten of them checked off and many more to go.]

Pages are often read as representing students or apprentices, and the Sisyphus figure suggests to me that maybe this should be a reminder that Bumble's previous victory is the beginning, rather than the ending, of an endless road. But who or what does he meet that humbles him?

I scan the coin prompts, and "a crafty thief" jumps out – the figure is pushing a coin, after all – but I'm having a hard time envisioning the scene. How does Bumble run into this thief? What, if anything, do they trick him out of?

I'm going to try something new to the bound edition of Princess with a Cursed Sword: the "second card" rule. I'll draw another card, and then assign each of my two cards to one of two questions. This allows me to get a more specific framing of the scene. In Thaumaturge, one card will represent "the location you have journeyed to" and the other will indicate "who you’ve met there (or who has met you)." Each game in the book has its own pair of framing questions, but drawing a second card is always optional.

[Image description: A new card, the 2 of Cups, now overlays the Page of Coins. It features a view of trees, below which two figures meet at some sort of square structure, in the center of which are two chalices. This image is framed by a jagged grey window, as though glimpsed through a crack in the rock.]

I love the scenario this new card suggests, with two figures meeting at some kind of table in the woods. I'm going to assign the Two of Cups to "the location" and the Page of Coins to "who you've met there." One of the cups prompts is "a circle of stones," and that feels right. A meeting with a thief at a circle of stones.

What kind of thief do you meet at a circle of stones? I decide: This is a charlatan magician, trying to trick Bumble into using his magic somehow, preying on Bumble's overconfidence after his success against the other apprentices.

Tomorrow: We'll find out what happens when a fake magician tricks Bumble into calling on real, ancient magic.

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