I wish I could say that I did not see this coming, that the situation surprised me and that my decision was forced by the circumstance, but it is not so. In fact, it is quite the opposite. I sought out the aid of these unholy horrors, these mockeries of life. I sought them because I knew that no one left on this plane knew more about the crystals than they did. I am loathe to say that I decided in my heart to turn to the Thirteen, the undead lords of the city of Phet-Ray. They had constructed the most recent Veil crystal and were most assuredly in the process of rebuilding it.

Working alone in my laboratory, with Robaund at my side, I had determined that I would not be able to progress any further in my research without the aid of one more knowledgeable about the crystalization process than I had become. Robaund, whose memories had almost completely returned, informed me that it was the archlich Goron Ru that had crafted the ritual that was performed by the clerics. He also knew that Goron Ru, one of Manath’s chief lieutenants, was always seeking information on the Northern Kingdoms. Maybe he would consider trading information, the bronze elf suggested. I immediately rejected the notion, claiming that I would never work with such an abomination. But I could not fully shake the idea.

I had petitioned the Prince for as many death row prisoners as could be spared. Soon my cells were filled with murders, rapists and thieves. The Prince was a generous man; he had come to appreciate the services that I could offer him and he asked few prying questions. For many weeks after Robaund’s suggestion, I had husked scores of prisoners to form crystals. I could now store nearly a dozen souls in a single vessel without it becoming unstable. But, as I began to use them more and more, the crystals began to drain quicker and quicker. Where my first crystal of four souls had lasted a fortnight before giving out, a four soul crystal would give me but a few days peace. Visvatman was learning to overcome the defenses I was erecting, forcing me to continually redouble my efforts.

Eregant is a city of crime with harsh penalties for being caught, but I was needing prisoners faster than the Prince could produce them for me. I was nearly to the point of turning to street urchins when Robaund suggested again that I try to make contact with the liches of Phet-Ray. I steeled myself as I prepared to agree to that which I had sworn never to do. With a heavy sigh, I consented to let my bronze elf companion broker a meeting with the Thirteen.

From Eregant, I could teleport him and myself into Western Volunoptra but from there the elf would be on his own. I sent him with a letter expressing my intentions and desires and several scrolls with which contacted. I said no words as he began marching his way through the desert, but waited until I could no longer hear his footsteps before uttering a single curse and then returning to my lair beneath the palace. I awaited the message from him with both much anticipation and tremendous dread.

Days passes as I sat hunched in my personal library. I needed nothing in my laboratory, as making new crystals was all but futile and my tengu guards would ensure that none of my remaining prisoners would escape. They may be useless to me, but they were still under my charge. Also, the company of Crebain and Daidra often makes the torture of Visvatman more bearable. With Crebain, I could once again read the dusty, crinkly tomes that I had gathered since my time here. I could once again see the beautiful illuminations of temple books or the fevered hand-written scrawlings of adventuring diaries. I could see the beauty o the written word and drink in the power and nuance of each character. With Daidra, I could feel something other than the cycle of pain and deadness that had become my world. If only as pale shadows, I could feel how she felt as she watched a sunset or sang a melody. My tongue could taste nothing but ash though, when I was with her, I could almost remember the sweetness of berries and the tartness of citrus. But more than those, with her I could forget the atrocities of my life, the lives I had taken or destroyed, the blood that I had helped shed on those “adventures”, the terrible things I had experienced. I could just be; with her, there was only her and me.

How Visvatman loved those fleeting moments of joy. I am convinced that he would allow me to have them only so that my soul would not be entirely crushed, which would spoil his fun. He would quiet himself during these times of sweet reverie only to mock me the moment I was alone again. Anger burned within me and I wished that Robaund would inform me quickly of the terrible bargain that I must strike.

As I languished in my apartment waiting on news from Murmanityed, a curious coincidence befell me. At my doorstep stood the great heroes of the Northern Kingdoms, my former adventuring companions. They informed me that they needed my aid in getting to the city of Phet-Ray, that they had business there regarding the Emperor Philipi. They believed that the dragon Sorcheena had stolen him away to there in trade for the secret of becoming a dracolich. They had received this information from an oracle that they had claimed that I had lead them to only weeks before. I knew nothing of this oracle but I found it better to not ask as it gave me a perfect reason to move into Manath’s territory.

Choosing to not confuse the issue, I offered my services. It had been a tenday since I had sent Robaund out. As he had not yet contacted me, I was sure that he was dead which meant that I would need to make my own contact with the Thirteen.

Before we departed from Eregant, an Aruthien ranger arrived bearing two griffons and a message. The griffons were for Alder and Miach and the message was for all of us. Aruthien was launching an attack into Manath territory in an attempt to slow the progress northward into Spaartha and Ehrenland. There would be three simultaneous attacks by Aruthien legions on the city-states of Morag, Phylactis and Phet-Ray. We surmised that the troops would make landfall within a week, so we needed to hurry so that we could make it into Phet-Ray before the siege began. Rath was set to take charge of the assault on Morag, we were told.

I had just been handed my bargaining chip. I had wracked my brain trying to work out what I had to offer the liches in exchange for information on the crystals and, until this moment, could find nothing that I was sure would be found valuable.

We arrived just outside the city of Phet-Ray after Holly and I had cast our spells. We waited behind a sandy mesa while some tried to sneak into the city. I thought their plan was foolish but held my tongue as I had other business with which to attend. I waited until all my companions had left before contacting Robaund. He apologized for having not contacted me and explained that he had been imprisoned as a spy and was set for execution. He gave me the name of his captor, who I then contacted in an effort to reach someone with whom I could bargain. Favor, it seems, was still on my side as the name I had been given was that of one of the Thirteen, a lich known as Lethossi.

We arranged a meeting on the plateua. I sat alone on the warm stone as the lich approached with his retinue of skeletal warriors. I knew that I could not take them all – not even half of them, I suspected – and so asked for Lethossi’s terms. He told met that he had read the letter Robaund carried and that he was intrigued as to what I could offer him. He explained how he was in position to soon strike against Goron Ru and take over the Thirteen. He felt no qualm revealing this to me as I am sure that he planned to kill me as soon as I had given him what he wanted. He then asked why I desired information on the Veil crystals and what I had planned to do with them.

Having nothing to hide from him – and being sure that attempting any falsehood would mean the end of my miserable life – I explained my situation with my torturer and how the Veil could silence him. I explained how I had developed my own method for creating crystals but that it was imperfect and that I had become desperate. If the skull that rested beneath the cowl could have smiled, I’m sure that Lethossi could have at my story. He asked me what I planned to offer in exchange for the process to make refined crystals. With utter disbelieving defeat, I informed him that Aruthien’s legions were bearing down on Manath and that they were no longer simply trying to defend the northern borders. When encouraged to continue, I began to slowly divulge the composition, leadership and timing of the assaults on Phylactis and Phet-Ray. I named for him the legions being sent, their makeup and, as much as I knew, their usual tactics. I spilled forth all that I knew regarding those assaults as the ewe her entrails to the diviner.

When I had finished, a hollow sound began to emanate from Lethossi’s skeletal frame. It took many long and nervous moments before I realized that the sound was what this abomination used in place of laughter. “You despise me, my very nature revolting to you, and yet you would sell out your fellow men for knowledge deemed ‘evil’ in their eyes? You would send them to a fate you believe worse than death to save your own sack of flesh? I will give you the information you seek, and even keep our encounter secret from your friends. I make no secret of enjoying the pain and suffering of others and I am certain that the information you desire will only increase your suffering and not reduce it. Be so warned and come.” With those chilling words his clawed hand touched my shoulder and we were in his study.

The lich made good on his promise and taught me the secrets of the ritual, correcting me where my version had erred. His hollow mockery of laughter echoed in the cavernous chamber as he explained in intricate detail the process by which their current method was derived. He explained how the procedure was tweaked based on the race of the slave and how to calibrate the runes and circles to accommodate the widest variety of subjects without sacrificing the quality of the crystal. He seemed to revel in his knowledge but more so he seemed to anticipate what was to be the ultimate key to a flawless crystal. He explained that it was the purity of the souls that made for the best crystals, that it was children who made the best subjects.

I had been prepared to sacrifice my enemies or those who had thrown their own lives away by committing capital crimes. They had forfeited their lives and I simply wished not to waste them. But children? How could I justify to Daidra that I was performing my experiments on children? I had been able to rationalize for her the sacrifice of criminals, but she would never understand how I could sacrifice the orphans she spent her days tending and treating. I was sure Lethossi could see my every thought painted across my face because his crude imitation of laughter vomited forth from him with more force than ever before. His laughter mocked me as it also damned me.

I sat in silence for what seemed like hours. I simply could not resolve myself to what this abomination had proposed. Children? It was unthinkable. I had made two promises on that winter’s day in 194 and I had already broken one of them, which now lead me to break the second. I had, in my weakness, turned to these undead but I would not let the same weakness keep me from turning back from them.

I could feel the wet of my tears being wicked away by the arid desert air. In the sickening blast of noise Lethossi used as laughter, he beckoned to his minions. It was time, he said, to put things into motion that would gain him the high tower. His parting words with me were hauntingly simple: “Your path is already forged.” My chest fell at ‘forged’. He had used an arcane word, ‘chirugo’, used only before to describe the chains that bind Gahl-tath-Urok to his whirlpool. Chains, it is said, that not even Uhel could unbind.

As he left, I knew that my companions would be in trouble, so I fled back to the mesa and waited for them. And waited. And waited. For three days I waited. It wasn’t until the crash of the first boulder against the city walls that I was alerted that something was amiss. With no companions, not even Crebain, to relate the scene to me, I could do naught but listen to the whistle of the bombardment and the sizzle of magical energy.

And their screams.

I had heard beings die before. Many, in fact. I have killed men with my magic and I have been witness to great battles, but none of that had prepared me for this slaughter. Pain and fear filled the fields around those high walls. My years of blindness had heightened my hearing and sense of smell and both were being assaulted as the might of Aruthien crashed like waves upon the rocks. Blood filled my nose and my ears. There was not even solace for those doomed men in death. I could smell the acrid tang of undead rising as the day wore on. As the clatter of bones began to outnumber the cries of men, I knew that Aruthien swords were being raised by clawed hands to strike against their former brethren.

Sunset had not even fallen before the battle had become a complete rout. Aruthien trumpets sounded, far too few trumpets, as the clang of metal began to subside. The vultures were already cawing with glee as they tore into the flesh of those who had the fortune to remain dead. I waited until morning, hoping against hope that this had simply been a first wave and that Aruthien was prepared for their true assault. But none came. Just the bickering of carrion birds over the flesh of the remaining fallen. Those whose blood was on my head.

I had killed them. All of them.

I had to leave. I needed to find solace. Redemption. Atonement for my sins. I had intended to return to Eregant, to find forgiveness with Crebain and Daidra, but it seemed that fate had other plans for me. To this day, I am unsure how I was so redirected, but rather than arrive in my apartment near the Prince’s palace, I found myself in the crumbled ruins of Mercan.

Smoke rose from the city as, even still, buildings burned and crumbled to the ground. It had been months, nearly a year, since the oni had overrun the city and driven those who had legs westward to Perdaith. Some had remained to die in defense of their homes. Others remained to die because all else had already been lost to them. Knowing that my own stealth would be insufficient to escape the notice of the Kami patrols that toured the city, I cloaked myself in magic. I began to explore, searching for a safe haven for the night. I fully intended to leave in the morning when I had refreshed my spells. Again, fate had other ideas.

After nearly an hour of exploration, in which I confirmed that the ruins I was in were Mercan, I began to ascertain my location in the city. My errant teleportation had dropped me into the remnants of the temple district, my home for too many years. Though it was in utter ruin, it was an odd comfort to be home again.

Nostalgia and ash filled my nostrils as I made my way through the temples. Many people believe Perdaith to have been the headquarters of the Mishyan temples in Barloz. To an extent, it was. The largest temple to the goddess resided there as did her largest open library. But one would be mistaken to believe that size has any correlation to power for a Mishyan. A whisper could fell an entire kingdom. It was here in Mercan that Barlozian Mishyans called their heart. It was here that the Vault was located. And it was to the Vault that I was headed.

The Vault is a secret repository of knowledge, only accessible by a select few priests of Mishya. I had been given limited access to the Vault on three occasions during my tenure as temple archivist, and only to file away documents that the priesthood deemed too dangerous for public knowledge. Never was I allowed to extract any of this information. I still remember the way to the door and I had believed that it would surely be emptied, but that it would provide a secure place to rest the night. Oni and other Kami forces still patrolled the city and I had no desire for an unnecessary fight.

When I arrived at the secret doorway, I was surprised to find it shut and locked. I uttered the passcodes that I had remembered and, sensing no one around, entered the chamber. It did not smell nearly as musty as I expected for something that had been abandoned for nearly a year. Before I could realize that it had not been abandoned as I had predicted, an oppressive tingle coursed through my body. Failed magic. There was a priest still here guarding something and he had chosen to guard it against me. Another moment passed before I pinpointed the target and bound him with my spells. As I approached the unnaturally still form of my attacker, a familiar scent filled my nose. Tannin. Just as I had still worked the forge when I was not in the temple, Irvan Ulgrim had continued his trade tanning leathers. I was certain that this man before me was Ulgrim, the man who drove me out of the temple with whips. He had called for my head and now he was here, alone and completely at my mercy.

He struggled without success against my bonds, while I pondered what to do with him. How I had hated this man for so many years. It was he who had sparked the events that had lead me down this dark road. How I wanted to end his life, but I knew that he would be useful to me. If he was still here, a chief priest of Mishya, then clearly something worth guarding was still here. Something secreted away by the good disciples of the Wise Lady. Something that surely I would need.

It took less effort than I expected to bend his mind to my will. Either he was much weaker than I remembered, or I had become much stronger. Either way, Ulgrim was soon obeying my orders. I had him begin collecting parchments and scrolls, every document in the Vault pertaining to crystal magic, the oni and the Book of Dark Knowledge. I merely had to suggest that losing them to the Kami would be worse than losing them to a fellow Mishyan. He gathered them for me, bringing texts I had barely even heard rumors of and several that had been confirmed to not exist. I stored them away in my haversack. When he gathered all that I had compelled him to bring me and more, I once again held him with magic. I was nearly exhausted of power and knew that I would not be able to prevail in another battle and Ulgrim would not flee. I am certain that I could have magically compelled him to leave but I needed his silence more than for him to simply leave. At this point he knew too much.

My swordhand is not very steady and I had not used it since struck blind. I had to take my time, but the blade that I had crafted did the job. He only released a small gurgle before he died. It took nearly another minute before the effects of my spell wore off and his lifeless form collapsed onto the stone floor. I checked his vital signs before taking a single tour of the chamber. I was once again completely alone.

As I settled in a corner for an uncomfortable sleep, I began to wonder. I had wished so long for Ulgrim’s death. I was sure that it would be a satisfying experience but I had felt nothing. I guess I had gained one thing from the continual torture I experienced; I was no longer a slave to petty vengeance. I still knew not what I would do with the dreadful revelation from Lethossi but I believed that these documents I had collected would give me a way of escape. In the morning, I prepared my spells and returned to Eregant where Crebain and I set upon deciphering the scrolls and tomes I had collected.

We have yet to glean anything terribly useful from these texts but we have only just begun and several of them are in languages that neither Crebain nor I have properly learned yet. It seems that we have much work to do before anything new can begin.

-M.E.

Crebain had taken to accompanying me less and less on these excursions. He said that someone needed to stay behind and keep Daidra company. I knew that he was lying but I had ceased to care. He could stay with her if he chose. It made study slightly more difficult, but I am never really alone anyway. Where Visvatman had left me in the Pale, he had taken up the loss and had begun to torture me all the more. I had become accustomed to the anguish and completely ceased to care for the fate of my mother. I never really knew her, so why should I care that she chose damnation? My only concern is that her punishment seems to be linked to my own fate.

A fate which I intended to change.

The Prince had actually given me two missions in Lindur. The first, as I had said, was to simply study the ways of the people and their success in repelling Manath. This mission was straightforward and public. The people in their simplicity hide no secrets about their lives. They will gladly blather on about their insurrection and escape and how the gods intervened on their behalf. But this was only my public persona. The second mission was much darker and more secretive. And it required much more subtlety on my part. It was a secret that I was sure that most, if not all, Linduri knew but of which none would speak openly. They had lived under it for most of their lives. The Veil.

The bronze elves have created and powered various Veils for centuries. My research into the Pale lead me to discover that the destruction of the first Murmanityedi Veil is what created this rift in the planes two millenia ago. Since then dozens of separate Veil crystals have been created and destroyed, each one leaving ruin in its wake. Cities fell; peoples were destroyed; time and reality were altered. The city of Sharbal, which has been ruins for over twelve hundred years, was the sire of one of these crystals. Irradiated by the burst of magicks when their crystal collapsed, every single occupant was immediately removed from existence. To this day, the stones at the site still pulse with residual eldritch energy.

It took months, but I would not relent in my search. Since I first laid eyes on the Veil almost two years ago, I knew that I needed to explore its secrets. Now knowing that it was connected with the Pale, which had silenced my tormentor, that desire had been rekindled. He may have filled my thoughts, but he did not control my actions. I had made this assignment from my employer into a personal quest. If the Pale could block him, then surely there was a way for a Veil crystal to do the same.

I was able to gather scraps of information here and there. Half finished sentences uttered by old Linduri, pages only partly removed from ancient texts, legends and hearsay were the most substantial sources I could find. Independently, each one was useless and together I was not sure that they amounted to much. But I had to try.

I was in the militarized city of Ardoren, patronage of Vultan, when my only solid clue was discovered. I had been granted access to their military prison and spoke with the prisoners of war there. I have no idea why the fools there had left them alive, but I am grateful that they did. One, a bronze elf cleric, had actually been involved in the creation of the most recent Veil crystal, the one the ranger Rath had shattered. This elf had gone quite mad and spoke as if he himself no longer existed. He spoke of how the elf – that is, himself – had been tasked with the “conversion” of slaves. He told of how the elf pulled the soul from the slave and sealed it in a reservoir.

The part I found most intriguing about this process was that the slave was not truly killed in the procedure. Both his soul and mind were stripped from him but the body continued to function. With the proper magicks, this body could even be used for basic labor. The Manathites had created the perfect slave and the perfect defense. These husks, as the elf called them, were branded and sent back to their tasks. The western kingdoms had it wrong. The Murmanityedi – and the Manathites who followed them – were not slaughtering thousands of slaves to power their war machines. These elves were no different than Fir when he binds the souls of earth elementals to his mechanical golems or Ossius of Barloz when he binds the souls of Chatalize’s damned to animate his minions.

With this I had found my way out. My way to shut down Visvatman for good. I just needed some test subjects. And I had figured out just where to get them.

Fleera, matron of Ardoren, had become rather fond of me in my time in her city. She was fascinated with my tales of the west and my adventures. Despite being the chosen of Vultan and commander-in-chief of Lindur’s army, she was still a mephit at heart, whimsical and curious. I used her fascination with me to secure the release of all of the bronze elf prisoners in her jail. She agreed to turn them over to me as long as I promised that they would not be released back to their home country. I had no intention of releasing them anywhere. I intended to use them for my own crystal.

It took some work when I returned to Eregant, but I was able to secure a laboratory for my studies. When the prince realized what I had discovered and what it could mean for him, he was willing to give me whatever I needed. The first thing I needed was space and the second was simply time. Time with the cleric and time alone. I found plenty of both beneath the Prince’s library. Rooms that had once been used to translate works were now dormant. Halls that once housed thousands of tomes and scrolls were now empty. I had been given a new domain and all others were forbidden from treading there.

The chambers used for translation were now housing my prisoners and the storage halls were rapidly filling with my notes and theories. I had hired something of a prison guard to make sure the elves stayed in their cells and received enough food and water so that they did not die before I needed them. I spent two solid weeks writing, studying and questioning the bronze elf cleric. I had named him Robaund, which means “empty” in New Skosian. He was capable of giving me much of what I needed to begin tests, but not everything. He did not create the ritual and only performed portions of it, so there were gaps in his knowledge. Some, it seems, had also been lost when his mind collapsed. I simply had to begin experimenting.

My prisoners were a finite resource, so I knew that I couldn’t begin with them. I started small, with rats. The city was full of them and trapping them was simple. Starting with what Robaund knew and what I was able to gather from my scraps from Lindur, I started systematically experimenting on extracting the soul of the rat without killing it. My first trials were utter failures. Necromancy was not something I had studied much, so I had to draw inferences from what I knew of summoning and binding. It took me a week of work, 20 hours a day, to reach my first success. Were it not for my ring of sustenance, I’m sure that I would have taken a full month for that success.

But it was only a small success. I had extracted the soul from the rat and it still remained alive. It took me dozens of more trials to succeed again. Three days to begin to do so reliably. I had not yet learned how to properly store the souls or make them fuel the crystal, but I was on my way. Robaund was some help with the crystallization process. This was his portion of the ritual. He had also become more cogent and had returned to using the first person when referring to himself. He had become something of a friend down in my laboratory. I would be sad to see him go when it came time.

It only took six days to perfect the crystallization process for the vermin souls. At this point I thought that maybe I would not need my prisoners after all. But the crystals I had been able to form seemed to lack a certain quality to them. There were like a lamp with no fuel. They looked the part until you tried to light them. I spent days wondering what was wrong with my technique. I poured over my notes and rituals and could find no errors in them. I then realized that my flaw was not in my procedure but rather in my source.

The Murmanityedi clerics processed thousands of slaves a day to power their crystals. If using anything less than sentient creatures would have worked, they would have done so. They were not wantonly husking slaves. The slaves were the only things that would provide the right fuel. Whatever was in an elf that was not in a rat was the key; the crystal needed minds.

I started with the soldiers first. They had the weakest minds and I needed to be as scientific as possible. I needed to know what level of sentience was needed to power a crystal. If a simpleton would do, then getting replacements would be easy; most criminals are fools. However, if I succeeded first with an academian or an arcanist, then I might end up wasting town down the line husking a fool.

I lost the first two subjects recalibrating the rituals. I expected there to be differences between the soul of a rat and that of an elf, but what those differences were, I could not be sure. I had nearly a dozen subjects, including Robaund, and couldn’t successfully power a crystal until I had amassed four souls in a single crystal. Ranking them in intelligence put four warrior souls in that crystal. The remaining five elves were all casters – two clerics, two wizards and a sorcerer. I left Robaund aside and extracted the four remaining souls into another vessel for comparison. It was only slightly stronger than the warrior crystal.

I had found my solution. A final solution to the terror of Visvatman. He had been relatively quiet through my experimentation but was now making quite the show. I simply laughed at his petty attempts to increase the reality of my visions. All I needed was to disrupt the crystal into my tome and he would be silenced forever.

Or so I thought.

I used the crystal fueled by the casters, since it was the more powerful of the two, and produced the warrior crystal to the Prince as the produce of my work along with eight perfectly obedient servants for his personal use. The miniature Veil that I had produced worked, but it did not last. After one week, I began to have nightmares of my mother’s torture again. After two, the voices returned. By month’s end, Visvatman’s torture had returned completely. I had already turned over the first crystal to the Prince and I cannot get it back. I only have Robaund remaining and his single soul will not be enough to produce a viable crystal. I need more prisoners, and soon.

-M.E.

Some months back on one of these adventures, we were summoned by the Newholmite Braden to aid him.  Things, as they are everywhere else, were awry in his kingdom.  The oni who had marched through Rothgorod and into Barloz had stopped and were besieging the gateway city to the floating island of Newholm.  The city was impossibly gorgeous in its immense cavern.  Built on an outcropping in an underground lake, this city was embroiled in magic-fueled combat.  Drakes and oni filled the air, their fire and spells casting eerie shadows on the cavern walls, while the lichen covered walls cast a sinister green glow on the macabre dance of battle on the cavern floor.  The flames that were consuming the city crackled as an undertone to the song of steel that was being performed below us.

Later, when we had freed the floating island from its forced migration, I saw my first Draconis.  Astride her silver dragon, her red and blue armor glinting in the sunlight, she was grinding her blade, honing its edge.  It was no mystery that she was preparing herself mind and body for the wave of full war that was about to crash on her shores.  She was magnificent and beautiful and I hated her.  She was connected to a great power and it brought her freedom and tremendous honor, while I was connected to an even greater power and it has brought me nothing but slavery and intense sorrow.

There was, however, a single window of clarity in my continual madness.  Several months past, while aiding my companion’s kingdom in the transport of a secret item, fate diverted me.  My tormentor was struck powerless in this realm when the domain of Kern brought us to a place known as the Pale.  It was as marvelous as it was vexing.  Nothing worked as we had intended and we were hounded by great horrors, but for the first time in nearly a year it was quiet.  Visvatman had no words; he couldn’t even speak and even his visions had left me.  There my eyes were as they should be, sightless and cold.  I was at peace there and I had no desire to leave.  If only my sweet Daidra had accompanied me, I would not have left.  Amongst the bebilith and the primordial elements, we would have made our home.

I was forced to return to the land of mortals.  I find what little solace I can in my two friends and our small home in Eregant.  It is not much but it supports a small private library for the three of us and there is enough noise that I am never left alone with my thoughts.  I spend most of my days in the prince’s library, often accompanied by either Daidra or Crebain.  I have taken up time as a scribe and translator for the current prince.  He finds me useful and lets me have full access to his library.  I have taken something of an interest of late in a small nation on the west coast of the former Murmanityed Empire.

They are surrounded on three sides by the once powerful nation, where once they had been slaves.  Constantly tormented fromt he east by the bronze elf generals and minotaur tribes.  The refugees have managed to establish themselves a sanctuary.  Occasionally merchant-mercenaries arrive in the city with news or people from this liberated nation known as Lindur.  The prince has given me leave to journey there and explore the lands.  I know that he will ask me to do something for him while I am there, for the prince is no fool.  I care not what is is, but I desire to know what it is that keeps this beleaguered nation from buckling and being overwhelmed.

I dare not believe that hope has once again taken residence in my heart, or my torturer might surely double his efforts.  But I cannot deny the fire in my heart that many hard months had extinguished.  Maybe my salvation lies across the broken sea.

-M.E.
X——-  (Crebain’s mark)

I have spent my time here in Eregant trying to put together the pieces of my now shattered life.  I have been struck blind and, for the first time in my memory, am having to relate my soul to another.  Her name is Daidra and she has become my window back into the world.  Before I can tell that story, I must tell another.

Nearly two hundred years ago, before the invasion of Nagul, two vile peoples met.  Far to the east in the nation of Kami, the great oni peoples took to battle against the bronze elves of Murmanityed.  A heated war raged between the two nations, though over what issue or offense my texts have been unclear.  The Kami were successful in driving the invaders out but not before the elves could strike them at their very core.

The Kami are a very mystical people and do not worship the gods of the west.  Instead they offer their fealty and sacrifices to powerful beings who choose to manifest themselves on this plane as totems and artifacts.  Each city and village has a guardian totem, as does each noble house.  The Murmanityedi knew this and knew the devotion that the people had for them, so they captured one of these spirits to take as a ransom.

They meant it as an effort to turn the invasion back in their favor.  Their clever plan might have worked had the elven couriers arrived to deliver the ransom demands.  Again the records are unclear but the envoy never arrived at the oni general’s camp so the Kami never received the Murmanityedi demands.  What likely would have halted the war enraged it further.  Both sides believed the other barbaric and cowardly and any hope of negotiation and respectable war was lost.

The Kami were able to drive Murmanityed from their lands but the invaders took with them their prize.  I have reasoned that the artifact, a large book, knew what it was doing and allowed itself to be kidnapped.  What happened to this book over the next several decades is a mystery, though I believe the spirit known as Visvatman to have waited quietly, biding his time.  He waited in ambush like a venomous snake.

Visvatman knew that the bronze elves would not worship it but try to wield him as their tool, so he chose not to reveal his power to them.  He made himself as innocuous as possible and was soon relegated to a storeroom in the back of a palace among the other forgotten spoils of war.  For seventy years he plotted in the darkness waiting for a receptive people to liberate it.

These people were the Barlozians.  They stormed the Murmanityed palace and looted its coffers.  Wagons of treasure were hauled back to Perdaith to be sorted and apportioned.  Visvatman saw this as his opportunity to begin his work and brought itself out of hiding.   The archmagis of Barloz saw the raw potential of this artifact but, not knowing its origin or history, he decided that he would have the book copied and studied.  This isn’t exactly what the book had intended.  He could not exert his power through duplicates but he could not erase its contents or he would lose his attachment to this plane.  He could however rearrange its contents obfuscating his true nature and purpose.  The wizards of Barlox, he decided, were too strong of will to fall prey to his charms.  He was also now in a foreign land and needed time to learn the people so that he could discover their wants and desires, their hidden dreams.

The artifact had become known as The Book of Dark Knowledge, as were all of the copies, since it was found among the peoples of the dark tongue.  Copies of the Book were distributed to all of the colleges throughout Barloz to see what new wonders could be extracted from them.  The great thinkers of the country took to pouring over them hoping to unlock the cipher.

Over the next decade wondrous new things were created, the greatest of which were the Crossway Gates, the portals that link the western nations.  Inherent in the very nature of the spirit were the ideas of travel.  Even hidden and obscured, the ability to teleport was written on every page.  Hundreds of other magicks were extracted from its pages but none were as impactful as the Crossway Gates.

The Barlozian king Greco ordered that the original tome be locked away in his vault, to protect it, and that only the copies would be read and distributed.  This angered Visvatman.  He did not want to wait anymore.  Eighty years had passed and he could feel his power slipping away.  He drew up as much power as he could covertly muster to alter his path.  He charmed fate and he was misfiled and another tome was placed in the vault.  He knew not where he would go, only that he would remain free.

The book floated around Barloz for nearly the next half century.  It exchanged hands a dozen times and Visvatman took what power he could from them, but he found them either too dim for his purposes or too set in their ways to be swayed.  The book spent much time in Bardoon before being transported to the temple of Mishya in Mercan.  They had just received a new priest in charge of their archives and he had asked for new texts to be brought in from around the kingdoms.  This priest was me and this is where my story intersects with his.

I was a young man with an insatiable thirst for knowledge but I didn’t have the wisdom to temper it.  The original Book of Dark Knowledge disguised as a copy arrived at my temple and I was immediately drawn to it.  I was the perfect target, though he calls me his protegé.  I was intelligent enough to understand his plans an uncommitted enough to my faith to carry them out.  It pains me to dictate these words, but they are truth.

I have already related the story of my early experiences with the book and the eventual expulsion from my temple, so I will not recount them here.  Just know that none of those events happened without the will of Visvatman having some hand in them.  My adoration of him had given him strength – as my fear of him now does.  Even though I know his true purposes and I feel that I have become his prisoner, parts of me still follow him willingly.  I fear that I am being lead to the slaughter but I continue to follow anyway.

As to how I know my captor’s true intentions, I am now able to tell that story.

While exploring the library here in Eregant with Crebain, a voice came to me.  It introduced itself as Visvatman, a name I had not yet learned.  The voice had a familiar quality to it while being still being entirely alien.  The voice explained that it was the spirit of the book that I carried with me and that it was revealing itself to me because I had passed his tests.  He said that I had seen past his shifting words and through his devious charms.  He claimed to be pleased with me and wished to offer me a “boon”.  He offered to return my mother to me.

I had known my mother only through stories from my father and what vestiges of her had been passed on to my sister.  I knew her to be a quiet, graceful woman who was strong of heart and mind.  Before the final years of his life, my father would often wax poetic about his “sweet Mira”.  In his last year, she had become an obsession for him.  Because she had died giving birth to my sister and me, I never knew her personally but I still loved her dearly.  Often I would sit and wonder wistfully about what she was really like.  I knew that, because she had died a natural death and that nothing now remained of her, I would only be afforded this opportunity if we were to end up in the same afterlife.

My book offered me the ability to change that.  He promised that I would be able to see her again and that I could even speak to her.  He promised that I could do so whenever I wanted and he promised me that I would not be harmed.  I knew Visvatman to be powerful and capable of things nothing else I knew could do.  I probed and questioned him and, as far as I was capable, I deemed him to be dealing with me truthfully.  I have since discovered that his truth was not free of deception.  He had been truthful to me because he knew the explicit assumptions I would make and the questions I would never ask.  I have long suspected that I would find my final destination to be one of the hellish afterlives but never had I considered that she would.

My father had told me how my mother had been a follower of the war gods.  She was of the house of the great general Salawin and his family would follow them.  It seems, however, that Ulmira had a darker side.  She had a quick and calculating mind and loved puzzles and mysteries.  This lead her to begin to dabble in the realm of Hylarr.  The goddess specializes in the greatest puzzle of all, a puzzle in which the pieces are actively resisting being put in their places.  At first it was just a small trick here and a harmless deception there and soon she became hooked, trying to make more intricate and complex plots and increasingly dangerous scenarios.  Her capture by the Jarls and rescue by my father were a result of one of her plots.  Her entire marriage to my father, it seems, was a failed ploy to manipulate the entire royal house of Aligindel.  She had become a secret high priestess of the goddess of the moon during this time.  Olwyrd herself had promised my mother that the greatest manipulation of the age would be hers.

My mother was told that her death would come with the birth of her children and that her death would drive her husband mad.  She was told that his madness would cause the destruction of Firforge and would open Barloz to invasion from the east.  This invasion would destabilize the nation and the aid offered by Spaartha and Aruthien would result in the division of Barloz between the two liberators.  The former Barlozians would eventually rebel against their occupiers and that would further destabilize the western kingdoms.  Olwyrd promised her that the far reaching effects of the plan were beyond understanding but that she would be the lynch pin to it all; she could die knowing that her actions would manipulate entire nations.

With this, my mother’s fate was sealed.  I now know her fate firsthand because Visvatman brought her to me.  Or rather, he brought me to her.  For the last thirty and more years she has dwelt in the realm of Hylarr.  Though I had hoped that she would be able to return with me, I knew that it could not be so, but I had not prepared myself for what I would experience.  I do not think any mortal is capable of preparing themselves.  My sight became filled with blackness and then with a confusing landscape of wonder and despair.  It was still and littered with soft pinpricks of light.  All around me I could hear the rasped breathing of the insane.

I was brought to my mother.  She lay curled on a stone whimpering, long dry of tears.  She was surrounded by comforts and riches that would be the envy of any living person but she would have none of them.  She would not even touch the food offered her even though she was gaunt with starvation.  I tested the cushions and they were soft and warm.  I sampled the food and it was delicious and filling.  I tried to comfort my mother as she murmured to herself but she could not be consoled.  She kept reminding herself that these pleasures around her were not real, that they were another trick.  She refused my aid and raved at me calling me a “spectre” and a “ghost” and telling me that I was not going to fool her again.

That was when I knew.  She had tried all her life to manipulate others into being her pawns and now she was doomed to a life where she was so paranoid that others will do the same to her that she refuses even the truth and goodness offered to her.  I was awash with more pity and anguish for her than I had ever felt for any being in the whole of existence.  I wanted to leave and I bid Visvatman take me home.  But he would not.

Rather, he revealed to me that I could not leave by any effort of my own.  I had accepted his “gift” and he would release me whenever he saw fit.  Even now my eyes are filled with the plush prison my mother had locked herself into.  I thank Mishya that my ears no longer have to suffer my mother’s sobs while I stood impotent to help.

I began by stating that I knew Visvatman’s purposes for me.  He tires of his parchment cage and has fought from himself a new host.  When he arrived in the west a century ago he realized that we held no respect for objects but praised only their makers.  He now intends to break  me down , hollow me out, to make me an acceptable vessel for him.  He has given me full knowledge of this because he knows that I can do nothing about it.  No mortal can cure me of this living hell and it is only a matter of time before it eats away my soul.  I know that even death is not an escape because I know that a fate worse than Ulmira’s awaits me.

I write, or rather dictate, knowing full well that my only hope is oblivion and Visvatman has promised that to me.  It is a sad day when the thought of oblivion warms your heart.

-M.E. via Daidra Iascaire

Prince Edelbrock, one of my frequent traveling companions, had asked us to return to his homeland with him so that he might deal with his father.  The people of Mastillan revere nature rather than the gods and it seems that having a son who is a Chosen of Mishya was somehow an shame for King Tharbrek.  Even an embarrassing son, it seems, will be called home in a time of dire need.  There was great trouble within the king’s borders and he wanted his son home to deal with it.

Our companions assembled east in the nation of Hold Dane where we picked up two new companions, a barbaric warrior and a paladin of Cheleria.  They, along with our normal troupe, continued westward to the city of Sark.  En route we are ambushed by a band of minotaur.  They seemed to be waiting for us and had hidden themselves in a herd of aurochs.  The battle was as protracted as I have seen with this group.  This was not because of any failing on my part or any of my companions, but due to the sheer number of the beasts.

When the last monster fell, we patched ourselves up and soldiered onward.  We arrived at our destination for the night and decided to purchase rooms at the inn.  While it was after dark, we decided that we should have a nicely cooked meal on real plates with a decent wine.  The rangers may know well how to catch and dress game, but their skills as cooks leaves much to be desired.  As we sat and waited for our food, two young footpads approached.  Foolhardy, they tried to lift the purses of two of my companions.

It had been a long day and I was in no mood to any more drama.  As the inn was inside the hollow of a great tree and we were well within druid territory, I thought it appropriate to bring the tree to life and simply hold everyone in place.  One of the two cutpurses was held fast but the other managed to escape into the cellar.  He was soon rooted out and the purses returned.  He also had on him an item of great worth: a ring which can turn its wearer invisible.  Rath excised it from him as punishment.  He also, in an effort to re-educate the wayward lads, took them to a priest to have them atoned.

The next day we set out for and arrived at the capitol city of Gilifar.  We were met by the king and portions of the druid council.  The offered us hospitality – at least to those who would declare their heritage.  This is a common custom in Mastillan, but one that I find very invasive.  Not one to speak falsely but not being willing to reveal my secret, I remained silent.  They rest of my companions, however, chose to introduce themselves properly.  It was then vaguely explained to us the problem facing the king.  I do not believe the explanation went how King Tharbrek expected.

In Mastillan there is a secret mine, guarded by a secret sect of druids.  Its location is known but to a few.  In this mine are incredible veins of adamantine, the mining of which is strictly regulated.  Metal, however, is not all that this mine contains, it seems.  Recently, fiendish creatures and bands of minotaur have been assaulting out of the cavern entrance and it had to be sealed.  The king wished us to investigate for him.  This, however, is when contention began.  They wanted us to go and clear the mine for them but they would not trust us to know where the mine was actually located.  This greatly upset Rath and Alder.  After many cross words, we finally agreed to the king’s restrictions and prepared to enter the cave on the next day.

We were teleported to the entrance of the cavern where we were met by a trio of druids, one of them a firbolg.  She removed the great stone blocking the mouth of the cave complex and a rope was lowered to the cavern floor.  Against my own protests, I was convinced to not simply fly down but to reserve my magical energies and climb the rope.  I was predictably and unceremoniously dumped onto the pile of rubble beneath the entrance when my grip gave out.  The group stifled their laughter, less for my benefit and more to keep any nearby creatures who might intend us harm from being given more warning than necessary of our arrival.

It didn’t take long until we found just such creatures.  A pack of minotaur were patrolling near the entrance but were somehow unaware of our presence.  Using his recently gained invisibility ring, Rath snuck up on the group while the rest of us hung back.  When the time seemed right, we launched our attack.  However, the situation we thought to our advantage turned out to be a trap.  As two of our member rushed across a thin natural bridge over a swift moving subterranean river, one of the beasts activated a device which dropped the bridge with my two friends in the icy water.  The pack of beasts quickly split to flank our bewildered party.

Knowing that I stood no chance against these massive, axe-wielding monsters, I quickly took to the air and offered my support from over the center of the cavern pool.  Having lost our tactical advantage, the minotaur were beginning to harry my companions.  The tense battle raged for what seemed like hours though I know it to have been less than minutes.  Our group was able to triumph in the end, but not without taking several brutal wounds.  Trapped in the cave now, we began our search for somewhere that would be a defensible place to rest.

We were able to find a small alcove in the cave, with only two small entrances.  It would be many hours before Athelas could perform his rituals to regain his blessings from Athor, his god.  In the mean time, Rath and Miach, two of the King’s Rangers from Aruthien, scouted the immediate vicinity.  I had found enough to spark my interest right there in our alcove.  The walls had been covered in ancient carvings.  The language was some hybrid of the Dark Tongue of so many of the vile residents of this world and Arcane Naduumian, the language of the ancient vile peoples of this world.  I already knew that this cave would hold no good news but this brought a true sense of foreboding to me.

We spent the night (if such a distinction can be made in this sunless world) in an extradimensional space provided by the wizardess Holly.  In the morning, with much caution, we ventured deeper into the cavern system.  It was not long until the natural rock of the cave began to turn into worked stone.  I had read myths of an ancient civilization lost in this area before the current peoples had settled here.  It seem that those legends contained at least a thread of truth.  We had stumbled onto an underground city the seemed more than abandoned.  It seemed picked clean.

Immediately on our guard, we progressed forward into the narrow and labyrinthine ruined city.  We cautiously peered around every corner before continuing, expecting something to jump out at us.  Our fears were soon confirmed.  The ancient city’s walls were pocked with small holes, about the size of a child’s head.  Inside each one was something much more sinister than a child.  The former residents of this city had not truly left so much as they had devolved.  What were once brilliant architects and engineers were now savage morlocks waiting in ambush for their next meal.  A small group attacked us as we entered the town square.  They were quickly dispatched.  Knowing that there would be more of them, Holly devised a plan to lure them out.

She conjured an illusion of a cat and sent it walking down the street we had to follow next.  Every starving morlock burst forth from their holes along the ruined street trying futilely to capture the illusory feline.  Holly them smote them all with a searing bolt of lightning.  The warriors mopped up the few survivors as they tried to flee for their lives.  I felt pity for the creatures.  Hunger and darkness had driven them mad, not evil.  But in the world that I keep being drawn into, it seems to be kill or be killed.  Morality and compassion seem to have little place.  Even our priest of Athor, a deity of pure goodness and light, takes no qualm in bringing these creatures low.

The city was well suited for its morlock inhabitants but was less so for us surface dwellers.  It took us some time to navigate our way through the crumbling streets.  Our previous actions seemed to have warned off any further ambushes.  Leaving the city lead us to the mine proper.  We had come upon an old elevator and the remnants of the mining camps.  Rotted wood and rusted tools were not all we found though.  Ominous noises from the shaft greeted us too.  Again we prepared ourselves for battle.

Up from the elevator shaft crawled two huge minotaur, larger than any I had yet seen.  Prepared, the steel of my companions tore into their thick hides.  Not a moment after the initial clash, a fell beast flew up out of the abyss below.  It seems that whatever was afoul in these mines had to deal with the infernal.  A minotaur, corrupted by the lower planes,  took flight in the lofty cavern.  His bruisers on the ground kept us busy while he harried us from the sky.  He slung his foul magicks at us and I did my best to counter him.  Bringing his guards low, we were able to wound him enough to force him into a retreat.  I knew then that this would not be the last we’d see of him.

We ventured further down into the mine.  I had learned from my previous attempts at manually scaling rock faces and chose to ensure my safety with a little magic.  The mine shaft brought us into an even more magnificent cavern than the ones before.  The ceiling was carpeted with a luminous fungus that gave the whole chamber an otherwordly blue-green glow.  The cavern was also lined with raised platforms where some unknown agriculturalist was raising mushrooms and mosses.  While I stood in wonder at the glory of the vault, our more pragmatic ranger scouted ahead.

He returned when he had encountered something that he could not identify.  As soon as I stopped looking and began to listen, my blood turned.  I heard the maddening cackle of a gibbering beast.  I had read tales of spelunkers happening upon these quivering masses and being driven insane by them.  Knowing that I preferred to retain my full faculties – though I wonder about some of my companions – and that our mission was crucial enough to warrant their mental safety, I encouraged my companions to make haste and leave the chamber before the aberrant beast was upon us.

We fled into an elevated room and, due to its use and its markings, we knew it near our final destination.  Peering over the ledge with rimmed the access to the lower level, we saw several figures but more ominously we saw a nearly completed gate.  To which plane this gate lead, I am uncertain but I would stake my soul that it was not to the realms of the generous gods.  Our archer began picking away at the stone with his adamantium tipped arrows, gouging out days of their nefarious progress.  This, predictably, incited them and we steeled ourselves once more for combat.

Fire burst forth from the opening, burning all who were nearby.  Moments later another.  All who had missiles returned fire and then drew swords as beasts began lumbering from the darkness.  A half dozen minotaur  emerged and combat was quickly engaged.  Three of the lot had been tainted by the infernal contact and took to the air on great leathery wings.  With great effort and only through working in concert we were able to bring down each of the fiends.  Brutally wounded, we knew that the war was not over.  We had not but a moment to catch our breath when a dark robed bronze elf rose up out of the gap in the floor.

Whoever he was, he was powerful.  None of us could resist his spells, nor could we penetrate his.  Though I hold very little stock in it, I do believe that it was luck the victory that dark day.  One of Miach’s arrows struck home and sent the wizard plummeting a dozen fathoms to the stone below.  We held for some time, unsure of what else was lurking, waiting for us to drop our guard.

When enough time had passed, Rath, Braden and I descended into the lowest cavern to remove all the work these monstrous beasts had wrought.  The rogue Braden also helped himself to several ingots of adamantine ore.  With things cleared and returned to as normal as a morlock-infested minotaur den can be, we returned to the surface to inform the druid council of the situation beneath their feet.

When we surfaced, we were greeted by Edelbrock and a firbolg druid who escorted us back to the palace.  Obviously the Favored of Mishya had settled things with the worshipers of Seiba’s hand.  Tharbrek and his council were grateful for our assistance and seem to take take grave our warning.  Their borders would not long be safe.  The cavern dwellers were in league with the bronze elves and with Manath.  It would not be long before the emperor made another move.

The king rewarded each of us with a nation’s worth in refined adamantium and offered each of us honorary positions int he Mastillan military.  Fully half of our members accepted the mark of the auroch.  I was among those who declined.  I am not a military man and I do not believe I will ever become used to the bloodshed that is so commonplace to the others.

From Mastillan we each parted and went our separate ways.  I remained with the druids for a few more days.  I had learned that the druids had the ability to open the eyes and minds of animals, giving them the wits of any humanoid.  I have had with me, ever since that fateful day in Mercan, a raven.  The bird was not magically compelled to me or in any way magically attached like a familiar is to an arcanist.  I had named him Crebain and taught him my mother’s tongue.  He had been such a good friend to me, filling my dark and sullen life with a modicum of joy.

I meant to give him a gift.  A selfish gift, I’ll admit, but a gift nonetheless.  I asked one of the druids to teach me how to awaken my friend and , after several days, I was finally successful.  Crebain explains that his mind was suddenly unclouded and he was able to understand and connect things like never before.  The way that I understand it is almost as if a great sobriety had come over him, a sobriety that had always existed in him that he was only now able to access.

I have not been in Eregant but a day and my avian friend is pestering me to take him to the libraries.  On the voyage over, I was able to teach him the basics of several of my most commonly used languages.  As we had exhausted the written resources I carried with me, he wants to go and practice with new material.  I am nearly as eager to explore their archives.  The excitement and freshness of my companion has renewed my vigor.  I envision great things for my time here and for Crebain’s future.

-M.E.

The Royalty of Aruthien by way of the ranger Rath had asked us to sail south to Caliban to help the Queen Lysa and her people who were fleeing the army of Manath.  The call went out and we collected ourselves for our venture towards the Veil.

We arrive in Port Last as several of the refugee ships were beginning to unload.  It seems that King Resolute and his army had stayed back in order to buy his people the time to escape.  His valor had cost him and his men their lives, but it did allow his people to board their ships.  We had not been in port more than an hour when the Queen requested our special aid.  It seems that their fool king had ridden into battle with an ancient artifact and that this item needed to be returned to the queen as soon as possible.

Alder, and Aligendelite noble, agreed to the task – as did Athelas, Braden and the wizardess Holly – out of some noble inclination of the goodness of his heart.  I agreed because of how close it would take us to the edge of the veil.  No scribe had yet ventured and returned with any information on this mysterious barrier surrounding Manath’s lands.  Rath had been specifically ordered to help with the refugees, so he remained in port while the rest of us headed southward.

Our pilot would only take us so far down the Blood Shoals and soon we had to deship and travel overland to the site of the battle.  We arrived at dusk and decided that traveling under cover of darkness was our safest option.  I do believe that we were mistaken.

Not far from the coast was a set of ruins that emitted an ominous green glow.  Despite my cautions, the party decided to search them for clues.  Predictably, it was not long before some creature ambushed us.  Somewhat to my surprise, some sort of incorporeal undead were the aggressors.  They apparently had reacted to Alder’s noble insignia.  The fight was short and intense, as I am finding many of them to be.  The wraith had wounded Alder’s very core in the fray and he would need restorative magic eventually.  Again, against my cautions, the group decided to press onward.

We had barely left the ruins when we were confronted by a Manath patrol.  Unable to think quickly enough, we triggered an attack.  After a few moments of battle, it became apparent this patrol’s leader was not a bronze elf, as I had assumed.  She was a medusa, whose gaze could turn to stone.  It wasn’t long after I realized this that her cold stare caught mine, and I was petrified.  The account from here is second hand, as I did not return to my senses until we had arrived back in Port Last.

Athelas, whose story I most trust, said that Holly was also rendered immobilized by the medusa’s stare.  However, the patrol and its monstrous leader were dispatched.  The three remaining adventurers pressed onward to the battle site where they were attacked by a kyton.  Her chains were fierce but alone she was no match for the three of them.  They were able to find the king’s horse and a chalice in one of the saddle bags.  I am sure that there is much more that happened during this time but Athelas is a man of few words.

Upon return to Port Last, my stony imprisonment was reversed, as was Holly’s.  For reasons I still do not fully understand, Athelas had Holly’s cat transformed into a dragon for the lesser part of an hour.  Also, while returning to our ship to sail back to Caliban, I was made to touch the chalice.  This rendered me unconscious and I saw a dim vision.  Of what, I cannot be sure.  The other claimed to receive messages from relatives and even divine beings.

After arrived in Caliban, we relayed the news to the queen.  We also divulged some information regarding the chalice.  It was said that if the King of Ehrenland were to place it in a temple of goodness, that his country would be blessed.  As Ehrenland currently has no one claiming the throne, Athelas requested – as Ehrenlanders do, that is – that the chalice be brought to Doomsbridge, its rightful home.  He offered any who would come as safe a haven as Ehrenland could offer.

Thousands of refugees took the offer, as did Queen Lysa and her remaining family.  I too chose to join them.  Ostensibly it was to aid the sick and to properly establish temples, but my true intent – when the work was done – was to see the world inside the closed borders and to meet the almost mythical Den, former king of Ehrenland.

I have been able to now do both.  I return to the temples soon to continue my tutelage under Del.  I have had little time or desire to do much else but learn from him.  There might be a reason that Ehren books are written on trees: what they have to say, when they say it, is often worth listening to.

-M.E.

After several days, we all arrived and immediately set forth for Tir Weft and then overland towards the mountains.  We had been given word in Tir Weft that caravans to or from Halswood were not making it through.  It only took a few days of travel to find out why.  As we traveled we came across several wagons whose porters and drivers were, for lack of better descriptions, dissolved.  A short bit of study later, I had determined that it was some sort of naturally produced acid that had eaten these poor souls.  It did not take much longer to find the source of this acid.

Springing from the ground near the roadway as we passed were four enourmous insectile creatures.  Known as ankhegs, these beasts are fiercely territorial and very capable of making that defense.  However, my companions are more than capable of defending ourselves as well.  It took only a few moments to slay the creatures.  Remembering from my cryptoanatomy, I had Rath extract the acid glands from the ankhegs.  I wanted to save a carapace from which to craft some armor, but, as I would have needed someone else to carry the carcass for me, I was turned down.

We traveled on to Halswood, which was a rather backwater town.  Ruled by druids and barbarians, they saw little need for the modern fineries that I had been used to in Barloz and even in the years since my flight.  I was getting more used to sleeping on the ground and eating from a campfire, but there are times when my back longs for a down mattress.  Halswood offered us its finest, but straw is a poor substitute for goose down.

In the morning, Hal appraised us of the situation at hand.  For reasons he was not fully certain of, an ancient beast had somehow returned to the lake on which his city rested.  Prior to the establishment of Halswood, the lake near Eriad was home to immense sharks known as megalodons.  Hal had a hand is destroying their threat and making the lake safe for his people.  Recently, however, they had returned.  He wished us to investigate.

After some discussion, we concluded that the only way to really test the situation was to actually immerse ourselves in it.  So we were offered a vessel and we cast off fromt the city hoping to find the dire sharks.  It did not take us long to find one.  Rather, it did not take long for one of them to find us.  It attacked the raft and nearly capsized it.  After a fierce, if halted, battle, we were able to drive the creature back to the deep of the lake.  Feeling that we must be on the right track, it was decided that we should press on.

We were soon beset by a coven of sea hags.  The green witches attacked our split group.  The first unholy trio waged combat on the warriors.  Unable to quickly dispatch them, Alder was cursed by the evil eye.  A second group of the sea hags had crawled into the raft where the casters and Braden were.  The fighter was able to hold them at bay long enough for our magicks to bring the witches to rest.  On the bodies of those who had remained on deck, we collected three enchanted necklaces.  After some careful study, we determined that these periapts gave the hags control over the minds of their companion megalodons.  This was a power that we could not let go to waste.

Wounded and with damaged ships, we returned to Halswood to bring news.  We had learned how to use the necklaces and had formed a plan.  We would use the sharks to explore and discover how the problems in the lake had arisen.  Upon our arrival in Halswood, however, we were appraised of a new threat.  Something was living in Eriad.

Nothing humanoid had inhabited the ruins for over 800 years and the destroyed city was explored less than 50 years ago and determined to be too dangerous for inhabitation.  Hal’s son Barret had reported seeing campfires and movement in the ruins.  Something sentient was living in the ruins and that could not be good for Halswood or the Kingdoms.  We were asked to further investigate.  Our empathic links with the sharks through the pendants had revealed to us that the megalodons and the hags had been driven to this lake and that they were afraid of something living near the ruins of Eriad.

Given a new craft, we set out for Eriad under cover of night, hoping to arrive by morning and retain some element of surprise.  Part of the way across the lake, the sharks had begun to become nervous.  Moments later an incredible beast breached the surface and tore through our towed raft.  This creature was, in form, like a swamp turtle but its proportions were grossly exagerated.  It had a head the size of a trade wagon, not to even mention the size of the body.  We had been given enough warning through the sharks to defeat the dragon turtle with a mixture of archery and coordinated attacks from the dire sharks.

We limped into Eriad feeling that we couldn’t risk the loss of surprise.  We docked and entered the ruined city.  We had not even all deshipped before we were set upon by archers.  These fighters proved quickly to be a small threat.  We dispatched them and found them to be Jarls of the Redstone Spur.  They were clad in white and blue, however, instead of the traditional red.  The air in ruins had taken on a supernaturally cold fog as well.  Things were not adding up even for me.

We ventured further, on information gleaned from one of the captured Jarls, and found an ancient temple of Archgate.  Credit to its artisans, the millenia old structure was still standing and in very good condition.  Knowing that was where the rest of the Jarls had holed themselves, we took refuge in a ruined temple to Bors and Shyla.  We were able to make it through the night and in the morning prepared ourselves to attack.  We had seen more archers in the temple of Archgate so, rather than assault the ruins directly, we planned to force them to come to us.

As carefully hidden as possible, we prepared missile weapons for the first unfortunate soul to set himself in range.  After a few minutes, when our resolve was about to break, one stepped forth and we brought him low.  Moments later, another.  Then a third.  Two rogues tried to sneak up to us from the east and full battle was soon waged.  Through combined might of archery and magic, we neutralized the minions.  We had thought things to be going well when a storm brewed and lighting began to strike at our party.

A fierce druid made himself visible and began to cause nature itself to attack us.  Moments later our fate worsened.  A great white wyrm rose out of the ruins and began to strafe us with this searingly cold breath.  Part of us tried to hold off the druid while those more capable with their weapons tried to drive off the dragon.  In terrible sweeping passes, the dragon’s cold bit into our bodies as Alder and Braden tried to pierce its hide with their swords.  Two, three and four passes it made, each time sustaining wounds from our warriors.  As it tried to flee, Braden fired a single parting shot.  The arrow struck home and the beast crashed into the temple.  We had also managed to kill the druid, though he had done well to attempt the same on us.

Our imprisoned rogues revealed to us that Fagin, the druiud who lead them, was attempting to establish a new division of the Dragon Jarls, united under his white dragon companion.  They also told us that they were expecting an envoy to arrive in the city the next day.  We knew that we needed to intercept whoever it was and whatever they were bringing.  Anyone dealing with the Jarls was an enemy of the Kingdoms.

The next day we attempted to bluff the caravan that arrived into divulging its purpose and origin.  But luck was not with us and we had attempted to fool the kings of lies.  A pair of snakemen revealed themselves and began to attack.  We barely had time to react before a great beast erupted from the back of their wagon.  Some sort of serpentine abomination the size of an ogre leapt from under a canvas blanket and tried to rend our party with its powerful claws.  We were able to bring the three of them down after a short time, though it was no simple task.

Learning that the snakemen had allied themselves with the Redstone Spur was troubling news.  We immediately returned to Halswood to inform Hal of this and then we were to return to our various kingdoms to disseminate the information.  Having no home anymore, I decided to further my research and traveled here to Arcada.

Of my research, I have learned much.  I have further expanded the number of spells I can craft in a day and I have further explored the text of the Book.  It seems that its ancient writer had been doing much as I am now.  The opening passages of the book are what unlocked my mind to this power, but the remaining passages detail the experiences of its original wielder.  The man (or woman, the text is unclear) had been from the lands now under the control of Manath.  He or she had been a follower of the elemental gods with specific devotion to Cheleria.  He (or she) had chosen to write the text in Arcane Naduumian to try to keep it secret from the other priests, which leads me to believe the text is actually of Skosian origin.

I spend each day reading the opening text of the book, to renew my mind with the powers contained within.  Several weeks ago I began to have a suspicion that the text itself was shifting, changing.  So I decided to test this.  As best as I was able, I copied down the opening page with quill and ink.  The next morning I compared the texts and they were, in fact, different.  Only slightly, but different nonetheless.  I tried it again, to rule out the possibility that I had made an error in my transciption.  I had not.  The text was changing.  What it is changing into, I know not.  I do suspect, however, that this is the key to the expansion of my abilities.  Further study is still needed, but I suspect that it will not be long before duty to my companions calls me away.

-M.E.

The second conclusion that my time in these dank walls has brought me to is that I want more of it.  There is nothing in this world, or any other, that I could possibly desire more than the knowledge contained within this book I carry with me.  But first, I must recount my journey to this point.

After escaping the seige, I spent my days studying in Newholm.  I had desired to study the exclusive knowledges contained within the libraries there as well as testing the abilities I had unlocked.  Even the simplest casting of a spell brought chills to my spine.  When I received word from Holly that my help was needed, I jumped at the chance.  My life had changed much over the year since my exodus from Firforge.

I joined my companions not far from the Spaarthan city of Salynndra.  They too had been informed of disturbances in the area and had come to investigate.  When informed that Holly needed help, we agreed to enter the city and begin a search.  Her message was vague, but word in the city lead us to believe that the increased pirate activity was likely linked.  There is, for those who do not know, a great diviners’ college near Salynndra.  We decided that our best option was to seek clues there.

We sat down with a young acolyte who gave us very little useful information.  That is, until we returned to out inn to discover a note which indicated that things were not as they seemed in the school of seers.  We returned and were able to surmise that Holly was captured there along with several other wizards, while the sorcerers who inhabit the college had been kidnapped and taken elsewhere.

After some brief action which had blood coursing through my veins, we subdued the captors and freed the wizards.  We then went out to discover that the source of the increased pirate activity and the capture of the sorcerers was in a lake in the Tantathian March.  This had us all very puzzled but we agreed that something needed to be done.  So we messaged various authorities of the incident and set out to Lake Fum to follow the intriguing leads we had.

After many days at sea, we arrived in Tir Arnoth and immediately started our journey southeast to the lake.  On the road we stumbled upon a house that we determined should not be there.  We entered to find a man who claimed to be the Fire King, something of an elemental prince or guardinal.  To this day, I am still not sure who or what he was but he knew things about me that he should not have known, which made me more than uncomfortable.  He also entrusted me with mineral nugget deeply steeped in layers of magic.  He said it would right the wrongs of the past.  What wrongs, he did not specify.

I didn’t, and on some levels still don’t, trust him but I took the stone and we journeyed on towards the lake.  Long ago, this lake had been a mountain but catastrophic events not only destroyed the mountain but created a crater that became the lake.  The creature who had called himself the Fire King had said that taking the stone to the right spot in the lake would make things right again.

We set camp that night only to find a group of zombies marching into the lake.  This had me curious and I, with the protection of Alder, went to investigate.  In our absence, Holly – who had all this time been an impostor – escaped with the stone.  We did not discover this until it was too late and no trace of her could be found.  We did, however, find more zombies and the real Holly.  We liberated her and a few more wizards and made our way to the center of the lake.  We knew that the impostor planned to use the stone and we believed it to only work in one place.

We arrive to find her ritual almost complete.  Through the effort of the warriors, she was stopped and the stone recovered.  Most of the wards had been removed from it.  We had surmised that the stone would bring back the lost mountain.  It appeared that the false Flen had planned to do that very thing.  Having stripped the wards, doing so would have immediately bring back the lost mountain, emptying the lake into the surrounding plain, downing or crushing everything for miles.  Also, it would immediately kill us, should we have chosen to activate it.

Rath agreed to ferry the stone back to its creator to see if it could be repaired.  He returned to tell us that it would take a year to fix the magicks but that the crisis involving the other plane was over for now.  There was little more that we could do, so we parted ways.

I decided to come here, to Perdaith, to continue my studies and my experiments.  My studies had gone well but I believe my experiments have only increased my addiction to the knowledge that burns through my limbs with each spell I cast.  As I said in my first entries, I believe that this power will be my eventual downfall.  Now I also believe that I will find that downfall out of my own lust for the energy that both danger and this magic brings me.  I believe, much to my chagrin, that I have become a true adventurer.

-M.E.

The group was able to broker passage to Queen’s Landing, where we had believed our quarry to have fled.  Though many of us believed it folly, we had few other options.  We arrived in the city only to discover that our pair of maidens turned assassins had split up and fled in opposite directions: one south by ship and one north by road.  They had forced our hands, or rather the hands of those felt honor bound to bring both to justice.  I had become more than curious as to who these women might be.  They were certainly not form any of the common races.  Their very existence had become a puzzle that I desired to solve.  I cared not which we followed but the more seasoned warriors decided that north was our best option.

We chased her and her companions (who she seemed to have picked up in Queen’s Landing) for several days.  We believed her headed for Duke Vladir, but for what purpose, we did not know.  I spent much of the chase trying to search my memories for scraps of clues that might lead me to understanding the origin and purpose of our mysterious assassins.  I was able to ascertain neither her race nor her reason for wanting to incite open war between Barloz and Aruthien.  Stirred from my musings, Rath (our wildland guide) informed us that the group we were pursuing had veered off the road and into the ogre infested Toth Badlands.

I was very reluctant to follow her through that wild country but I was more reluctant to leave the safety of the swords my companions wielded.  It was not long before my fears were justified.  We were ambushed by a quartet of ogres.  I will be the first (and maybe only) to say that it was a harrowing experience.  More than one of us were nearly brought low by the hulking beasts.  When they had been defeated, the warriors re-initiated the pursuit.  Once again I followed because it was more dangerous to try to return than to continue deeper in.  For my own mental safety, I returned to my thoughts trying to distract myself from my surroundings as much as I was able.  I pondered my slowly unfolding abilities and decided that I should begin true experiments on myself to find the limits of my abilities.

After several more days of pursuit, we were approached by the woman’s bodyguards.  They were a number equaling our own but likely besting us in skill.  They had been hired to make sure that we did not interfere with the lady’s quest.  My companions were set on doing just that.  In this instance coin, not sword blows, were exchanged and we were escorted north back to the road.  These fellows had agreed to carry on with us as far as the camp of Duke Vladir.  Men are too corruptible.  I do not limit this to humans either, but all manner of creatures.  Never do I trust a man working for gold.  These mercenaries, however, proved loyal enough and did never turn on us.

We were not, however, safe for the remainder of the journey.  We had set in to camp one night after reaching the road but a day from the Caspan Legion when we were raided by bugbears while we slept.  Their shaman rendered some of us ineffective immediately and the state of our unreadiness rendered the rest nearly so.  The fight was short and the cretins were able to escape with their lives and many of our things.  At dawn, while studied my prayerbook, the two footpads and the tracker, along with the Flenness, sought out the bugbear nest and the return of their things.  After a few hours they returned with the entire colony boiling out of their holes behind them.  Thankfully our horses were capable of outpacing them to the fort which guards the northern pass.

We entered the military encampment there and discovered that our assassin was in the company of a priest and that they had continued northward.  We were invited to sit with Duke Vladir, though I believe that it was more for his benefit than ours.  A scrupulous and calculating man, the duke waited for us to inform him as to the events which brought us to his camp.  While those more intimately involved with the events and the general related the circumstances, I offered my cartographical services to the chief wizard who was in the process of stitching together a map of the regions.  Some of the details were no longer accurate, but the maps were very well made and were some of the most detailed that I had seen in many years.

Upon the rising of the sun, we set ourselves once again on the trail of our quarry.  My interest in her had become quite piqued when we realized that she had headed into Jotunn territory.  What a creature of her type – subtle and conniving – had to do with the Frost Giants and their barbaric followers, we did not know.  We did know that whatever it was it could not be good.  The Jotunn were long enemies of the kingdoms and if they had begun to brew war between Aruthien and Barloz, something catastrophic was about to happen.

We had nearly reached the Vigabrock, home of the Sabercat Jotunn, when we were again ambushed.  Traveling is ever perilous it seems.  A sorceress and a half dozen archers waylaid us in a forest path.  She and a few of her men were able to escape.  Rath had found trace of them earlier and the markings on their weapons were unknown to us.  They had killed the priest who had ventured with our pursued.  We left the escapees to their own schemes (not that I had any desire to do otherwise) and picked our way to the Jotunn city.

I am still not sure exactly how we were able to sneak our way into the city.  The barbarians are none too bright, I suppose.  We had determined that the assassin was in the city and began a search for her.  We found our way to the merchant bazaar where a duergar and a bronze elf were selling weapons and information.  I was more interested in the latter and struck a bargain with the elf (to the glares of some of my companions).  I gave him information that would soon be common knowledge in trade for information on the whereabouts of our target.  Also, I purchased a severed, shrunken troll head.  I do not know why I did this, but I have kept it fastened to my belt since that day.  I have it with me even now.

The bronze elf informed me that the woman was hiding in the temple district and we proceeded to confront her.  I am not sure what we planned to accomplish by going down there.  We should have known that she wouldn’t give anything and would likely fight or continue to flee.  All these she did.  After a foolish chase between temple colonnades, the warriors cut her down.  If not for a frost giant priestess and her divinely granted ability to speak with the dead, we would have extracted little from her more than vengeance.  We discovered that she was a creature known as a yuan-ti, a snake-like humanoid, and we were able to collect a list of what we believed to be other assassination targets.  We left the Vigabrock with haste and returned to the fort in the pass.  We informed Vladir of the plans we had found, as his name was on the list of targets, and journeyed to Tir Castellan.

Upon arrival in the city, I headed straight to the library-templ of Mishya to find any and all information I could on the yuan-ti, their culture, history and potential purposes for wanting to begin a war in the kingdoms.  I wish that I could have spent the rest of my days in that library.  Though it was yet unfinished, it contained a wealth of knowledge greater than I could have ever imagined.  Even if the events that soon transpired had not, news from my former temple in Barloz would eventually reach their ears and I would once again be forced to flee.  I do one day hope to return and explore that temple to the mind.

I was first stripped from my Elysium by my companions.  They discovered a wizard, Havlan, who had connections with the yuan-ti and they desired to question him.  He owned and ran a potion shop in the city.  Again, I should have known better but I remained silent while the swordsmen hatched a plan.  I was nearly taken to the green fields within moments of bursting through the door and only know that the wizard and his bodyguard were able to escape.  Havlan obviously knew what was coming, which was the second thing to drag me away from the place of sacred knowledge: the Jarls.

The Jarls, for those fortunate enough to have not experienced them, are tribes of barbarians who follow dragons.  In this case, two ancient red dragons, Groldern and Sorcheena.  They had marched from the sea, it seems, and had begun to siege the city.  We were standing on the balcony with Cas when the first beast struck.  I am not too proud to say that I cowed in fear at its very presence.  There was nothing for those who had the will to stand to do against these terrible creatures.

At Cas’s behest, we escaped the city and informed Duke Vladir of the plight of Tir Castellan.  We then journeyed on to Queen’s Landing before parting ways and returning to our various homes.  Having no place to call home, I have come to Newholm and lost myself in their libraries.  I have set about three things: further study of the yuan-ti, further study of the Jarls and the dragons they follow and further study of my new powers and abilities.  This city seems primly suited for the second and I am resolved to spending what spare time I have to deciphering and learning the yuan-ti language.

As for my abilities, I do not know yet what they have become.  I have learned that I am not constrained to only the spells of a Mishyan priest, nor even to clerics alone but rather to any who call upon the gods to grant them the ability to manipulate the world.  My body still surges with a mixture of pleasure and anguish each time I tap into the raw divine.  I am not sure if I ever want that sensation to cease either.

I must return to my studies.  I do not know how long I will have here, as I suspect that my companions will call upon me again soon.  The yuan-ti have infiltrated more than we had believed and are connected both with Manath and some nebulous “other power”.  Their agents have infiltrated all of the kingdoms and now that their plans have been set into motion, I do not suspect that it will be long before their next stage rises to the surface.

-M.E.

Much has happened since my last entry. More than I believed possible for one such as myself to live through. It started not moments after setting down this journal the last time. The group had all chosen to introduce themselves and some attempted to guile the barmaids into lessening themselves when a small human child burst through the door in a swirl of snow and biting wind. He said that his caravan was lost in the blizzard and they needed help. One by one all the rest gathered their armor, weapons and sundry other adventuring items. I had no desire to join them as I was naught more than a scribe, since my powers were largely untested.

I still don’t fully understand what possessed me to join them, but I followed them out into the snow. We trudged for hours through the chest deep snow searching for the caravan. We found them and wolves. I do not like wolves, or anything with fangs and claws for that matter.

I cannot say that it was a simple endeavor to save the two men we found from the wolves. The swordsmen were barely the match of the beasts and were it not for the other divine persons invoking the powers divine to save them. That night was the first time I had ever cast a spell under duress. I have to admit (though I would never to my companions) that it was exhilarating. The surge of adrenaline and deific power was incredible. The others seemed to not be phased by the combat as they almost gleefully charged in to face the beasts. Even the tiny bard leapt in with his rapier.

We saved the caravan, who turned out to be an Aruthien diplomat on his way to Barloz. We were able to escort him back to the inn and I went to my room to ponder the preceding events. I had invoked the divine without prayer and I had looked into the inner workings of the wolves and understood them. I understood them so well that my companions were better able to fight them. I meditated for hours before the others turned in.

I was woken with a start to shouts from down the halls. I stumbled from my bed to see the emissary’s room engulfed in flames. Some of the more foolhardy fellows charged through the door to attack an abyssal hound. It was quickly dispatched and with equal rapidity they discovered that the diplomat had also been dispatched. They rescued the diplomatic missives and a golden orb. I since discovered the purpose of this device. It contains the truename of the dismissed hell hound.

The bard had raced downstairs and by the time we came to him he had been nearly eviscerated by what we surmised to be the two barmaids he had been soliciting the night before. The one who had introduced himself as Alder charged after the tracks lefts by the women while myself and others searched the room for clues. They were in disguise and were, to our understanding, not of any humanoid type of which we were aware.

My curiosity overcame my good sense and I have followed these ruffians to Tantathia. Curiosity as to who these women were and how they had come into possession of the truename of the demonic dog; moreso I was curious as to what I was now capable. What new powers would I discover? What new doom could I bring upon myself? Time will only tell. For now, I rest in an inn waiting for morning where I will teleport to Queen’s Landing to continue our pursuit of these women.

-M.E.