22 Marpenoth, 1371

Dear Master Zorthaster,

We have completed our mission in the Dordrien Crypts and the drow catacombs beyond. The brutal, senseless raids upon the surface world should now be just another sad chapter in Daggerdale's history. I cannot help but think however, that our victory was somewhat hollow and incomplete. Leaving a drow archmage in a position to control all of Szith Morcane is partly to blame for my disquiet, but not the whole of it. Perhaps it is because I believe that we just touched the edges of something huge and frightening rumbling through the underdark.

In my last letter I wrote that we had chased a horrid, powerful vampire back to her coffin, a strong, well warded sanctuary. We discussed our options and plotted strategy for nearly half a glass. In the end, the vampire's destruction was quick and complete. With the help of a spell from Primula, Shane disabled the magical glyph warding the coffin. It looked to be another blade barrier. If so, that spell, had it gone off, would have likely prevented us from getting close enough to the coffin until well after the vampire had regenerated and restored herself to power. Following the success by the halfling, I used a disintegrate spell on the stone of the coffin. As it dissolved, we saw the writhing red form of the vampire screaming in rage and pain before she too disintegrated into nothing.

We searched the remaining rooms for information and treasure. We found a beautiful weirwood lyre, but little else of value. Kerith told us that this instrument was last seen long ago. It had been a gift from the crossroads guardian to the very same druid responsible for shifting Shadowhold to the plane of shadows. In our search we also discovered that we had made a terrible error. The bodies of the twins and blackguard were gone. We suspect that the drider vampires, after retreating to their webbed coffins, reformed themselves and collected the dead drow to return to their masters, either here in this complex, or as we now suspect, deeper into the underdark.

We made a fitful camp in the cramped quarters of a rope trick once again and rested to regain our strength. In the hours that pass for morning in these dark halls, we prepared ourselves to launch an assault against the Fane of Lolth. When we had prepared ourselves as best we could, we rapidly ascended the webbing that led to the Fane. We emerged into a hall made in the shape of an enormous spider's body. The stench of death and decay hung in the Fane like a cloud. The unholy place was filled with old and decaying corpses. Worshipers of Lolth. At the head of the spider was an alter where a corpse lay, arrayed in what once were the finest of robes. A small crossbow bolt was lodged in her throat. At the back of the chamber, leading into the spider's abdomen, was an iron gate that had been savagely broken in.

We carefully worked our way past the broken gate and an interior curtain wall to confront another horrifying undead creature. It was another female drow. This one appeared ghostly and very frightening, wearing the robes of a high priestess of Lolth. I first cast ice storm, hoping to catch her with the pounding hail. The ice passed right through her incorporeal form and she suffered no damage. She rushed in close and let loose a scream that was the stuff of nightmares. The sound filled me with terror and caused me to nearly lose my breath. It felt much like the fright I felt when I first beheld the bodak in the desert. The power of her wail killed both Shane and Kerith in an instant.

Oskar withstood the terror of the scream and came charging across the room on his cat, armed with a glowing longspear. I took courage from his presence and immediately attacked the ghostly monster with a thunderlance. The lance of force slammed into her incorporeal form. Oskar and Moradin's Breath arrived moments later and the paladin's blessed weapon tore through the ghost, shredding the vapors of her essence and destroying her. Oskar sat stunned for a moment, apparently struck senseless himself from his attack. Slowly he came around and we learned later that as he killed the undead priestess, he received a vision. He saw what could only be interpreted as the unholy form of Lolth herself. He saw a giant spider wrapping herself in spider silk, deliberately wrapping itself in her own web.

As the paladin was coming around, Primula set quickly to raising our fallen companions. We rely very much on our elven priestess and her god. By their will, our friends were restored to life. Primula's work was not done here though. She moved back to the dead priestess fallen across the alter. After carefully removing the quarrel from the dead woman's throat and casting a spell, Primula questioned the dead drow. We learned that she was Tessril Morcane but little else. She knew little of what had happened to her house or events in the wider world.

We spent the remainder of the day sweeping through the entire complex looking for other signs of evil. Finding nothing, we concluded that we had met all the conditions of our agreement with Solom Nedrazak and we should once again venture into the Inverted Tower to speak with him. We waited until the following day so I could regain some of my spells before facing the Archmage. I penned a complete report of my meeting with the master of the Inverted Tower from a room in the Woven Tower, Daggerfalls. That room, warded from scrying, provided me some level of security so that I could go into details of my meeting without fear that the information would be spread indiscriminantley. The Archmage agreed that we had done as agreed and that he would gaurantee that the raids on the surface from Szith Morcane would not recurr. We negotiated a way to seal the route between our worlds and took our leave of the underdark.

On the 22nd of Marpenoth we were received by Lord Morn to make our report. In addition to the Lord of the Dale, there were representatives from the Rangers Three, the Woven Tower, Merrydale Delvers Guild, and from several towns throughout the dale. Kerith took the lead in retelling the tale of our adventure. He spun a masterful story of what happened. It filled me with pride to be associated with such fine heroes as are my friends. The bard's audience, at first filled with blood lust and the need for vengeance against the crimes of the drow, quickly fell headlong into the wonder of Kerith's tale. They sat, silent and attentive through the story and for several long breaths after it was done.

Lord Morn finally broke the silence as he congratulated us on a job well done. As a token of his appreciation, he granted us 5,000 pieces of gold for the reconstruction of Shadowhold and a writ of ownership for the area within ten miles of the keep. He then moved on to other drow related news. There was little as conclusive as ours. The Rangers Three were still awaiting information from the west, but they did know that frequent raids in Missiledale had mostly all stopped recently. Representatives from the dale's towns and villages began a lively and rapidly escalating series of pleas and demands for protection and reconstruction relative to the drow raids. Lord Morn settled himself in for a long and wearying debate of a purely political nature. He did favor us again by instructing a servant to lead us away to dinner. We were able to relax and eat in comfort while he was forced to deal with all of the diplomatic and economic repercussions of our adventure. I did not envy him a bit.

I spent much of the remainder of our break studying and tinkering with magic items and such. I am thinking that a trip south is long overdue. Perhaps I will be able to stop in for a visit if my travels allow a return home. Until then, keep well and give my best to my parents and the girls if you should see them.

Your faithful student,

Cedar

 

[Journal Addendum 1]

To: Senior Members of Woven Tower

From: Cedar of the Wandsmen

Regarding: The Archmage Solom Nedrazak, Master of the Inverted Tower, Szith Morcane, below the Dordrien Crypts.

On the 20th of Marpenoth, 1371, I had a second occasion to meet with the Archmage Solom Nedrazak in his tower where he instructs younger drow wizards in the Art. Nedrazak, despite his position and apparent power, seems relatively young himself. Even so, he has surrounded himself with students of the Art and innumerable items of power. Tales of how and why I came to meet with the Master of the Inverted Tower have spread rapidly throughout the streets and alehouses of Daggerfalls so I will not bore you with those details here. Suffice it to say that Nedrazak and the Wandsmen reached an agreement to avoid conflict with each other while we were in the dark halls of the drow in order to end the recent series of murderous raids by the followers of Kiaransalee. Following the completion of that mission, I returned to Nedrazak's tower with three purposes in mind. Firstly, I wished to confirm with him that we had fulfilled all aspects of the agreement to destroy the power of the Kiaransaleeites and that he would fulfill his part of the agreement to end all surface raids from Szith Morcane. Secondly, I wished to learn more about the drow mage himself and what his plans for the future might be. Thirdly, I hoped to cause him to establish some small connection to the surface world that would result in his investment in maintaining either neutral or even positive relations with our sunlit realm. I suppose that redemption of a drow as evil as I presume him to be is unlikely at best. However, enlightened self interest in preventing future surface raids and wanton destruction such as we have recently seen is perhaps a reasonable goal.

In light of my self-imposed tri-fold mission, I discussed several topics with the Archmage and observed as much as I was able in the room where we met. He seemed unconcerned that I might oversee something he wished to keep hidden. In fact, he seemed almost eager to provide me with a display of his reach and power. Throughout our discussions he remained engaged in initiating and receiving sendings. He also had established an elaborate and detailed miniature illusion of an area of underground passages and caverns. The area was entirely unfamiliar to me but have attempted, with my very limited artistic skills, to sketch out a few of the more notable areas in the hopes that someone more traveled than myself might discern the importance (or lack thereof) of the locale. The sketches are attached to this report and include a city with a mushroom forest, a cavern with a giant wall of magical energy, another cavern with a network of spells that incorporates a guardian of metal, some sort of amalgamation of spirit warrior and iron golem with attachments of the hells. In a related area, I noted a passage made of walls of glistening wet eyeballs. Nearby was a passage filled with tentacles. Further away was a small area with the symbol of the Inverted Tower. This looked to be a small enclave of the tower in this strange realm.

I further tried to draw him out a bit by discussing with him my plans to make application soon to become recognized as an Archmage. He said that he might be willing to consider a trip away from his tower to speak for me if that was necessary. I hope that if such a thing is needed, practitioners of the Art may learn more about the Archmage through this interaction.

We also discussed a very little bit about what we each knew about shadow magic. Neither of us held (or at least shared) enough information to be of much use to the other. I did learn that Nedrazak is concerned about it and is keeping his students away from it. He suggested that a future alliance against whomever is behind the rise of shadow magic might be possible. I am disinclined toward alliance with the drow, but interactions in the future, where we share a common goal, may be worthy of consideration. He shared with me a symbol that he offered as a teleport and sending focus in the event that I wished to discuss more about the emergence of shadow magic.

At the end of our conversation, he agreed to set wards at the end of the upper level of the Dordrien Crypts so that he would still have access to the huge statue of Jergal that we discovered on the second level of the tomb. He told me that Jergal has information that he wishes to access from time to time. For my part I committed to setting wards on the surface side of his barrier. This was accomplished a few days later under the cooperation of Randal Morn, the masters of the Woven tower, and others. Most of the rest of my adventure in the realm of the drow has recently become public knowledge and is therefore likely well known to anyone who seeks after such information.

[Journal Addendum 2 -- from the research notes of Tescelin Maratim]

21 Marp. 1371 -- finally got a chance to look over the Analyze Dweomer scroll again. Some of it makes more sense after learning a bit more about the history of the spell itself. Learning to actually read the language helped greatly as well. Sadly, the text I can decipher promises much, but seems to deliver very little.

I discovered the runes inscribed on the center of one face of the metal scroll are not at all what I had supposed. Rather than being unintelligible Netherese characters, I believe they are actually some sort of pattern.

Ha! Pattern it is! I was able to use the pattern to open the scroll. I think that perhaps what we have discovered is not so much a complete scroll as it is a case for additional leaves of a greater whole. When the top opened I discovered an empty compartment that suggests it once contained more leaves. This might explain why the outer text was so maddeningly vague. The real information should have been contained within. Unfortunately, not even a speck of dust resided in the hidden compartment.

Two major discoveries: 1) there is very fine writing inscribed along the seams of the scroll where it opens. The words translate roughly as "First step/stage in the twelve scrolls/leaves/levels of deowemer craft." 2) the scroll functions as a guide, likely toward the second step I suspect. With concentration, I can cause the scroll to lead me somewhere. It guided me through the room next door. (Slash and Burn's - oops. Remember to send up some wine and food as an apology for disturbing them.) Finally figured out that it was leading me south. Not just into the next room. Outside, with the scroll leading me, I did a little east to west side slip to see if I could get a sense of whether my destination was near or far. Far I'm guessing.

Need to figure out how to do this without holding a big chunk of ancient Netheril at arms length while walking down city streets. Causes curious stares. Maybe worse.

Talked to the guys about traveling south. I think they might be up for it. Not until tomorrow at the earliest. Meeting with Morn first.

22 Marp. -- Studied maps and worked on dead languages. Languages did not help with some of the strange Netherese words, but I think I am pretty solid on my translations at this point. Ask Gilomide for help?

Found a map of lands south of the Dragon Reach. There is a lot of south down there. Due south of here is The Hullack Forest, the Vast Swamp, The Dragonmere, Reddansyr, The Lake of the Long Arm, Nathlekh, the Shining Plains, the Deepwash, the Thornwood, Lake of Steam, Theymarsh, the Shining Sea, and eventually, the Mahair Jungles. The very thought of exploring that far south stirs my blood. Started packing.