27 Hammer 1372

Dear Master Zorthaster,

We have returned to the underdark, this time in the company of a drow wizard. Our path tomorrow leads us into a prison city of the Illithids. Tonight I ponder your comments about the foolishness of adventurers and wonder what I've gotten myself into.

As the sun rose a few days ago, we were left with the four drow prisoners released to us by Solom Nedrezak. We retreated into the dark of the ruined keep for the comfort of our newest companions. Our first task was to learn the identities of the three drow priestesses. Alauniira was the one in charge. She seemed confidant and in control of herself, despite her recent ordeal. She seemed willing to confide in Primula, at least to a degree. Pellanistra was larger physically, than any of the others and more direct than Alauniira. She seemed to be the most at ease with being out on the surface world. Mayasa was much more demure, almost skittish, and tended to flinch when startled. From them we learned that they were under a geas or quest to help Primula restore a temple to Corellon and Eilistraee on the surface, one that had connections also to the underdark. Additionally, we learned that Alauniira had had a dream revealing that one of them would betray us.

The drow women were able to fill in some things on the map left to us by Solom Nedrezak. He had also left us a letter that he had captured with the twins, but the priestesses could tell us nothing after reading it that we had not already figured out. They did tell us that they knew that the drow city of Ched Nasad had been destroyed in the fighting following Lolth's disappearance. Pellanistra wanted Alauniira to tell Primula about the Moonblade, but Alauniira said the time was not right. All she would say was that Primula should speak with her grandfather before Midsummer. We talked some more with the women while Primula healed their wounds and we made breakfast. We learned little more about their quest or the way ahead of us. How much they chose to conceal and how much was unknown to them was not clear. It was clear that they were deliberately withholding at least some information. I didn't like that at all.

We agreed that for now, the priestesses should stay at Shadowhold. After breakfast Primula took the three to the temple area of the caverns below where the shadowdragon once laired. Primula had consecrated the site to Corellon, and she talked with the drow about how to put things in better order while we were away.

In the meanwhile, I went outside in the morning sunshine to explore a bit. I was curious about Solom Nedrezak's reference to the sparks. A comment from Shane at breakfast gave me an idea, and with the help of a detect magic spell, I found something amazing. About 60 feet from the ground, above one of the corner towers of the keep, there was a spark. It was only about 10 feet in diameter, but there it was. I immediately started planning on how to incorporate it into a laboratory space in a rebuilt tower on the site of the old ruined guard tower. I did a few more accurate measurements and some sketches so the dwarven engineers would know what to do there, even if they did not know why. I'll have to say to them that the spot commands a favorable view or some such rubbish.

I returned to the hall where we killed Sallust to find Dalis Nedrezak, the nephew of Solom Nedrezak busy with his spell book. He was more talkative with his uncle gone, but that was a mixed blessing. He had a tricky little set up with a deep pockets spell and a secret chest spell that allowed him access to a respectable cache of gear and books. It seems we will not have to equip our new charge. Unfortunately, the boy is extremely aggravating. I was interested in discussing the possibility of trading spells but he did nothing but insult me. He did offer to buy powerful spells and was particularly interested in the dominate person enchantment that I had from a captured book. He offered some outrageous sum like 5,000 lions just to learn it from me. I refused, not wanting to event think about the damage he might do with such a spell. He launched into another stream of insults when Primula came in.

She walked right up to the boy and slapped him hard across the face. Dalis' dangerous looking spell book, wrapped in heavy chains, started to rumble. He made a motion to stop it and the rumbling subsided. I am certain that the effect was the beginnings of an earthquake. It stopped though, and Dalis immediately lowered his eyes from Primula's face and began calling her "Mistress." He gave her no more trouble but did not stop insulting me whenever she was out of earshot. I told him that he just witnessed a display of true power. It was the power of friendship and loyalty. That was real power, unlike his spells with the power to dominate people or turn them to ash. I told him to look at the Wandsmen. Look at them because they were becoming the heroes of their age. They had real power because they chose to act as heroes for love and friendship and loyalty, not base self interest and greed. I don't think he got the lesson.

He is a difficult one. Oskar checked him out and he did not detect as evil. But I'm not yet convinced that he is good. Regardless, we have to decide how to treat him. Either he is evil and his redemption is unattainable or he is not evil and his behaviors are likely survival strategies for growing up in the oppressive drow culture. If he is evil, then we need to endure him up to whatever point makes sense before either destroying him or returning him to the mercies of his uncle. If he is not evil then we need to find a way to break through the veneer of cruelty and pain that he wears as armor so we can help him. To do that I suppose that I have to refuse to buy-in to his cruelty and refuse to fight him or treat him like his uncle does. I think perhaps I also need to treat him like a spoiled child until he stops acting like one.

Of course, the danger is treating him like he is one thing and discovering, too late, that he is another. If I treat him like there is hope for him, and I am wrong, I will likely seem very weak to him and he will continue to be intensely annoying. Even worse, he may become very dangerous to me and to my friends. However, if I treat him as though he is hopelessly evil, and he is not, he may become what we don't want him to be. So the choice comes down to whether I am willing to risk the danger to me or the danger to him. I see only one real option. If I truly mean what I say about what it is to be a hero, if I mean to feel like I belong in this band of heroic people, there is really only one path. I must accept the risk to myself and not risk losing him. Eldath give me strength, for I will be much in need of it in the days to come.

We spent the day resting and the night in the magnificent mansion. In the early hours of the morning, before the sun was up, we left Shadowhold and the three mysterious drow priestesses. The teleportation circle took us to the sentry post outside Szith Morcane. There was a new gate installed, locked and guarded. The guards were obviously expecting us as they unlocked the gate and led us to the trading landing before Szith Morcane. We went unmolested through mostly familiar halls until we reached a large natural cavern and a well traveled underdark road.

Creeping through the underdark, even on a what passes for a roadway here, is exhausting and slow. We expected, at the pace we could manage, to take four days to reach the next intersection on our map, even though it was only twelve miles from Szith Morcane. Unfortunately we never made it to that intersection at all. Travel through the endless halls tends toward the monotonous. Xan evidently found a way to stay alert though for he found a dead body on our first or second day out from Szith Morcane. Dalis wanted to ignore the strange planar creature's dead body hidden away behind a rock formation caused by dripping water.

We investigated the body despite the drow's protests. The hoofed legs protruding from behind the rock appeared to belong to a tiefling based on what was left of him. He was badly torn up from what looked like a blade barrier or similar effect. He lay atop a box bearing the markings of the Guvners of Sigil. Inside the box was a skull lying on black velvet. There were pinpoints of light in its eye sockets The thing was dazed, apparently from long confinement I guessed.

Eventually we were introduced to "Mr. Tusgrin", a mimir once belonging to "Soren." Soren was the unfortunate dead planar fellow. Mr. Tusgrin seemed to know Dalis very well. He started immediately trying to convince us that the drow was pure evil, nothing but trouble, and that we should kill him on the spot before he knifed us in the back. He even accused Dalis of murdering Soren. The mimir seemed much more like a real person than the mechanical, rather lifeless one we carried. I began to like him despite his annoying yammering. Perhaps it was because he disliked Dalis even more than I did. We eventually got him to settle down onto the saddlebags behind Oskar on the cat. He continued to chatter, but quieted down a great deal. Oskar appeared able to handle him quite well.

Another day passed in the tunnels. The monotony was broken suddenly when we came upon a band of Ilithids and slaves working to clear a cave-in. Unfortunately, the caved in tunnel was the one we needed to follow. We blasted the evil creatures with spells and ripped into them with weapons. Within moments three of the illithids were dead and one had fled using a teleport or something similar. The slaves that survived the onslaught were a sad, pathetic lot. The pitiable band consisted of a few dreuegar, hobgoblins, and a drow. They had been dominated for so long that there was little left of whomever they had once been.

The tunnel also revealed bad news. The cleared section was all of 250 feet deep. It was well shored up by the dreuegar, but there was no telling how far the cave-in continued. I tried pushing a bit further with a disintegrate spell, but it did little more than create a space into which the rubble from above fell.

Our map indicated that the only open path now lead to a prison city run for and by Illithids. I wonder if any path could be more dangerous and horrifying to me. The thought of turning into something like these thralls mining in the dark, monotonous tunnels for the rest of my life, all thought and personality pounded to ruin by the powers of the mind flayers, unnerved me. It does now, even as I write this letter in the safety of my extradimensional mansion. I fear going out tomorrow to face the illithids.

After the battle a terrible task still lay ahead of us. We had to deal with the former slaves. All our options seemed worse than foul. Dalis, the annoyance that he is, advocated using them for target practice and spell experimentation. Leaving them here to die seemed pointlessly cruel, as did sending them back to the tender mercies of their former masters. Trying to heal them, evil creatures that they were, was worse than pointless. It fell to us to kill them. It was an ugly, messy, sickening thing. I did what little I could to help during the terrible affair. Afterward I threw-up everything that was in my stomach and continued to heave until I was exhausted. I dragged myself over to where Oskar sat in prayer and joined him, hoping to find some comfort. It did not come.

After a time we continued our journey, this time toward Manzasine Prison. The end of a long day found us gazing across a chasm filled in its depths with sickly green mist. A bridge of stone spanned the gap to a landing before a huge gate. Away to the other side were statues of Illithids guarding the way. One was a strange patchwork of stone. Whether this was the work of someone trying their best to repair a broken statue or a mockery of something known only to the Illithids themselves, we could only guess.

There was little activity on the other side of the chasm so we retreated a short distance and decided to rest for the night. It would certainly be better to deal with our journey after a good night's rest.

Once in the mansion, I wasted both time and heavy magic trying to use the liquid to add further enchantments to Oskar's new urgosh. I don't know why the stuff didn't work, but I felt nothing from it. It was not like either of the two times I encountered it previously, when I could feel the magical energies coursing through my very being. After drinking a mug of the heavy magic that Primula had saved away, absolutely nothing happened. I tried channeling endergy into the weapon, I tried casting with the power of the stuff. Nothing happened. I felt like a fool for wasting Oskar's and Primula's time on this. I don't understand how Master Wands intends on using this stuff. He has been so reticent to part with any of his secrets about it or much of anything else for that matter, that I hesitate to even bother asking again.

Tusgrin got on my back for not using the archaic name of Mordenkainen in conjunction with the magnificent mansion spell. Shane got involved in the discussion and got confused by it all. I don't know who Mordenkainen was, or if he really did invent the spell, but it seemed like a terribly pointless argument to have with Shane and a floating skull. Perhaps a discussion over wine with members of the Woven Tower may have been useful and interesting. I could probably enjoy philosophizing about the use of dead wizards' names on spells amongst colleagues, but then and there it seemed ludicrous.

I went to bed intensely frustrated. Frustrated with that annoying jerk of a drow, annoyed with the incessant chatter of Tusgrin, annoyed with the secrets of Peraus Wands, and annoyed with myself for not being able to figure out how to do a damned thing with a couple gallons of what should be the most potent magical liquid in existence. And frustrated most of all with the fear that tomorrow I may very well lose my mind to a slimy squidhead. If you never hear from me again, it will probably be because I am a drooling idiot digging out a caved in tunnel for the rest of my life.

Frustratedly yours,

Cedar