26 Alturiak 1371

Dear Master Zorthaster,

Greetings from the Outlands! Today we are in (or is it aboard?) a walking castle recently taken from a rather unpleasant Red Wizard.

This adventure started back a few weeks ago in Sigil when we killed the robbers that dispatched the old man Daravil. He gave Primula the talking skull in a box known as a mirmar. He urged us to help his daughter who was ill and in the walking castle with the green eye. We returned to Sigil with the intent of rescuing the girl.

The Tooka agreed to allow us to use his back door for a fee of three lions. Upon our arrival in the city of gates we found the streets as bustling as ever. There were just as many sharps and con men hovering around. Amid the throng, though, one man stood out. This fellow appeared to from the utter east and was clearly in distress and in unfamiliar territory. We went to his assistance. This poor guy was "Faithful Servant Li" a clerk in a palace of the Master of the Dead in the Celestial Bureaucracy. A was looking frantically for Golden Morning Radiance, a petitioner (a deceased soul) who had wandered off and somehow stumbled through a gate to Sigil. Apparently she had become bored waiting in a long line of other dead souls. Li gave us a description and we offered to help find her.

We immediately hired a halfling tout by the name of Trillit to help us. Trillit had seen the girl followed by a Mercy Killer and a Dustman, both of whom Li had talked to about his problem. Both of whom were likely to destroy the girl rather than returning her to Li. If she were to be killed here, her soul would be destroyed. Trillit had seen the girl heading toward the hive so we headed off that way to find Beno, the old beggar that we had met when last we were here. Beno had seen the girl and had gotten beaten by the Mercy Killer. He pointed us in the right direction and we passed him a little jink.

Knowing that a Mercy Killer was after her gave me an idea. We had Li temporarily deputize us as assistants to the Master of the Dead, giving us official authority for finding and returning Golden Morning Radiance. Li drew a symbol on our foreheads and pronounced the ceremony complete. We rushed on after the missing girl.

We found them all in a dark narrow alley so typical of the Hive. The Mercy Killer had just stabbed the Dustman and was about to turn on the poor confused girl. Confronting the Mercy Killer, we asserted our authority to take her. The big swordsman seemed skeptical until Li read out a proclamation affirming that we were legally deputized caretakers in the service of Yen Wang Yeh, Judge of the Dead in the Celestial Bureaucracy. The symbols on our foreheads glowed and the massive sword was lowered. Lowered, that is, until Golden Morning Radiance said that she did not want to go back. There was a frightening moment of violence until we could convince the girl that we could discuss this in safer environs, and that she would not have to wait in any more lines.

As soon as she agreed to go with us the Mercy Killer, looking disgusted and all prickly, left. The body of the Dustman remained behind so we recovered a big sack of copper pieces and left for the Clerk's Ward. With Li and Golden Morning Radiance back safely through their gate, we had Trillit lead us on to the Smoldering Corpse in search of Ebb Creaknees and his outland ranger friend Dreel.

Tymora was smiling, for we found the two men together and sat down for ale and conversation. Dreel had recently returned to Sigil after finding what he thought was our missing castle. It was definitely a walking castle with a green eye. From what little he could gather, a primer wizard had just tried to take the castle by force. With the wizard was a mercenary band of tieflings. Dreel could not determine if the wizard had succeeded in taking the castle, but it seemed apparent that he had not been successful in controlling it. The ranger drew us a map of the outlands and a sketch of the castle. It was huge! The castle's regular pacing and return to the same spot every night led Dreel to conclude that it was worth the attempt for us to travel out and investigate.

After purchasing supplies and some equipment, Dreel led us to a gate in the Clerk's Ward and through to the Outlands somewhat spireward of the gate town of Excelsior, where high above us, atop an infinitely high central spire we could see the ring shaped city of Sigil. Travel in this part of the outlands was pleasant, the landscape looked much like what you might see in a pleasant painting. We hiked for two days. Once, while camping for the night some distance from a great bluff, we awoke to find that the bluff had shifted and was now very close. Dreel explained that the Outlands is constantly shifting and changing. It made me glad that we were in the company of someone who knew this place well.

Later, getting on to when we might start looking for a place to camp, we spotted the castle. A powerful green light shone out from a large central tower. The castle itself was striding along what was by now a very well beaten path. Dreel led us to a great depression with a single grassy pillar about five feet in diameter sticking up not far from the center. The ranger explained that once every day the castle returned to this spot to rest on the ground for the night. This depression was caused by the weight of the castle settling down on the ground. The grassy pillar was caused by a small hole in the bottom of the castle. He speculated that we could wait on the pillar until the castle settled down and enter through the hole. We stared at him as if he were crazy. He smiled and admitted that he had almost done just that once last week before bolting from the pillar with a bad case of nerves. I considered casting a rope trick spell atop the grassy pillar for safety, but never having tried the spell in the outlands, I was not sure that it would really be all that safe.

In the end, as night fell, we huddled close to each other on the tiny circle of grass and awaited the castle. It came on us with massive suddenness that was truly frightening. The ground shook with every step of the huge feet. By the time it arrived, we were being bounced off the grass with each footfall. We began to fear getting shaken right off our little perch of safety. Suddenly the castle stopped above us and plunged downward. With a great "whoosh" the castle passed by and settled into the depression with a boom. We were in.

Atop each of four corner watchtowers were guards. They were the tieflings. We attacked immediately. I got a shield spell up before getting hit with a color spray that left me blind for a few moments. I stumbled toward a central tower trying to reach cover. The blindness cleared and I spotted Shane fighting a Red wizard at the top of the tower. I put a flaming sphere at his backside and his red robes began to burn. With a look of desperation, he flung himself from the tower and cast feather fall. I put another sphere at the bottom of the tower for him to land in. He began the somatics for a blink, not thinking that the mechanics of that spell would not work here in the Outlands, cut off as he was from the ethereal plane. He fell into the flames where he was burned again before he could dash out, only to be hit by an arrow fired by Primula. He fell, bleeding and still smoldering to the flagstone floor of the courtyard.

Now we must find Daravil's daughter if she still lives and see what we can do to heal her. We are off again, but I remain,

Your Student,

Cedar