21 Kythorn, 1371 Dear Master Zorthaster,I have been sleeping better since looking in on my family and your shop. I was recently able to master a clairvoyance/clairaudience spell and have since added it to my spellbook. Over the past few days I have taken some time to scry upon the people in Suzail that I care about. My impression is that you all are concerned and are taking precautions but that my worst fears have not been realized. I plan on checking in there frequently over the next several days and weeks until the King can put down this troublesome problem. If you wish to post any brief notes to me on your message board in the back room, I may be able to check on them with the use of this spell. With respect to other business, I have been keeping busy here. I completed a batch of potions for Xan and in addition to paying me for them, he gifted me with a truly elegant quarterstaff. It is a masterfully balanced staff, one that seems ready and eager to be enhanced with the Art. As I mentioned in my last letter, I have sketched out some thoughts on a long range plan for my own unique staff. I will send them along with this letter for your review. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Oskar introduced me to several fine dwarven weaponsmiths and Shraevenors. The Shraevenors are a loose guild of spell casters that focus their work on creating magical weapons. They are named after a local legend, Shraeven, the Weapons Mage. I have been looking into historical references a bit, but have yet to find anything substantive on this elusive figure. Under the watchful eye of one of Oskar's elders, I laid an enchantment on the urgosh touched by the art while we were in Heart's Faith. I feel good about the result. Oskar and his clansmen were pleased and agree that the weapon was suitably enhanced by my efforts. Unfortunately Oskar did not have sufficient funds to cover more than the base cost of materials and supplies needed for the work so I did come out ahead in terms of gold. I'm happy anyway because I think that working with the Bladebright clan and the Shraevenors will be very beneficial. I already have picked up more information and skills in weapon smithing than I ever expected to learn. I realize how much more there is to know, but so far, so good. There is one dwarf, Durinal that seems particularly talented and committed to creating magical weapons. He has been using the telstang we recovered in some of his projects. Unfortunately, he does not teach much at the Woven Tower, though he is a member. I have met him a few times now, but I hope to work with him more in the future. Spending time in town has lead to some interesting encounters. Oskar ran into Holly at the Paladin's guild hall. She was fighting with a local fellow know as Wolverston the Broken from Yulash. The tale, as I heard it, was confusing but it seems that this man had been a rather meek figure in town until just recently. He may have met with someone here that triggered more violent behavior. Apparently he has some connection to the "Ravens" formerly of the Citadel of the Raven prior to the Zhent take-over there. The paladins are caring for him now, trying to address the wounds of his spirit. Tellarus spoke to us the other day, expressing concern about the long absence of Peraus Wands. He asked us to check in on him. More about that later. Xan reported that he has hired a clerk at the library to look into the mysterious image we saw pass across the face of Selûne a while back. If you recall, at that time he told us that the bracelet he had from his missing mother tingled when he saw the thing fly past the moon. Brother Cole at the library has found several rather cryptic references to a thing called the Spelljammer. It is most often described as a huge manta ray like ship or beast with a big city on its back. I don't understand how this could be the case or how this could have anything to do with Xan, his missing mother, or the bracelet, but Xan is continuing to fund this eager researcher. He even went so far as to hand over the bracelet to Brother Cole for safekeeping. More caravans have gone missing. Tellarus has been investigating some strange goings-on related to caravan traffic. He reported to us that his discussions with rangers and Freedom Riders have lead him to believe that Zhentish caravans are moving along a route just south of the Border Forest, heading west into the mountains. No one knows why. I can't believe they would be going into the desert. But a destination in the mountains does not make any sense either. We learned that Anathar's Del, an enclave of dwarves, elves and humans in the southern reaches of the dale had been attacked recently. Priests of Lathander and Chauntea had been killed. Lord Morn and the temple here were assembling aid and supplies but Oskar was asked to look into this immediately. Unfortunately, though I had recently finished up the potions and urgosh, I had only just begun work on recording the clairvoyance/clairaudience spell into my book. The urgency of the mission necessitated that the others head south without me. I didn't think I would be any help to them until I could reassure myself that you all were not in danger from the war and the gazhneth plague. They left to help and returned just yesterday after several days of travel. They determined that the attack in the dell had been perpetrated by Kir-lanan. It appears that the Kir-lanan were also the ones responsible for the strange crossed sword and mace over spider symbol we discovered at the desecrated shrine near the dell. The symbol was dropped by a monster during the recent attack. Sharantyr was confused by this, suggesting that the symbol looked more like a drow house symbol than something likely to be carried by the godless kir-lanan. The gang rescued Sharantyr from the clutches of a pair of shadowmasters while they were investigating the kir-lanan attack. She had been charmed by the creatures and was being taken somewhere when my friends caught up to them. In the battle, the shadowmasters were killed before revealing the location of their portal back to the plane of shadows. Along the way Oskar met up with a fantastic creature, a hunting cat like the ones that they saw prowling around and protecting Anathar's Dell. This one has clearly bonded with the paladin and serves as a mount as well as a companion. I've seen the cat listening in on conversations as if he understands what we are saying. It acts more like a really big familiar than a wild animal. When the others returned we chose to investigate the disappearance of Master Wands. We visited his shop, finding it closed up just as tightly as ever. We did discover a rather strange, smelly man who was brandishing a holy symbol of Lathander. He was prowling about the place, armed with garlic, a hand crossbow with tiny wooden stakes and an hourglass. He demonstrated something strange. When we approached the shop, sand in the hourglass appeared to slow its fall, as if time was moving more slowly near the building. The smelly little man's name was Merjak and he claimed to be a special consultant with the Night Watch and a vampire hunter. As we were talking with Merjak, another member of the watch arrived to ask what we were up to. This half-elf was Corporal Gregory, a dandily dressed young man. He surreptitiously assisted us in getting into Master Wands' shop after he sent Merjak on his way. While the Corporal stood watch outside, we entered the building to investigate. At first we could find nothing out of the ordinary in either the shop or Master Wands' private quarters. The bed was unused, but a bell pull proved to provide access to a secret stair beneath the bed. There was a magical trap that we triggered by moving down the stairs. The spell effect appeared to be a strange temporal maze. Fortunately, no one in our band was affected by the spell and we descended safely. At the end of an excavated tunnel we found another trap on a door. Again we passed by the trap and got through the door. Beyond this portal lay a huge excavation. There was a cavernous space that must have underlain the entire eastern third of the town. There was excavation equipment all over the place, tables of old artifacts including pots, rusted weapons and other unidentifiable bits of things. There were stacks of scrolls, books on mining, and a deep well where we could hear the sound of rushing water. It appeared as though excavated dirt may have been dumped down the well for disposal. It was evident that the dirt walls were held in place with the use of the Art as well as the timbers propped up at intervals. In one area of the huge cavern there was a magic circle in the stone floor. Here we discovered an hourglass and a slowly spinning, twisted mirror-like object. The mirror was twisted into a loop so the inside and outside of the loop formed an infinite path. There were notes on scrolls nearby that suggested that this was a traveling mirror, but such a magical portal I had never seen before. Before proceeding further I sat for a time with the scroll of mirror walking that we had discovered recently. I managed to understand the rather difficult spell, but in so doing, came to the realization that this spell would not be of much use to us in dealing with this möbius mirror. The mirror walking spell allows the caster to step from one mirror through to another if the mirrors are large enough and have some sort of connection like the same maker or a history of being located in close proximity to each other. The spell seemed to link mirrors via a connection with the plane of mirrors. Our conclusion, finally, was that we would have to go through the möbius mirror if we were to try to find Master Wands. Before jumping through the gate to who knows where, we went back up the stairs to report our findings to Corporal Gregory. Much to our dismay we found that our brief journey below ground put us back in time to a date before Master Wands had restored the shop from the damage it suffered in the war. We could even see the partially reconstructed temple to the Morninglord in the distance. Of course there was no sign of Gregory. Our only reasonable course of action now was to find Master Wands and see if he could get us back to our proper time. We speculated that there was a temporal leak associated with the excavation or the möbius mirror, but we needed Master Wands to sort it out. One by one we stepped into the möbius mirror. As I entered I began to hurtle through a gray realm of threads and knots and current moving against me. The threads and current pushed against us. We entered a place where there were a bunch of threads with gaps along their length. I thought little of this until I realized that this was not a typical feature of this place. In fact, nowhere else did we see gaps in the threads. The journey lasted about ten long breaths before saw a light and with a rushing feeling, we stepped out of the gray, thread filled realm into a town. I will write more as soon as I am able. For now, we are off in search of Master Wands. I think we have traveled back in time, but until I discover more, this is pure speculation. As always, I remain (or perhaps will someday be) Your faithful student,   Cedar