9thAuril. Dranseri. I found a local boatman who was willing to guide Mr. Styx’s boat back to the Glade—Tilia, who accompanied me, whispered to me that his fee (25 gold) was exorbitant, but if that ensures that the boat is safely returned to my former master, it is coin well spent. Though I am no longer a ferryman or lock-keeper, I will continue to use the logbook that I took from the boat to record my thoughts and impressions. With the unsettled life we live, it is so important at least to try to give some structure to our varied and strange experiences! Two years of apprenticing—and what have I to show for it? I suppose I’ve learned to pilot and maintain a boat well enough, besides the basics of operating a lock. Hopefully I’ll have opportunity to use this knowledge again someday—maybe even to relieve Mr. Styx should we ever return to the Glade.
Travis lives! I knew that I had missed our eccentric wooden friend, but even so I was surprised by the sense of relief and gratitude that washed over me when the arcanist Allura Vysoren successfully restored our fallen friend. Happily, Travis seems very much his old self, though his appearance is subtly different and his manner came across as being more assertive. For example, he flatly refused to continue to pay Jerry, the agent hired by Pantaghion’s father to follow our handsome companion.
Our party has agreed to set off tomorrow for the Dessarin Valley—not only do we intend to investigate the cause of the bizarre weather patterns in the vicinity, we also hope to discover some clue as to the whereabouts of Tilia’s native tribe. In addition, Allura is interested in an ancient temple in the vicinity that was supposedly built by dwarves for the Selu’taar. Ari and Falco will accompany us. Whatever doubts I might have about the Pansophical’s motives, our fielder friends are excellent companions. I am very glad that Allura asked them to join our little band. I was a little surprised that Allura was able to spare Travis and the other fielders at this time, given the troubled state of the realm. The reports of orc armies invading from the north are certainly not baseless, and the drastic shifts in the weather seem yet another foreboding portent. My heart races to think of the larger forces that appear to be overtaking us. If the threat to Dranseri is real, surely these disruptive forces will reach Emorhin before long. If anything should happen to Caedmon … no, I mustn’t go there now. But I must persuade him to allow me to join him sooner rather than later. If there is widespread strife, it would be better for us to weather the storm—literal or figurative—together.
10thAuril. We spent the night at an impressively constructed bridge that spans a bog. Consistent (strange to apply such a word to nature out of joint!) with the peculiar weather phenomena we’ve been observing, I found that the water under the bridge was inexplicably warm and teeming with larvae! Speaking of which, I must curtail my writing tonight: the mosquitoes are insatiable! I probably have half a dozen bites already. Pantaghion surprised us all by singing a tuneful ballad from the bridge this evening. Our paladin friend seems bent on defying expectations—he now rides a martial-looking steed that resembles a unicorn. I thought they were the stuff of myth and legends! But who am I to play the skeptic—a siren’s son no less, if rumor on Talpin is anything to go by. But ugh—I really must stop and take refuge (if any) in my sleeping-bag. Caedmon’s letter must wait till tomorrow—I would do anything for him, but he would surely disapprove of my becoming a blood-sacrifice to these annoying insects!
11thAuril. Red Larch. So tired after the day’s walking and all the investigating we’ve done since arriving this afternoon. But I must jot down at least a few notes about this momentous day: Val has acquired a pet! On our way to Red Larch, we met some itinerant merchants, one of whom was selling all kinds of little beasts. Val picked out a peculiar creature that reminds me of Captain Flint [Uriah Styx’s cat] in terms of its size and color. But it is no ordinary cat. When you look closer, it has leathery skin and actually has a set of wicked-looking tentacles emerging from its back. Val has named him Ragnar. He has a voracious appetite and has already devoured several mice that his doting guardian bought for him.
One of the townsfolks who works at the Swinging Sword (the local inn where we refreshed ourselves)—a young woman named Callessa—appealed to our group to help her find her missing brother, a red-headed youth named Tarinn. No-one has ever asked us for help before—we’ve accepted a couple of missions for which we were paid—so I was heartened by the response of my friends. Travis was naturally eager to engage her in conversation, and Val and Pantaghion seemed eager to lend her our aid. Pantaghion even flatly refused to take the small sum of gold that Callessa offered to give us in exchange for help. Such generosity—a charming display of old-fashioned chivalry—makes me feel a sort of fond admiration for him, a tenderness usually precluded by his icy reserve. But more seriously: it is at moments like this that I feel most confident that I am on the right path with these friends of mine—that, in accompanying them on their adventures, I might get closer to fulfilling my Aramentè and leave the world better than I found it.
No time for more if I want to dash off a note to the one for whose sake—as much as my own—the Aramentè has come to mean so much! We set off early tomorrow morning for the Vale of Dancing Waters (what a pretty name!) and the Feather Gale Tower, where we hope to find out more about the strange happenings in Red Larch, including Tarinn’s disappearance.
12thAuril. The Feather Spire. What a harrowing day it has been—imagine our horror when we realized the knights of the spire were, as popular rumors at Red Larch had suggested, bird-like shape-shifters who had completely usurped the place of their gallant predecessors. It was a hard battle, during which Jerry was killed, but luckily our skilled healer was able to restore him. Jerry is a surly character whose motives often seem dominated by avarice, but he has proved himself a helpful and brave member of the party. I am glad that Falco was able to snatch him away from a premature death. Sadly, we were a few months too late to help the poor knights who once inhabited this tower. We found their putrefying remains in one of the tower’s secret chambers: it looked like they had been tortured and the same sigil on the armor of the bird-men branded on their foreheads.
And the horrors of the day have yet to be exhausted, apparently, for Ari and Travis have shaken us all up during their pre-dawn watch …
Finally, a few minutes of quiet—and hopefully a bit more rest before we rise (again). Thanks to Val’s fearlessness and Falco’s powerful dispel magic spell, we succeeded in destroying the sinister statue—of some evil deity of the air—that was whipping the winds into a frenzy.
13thAuril. Another intense day of fighting as we made our first descent into Tyar-Besil. I am still aching all over, thanks mainly to the blow dealt to me by the golem with its detachable arm. Had we not been submerged, I am sure that the impact would have killed me! Submarine golems and mounted guards on flying wyverns—what will we encounter next! We continue to find people desperately in need of aid—today it was a young kenku named Lily who begged us (as best she could through writing) to help her free her parents and sister from the same organization to which the avian creatures at the tower belonged. For the guards who we fought near the entrance wore armor bearing emblems identical to those we saw on the armor of the bird-men. We have retired to a magical hut conjured by Ari, hoping to rest and recover our strength for the trials that await us in this underground dwarven city.
14thAuril. We re-entered Tyar-Besil and have survived yet another series of violent encounters with its current inhabitants. Again, I write inside Ari’s magical hut (what a godsend she and Falco have been!) and am so weary that I must resort to brief notes that cannot possibly do justice to the day’s events. We have learned a great deal more about the forces responsible for the meteorological disruptions and murderous deeds in the area—but at a heavy price.
- For Tarinn, the youth whom we set out to save, is dead. The bitter truth is that we were the unwitting instruments of his destruction—he was among the acolytes who rallied around Aerisi, self-styled high priestess of an elemental cult that calls itself the Howling Hatred; a fireball unleashed by Travis that ultimately took his life, but really it could have been any one of us. After Aerisi electrocuted several of us with a lightning bolt, everyone was just fighting wildly for their lives. Having grown up with a multitude of cousins, I can only imagine how heartbroken Callessa will be! Looking at Tarinn’s partly charred body, now stripped of his robes to furnish a disguise for one of our party, I was filled with remorse. I muttered what prayers for the dead that I could remember and asked Pantaghion to bless his body, cutting a lock of his bright red hair to give to his sister.
- On a happier note, Tilia is reunited with a childhood friend of hers, a firbolg named Faesys! Tilia and I were able to calm him down—he mortally fears Val—and he offered useful information about the elemental cults that appear to have colonized Tyar-Besil as well as tidings of Tilia’s own family. Unfortunately, many of the firbolg—Faesys included—have bought wholeheartedly into the elemental cults’ apocalyptic vision. They seem to be believe that unleashing mass destruction through the power of the elements is the only way to regenerate society. Tilia, usually so composed and dignified, appears deeply affected by this serendipitous meeting. Although she is younger than me in years, I have always looked up to our firbolg friend as a person of superior wisdom and maturity. Today, however, caught utterly by surprise by this figure from her past, Tilia had never seemed so girlish. The mixture of agitation, fear, and hopefulness discernible in her interactions with Faesys was moving, to say the least.
- Faesys led us to an air genie named Atayir. The genie was exceedingly civil and gave us each a cup of delicious, steaming tea. Val, Tilia, Pantaghion, and I promised to set him free from Aerisi’s service if we could—he gave us potions of greater healing and bottled breath to help us accomplish our mission.
15thAuril. Inside the Gorgon’s Chamber. Another exhausting day … I fell asleep before I could jot down a single word in my logbook. Which indicates how utterly worn out I was—under normal circumstances, it would take me a good while to feel relaxed enough to sleep in the boudoir of a creature who, just hours before, was trying to kill us!
Falco and I are on third watch. Corellon knows I could have used a few more hours of rest. Falco looks extremely drowsy, too—our resident healer has had his hands full today with several of our friends sustaining life-threatening injuries, first at the hands of a fire-breathing minotaur and then a pick-wielding gorgon! And that was after we fought off a group of harpies who tried to us turn us into their next meal with a hypnotic song. The gorgon—what a monster!—didn’t even spare little Ragnar—fortunately Val was able to scoop him up before it was too late. Both she and Pantaghion nearly died fighting this latest foe of ours. The rest of us were just able to evade her pick, poisonous hair, and petrifying glare a bit longer than our more martial companions. Corellon knows how it would have ended if Medusa hadn’t accidentally looked at her reflection while pursuing us! Overall, though, considering her fearsome powers, I think we acquitted ourselves tolerably: we were even able to rescue a woman whom Medusa’s minions had been torturing. Our new companion was too exhausted yesterday to even tell us her name, but now she slumbers quite peacefully next to Jerry.
Something strange happened during one of our battles that I must speak to Caedmon about. Or perhaps to Tilia, while waiting for him to reply. It happened when I used Dagon’s Reach to strike one of the peculiar creatures that was attacking us—Tilia says it is a “grell,” basically an oversized brain with a beak and legs. Because I had injured it earlier with the moonbeam spell, the magical quarterstaff actually succeeded dealing a fatal blow to the creature. In the moment that the staff’s tentacles enveloped and destroyed the creature’s grotesque head, I felt a surge of vital energy, as if the staff were sucking away the grell’s life-force. I hate to admit it, but it was an intensely pleasurable sensation—though immediately afterwards I felt a little nauseous and kept hearing a faint whispering at the back of my ear. What is the staff doing to me, and what if wielding it carries some terrible price? Yet Dagon’s Reach has proved so useful in defending myself and our party, that even if it were implicating me in darker forms of magic, would that be a price ultimately worth paying?
I will have to worry about that later … so sleepy. It looks like Falco has already dozed off; I hear him snoring softly. All the more reason why I must. Not. Fall. Asleep. Perhaps it will help if I focus on describing our surroundings …
One would never guess that Madam Medusa’s tastefully appointed chamber was the lair of a savage monster! The room is so luxuriously furnished that it feels like some kind of museum—we are surrounded by all varieties of ornate, beautiful objects. I blush to confess this, but upon entering the room, my eyes were immediately drawn to the nude statue of an elven man standing close to the gorgon’s four-poster bed. It looks as if it were carved with exquisite care—his delicately-muscled form is rendered to perfection, and not a single detail—down to the relief of the smallest vein—has been overlooked. The beauty of the statue’s physical form is not even marred by the slash mark running from his clavicle to his breast, and the overall pathos of the figure is consummated by the poor soul’s expression of abject horror.
Knowing that he was most likely one of Medusa’s victims, I feel almost ashamed of myself for admiring the man as if he were merely some kind of object. And that’s not the only reason. If he was a living man once, then surely to gaze upon him like this is dishonorable, almost as if I were violating him on some level. But what can I do? It would be lying to say that the statue does not provoke desire—and only serves to intensify my hunger for … it is so hard to be physically apart from Caedmon. I miss him so much.
But to return to my descriptive exercise: the expression of the other statue in the room contrasts strikingly with that of man’s. Instead of unadulterated terror, the woman wears an alluring smile. The race of this statue is unclear: at first, I thought she represented a tiefling woman, but upon closer inspection I now discern serpentine aspects—something about her lower half resembles a tail and there is a scaly quality to her feet. Her eyes—they almost seem to be watching us …
Not only did I fall asleep, I overslept. Fortunately, no ill befell us, and my companions didn’t even rebuke me for my irresponsible behavior. Yet my cheeks burn with shame as I write this. Still, it was such a vivid, disturbing dream that I must dash it down while the others discuss which statues (or rather, petrified beings) to revivify.
I was struggling to stay awake by writing in my logbook when I looked up and saw that male statue’s look of horror was gone. Instead, he was smiling serenely and suddenly looked very familiar. “Caedmon?” I gasped.
The stone woman next to him smiled kindly and beckoned me to approach. “You know how to break the spell,” she said in a husky, pleasant voice.
As one often does in dreams, I somehow knew exactly what to do. Without the slightest hesitation, I walked up to the statue of Caedmon. Embracing his naked form, I kissed him passionately on the lips. In an instant, the cool, unyielding stone was throbbing with warmth and life again. I felt Caedmon’s bare arms firmly returning my embrace, drank in the delicious scent of his skin.
A moment of ineffable bliss, but—alas!—it was short-lived. For almost immediately, husky laughter reverberated through the chamber, becoming an incessant, hissing whisper. I held on to my beloved friend for dear life; Caedmon gave me a silent, imploring look, but I could do nothing as I felt his body go limp in my arms. The stone woman was laughing manically, and now I saw that the bottom half of her torso was a mass of writhing tentacles. The tentacles engulfed us, squeezing so tightly that I could barely breathe. Just as I felt I was losing consciousness, I heard Tilia gently calling my name and woke up.
What a nightmare! Is it some kind of omen? But I must stop here—we cannot afford to tarry in the gorgon’s chamber for much longer.
UNOMAHA D&D 