Fea: here's the letter I was writing before everything went haywire—maybe it'll catch you up until I have the chance (hopefully) to write again.

- L

October 21, 3042

Dearest Feanole:

Well, the genie hunt goes on. We've been traipsing—well, trotting— through the wilderness for ages, it seems. I have to agree with Lord Mikhael though; why don't we travel this way—on very fast Phantom Steeds masked by Advanced Illusion—more often? Mikhael, by the way, is being quite stoic about losing his herbal supplies; although Sindaraen's accursed Emotion spell is helping him to concentrate on the illusion, I can tell he's not feeling well at all. He keeps lashing out at Nicholas, who is only trying to ease his suffering with various teas and such, and he hardly seems to be sleeping at all. However, he carries on, and seems determined to do his duty—and perhaps to make a point of some kind to Daniel.

We're currently disguised as a pack of seven of the largest (and fastest) Winter Wolves you've ever seen. Every now and then Simon gets the urge to howl, and Mikhael has to cover it up with a more impressive spectral howl, but I think we've definitely spooked the wildlife. At least we haven't been bothered by anything since we started traveling this way. At one point we passed by a young ogre shaman who seemed awed by us; I think we may have just determined his totem spirit! I hope his real totem, if there is such a thing, isn't too dreadfully upset. Once again we had to deter Simon, through combined force of will, from assaulting the poor creature. I must say, I think he's far more dangerous to the things we encounter than the other way around. Do young bugbears and trolls tell each other, "You can't go out there without armor—you might run into a Simon!" do you think?

I am really coming to understand what you meant when you said Simon is chaos personified; but Fea dearest, I must tell you that I think perhaps your better judgment has been overwhelmed by the sheer glorious audacity of his behavior. I am honestly not certain you should be so blithely accepting of his dangerous side—and you know I wouldn't presume to say anything if I didn't have serious doubts. He often seems to me rather more evil than not... are you certain that this is the kind of man you should remain married to? Mikhael is concerned as well, though he's rather more troubled by the faithfulness issue—humans always do seem to get hung up on that—but at times I must agree. Although I know faithfulness was never part of your vows, Simon's lack of regard for you or his children is

Later now—

Terribly sorry about the interruption. Adventuring can be like that, as you well know. We came upon a solitary traveler being harried by these rather disgusting-looking canine-badger creatures with glowing orange eyes. Once again, we were on the verge of passing them by, but Daniel (and Sindaraen, of all people) suffered an attack of conscience and charged down the hill to defend the stranger, and Simon followed on his broom, overjoyed by the opportunity to do something, I suspect. I lingered for a moment to be sure that Nicholas would watch over Mikhael, who was still holding the illusion, then followed myself.

A good thing, too! There were more of these creatures waiting under the snow in ambush, and for a moment Daniel and Sindaraen had their hands full. I can't tell you the joy of fighting foes on an open plain—I actually had the opportunity to use my Wand of Lightning Bolts without fear of scorching my companions! However, Daniel himself surprised us all with a pair of astonishingly deadly strikes, felling one with a blow and neatly decapitating another. This seems to have greatly disturbed Mikhael, for some reason—his illusion disintegrated and I heard him shouting wildly about Daniel being dead just before he was apparently overcome by nausea. Luckily Nicholas was still tending to him, and most of the creatures had already been slain, but it was still rather disturbing.

Anyway, we rescued the traveler, who turned out to be a seven-foot tall female warrior—human, apparently, but I didn't know they grew them that tall! She was very grateful, but not terribly forthcoming about what she was doing out in the wilderness by herself. We don't trust her, of course—the others are interrogating her now over dinner, while I take advantage of a moment of warmth and calm in our little Leomund's Chalet to

October 22

Next morning now—on the move. Ah, madness! Scried on the genie last night, found he was being moved to Doracha already. Mikhael said we must move right away—left the lady warrior in her bed and charged into the forest, in snow, at night. No horses! Mikhael collapsed finally—Daniel is quite upset, but not showing it; we are trudging on. I'm worried about him.

Later— Found winter wolves, but they led us into a trap, announced our presence to Torven—White Screamers? Did I mention them? Doracha's humanoid ice-monster guardians— very bad. Sind charged, dropped fireball in ice cave. Such a bright boy! We D-doored in past collapsed door, but they went out back tunnel; Nicholas followed, was trapped in tunnel cave-in with one, came out half frozen and raging mad. Simon killed one, Sind sort of captured one; I think Nicholas got his; but the leader got away.

We scried on genie again—safe and sound and catatonic in leader's Portable Hole. Mikhael wanted to teleport to the Hole! Crazy! He's becoming reckless without his drugs, Fea. Did he have a death wish before? We interrogated Torven prisoners instead. They say they're summoned against their will by priests; don't seem unhappy about serving, though. Probably lying—probably enjoy cruelty. Asked about Doracha, priests; they said one is named Ebrien, Fea!

Terrible news! Scried on Doracha itself (told party it was in case we had to 'port ahead of the genie). Fea, it is Ebrien. The same one, she's there! One of the priestesses. I can't go there now; she'll try to kill me, or worse, marry me. How did she get here? Why Loviatar? Why Arthinon? Hanali watch me, don't let her find out I'm here. The last thing I need now— what if she interferes with our mission? I don't know what to tell the others. Hope we don't have to go there. Have to reach the genie before that!

Later now—Got him! Another scry showed Genie escaped, dragging Torven leader by heels; had settled himself in a tree to eat. We 'ported in around him in a ring; cast a round of Dispels on nasty items (Eyes of the Basilisk, Choking Dust), then a round of Holds on him. Never stood a chance! Once Held, he went catatonic. I volunteered to ESP him so Mik wouldn't; inside of brain was very bad—insanity soup! Sorted through much fragmented nastiness—tentacle-limbs, bony axe-things, dragon blood—to find image of demon-beast killing dragon-- terrible, terrible pictures. Just the sight of demon drove genie mad! They took egg and 'ported—who knows where?

Bound genie up; hoped he wouldn't come to and shift planes again. Called Yomalia; she will mirror us back to Arthinon in morning. Thank the Gods! Cold camp for now. Apologize for the scribbles, love; will send this on its way tomorrow when I've rememorized.

October 23—City of Arthinon

All right, all right, so I haven't sent it yet—I think I am going to wait until we've gotten an answer back from the Temple about the genie; they're going to try to cure his insanity today and speak to him tonight, so maybe I can at least complete that part of the story for you.

Mikhael seems much better now—perhaps he has finally managed to burn the drugs out of his system. He is much more active and impulsive than I've been accustomed to, and his sense of humor has certainly gotten (ouch!) sharper! Nicholas still seems vaguely worried about him, but I think the worst is probably over. Now we just need to work on keeping him out of trouble—I think that without his drug-induced mellowness, he might just be as reckless as Simon!

Myself, I don't know what to do. It's such a shock, knowing that Ebrien's still out there. I suppose it's irrational to have thought she was dead, but I couldn't help hoping... She deserves it, after what she did to Dulinar and Khamul. I tried so hard to forget all that, Fea, when I came to Glenzor. I think, in the end, it's why I decided to leave the plane when Draug did... And I'd almost succeeded in forgetting—I mean, how it ended. It was so much easier to only remember the good parts; the only way to remember anything, I think.

She and I were so good together once; why did she have to change? I never meant her any harm, you know that, I never meant anyone any harm, but why did she have to take it out on them? I would have let her kill me, Fea, rather than watch her hurt the two of them... Gods, if only I had taken her more seriously, they might still be alive. Hanali knows I never meant to lead her on—and She certainly knows I've been sure never to let it happen again! Never allowed someone to mistake my intentions, that is. If that was a lesson in love that Hanali wanted me to learn, though, surely there could have been an easier way... I can't believe Ebrien's still out there, hiding out in her ice-bound temple, worshiping the Mistress of Pain with a pack of frost-men, of all things!

When all this is over, Fea, I'm going to go back and have it out with her once and for all—I don't care if she is a fighter-cleric now, or whatever. I'm going to get some answers out of her. And satisfaction. If she won't meet me one- on-one, I'll take her whole temple on, you watch me. I'm sure I can convince Sind to come with me; Simon would probably come; I don't know about the others. It doesn't matter—she's going to get her due. We've finished the first part of our mission in six days; the rest can't take all that much longer, and then hopefully I'll have a chance to deal with her. For now, though, we've got to go find this egg...

Aaaugh! I can't stand just sitting around here, Fea; I've got to go take my mind off this thing. I'm going shopping, and devils take anyone who tries to stop me. I'll find something nice for you, I promise.

Bedtime—

We went back to the Temple; the genie thanked us heartily, and we got more of the story. The demon-beast is called a Retriever, usually used by DG or other big nasties to "retrieve" things from the Prime Material. Wonderful. And there was another figure there—something Nicholas recognized as an "ultradaemon." Double Wonderful. And again, we have only one clue. The whole damned place smelled of saffron while the demons were in it. As if they came from the Saffron Hills. In Parthinon. Guess where we're probably going next? Oh well. What's three continents in a week to an adventurer? What the hell.

I bought some more jewelry, and a gorgeous gown for you, and some good china to replace the mess-kits we've been using, and some more elvish wine, and toys for the kiddies, and I polished up some of the skills I've been neglecting since we've had Simon around to rely on—came away with quite a bit more jewelry than I actually paid for. And Mikhael and I were considering buying Winter Wolf coats for everyone, but Daniel wouldn't let us charge it to the military although Mikhael tried diligently to convince him that it was a necessary expense, but then I guess 32,000 gold for coats would take a bit of explaining. Mikhael's also trying to find a summer home for us here in Arthinon, which would be awfully nice—it's really much more civilized here, and there's real wine and opera, and the elves are more like real people, not like the stiff-necked idiots back home; not that I'd want to live here all the time, but it would be nice to have someplace out of Glenzor we could go. Somehow I don't think Mikhael's going to convince Daniel to pay for this one, either, but he's at least enlisting Daniel's help to go out looking; you know, using his contacts at the University (you know Daniel really was a student there once, don't you?) and so on and so on. And no, I don't have anything more to add to the fires of speculation, other than the fact that they look out for each other far more than either of them will admit.

I tried scrying on her again, but I couldn't find her. I'll try again tomorrow.

October 24

Sindaraen went off to the Temple of Thoth today, for some obscure reason, and Nicholas has been to the Temple of Horus—what is this with everyone suddenly getting religion? Though I must admit, I'm long overdue for a visit with Aphrodite....

It's been a restless day all around. We're waiting for Yomalia to return with our orders. Mikhael and Nicholas have been very chummy—Mikhael has apparently convinced Daniel to let him have his hemp back, if nothing else, and it has improved his morale immensely. They're laughing together in the bath house now; I almost hesitate to interrupt so I can borrow the crystal ball from Nicholas... Somehow I'm not in the mood for the bath tonight, especially when the two of them are getting on so well; I'd just end up intruding and making Nicholas all uptight again and spoiling everyone else's good humor.

Fea, she's got Khamul!

I can't believe it—he was dead! She killed him, I saw it—she ran him through the heart! I watched his funeral! But there he was, plain as day in the crystal, kneeling before her with a slave collar around his neck. Oh, Fea, Fea, what can I do? How can he be alive? She can't possibly be a strong enough cleric already to have brought him back, can she? Could she have gotten someone else to do it? How is she holding him? The collar is magical—where did she get it? He was so brilliant, Fea, and she has him pulling her boots off like a common servant—she yells at him and he cringes, and she beats him—I can't stand this. I've got to do something! But I can't... we're about to be sent to another continent, for Corellon's sake, and the others would never agree to go haring back into the wilderness just because some crone from my past has come back to haunt me!! And anyway, the last thing they need or want right now is to be distracted from this insane mission of ours. What am I going to do? I can't stand this waiting anymore.

Oh, Fea, Fea, I wish you were here... she's the only person in my life who ever really hurt me, and all I can do is sit here and watch her abuse him. I can't even begin to explain it to the rest of them—they would probably just laugh about spiteful ex-lovers anyway. I know Mikhael doesn't approve of my lifestyle, he'd probably think it served me right. And Nicholas too. Damn it all to Hell, where is Sindaraen when I need him? He's the only one who might understand, he might be able to think of something I can do—he might be willing not to drag this whole painful mess out on the floor for everyone to poke at. Oh, Fea....

October 25

Sorry, Fea, that you got the brief letter first—

I'll explain later if I get the chance. Seems my problems are the least of our problems, so Ebrien will just have to wait. Wish me luck, and if you know of any gods that actually answer prayers, well, pray to them for me.

I love you best and always, Fea.

Your brother,

Lairunya

P.S.: If I don't come back this time, Fea, you should know that I now have a will on file with Bicker in Glenzor. Just in case.