September 15th or so, Smack-Dab in the Middle of Nowhere

Oh dear, Fea...

We've really gone and done it this time... now we're trapped on another plane. Goddess, what fools we mortals be! I'm not actually sure why I'm bothering to write you, since I won't be able to send the Letter unless—sorry, until—we are able to get out of this not-godforsaken-enough place. I suppose it just gives me some kind of comfort...the same reason Nicholai keeps scribbling in his journal so furiously, I suspect.

How could I be so blind, so dense, so dumb, Fea? We all should have expected a trap—after all we've been through, you'd think we'd be a little more on our guard. Just lulled into false comfort by a familiar face, I suppose.

I know, I know; start at the beginning. There are many reasons I wouldn't have made a very good bard—I'm neither a storyteller, a matchmaker, nor a gossip like you...

Well, as I told you in our last letter, we were looking forward to a little break in our hectic schedule before we decided whether or not to re-enlist—our last year's "R&R" having consisted of Retriever and Rakshasa! So we were more than happy to accept a gentlemanly invitation to dine with Baron Zorbo. You have all told me so many tales about what a lavish table he sets, and he seems to be one of the few nobles Mikhael can mention without discussing schemes and plots in the same breath. At any rate, although we'd last heard that the Baron was en route to Parthenon via The Headless Elf, he is no stranger to wizards, and none of us thought it remarkable that he might teleport back to Glenzor to welcome us home from our difficult and dangerous mission. (The gods know someone had to appreciate what we'd been through!)

It did jangle the suspicions a bit when we were welcomed by a servant, who hastened to explain that the Baron had lost his voice in a magical accident on Thion (no groans from the gallery, please) and would be using a slate to communicate. To make a long fabrication short, Zorbo told us the crawling claws had re-emerged from the desert in great numbers and were stealing people's senses—the sight, the hearing, and in his case, the voice—and would we please come help him do something about it.

Now, grant us this—we did show some modicum of paranoia. Our detect spells turned up absolutely nothing on the good Baron—at which point he explained that a childhood encounter with a deva left him protected from most forms of detection.

"A deva," we said.

"Indeed!" he wrote.

Alas, if we had only cast Force Shapechange as Nicholai suggested—it is supremely nasty to those in an assumed form, and harmless to those who can't change shape at all. Mikhael was unsure, however, that the true Baron Zorbo would be unharmed, since he is also a druid of sufficient power to be a natural shape-changer. In any case, the conversation marched on, and the moment for paranoia passed, and to this moment I am not certain whether it was our enemy's silver tongue or our own weary blindness that has brought us to this pass. The most generous assessment is, perhaps, also the most true: we were simply exhausted, and wanted very much to believe that there might be one safe place for us in Glenzor beyond our own doorsteps.

In case you were uncertain, Fea, the exhaustion has not yet been relieved.

Well. "Zorbo" asked us again to come help, and Mikhael volunteered to go alone; noble (or suicidal) as always. But, as always, Nicholai refused to be separated from him, and Callous argued (quite forcefully) that there were curses involved and Mikhael would be a fool to go without a cleric. Simon said, in effect, "you can't stop me," with which no one could really argue. I was trying to think of some equally good reason why he couldn't leave me behind (as was Daniel, I think), but Mikhael put his foot down and insisted that Daniel and Cassia and I stay behind "so there will be someone to rescue us when things go wrong." (He doesn't change much, does he, Fea?)

So, preparations were made. The portal on Zorbo's basement floor fixes on Thion for about ten minutes once every twelve hours, so Mikhael and company planned to go through that evening, scout the lay of the land, and come back to us in the morning. Cassia, Daniel and I passed a pleasant evening in Zorbo's company, and arranged to take our watches in turn—absurd as that seemed in a quiet little mansion in the Nobles' District. In the morning, we gathered at the portal and waited for the party to return. Zorbo seemed to be in a good mood, but something finally tipped Daniel to activate his stone of True Sight. He yelped, the "Zorbo" jumped for the door, and I cast Hold Monster, -- all in about the space of one breath. Luckily my spell was successful, but not before the nasty white jelly-blob Zorbo had become had a chance to screech out a warning that we had only a few moments left to save our friends. (One of the most ancient tricks in the tome, I know—in hindsight.) Cassia and I looked sharply at each other, then at our Captain.

"Daniel?! Stay or go?"

"I....I don't know. It's your decision—I can't tell you what to do....!"

"Daniel! You're our commanding officer!"

Sigh...I'll be generous, and concede that he was probably agonizing as much as we were over the party's fate, but it's occasionally frustrating that Daniel's gentler side has to be soft-headed as well as soft-hearted.

Anyway, Cassia and I had to make our own decision, and opted for the fighter method: leap now, worry later. Daniel had to remain behind to deal with the Zorboganger. As I began to fall through the weird planar interface, something suddenly grabbed my legs from below, and tried to force me back up through the portal—which is when I discovered that it only worked in one direction. Finally, Simon gave up and allowed me to come all the way through, and Cassia and I received our first introduction to our new prison.

It's stunningly beautiful, Fea, like songs of Elysium or Arvanaith; the skies are a lapis so pure it hurts the eyes, every cloud is edged in gold. The alpine meadow in which we emerged is filled with soft, fragrant grasses, and tiny, perfect violet flowers. The mountains that fall away below us are starkly gorgeous, skirted with malachite forests full of heartbreakingly beautiful and exotic wildlife. The air is faintly sweet, the temperature of a perfect winter evening back home, and you can almost hear soft voices singing in the breeze.

We hate it with a passion.

There seems to be no way back. The portal no longer exists. Fifth-level spells seem inaccessible to us here, priest and wizard alike, including the all-important Plane Shift and Dismissal. All other spells seem to require that we sacrifice gold in addition to the usual material components, or they fizzle into nothingness. Likewise, our extra-dimensional spaces are sealed to us unless we sprinkle them with crushed gemstones. (And we thought living in Glenzor was expensive!)

Callous says all this leads him to believe that we are on the plane of Concordant Opposition, where "every act has a price which must be paid somehow, and all actions balance each other." So I suppose we are not completely lost. Nor are we completely alone. During the twelve-hour lapse while the forward party waited to see if the portal would re-open, Mikhael and Callous made the acquaintance of an elderly orckish samurai by the name of Minhiro, who was waiting calmly for them in the meadow when they appeared.

He confirmed for them that they had not, in fact, reached Thion—they were now visitors to the land of Yeng Wan Ye, Judge of the Dead. (We are not at all as pleased and honored as he expects us to be.) Nor is he our jailer; he neither knows nor seems interested in anything about Glenzor, or PainDealer and his ilk. Instead, he had his own long tale to tell, which I won't try to reproduce here in its entirety. He related to us the whole sad story of his life, in which his daughters were killed one by one (always by water), and which culminated in the unsolved murder of his ex-wife Toshi, who had left him after the death of his last little girl plunged him irreversibly into grief and the saki bottle. (Saki's a potent traditional orckish rice liquor, and Minhiro has a bottle of it that's never empty. I personally found it vile, but Mikhael seems to be acquiring a taste for it.) Anyway, it seems Toshi's spirit had returned to Minhiro in a dream, and told him of a grave threat to the land—a spirit dragon named Zie-Jikku, who had returned from exile to poison the air and destroy all living things.

I lost the thread of the tale here as I pondered how one could kill all the denizens of the Land of the Dead, but it went on and on anyway, continually punctuated by the guttural phrase "Toshi Was Right." Finally, our esteemed samurai came to the point—it seems Toshi had told him (in his dream) to travel to this place, where he would meet a band of heroes who would help him defeat the dragon. She even warned him that we would be "spirits"—travelers from another dimension. And, it seems, Toshi was right, because Mikhael and Callous have given their word to help him on his quest. So now we're stuck with it.

All in all, Minhiro and his people seemed a throwback to an earlier (more civilized?!?) era in Orckish development. His speech patterns, his enameled wooden armor, his reverence toward "shoguns" and "daimyos" all speak of ancient history to the mind of a modern Glenzoran. In fact, Simon has theorized that we have been transported into Glenzor's past—a truly frightening thought when you consider how much damage Simon can wreak in the present...

Once our allegiance had been honorably pledged, Minhiro led us to a jade box hidden in some nearby ruins, and produced from it a magically scintillating scarf (very apropos) which, he explained, was a portal to the plane of Kwai, where the dragon Zie-Jikku had been exiled from the Celestial Bureaucracy centuries before. (Don't ask me...it seemed to make perfect sense to him.) There were other such scarves, he told us; one of them might be able to get us home. We shrugged, and followed him as he spread the scarf out on the ground and walked down into it.

Kwai was another pretty place, although less lofty than the mountains we had left. Before we had an opportunity to test any fifth-level spells or anything, we were approached by a wary Ki-Rin who demanded to know our business. We tried to explain, but once we named Zie-Jikku she seemed to stop listening, and led us to a precipice where we could look down onto a march of truly staggering size. There, where our eyes could barely discern it, was a jade statue of an orckish-style serpentine dragon. We could tell it was enormous, even at this distance. Cassia, with her Eagle Eyes, described it for us, including the figures in shimmering gold robes kneeling and praying around the statue. The Ki-Rin told us this was "all that remained' of Zie-Jikku, left here as a warning to any who would repeat his perfidy. We didn't have much of an opportunity to find out what that "terrible sin" might have been, however, since the 'Rin apparently lost what little patience it had for untrustworthy neutrals like ourselves, lowered its horn -

-- and we woke up on the hard earth, surrounded by the smells of slaughter and the sound of a crying baby. Rousing ourselves, we discovered that we'd been shifted yet again, this time to an unfamiliar lowland clearing littered with the dead bodies of a score of orckish peasants.

Minhiro sniffed something about "bandits" as Nicholai followed the mewling cries, only to discover a baby tiger hidden under a woman's robe. He seems to have adopted it—it's avidly licking his fingers at the moment. Meanwhile we pressed Minhiro for an explanation; he concluded that this was the work of the Blue Kumi bandits, a minor menace in this area—which appears to be the samurai's home province of 'Wa'. "A pitiful, infertile peninsula, the poorest wasteland of Kara-Tur." (It still seems terribly pretty to me—but then, it's also pretty terrible, so what can you say.) We've arranged to burn the bodies of the victims, though Minhiro doesn't seem to think we should bother—they're only peasants, after all. And not even his!

The question that keeps gnawing at me is not how did we get here, but why? Obviously, it was planned. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make us believe in the Zorboganger -- someone who knew that we had a Ring of Truth in the party, and how to deceive it. And the magic it must have taken to co-opt Zorbo's portal! They had to be certain they were sending us to a plane from which we could not return. But why here? If they had their choice, why not the Elemental Plane of Fire, or something equally lethal?

And if they didn't have a choice, the question remains, why here? We know only one priest of Yeng Wan Ye—CleanKiller, who we met in Belgabass during that last doppelganger mess....hm. He seemed a fairly amicable fellow, but of course we can't take anything for granted. I don't know what motives that church would have to harm us though...there must be something else going on behind the scenes we don't know about.

PainDealer, on the other hand, and his hench-priest FireLeech (Torg's boss)—I'd bet Tarciryion's ruby bracelet that they're involved in this up to their evil eyebrows. I'm sure we've upset someone's plans by carrying off our last mission so successfully. At least, SkinEater tells us that someone had the resources to send some kind of astral creature shadowing after us on the road to Brandon's before the wedding (my Goddess, was that only a month ago?). I'm rather uncomfortable feeling indebted to SkinEater, but apparently he conjured up a band of Slaadi to deal with the creatures, and got them off our trail. I seriously doubt that PainDealer could arrange that sort of ambush all by himself, however. He is a Figh-Tar in the truest sense of the word; if you believe the tales of the rank and file, he's a Berserker, at that. Maybe FireLeech or his henchmen could do it. If only we could do something more toward finding out...but we're completely cut off here. No way even to contact Daniel...

Mikhael's furious with Cassia and I for leaving him behind, and I don't blame him. Daniel's all alone in Glenzor now, with none of us there to defend him from the schemes of those who want him dishonored or dead. (I'm sorry, Sindaraen doesn't count.) If I'd stopped to think—but that's not something I've ever been good at, is it? Making split-second decisions, I mean. I hate being left with that kind of weight on my shoulders—I always seem to follow the wrong instincts, and I'm terrified that sooner or later I'm going to end up getting somebody killed that way. I hope to all the gods of love and beauty that Daniel's all right, though. Mikhael would never forgive me! He specifically told us to stay, so that we wouldn't all end up caught if it turned out to be a trap. Sigh...next time I'll listen more closely.

A few days later, now. I've no idea what the date is anymore. We began heading north on Phantom Steeds following the bandits; Cassia demonstrated truly amazing tracking skills by showing us where they had flown through the trees. We finally encountered them at a river crossing, where we were trying to make arrangements to get Minhiro across without touching the water, since he swears the element is out to get him.

"Encounter" is not, perhaps the most precise term for our meeting; "ambush" is certainly what they had in mind when they erupted from the water at full attack, but we turned the tables on them so quickly that Mikhael and Nicholai almost didn't have time to join the battle. (And another victory for Phantasmal Killer...though Minhiro tells me the spectre they were so afraid of was his honorable overlord, the Daimyo of Wa. I wonder what, precisely, this King-of-sorts does to outlaws?) And Fea, these "common bandits" are ogre-magi. Not a problem for seasoned travelers like us, as it turned out, but if these are the nuisances of Kara-Tur, I'd hate to see what Minhiro considers a real threat. It did, however, mean that we had to take the time to burn them when we were done so they wouldn't regenerate.

Ah well...for lack of a better plan, we've been traveling north since then, toward the place where Toshi died. Mikhael has a theory that someone may have planted the dream in Minhiro's mind to lead him (or us) into a fatal trap—but there's no way of knowing until we can learn more about this place. Unfortunately, Minhiro's not a whole lot of help. He doesn't seem to know much about Kwai, and had never heard of Zie-Jikku before this dream. It's mildly disturbing to us that the Ki-Rin did not seem to approve of our mission—one does not cross a Ki-Rin lightly! Especially if you're trying to do a good deed like save the plane—why would the Ki-Rin disapprove of that unless we are being led astray somehow?

This world is a very queer one, Fea; it's not just the creatures we run into, but the way they live their lives. Minhiro says his people believe that every animal they encounter may be a "spirit," a messenger of the Gods (or the Fates, as Simon would have it.) They pay close attention to omens, even to things as subtle as a shift in the wind, or whether there are earthworms out after the morning dew. They order their lives according to these spirit messages, and Minhiro seems greatly disturbed by the fact that we are less than prepared to do the same. But how are we supposed to respond to things like these?

First, a couple of nights ago, a black bird approached Cassia as we were getting our camp settled for the night; it landed on her shoulder, regurgitated a small gem into her palm, then flew away. When she picked up the gem, she heard a voice telling her, 'the mouse with the mind of a man will show you the way."

The next night, during the midnight watch, I noticed a locust that had settled on Mikhael's forehead while he slept. As I approached cautiously, I realized it was singing, in a high, unintelligible voice. I mean, really, Fea...a singing locust? Using Mikhael's head as a stage? What was I supposed to do, sit down and watch? Applaud? No, my first thought was that it might be poisonous or magical, or some other kind of threat aimed at Mikhael, and I shooed it away. Gently, it's true; I was that mindful of Minhiro's warnings. It was only after it had flown to the other side of the room that Simon squished it. (With the flat of his blade, too; he insists he was only trying to stun it.) It was only an insect, I tell myself. But both Mik and Minhiro frowned when we told them about it in the morning.

And now it seems Nicholai has been dreaming about mice. Or the Order of the Mouse, anyway. Some ancient group of pacifist monks, I gather, now generally thought to be extinct. They have told him to "Come to us at night, where the sea meets the black sand, to reclaim your heritage." Whatever that means. There is a sea nearby, but Minhiro knows nothing of black sands, and little more about the Order of the Mouse—only that they were somehow related to the Order of the Snake, which later killed them all off. (Very encouraging.) Of course, Nick's now getting the expected teasing about being the "man with the mind of a mouse," and he's taking it about as well as you'd expect....

Later now—Simon's cost us a night's lodging with his uniquely...forthright ways. We came to a walled village, and the robed shoya (mayor, sheriff, high priest, take your pick) posed us a riddle, which Callous finally managed to solve, then charged us an outrageous entrance fee—one hundred "chigas," or gold pieces. We are all tired enough (and rich enough) that we didn't care, but Minhiro got all puffed up, exclaiming that this was a "dishonorable" fee and so on. (I got the feeling that he meant dishonorably low, too. And we thought casting spells was expensive!)

Anyway, Simon paid his hundred gold pieces while they argued, then took ninety back as corruption tax for Zed. Needless to say, this didn't go over well.

All right, Fea, this world is just too damn strange for me. As we're setting up camp outside the village last night, a butterfly landed on my nose. Not only that, it had a tiny, wizened orckish face where its butterfly head should be. Not only that, but it speaks to me in a high-pitched squeak: "Pick the bamboo, break the bamboo." Uhhh, pardon?

I reported it to Mikhael, of course, who shook his head in exasperation and sent Simon and I off to sneak about the town; then he and Nicholai set to picking and breaking, to no avail. Apparently it was a message meant only for me—but in the Abyss am I supposed to make of cryptic messages sent from who-knows-where via hideous little butterflies? Mikhael's ordered us to take these things seriously, though; he's afraid we may already have missed vital clues about our mission or our way home just because we don't know how to treat the local "prophets." Strange and stranger....

Town was simple to sneak into, because there was very little to learn there. However, Simon managed to get himself caught hovering by some pretty young wife's bed, then weaseled his way out of trouble by promising that we would take care of the "bah-zhong" that were terrorizing the local chestnut groves, making it impossible for the villagers to gather nuts with which to pay their taxes. (Go figure.) Have you ever figured out Simon's secret, by the way? How he always manages to get other people to pay for his misdeeds? Really annoying, that....

ANYway, we went and did this thing, and although they were very ugly, and had the ability to both bestow curses and breathe whirlwinds, no one was really worse for wear when we were finished. (Although Minhiro turned out to be much tougher than he looked—he survived being flung a hundred feet across the battlefield by gale-force winds, and, after a pause in which he "focused his kiwi" or something like that, he returned in smashing style to help us finish off the monsters.) The villagers were much more friendly when we returned, and told us that the "black sands" of Nicholai's dream were almost directly to the south.

So off we went on the next leg of the maze (and not a scrap of cheese in sight). We spent a couple of days kicked back near the sea while Nick took lessons from the Order of the Mouse in his sleep. (No, I don't quite get it either.) We were attacked again by Blue Kumies (persistent little devils!), but had little trouble sending a half-dozen more on to wherever you go from the Land of the Dead. Though I was dreadfully embarrassed that they managed to slip past me while I was on watch. Thank god I had both the Ring of TK and the Oil of Slipperiness, or I'd be dead for sure! (Though I'm not certain the party didn't want me that way...Sigh.)

In any case, it seems Nick has learned a few new tricks from the shamans. He learned to fight with these strange little "mouse claws"—a strap that goes around the hand with several steel hooks fastened across the back. Interesting, but Nick's still much scarier with that jeweled quarterstaff of his. And he can now detect poisons by smell alone—that one's going to come in handy. And finally, he can put his consciousness into the body of any mouse, leaving his own body unconscious while he explores the world from mouse level. It will undoubtedly be useful at some point, and certainly explains the whole "mouse with the mind of a man" thing, but all in all it's still been very strange.

All right. The Order of the Mouse has given us the next step, not to mention a fair amount of useless history. Now we must travel to the village of Kata-kye to retrieve the Copper Hammer of Hotayo, with which we are to shatter the jade statue of Zie-Jikku on Kwai. This, supposedly, will bring him to the plane in material form, so that he can actually be defeated. We're still uneasy about the fact that we have to go completely on faith, here; for all we know, these mouse shamans, spirit messengers, and dream minions could all be someone's tools to trick us into releasing a great evil, or destroying a great good. Who knows? But we don't seem to have many other options, short of abandoning our previous lives and settling down as good obedient Kara-Turlian peasants...

Many days traveling. We've missed our awards ceremony. We've missed our debriefing. Morshasha has probably borne her twins by now. Daniel may be dead, or may have been punshed for our absence. We are apparently beyond Baldarien's ability to reach us, or he would certainly have contacted us by now. Mikhael's starting to discuss the possibility of becoming a court wu-jen (wizard) for the local daimyo, and has begun quizzing Minhiro, over the everflowing saki bottle, on the intricacies of honor and court etiquette.

We're starting to give up hope.

Reached Kata-Kye...and the hammer is missing; the Blue Kumi bandits took it. (Oh Joy.) Hotayo is only a statue with empty hands, and the shoya of this village is ill. Callous healed him, and he told us to seek out the wise woman Oway-Oora in the jungle who, among other things, has the scintillating scarf we needed to get back to Kwai and smash the dragon.

At least the people here are hospitable; we had baths and servants and plenty of tea and saki to go around (I stuck with my own cognac, thank you). Mikhael quietly slept off his hangover the next morning while we talked to the villagers about what else the bandits had stolen from them, then began fortifying ourselves for the fight. (I don't know what this meant for the others, but once I'd charged Cassia up with her daily dose of Strength and Stoneskin, I went shopping. If I ever get home again, I'll be bringing half a closet full of antique kimonos and the silks they're made from!)

Once prepared, we set off after the bandits again. Cassia tracked them to a small lake deep in the forest. Mikhael sent Nicholai and I in to do some scouting and look for the Hammer; Nick went in his new mouse form and I went polymorphed as an otter. There were ten or so ogre-magi camped in tents around the water, but we could see no sign of treasure—although we did detect a Very Big Fish at the bottom of the lake.

We were quite sneaky but, as usually happens, it was Simon who forced things into open battle at last. The alarm went up, and we fought hard, with the usual range of damage given and taken, and inventive tactics on both sides. They retreated in gaseous form, then swept around to flank us; I kept an eye on them with my Locate Creature and we surprised them as they came in. I had one of theirs charmed, and was trying to keep him confused enough that he'd live through the battle so we could question him. Then they charmed Cassia, and we had a bizarre four-way conversation as each of us tried to strike the right balance of truth and lies to keep our new "friends" from escaping the charm or rejoining the fray. Luckily Cassia has her Ring of Truth, and finally realized that they were not lying to her for her own well being. It ended quickly after that. Cassia and Simon took off to find the man in black who had raised the alarm and then fled (after Simon tried to sever his spinal cord); and I sat down to question my prisoner. He told us we'd never catch the guy, as he was a nin-jah, some kind of super-sneaky assassin type. Minhiro tells us they are almost impossible to surprise, so I suppose it's not really Simon's fault the fight came a little early, but still...

Anyway, Boy Prisoner also told us where the rest of the band was holed up, and that they have an orckish wu-jen who casts spells for them, and mentioned that the villagers' treasure, including the hammer, was indeed at the bottom of the lake. And for some reason, even though he knew there was a Very Big Fish down there, Nicholai went diving in all by himself. Remember, Simon and Cassia were out chasing through the forest, and Callous and Minhiro had their hands full getting the dead ogre magi burned (did I mention they regenerate? A truly annoying trait in a monster.) Mikhael muttered a black curse, cast a polymorph and dove in after. I got the answer to my last question, then killed the prisoner while Callous wasn't looking. There was a great deal of thrashing beneath the water as I dove in, just in time to see Nick being swallowed whole by this stupid overgrown goldfish. Mikhael, in sahuagin form, was casting spells at it and finally killed it with a PK as I slashed at it with my dagger, afraid to use anything larger for fear of piercing Nicholai inside the thing.

We managed to haul the fish back up on the bank with Minhiro and Callous' help. I think it says something about how upset Mikhael was that he actually picked up Minhiro's 'katana' sword and helped to slice the fish open. I reached into the thing's guts up to my armpits and pulled Nick's body free just in time—he was bleeding profusely and was beginning to turn blue from lack of air. Callous laid a quick Cure Serious on him and brought him back from the brink; we washed him up, stripped him, wrapped him in thick blankets, pressed a glass of brandy into his hands—and then the lecture began:

"Didn't anyone ever warn you not to swim alone? Don't you know that all this is bad for my heart? You know, don't you, that I'm going to catch a cold from going in there after you, and if you think I'm going to let you forget that you're to blame, you are sadly mistaken. What did you think you were doing? You're our only hope to get out of this damned place, and all I need is to lose you too—what are you trying to do, leave me all alone with this pack of...." (I didn't quite hear what we were a pack of, since he stalked off looking for Minhiro and his saki bottle, but I think you get the idea.)

Isn't it sweet, how much he cares?

So we rested, then jaunted back to the village, where we returned their stolen goods and arranged to "borrow" the Hammer for a while. They were very grateful and told us again to go find this jungle-druid and ask for her help.

We tried, chased ourselves in circles for a while; Cassia and Simon went chasing invisible monkeys, and Mikhael failed some test posed by a talking ladybug. Finally Oway-Oora met us at the edge of her domain, and brought along tigers (!) for us to ride so that we could follow her to a "safer place." Mikhael's steed seemed rather mischievous, and 'lost' him more than once, but eventually we all managed to reach her grove. She seemed friendly enough, surrounded by white parrots and cackling monkeys, but we weren't really fooled—she's still a druid! Mikhael says she gave a fine demonstration of the subtleties of etiquette: if she'd granted us the scarf freely, then told us that we could aid her by finishing off the Blue Kumies, we would have helped her gladly enough. But because she held the scarf hostage to the completion of her mission, we agreed with rather less grace. I wonder what she'd have done if we had refused? Did she have some other group of heroes handy to go save the world?

The more I meet these creatures who style themselves "Good" (or at least, concerned with the "Greater Balance"), the less I am convinced that they have any more of a clue than we do about what's right or wrong. With all the creatures in this world more ancient than I -- all the so-called "Great Goods" and "Great Evils" taking an active part in the lives of thinking creatures, all the Gods and Goddesses who must watch over us , if they grant clerics the knowledge and powers that they do—with all this, you'd think I would have a more reliable moral guide than my own poor conscience. But each lesson I learn seems to come the hardest way, even as I try my best to emulate Mikhael and Daniel in their wisdom.

I don't know the answers...and perhaps it's only weariness and homesickness that turn me to philosophy. I'm tired of worrying about what's going on back in Glenzor, of tearing at the problem of how to get home when the Fates of this world will only allow us to see one step ahead at a time.... I tell you, Fea, there's been more than one occasion that Simon's favorite plan (i.e., unzipping the universe with all our extra-dimensional spaces) sounds like the most brilliant plan of all!

Well, where was I? Ah yes, the bandits. Oway-Oora told us about the wide canyon where they had made their home in recent months, and sent us off to go exterminate them. (Is this a good act? A neutral one? Had someone else committed so atrocious a good deed here in Concordant Opposition Land that we were required to commit mass slaughter to atone for it? No, I'm just being contrary; the bandits have attacked us more than often enough to earn their Scintillating Doom, but still. Once you start wrestling with moral questions...)

Later. Encountered a boy on the road today...seems he'd run away from a drunken and abusive father, but was having some trouble making it on his own. We've brought him with us, much to Nicholai's delight. (That man just loves children, doesn't he?) This evening, I found him talking to a pet butterfly in a jar, identical to the one that had given me the 'break the bamboo' speech earlier. Just as ugly, too. We asked him about it, but he became very defensive. Shortly thereafter the creature perished; although the boy was understandably upset, the rest of us breathed a silent sigh of relief. Even Callous seemed disturbed by the thing—he said it had "aspects of unlife" about it. (Undead butterflies—what's next?)

Returned the child to his home. Callous and Minhiro confronted his father (the village shoya) with the boy's accusations; Father promptly took his honor into his own hands, confessed his crimes in the town square, then impaled himself horribly on his own katana. (I'm told seppuku is still sometimes practiced by the oldest orckish families, but I'd never had the—er—honor of witnessing it before. I hope I have the option to pass next time. Yeuch!) An older relative stepped forward to take up the mantle of the shoya, ensuring that the boy would probably never get the chance to follow in his father's footsteps. Deprived of his favorite pet, his father, and his birthright by wandering 'spirits'—I'm afraid this kid is doomed to be an adventurer. (Let's just hope he doesn't decide to come after us in our old age.)

So...off we go again. We've settled on a plan for complicating the lives of the remaining Blue Kumies. Unfortunately, this plan requires that Mikhael maintain a Hypnotic Pattern for several hours, but he insists that it won't be a problem. So we're now trudging slowly along, trailed by an entire nest of giant scorpions, happily following Mikhael's "pretty colors."

Well. That was a battle to remember...well, except for the parts that should be forgotten. The scorpions followed our plan beautifully, tumbling down into the ogre-magi's canyon and raising all sorts of miscellaneous havoc while we waited at the canyon's rim and watched them split up while we prepared spells and last-minute battle plans. Finally they spotted us and charged to attack, but of course we had higher ground and a better vantage. They suffered mightily before finally beginning to scatter. They did have some shaman-type down by the lakeside that cast some branches on the ground and cast a spell—several moments later the branches erupted into a full-grown wyvern. That certainly kept us occupied for a bit—and I have to say they've updated "Sticks to Snakes" a bit since the last time I saw it cast! By this time, most of us were flying, and had headed down into the canyon to pick off individual targets.

Then they finally started picking back—one of them started pitching curses left and right. Nick was afflicted with a horrible flaking, dripping skin disease, and I...well, let's just say that it was worse than being Doomed. (And that I've never been quite so glad to have a Magic Closet full of fresh pairs of pants at hand!)

I don't know how to tell you this, Fea...I didn't know how to tell Daniel, either. Mikhael is dead. So are Nicholai and Cassia. Simon is trapped in Sepia Snake Stasis after taking Blyzine and saving Callous and I from certain death.

We're back in Glenzor at last, holed up in the temple of Shang-Ti. They will try to bring Mikhael back tonight...but he was never very optimistic about his chances of surviving resurrection. It just takes a stronger body than the one he's got. What am I going to do if he doesn't make it, Fea? What will Daniel do? He hasn't left Mikhael's side since we returned—just hovers like a golden ghost beside his bier. And Nicholai...he and I were just beginning to reach something that might be called friendship. And poor beautiful Cassia—certainly if anyone could survive decapitation it would be she, wouldn't it?

Oh Fea, I wish you were here. I wish I could even just send this letter...but Georgia says it's imperative that no one in Glenzor know we have returned yet—and there are certainly those who are looking for us. So I can't even leave the protection of hallowed ground long enough to send a Letter. Gods, Fea....

What am I going to do?

All right. The story.

We went in, as I said, our usual bold selves. Dragons are dangerous (as you well know), but most of the group had fought them before and survived. (This was my first.) Dangerous, yes, but vincible; we were confident that with the proper preparation we could deal with this as handily as we had the Retriever, the Rakshasa...

We followed Mikhael back up the river and paused on the bank to power up on spells—Water Breathing, Invisibility, the usual array. Minhiro, who still refused to touch water, climbed into the Closet and told us to bring him out when we were on dry land again. Then we went in, sinking to the bottom of the river so we could approach the cavern entrance carefully. All of us except Simon, that is. On the way down, Mikhael spotted an invisible creature on the river-bottom and attempted to point it out to us. Simon got the idea and decided to go fishing. He grabbed a grappling hook and made as if to drag it across the bottom in the area Mik had indicated. Unfortunately, the hook hit a rigid Cassia in the back, hard enough to knock down her Stoneskin. I can't say whether he meant to catch her on his hook, but either way he cheered and used his Free Action and great strength to drag her toward the cavern mouth much faster than she could have reached it on her own—resisting all the way. I think if she'd had the opportunity she'd have decked him right there; and I won't be surprised if it's the first thing she does when she recovers. Certainly that Stoneskin might have saved her, later.

Anyway, at about that point the invisible creature made itself known to us as a Fearsome River Elemental, and cursed Callous and Mikhael and I so that we could no longer breathe air. I'm not sure this is a logical course of action for someone who wants you out of their river, but with the Water Breathing up we were prepared to put off worrying about it for a while, so we just rolled our eyes, put a couple of lightning explosions into him, and sent him up the river with his tail between his legs.

Ah, we were so cocky.

By then, the underwater mummy monks were starting to stir, so we turned our attention to them. I carefully aimed another lightning bolt/explosion down the tunnel behind them as far as I could see, knowing I'd hurt whatever was lurking back there and still catch the monks in the backwash.

Unfortunately, what was lurking back down the tunnel was a Wall of Ice, and our front line took the backwash as well—meaning Cassia, Simon, and Mikhael (and the ghost of Vascez...)

Then things started getting serious. We were just winning our way into the mouth of the tunnel when suddenly the water around us went straight to a scalding boil, and the shadow of a Dragon fell on the open water behind us.

Caught completely off guard, we turned to face the Monster, even as the brilliant flash of a ruby gem on our bracelets told us that the fierce heat of the Dragon's breath had been too much for Mikhael. Simon, Hasted, made the fastest about-face I have ever seen, and streaked for the surface. Nicholai froze, but only for a second, before his fists clenched and he struck out after Simon. Callous dove straight for Mikhael's body, perhaps hoping against hope that there was still something he could do to save him.

From deep beneath the water, I saw a Wall of Fire spring up around Zie-Jikku's whole serpentine length. Simon worked at Dispelling it so that he could reach the Beast with an arrow; yes, I think he planned to insert it manually—after coating it with his deadly, seldom-used Black Rose poison, one presumes. I don't know what Nicholai intended to do when he reached the surface...but in the next instant the big yellow Monstrosity breathed scalding steam again, and the sharp green glow of Nicholai's death flashed on the bracelet near the shining red of Mikhael's. More shaken by the moment, I struggled to help Cassia (and her chain mail) to the surface, following Callous as he drew Mikhael up.

When we reached the top, noble Cassia headed straight for the Dragon, but I was still unable to leave the water, and unable to dispel the gills that hindered me. I could only watch as Callous sank to his knees, spread Mikhael's still form on the bank, and let out what must be described as a howl of pain. When I first met them, Fea, it seemed that Callous and Mikhael hated each other completely... but like so much else in this party, what is plain to the eye is only Illusion, and only the insubstantial things are True.

Already on the verge of tears, I ducked back under to retrieve Nick's body from the still-steaming waters. As I returned, I was daunted to see Cassia reaching for the Blyzine we had given her—we had warned her to take it only in the most dire of circumstances. But Cassia was right, because even as she grasped the vial, the Dragon reached out and racked one huge clawed hand across her body—and her head flew free as the rest of her slumped into the shallows. I cried out in horror as Simon dove after the Blyzine, and Callous looked up bleakly from the ritual he was preparing over Mikhael and Nicholai's bodies.

It looked like Death for all of us, with half the party down and gone in only moments. I turned to our last ally and lifted the Closet above water, opening it for Minhiro, who stirred from his focusing meditation and rose to his feet, the forbidding image of the ultimate orckish warrior. He drew a deep breath, then he in all his samurai splendor, and Simon in his Blyzine berserk, and Callous in his own righteous rage all converged on the Dragon at the same moment.

It never stood a chance.

But before we could even begin to breathe, and to comprehend the magnitude of what the Beast had done to our Company, a ghastly spirit in dragon form began to rise out of the Dragon's corpse. I truly feared that it would be invulnerable to us, as our guides on Kara-Tur had made so much of the fact that we must bring Zie-Jikku to this plane in material form so we could fight him—but this vengeful spirit seemed a vulnerable to the blows of our magical weapons as its fleshy body had been, and it too was defeated, and dispersed into a clean wind.

Then, at last, we had a chance to regard our casualties; Mikhael, Nicholai and Cassia lay wet and cold and still, the ritual of preservation barely begun. And as I gathered poor Cassia's head, shuddering with grief, Simon charged us, wild-eyed—and Callous told me to deal with him! Me!! I did the only thing I could think of, held up a Sepia Snake Sigil scroll and told him: "Read this! Now!" Thank heavens, he either forgot seeing me use this on our enemies, or didn't think I'd be bold enough to try it on him. Whichever, he succumbed to the stasis, and has remained there since. I am afraid to think what he will be like when released; no time at all will have passed for him since that moment, and the Blyzine will still be strong in his veins....

And then there were two.

I stood vigil with Callous as he began his ritual again; I was suddenly aware of how very alone we were—the unlikeliest team of all, one elf, one orc, isolated in grief in an alien land. He worked steadily through the twilight, invoking Tyr's blessings to insure that both their bodies and their souls would be preserved and protected—most importantly, that their souls would be guarded from the grasp of Yeng Wan Ye. We might be on his plane, in the very heart of the Land of the Dead, but damn it, we intended to bring these souls back when we returned to Glenzor, and Callous wasn't about to let a lesser god than Tyr get his hands on them. If, indeed, we had any chance of returning home at all.

Even with my gills dispelled, allowed to emerge from the water at last; even with clean and dry cantrips, a hot fire, and a fresh change of clothes—still I felt chilled to my very heart, and it seems it will be a very long time before I am ever warm again.

Callous and I wrapped the bodies and placed them carefully within the Closet, which has been used as a hearse far too often for my liking. Then we D-Doored into Zie-Jikku's lair, searching for any other evils he might have left behind. Callous destroyed several more of the mummy-monks with Tyr's power; we discovered a lab and a library, took his spellbooks and a few magical references, and burned the rest. Likewise, the room full of his gruesome undead butterfly messengers, and the huge cocoons where these insects apparently grew into undead monks. He also had a mountain of coin to sleep on, but we left it, too heartsick to care about the money. (Let Sindaraen and Simon hate me for it.) I took only the massive gems he had mounted on poles about his lair, since they might have some magical value for the party; at least they might help repay whichever temple made the attempt to resurrect our friends.

And then we bid our farewells to Minhiro, spread out Oway-Oora's scarf, and escaped to Kwai. There was no sign of the Ki-Rin, nor any other living thing. We might have been the only living things in the universe. We slept.

Finally, as morning and misery began to intrude, an unnatural window appeared in the sky, and Baldarien leaned out of it. I was too dazed to even be glad to see him, and could only close my eyes when Daniel came down on the Flying Carpet to fetch us.

Baldarien had brought us here to the quiet temple of Shang-Ti, goddess of crops; and I think the smell of grain shall always be a smell of grief for me hereafter.

Georgia and Daniel tell us that the city thinks the Scintillating Company dead, and that PainDealer and FireLeech rest easy in their positions. There is a plan of some sort in the works, something Georgia and Daniel and SkinEater have been working on with Assir IronBreast...I can't follow all the details now, but so much hinges on our bringing the party back together....

Mikhael lives! Thank all the gods there are...!

And Nicholai...what would I do without Nicholai?

And Cassia. We are a Company again!!!

Sindaraen, who evidently stood vigil over Zorbo's portal for us, tells me that one of the Company's unexpected champions is the fledgling Church of Zediconicus. Apparently they challenged the Temple of No Cha (you know, FireLeech's bailiwick?), demanding that the "Saints of Zed" (that's us!) be returned before the scheduled date of our awards ceremony, or a "Miracle of Vengeance" would be brought down upon No Cha's temple. Well, the appointed day came and went while we were still dealing with the Blue Kumi bandits. The gathered populace was disappointed that there was no flashy "Miracle" to be beheld at the Temple on that day (Sind tells me even the Paladin and the Blue Mage turned out to watch), but ever since that day, No Cha's wealth has been bleeding away. Statues and holy items disappear in the night, and no amount of priestly or wizardly magic seems to be able to seal the leak in their vault. A Miracle of Vengeance indeed, and one well turned on the larcenous priests of our beloved state religion! Not to mention a delightful challenge for Zed's priests—so many of whom were recruited from the ranks of the Brotherhood. Or perhaps I blaspheme; maybe Zed really does take an interest in the doing of his crazy church, and its mad prophet Simon du Gare. Who can say?