April 18, 3042

Dearest Feanole:

Since I have gotten access to this useful "Letter" spell, I think I shall begin keeping you updated on what I'm up to now that we're back on the same plane. I don't know how many times during the years that I was traveling I wished I could just pick up a quill pen to chat with you÷well, now I have the chance.

I shall give you all the details on my current adventure, but let's start at the beginning. It took quite a bit of finagling to get me into this predicament. Unfortunately, I don't think finagling is going to get me out÷I'm just going to have to slog it through. Well, it started just after I left you to look for Sindaraen. He was out traveling with Simon, as you and I surmised. His grippli servant Lope directed me to a Mr. Daniel Archibald, who seems to be on uncertain terms with Sindaraen himself. However, I found him quite charming and polite÷a breath of fresh air in this charmless city. After checking my credentials, he sent me on to Baldarien, a sage or mage (or both) who has been in contact with Sindaraen and the crew. He, apparently, had just received a call for assistance from the party on the "Headless Elf." So he took me on a fascinating four-day jaunt through the Elemental Plane of Air, where we met a djinn named Boro who had lunch with us. He taught me a lovely little ballad for my flute; I will most certainly pass it on to you when I get home.

When we reached the ship, Baldarien opened a portal and dropped me off on the deck, then bid his adieus. Sindaraen welcomed me heartily, of course÷we have had some really wonderful adventures together, he and I. Simon was apparently offended by the sight of a well-dressed elf (does he even own a doublet?) and nearly ordered his orcish crew to kill me! But he relented with he found out I was family. After some initial trepidation÷ "Oh no, not another Telperin!" ÷Mikhael decided at least to give me a chance to prove myself. What did you ever do to that man, anyway? As for Callous, whom you've told me so much about, it was impossible to judge what he felt about me one way or the other. So there I was, floating in the middle of the ocean with one good÷if somewhat chaotic÷friend, and several strangers, preparing to go on a mission I had not really volunteered for, and would not be paid for.

What mission, you ask, my dear sister? Oh, nothing terribly difficult. Your husband and his little group have just been hired to rescue these elven women from the mindflayer who's holding them captive and sucking their brains out a little at a time. That's all. The only lead the party had when I joined them was that an antisocial group of weresharks were doing the initial capturing. When Sindaraen, polymorphed into a playful pixie playmate, asked one of the youthful sharks why, he said they did it for the githerzerai÷because they loved her.

As it turns out, the illithid wasn't controlling the sharks directly÷it controlled the githzerai and she controlled the weresharks. She had set up her headquarters in a sunken human armada (since when did humans have a navy on Glenzor?) inhabited and heavily patrolled by this tribe÷or should that be school?÷of sharks. And she's the only one who has ever actually been to the island where the mindflayer is making his vacation home.

So our plan÷such as it was÷was to capture this gith÷alive, no less÷and get every scrap of information we could from her little brain. Simple, no? Except that most of our best spells are killing spells. And all the "bring `em back alive" spells: Hold Person, Charm Monster, Chromatic Orb: Paralyze, etc., give her innate magic resistance too many chances to shrug off our attacks. And Sindaraen and Callous have all these fire and lightning spells that just don't do too well underwater....

So we spent the next five hours setting up our plan as we sailed toward the sunken armada, our ship disguised variously as a fog bank, an island, a kelp bed, and a ghost ship. Of course, in the meantime, we ran across a pair of shapely lady nixies playing in the waves, and your endearing husband had to jump in a rowboat and chase them, for reasons I refuse to speculate on. All I know is that they dove under and he went in after them. A few moments later we saw a sheen of blood upon the water, and then Simon reappeared with a dozen male nixies right behind. I have never seen anyone row so fast in my life! At any rate, they finally backed off when our ship appeared out of nowhere and Sindaraen commanded them to let Simon go. They did ask if Sindaraen was the man in charge here, and like a fool, he said yes. So now they have put "the curse of the sea hag" on Sind, whatever that means, and Simon has once again gotten off scot-free.

Anyway, after that little silliness, we came up on the armada, cast Hallucinatory Terrain on the boat to make it look like the rest of the ocean (I wasn't sure this would work, but it did) and then started casting preparatory spells. All of us had Stoneskin, Water Breathing, Pass Without Trace, and Invisibility up; some of us had Free Action, as well. Sindaraen used his wand to polymorph us into nixies (so the water breathing spell was just a backup) and we swam down into their lair. Unfortunately I was the only one who had a Detect Invisibility up, and let me tell you, it was nearly impossible to keep that group together! I brought Simon back twice before we lost Mikhael for good÷we didn't find him again until we got into the bowels of the ship.

With great effort all around, we managed to get into the main ship without being discovered by the weresharks, only to find that the doors into the main hold were sealed by giant starfish. The only way to pass through was to put your hand into the thing's mouth, where it apparently analyzed your taste or something like that÷absolutely disgusting! Anyway, we searched and eventually found a trap door that led us into the gith's antechamber; the main chamber being airfilled and sealed off from the seawater by a thick layer of jelly-like goo. Also dreadfully distasteful. But anyway, the gith by that time had returned from the little astral jaunt she had taken outside the ship. Mikhael had been Clairvoying the main chamber, but since only I could see Mikhael, we had a certain amount of difficulty communicating this to the others. Finally the gith sent some of her elder wereshark henchmen against us, and all merry heck broke loose. Mikhael and I charged into the main hold to try to get the gith held or something before she could go to the astral plane. Simon polymorphed into a giant starfish and wrestled the other starfish that was making life difficult for us. Sindaraen held back and ... just what did Sind do, anyway, besides, not get damaged? I'm not sure.

At any rate, I managed to hold the rest of the sharks with a Hypnotic Pattern, and Mikhael and I worked on getting to the gith, who was nowhere to be seen. When the lightning bolt came ripping through the chamber, we decided the far wall must be illusory. I really hate lightning bolts, you know? Though apparently it was worse for those in the antechamber, which was water-filled. Shortly after that Simon broke through the wall of jelly-goo with his Trident of Sharpness (the one that so recently cost Mikhael a leg and Mr. Archibald a life, as I understand it), and water started pouring into the hold. Needless to say, things got a little chaotic after that. Spells flew everywhere, Callous body-tackled the gith (which apparently kept her from plane-travelling), and eventually, the only way we brought her to unconsciousness was to Metamorphose all the liquid in her immediate area into black dragon acid. An unusual situation, I admit, but Sindaraen is apparently immune to this acid, so he was able to take the taste of acid necessary to cast the spell. She was badly injured, but not dead÷not, that is, until the Charms she had worked on the wereshark elder wore off. He went into a frenzy and, I'm sorry to say, ripped various portions of her internal anatomy from her person.

I must say Sindaraen was terribly frustrated; we had worked so hard at taking her alive. If we'd wanted her dead, Mikhael and I would have just cast five Phantasmal Killers at her÷she couldn't have shrugged them all off. (Though we did find out later that she had a +4 ring of protection on her that didn't hurt her saves at all.) Luckily, Callous had a Raise Dead on him. Mikhael scried on his gnomish lawyer Bicker back in Glenzor, and between the two of them they worked up an 18-page contract that bound the githzerai by the Undying Wizard-King of all Gith-king (or something along those lines) to give us all the information she had about the mindflayer and his island, in return for being alive again. We Spoke with Dead, she agreed to sign the contract, and we brought her back to life. Turns out the mindflayer has been holding her enslaved for 112 years÷that's longer than I've been alive!÷and she was more than willing to see him destroyed. However, she's a tricky one÷she said she will do anything she deems necessary to help us kill him, but she will not aid us in any way that won't directly lead to his death. And she won't help us rescue the elves, which is, after all, what the rest of the party is getting paid for. Personally, I do not like the idea of traveling with this wench through the Astral Plane at all, but it looks like we may end up doing so.

Well, that's where things stand at the moment, dear sister. I am preparing to jaunt with an evil extraplanar being through the Astral Plane to beat up on a squid-faced slaver who can reach into my head and scramble my brains like this morning's eggs. Why am I doing this? Hanali only knows. It must be all Sind's fault; things like this usually are. Maybe it's not such a bright idea to stay in Glenzor for the next few years; it's bad enough that our kind is outlawed in the city limits, but I tell you, having friends like these could very well get me killed!

At the very least, I have to stay long enough to celebrate my one-hundredth birthday with you and Sindaraen. You will help me throw a smashing party, won't you? Just think, mother and father might actually consider me an adult now! Now, after spending the last forty years skipping over the planes, putting my life and dignity on the line for total strangers... Well, I think that's enough for now. Do take care of yourself, and try not to worry too much about the husband; I'll do my best to keep him out of trouble.

Love,

Lairunya