Much to my surprise, I seem to have survived the Underdark, and since I have a few days' hiatus, I thought I would drop you the note that I promised. I suppose that Laurie has already written you - he seems to be prompt in his correspondence, yet another virtue I have failed to cultivate. Still, Callous and Danny are off somewhere in camp being military, and Simon, Sindarion, Nicholas and Lairunya have portaled back to Glenzor to discuss another mission with the Flintlock Brotherhood; so I have little else to do but lounge in the sun waiting for some nightmare from the Underdark to realize I'm still alive and take a moment to rectify its oversight, and catch up on my correspondence.

I hope you don't mind if I'm brief about our exploits - I'm still not sure that writing to you is proper or even legal. Besides, I would just as soon forget the entire mission. Have you ever, all of the sudden, found out something about yourself that you never realized before? It seems that over the last few years I'm learning more and more about myself, and liking it less and less. One of the things I've discovered is that I'm absolutely terrified of being caught outside in the dark while nine-feet-tall hooked and fanged monsters cast about yards away, searching for me. I couldn't escape the damn things - invisibility, nondetection - none of it worked against them. It was like one of those nightmares you have as a kid, when you wake up sweating and lying frozen in bed, afraid that if you move "it" will get you. Except I couldn't wake up - all I could do was run.

We teleported blindly into the Underdark with one of the FB's 'teleport without error' scrolls (I'm afraid my future with the FB has come to an end after I blew up at our handler, Georgia, over her demand that we pay for the scroll! - and I'd been doing so well about keeping my temper). As you might expect, the fighting ensued immediately - derro on hook horrors, derro on acid-wielding, spell-deflecting jade spiders, priests, mages and of course the manscorpion who was orchestrating the whole thing. We were completely surrounded, managing to buy ourselves only a brief minute or two of breathing space between each sortie. Simon went charging off alone and Sindarion cowered in a corner, leaving the rest of us far too undermanned for such a battle. I think almost all of us were knocked unconscious at least once during the first forty-five minutes of nonstop combat. Simon ended up in the main room with the manscorpion Baf-Mahk and his minions, locked away from us by a wall of force. Laurie was concerned, so I gave him my paints to create a portal through the wall while we held off the forces in the hallway. I understand he and Sin charged in at about the same time Simon was polymorphed into a sand flounder and began to suffocate. Laurie raced in, snatched him up from under the noses of our enemies, and tossed him to Callous, who was just arriving on the scene. Sindarion cowered behind, and Laurie was slain while Callous was dispelling Simon's polymorph.

The more I watch your brother, the more I approve of him. He and I have very different ways of doing things - for one thing, he's very straightforward about what he does and says, while I'm quite cautious - but other than his odd patience with Sindarion's idiocy, I can find little fault with him. Do you know how few people I can say that about?

We cleared out the room and Baf-Mahk teleported away. I escried him and saw him rounding up the reinforcements, then entering the unscryable temple area. Badly wounded and spell-depleted, we had no choice but to pursue, charging straight into a dead-end and another horde of monsters. I won't go into all of the details; I can't, I hardly remember much more than the constant gouts of blood and bursts of spellfire. The wall of force in front of the temple doorway finally fell and we burst in, only to encounter the manscorpion's projected image, which blasted us. I dropped, Danny dropped, and everyone else was staggering. Nicholas managed to wraithform himself and me, and we recovered as Simon charged through the image and into the next room, where the real manscorpion was hiding. Callous followed close on your husband's heels, and dragged him out by the scruff of his neck, sealing off the room with a stone-shape. That only bought us a few minutes to skirmish with the hook horrors, a spell-casting jade ettercap and a couple of derro priests or mages before Baf-Mahk managed to reach us via another hallway and attack. We were driven back again by his spells. He survived one of my phantasmal killers, but I managed to kill him with another just as he was about to teleport away again.

I erased a few spells from Laurie's spellbooks to hide us away a little beyond the temple in order to rest and rememorize. Callous raised Laurie, who seemed little the worse for wear, although he did give Sindarion a (well-deserved) cold shoulder. Nicholas spoke to the manscorpion's dead body and discovered what we would have to do to complete our mission and find the way out of the Underdark. Sixteen hours later we set off again, wiping out more jade spiders and managing to kill the ettercap controlling them, retrieving the people we'd gone in after. We couldn't close the Underdark portal ourselves, so we finally left to consult High Command about our options.

It was a brutal mission, but we took some gold and magic items, and I have acquired a jade spider that I polymorphed into a cat - I call it "Spider" and have cantripped it bright green. I know, I know - since when have I been a pet person? I don't know. I guess I'm getting soft in my old age. At any rate, Nicholas took Spider back to my house in Glenzor for me, so I suppose it'll really just end up being my servants' pet, after all.

At the moment, the company's mission options are still open. We talked a bit to Georgia when we got back to Danny's camp. She brought along a priest to restore your brother back to full health and suggested that if we wanted to take another mission for the FB, she'd arrange for another group to explore and seal off the rest of the Underdark. The new mission would take us into Arthenon, working for dragons again. I was -am - suspicious about a Glenzor military unit being sent into elven territory, and asked for assurance that our orders were approved by the king - his seal on the command scroll, perhaps. Georgia began to hem and haw and mutter about tension between the Brotherhood and the government - surprise, surprise. Everyone else seemed interested in the mission, but I won't go until I'm certain that this isn't some sort of ruse for treason. I may be a mercenary, but I'm a royalist mercenary.

So - most of the company has gone back to Glenzor. Danny and Callous can't go, since they're still under direct orders from a superior here in the field. I won't go, since they're both here. I may refuse this next mission if Georgia can't requisition the two of them for us. I like your brother well enough, but the thought of travelling with the rest of this pack of lunatics - Sindarion the coward, Simon the mad and Nicholas the grim - without Danny or Callous to lead us sounds particularly stomach-turning. I don't want to be in charge, and you know that's where I'd end up; Laurie is too inexperienced, Nicholas is too touchy and the rest are simply too unreliable. We need a lawful to keep us in line, that's all there is to it, and there's only one lawful I'll allow to order me around, and only one other lawful I'd consider allowing to order me around!

At any rate, there's nothing for me to do now but wait and see. Write back sometime; Danny made me take the scarf back now that we're out of danger (as if anyone is ever really out of danger, but try convincing an LG idealist of that!), but if you send a letter along it'll eventually get to me while I'm changing clothes or something. I don't know how long it'll take the FB to sort out our orders and for me to finally make up my mind, but it looks like I'll have a few days with nothing better to do but keep an eye on things here and work on my chess game.

Mikhael