Let's get caught up, shall we?
My Dear Talna,
I hope this letter finds you well. Actually, if I'm being honest I hope this letter finds you at all. It has been some time since I last saw you, outside of Sorzen's tower as things were falling apart. And if what I've learned is true, and I've every reason to believe it is, it has been even longer for you.
I apologize for taking so long to write to you. Things have been very hectic. My thoughts are a bit jumbled as well, I've barely had time to write in my own journal, but I wanted to send you an update. Or realistically, hand it to you personally. Or possibly you might find it someday on my corpse. But I should not be maudlin, as we actually have finally accomplished the first part of our gods-given task and slain a beholder.
Perhaps I should begin when I last saw you. I do not remember if Fei destroyed the tower before or after you left, but apparently in an attempt to teach Balazar some humility, she ended up in a mid-air battle with him and Pip Squeak, which became more serious than she had intended. The top floor of the tower ended up flying through the air, smashing Balazar. I'm afraid we could not save him from that. Fei made it out alive, and Pip as well, though we last saw him running into the forest. The tower itself fell in on itself shortly after that.
I did Balazar all the honors I could do a fallen comrade, and there is a small cairn in the vicinity of his demise. Ironically, life did not get more straightforward without him. The very night you left, we met a traveling bard named Whistle who decided to join us. Her knowledge about the world we are in has been very helpful, though I have felt uncomfortable putting her in such peril. And then the next morning another Champion appeared named Sy. Sy was some sort of elf with horns, which was startling, but her magic and her conviction were strong and she had been sent by the same gods that brought us here in the first place. Together we followed a group of the kobolds who meant to report to the beholder in an attempt to find its lair.
As you might expect, things did not go smoothly. First we came upon a village in the woods. The kobolds insisted they were given use of the town for the night. In spite of my attempts to use money to make this worth while for the townspeople, the town was deserted when the kobolds arrived anyway. Turned out to be a good thing when beholder cultists attacked us and the inn burned down. Then we followed the kobolds to a cave entrance. We stumbled around inside, meeting a rabbit folk named Poppy who accompanied us. Poppy mostly came along I think because he did not have any means to leave after a fight with a troll before we found him. While exploring the cave we managed to alert all of the bugbears, minotaurs and trolls in the area, and ended up both sneaking around and also killed all the enemies who came at us. This was working well enough I suppose, except that we lost track of the kobolds and the bugbears started working to cave in the ceiling on us. Things came to a head when we had explosive barrels being hurled at us, and some intense flames caught that dragon egg Cass had been carrying. You remember the egg? The one we found in the cart of the kobold Pip murdered? Well it hatched. And the hatchling promptly spat out... something, a portal or something, and the next thing we knew, we were in a forest.
Don't worry, things went downhill from here.
Fei was able to contact some of her druid friends, and it turned out we were somehow both in the northern forests of the world, and also six months in the future. Everybody assumed we were dead. I'm sure you did too. Then the forest tried to kill us. Apparently giant redwood trees with some level intelligence don't take kindly to having their branches used to carve quarterstaves, and they can use thin branches to attempt to choke you. We finally made peace with the forest (uneasy peace, to be sure) after talking to a massive treant guardian, and learned that the forest was being slowly destroyed by an army of slimes. The kinds of slimes you find in dungeons that will eat anything that comes their way. And one of them was very smart and able to use magic.
We decided to save the forest. Fei wanted to, and I also agreed it was the right thing to do, but we'd need a plan. The red intelligent slime that commanded the others somehow was able to regenerate so quickly, and adapt to attacks thrown at it, that we figured we'd need to suspend it in the air to keep it from feeding off the ground. Fortunately, the treant told us there was a series of caverns underneath the forest. If we could sneak under the slime, and collapse the ground under it, we could potentially hold it in place? I get a little lost in the details, but Sy, Whistle and Fei all seemed to think magic could work here.
Underground things got even more complicated when we met a ratfolk. Like Pip, only not as aggressively forceful. It seemed he was the last of a large city of ratfolk (once we got to talk to him properly instead of scaring him away). It turned out his whole city had been petrified a long time ago by a beholder. And the ratfolk had imprisoned the red slime in the first place in a magical box. So our problems were solved, right? Well, this ratfolk did not know where the box was.
Naturally we investigated, and stumbled upon some beholders in a pit not far off. We killed them hoping the ratfolk would revert to normal, but that didn't seem to work. Fei was able to revive their king however, which was promising, right until he started calling for a dragon? And then he was murdered by a prisoner they'd been holding, along with our friendly ratfolk guide. It was a strange episode.
Did I mention Sy found a golden hammer that kept her soul inside of it? I suppose that's not important anymore.
To cut a long story short, there was a dragon. Turned out what the beholders had petrified was the dragon, not the ratfolk. So the dragon woke up, and came demanding something or another. I'm not sure what, because Whistle, Arnick and I had fled by that point. The first I saw of the dragon it was flying through the air holding Sy and Fei, and as I watched it melted Sy. Fei sacrificed herself to knock the dragon out using the same method that had worked against Balazar, and we fled. Vivi's timely arrival and ability to teleport us all away proved very fortunate, else I'm not sure we would have made it away.
By this point I was getting frustrated with losing people, but here is where Cass informed us Sy's soul was in the hammer. So that was good news at least. Vivi had teleported us back to the grove where we lost Elle, and we took some time to mourn our losses again. As we began to feel better again, we met two more traveling Champions, Trick and Wretch. They decided to accompany us as well, and we set off back to the beholder's cave, stopping by the kobold village and the remains of Sorzen's tower along the way. (The kobolds had apparently broken with the beholder, and painted themselves green so as not to be kobolds anymore, but lizards? I adore their little minds, but they are confusing sometimes.)
Unfortunately, the cave was abandoned. We were able to find where the kobolds had disappeared the week before/months ago when we were last there, however; a massive stone portal. Vivi, Whistle and Trick were able to figure out how to reactivate the portal, when disaster struck again. Wretch had found a bag of holding on the corpse of a mimic earlier in the cave, and inside was a bottle. Upon opening the bottle, we were all hit by a powerful anti-magic field, deactivating the portal... and extinguishing all our magic items for a time. Including Sy's hammer. So Sy is gone. This is why I hesitated even mentioning the hammer.
Trick was still able to open the portal with his potions though, which somehow survived the blast. Unfortunately he opened it just as Wretch went to help. When we reached the other side, we found Wretch's thrown potion, which had gone through the suddenly open portal, had exploded in a fireball. And far from finding ourselves in a beholder's lair, we were in green fields near a large vivid forest. And a satyr was running away. Wretch sheepishly admitted the potion had killed a second satyr.
Talna, I was asking myself why I was traveling with these people several times a day by this point. If not for the glory and the promise of both saving this world and returning to my own... but I digress.
We soon found out we were in the Feywild, outside a city called Silvery Walls. And Wretch (and Cass, who was second out the portal) were wanted for murder. Also, Arnick had been taking some sort of addictive potions, and collapsed while shopping,
Because I was rushing Arnick to a healer, and then Vivi took me to their base camp for a break (they insisted) I didn't see the trial, but when I got back it seemed Trick had been promised land in the fey wild, and Wretch and Cass would be let off their charges, if we slew a dragon. So that is what we set out to do. Or rather, something like it. We decided it would be better if the dragon simply left the area, to satisfy the city, but that once Trick acquired the land he would allow the dragon back.
As we traveled Wretch, Trick and Cass had some shenanigans with giant beans, but don't worry, we didn't climb the beanstalk. We did soon reach a village of kobolds living near the mountain where the dragon supposedly lived though. These kobolds were both different and the same as the ones on this side of the portal. One of them seemed to be the dragon's messenger, so we sent messages entreating a meeting. We were rebuffed, but then we followed the kobold messenger anyway. (It turned out this particular kobold was a fairy dragon in disguise. I do find myself more fascinated by my larger kin as I learn more about them. Well, in this case fairy dragons are much smaller than me, but you get the idea.)
We were eventually allowed to meet the dragon, which went much better than the black dragon above the redwood forest went. This one was much more willing to negotiate. It turns out the dragon had a magic lamp that would grant anyone three wishes, and this was the object the city actually wanted, its rulers stoking fear of the dragon as an excuse. The dragon also did not want to uproot itself and its kobold followers on account of the city (a feeling I rather understand) and so we reached a compromise. The dragon would allow Trick's claim to the land if we used just a single wish to prevent it from being troubled by the city. This task fell to me, and despite the genie of the lamp offering me more, I stuck with the script I wrote and only wished that the people of the city forget that the lamp and the dragon existed entirely.
And that was our adventures in the Feywild! We returned to the city having accomplished our goal, and though the rulers were fuzzy on the details suddenly, they allowed Wretch and Cass to leave with their heads attached to their bodies. Trick now claims land in the Feywild as his own, and hired adventurers to climb the beanstalk. Of course, then we used the portal to return to our world, and this time we activated it correctly in order to reach the beholder's lair at long last.
Talna, it was one of the creepiest places I have ever been. The walls and floors were all covered in this strange fleshy substance, and if you cut through that an eye would appear, staring at you before hurling a magical beam of some kind. Ask me how I know.
We fought off some of the beholder's minions, but were soon saved by Rock, who took us to his own lair within the beholder's lair.
Did you ever meet Rock? You may have left before he... appeared. So, go back to Sorzen's tower, as you leave and the tower falls. Arnick stuck the soul stone we got with Elle and the Old One's souls into the body of a recently deceased kobold... and the three souls combined to become Rock. Rock is a delightful if terrifying person, with the personality and emotional maturity of a kobold, the curiosity and care for family of Elle, and the horrifying powers of an elder god. After we were transported into the future, Rock stuck with Tella and the kobolds, and somehow infiltrated the beholder's lair. With his help we were able to reach the area where the beholder itself lived. (Oh, Tella is the warlock who's soul wound up in Sorzen's body due to Balazar's soul exchange trick? I think you were there for that...)
Anyway, we snuck through the corridors to the beholder's room, largely unhindered due to some clever disguises. I was rather proud of us! We fought statues of the beholder's previous victims, which was very hard for Cass, as some of them were his former party members. Then we went into the Beholder's room and engaged it in combat. And we were victorious! We finally fulfilled part of our mission! I would be more excited if Whistle hadn't died in the next fight. Whistle, our friend from this world we were trying to save, gave her all. See, after we fought the beholder, we accidentally clued its minions we had previously snuck past to our true identities, and had another difficult fight with some giants, cultists, and a death kiss beholder. And that death kiss beholder drained Whistle of her life force.
And this is where it gets complicated (as if it were ever simple for us). Before I fully realized what had happened, Wretch gave me a potion for Whistle. "I'll take responsibility for the consequences." I remember his words distinctly. Trick ended up being the one to administer it, and Whistle was alive!
Sort of. We emerged victorious, and Rock brought us back to his safe zone. And that is where I learned that the potion we had given Whistle had turned her into a vampire. She has not been taking this development very well, though she is trying her best.
After our victory, we learned from Rock that the City of Rebellion needed help, and resolved to set out to assist as we could. On our way out of the beholder's lair we met Pippy, a rabbit folk druid, who did not seem to think much of us, particularly Trick. Rock came with us too, he wanted to see his friends at the kobold "lizard" village.
We reached the village without much incident, save Pippy leaving us to go somewhere else, and Rock excitedly introduced us to his friend the Lizard Wizard. Whom I had just learned Arnick and Cass had stolen from the last time we were there. Apparently Arnick attempted to get Sorzen's soul stone from the wizard, and they had not parted amicably. I made them read a scripted apology, which the wizard accepted grudgingly. We didn't see him long however before an emergency in the village called him away, and we were left with Rock and a few other kobolds. At this point, Trick performed a magic trick for reasons I still do not understand. And, as you may guess, things got complicated.
The trick involved planting a magic bean. And instead of a beanstalk... we found ourselves inside a massive black pyramid. Without Arnick and Wretch, but with several applauding kobolds. Getting out was a task. There were mummies and giant insects and a manticore, and also many traps. I regret that we lost several of the kobolds, despite my best efforts to protect them. Finally, we reached the mummy lord who ruled the pyramid... who was holding Sorzen's soul stone. So the pyramid had come to us, rather than the other way around. We attempted to negotiate our exit, but the talks fell through when he basically demanded we all become his undead servants instead, and we ended up in a fight with him, and also his sphinx servant. I used an anti magic jar Rock had given me to allow us to win the fight, but Sorzen's soul stone is no longer active, so I'm afraid we've lost Sorzen forever.
And when we left the pyramid, we also learned that Whistle had accidentally turned one of the kobolds into a vampire.
And then Arnick somehow burned the whole village down and killed everyone there except Rock and a kobold thief.
Rock was understandably upset. I am still unclear on the details, and also unclear on what exactly happened next. Somehow... Trick managed to excise the soul of the elder god from Rock's body? And now it is actually Elle in there, along with Rock. It was very strange having two people speaking with the same mouth... but Arnick was very happy to have his sister back. And having never really signed on for the whole save the world thing, he left, along with Elle/Rock. Vivi helped, teleporting them back to their own world (I think, we haven't seen Vivi since then).
And so we are moving on to the City of Rebellion. I am happy I finally had a chance to write this to you, and I hope one day soon I will have the chance to give it to you, and also to hear how you have been.
Your companion,
Sadun
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