Xen’drik is a lovely place, if you don’t mind rainstorms that you could set a water clock by, mosquitoes enough to choke a dragon, and ambushes from native tribes of lizardmen who hate anything not covered in scales. At least the elves have been friendly thus far.
We arrived a few days ago in New Wroat and met Xilonen. I confess to being a little scandalized by the various states of undress in which the natives carry out their daily labors. That’s not to say that it doesn’t make good sense in this climate. Apparently Xen’drik is the birthplace of the elves, and the dark elves (or “drow” as Xilonen calls them) were the ones who did not go to Aerenal.
It was Xilonen that informed the Dean of the students’ disappearance, as they failed to check in with him at the appointed time. He traveled with the caravans of the giants in the deserts. Yuan-ti and lizardfolk are great dangers in these jungles. (How strange it is to write these things and have them be real. It all sounds like a great fey-spun tale to a Brelander like me.) Gerron and I made contact with our family members in New Wroat. I’m not exactly sure how I am related to Joshua d’Cannith, but he has gone well-nigh native. His house is packed with oddities that he has used for his crafting, for want of the normal components. He asked that we find some broadleaf, an herb that grows in the wilds. Gerron’s contact instructed him to keep an eye out for Siberys dragonshards.
We equipped ourselves with a great deal of mosquito netting and such, at Xilonen’s instruction. He did not, on the other hand, bother to mention that we would need hammocks, even though we asked him directly what we would need. I’m really quite amazed at how often that happens – we ask someone for information on a topic, and they overlook the most important aspect. The druids of the Eldeen Reaches were the worst about this by far, but it’s a recurring pattern. I suspect that it will only get worse as we go.
As we traveled, it rained. We saw a curious bright light, possibly fire, on the side of a cliff in the distance. I didn’t catch the name of the first drow village that we came to, but the chief’s name was Mixtli – just my best guess on spelling. We had not been in the village for more than half an hour when the chief’s hut went up in flames. Once the fire was extinguished, we asked them all the questions that we could think to ask. They knew nothing of the fire’s cause and seemed ready to pretend nothing had happened, even though such burnings had been going on for some time.
Gerron, Maeve, and I supported the idea of going to the fire in the hills to see if it was the cause; Fel thought it a waste of time and an unnecessary risk. He’s not exactly wrong, but it is a chance to help people and perhaps improve Morgrave University’s reputation in a small way. Of course, with our luck, it will be an elaborate plot by another group of wicked Khyber cultists seeking to sacrifice all that lives and breathes to their dark god, or something. I mean, we can’t even go to an observatory without getting jumped by hordes of undead and a beholder. The family business would probably even find a way to be a constant threat to life and limb, at this point.
That night, we learned the use and necessity of hammocks. The guide didn’t mention them because he can sleep up in a tree. Lot of good that does me. I should learn Rope Trick, but I didn’t have time to learn the spells that I could afford, much less those I couldn’t. I hate the feeling of bumbling from one disaster to the next.
This morning, we were ambushed by a group of lizardmen. They hurled down javelins from the treetops. I sent Gerron into the trees after them, with the aid of a Wind Dancing spell. A Shockwave took out one of them. I’m kicking myself afterward, of course, as there were much more efficient ways to deal with that one, instead of wasting one of my most powerful spells for the day on it. On the bright side, the spell knocked it unconscious rather than killing it, and it survived the fall to the ground. I questioned it briefly in Draconic before ending its life. It said, “The Burning Sun will seek its vengeance.” This vengeance comes because we are not scaled. Bleeding great.
I write this while sitting near a ravine, waiting for Gerron and Fel to finish examining the long-neglected rope bridge that spans it. I plan to use my Feline Grace spell to make it a little easier for me to cross, but there’s nothing I can do to help the others. There’s also my lone cantrip of repair, which will be better than nothing. The limitations on our resources frustrate me once again – my instructors taught their classes on spellcasting and such with a base assumption of nigh-unlimited resources, which is even funnier when you consider that I was trained at Morgrave, home of one curiously tight-fisted dean.
Some questions that remain:
What else has Xilonen forgotten to mention? What is the source of the fire on the hillside? How many more things will try to kill us between here and there? Is that fire the Burning Sun that the lizardman was talking about, or is there something more that will come out and eat us?
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This update comes after one session with no entry, as there was no combat and little in the way of conflict. The events of that session were folded into this entry. The most recent session ran past the end of this entry, but things began happening very quickly and there was no point at which Teagan might have sat down to write in his journal.
I hope other people are enjoying reading this. The pageviews count creeps upward, so there's more than just me.
