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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kayne" data-source="post: 1123484" data-attributes="member: 13153">Miles' Journal - Part NineteenChes 26th - Our rest was interrupted near the end of second watch by a drow attack usiong a lot of spells to back their assault including a vast illusion that thoroughly fooled me into thinking that half of the area we were camped in was actually a think jungle! We were beset by a well co-ordinated, if overly eager group, comprising a drow blackguard no less, a large displacer beast and two of those skinless undead elf things, plus a cleric and a wizard (who remained invisible throughout the battle), both of whom managed to escape when we turned the tide. their companions were not so fortunate, though we were hard pressed to beat them and again I was nearly felled in battle. These attack on us are escalting in their ferocity it would seem.I have to wonder, and I know I am not alone in the group in doing so, as to why the drow continue to hurl themselves at us again and again. there must be more to this than us stopping them raiding Daggerdale, as by my count they have now taken a few dozen losses thus far, which must weigh heavily on the mind of whoever is directing these assaults. Perhaps it is wounded pride that drives their continued onslaught now, but I do not believe so. clearly they feel that some objective will be fulfilled by dealing with us and freeing up the route back to the surface. Quite what they hope to gain from sacking villages and slaughtering peasants though is beyond me. I know only that I will not permit them to do so, the people of Daggerdale have suffered enough. If their continued peace and safetuy means I must slay every drow under this part of the world than that is what I shall do!That done, we decided on a tactical withdrawal to Dagger Falls to rid ourselves of the bulk of the equipment we have taken from the drow we have slain in the past few days, in this ongoing tit for tat struggle. We took the liberty to destroy all of their traps on our way out, Halbrinn using his forceball to "hamster ball" himself through them all without any effect to himself. I have no idea what a hamster is, but Halbrinn claims they are a sort of rodent. He did not elaborate on what a ball has to do with one of these creatures and I'm not sure I want to know. the place made safe again, we headed out of the crypts, into the evening outside... and the icy rain which was bucketing it down as though some divine power for a joke had dropped the Moonsea itself on us! Halbrinn immediately teleported back to his house in Dagger Falls without so much as a seconds hesitation, and the rest of the group all seemed to have some means or other to stay dry (well apart from Yvgeny who didn't seem to mind the rain at all. By Mask these Damarans are a strange bunch, he was actually smiling and making comment about how mild the weather was!). I on the other hand got soaked to the skin and was thoroughly miserable by the time I got back to my room in the barracks.Ches 27th - Adamo spent a large part of the morning and early afternoon casting a spell to identify the various items we had gathered and we then took the stuff we didn't want (which was a lot of it!) to the Thayans, getting a lot of money in return, most of which we then spent there on various improvements to our equipment. I paid a princely sum for the enchantments on my chain shirt and protection ring to be enhanced to better protect me in the frequent battles I am fighting, as I am sick and tired of being taken out a fight so quickly as has been happening increasingly often of late.Ches 28th to Tarsakh 7th -  Rest up as my items are upgraded, and the rest of the party take the time to improive themselves or in Halbrinns case his house, adding a new room to it for the purpose of a dedicated room to teleport into he says. After ending up in thetyr on my only attempt at teleportation I can appreciate his foresight in building a place that will be easy to visualise. I made a customary report to Respen and there learned a couple interesting things. The skinless undead elves we have been fighting are named Quth Maren and are formed by a powerful ritual. I also learned that the drow wearing the white tabards are not servants of Lolth, but of a rival drow deity called Kiaransalee. Otherwise known as the Revenancer, this bitch goddess makes Lolth seem positively nice by comparison, and it seems her minions have designs on the surface for whatever foul reason. On informing the Crusaders of these details i can say that our resolve now is doubled, we will not stop until we have eradicated her followers and stymied whatever plan it is they are devising.Tarsakh 8th - We trudged back to the crypts early this morning to continue in our quest, arriving at about noon to find that the doors had not been closed and locked this time. Perhaps the drow have realised the futility of trying to keep us out. they had filled in a stone wall though to try and block off the acess to the caves below, but we easily got past that. We made our way down to our usual campsite and found our way blocked by another stone wall. We then decided to rest up until tomorrow when Yvgeny can open a hole in the wall (as he did the one above) with one of his spells, he only having memorised the one of them today.Tarsakh 9th - We woke up, readied ourselves and Yvgeny cast his spell to no effect! It was then that Grim and I noticed that the part of the wall that the drow had added (the rest having been put there by Adamo a while back to strengthen this position), wa sin fact an illusion. Yvgeny however was convinced that the wall was real and punched it to prove the point, his fist passing through and hitting the web that filled the space... and setting off the fireball trap attached to it, roasting himself and Grim, though the rest of us escaped unscathed, which is more than can be said for the small army of skeletons on the far side of the wall who were blasted to shards by the blast. No doubt they had been left there to slow us down in the event we dispelled our way through the illusion, web and trap so that drow from below could get up the webs to attack us while we were still occupied.Halbrinn then set off to recon the webs in the chasm, discovering that the guard post we had cleared out not long back was still vacant and then he found a tunnel further down in the chasm. We headed down but lost track of Halbrinn on the way as he was invisible and we were travelling in a zone of silence (courtesy of Yvgeny) to mask the sounds of our armour clinking.We entered the corridor in the side of the chasm and headed along it a short way until we saw a large octagonal room with black walls and a high ceiling. It was then that we saw Halbrinn as he unleashed a fireball at the other doorway leading out of the room, appearing as he did so, and we were stright into a battle with several spellcasters. The air was filled with the tang of unleashed sorcery as a half dozen of them faced off against four of us (Aeron and Adamo hanging back in case we got attacked from behind, as we are bear the bottom of the chasm and we really didn't want to end up getting surrounded in this corridor). Though powerful in magic, they were clearly inexperienced in combat, and we slaughtered them in short order. It was then, as we were about to behead the corpses (to prevent them being turned into Quth Maren, that a voice boomed out telling us to stop. So we stopped.The source of the voice turned out to be a drow wizard, who introduced himself as the Archmage of Szith Morcane (a nearby drow town it seems and the likely point of origin of these attacks on the surface). He proposed a pact of sorts. If we ensure that we leave his home (this area of the caves) alone and stop others from interfering with him also, then he will withdraw his support for the cult of Kiaransalee who it seems are the power in the town. In effect this would remove arcane spellcasters (or most of them anyway) from the ranks of the cults defenders, making our job much easier. On behalf of Daggerdale I agreed to his terms and I will see to it that the Crusaders comply with them, even Grim who has a near fanatical hatred of the drow will leave this one alone. We were also unable to loot the fallen wizards, his apprentices it seems, though he wasn't that angry at their demise, referring to them as "having been lacking". Clearly schooling is vicious in drow society!---------------------------------------------------------------------Right thats us brought bang up to date now, will teach me to get so far behind! Lets have some comments from our readers (if we have any)!!</blockquote>

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