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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(contact)" data-source="post: 1134" data-attributes="member: 41">19-- "Our honorable dead shall not lie still / But return soon enough to our embrace / In an unknown figure familiar filled / Wearing, all the same, a stranger's face."The party has defeated the Bugbears in the lake fortress, but at a great price.  Both Indy and Gorquen are dead.  After carefully preparing and gathering their remains, it is determined that the green and red gelatinous goop in Indy's pouch are, in fact, Vognu's mortal remains.Alas, fair Vognu, a prince amongst toads.The group determines that in their current state, the fortress is un-defensible, and after looting the place, they cross the lake once again to search for a less conspicuous base-camp.  What they find is both comforting and frightening.In the valley that brushes up against the mountain lake, the party quickly spots signs of humanoid activity.  They encounter strange, heavily tattooed elves, who speak a derivative of High Elvish unknown to any of the surviving party members.  Fortunately, the group is still able to communicate their peaceful intentions, and they are taken to the elven village.The elves have no love for the evil humanoids who currently occupy the delve, and relate the following disturbing news:  a large clan of unusually cruel stone giants also live nearby, and before the coming of the dwarves, in the youth-time of the elder elves, had made terrible war on the good-aligned humanoids in the valley.  The dwarves, however, were able to forge a peace-treaty with the giants, and even went so far as to exchange royal 'hostages' with the giants to cement their understanding.  Now the dwarves are gone, the giants in the Delve are not accounted for, and peace in the valley looks like it could well be on its last legs.  The elves are rightfully afraid that the giant 'hostages' were killed, and once the giants discover this all hell will break loose.They tell the party that they have requested the aid of the local druid, and give the group his location, reasoning that as fellow humans, the party might convince the druid to assist their cause.The party, however, has different plans for this druid--they hope to find some way to convince him to reincarnate their fallen members.The druid lives where the elves indicated, alright, in a humble shelter made from fallen wood and a strange sticky substance that looks like beeswax.The erstwhile nature-boy is, in fact, a surprisingly young man, a native Ratiksman by the look of him, and quite open to receiving strangers.  He proves to be talkative and confirms the wild elves' dire appraisal of the local situation, but steadfastly argues that politics are not his concern.His concern, he says, is his lost-love.  The druid pines for a woman that he refers to only as 'beauty' or 'morning dew' or some other equally pithy cliché.  He laments that they shared a unique love, the kind of love never known by others, the property of his wounded heart alone.  Sobbing, he points to a stack of letters that his 'rose-lipped goddess' has refused to receive.Struck by inspiration, Thelbar promises the druid that should he return Indy, Vognu and Gorquen to physical form the newly reincarnated heroes might travel to Beauty's home and convince her to visit the druid, or at least accept his letters.Using his most sincere face, Thelbar assures the druid that Indy is a renowned expert on Love and All Things Romantic.  Kyreel makes a mental note to chastise her companion for this lie, and bites her lip.The druid, his eyes red from weeping, snatches at this grain of hope and promises the party that should it bring him even the merest glimpse of his Heavenly Passion, he would reincarnate a score of adventurers!Kyreel commends his zeal in the name of Love, and the party hands over the remains of their fallen.The druid travels alone to his Holy Grove and, several hours later, returns with a halfling, a faerie-dragon and an elven woman.  "Indy?"  Kyreel asks the elf."I am Gorquen Alistral, of house Alistral, Knight of the Ahk Velar," the elf replies."Yes.  Yes, look!  Her marks--they are unchanged!" Thelbar exclaims, pointing to Gorquen's unique star-shaped birthmark."I'm Indy, you thoughtless bat!" the halfling pipes up.  "And no short jokes, you tepid motherless wastrels!  Look at me!  I can't be a halfling, I'm a revolutionary.""Well, it whines like Indy," Taran says, squinting at the diminutive rogue.The faerie-dragon hisses a sibilant trilling laugh, and then tries to bury itself in the mud, to no avail."Um, Vognu," Indy says.  "We all have to . . . adjust now.  I'm going to take up smoking a pipe and overeating, and you're going to have to stop wallowing in the . . . I know, of course you do . . . but . . ."Indy's lecture is cut off by the druid returning with a stack of letters over a foot high, neatly bound with woven-fiber twine.  "Here are my missives and poems.  Take them to my Beauty, and for the love of all that grows under the sun, bring a reply!"While Indy and Gorquen look suspiciously at the druid and his papers, the rest of the party slips out the door.  Kyreel approaches Gorquen and says, "I am sure you will do your part to aid this man, to whom you owe your new life".</blockquote>

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