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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(contact)" data-source="post: 959596" data-attributes="member: 41">Marpenoth the 26thThank the gods, they have returned for me!   The top levels are all cut from the mountain’s ice cap, they report, and directly beneath the medusa’s lair they found the home of an impressive family of frost giants.  These giants were led by a great shaman, a Dragon-Caller—this mystic hunts through a portal to an ice-world, and brings dragons of the cold under his thumb.If Merkatha can be believed, she is as crafty as she is suspicious.  The party gave battle to these giants, and several small dragons.  But flush with the victory (and perhaps light-headed from loss of blood), Merkatha ventured deeper into the giant’s lair, searching for their treasure-trove.  What she found will haunt even one so hard-bitten as herself, I wager.  She wandered into the clutches of a terrible wyrm—a frost-dragon of such great size and majesty that it certainly must be the progenitor of the dragons that fought by the side of the giants.  The creature agreed to let Merkatha go free, provided she surrendered her magic items in supplication, then went to her companions and delivered up their magic and treasure as well!  Merkatha agreed, divested herself of a fortune in hard-won magic, then took her opportunity to flee.Merkatha fetched me from my hiding place to a hidden passage within the aqueducts that feed water to the Great Delve.  There I was reunited with the band, and heard the whole of it.  Not wanting an angry dragon at our backs (or our fronts, depending on one’s orientation), Ashara determined to summon Celestial help.  She invoked an ancient contract between Lathander and the hosts of Heaven, and before my eyes an angel appeared!  I cannot specify the type with any certainty, I am a Monstrologist, not a Celestialist after all.The creature agreed to slay this dragon, but exacted a task from us in return—we are to travel directly to Storm’s Rise and kill Lord Ilthais!  We confront him on the morrow.  Ashara and Selise have formed a daring plan—we will wind walk invisibly to the Lord’s Manor, use stone-shaping magic to enter, and put everyone within to the sword!  It’s terribly frightful, but I am armed with several wands, and I hope to be of some small use.Marpenoth the 26thVictory is ours!  The Lord’s men were forewarned, undoubtedly through vile blood-divinations made in Cyric’s name.  Ilthais knew that we were the only stumbling block for his wicked hopes, and being an unusually dedicated cleric, he thought his foreknowledge might give him the advantage.  I am glad to report that he was mistaken.We set upon them, disrupting their formation by attacking from the rear of the building.  As we had planned, we opened a hole in the rear wall of the keep through magical means and achieved complete surprise.  We were able to destroy Ilthais’ reserves before his spell-casters could make themselves ready.  Once the battle was joined in earnest, we attacked each other from range at either end of the long corridor connecting the foyer and the aviary, with a general melee erupting in the center of the hallway.  Our foes seemed unable to respond effectively to the unexpected, and were forced to subject themselves to our superior archers in order to target us with spells.  Vai was our first and only casualty, and she fell holding the center of the hall, and keeping the Lord’s skirmishers off of our archers and spellcasters.Lord Ilthais’ blackguard proved a true bully—a mean-spirited paper tiger.  His terrifying aspect brought our combined attentions to bear, and I swear before the Gods that the man died before he was able to cause any harm.  His fall seemed to finish off whatever thin morale the Lord’s henchmen had left.  Soon the Lord was left to face the Gods’ judgement and our wrath alone.  Ilthais was a terrible foe, and he called down death magics in the name of Cyric the way another man might scream curses at his enemies during a tavern-brawl, but we were triumphant.When the sun set this evening, it set with the Lady Tess on the throne of Storm’s Rise once again!  Praise Oghma, and praise Lathander!The Mantle of Imiablulb is gone back to the Stonelands, in the possession of the hobgoblins we allied with, and there may it remain. Uktar the 3rdIt has been less than a week, and I fear that the taste of our victory has gone to ashes in my mouth.  Ashara, her man Baeren and the wizardess Bitzfit have fallen within the delve.  To compound our trouble, we have had dire tidings of the war—our Southern forces are surrounded by Vesper Hall dwarves, and Cormyr looks soon to fall.  The Hullackswood has fallen, although remnants of the Northern Cormyrian army use it as a base for small-band skirmishing, and Selise means to return to defend her ancestral seat.  The Lady Tess travels with her, over my most stern objections.  She has left me as seneschal and regent, but I administer a thin and sparse winter-town.  We will wait out the snows as free Cormyrians, but I do not know what the Spring might bring.I for one, will never set foot again within Kor’En Eamor so long as I shall live, so do I swear.The Delve has destroyed our band, Storm’s Rise has been made a ghost-town, and should Ceredain Deathcaller awaken and turn her gaze to us, there are none left to oppose her.  May Oghma guide my hand, and may He bear witness to the truths I have transcribed herein.Thus ends this journal and monster-log, transcribed in its entirety by the Revered Helman Fith of Oghma, in the Year of the Long Night.</blockquote>

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