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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SelcSilverhand" data-source="post: 3863202" data-attributes="member: 30016">It takes hours of careful examination of the sodden pages to recover the damaged entries in the journal. The benefit of experience in copying ancient books back at the University helps an otherwise insurmountable task. You work well into the wee hours of the morning before you are satisfied with your work. The early parts of the journal are largely what you expected from your initial report. Brother Oallie, a dragonmarked member of House Tharask, set out with twenty men from Cliffscrape aboard the ship "Red Waters".  Oallie was chasing a rumor that a fishing vessel saw a meteorite fell from the sky and impact somewhere on Traglorn Isle. Though he mentions in his own journal that a siberys shard shower falling this far north is highly unlikely, his interview with the ships crew gave him confidence that a larger than normal chunk from the ring had fallen, potentially worth an immeasurable amount. The entries become more infrequent once the ship reaches the island, but each contains tantalizing information.He describes Traglorn Isle as a beautiful, and dangerous place. The shores are rocky, barren, and slope sharply upward to the rim of a volcanic crater. The slopes were covered in lush jungle foliage. He made landfall on the northernmost shore in a deep, sheltered bay. It took his expedition a couple of days to find a suitable path up the mountainside. Once they crested the top, they had a breathtaking view of the interior. The volcanic crater stretched several miles across, and the entire interior was filled with a thick jungle. The southern end of the crater is lower and slopes downward, spreading out into a wider region with heavily forested ridges. The jungle interior was dark, humid, and filled with all manner of dangerous animals. Snakes, bloodthirsty insects, and large reptiles. The expedition was prepared for these hazards and had little difficulty with them.They scoured the crater for nearly a week before finally locating the impact site. Oallie excitedly describes the crater as being filled with siberys shards and more scattered throughout the jungle surrounding it. He found that some of the shards in the crater had unusual properties. Some of them became attuned to certain magical spells and augmented them, while others gave strength or bound themselves to metal objects. His expedition was working on packing up as many of the shards as possible when disaster struck. A skeletal monster, unlike any creature Oallie had ever seen, attacked the camp. Nearly half of his expedition crew were killed in the initial assault. They were barely able to destroy the creature. Oallie examined the creature to try and determine what it had once been. Inside its ribcage, attached to the spine by carefully wrapped sinew, was a large eberron dragonshard. The skeleton itself was also unusual, the bones were not fresh but had been fossilized indicating they had lain in the earth for a long, long time. Oallie took the shard and one of the arm bones along with as many shards as he could carry. He sent out scouts to find a safe path back to the ship. Several hours later they returned and reported that they had found another expedition site on the crater wall. A large number of humans and humanoids were busy excavating the rock. From the mining site they saw massive bones being removed from the earth.Oallie and what was left of his team fled the crater back to the ship. Along the way they were harried by an unseen menace in the jungle, and he lost more men before reaching the safety of the ship. They set sail for Cliffscrape immediately. His final, hurried entry notes that the lookout had spotted several sails on the horizon rounding the eastern edge of the island, and headed in their direction.</blockquote>

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