The Journal of Heelie Faes

I do not know where I am. I… don’t think I am still in Southern Shara. The people here speak a tongue I should not understand, so why do I.

I need to remain composed. I HAVE to be composed.

My name is Heelie Faes. I am a level 70 Priest. I am the healer of the adventuring party “Blame The Healer”.

I am alive at the moment. I am alive. I am

I woke on top of stone, surrounded by what I can tell is an arrangement of standing stones. It is cold. Colder than anything I ever felt in Frost Reach.

I made my way to the nearest settlement. A kindly couple saw the state of me and opened their door. It seems the people here might still recognise the gods on my robes.

That is a good start. I need rest. I need to think.

I dreamed. I do not think it will be the last time.

It began at Ice Throne. The cold. The dungeon. Hellen.

Hasmina’s sister. What Dakuryon… had done to her. We went in knowing what had to be done.

We had planned this raid for weeks. Every position. Every moment. The plan was sound.

Everything was going well until Sabranak and Frygaras came through the wall. The two dracoloths belong to the Screaming Snowfield. They had no business inside Dakuryon’s throne. Something drove them inward and we had no time to reorganise our plans.

The party held for as long as we could, but slowly we were being cornered.

Valen went down first. Ignis was next. Pippin tried to raise a wall around us so I could resurrect them, but she was a step too late. I could not cancel my cast. I could only watch as the claws pierced her body. I remembered thinking my time was next as Frygaras raised its claw, but then

I woke up on the floor. It was still dark. I did not go back to sleep.

Edvar and Hilda let me sit by their fire this morning without asking questions. I am grateful for that mercy.

They are old fishing folk. They know every corner of this town and every person in it.

This is Dougan’s Hole. It sits on the shore of a lake called Redwaters. The region is Icewind Dale. The land is called Faerûn. None of these words mean anything to me yet, but I wrote them down so they will.

The lake is frozen solid. Has been for longer than it should be, they said. The fishers cut holes in the ice now to reach the knucklehead trout beneath. The shorter pier is broken. The longer one still stands but the boats are locked in ice.

They fed me. I ate. It tasted nothing like anything I know, but I ate.

They told me not to mistake the people here for unkind. The cold does things to a place. Makes people short. Makes them hard at the edges. It is not malice. It is what surviving here costs.

I understand that.

I asked them about the symbols on my robes. They did not recognise the gods they reference, but they understood it was the shape of a kind faith. That was enough for them to open the door. I will not forget their kindness.

I did not dream last night. I was too exhausted.

Edvar slipped on the ice outside this morning. Without much of a thought, my hands moved. The divine answered. His wrist mended. What does this mean? Am I still connected to the gods of Arborea?

Edvar stared at my hands for a short moment, before thanking me and heading inside.

Hilda made me tea after. I heard them talking quietly in the other room. I did not recognise the word they used for me, but I do not think it was unkind.

They have a small shelf of books. I asked if I could read them. They said yes.

Nothing in those books is hopeful. These Ten Towns were not always buried like this. The cold came and did not leave. The summers stopped returning. The people here remember warmth. They are not certain they will see it again.

That explains the weight I see in their faces.

Barakas are not mentioned anywhere. Not once.

It happened again. Same wall. Same collapse.

I got up.

Outside it was dark. Truly dark. But the sky was clear and the stars were out in numbers I have never seen. I stood there for a long time.

I looked for something familiar. I found nothing.

Highwatch’s sky was never like this. The Storm Barrier took most of it. What little we could see was broken up by cloud and mountain. I never thought to miss it.

I stayed outside until the light changed. It was cold enough that even I felt it settle deep.

Hilda was already up when I came back in. She handed me a cloth without a word and we cleaned the house together.

I think she understood I needed something to do with my hands. I did not argue.

Edvar suggested I go outside today. Hilda agreed, and recommended I keep my hood up.

The village is small. Smaller than I expected from inside the house. A cluster of buildings around two piers, one of which is visibly broken. The lake beyond is completely white. I could not tell where the ice ended and the sky began.

Hilda was right that I would attract attention. I do not blend in.

The people stared. I did not blame them.

I noticed the faces of the villagers. A good number of them shared the same misshapen ears, the same unusually sharp teeth. A priest learns not to show reaction to such things. I showed none.

Edvar stopped at a door and requested I wait outside while he spoke to whoever was within. I obliged.

After a short while he appeared in the doorway and waved me in.

Edvar’s warning, it seems, did not quite prepare Osbert for my actual appearance. The way his jaw dropped when he first saw me was rather comical. Despite that initial moment, he was very cordial. We talked for a long time.

He invited me to come back whenever I felt like it. He also mentioned he may be moving to Easthaven shortly, which I understand to be one of the other settlements in this area. I hope he does not leave too soon.

I saw no shrine on our walk. No offering. Nothing I recognised as sacred.

That troubled me more than the staring did. What exactly is powering me? What exactly brought me here?

I visited Osbert again today. His jaw did not drop this time. Progress.

I asked him about the gods of this land. He was quiet for a moment. He told me not to ask this question outside of these walls. Then he spoke carefully, and kept his voice low.

There are many. Far more than I expected. Where Arborea’s pantheon is a family, fractious and violent and deeply connected, the gods of Faerûn feel more like a crowd. Domains overlap. Some have died and returned. Some have walked among mortals within living memory.

I asked how divine magic works here. He said he was not a faithful man himself, and could not speak from experience. But from what he had read, the power flows from the gods to their faithful directly. A priest with no god here should have nothing to draw from.

I did not tell him about Edvar’s wrist.

• Yurian – God of Justice. Tyr? Torm?
• Shakan – God of Strength. Tempus? Kord?
• Velik – Goddess of Hunters. Mielikki?
• Kaia – Goddess of War. Tempus?
• Mystel – Goddess of Fate. Savras?

I do not know which of these gods answered me on Day 3. I do not know if any of them did.

It continued.

The wall. The collapse. Valen. Ignis. Pippin. All of it the same.

Aethel stepped in front of Frygaras, blocking the incoming claw with his axe. Aethel shouted for me to finish the spell, breaking me out of my stupor. I finished the cast. Valen was back up. The party had a chance.

I woke up.

I sat with that for a while before writing this. Each night the nightmare seems to reveal a little more. I do not know what comes next, and frankly… I am not certain I want to.

I went fishing with Edvar today. We cut holes in the ice and waited. We caught a few knucklehead trout. He seemed pleased. I did not mind the cold.

It was a good enough day.

Edvar and Hilda had errands to attend to today. I was alone in the house.

I sat with the dream for a long time. I have been avoiding it during the days, keeping my hands busy, keeping my mind on other things. Today there was nothing to keep my hands busy with.

I thought about Aethel.

Aethel Faes. My bondsmate. My love.

I will write again tomorrow.

I went to Osbert today. I needed to be somewhere that was not inside my own head.

I asked him about the weather. How long this winter would last. He did not pull out a book this time. Instead he invited me to sit down for tea.

Auril. The Frostmaiden. A goddess who settled into Icewind Dale and decided that winter would not leave. The cold, the dark, the frozen lake, the people cutting holes in the ice just to eat. All of it is her will.

I sat with that for a moment.

It reminded me of Hellen. What Dakuryon made of her. How she spread cold and suffering because she could no longer help it. But Hellen could not help what she became. Auril chose this. That is a different kind of thing entirely.

Osbert looked at me intently as I sat there. I do not know what he saw on my face. Whatever it was, he said nothing.

I thanked him for the tea and the information and left.

I will have to tell him my story one day.

Osbert mentioned in passing that the people here count in tens. A tenday, not a seven day week.

I went back and looked at this journal. By their count, I have been here exactly one tenday.

Edvar warned me this morning. Tonight is the new moon and that is when the village makes sacrifices to the Frostmaiden. For Dougan’s Hole, they sacrifice their warmth. No fires between dusk and dawn. Anyone who lights one gets beaten.

I watched it happen house by house as the sun went down. One light, then another, then another. The village went dark.

Osbert came by not long after. He simply knocked and came in. The four of us sat together in the cold.

Edvar produced a bottle from somewhere. We passed it around and talked.

Osbert told me about the other towns. The smaller ones give up food instead. A day’s catch of knucklehead trout strung on racks outside town for whatever comes to claim it. The larger ones give up people. Bryn Shander. Easthaven. Targos. They hold lotteries at noon before the new moon. The unlucky person whose name is drawn is stripped bare and either tied to a post or sent into the tundra to die.

We sat until the dawn’s first light, as Edvar rebuilt the fire and Hilda made something warm to eat.

Hmmmmm, will this make this entry Day 25 or Day 26.

I took a nap during the afternoon. I should not have.

The nightmare continues.

Something impossible happened. Something pulled Sabranak and Frygaras together, merging the two dracoloths into a dragon. It is unholy and goes against all principles of the world. The fire in their breath turned cold.

It roared. The sound moved through the air like a wave, freezing everything it came across.

Valen and Aethel reacted optimally. Protecting the healer. If the healer survives, they can always be resurrected.

I woke up.

It has been a month since I was brought into this world.

Surprisingly, it seems that they consider 30 days a month as well. Osbert left today for Easthaven. I saw him off.

His house is empty. Every book gone with him.

I told him I would find him in Easthaven one day. He seemed to think that was unlikely. I believe otherwise.

I finally saw the conclusion of the nightmare I have been having.

Valen and Aethel were frozen instantly by the roar. Their bodies blocked the rest of the blast from reaching me. They saved me even in death.

The world went still. Time stopped.

I was desperate. I do not know who or what I reached for. I invoked everything I had. Every name I knew. Every god that has ever graced me with their blessing. All of it, at once, directed at my party.

It burned. But that sensation went quickly.

Replaced by cold.

So that is the whole story. I must have died in that moment. Whether this world is what comes after, or something else entirely, I cannot say.

I can only hope that whatever I cast gave them a chance to survive.

I know that my understanding of this world is still lacking. But I am very aware that sitting in Edvar and Hilda’s house waiting for answers is not the correct decision.

A plan, then.

• Find out what brought me here.
• Find out what is powering me.
• Find out if there is a way back to Arborea.

Valen, Ignis, Pippin and Aethel. I do not know if what I cast worked. I do not know if any of you survived. I pray that you did. But it is time for me to get answers.

I do not know where to start. But I am Heelie Faes, a level 70 Priest from the adventuring party “Blame The Healer”.

The new moon again. I stayed as I did not want Edvar and Hilda to sit in the cold and dark alone. With Osbert in Easthaven, it is just the three of us now. I really hope Osbert did not get picked to be sacrificed.

The fires went out house by house, the same as before. We sat together. No bottle this time. Just the cold and the dark and the sound of the wind off the lake. I watched over them until dawn.

A carriage came through the village yesterday. It leaves for Caer-Dineval tomorrow. I intend to be on it. Edvar and Hilda already knew this was coming. We said what needed to be said tonight. Fifty-five days. It is time.

I said my goodbyes to Edvar and Hilda this morning. There was not much to say that had not already been said. I boarded the carriage heading for Caer-Dineval.

The driver introduced himself as Sephek Kaltro. The ride to Caer-Dineval was rather uneventful, my fellow travellers did not have much to say.

Caer-Dineval was the first proper town I have seen since arriving in this world. I split from the group to procure winter gear. My robes are sufficient but crampons and snowshoes are a practical necessity I should have addressed weeks ago.

I found a general store called the “Player’s Handbook”. A strange name for a store, but perhaps that is how they name things here. The shopkeeper was visibly pleased when I spent gold. I thank the heavens that the currency I had from Arborea was converted. Even though it was just what I had on hand during the incident .

I made my way to The Uphill Climb, the only tavern operating in town. The fellow travellers from the carriage were already there. They are a rowdy lot. The noise was not unwelcome.

I spoke with one of them. He introduced himself as Corren Frostscript, and said he was a firbolg. I did not know what a firbolg was. And yet something about him made me wonder if they are related to giants. He told me they are an adventuring party moving through Icewind Dale. I told him I was a cleric looking to travel. We did not say much more than that.

My travelling companions, noted for the record:

1. Corren Frostscript, a firbolg wizard.
2. A giant turtle. I understand they are also a wizard.
3. An Orc ranger.
4. An Aasimar paladin. I felt a sort of divine spark within them, like I do myself. Am I considered an Aasimar in this world?
5. A red, lizard-looking fighter. There is some resemblance to the Aman I knew from Arborea.

I will have to research more on numbers 2 and 5.

We travelled to Caer-Konig after. The inn there is called the Northern Light, kept by two sisters. The younger, Allie, greeted us warmly. The older, Cori, was less kind. Apparently things had been going missing around town, and she wanted us to help look into it. We accepted and began our investigation.

Near the inn I noticed footprints in the snow. The party began following them toward what the locals call Kelvin’s Cairn. As we followed, a heavier trail branched off toward the same location.

The ranger went ahead to scout. It turned out to be an outpost of sorts, with a fortress further up. The party spent a considerable amount of time discussing what to do before deciding that stealth was the answer.

As a 400 pound stone person, I felt staying behind was the more tactically correct option.

The creatures in the outpost were grey and small. I did not recognise them.

The ranger summoned a swarm of insects as the turtle began to sing. Before the turtle and I could reach the party, the paladin pushed open the door, revealing what had made the heavier trail. An ogre, zombified.

The party handled it decently enough though.

The party entered the outpost, clearing it room by room. The commander had been hiding with a trap set, though the insect swarm found and devoured him regardless. There was a letter among his effects. The word chardalyn appeared in it. I do not know what chardalyn is. More to research.

We returned to town and handed back what had been taken. The Shorard sisters seemed relieved.

We took our rest at the Northern Light.

What a long day it has been.

We returned to Caer-Dineval in the morning. Two knights met us at the road and led us to the castle.

A tiefling named Kadroth addressed us as we entered, with the manner of a man who expected to be listened to. The party walked past him. He looked as though he could not quite believe it. I found that rather satisfying.

Hethyl was expecting us. She looks ancient. She told us plainly that she had foreseen her own death, and that our arrival had confirmed it. She did not seem distressed by this. I respected that.

She told us two things:

1. The commander we killed at Caer-Konig was Nildar Sunblight.
2. His father is a duergar warlord named Xardorok Sunblight, who intends to conquer Icewind Dale.

It seems the party has made an enemy of Xardorok Sunblight before we even knew his name. The killing of his son will likely not go unanswered.

We met Avarice after. An albino-white tiefling with a raven on her shoulder. She spoke of something called the Arcane Brotherhood, though from the way she described it, “brotherhood” seems a generous word. They are a group of wizards that are spread across Icewind Dale, each searching independently for a Netherese city buried beneath the ice. Ancient magic.

She requested us to find her “colleagues” and take their spellbooks. She did not explain why, though with the contempt she showed for her “colleagues”, it was not difficult to guess. Corren seemed eager. I reserved my judgement.

We made for Easthaven after.

There was a crowd gathered in front of the Town Hall as we entered. A man was bound to a stake, gagged, burning. I have heard of what the larger towns do under the new moon. This was not that. This was a warning dressed as spectacle.

I broke away from the party then, looking for Osbert. It was not long before I found him, he has opened a bookstore. Of course he has.

I told him what I had seen at the Town Hall. He told me the man was a Red Wizard of Thay, a murderer that had killed several Ten-Towners who was doing some work for him. The execution was deterrence. A message to anyone else considering the same. I understand the reasoning. I still find burning distasteful. But I kept that to myself.

I told him of my current travelling companions, and asked if he knew of the races I was curious about. As expected, he answered by pulling out a book. The turtle is called a Tortle, a race of intelligent tortoise-like humanoids indigenous to the southern reaches of a land called Chult. The golden scaled one is a Dragonborn, of draconic lineage. No wonder I saw traces of the Aman in them.

I asked about chardalyn after. Osbert knew it by another name. Black ice. He said prolonged exposure induces madness, and direct contact would be worse. He seemed to want me to take that seriously. It did get me thinking, are such afflictions curable?

Osbert offered me the spare room above the shop for the night. I accepted.

I sat with the events of the day for a long time. This is the first time in a while I had really used the divine powers within me.

I felt the divine energy within me swell, as a fair bit of my old strength returned, the channel inside of me wider than it was before.

If adventuring is what is needed for me to regain what I lost, then I will continue on this path.

P.S. Ah, I’ve forgotten to get the names of the my travelling companions. Something to do for tomorrow.

Well, I met a dragon again today. That is not a good sign.

Ah, I have gotten ahead of myself.

I rejoined the party at first light. Osbert saw me off from the doorway of the shop. The Aasimar paladin and the Orc ranger were nowhere to be seen, though I suspect they were simply still abed.

The rest of the party filled me in on what had happened while I was away. Sephek Kaltro, the carriage driver who brought us to Caer-Dineval, turned out to be a murderer. The party was somehow implicated and resolved it themselves. We now have a caravan. I did not ask for the full story and I am not certain I wanted it.

Osbert had heard a rumour. It seems there was a reason the Red Wizard killed those Ten-Towners he had hired. They had helped him locate a buried tower, and he killed them to keep the location secret. One of them had talked before dying, and the location had made its way through the grapevine to Osbert. He asked if I would be comfortable exploring it, on the chance there were books worth reading. I told him I would see what I could do, though I could not promise what was not mine to promise. Corren, as it turned out, had similar interests.

It was reason enough to look.

We chanced upon what appeared to be someone seated in the snow. Before anyone could make sense of it, the ground shook. The dragon rose. The force of it knocked us down. She looked at us, then she was gone.

We met someone on the road after who told us her name and what she was. Arveiaturace. An ancient white dragon. The figure on her back, rumour has it, was once her companion. She has carried him ever since.

Looking back, she reminds me of Vergos, the Dragonsire of Arborea, first of his kind, as powerful as any god. Vergos was something older and more terrible, but Arveiaturace is not far behind. I think dragons may not sit as close to godhood in this world as they do in Arborea. That is, on balance, good news.

The tower was not difficult to find with the directions provided. We descended floor by floor. The library had been largely ransacked, though several books remained. I noted what was left: texts on Netherese archmages and the creation of mythallars, a history of a city called Ventatost that disintegrated mid-flight over a forest, treatises on illusion magic, and a speculative work on existing as a disembodied brain preserved in magical suspension fluid. That last one I intend to return to.

On the third floor we met him. He introduced himself as a simulacrum of his creator Dzaan, the Red Wizard who had burned in Easthaven, a creation of snow and shadow. The undead beside him was his bodyguard, Krintaas. It took some effort to restrain my instinct to purge undead, but as “Dzaan” requested we not harm his bodyguard, I obliged.

He told us about the tower, that it is a fragment of the Netherese city of Ythryn and nearly two thousand years old. That is really impressive workmanship. I wonder if these Netherese people are still around.

In exchange for accompanying him to the rune chamber below, he offered us an amulet he had found somewhere in the tower. He did not know what it did and neither did we at the time. We accepted.

“Dzaan” told us of his wish to be real. There was apparently a rune chamber on the lowest level that could perform that exact miracle, turning illusions into reality, and we went down to inspect it. The cracks in the walls and the damaged runes told the story clearly enough. A machine that should have worked cleanly but did not, because something in it was broken that none of us had the knowledge to repair. I wanted to try. The party was ready to move.

It required a spark of life to activate, which was provided by the Tortle wizard. The chamber did not work perfectly. Dzaan had hours, not permanence.

Six bugbears came not long after. We attempted to resolve it with words, but Dzaan decided to handle them himself with magic, likely out of grief. We did not intervene.

Before we left, he gave us what he had on the remaining members of the Arcane Brotherhood.

“Avarice is a tiefling evoker who delights in destruction. Her weakness is her paranoia. She cannot bring herself to trust anyone except maybe her two gargoyle companions, and even they are suspect.”

“Nass Lantomir is a human diviner. She likes to pry knowledge from others by reading their thoughts. Her weakness is that she is always looking ahead, never behind her.”

“Vellynne Harpell is a human necromancer, as cold and uncaring as the corpses she animates. She is a withered old fool whose greatest asset, her family name, does her no good in Icewind Dale.”

It was, I think, all he had left to give.

We left him there with his remaining hours and his undead bodyguard, who seemed, if anything, ecstatic.

I can return the dead to the living. I have done it more times than I can count. I could do nothing for a man who was never quite alive to begin with.

We arrived in Bryn Shander in the morning.

The town is the largest I have seen since arriving in this world. Walled, lantern-lit, perched on a hill with the wind cutting across it from every direction. I found myself reminded of home, of Highwatch. However, while Highwatch feels like a museum, its libraries full of scholars preserving the knowledge of ages, Bryn Shander is something more practical, a trading centre built to survive. I have no doubt Ignis would have loved it here.

We met with Speaker Duvessa Shane. She informed us that they had recently captured a goblin messenger with a curious letter. It was apparently a declaration of peace from a chief called Yarb-Gnock, who had requested delegates be sent to Karkolohk for treaty negotiations. She seemed cautiously hopeful about it, but Sheriff Markham Southwell was less charitable. He made it plain he did not believe a word of it and instead offered three hundred gold for the chief’s head.

We accepted the quest.

Karkolohk is a fortress built into the mountain. The first thing we noticed upon entering was the shield guardian, strung up in the middle of the village.

We were brought to the dining hall and seated. The chief entered shortly after. At first glance, it was rather obvious that Chief Yarb-Gnock was wearing a disguise. Mechanical armour, a helmet with a grinding jaw, boots, gloves. It was not a subtle disguise, but it seemed to have worked well enough on goblins.

Citing private and sensitive matters we wished to discuss regarding the treaty negotiations, we requested that the guards be excused, something the chief was glad to oblige. The moment the room was clear, he dropped the disguise entirely.

He introduced himself as Spellix Romwod, a gnome who had infiltrated the goblins years ago in a mechanical disguise. His name, it turned out, came from a malfunction. When offered a bone to gnaw on, his mechanical jaw would not stop grinding. The goblins called him Yarb-Gnock. Ever-Gnawing, in their tongue.

He was the one who drew the plans for Karkolohk. But the everlasting winter had worn the goblins down, and he sensed his time as their leader growing short. Manafek, the goblin healer, had already seen through his disguise. He wanted out before anything else could happen. He also mentioned, in passing, that while the goblins of Karkolohk detested non-goblins, they reserved a particular hatred for gnomes specifically.

Hearing all of this, we agreed to help. We devised a plan.

1. Spellix would gather all the goblins beneath the shield guardian, present himself as the holy conduit of Maglubiyet (the known god of goblins), and call upon their god to move the shield guardian as proof of his divine favour.
2. Hearing that, Corren would use the amulet to reactivate the shield guardian, to sell the illusion of divinity descending on Spellix.
3. While the goblins were occupied with the spectacle, the Tortle wizard would eliminate all of them with a fireball spell.

I believe the team executed the plan rather decently. The only dissent came from Manafek, who was screaming and struggling as she was brought into the crowd below the shield guardian, but even she fell silent the moment Corren succeeded in reactivating it.

With the goblins out of the way and the shield guardian in our control, we sent Spellix to Bryn Shander to explain himself to Shane and Markham. We explored what remained of the village after. In the fortress we found a metallic egg, with a panel of buttons built into its side. As of this point, we have no idea what it is or where it came from. The shield guardian carries it for now.

P.S. I heard that Spellix did not fare well in Bryn Shander. He was beaten up for all the goblin raids over the years, and was found dead shortly after. I do not know the full circumstances. However, I suspected Markham’s hand in it, or at least his indifference. Either way, we helped a man escape one fate only for him to meet another. Pointless brutality rarely warrants more than that.

All six of us were present for this one. The Aasimar paladin and the Orc ranger caught up with us on the road.

We came across a black cabin by chance, perched on the edge of a snowy ridge above a gorge, half-collapsed and long abandoned. The cabin was small. With six of us, I volunteered to keep watch outside while the others went in. Before entering, the Tortle wizard established a telepathic link between the two of us.

Through the link, I followed what they found.

The main room smelled of burnt wood and flesh. A charred skeleton lay on the floor amid broken wine bottles, a frost-covered object nearby. The skeleton had an amulet around its neck, a golden pendant bearing the symbol of two hands cupping the sun. The craftsmanship suggested something sacred.

The party split to search the rest of the cabin. The Aasimar paladin found a room of frost-covered wine barrels. Corren found a laboratory with blueprints tacked to the walls, designs for a weather-controlling magical device that bore a striking resemblance to the frost-covered object in the main room. The fighter and the ranger found a letter in one of the bedrooms, written by someone called Copper to someone called Macreadus. The letter mentioned, among other things, that three rings are better than two.

While the others investigated, the Tortle wizard picked up the frost-covered object. There was not much else for him to do.

A golden light bloomed from inside the cabin. I felt it even from outside.

I immediately entered the cabin to understand the situation.

The main room was scorched. What remained of the Tortle wizard was on the floor, mixed, regrettably, with squirrel droppings that the fighter and ranger had swept up along with his ashes in their attempt to help.

Through the link, he told me what he had found on the other side. A floating spectral head, fire in its eyes, arrogant and snappy, blaming the cold for his own miscalculation. Macreadus, in death as in life. The spirit knew what needed to be done to fix his creation and was not shy about sharing it. The device’s rings could not contain the energy it produced. A third ring was needed, cast from metal, inscribed with runes, fitted using the tools already in the workshop. He was also not pleased about his ashes being mixed with contaminants.

The party worked to fix the Summer Star. It was handy that everything we needed was already in the cabin, the blueprints, the tools. It took us a few hours but the ring was done and attached. Knowing it was divine energy, I attuned to the device in case of any further mishap.

I considered, briefly, keeping it. The ability to control weather is not a small thing. The Tortle wizard’s spirit conveyed Macreadus’s position on this matter with some urgency. Macreadus, it seemed, would haunt me without rest if I kept it for myself. I found that sufficiently persuasive.

I activated the Summer Star.

The clouds broke and the light fell on my face and it was warm. Genuinely warm, for the first time since I arrived in this world.

It reminded me of Balder. The god of light who sacrificed himself to become the twin suns of Arborea. I have only ever read about him. But standing there in that light, I understood, for the first time, what his faithful must have felt. I had taken the warmth of the sun for granted all my life.

With the warmth came something else. A blanket of divinity settling over me. It seemed Lathander, the Morninglord, had granted us his blessing. The Tortle wizard was restored to life in the same moment, full and whole.

Macreadus’s spirit departed shortly after.

She sent her undead servants to attack us, likely as revenge for introducing the sun to this place. The party handled it, more or less. I will not comment on the Aasimar paladin's decision to deal with one of them alone in the wine room. They had apparently helped themselves to the frost-covered barrels before the undead arrived.

We retrieved the amulet from the skeleton and returned to the road. Corren identified it on the way. An Amulet of Health, granting the wearer a remarkably robust constitution.

As we travelled, the Tortle wizard grew quiet. His psi crystal had picked up something. A distress signal. It was faint, but it was enough to spur the party into action.

The signal grew stronger as we travelled. At some point, the Tortle wizard mentioned that he could make out the word “nautiloid” among the distress signal. I know a nautiloid as a mid-grade fish from the waters of Exodor. I will admit that the thought that followed was likely foolish. Exodor is a floating island that moves around, sometimes disappearing entirely from Arborea. There is a slight chance it is in this world, and if so, that might be my ticket home.

I noticed a look of worry from Corren and the Orc ranger when they heard the word. Whatever a nautiloid meant to them, it was not a fish.

A vast shape half buried in the snow, curved and ridged like an enormous shell. It was apparently some form of vessel. I asked the Tortle wizard if it belonged to his people, but he was rather sure it did not. Everything is alien to me in this world, but this seemed alien to my party members as well.

I noticed the Aasimar paladin still had their wine. I purified it quietly. Alcohol is technically a poison, and whatever was ahead of us, I had no desire to walk into it with a drunk paladin. They noticed. They did not say anything.

We climbed onto the deck. There was a ballista mounted there, which we considered briefly, thinking it might serve to guard the door or mount on the caravan, before discovering it was broken. The door into the ship was frozen shut. Corren melted the ice and the Dragonborn fighter burst through. Comically, there was a flesh golem on the other side who was knocked down in the process, apparently in the middle of opening it from within.

We readied for combat. But it turned out to be unnecessary, a crew member was already waiting for us, and the general atmosphere was non-hostile.

They spoke to us telepathically, introducing themselves as ceremorphs, gnomes that had been transformed into something resembling the mind flayers that crewed such vessels. Their propulsion system was damaged and they needed a psi crystal to restore it, the same one the Tortle wizard happened to be using.

They proposed a trade.

In exchange for the psi crystal, they gave us two items I had not seen before. A sticky metal monocle with a kaleidoscopic lens, which I am told grants the wearer unnaturally sharp close vision, and a coif fashioned from what appears to be a living space slug, said to allow the wearer to send and receive thoughts. They also provided three of their weapons, devices that fire concentrated light, one each for Corren, the Tortle wizard, and the Orc ranger. The ceremorphs showed them how these worked as though the answer were obvious. Corren understood at once. The Orc ranger needed one attempt. The Tortle wizard needed three.

I asked if I might take one of the squidlings with me, thinking of it rather like a pet. After a brief hesitation, the ceremorphs agreed, and Zglarrd came with us.

Before we left, the ceremorphs asked if we had come across a metallic egg. They explained it was lost cargo that had been jettisoned from the vessel during the crash. As luck would have it, it was the exact same one we had found at Karkolohk. The shield guardian retrieved it from the caravan and we returned it. I was curious what was inside, and they informed me it contains a creature of sorts. It seems to me that these people are scientists.

Zglarrd is a curious creature.

It levitates rather than walks, its tentacles dragging along the surface beneath it. The head is oversized, the eyes large and dark, the limbs weak and spindly. It does technically still have hands and legs, though the tentacles seem to serve most of the same purposes. It makes squelching and keening noises when excited or upset, and communicates in short bursts of emotion and simple words conveyed telepathically. Not unlike a kitten, curious and unpredictable, driven almost entirely by instinct. For now, pointing and miming seems to work well enough. I point at something and say eat, and Zglarrd tends to understand.

The hunger is a separate matter. It seems to be the primary driving force of Zglarrd’s existence. I understand this. Every creature requires sustenance. It simply so happens that Zglarrd’s sustenance is brains. I will need to think carefully about how to manage that. A leash may be a practical necessity in the short term.

I believe there is potential in this creature. Just like how leeches were once used in medicine, this creature of unusual nature could potentially bloom if pressed into careful and considered use.

I am still working out what that looks like.

The nautiloid vessel ascended and left. I watched it go, this vessel that sails between worlds, crewed by transformed gnomes and carrying creatures from places I have no name for. Judging from the fact I have never seen this vessel or these creatures before in Arborea, I highly doubt they would be able to send me home.

The Northlook is warm.

We took our rest here after the events of the past two days.

I have forgotten to note this yesterday, but when we arrived last evening, I overheard the Orc ranger give their name to the proprietor. Kylma. I have been travelling with this person for some time now and only just have a name to put to the face. Though I realise this party does not refer to each other by name often.

I put Zglarrd on a leash today.

Out in the wilderness, Zglarrd’s hunger is easily managed. Options are limited, and it is reliant on what the party provides. Here, surrounded by people going about their evening, the hunger is considerably more immediate and apparent.

The creature is endlessly curious about everything around it, the noise, the light, the movement. It keens softly when something catches its attention and goes still when it loses interest. He really is just like a cat in a busy room.

I will need to train it to control its hunger better. I remain uncertain how long I can manage this in a populated area.

Chardalyn. A few things I intend to experiment on when the opportunity presents itself.

Testing chardalyn against chardalyn. Whether different sources interact, cancel each other out, or compound.

Finding out the composition of chardalyn itself. I will likely need Corren or Osbert’s help with this.

Finding a way to determine whether the madness can be transmitted through consumption.

It seems that the Aasimar paladin was out late drinking and the Dragonborn fighter had been training well into the night. When the rest of us gathered for breakfast earlier this morning, they were nowhere to be seen.

A lady approached our table not long after, introducing herself as Yselm Bloodfang, a wilderness guide. She told us that giants had hidden treasure at a place called Jarlmoot and requested our assistance in getting there, offering to split whatever we found. She said she was too weak to do it alone, something which I found suspicious. We accepted regardless.

She led us to a place known locally as the Cackling Chasm, a deep rift in the ice nearby.

Corren manifested a tiny spectral object before we went down, explaining that whatever it saw and heard would be shared with him telepathically. He sent it ahead while we waited above.

It reported back through Corren. A gnoll shrine in one cavern, a crude stone altar with a mountain goat’s bloody head resting atop it, bones scattered across the floor. A caged prisoner on a ledge across the way, who immediately tried to attack the object upon seeing it.

Upon our descent, we came across a floor strewn with bones and skulls. The remains of the gnolls’ meals, by the look of it. Each skull had been marked with a blood symbol. I recognised it. The three-headed flail of Yeenoghu, demon lord of gnolls. I informed the party of the fact.

It seems like unfortunate timing, but a group of gnolls walked in, likely heading to the shrine. They were thankfully not hostile. They wanted us to kill their own leader, Chyzka, a gnoll fang of Yeenoghu. They explained that he was a bully, and their lives would be much better without him, but he was too strong for them to challenge directly. They offered to take the rest of the pack on a hunting trip, leaving Chyzka alone for us. We agreed.

Chyzka emerged from one of the side passages as we moved through. Combat began immediately.

Three skeletons were summoned. They shoved Corren and the Tortle wizard toward the edge, and tried the same with the shield guardian, which did not go as they had planned. Corren and the Tortle wizard seemed to have a means of controlling their descent, drifting down slowly rather than falling.

Up on the ledge, Kylma took point and rushed toward Chyzka. I raised my shield, channelled my divine power into the emblem on it, and censured the skeletons. They burned and scattered. With nothing left for me to really do in the fight, I turned my attention to Kylma and sent my divine power to ward them from further attacks. The injured Chyzka raged and struck at them repeatedly, and every blow seemed to slide past them as though guided away by something unseen. It was, I will admit, rather funny to watch.

The Tortle wizard managed to climb back up, which was not something I had anticipated. Both of them finished Chyzka off together.

Once the combat was over, I went to check on the caged prisoner.

The prisoner was in a poor state. Full and prolonged contact with chardalyn had driven him entirely mad. I asked the Tortle wizard to retreat into its shell to block any incoming strikes while the shield guardian moved in to restrain the man. As far as I am aware, no known cure for chardalyn madness exists. Which means it is time to research and experiment.

I put Zglarrd to work on the man, and the chardalyn madness afflicting him ended. Progress of a kind, if a grim one. I noted that Zglarrd showed no signs of being affected by the chardalyn. Two conclusions present themselves. Either aberrations are immune to chardalyn, or the disease cannot be transmitted through consumption. I do not yet know which. Further experiment is needed.

I retrieved the chardalyn spear from the man’s body for future study. Given its nature, the shield guardian carries it.

The party had no comment on my methodology.

We looted the chasm after. Among the remains we found four fishing poles, each fitted with an enchanted hook. Kylma was very pleased.

We descended further and found ourselves standing before seven enormous stone thrones arranged in a ring. Black ravens circled overhead under a full moon.

Stepping inside the ring summoned them. Seven frost giant apparitions, one to each throne. The largest introduced himself as Reggaryarva. He would grant us access to his vault if we could prove ourselves worthy. As part of his challenge, he summoned three frost giant skeletons.

I raised my shield, channelled my divine power into the emblem, and censured them. They burned and collapsed. The encounter was over before it had properly begun.

Reggaryarva seemed satisfied and opened the vault beneath his throne.

Yselm betrayed us the moment we entered. She announced herself plainly, something to the effect that we would never see the treasure, and called upon Auril. Three winter wolves materialised around her.

I asked the party to spare one if they could. A winter wolf would not be without its uses. They agreed. Kylma produced a Potion of Animal Friendship and tried to befriend one. It had no effect.

The Tortle wizard fireballed the largest cluster he could reach. It unfortunately included the wolf we had marked.

I moved to incapacitate another. It dissolved into ice shards the moment it fell.

They were summons, as it turned out, drawn from Auril’s own power. There was no taming them regardless.

Yselm herself was not much of a fight.

We looted Yselm’s body after. She was carrying a map to a treasure hoard. A good find.

With that resolved, we explored the vault. Six braziers lined the walls, each with a rune carved above it. A nearby inscription in Dwarvish read:

I stayed behind to study the runes while the rest of the party explored further. The runes read: death, mountain, war, life, wind, and wyrm. A puzzle. I attempted to light the life brazier first using Yselm’s blood, which seemed logical enough. It did not work.

The others found a gate that required all six braziers to be lit, and a door that opened freely. Beyond the door were four chests. I have some familiarity with locks. All four opened without much trouble.

Inside: an elven arrow, a dead snowy owl frozen stiff, a gleaming scale from a young white dragon, and a fist-sized stone.

I placed the arrow above the war brazier. The scale above the wyrm. The stone above the mountain. The owl above death. That left wind and life. I tried Corren’s blood for life this time. A single drop did nothing. More blood did the trick. Wind I could not work out at all, until Kylma simply leaned forward and blew into the brazier. That was, apparently, the obvious answer.

The gate opened.

Beyond it was a large oak chest with a golden key already set in the lock. Turning the key conjured a portal out. Through it I could see the swarm of black ravens outside. I removed the key and opened the chest with my tools instead. Inside was a horn, which Corren identified as a Horn of Blasting.

The vault was considerably safer than the chasm above. We camped inside for the night. We will use the golden key to leave tomorrow.

The portal did not take us back outside. It opened onto a ledge, the chasm dropping away to our left, rock wall to our right, and ahead of us a portcullis shaped like a bear’s head with its mouth agape.

Corren sent his cat scholar through the gaps before Kylma and the Tortle wizard began on the portcullis. It reported back through him. Past the entrance, a floor scattered with eggshells large enough to house something considerably bigger than a man. A waste area nearby. Further in, a room with a blue flame burning in a stone brazier.

Kylma and the Tortle wizard set to work on the portcullis. Corren, the shield guardian and I watched from behind. Two small heads emerged briefly from the wall to our right, breathing cold air across them, then withdrew back into the rock. I am not entirely certain what I saw. Neither, it seemed, was Corren. We said nothing. In hindsight, we could have asked the shield guardian.

The portcullis came down eventually. We went in.

The cave opened up past the entrance. A floor of eggshells, as reported. A waste area to one side. The party spread out naturally to explore. The Tortle wizard found a tribesman who was carrying the severed head of an owlbear, along with a chardalyn cleaver. It reminded me of the caged prisoner in the chasm. This tribesman was afflicted with chardalyn madness as well. Combat began.

Corren and I continued exploring while Kylma and the Tortle wizard handled the berserker. I reached a living quarters, nothing remarkable in it, and returned to the flame where Corren was.

The blue flame flickered, and in those flickers, briefly, the shape of a woman. The image never held long enough to be certain of anything except that she was beautiful. I stood there longer than I intended to.

From Corren’s knowledge of the arcana, he deduced that the flame was likely a blessing from Auril, capable of granting her worshippers a form of immortality within the cave. While I understand that resurrection and revival spells violate the natural cycle of life, this is something darker. Something much more sinister.

Looking around the cavern, I learnt more about Auril. She did not mean to descend to the mortal realms. She was betrayed. Cast out by those she stood beside, wounded and driven to the edges of the world. Icewind Dale is where she came to recover. The everlasting winter was her doing. A wounded god, throwing a tantrum while in hiding.

Both things can be true. The suffering she has caused and endured are both real. But such misuse of power speaks of an arrogance that will be her downfall.

Though I find myself wondering. Is she the one that brought me here?

The berserker had gotten back up. Knowing what I now knew about the flame, this was not a surprise. I realised then that this particular individual made a good test subject. Kylma had him grappled.

I ran through each option methodically.

I had the shield guardian hurl the chardalyn spear at the test subject, two corruptions pressed against each other. No effect. I did not have high hopes for this anyway.

Next, I had Zglarrd extract the subject’s brain for consumption. Interestingly, the flame kept the subject alive even without brain function. The subject himself still seems agitated, as though the chardalyn madness is still afflicting him. This is an interesting find, as I had understood the chardalyn madness as a sickness of the mind. Could it be that the material itself is not poisonous but rather a conduit of a form of magic? I will need Corren’s help with this.

I observed no changes in Zglarrd from the latest experiment.

With the experiments concluded, it seems the only way to put the subject to rest was to bring him out of the cave. Kylma carried the subject out and threw him into the chasm, with the chardalyn spear still in him. That is unfortunate. I will need to find another source of chardalyn for experiments. I wonder if Kylma would mind consuming raw brains.

We explored what remained. The waste area turned out to be the wyrmlings’ hoard, two of them, scattered and modest. We took what was worth taking. Kylma found a store of frozen meat deeper in, provisions that had likely belonged to the Ten-Towns before they went missing.

A portal returned us to the caravan at the Cackling Chasm.

Yselm’s map points to a shipwreck frozen in the Sea of Moving Ice. A vessel called the Dark Duchess. It is said to contain treasure. We set out before the light changed. By my count, we should arrive by morning.

Valen. Ignis. Pippin. Aethel.

It happened again. I failed again.

I am beginning to think our adventuring party name might not be a joke after all. "Blame The Healer".

I have never seen anything like the Sea of Moving Ice. A frozen desert, featureless and vast, broken only by the dark shape of a ship ahead, half-buried in frost.

As we drew closer, we could hear loud thumping and creaking from within the hull, followed by guttural snarling. Something large was inside.

Corren sent the cat scholar in ahead. It reported back. Large holes opened the upper and middle decks to the sky. Below, a creature was throwing itself against a door.

We climbed up the ship. The shield guardian stayed outside.

The creature turned out to be an ice troll, fixated on the door it was trying to break down.

Corren sent rays of fire through the cat scholar. The troll turned and saw the Tortle wizard. It came up the stairs fast.

Kylma moved to engage. The Tortle wizard called on his magic to move faster than should be possible, a slight blur around him as he did. Corren kept his distance and continued sending rays of fire toward the troll. I bolstered the party’s resilience and called down a blessing on them.

Then the cold hit. The troll carried it with it, a bitter aura that radiated outward. The Tortle wizard took the worst of it at close range. The speed faded from him as he seemed to experience a wave of lethargy. Luckily his defences held well.

We brought it down. I healed the Tortle wizard after, a good chunk restored.

With the troll dealt with, Corren, Kylma and the Tortle wizard went to explore the rest of the ship. I went down to the bottom deck. Someone might need healing.

I had no intention of forcing open a door that had resisted an ice troll. I knocked on the hull instead, signalling the shield guardian outside. It drove a hole through, opening up the space between us. I moved along the hull to where the locked room was and had the shield guardian punch through there as well.

Four kobolds. Terrified out of their minds.

They threw their javelins at the door, which achieved nothing given I was not standing at it. When that failed, they began crying and begging for their lives. I attempted to calm them with words. The shield guardian attempted to intimidate them into stillness. We both failed spectacularly. The kobolds continued to scream.

I channelled my divine power and calmed one of them. It did not help. It may have made things worse.

It seems this ship belongs to Arveiaturace, the ancient white dragon we met a few days ago. The kobolds had been her guardians. They were quite certain they were all going to die for their failure.

The rest of the party came down. Among other things, they found a goat. They also found the hoard, Arveiaturace’s treasure, buried under four thick layers of ice. They set to work chipping through them. I could not help. I had three hysterical kobolds and one loopy one to manage.

It took the better part of four hours, but we managed to retrieve everything.

Then the ship shook.

The sound of titanic wings, then silence, then the crack of ice under something immense settling onto the hull above us. Arveiaturace’s voice boomed, reverberating throughout the ship.

The kobolds recognised it immediately. Whatever composure remained in the room left with it. Three of them dissolved into fresh panic. The loopy one looked around serenely and informed us we were all going to die.

The rider on Arveiaturace’s back had slipped from the saddle. We had heard her call his name. Meltharond.

Before anyone else could react, the Tortle wizard rushed forward and picked up the corpse, seemingly intending to help the dragon reseat it.

Corren said we should run. I agreed. Kylma agreed. The kobolds and the goat did not have a choice. We boarded the caravan and the shield guardian pulled us clear.

Behind us, a sharp crack of frozen air.

We arrived in Dougan’s Hole by morning, and were greeted by an unusual sight.

All ten speakers were gathered. It seems they were waiting for us.

The Aasimar paladin and the Dragonborn fighter were already there. I later learned the Dragonborn’s name is CawCawk. Perhaps that is why adventurers here do not tend to advertise their names.

They informed us of Xardorok Sunblight and his fortress, Sunblight, built into the Spine of the World not far from where we stood. A duergar warlord with ambitions to establish the first duergar stronghold on the surface. It seems Auril’s everlasting winter has been a gift to him. Duergar do not fare well in sunlight, and the sun has been hidden long enough that he has grown bold.

They wanted us to stop him. They were rather insistent about it for people asking a favour.

I took the opportunity, while the party prepared, to break away.

Edvar and Hilda were both home, as I had hoped.

I have spent a long time on the road since leaving Dougan’s Hole. Standing in that doorway again, I was reminded of what it felt like to have somewhere to return to. It was my sanctuary for a long time. I did not realise how much I had missed it until I was standing in it again.

I told them about Xardorok Sunblight and his fortress nearby, and that it was too dangerous to stay. I gave them the enchanted fishing hook I had gotten, explained what it does and how to use it, and enough gold to see them to Bryn Shander comfortably, at least for now.

They were understandably not keen on leaving, but agreed in the end.

I gave them both a hug before I left.

As I was on the way back to the party, two figures caught my eye. A red dragonborn and a silver dragonborn. I have spent enough time adventuring now to recognise the difference between a commoner and someone dangerous. These two were the latter. I could feel the magic on them from where I stood, on their persons and their equipment both.

They had already noticed me. They introduced themselves as Thurnul and Kiana, sent by the Adventurers League to retrieve the Tortle wizard.

They informed me that the retrieval was successful. The Tortle wizard is alive, but has since left Icewind Dale.

It made me think of my old party members. I cannot believe I had forgotten. In Arborea, death among adventurers was rarely permanent. A fallen party member would wake at the nearest sanctuary, battered but whole.

I explained to them what was happening with Sunblight and my plan to secure more allies before we moved on the fortress. The wyrmlings in the Cave of the Berserkers. Two young dragons with ambitions befitting their kind.

They told me they were not able to assist with the fortress directly. But they could help with the wyrmlings. Kiana opened a portal connecting Dougan’s Hole to the Cave of the Berserkers. I stepped through.

The wyrmlings were where we had left them. I offered them the kobolds and their goat as attendants, the return of their hoard, and the promise of considerably more from Sunblight’s stores once we were done with it.

Gelym and Tyzar, as I now knew them, agreed.

Thurnul and Kiana were gone shortly after, disappearing into another portal.

When I rejoined the party, there was someone new.

One of the speakers introduced them as a fellow adventurer who would be joining us for the battle ahead. I had not seen this species before. An Air Genasi paladin, as I later came to understand. They gave a full account of themselves, their oath, their history, everything one might say in an introduction. Everything except their name .

Kylma stayed behind in Dougan’s Hole.

The fortress had two possible entries. The direct entrance, flanked by arrow slits, and the top, some two hundred and twenty feet up. We chose the top.

CawCawk produced a gray cloth bag he called his bag of tricks. From it sprung a giant elk, a badger, and a giant rat. He activated his wings and flew up carrying the elk, which carried the rat, which carried the badger. Corren granted flight to the shield guardian and was carried up by it. The two paladins were carried by the wyrmlings. I waited below.

Two guards were at the top. CawCawk dropped the elk onto them. One managed to get clear, but what had been the other was now just an impression in the stone. The rat and the badger did not survive the landing either, though the elk did. The remaining guards were handled by the paladins and Corren.

Both wyrmlings came back for me.

Gelym spotted an invisible duergar in hiding. It was swiftly dealt with, and Zglarrd was fed.

We took the elevator down.

The level below was quieter than expected. The party split to explore.

The Aasimar paladin entered what turned out to be a training room, and four suits of armour animated the moment they stepped inside. They stepped back out immediately and whatever was powering the armour ceased with them.

The Air Genasi paladin heard something coming from one of the quarters. I went in and looked under the bed. A duergar, shrunk to the size of a small animal, doing his best to disappear into the floor.

I told him to grow or we would kill him. He grew. He announced himself as Durth Sunblight, Xardorok’s eldest son and heir, and had a great deal to say about his own importance and very little of any practical use.

I put him to work as a test subject instead.

Exposed Durth to chardalyn directly. Observed no visible effect within the time available. Autopsy revealed nothing. It is a disease of the mind, and duergar minds may simply process chardalyn differently from humans.

Revived Durth and embedded a chunk of chardalyn into the body. The subject was in considerable pain, likely from the foreign object itself rather than any corruption. I waited, but no madness followed. Osbert’s notes stated that the effect, while temporary at first, should be at least immediate. It was not.

Conclusion: the results are inconclusive. Duergar may process chardalyn differently from humans, but the sample size is too small and the exposure too brief to draw a firm conclusion. A subject with longer and more intimate contact with chardalyn would be more useful.

Seeing as we did not have much time for further experimentation, I fed Zglarrd and the wyrmlings instead.

We found the dining hall after. A duergar woman sat at the head of the table, eating without any particular urgency. Long black hair streaked with white, fingernails like shards of iron. A mechanical pseudodragon rested beside her. Three attendants stood at the walls and said nothing.

Grandolpha Muzgardt.

She had no love for Xardorok, that much was clear within the first few sentences. She asked us to kill him, promising that once he was gone she would lead the remaining duergar back to the Underdark and trouble the surface no further.

The pseudodragon caught my attention. It is made from chardalyn but seems to move and interact like a living creature. I asked her if she knew how it worked. She declined, stating that this is not something she had often seen in her circle, and that Xardorok himself had built a war machine from the same material.

She offered to gather the remaining guards on the floor, clearing the way for us to explore freely. We accepted.

As we moved through the remaining rooms, Corren noted that duergar share dwarven blood and with it a known resistance to poison. It was worth considering in light of what I had just observed.

The war room held a stone table with a map of Ten-Towns drawn across its surface. At the centre stood a small chardalyn dragon figurine on an iron stand, its wings outstretched. A lever on the side of the table moved the figurine along a groove cut into the map, tracing a path from one settlement to the next. We pulled it and watched the figurine fly its preset course over Ten-Towns.

Xardorok’s quarters were exactly what I would have expected from a warlord. Above the bed, a bas relief of a giant scowling duergar, himself presumably. At the foot of the bed sat an iron trunk with a heavy padlock, which I opened. The contents were clothes and junk, but we emptied it regardless, revealing a false bottom and triggering a trap in the process. The room filled with poisonous gas, and beneath the false bottom was the real treasure, along with a set of codes. We took everything and left.

I can recall the heat emanating as we descended into the final level. We made our way through until we found a chamber with a chardalyn statuette on a shelf, and chained to the wall beside it, a mind flayer stripped of its tentacles. It was alive, if barely.

Xardorok was there. The moment he saw us, he went invisible and slipped through the double doors to the south. We gave chase.

Through the doors was the forge, vast and scorching, and ascending a shaft above it toward the open sky was the chardalyn dragon. We watched it go. The alarm had already been raised by the time we turned our attention back to the room, and combat began.

CawCawk went in first, his giant elk alongside him. The duergar cut the elk down quickly and tried to shove CawCawk into the forge. He held his ground.

The paladins pushed through after. The Aasimar paladin got one of the duergar into the lava. The Air Genasi paladin met the rest head on. Corren worked the guard towers from behind the shield guardian while I sent the wyrmlings ahead to breathe cold across the nearest two.

Xardorok revealed himself not long after, holding CawCawk in place and leaving him dangerously exposed. The paladins turned to break his concentration while Corren and I cleared what remained of the towers. When CawCawk was freed, he went for Xardorok. It was not a long fight after that.

While the rest of the party went to the vaults, I stayed with Xardorok. The wyrmlings lingered nearby, curious.

One of the surviving duergar, having surrendered, offered some information. Xardorok had grown increasingly paranoid in recent years, trusting no one, not his sons, not his closest advisors. He had sent his sons on dangerous missions, kept his allies at arm’s length, and rewarded those who spied on each other.

I opened his skull. There was nothing visible. No physical corruption, no darkening of tissue, no obvious tell.

Conclusion: chardalyn madness appears to operate through a poison vector, as evidenced by the weapons forged from it. Duergar resistance to poison, as Corren noted, may explain a reduced effect, but prolonged and constant exposure as seen in Xardorok suggests resistance alone cannot prevent the madness entirely. What is less clear is how the madness manifests between subjects. In humans, it produces feral, self-destructive behaviour. In Xardorok, if chardalyn is indeed the cause, it produced paranoia. Whether this difference is a function of duergar physiology or simply the individual, I cannot yet say.

The mind flayer was still alive when I returned to the chamber. It looked pitiful. I had Zglarrd and the wyrmlings see to it. A mercy, given the state it was in.

In the room adjoining the temple, a duergar priest dropped his disguise and revealed himself as a barbed devil. He destroyed himself before we could act, vanishing in a cloud of black smoke and leaving only a hat behind.

It seems three things have converged here. A paranoid warlord, a scheming devil and a crystal that poisons the mind. Whether the devil exploited what the chardalyn had already done, or simply found a man already prone to suspicion and made use of him, the result was the same. Xardorok trusted no one and was undone by it. That warrants investigation.

Gelym and Tyzar departed, having upheld their end of the arrangement.

We raided the treasure vaults quickly, using the codes from Xardorok’s trunk. Corren stayed behind to study what remained, believing the rest of us would be sufficient, and gave me the shield guardian’s amulet before we parted.

The shield guardian followed the rest of us out.

I am writing this from the caravan. The dragon is ahead of us somewhere. I find myself thinking of Edvar, Hilda and Osbert, and hoping they made it to Bryn Shander in time.

In case I do not survive the next fight, this journal serves as testament that I, Heelie Faes, walked this world, however briefly.

I was too exhausted last night to return to yesterday’s entry, so I would write it today instead.

Kylma caught up with us on the road, bringing word that the dragon was already attacking Dougan’s Hole. We knew it was likely too late to matter, as we would never reach it in time. I found some comfort in knowing Edvar and Hilda had left before any of this began.

Our caravan was simply too slow to keep pace with a dragon tasked with the destruction of the Ten Towns. Nine, now, I suppose.

A woman called to us not long after, introducing herself as Vellynne Harpell. I recognised the name. Dzaan had spoken of her, a necromancer among the Arcane Brotherhood, cold and uncaring as the corpses she animates. Her sleds were pulled by undead kobolds, of all things. I was unhappy with that, but we needed whatever help we could get.

She offered us passage, faster than our caravan could manage, in exchange for help retrieving something she called the Codicil of White. She did not explain what it was, only that it would open the way to a buried Netherese city the Arcane Brotherhood had long been searching for. We accepted, seeing as there was no time to negotiate further.

The Aasimar paladin had snuck off with drinks as we left the fortress and was thoroughly hammered by the time we set out. They stayed in the sled.

I voted for Easthaven. It was better defended, and we might have had time to prepare before the dragon arrived. Kylma wanted Good Mead instead. It supplies mead to every tavern in Ten-Towns, and Kylma was not willing to let it burn without a fight. The party went with Good Mead.

By the time we arrived, the dragon had only just reached the town. A stroke of good luck, however small.

We positioned ourselves around what remained of the town square.

The dragon came in low, dropping bursts of radiant fire onto Good Mead, the explosions continuing every few seconds without pause. Kylma stayed at range, firing into it continuously. CawCawk closed the distance, but something in the dragon’s presence took hold of him, and he turned on the Air Genasi paladin instead. The Air Genasi paladin struck him twice, and channelled divine power into the second blow, to no avail. Luckily, CawCawk came back to himself shortly after and returned to attacking the dragon.

I stayed well back with the shield guardian, which I have named Alfredo, between myself and the fighting. I called on the divine power within me to strengthen the party, and slung what I could of it at the dragon directly.

CawCawk was the one who ended it. Spectral wings sprouted from his back, and he flew up to meet the dragon, throwing his trident into the mechanism of its wing. It dropped from the sky and fell directly into its own bombs. The explosion finished it, scattering chardalyn all around.

Alfredo and I retrieved what chardalyn we could from the wreckage afterward. I am pleased with the amount of testing material I now possess.

For today proper, we stayed in Good Mead, pitching in and helping where we could on the town’s reconstruction effort. After Sunblight and the dragon, it was strange to spend a day simply rebuilding instead.

Tomorrow, we will have to make good on our end of the deal with Vellynne. The Codicil of White, and whatever buried city it leads to. I find myself very curious despite my gut feeling on Vellynne.