Author: admin

Ugh, trying to get a decent meditation sesh in this place is IMPOSSIBLE. If it even is nighttime – seriously, how does anyone know what time it is down here? It’s always the same creepy dimness. Which I guess is why there’s always some kind of noise in the streets outside. I miss Seedra’s magic mansion SO much – at least it was quiet there, or quiet most of the time. 

Anyway, we finally decided to drag ourselves out of bed and join the others to see if we could find some kind of vaguely edible breakfast. We found them all already in the bar – Gertrude even looked like she’d already had a couple of glasses of wine. For breakfast? Mushrooms and lizard steak. Served by the RUDEST and most unfriendly Orc waiter EVER. Although, I guess I haven’t actually met any orc waiters before. I just hope any others I do meet are less of a jerk than he was. Seedra got pulled aside by Maloria, the owner of the Succubus’ Teat (eww, right?), and got told that the big fighter wasn’t allowed to wear his full armor ’cause he’s not a drow, and she had to make him take it off before she got in trouble. Seedra had no problem telling him, obvs. 

Then the conversation turned to buying some armor for the fighter and the Half-orc, since they couldn’t wear their own. Gertrude also wanted to enchant her shield (even though she’s not even allowed to use it here, as Seedra pointed out, kinda smugly). While all this was going on, along with a debate about where and how to rent an apartment or house (seriously?), Gertrude suddenly announced that we needed to head west and rescue some of her friends. When Seedra questioned her, she admitted her “friends” were Kuo-Toa, and the message had come from the Sea-Mother. Seriously? 

Despite this super urgent mission, apparently Gertrude ALSO wanted to upgrade her shield and catch the midday gladiator fight in the main square. It’s like, all the different gods possessing her are giving her totally conflicting ideas, and her own brain isn’t exactly doing a great job of putting them all together into a normal plan. 

We totally ignored her crazier ideas and decided to go west to help her rescue her fishy friends before she, like, twitched herself into a total meltdown. It meant we didn’t have much time for shopping (major sigh), but we did manage to get some, like, slave-quality armor for the fighter and the half-orc. While we were doing that, we found a bunch of random magic items in the half-orc’s pockets that he wasn’t even using and had totally forgotten about, so I totally called dibs on a couple of them to go with the magic flute and dagger Seedra gave me, and the magic sword I took off that drow captain we killed. 

We headed west through the city, which got more residential and also WAY more spidery, with giant cobwebs covering the tops of the houses and stretching across the streets way up high. The road opened up into this big square with this ziggurat-looking building in the middle with a statue of this creepy half-drow, half-spider lady on top. We figured this had to be the temple of Lolth and decided to give it a VERY wide path, hoping the Kuo-Toa were west of the temple, not in it. It seems like the divine guidance Gertrude’s getting is, like, super unreliable. To the west is the demon quarter, according to the maps the slaves drew for us, but the roads in that direction just turned into this maze of alleys and dead ends. Totally desperate, we sent the halfling (invisible thanks to one of my spells, duh) to climb up one of the buildings to see if he could see the way from the rooftops. But as he was easing his way over the gutter, he came face-to-face with a GIANT spider! Looking around carefully, he saw that the rooftops were COVERED in giant spiders – this was totally their part of the city, and definitely NOT ours. Ewww. 

While he was trying to decide whether to try and sneak across their webs (obviously one of the dumbest ideas we’ve had lately), we got distracted at ground level by this HUGE winged demon just strutting down the street like he owned the place. We called the halfling back down and started following the demon. It went all through these alleys, and then it just stopped and grabbed this human slave who was walking by, ripped him in half, and then, like, MESSILY took a bite out of one half before just tossing it away. SO GROSS. It kept going and came to the entrance of this narrow alley with two braziers burning with this creepy green fire on either side. The demon squeezed blood from the ripped-up corpse in his hands into each fire, which was just the MOST disgusting thing EVER, and they turned red for a second while he did it. Then the demon went into the alleyway before the fires turned green again. We figured we’d found the entrance to the demon quarter. Double ewww. 

We were wondering if we should try and follow, and if so, how, but it seemed way easier to just get Gertrude to ask her new “mistress” for a little more info about where on EARTH we were supposed to be going. Gertrude totally went white at the suggestion and mumbled something about not wanting to bother the Sea-Mother any more than she had to, but she agreed to ask her OTHER deity if he had any info. Why he puts up with all her craziness, I have NO idea. Anyway, he revealed that her fishy friends were no longer to the west of us. Which, like, seriously narrowed down the possibilities in a totally worrying way. So she asked the obvious next question, and he confirmed that YES, they were in the great temple of Lolth. Great. 

For some totally insane reason, we decided to keep helping Gertrude when the obvious thing to do would have been to pretend we were stuck in traffic and couldn’t reach the Kuo-Toa in time. So back to the temple we went, and Seedra did a spell so we all looked like Dark-kin now, at least to anyone who couldn’t see through illusions. We confidently walked across the plaza and up the big steps into the temple, totally not daring to look and see if people were staring at us. 

Inside was this big hall, which Seedra all confidently called a “narthex.” At one end was this altar to Lolth; at the other was this totally trashed altar that we figured had once been for Grazz’t, since Selusa had said they used to share this temple before they had a major falling out. It totally reminded us of that archway we found back at the big guard post, where one side was a statue of Lolth and the other was this statue totally covered in fungus. We figured that had probably been Grazz’t too. 

A doorway on the wall near the trashed altar opened into this room totally covered in cobwebs, which looked SO uninviting, so we just strutted down the main hallway (which Seedra called a “nave” – how does she know so much about temple architecture?!) until we got to this room at the far end. In the middle of it was this big pool of orange liquid, and the back wall was this super realistic picture of stars swirling into a vortex that was, like, really creepy and hypnotic. But then we saw these two HUGE staircases leading off the hallway right before the room. One went down, and the other went up, but both of them were guarded by these enormous spiders! Seedra totally gulped and said her super vision thing showed her they weren’t actually spiders at all, but these weird female demons with rope-like arms. Gertrude just walked right up to the one on the stairs going down, saying the prisoners were probably in the dungeons, but it totally bared its fangs at her! Until she remembered that diamond spider brooch we took from that dark-kin priestess in the Kuo-Toa shrine. When the spider/demon saw it, it totally backed off and let her go down the stairs, but when we tried to follow, it blocked our way! So Gertrude just went off on her own, looking for the prisoners down these hallways with totally gross murals of spiders and ickiness, and ickiness with spiders, I think. She was actually doing pretty well until the halfling, being all Gertrude-like impulsive, decided to sneak invisibly down the stairs to help her. The spiders, being demons, were SO not fooled by the invisibility for even a second, and they all swarmed out to attack us! Turns out there were actually two on each side. The fight started, and more of these demon things just kept appearing, even as we were killing them! And when I say “we,” I mostly mean “I,” ’cause I totally wiped one out and sent it back to the abyss with this super powerful blow where I put in, like, ALL my rage at the darkness and love for the light of the forests. Totally rocked at blowing it apart, so much so that one of them possessed the fighter and tried to make him fight me! Except his brain couldn’t handle trying to fight me at the same time as wanting to, like, hump me, so he just totally froze up. Gertrude came back and started throwing beams of light around, and then this even BIGGER spider with the body of a male drow came up the nave! And then Griff put this wall of force across the hallway to separate us from the big spider-drow, but he got me on the wrong side of it! At least I was away from the fighter. And then one of the spider-demons in mist form totally enveloped me and poisoned me, so now I can’t move, and I think things might be about to go REALLY badly for me again. Ugh.

OMG, you would NOT believe this place, Erelhei-Cinlu is like, totally different than I imagined! First off, there’s, like, a GAZILLION shops! Seedra was all, “Okay, maybe we can risk an inn,” and she had this whole theory about how staying at the mansion would be, like, way more obvious. So this guard, who was kinda creepy, mentioned this place called the Succubus’ Teat (ew!), and we were like, “Fine, whatever.” 

But getting there? Total chaos! We had to go through the commercial area, and it was PACKED. Like, every weird creature you could possibly imagine was there, and the shops? Clothes, shoes, everything! I totally bookmarked, like, two dress shops in my head for later, and these boots? OMG, to die for! We were going, like, snail’s pace ’cause of the riding lizards – nobody else seemed to be using them, so we’re probably gonna have to ditch them and walk. 

And get this, there were, like, a TON of darkkin with these Despana badges. After a while, I started freaking out ’cause they kept looking at me funny. I was all, “Is my disguise not working? Am I, like, too pretty to be a convincing darkkin? Is my amazing soul just, like, shining through?” LOL. Then Griff, who’s super-smart at being this grovelling “servant” named Griffin, points out that Seedra’s Despana badge and all the others were, like, shiny silver, but MINE was just dull metal! Maybe the Despana are, like, super rich and don’t do non-silver, or maybe it means something else? Ugh, so many mysteries! 

The weirdest thing? Seeing darkkin doing, like, normal stuff – not just being all fancy nobles, but even as, like, street-walkers and beggars! So what that shadow-sword dudess said is totally true – tons of them have to, like, claw their way out of being totally broke, or just stay that way. And there were other humanoids and humans and even this creepy shadow-demon! 

Finally, we got to the edge of the crazy shopping district and into the arcane area, where the Succubus’ Teat was supposed to be. The crowds thinned out a bit, and the shops got, like, even weirder and fancier. And the buildings? Total nightmare fuel! All crooked and falling apart. Not like our pretty curves in Trustor, these were all bent and broken and just hurt your eyes. Seriously, darkkin have NO taste! 

Seedra sent Griffin to ask some random slave where the Succubus’ Teat was, and they gave him directions. No WAY we would have found it ourselves in this maze of creepy alleys. 

So we finally get to the Succubus’ Teat, and of course, there’s this totally gross moving picture of a naked lady. Thorg was, like, mesmerized, which at least stopped him from being a total creep for a few minutes. Seedra sent Gertrude (who speaks elvish) and dragged Thorg with her to get rooms. They were gone FOREVER! When Kurog took the lizards around the back, we went in to see what was up, and they were totally hitting the bar hard! They even got us drinks, which I thought was kinda nice until I saw the SPIDER floating in mine! Nope. 

We just soaked in the “ambiance” of the bar, which seemed way better than the spider drink. This darkkin lady, Maloria, who owns the place, said it was called Lolth’s Kiss and you had to chug it all at once for good luck. Seedra actually DID it! She stayed standing, but she looked like she was gonna barf. I’m saving mine for, like, never. 

So, Jude/Gertrude (after a LOT of persuading and some fake threats from Seedra) finally got us a room and the rest of the guys bunks in a dorm. Ugh. Our room is actually kinda okay, but Griff pointed out this creepy divination sensor thing in the ceiling, so, like, someone could be watching us! Awesome. I totally need a new silver Despana token, so we sent Griff out on the balcony to make one while pretending to clean that half-orc’s armor (which, TBH, was NASTY – I think it’s where all the stink is coming from!). Definitely needs a good scrub before I share a room with it. 

Then, there was a knock, and this servant asked if we wanted dinner. Duh! We went downstairs to the bar, and they literally THREW some half-orcs out of their seats for us! The doorman was a half-troll – totally intimidating. They recommended the fish from the Sunless Sea, which looked weird but was actually pretty good. Turns out Jude/Gertrude spent the whole time trying all the “wine” (seriously, what do they even make wine from down here?). It was hilarious – she tried to go with some darkkin soldiers to this place called the Liquid Scream, which turned out to be a brothel! And she was gonna be the “entertainment”! She backed off REAL fast. LOL. 

Once Griff made the new token, we put his next plan into action. We SO need more info about this city, but how? Griff thinks all the beggars are probably spies, and Seedra agreed, so no hiring them. Griff’s genius idea? Buy a slave! He figures they’d be so grateful they wouldn’t betray us and wouldn’t ask too many questions. So Griff, Kurog, and I went back to the shopping district to buy a slave. 

We found this creepy slave shop and asked what they had. I made it clear I was looking for BARGAINS – I wanna buy low and sell high, you know? The slaver brought out these three cheapos: a human, an elf, and a dwarf. The elf was, like, recently captured from Trustor! His name was Maedros, and I didn’t recognize him or his name, and he didn’t seem to know me either (probably the disguise). The human was Symon, a scribe but super clumsy, sold for some dumb reason. He had this House Everhate brand. 

So, I bought BOTH of them! Symon ’cause he can probably tell us a ton about the city, and Maedros ’cause he’s one of my people, and I swore I’d free them, so this is a start, right? We headed back with our new slaves AND these amazing lizardskin boots I saw (seriously, the BEST!) and this cute little black spider-silk dress I’ve been wanting FOREVER! 

When we got back to the inn, it was TOTAL chaos! Apparently, Thorg started a bar fight and killed a half-orc! And the bouncer killed another one! And Jude/Gertrude got STABBED trying to “help”! Malora was SO mad, but Seedra gave her some cash and said it was the other guys’ fault. Kurog was bummed he missed the fight and wanted to start another one, but Seedra totally shut them all down and told them to go to bed, especially Jude who could barely stand and was singing the most embarrassing songs. Seedra and I finally got to our room and barricaded the door. So glad for some peace and quiet!

Ugh, seriously, you guys will NOT believe what just happened. I am SO beyond mortified, like, I could literally just disappear into thin air right now. How am I ever gonna face the others again?! Except, okay, the priestess and the halfling don’t even seem to care about what they did, which is kinda weird. They’re just, like, totally unfazed. 

Seedra keeps saying it’s NBD and that it happens to everyone eventually (thanks for that, Seedra, NOT!), and then she went on and on with these super embarrassing stories about the others doing totally cringe stuff when they were magically controlled, but still! It’s just stuck in my head, you know? 

OMG, you guys are NEVER gonna believe the day I just had. So, like, we ran into these other surface people today (well, from the surface, anyway – “normal” is SO not the word). We heard this major rumble in the hallway and it turned out to be a bunch of darkkin totally going at it with these three dragonkin. Part of me was like, “Let them fight it out and maybe they’ll all just disappear,” but NOOOO, the crazy priestess had to go charging in, so of course, the rest of us had to follow to, you know, stop her from doing something totally insane. 

We ended up taking out a couple of dark-kin (apparently we were Team Dragonkin for some reason?), and then the rest just bailed, like they always do. One of the dragonkin was already dead (meh, no biggie), but then Seedra started chatting with the other two. The convo was, like, totally not Mensa material, TBH. Turns out they’re these super religious fanatics from Chalke (which I’ve seen from Lauraliel, but never actually been to). Apparently, these Chalkans are all obsessed with this new religion worshipping “The One,” who they think is the ONLY real god. It’s kinda like Averaigne, but, like, way bigger? Findarian from Lauraliel was telling me they’ve been having major drama with the Chalkans because of it – unlike in Averaigne where everyone’s scared of the fey-woods, the Chalkans actually want to, like, destroy them. Which is why I was even in Lauraliel in the first place, to see if this was a problem and if we needed to send backup. 

Anyway, these dragonkin had been kicked out of Chalke. Apparently, they were part of the royal bodyguard or something and found out the king was being controlled by this darkkin named Callistra, who’s from House Eilservs, just like the creepy ones we found in the Fire Giant King’s Halls. So, they offed Callistra, but then got exiled for it, so they ran to the underdark to get revenge. They’d fought their way all this way, even through the gross fishman shrine (I mean, props for getting through all that, I guess, but SO dumb when you could just, like, walk around it like we did). They started with twelve of them and now there were only two left. My opinion of both Chalkans and dragonkin? Not exactly improved. They’re still totally obsessed with The One and were planning to just keep fighting darkkin until they, like, died. I saw Jude practically vibrating with annoyance, and Seedra had to give her this look to chill out (and the half-orc just kinda raised his axe, LOL). Apparently, she’s got some history with The One. It all feels kinda Azurite-y to me. 

The only halfway interesting thing they said was that they found this secret door in a side hallway when their silver Eilservs token started getting warm. It opened up into this “beautiful garden.” They didn’t find anything to kill in there, so they just LEFT. Seriously?! What is WRONG with their brains? Who finds a garden after being in this dark, gross place for days and just walks away?! It kinda made me wonder if maybe we’ve got the wrong idea about darkkin if they have gardens. Maybe it’s full of, like, super poisonous plants or something, but even poisonous plants can be kinda pretty in a weird way, which I totally don’t see darkkin appreciating. 

Anyway, the priestess was all “Let’s go investigate!” and Seedra was too, which is, like, a major shocker when they agree on something. And OBVIOUSLY, I really, really wanted to see this garden myself. Seedra somehow convinced the dragonkin to give us the tokens, and so we went, and pretty soon the token in my hand started to feel all warm and tingly. Seedra did some crazy spell on herself so she could see through illusions. The door totally opened when she touched the token to it, and we walked into the most beautiful and peaceful garden EVER! Okay, maybe not ever, but for the last couple of months, it was totally amaze. There was this statue of a girl in the middle, naked, DUH, so the two fighter guys and the creepy wizard were all ready to go have a perv-fest when suddenly Seedra just froze, like, totally unable to talk, and just started slowly backing towards the door. I was, like, “OMG, what’s wrong?!” and went to help her when this super calm voice in my head was all, “It’s okay, come on in!” So I turned around and went in. And then everyone else followed me, LOL. The halfling went straight up to the statue and started checking out the symbols on the base (an Eilservs dagger, a gem, a gross withered hand, and a demon) when Seedra finally managed to squeak out that nothing we were seeing was real, but she had no clue what anything actually was. And the whole time, the voice in my head was just going on and on about how everything was fine and I needed to help her, whoever “her” was. 

Then, like she could read my mind or something, Seedra blurted out that this wasn’t a garden at all, but a sandy desert under this weird purple sun, with these super pointy mountains in the distance. The statue in the middle of the “garden” was actually a demon in disguise, which I guess was where the voice was coming from. At this point, everyone seemed to hear the voice asking them to help her. Jude started grilling the statue/demon, who said her name was Salusa and she was the girlfriend of Grazz’t, some demon lord who was locked up. She was looking for the Eye of Grazz’t, this gem with crazy powers that was one of three things (along with his hand and sword) that would set him free. Apparently, Eclavdra, the head of House Eilservs, was supposed to be finding them for her, but she thought Eclavdra was totally shady. So, yeah, it looks like House Eilservs doesn’t even worship that gross spider-lady Lolth, but this equally gross Grazz’t (I mean, if darkkin worship him, he HAS to be gross, right?). Meanwhile, Drogon the halfling found this secret trapdoor, but instead of opening it like Jude wanted, he just sat on it! Jude went to move him, and the voice in my head told me to stop Jude, so I totally stepped between them and told her it would be, like, super rude and dumb to open it. And then Jude, like, totally agreed with me, which was weird. Suddenly, Kurog the half-orc showed up and tried to open the hatch, and the statue turned into this scary demon and attacked him, telling me and (get this!) Jude to attack him too! Jude actually banished the wizard guy, and then Kurog hit her with his axe, and then the wizard reappeared, and I had to heal Jude. In all the chaos, it’s, like, totally not surprising that I didn’t notice the halfling was gone. That seems to be a recurring theme for some reason. 

Anyway, Kurog, Seedra, and the creepy fighter guy actually took out Salusa pretty fast, which at first was a total bummer, and then suddenly my head cleared and I realized she had been, like, totally manipulating me and wasn’t my friend at all! She even made me act mean to my actual friends (well, Seedra at least, like, I’d rather die than be seen with any of the others – oops, bad choice of words). Anyway, the halfling came back out of the trapdoor and told us what he saw – he found a mirror and this darkkin lady appeared in it and started asking him questions. We’re pretty sure it was Eclavdra, and Seedra thinks the halfling is totally under her control now, but then again, she also thinks the priestess is controlled by the fishman goddess, so she’s kinda always expecting the worst. But I’ve gotta admit, the more I hang out with Seedra, the more I realize she’s actually pretty smart, even though she’s young, and she’s usually right about this kind of stuff. But then I remember I was totally being controlled by the demon too, so I can’t really blame the halfling for being under Eclavdra’s control either. 

So, we all went down into this little room under the trapdoor. Seedra hung a curtain over the mirror so no one could spy on us, and she convinced the half-orc that we couldn’t take it for his “throne room” because it was too big and fragile. He was SO not happy about that. We didn’t find anything behind the tapestries, but under the carpets, there was this summoning circle. The gnome holding the bowl was way more talkative now that Salusa was (hopefully) gone. He was super weak though, so we did some magic to heal him. He said his name was Aurum and he’d been kidnapped months ago and kept there against his will. Turns out he’s actually part of Trosli’s gang! He said Salusa was the “Interlocutor of Grazz’t” and that the bowl (which felt super magical and totally evil to my second sight) was used to summon Grazz’t when it was filled with blood. He also confirmed that Salusa used the mirror to talk to this super evil darkkin who could even cast spells through it (majorly bad news for the halfling). 

We didn’t find anything else in the room (the wizard seemed totally bummed about the lack of treasure) and left. Seedra used her truesight to look around and saw this figure coming towards us from far away. Figuring we were probably on some layer of the Abyss, she was all, “We need to get out of here, like, NOW!” We argued for a sec, and then the figure got way closer. We could see it was this tall, black demon dude with a huge sword, and suddenly everyone (except the priestess – I couldn’t tell if she wanted to fight him or add him to her personal fan club) decided that leaving was a fantastic idea. We practically dragged Jude with us, reopened the door, and booked it. Seedra took one last look back and saw the demon make a new demon girl (or maybe the same one again?) appear out of nowhere and put her back on the statue base. Totally bad news, and definitely a good call to leave, I think. 

Aurum was SO grateful for us saving him from certain doom, and Seedra totally guilt-tripped him into leading us close to the darkkin city (which he called the Vault) in return. He did, and took us through these tiny little side corridors for, like, two whole days. I thought the big hallways were bad, but these were even WORSE, knowing there were miles of rock above me and I was crawling through this tiny space with a smelly half-orc in front of me and this creepy human behind me trying to, like, grope me every chance he got. Eventually, we got back into one of the main hallways before I was seriously about to take out one of his eyes with my heel, and Aurum told us the Vault was just around the corner and this was as far as he was going for us, or anyone. 

We thanked him and wished him luck getting back to his gang, and after a quick stop to fix our disguises and practice our fake stories, we headed into the Vault… 

The entrance was this long canyon with caves on the sides that had all these weird movements in the shadows. I remembered the spiders we met before and totally got the chills. Above us, the full-on amazingness of the Vault opened up, and maybe it’s just ’cause I haven’t seen anything more than, like, forty feet above me for what feels like forever, but it totally took my breath away. The Vault must be miles wide, and the ceiling is at least a thousand feet up. It’s covered in this stuff that gives off this dim light in these totally unreal purple and lilac colors. One huge patch shaped like a crescent moon was this radiant amethyst, and it made these little specks of red and turquoise light sparkle in the ceiling like stars. Under our feet, the path was made of crushed blue crystal that shimmered and shone in the weird light. This was SO one of those places where the Shadowfell is, like, right up against reality – it was the stuff of strange dreams and total nightmares all mixed together. 

We snapped out of our staring and tried not to look like total tourists. The path ahead split into three – one went around either side of this little hill, and the third went up the hill to this dark and creepy tower on top. We were trying to decide whether to go up to the tower or just sneak around it. We’re disguised as Lady Xyaxia, this Drow noble from House Despana (that’s Seedra) on a trading trip from Menzoberanzan, with me as her assistant (we’re both on these summoned lizard things), so we didn’t want to stop if darkkin nobles wouldn’t normally do that, in case it blew our cover. The priestess did some spell to see if avoiding the tower would be good or bad, and it said it would be bad, so we decided to try the tower. As we got closer to the crossroads, we saw this sign by the road to the tower that said in elvish, “All visitors proceed for customs checks,” so we figured we probably counted. 

We rode up (or walked, in the case of the others) and into the tower. There were some guards there who told us to leave our “mounts” there and go up to the tower where the bailiff would check us out. Seedra was SO smooth as she just tossed the reins of her lizard to the wizard and ordered him to take care of them. If I didn’t know her better, I’d say she’s actually enjoying playing this role. I am too, except for having to bleach my gorgeous hair and make my skin look all dull. I’m SO glad no one from back home can see me right now. 

Anyway, the rest of us went up to meet the bailiff, who said his name was Xanthus. He didn’t even question Seedra’s story about being a trader from House Despana in Menzoberanzan, although he did say that even for a super religious house like Despana, the Vault was pretty into Lolth worship. Seedra totally played along about being glad Lolth was getting her due here and then gave Jude a death glare when she started to open her mouth to say something. Xanthus wanted to know who her “entourage” was, so she introduced me as Kaelkotha, also from House Despana, and the others as these half-orc mercenaries named (and this is where I realized Seedra totally hadn’t thought of fake names beforehand) Kurog and Magyar. The halfling was (barely) disguised as a gnome, and she called him Aurum. Then she said she had a slave downstairs named Griffin and then, her imagination just totally gave up, a human mercenary named Gertrude. I saw Jude practically having a meltdown at the thought of being called Gertrude for the next few weeks, and Seedra just gave this amused little smile. The bailiff gave Seedra this list of rules to read, most of which we’d already broken and all of which were punishable by death, and warned us that we (as “Drow”) had to wear our House tokens all the time in the Vault. The non-Drow all had to wear these bright green cloaks, which he gave us, and also these special goggles for anyone who didn’t have darkvision. Then he just let us leave! Outside, in the weird light of the Vault, we realized the green cloaks glowed super brightly. So much for sneaking around. 

We left the tower and took the road at the bottom of the hill that went across the Vault. From the road, we could see groups of slaves (totally obvious in their bright green cloaks) working in fields and these groves of giant mushrooms that were everywhere. At one point, a bunch of young Drow on lizards came racing down the road past us, totally looking like they were out causing trouble. 

We soon got to these super fancy and otherworldly walls and the city gate. The guards waved us over and asked what our business was. Seedra was all snooty and the guard was immediately all respectful while she totally pumped him for info, pretending it had been centuries since she’d been there. His name was Uthkar, and he told us that since we had “slaves” with us, we couldn’t use the “Way of Nobles” to get to our “mother-house” but had to use the “Way of Merchants” instead. She didn’t dare ask where House Despana was in case it seemed suspicious. We did find out that the slave market was in the main city square, the magic-y area was north of the commercial district, and there was a place to stay in the East Gate District – he mentioned this place called the Succubus’ Teat, which we’d seen when we spied on the assassin, although he suggested this other place nearby called the Libertine Arms was less gross. 

Feeling like we’d gotten all the info we could without looking totally clueless, we rode in under the scary black gates of the city of Erelhei-Cinlu.

Ugh, more darkness. Seriously, when will this EVER end? Still nothing even remotely healthy to eat – no veggies, no fruit, NOTHING! And don’t even get me STARTED on trying to wash properly or change clothes in private. My skin is breaking out like crazy, and my hair? ARGH. It’s a total disaster zone. I’m even wondering if a pixie cut would be better at this point, but there is NO WAY I’m letting any of these total losers near my hair with scissors. They’d probably take off an ear. 

More boring trekking down this never-ending hallway. Plus the orc’s totally annoying caterwauling. I honestly thought things couldn’t get any worse. But of course, they did. We found another body. It was SO gross to look at, all messed up, and it took me a minute to even realize it was Forfinial. He used to be so cute! Look at him now. It totally made me realize that if the Dark-kin ever grab me and do something like that to me, my zits and bad hair probably won’t even be what people notice. It kinda put everything into perspective, you know? I was in a total funk for the rest of the day (if you can even call it that). Not that anyone even noticed. I don’t think they really notice me at all. Except for the big fighter guy who keeps staring at my chest. Seriously impossible to have a normal conversation with him. 

But then the next day, we stumbled into another cavern and totally ambushed this big group of dark-kin and their slaves! It wasn’t exactly a stealthy ambush, TBH – these guys are SO loud. And it got super noisy really fast, with the wizard throwing fireballs and the big cleric blasting out these flaming rays. I helped too, by, like, blessing the fighters to make them a little less useless. At the end of the fight, we found a TON of money and also rescued a bunch of my people who were being taken as prisoners! I was SO happy to see that so many of them had survived, even though they looked totally awful. I tried to convince some of them to come with us on our revenge quest against the dark-kin, but they were all totally broken, and no one wanted to, and I just couldn’t bring myself to guilt-trip them after everything they’d been through and how terrible they looked. I even thought about going back to the surface with them to protect them on their journey. But then I decided I wanted to see this whole thing through to the end and make sure the dark-kin wouldn’t be a threat to the elves for, like, a million years. I shall be a dark angel of vengeance on the dark-kin… 

Oh, and we also found the Half-Elf chick in the group. She didn’t seem all that thrilled to be rescued, though – she mumbled something about how we took our sweet time. Rude. 

We kept going, on and on and on down this endless hallway. We sent the halfling out ahead to scout – the half-elf was still all weak from being a prisoner and trying to find some clothes and stuff that actually fit her. 

He came back and said we were getting close to this super fancy archway in the hallway with these big statues on either side. He couldn’t even describe the statues, so we made him go back and look closer. The half-elf went too – apparently, she finally found something decent to wear, although she still looked pretty pale to me. I used my magic to make both of them invisible ’cause they seemed like they needed the help. The half-elf also made us all untrackable. Definitely not her best work. The statue on the left was this tall dark-kin woman with what looked like little candles at the bottom. We figured out pretty fast it was Lolth, their creepy spider-god-queen. The other one was so covered in gross fungus that we couldn’t even tell what it was supposed to be. There was NO WAY I was going to try and scrape any of that yucky stuff off to look, and surprisingly, no one else was dumb enough to try either. 

We were totally expecting something awful to happen when we went through the arch, but when the halfling finally did, nothing happened! Which, if I’m being honest, was a little disappointing. But actually, we could totally use more disappointments like that… Beyond the arch, it was just more darkness. But our senses told us we’d entered this HUGE cavern, way bigger than anything we’d seen before. Instead of just walking across the middle and probably getting totally lost in the dark, we decided to stick to the left wall. In the distance, we heard these roars, so we knew we weren’t alone. Awesome. 

The cavern wall turned out to have all these little passages, like the holes in that super boring Swiss cheese that’s only good when it’s melted on potatoes. The first one led into this cavern totally full of stalactites (that’s the pointy rocks on the ceiling, the wizard told me – new word!). We knew those could fall on us, so we skipped that one. The half-elf went into the second one but came running back out super fast, saying there were these little winged statues all over the ceiling that she didn’t like the look of. We just went with it. As she and the halfling moved further around (still invisible), we suddenly got jumped by this four-person dark-kin patrol who must have been watching us. The big priestess tried to bluff them, saying we were messengers from one of the houses (Despana) coming to give a report. Unfortunately, she couldn’t bluff her way out of a wet paper bag, and they totally weren’t buying it, so we just had to, like, nuke them. Turns out they had backup – a LOT of backup, including a mage and another eight dark-kin in the cavern behind them, plus twelve more dark-kin who joined in from across the cavern, two dark-kin riding lizards, and two giant trolls who lumbered into the fight too! The mage floated up to the ceiling and started shooting spells down at us. The original patrol also had four dark-kin with those staff-weapons we saw in the last fight (totally forgot to mention those). It was a HUGE fight, and a few of them got away, but the wizard did this spell that reversed gravity and slammed a bunch of them into the cavern ceiling, which definitely ruined their day. I got a little separated from the others with the wizard, and we got attacked by some kind of dark-kin assassin, so we split up to avoid him too. I used magic to disguise myself as a dark-kin and ran back to the entry arch to watch what was going on from there, and maybe give a heads-up if more bad guys showed up. Seriously, this place is NUTS.

Ugh, seriously, I don’t know how much more of this I can take! It’s been, like, a million years since I’ve seen the sun. And green food? Healthy stuff? Forget about it! I don’t even want to THINK about what we’re eating, but I know it’s SO not good for my skin. And my hair? ARGH. Just don’t even go there. It’s probably a total blessing I don’t have a mirror, and my armor is so gross I can’t even see my reflection. And my clothes? Sooooo dirty. They just won’t stay clean! Plus, they’re all ripped and worn out. I’ve kinda given up on ever meeting anyone cute down here, but even if I did, they wouldn’t give me a second glance in this outfit. 

We got attacked by these HUGE spiders the other day, and I got spider blood ALL in my hair and on my tunic, and then I got totally paralyzed. It was just the WORST. And then we ran into some Dark-kin, and I was actually doing really well trying to talk to them and convince them we weren’t there to fight, and then it all went totally wrong, and we ended up fighting anyway. And they shot me! Like, kept shooting me! I feel so useless and like I’m no good for anything. What am I even DOING down here?! 

Oh, and there was a demon in that last fight too, I remember just before I passed out from the poison and the pain. Seriously, what are ANY of us doing here? 

Anyway, the others obviously managed to kill the demon and the dark-kin (though I think they said the leader got away) while I was unconscious. When the big priestess woke me up, she said they found the body of this Elf, Elondwe, all tortured by the darkkin. Poor guy. I mean, I know he once said I looked like an oak tree, but he totally didn’t deserve that. It just shows you that there are always elves who have it worse than you, and maybe I should try harder to look out for the less fortunate. Obviously, anyone who saw me now would think I was a total loser, so I guess that gives me some empathy for people who just aren’t naturally as pretty or talented as me. So, today’s resolution: pull myself together and remember that there are elves who have it way worse, okay, self? 

Another day of marching through the dark. I think we’re now eating these fungi we found down here. They taste like what I imagine earwax would taste like. I just KNOW I’m going to break out from them. We’ve apparently decided to leave the main path to go check out something “interesting” on the map – a silver circle. I thought we were supposed to be rescuing the half-elf, but I guess non-elves can’t help it if they get distracted all the time. 

So, we walked and walked and walked, and finally found this cavern with this huge stone tower in the middle, lit up by these weird crystals in the ceiling. We couldn’t find any doors, just tiny windows, and the halfling, who turned into an owl (so random!), found this invisible wall when he tried to fly into one. But the wizard guy just brushed that off and made a tunnel through the outside wall. We went inside, and it was this huge round room going all the way up the tower, with doors all around on the ground floor. Either there were a ton of tiny rooms, or the doors were, like, portals to other places. There were also two balconies way up high that went all the way around – they might have had doors too, but we couldn’t tell. In the middle of the floor was this giant silver symbol of a half-moon, which matched the one on the map, so we were obviously in the right place. 

As we walked into the room, this female dark-kin just appeared in the middle of the moon symbol. Unlike the others we’d seen, her skin was as dark as night, but her hair was still white. It was actually a pretty cool look. I don’t think a lot of elves could pull it off, but she totally did. She was wearing these super fancy robes too, and just totally screamed rich and powerful. Not literally screaming, obviously, that would have been SO uncool and would have ruined the whole vibe she was going for. 

She demanded to know, in this super bossy way, in old-fashioned Elvish, who we were and what we were doing in her tower. I realized that even though I totally failed at talking to the dark-kin last time, I needed to forget about that and step up, ’cause no one else here could speak elvish except the priestess. And while she’s okay once you get to know her, she doesn’t exactly make a great first impression. Although, compared to the orc, she’s actually not that bad. But anyway, I CAN be good at talking to people, I know it! All my training and stuff is for exactly these situations, and it’s not my fault I look like I’ve been sleeping in a muddy swamp. I just need to trust myself. I know I can do this. 

So I stepped forward and introduced myself, and we started this whole tense conversation. I tried not to tell her too much about us, but also get as much info from her as possible, since she was the first darkkin who actually talked to us instead of just shooting us right away (okay, that’s not totally true, the last ones did talk, but that went downhill FAST). This time I think I did way better. 

After I gave my name, she said she was Morwen and that she worked for Lady Dagorblascht, whose palace this tower was part of. It belonged to House Ulatar, which she said was one of the oldest dark-kin houses, going all the way back to when they lived under the sun, before the Sundering, I guess. But now they were just one of the fifteen minor houses, totally overshadowed by the five great houses. Their moon symbol showed how old their house was, ’cause it was a symbol of the surface world. I bet hardly any of the dark-kin have ever even looked at the moon or walked in its light. It made me realize how much I miss it, even though the light from the crystals in this tower and the cave outside kinda looks like moonlight. 

She also, like, hailed the orc guy as someone wearing the armor of a knight of Asberdiesa. I have no idea where he got that armor or who Asberdiesa even is, but I always thought it made him look super-edgy. Obviously, the dark-kin respect whoever’s armor it actually is. 

I said that we only had a problem with House Eilservs, and she said they were a rival house (though it sounded like all the houses were rivals to some extent). She said her house was loyal to Queen Lolth. I’ve heard of Lolth as this totally scary darkness demon from old stories about the Sundering and before. If their queen named herself after such a horrible demon, then things are probably going to get even worse the further we go. 

She looked at our map and said it showed the way to Erelhei-cinlu, which was a dark-kin city with palaces for all the houses, including hers. The other great houses she mentioned were: House Tomtor, whose symbol was a flaming spear; House Despana, whose symbol was a mushroom (we found one of those tokens on a dead body in the spider place House Norqua, whose symbol was a nightmare’s head; House Eilservs, whose symbol was a wavy dagger, like we’ve seen a million times; and House Everhate, whose symbol was three crossed daggers. 

Then she basically dismissed us and told us to leave for our own good. And to prove her point, the balconies suddenly filled up with dark-kin warriors! So not cool. 

We left, but before we did, we made a deal that we’d try to mess with House Eilservs and let her know when we did, so her house could take advantage of it. She said if we made it to Erelhei-cinlu, we could send her a message with the code word “Ssendam,” and she’d get it. We totally don’t trust her not to break her word or stab us in the back when it suits her. I bet she probably doesn’t trust us either, but I think we have the upper hand ’cause she’s probably too arrogant to realize how capable we actually are. I’ve seen them in action. They might not be elves, but they are a seriously destructive force, like something out of a nightmare. 

We went back the way we came to the hallway split and went back to the main passage. While we were doing that, the wizard guy sent a magic message to Sentinel, and I was SO relieved when she replied that she was still alive and even making jokes, so she couldn’t be in too terrible a situation. 

After walking on the main passage for a while, we found this narrow path going off to the side. We checked it out for about an hour, but didn’t find anything – just a hallway that seemed to go on forever. But when we got back to the main passage, we heard noise, and the halfling, who was scouting ahead, saw a big group of trolls, hobgoblins, and dark-kin marching upwards, like they were headed to the surface! We let them pass and wondered if they were looking for us, or going to reinforce the guard post we destroyed, or if they were a raiding party going to the surface world. We have no idea, but I’m just glad we didn’t run into them in the main hallway. 

After that, when we rested for the night under the wizard’s force dome, this one dark-kin walked by in the hallway and then stopped to check out our dome before moving on. We don’t know if he was a scout or a messenger, but it’s pretty obvious that he knew what he was looking at, so they definitely know we’re here. 

Towards the end of the next day, we realized we were getting to a fork in the path, which we thought might be one we saw on the map. Finally, something familiar! 

Dark-kin map of the underdark

Ugh, you guys will NOT believe this. It’s like, taking me FOREVER to write about today ’cause it was just one thing after another of total weirdness. Seriously, my brain feels like scrambled eggs right now. 

So, the halfling, who was being all sneaky and invisible thanks to me (obvs!), saw four of those totally creepy rat-men that we saw, like, ages ago (could have been days, weeks, who even knows anymore in this darkness?) They were hanging out with those tentacle-faced guys, you know, the ones some people call mind flayers. They didn’t seem like they wanted to fight or anything, and it kinda seemed like this WAS the junction we were expecting ’cause the map even had a picture of one of their weird heads on it. 

They weren’t being mean, so we were hoping they were just, like, a watch crew, and I could totally charm our way through, or if things got desperate, the orc could just be all scary and bully them into letting us pass. We kept going, and they actually moved back to let us through, but then they all huddled up again behind us. I yelled in super old-school elvish that we weren’t trying to cause any trouble, just needed to get through safely. And then we heard this guy’s voice calling for help from a side hallway. It sounded like a dark-kin, and definitely wasn’t Sentinel, so we just kept going, remembering poor Elondwe and all the awful stuff they did to him. But then, as we kept walking, we saw ANOTHER group of rat-men up ahead, and then BAM! This invisible wall of energy just appeared and trapped the big fighter and the halfling on the other side! We turned around, and there was one of the mind flayers standing right in front of us. Before we could even freak out, this wave of, like, psychic energy just slammed into our brains and totally stunned all of us. Meanwhile, on the other side of the wall, the big fighter guy threw this huge ball of fire at the rat-men and they all scattered. Slowly, the orc, and then me and the wizard started to shake off the mind-blast thing and started attacking the mind flayer and its creepy servants. The big fighter and the halfling teleported through the wall to help us, but then the mind flayer did this confusion spell thing on our minds, and the fighter and the halfling totally fell for it. Oh, and the priestess too, but it didn’t really matter ’cause she was still just standing there all dazed. Then ANOTHER mind flayer showed up behind us with all the rat-men who had regrouped, but the wizard filled the whole area with this bright, glowing energy that made them all sick, and then he hid behind me! I made this shield of faith thing around myself, and it actually blocked all the arrows they were shooting at me. The first mind flayer finally got taken down by the orc and the big fighter and the halfling, even though the priestess was still just staring into space. The other mind flayer totally ran away from the sick-making light, and we chased it into this cave right off the hallway, but it was totally empty except for this dark-kin guy who was, like, dying. The wizard, the priestess (who was finally back to normal), and I ran back into the main hallway and saw the mind flayer running downwards. The priestess made this wall of blades appear all around it while it was still in the sick light, and then it, like, totally died. 

When we checked the bodies, we didn’t find much except for another map on one of the mind flayers – and this one was even WEIRDER and more alien-looking than the dark-kin map we already have! Seriously, what IS this place?! 

The mindflayer’s map

 Ugh, this new map? Total mystery. Like, trying to figure out what it even is a map of is gonna take, like, a million years. And where are we on it? Your guess is as good as mine. The dark-kin guy totally kicked the bucket before we could even ask him anything. Maybe he’s the creepy loner who found our campsite last night? So annoying!

Ugh, you guys, today was, like, the actual WORST. EVER. It’s taken me forever to even start writing this down ’cause just thinking about it makes me feel totally gross all over again, and there’s just NO way to wash that feeling off right now. Seriously, I’d give anything for a nice, clean forest stream right now. 

Okay, so I HAVE to write this down, or I’ll totally forget all the horrible details, and I need them for the next time the other girls are complaining about how “hard” their lives are. Then I can be all, “Oh really? You have NO idea.” 

So, after we finally got some rest (thank goodness!), we went through the doorway past the lava cave. Everyone else said they felt a little weird going through, but I felt completely FREAKED OUT. Like, I just KNEW it was going to be a total disaster and we were all doomed and indescribable horrors were waiting for us. The others said they didn’t feel that way, which just proves how, like, stunted and inferior they are. 

Beyond the doorway? Totally anticlimactic. It was just this long, boring tunnel going down in a straight line. At first, it was pitch black, but then we started seeing these gross patches of dim light from fungi on the walls. There was no sign the Dark-kin had gone this way, but we were still talking to Sentinel, and she said they were still rushing downwards. But then, after like five or six hours, the spell wore off and we lost contact with her. We tried to get back in touch, but she was way too far away. 

We walked for what felt like a million years – it’s impossible to tell time in this endless darkness. We were all totally exhausted. It was SO slow going – even I had trouble seeing stuff, and the floor was all rough and uneven with random steps and drops and, like, sinkholes everywhere. Some of the others are completely blind, so they had to use lights, which meant we were probably visible from, like, miles away. 

We finally had to stop ’cause everyone was completely wiped. We found this spot where the tunnel got a little wider, and the mage guy did his spell to make this totally impenetrable dome to protect us. It also kept us warm and dry, which was a HUGE relief after being so hot and then suddenly freezing and damp. While we were resting (the others slept in shifts while I, like, tranced), this giant slug thing slithered past us in the tunnel. It was SO disgusting, and in the morning (if it even WAS morning), its slime was still all over the floor in the direction we had to go. So we kept slipping and sliding as we tried to keep going. 

We kept going super carefully, even though Sentinel was probably getting further and further ahead, ’cause the path was still so treacherous. After hours, we got to this side cave with THREE MORE of those giant slug things. My skin was totally crawling at how gross they were, just blindly sliding all over each other and eating the fungi on the walls. Ugh. 

We decided to just sneak past them in the main hallway instead of fighting them, and we actually made it past before they even noticed us. Phew! 

Hours later, we got to this place where the hallway split. The main one kept going straight, but a smaller one went off to the right. We had no clue which way the dark-kin had gone. The halfling and I went down the side hallway to see if we could find any signs they’d been there, but before we could find anything, this giant slug appeared out of a sinkhole in the main hallway and shot this stream of totally disgusting acid right at the big fighter guy, covering him in this vile-smelling goo. The halfling and I turned around to help, but then ANOTHER slug came sliding up from the side hallway and attacked us! I also got blasted with the gross acid. The smell was SO awful that I immediately passed out, so I have no idea what happened for the rest of the fight. They told me the mage dragged me away. When I woke up, there were three dead slugs and my hair and clothes were all sticky and smelled like total slug barf. Luckily, there was this little pool of water nearby. Normally, I’d be totally worried about what might be living in there, but right then, all I cared about was getting as much of this slime off me as humanly possible, like, NOW. Ignoring the totally gross stares from the others, I ripped off my nasty clothes and washed myself and my hair as best I could in the water, and rinsed my clothes too. The big fighter guy actually lent me his cloak to dry myself with, and he even tried not to stare too much. Finally, I was in a state where I could actually function again, but if I NEVER see another one of those slugs, I will die a happy girl. Seriously, are the dark-kin all messed up ’cause they live down here, or do they live down here ’cause it’s already so messed up? Once the slugs were dead, we checked out the side tunnel, but it just ended in this huge sinkhole after a little while. So there was no way the dark-kin went that way, and we went back to the main hallway. 

After hours and hours, we were exhausted again and found this narrow crack in the wall to camp in. The mage guy did his magic dome thing again, and I was SO glad because in the middle of the night, this HUGE spider crawled out of the crack we were camping in and across the wall above us and scurried off down the hallway. I’m, like, totally shivering just writing this. I thought the slugs were bad, but now I realize there are even WORSE things down here. 

We kept going the next day, or night, or whatever it was. This endless darkness is seriously getting to me. I keep jumping at shadows and I’m starting to think I’ll never feel the sun on my face again. If I’m down here much longer, I can totally see myself turning into a dark-kin myself. Ugh. 

Anyway, when the mage guy did his spell to connect all our minds, we could tell there was someone else in our group! Someone who wasn’t supposed to be there, hearing our thoughts! The mage, like, challenged him, and it just laughed at us and was all smug about having power over us, so the mage dropped the spell. Now we have to talk in the totally barbaric human language these people use. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse. 

So we’re still marching down into the dark when suddenly, as we’re going around this massive sinkhole, a bunch of dark-kin just step into view! The mage and the big fighter guy both blast them with fireballs, but they blast us back, and then the BIGGEST slug you have EVER seen crawls out of the sinkhole! I ran forward to get away from it – dark-kin are gross, but not nearly as gross as a giant GIANT slug – but then another blast from the dark-kin knocked me out AGAIN. I woke up while the dark-kin were dragging me away, but then the others totally took out all the dark kin, even though they tried to run in the dark. The butch priestess did some spell that let her see through their magical darkness, and she and the halfling chased them down. The drow leader had this magical sword that I totally snagged ’cause I’m sure Sentinel will want hers back eventually. I’m not totally sure if it goes with the rest of my look, but maybe I need a bit of a makeover? I can totally see myself as this edgy dark avenger, like, penetrating to the heart of the enemy’s place to get revenge for my lost people. I bet I could totally pull that look off, and it would totally shock everyone back home if I came back all dark and brooding. Hmm.

OMG, finally! Found some gross scraps of paper in this total dump so I can, like, restart my diary and actually write down all the awful stuff that’s happened since those totally disgusting Fire Giants grabbed me. I am SO not going into all the details of being their prisoner. Just thinking about it makes me want to barf. Seeing all my people being tortured and sacrificed to their creepy, perverted god and not being able to do anything? Literally the WORST feeling EVER. 

We finally got freed by this bunch of, like, total maniacs who were just hacking and slashing their way through all the Fire Giants they could find. Not that the FGs didn’t deserve it, but they seemed to be enjoying it WAY too much. So gross. We tried to ditch them after they let us go, but surprise, surprise, there were still some giants around, and they cornered us and, like, killed everyone except me. Ugh, yay me, I guess. Then the barbarians rescued me AGAIN. Or, more accurately, killed the fire giants while I was passed out. And then they actually woke me up instead of just leaving me there. I was the only one who made it, and I think it’s ’cause one of the barbarians felt sorry for me. She’s a half-breed and her mom is from Trustor, which I guess is why she bothered to revive me. She’s definitely way less hairy and smelly than the others. I asked her stuff, and she says she’s one of the Ayarvundii, but then she said Ayarvunda got killed by the fire giants and now she’s a Temulliii instead, which means Ayarvunda’s daughter is dead too. So much death! Those giants are gonna PAY. Apparently, according to her, we have the drow, these dark kin people, to thank for getting the giants all riled up in the first place, and there were even some of them here in Snurre‘s gross halls, like, directing things and giving them money. Maybe my friends who got killed by the giants were the lucky ones, TBH. 

Snurre and his queen are both dead, though! Killed in these two HUGE battles that I was totally part of. Even though the barbarians are, like, totally repulsive, they are seriously brutal and violent. I helped though, and I think I was pretty awesome. For the fight against Snurre, I even snagged this axe off one of them, so at least I looked the part. An axe though? SO lame. Snurre had this massive pile of our stuff, so I totally took poor Galathien’s armor and shield (the ones with the cute gold bits that I always loved) and Findal’s rapier, and Liliath’s dreamy bow to use myself. My heart totally breaks when I think of them while I’m wearing their stuff, but I keep telling myself they’d be happy that their things are helping me get revenge and rescue the others. Well, maybe not Liliath, considering what she said about my new robe. But I always thought her rapier was wasted on her anyway. There are still so many of us missing. Apparently, there are caves under the dungeon I was kept in, and they’re planning to go down there to find more loot, ’cause that’s all they ever care about. Hopefully, I’ll find the rest of us down there, and they’ll help me rescue them so we can finally go back to Trustor. 

Ugh, these caves are SO hot and smelly and gloopy! Some gross goo even dripped from the ceiling onto the big fighter guy with the magic sword, and onto the little halfling – he was, like, completely covered in it! It looked like a giant bird totally pooped all over him or something. So now we’re even sweatier and smellier than before. Except for me, obviously. Didn’t even think that was possible. Plus, apparently, they think there’s this huge ancient fire dragon down here too, which is just great. We found this massive cave and totally sped through it in case it was in there. Then suddenly, BAM! We were surrounded by total darkness. The barbarians have this weird spell where we can all talk to each other in our heads, so I heard the big fighter rush forward and get out of the dark, and then he ran right into, like, a million dark kin who turned him into a human pincushion with their crossbows. Then someone threw something at us that smelled like the WORST thing ever. I was gagging so bad, and I think someone actually threw up, which did NOT help. So I ran back with the half-breed girl, who calls herself Sentinel (so lame), to get away from the arrows, but there were three more of the dark kin behind us, and I was so busy trying not to puke that I couldn’t do anything while they shot at us. Then the butch-looking woman joined us too, and she didn’t even seem to mind the smell – I guess she’s used to it living with all these guys – and she totally went after them, and they ran. Except Sentinel told one to stop and tried to capture him, and then he just, like, slit his own throat rather than get caught. It was SO gross. I don’t know how these people deal with all this yuckiness. 

Anyway, after that, we were, like, super careful, ’cause the other dark kin had run away too, so we didn’t know where they were, but they were definitely still lurking around somewhere. The ones who got behind us had even covered up a passageway with some kind of illusion, so we knew they could totally mess with our heads. 

So we started checking out the hallways, one by one. The first one went upstairs, and the halfling went up a bit and then heard all this chittering and decided it was SO not worth going any further. Sentinel decided to use magic to disguise herself as a dark kin and then make herself invisible, and just wait there to see if anyone tried to sneak up behind us. As we went down the passage where most of them had run, she thought she heard some noise back where the other two had gone, and when she looked, she saw someone running away. I followed the others, and we checked out this maze of hallways while Sentinel kept watch behind us. She found this big room with three dark kin chanting in it, but at the same time, the halfling also found another room with some total weirdos in it, so Sentinel went back to protect our butts. She also said she wasn’t exactly thrilled about taking on three dark kin all by herself. 

The weirdos the halfling found in this smaller room could apparently see him even though he was invisible. They didn’t attack, though, just seemed kinda wary. When he got a better look, he saw that two of them were taller than the others and had these strange bulbous heads and tentacles instead of mouths. So gross! But the others said they’d met one of these before and called them mind flayers, and that they could be really bad news. These two didn’t seem violent, though. The others looked like their servants, just these weird, deformed, skulking creatures. One of the mind flayers talked to the halfling in his head, which the others said was normal, and from what he said, this mind flayer could totally give a Lord of the High Kingdom a run for his money when it came to talking down to people. It would be hilarious to put two of them in a room together and see who ended up on top. Anyway, it turned out they were just watching the dark kin too, ’cause they’re enemies as well. We suggested they help us, but they just laughed and said we were totally out of our league. Like I said, major High Elf vibes here. They said that the hallway on the other side of their room went to the dark kin’s place, and that a lot of elven prisoners had been taken that way. They’re prisoners of the dark kin, which means they’re probably being tortured and stuff and totally wish they were dead unless we can rescue them. 

Clever questioning from yours truly got him to spill more than he meant to, I think. The dragon’s name is Brasimil (the others already knew that, I guess). There are two dark-kin “houses” (that’s what he called them, like our clans maybe) up here, called House Eilserves and House Norqua. They totally hate each other. The wavy dagger thing of Eclavdra is the symbol of House Eilserves. House Taunter is supposedly the strongest of the Dark-kin houses, and they hate both of the other ones. The other symbol we found, the circle with three lightning bolts and flames around the edge, is the symbol of some kind of fighting group. Maybe mercenaries that House Eilserves hired? 

Then the mind flayer just floated away, and we realized we hadn’t heard anything from Sentinel in a while, and she wasn’t answering our head-calls. We went back to where we left her and found some of her stuff just lying around (which I totally snagged, including her rapier, which is ugly but magical, so major dilemma there). But no sign of her. We started looking for her when we heard this ROAR. Like, I almost jumped out of my skin! Turns out the dragon wasn’t just a rumor. We went up a bit and there was this HUGE red dragon just hovering in the middle of the cave, screaming in Draconic or something. Seriously ticked off dragon. Definitely not something you want to mess with. The halfling snuck around into the cave where Sentinel had seen the other dark kin, but they weren’t there anymore. The dragon started screaming in Human as well as Draconic – something about thieving humans, so I guess those dark kin did something to make it mad. Probably stole some of its treasure. We SO didn’t want to get blamed for that, so we went back to the room with the mind flayers while the halfling went into the cave he was in and found this big, dragon-sized exit, and also a passage that curved back to meet the passage from the room we were in. So we all met up there and decided to go down that passage to see if they’d taken Sentinel that way. I was actually kinda impressed by how worried they seemed about finding Sentinel – I didn’t think humans could even feel like that. 

The halfling went first, invisible, and ended up in another massive cave with a river of lava running through the middle and this iron bridge across it that looked super rickety (lol). On the other side, he could see a doorway and a whole bunch of dark kin with tied-up prisoners too! We totally freaked out for a while thinking about how dangerous the lava bridge looked and how many dark kin with poison crossbows would be shooting at us while we crossed. But as we were talking about it, more and more dark kin left through the doorway, which we now saw was shaped like the mouth of a demon face. How tasteful. So, like, the problem was kinda solving itself. Then Sentinel came back online! She was tied up and gagged and blindfolded, so she couldn’t teleport out of trouble, but she said she felt like she was on the back of some kind of lizard going downhill through a tunnel, super fast. We decided it would be best to follow them without them knowing, rather than attacking the last few and making them go even faster, so we just watched them leave while we took a breather. Sentinel told us what she could hear around her. Her captors were speaking this really old-fashioned kind of Elvish. Some names kept coming up – Ixstansus (he’s a guy) was the captain of the warriors. Jayvan (also a guy) was another dark-kin who was, like, a total joke because of how he died – the others guessed he was the one who got cut in half by the portal closing. Apparently, when they met dark kin before, they opened a portal in the wall, and you could see this doorway on the other side. The portal closed while one of them was halfway through, and he got sliced in two. Saelcoffer (she’s a girl) was also mentioned, and they talked about her with, like, total awe and respect. 

I really hope Sentinel knows what she’s doing – she promised to keep talking to us while she could and to try and escape if she got the chance. I’m finding myself, like, strangely worried about what happens to her.