By Beth Griese

Date:   April 29, 1995

Quote of the Day:
"I'm so dumb it hurts." -- Jim Gaynor

To Garen Thundersson, cleric of Mielikki. From your faithful servant, Jade.

Adventuring has its tough decisions, Master.

As we continued through the Halls of Eveningstar, we came upon a hallway lined with statues; life-sized statues of adventurers, soldiers, monsters - and one pillar. We couldn't find anything unusual about the statues, but when we opened a door in the hallway, a sigil appeared on the pillar. We're assuming it's a mark like yours to identify a powerful man, but we never did find the significance to the sigil appearing there. We only found three dead kobolds beyond the door, probably the work of the adventurers we found evidence of earlier, but when we tried to leave the hallway, one of the statues - a warrior - struck at the back of the party. It was a frustrating thing to be trapped at the back of the group and hardly able to do anything while our group was under attack, but whatever the thing was, it dissolved into goo after a hit from Gary and didn't leave too much damage to the group.

Behind the dining room, we found a huge hall, as big if not bigger than Lady Tesseril's own chambers, with a throne in the center. I wish we had some idea who used to rule here. One wall was covered with a painting of a battle that we could only make out when we stood close to it. Borreau touched it and the painting began to bleed. We must be learning, Garen, because all of us gave the painting a wide berth after that.

Unfortunately, we still haven't learned all the tricks there are to know, because B'rinth tried to listen at a door that collapsed and attacked him. Undoubtedly one of those lurker creatures you've told me about. We tried to slice the monster off of B'rinth carefully. My hands were shaking with trying to hurry and yet not cut our elven companion. As it was, he had collapsed within from lack of air, but had recovered all right after a few moments.

It seemed as though each room we entered in this place was stranger than the last. Behind the throne, we found a room lit by glowing moss. A huge, broken table lay in the center of the room. A skeleton of some manner of giant was on the table, with a spear impaling it and the wood below. Telaran and I both tried removing the spear, and Nory did some impressive tumbling trick right off of it, but we weren't able to remove the spear until Telaran and I both put our backs to it. The spear glows slightly and pulses with power; it must be an extremely powerful artifact. The word "shimmering" is written on the head of the spear. Telaran is quite taken with it, and he's carrying it proudly.

Borreau and Nory removed the skullcap off this giant, and our gnomish friend had quite a lot of fun playing while we were looking at our treasure that only interests fighters. He spun around the cap for a while and even tried to use it as a slide down some rubble that blocked the other end of the room. He managed to break it, though, and quickly got bored and pulled the rest of us onward. I picked up one of the teeth from the giant's skull. Heaven knows what I'll need with a souvenir, but it seemed an appropriate trophy for all we've gone through so far.

There was another room that we explored next behind the throne, and this time found someone who, it seemed, was on the wrong end of a fire spell. The room was blackened and sooty, and a scorched skeleton lie curled in the middle. I shudder at the thought of meeting such an end, but our companions with elvish blood managed to find secret doors that led onward from this room. No magical fire rained down on us from the sky, so we kept up our exploration.

A little side room contained a notched table surrounded by old, rusted weapons that had been sheathed and put away here. Nory apparently is able to look for magic, because he said the notched table was magical. On a hunch, I ran my sword blade against the table like a whetstone. Sure enough, my blade was suddenly sharp enough to slice threads. Borreau and I spent a few wistful moments wondering if there'd be a way to transport that whole table out of this place, but we had to give up that idea as hopeless and continue with the gifts it had given us.

Of course, we had gone too long without an infernal trap of some kind trying to attack us. This time the attack was thwarted unusually. Magical arrows shot down a hallway at us to be promptly sucked up by the brooch Nory was wearing. He was insufferable for the next ten minutes as he reminded us how much he had saved us.

We discovered a library next, full of bookshelves, including one that had apparently fallen over and crushed some poor soul who was now little more than tatters of flesh and bone. I picked up a few titles idly - found mostly ledger books and diaries - but our magical companions, Nory and B'rinth in particular, started searching through the books hoping to find magical writings. B'rinth apparently found what he was hoping for; he hasn't offered much details, but his eyes were shining for the next twenty minutes. Nory had luck of a different sort. A book he opened exploded, scared the life out of me, and it was a good thing for our gnome that Gary was nearby to offer healing. Those wounds could have ended him otherwise. I suppose that's the dual edge of magic.

When we were allowed to continue, we found the strangest room of all. A bedroom with three wardrobes and a huge canopied bed seemed normal enough at first. Two of the wardrobes were filled with clothes, but the third held a woman in scant clothes who was manacled to the back wall and frozen like a statue. Our magicians started examining the chains - at least, I certainly hope it was only the chains they were examining - for a way to free the woman without setting off any more of these traps. I wandered over to the canopied bed, where B'rinth had tossed a sword he had found. Of course, he hadn't the slightest interest in it, but I was fascinated with the blade, so I picked it up to look at it. I should have been looking around instead; I'm afraid a pretty blade caught too much of my attention and, yes Master, my greed. A huge spider dropped from the canopy at me. I swung at it with the sword, which glowed with a purple light, and sliced through it as if it were butter. But it also bit my arm, and it must have been the same damned stuff the kobolds used, because my knees gave way beneath me again.

Humiliating, to have to wake up yet again to find the party waiting for me to come out of a swoon like a lady from the city. While I was out, they had found the keys that should unlock the woman from the wardrobe, and as all of us wondered in the back of our heads, when we released her, she awoke and seemed to be in perfect health. I spoke with her, all of us assuming that she might be more eager to deal with another woman than with a group of men. Who knows what this magician was doing with her before he turned to dust ages ago? The woman's name, she told me, was Miior, and I think she's been in that wardrobe for an unimaginably long time. She speaks of Myth Drannor as if it were still in its heyday, and calls a place called Netheril home. I haven't heard of it, but B'rinth said it was where Anauroch lies now, a land brought down by the evil and horrors it housed.

Miior was exhausted. Borreau gave her the use of his magical bedroll, which affords comfortable sleep to the person in it, and the rest of us conferred. The trick of it, according to our clerics, is that she's evil, as were probably most of the people from that horrid place. What a quandary! What do we do with this evil person we've rescued? Personally, I hope we can find that she'll behave and not force us to do anything drastic. I hate the idea of rescuing someone just to be their end, and since I've never put sword to a human before, I don't relish the idea of this being my first battle. Everyone has agreed that we cannot, regardless of her nature, leave her in this horrible place. We certainly can't chain her back up where she was. Therefore, it's time for us to leave the Halls of Eveningstar, at least for now. We'll return Miior to a city, see if we can find a place for her to go. We'll take back the treasures we've found and return home. I've been away for a few days now, Master, and my fondest hope is that I'll return to find you back home.

Your faithful servant,

--Jade

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