Journal Log: 10-22-05

Father;

It has been an interesting year. I finally arrive at the Baron's. I finally get my chance to to serve as squire/apprentice and the Baron has the nerve to assign me to this nearly peasant, crazy, dumb, and human loving knight; Elinara Zearana (E'Ze). I have had the unique experience of being with this knight on a number of different excursions. I under stand why this peasant (wood elf) is so dumb, it is genetics. Wood elves are nearly human like. They evolved like the rats of old. Father can you believe that this knight doesn't even know how to cast arcane magic, let alone she has taken to Neanderthal like association with primitive 'spirit' magic. Although she does seem to be very courageous, when she is not running from hordes of goblins.

It began a few days ago when we were about to go off and take care of some hill giants to the north, but the Baron asked us to check into some goblin up risings in the Bellwoods. We thought it would be a good way to get our group experienced working together. The baron even sent a long a few extra local warriors and a monk with our team as a training exercise for them. Unfortunately, we were ambushed by hordes of goblins. They swarmed over us in droves. They killed five of our extra warriors in  a matter of moments. We lost contact with our  rogue and bard. Finally the knight called for a retreat towards the old abandoned keep. We fought a pitched battle for days through woods and open fields. It was lucky for us that E'Ze was there. Numerous times she put her life on the line to protect us and heal us.

We finally made it to the keep and  that is when we find out that the leader of the goblins is a half orc. Strange seeing one this far south. Maybe the Duke has finally lost control over his  war with the orcs and they are planning a rear attack. The other possibility is that the orcs have aligned with some of the other lower nobility; the Earl is the most likely candidate. It would not pass my mind to see the Earl betray the Duke to finally remove the Baron from his position.

We continued to fight a retreat into the keep. The monk managed to secure our retreat through the Keep's ruins/entrance. Unfortunately, we did not travel prepared to explore a dungeon keep. We proceeded to explore room by room. The Ranger (Rain a very inquisitive Halfling) was attacked by a black pudding. It took a lot of spells to take it down, especially when it split into two parts when Rain attacked it. It took a very courageous knight to rescue her.

Afterwards, the party continued to explore the rest of the dungeon. In one of the rooms two black puddings attacked us. It divided our party into two fronts. Druid on one end with me behind her, black pudding in the middle, and the ranger and bard at the other end. Lucky for me E'Ze moved behind me and yanked me out of harms way, even though I managed to hurt the creature with a scorching ray. The druid transformed into a black bear and she was grappled by one and attacked by the other. The ranger and bard continued to attack with sling stone along with E'Ze  and I was the only one who had enough fire power to continue the assault with my wand of scorching rays. Finally, we killed both of them. The druid was badly injured so E'Ze healed her. It is strange seeing a knight use spirit magic to heal a druid! I mean next we will see rocks talking to  us. Although at times it does seem like the knight is actually talking to strange objects.

The bard heard something trashing the area behind us so Rain drank a potion and became invisible to investigate. E'Ze stood behind the corner as back up emergency muscle (too darn noisy, full plate armor; although she is rather quiet compared to most of the other knights). We saw a bipedal frog like creature with a moth full of teeth called a Salaad. The druid barely threw a creeping cold spell at the creature and moved forward. The range spread some marbles on the floor and the bard hasted the entire party. I waited since everyone was in the narrow hallway. Then E'Ze moved forward, but she didn't attack and only fought defensively. I couldn't believe it the Salaad moved up and cast a spell on E'Ze causing her great harm, even though his physical attacks didn't seem to do great harm, yet she did not attack. Instead she actually talked to the creature when it muttered it couldn't find 'it'.

The creature actually stopped to talked to E'Ze. An outsider, evil, and sadistically enthralled Salaad was actually negotiating an armistice with us after we had it pinned (Rain moved behind it and used her immovable rods to  pin it in one place, the druid and wolf on its flank, and the knight directly in front of it. Which it complained about not being able to harm. It was a strange sight to behold. The Salaad continued to tell us it's tale about being in enslaved for the past few decades to some necromancer that E'Ze was belligerent about (such un-noble words from a knight). I searched through the Salaad's destruction for the 'amulet' it was looking for, but didn't find a thing. The daring of the creature to destroy such arcane magic (staffs, wands, scrolls, even spell books)!

I did however find a secret passage. The Salaad teleported out after telling something about not having that area in his contract nor did have anything about having to deal with other in his contract, puff he was gone. We did however find out that the battle keep was a research lab for acid weapons for house Majarick. Further down the passage, we found a foundry with numerous unique metals and a hidden stash of mithral and adamantine. This mystic forge was equipped with a number of unique mystical forges. Unfortunately none of it is usable since the fires are created with enslaved fire elements and a pit that leads directly to the Jubile's pit of slimes, oozes, and pudding. Oh, did I forget to mention we found 15 spell books with numerous zero, 1st, and 2nd level spells. I have a lot of work ahead of me.

Well we have to get back on task. We need to find a secure place to rest or get out of here before it is overrun with goblins.

Sincerely,

Oro

-M51