The Personal Journal of Dinnivan d’Sivis

Nhymm 3rd 998 YK

As I begin this journal of my travels I am seated on a padded bench adjacent to a puissant elven swordsman and sorcerer of the dragon marked clan Phiarlan by the name of Elarin. I suspect that Elarin carries no mark himself but he is still a member of House Phiarlan in good standing . He is my guide and guard to Sharn. We have the good fortune to be traveling via the miraculous lightning rail. Across from us sit a hulking and fearsome warforged encased in adamantine and a dangerous looking scarred dwarf dressed in dark clothing. After some time I discovered that the dwarf’s name was Vaegar and the warforged’s was Zed. A nearby loquacious human fidgeting with a walking stick began jabbering at us. I have to admit I paid little attention to the human’s prattling at first. For that reason I was quite taken aback when the babbling fool of a human suddenly drew an enchanted wand out of the hollow of his cane and he thrust it into the face of a young human courier sitting nearby. I later discovered that the courier’s name was Thomas Quid. The way the courier crashed to the floor lead me to suspect the lad’s untimely demise. Luckily for the young human, I checked for a heart beat. The lad’s heart was fluttering but he still lived. He was only mostly dead. I quietly called upon the power of the Sovereign Host to drag the lad from death’s own door. Simultaneously the wand-wielding villain took advantage of the distraction to beat a hasty retreat and extricate himself from the lightning rail and possible retribution. Strange assassin with a most unconventional fighting style: laying about him with an enchanted wand as though it were a club! But I suppose its possible that Sharnic humans do this sort of thing all the time. This unfortunate turn of events proved providential for myself in that it lead to an alliance consisting of the four of us; Vaegar, Zed, Elarin, and myself.

Later in the day:

Following the tip provided for us by the young human courier, Thomas Quid, we decided to rendezvous with his master Provost Bonal Geldem on the bridge at Kelsa Spire. There we were attacked by a mithril-clad axe-wielding warforged assassin. “She” sought the satchel I had just recovered from the rapidly cooling corpse of Provost Geldem. Zed seemed reluctant to defend us from a fellow war forged so I lobbed the satchel at his feet. As I hoped this precipitated a combat between the two warforged. Of course with our assistance, the mithril war forged was dispatched post haste. Elarin and I quickly withdrew from the bridge and after rapidly looting what we could, we retreated. Later we were told that Zed and Vaegar were interrogated by the Sharnic constabulary. Just the very sort of entanglement I sought to avoid.

Later:

On our way to Highwall we were accosted by the same wand-wielding assassin and two chain-mace wielding thugs. A battle ensued and Zed was taking a beating from the assassin’s wand of magic missiles. After I was stuck with a force missile I deliberately insulted the assassin and his wand so he would fire on me and ignore Zed. We made short work of the trio thanks to the fighting skill of my compatriots and the healing power granted to me by the Sovereign Host. However the wand-assassin very nearly uncreated Zed! I am now nearly giddy with excitement at obtaining the assassin’s staff-wand. The possession of which I owe to an uncharacteristically greedy “dibs” I shouted during the battle. To absolve my conscience I passed on my share of the other spoils of conquest.

Nhymm 4th, 998 YK

Early morning- still dark:

Apparently a letter was slipped under the door of our room at the Last Haven Inn at Highwall. Some unknown “E” wishes us to return to her the journal that we found in the satchel. This E wants us to meet him at the Broken Anvil Tavern.

Sunrise:

As it turns out the author of the mysterious letter is actually a human female by the name of Lady Elaydren d’Vown. Apparently a member of House Cannith though not herself a dragonmarked. After a period of tense negotiation with Elarin as our primary negotiator we arrived at a generous agreement. At one point I was forced to intrude on the negotiations when Elarin was on the verge of refusing a lucrative and intriguing opportunity. Not only will we be earning desperately need coin, we will also have the opportunity to plumb the secrets of the ancients! We are now seeking a schema for House Cannith! And who knows what other ancient lore could be discovered! I can hardly control my eager anticipation of this inconceivably stimulating learning experience!

Nhymm 7th, 998 YK

Last Haven Inn sunrise:

I have just completed my training in illusion, shadow magic, and wizardry with House Phiarlan. We are now heading to the location indicated by Lady Elaydren.

Later under Dorasharn Tower near E213 Valve Cluster:

I am now standing at the top of a passage that we believe will lead us to Cannith’s schema. The enchanted journal did indeed open the cover of the shaft so we have good reason to believe that Lady Elaydren was correct. Going back a few moments, we have just survived another battle with a different mithril-clad war forged. This one was allied with a pair of clawed shifters. Zed’s immense physical strength and near invulnerability to mundane attacks allowed him to crush one shifter. Vaegar and Zed combined to defeat the other more skilled shifter. Elarin ‘s skill with the blade led him to triumph in a contest of flashing rapiers with the mithril war forged. Now I struggle with a moral dilemma: is a warforged’s armor skin and thus sacrosanct or is it merely attached armor to be despoiled as any defeated enemy’s armor?

998 Nhym 7th Last Haven Inn

So much happened so very quickly yesterday that I had no opportunity to record it. It all began after we opened the secret passage down to the ancient subterranean Cannith ruins. The slope was gentle enough that we were all able to negotiate the passage with little difficulty. Vaegar scouted ahead of our company at my behest to ferret out any inconvenient complications. As it turned out it was fortuitous that I suggested such a course of action. Despite his prowess in the arena of stealth, Vaegar was ambushed by a near limitless multitude of beetles. Had our entire fellowship stumbled upon the vermin horde we might have been overwhelmed. As it was, Vaegar was fortunate to have escaped with his life. Vaegar warned us that his weapons were useless against the beetle swarm. Thinking quickly, I predicted that Zed’s adamantine “skin” would prove most unpalatable to the vicious insects. And indeed they were completely incapable of penetrating the impregnable metal. However neither could Zed inflict more than negligible harm to the great mass of beetles. Zed must be a great deal more cunning than he appears for he worked out that these beetles were extremely flammable and set the swarm aflame with his torch. When It was safe to pass the beetle horde, all we could see was tiny scorched carapaces and legs burned nearly to ash.

After I had called upon the holy power of Boldrei, Aurion, and the rest of the Sovereign Host to heal Vaegar we continued our explorations. We had only progressed a short way before we were again attacked by small creatures charging out of the darkness. On this occasion we were set upon by terrier-sized rats with some sort of hard outer shell. I originally thought the mutated rats to be the supernatural spawn of Xoriat, but upon examination it appeared that they were actually hybrids of two naturally occurring animals. It seemed that they were very large rats merged with huge arthropods (I suspect lobsters). The melding of arthropod and great rat seemed to have been accomplished through nature magic, probably Gatekeeper magic. In any case, the two chitin-covered rodents were surprisingly dangerous opponents. The combination of speed and armor made them very difficult to exterminate, like cockroaches grown to monstrous size. Furthermore the little beasts bore a weak poison in their saliva such as is usually only known in particular small rodents like shrews. The others were fortunate in that the bug-rats took an instant dislike to me and focused their poison-coated incisors on my miserable calves. My agony was to my compatriot’s advantage in that it provided the opportunity for them to attack with impunity or thought to self-defense. It was still a near thing though and I was nearly in despair of my life. However my allies did indeed manage to put an end to the bug-rats before they put an end to me.

After healing myself, we spent considerable time searching the ruins. We discovered three points of interest. The first was a small chamber containing a small buried font of enchanted healing water. The second was a door with an expensive adamantine door jam. The third was a partially collapsed room with two steel-skinned golem-dogs. We had thought to use the height advantage of the collapsed wall to employ unreturned missile fire on these warforged dogs. Apparently the metal dogs were imbued with a rudimentary intelligence because they quickly retreated behind some shelves where we could neither see nor fire upon them. Zed thought to climb down and attempt to make pets of them. I volunteered to follow Zed down into the golem-dog room. I was skeptical about forming a bond of friendship with a programmed golem so I sought to protect Zed from his well-intentioned folly. Even with my healing ability it was almost a disaster. The metal dogs nearly tore Zed limb from limb. One of the little monsters even went after me! Ultimately though, Zed’s prodigious strength and adamantine toughness backed by my healing prowess proved superior to the golems’ savagery.

Strange polyhedron tool-like devices sprang forth from the heads of the dog-golems upon death. Vaegar worked out that the vari-shaped die-tools had to be placed in their corresponding wall receptacles in a certain order. Unfortunately Vaegar very nearly killed himself in the attempt. Incorrect sequences resulted in a searing jolt of electrical energy. I healed Vaegar as much as was possible given my dwindling spell energy. I then employed my knowledge of mathematical permutations to Vaegar’s informative but useful failed attempts to work out the proper sequence of key-tool insertions. I was painfully jolted once but was quickly able to divine the correct sequence on the next attempt. Immediately a secret panel opened and the Schema was revealed! It looked quite different than I would otherwise have anticipated. First of all it was a 4 pointed star rather than rectangular, lozenge shape, or cylindrical shaped as a typical schema would be. Secondly it was made of solid adamantine! I grabbed the unusual and atypical schema and called for a withdrawal, leaving time only for a brief looting of the previously mentioned shelves.

Zed and I led the retreat from the schema-ruins while Elarin and Vaegar searched the puzzle room for assets that could be easily liquidated. Before Zed and I could progress more than a few yards, a flaming crossbow bolt struck the wall behind us. We heard the voice of an angry war forged demanding that we relinquish the schema. This warforged also attempted to subvert Zed by coaxing him into joining the Lord of Blade’s terrorist organization. Thinking quickly I threw the schema to the ground and challenged this Sabre to “come and take it”. I was very concerned that Zed’s sympathies were with the Lord of Blades and his loyalty to his companions was faltering. I thought his loyalty to us would be shored up if the enemy attempted to abscond the item for which he had worked so hard to obtain. There was also the matter of the 1,000 gold reward to motivate Zed or more precisely the loss thereof. After dropping the Schema I cast the new shadow spell that I had learned from house Phiarlan’s spellbinders. The magic plunged us all into darkness and prevented Sabre from employing those flaming crossbow bolts. Sabre was then forced to draw his enchanted light-bearing sword and feel his way toward us.

Unfortunately the Shadownet spell did not last as long as I anticipated it would and we were revealed and vulnerable. Zed went on the defensive and hid behind his great shield. It quickly became apparent that a wounded Zed, despite his great strength, was no match for the more skilled Sabre. Zed was still suffering from the mauling he received at the “hands” of the golem-dogs and was still dripping the black fluid that the warforged use for blood. Thus he was in no shape for a protracted sword duel. Inspiration or desperation or both led me to scoop up the Schema and flee toward the surface. As I guessed, the warforged chose to pursue the Schema instead of killing Zed. My desperate act gave Zed the opportunity to run to the font and heal himself. More importantly, my tactical withdrawal brought both Vaegar and Elarin into play. The three of them were able to overcome Sabre as he attempted to pursue me. Of course Sabre did defend himself but he could not fight effectively with his attention divided by the pursuit, exactly as I had intended. After a brief but furious running battle, he was slain.

As soon as we triumphed over Sabre we beat a hasty retreat out of the sewer. Unfortunately most of us were covered in human excrement and even those of us who weren’t smelled as though we were. We were not allowed back in the broken Anvil due to our odoriferous condition and thus I was forced to call in a favor at Sivis enclave at Dorshan tower. My kin provided us with buckets of water so we could cleanse the worst of the stench from our bodies and clothes. We then re-entered the Broken Anvil and hurried over to speak with Lady Elaydren. We gave her the Schema and she asked that we also guide her to the subterranean ruins. I mentioned that this was not part of the original agreement and Lady Elaydren offered to double our finder’s fee! This was more than generous and I would have accepted far less. However I was delighted because such a handsome sum meshes well with my long term plans to outfit an expedition to the Mournland.............