Jaylinn and Cade
It is with a heavy heart that I write this entry. Jaylinn and Cade had moved from Greengold to Sevenarches in an attempt to start a new life yet never reached their destination. We only found out about their failure to reach Sevenarches after Elensar sent word to us that they had not arrived when expected. Though I have done an wonderful job in limiting the frequency of raids by bandits by providing them with other means of employment, it is not outside the realm of possibility that a new band had taken to raiding the roads between Greengold and Sevenarches.
As such, we all set out to find our surrogate child, though he was no longer the young boy we took away from Daggermark. It took a few days of travel to reach a small settlement located near one of the many rivers in that we first noticed signs of foul play. This small village was almost pristine in its condition, buildings standing, no signs of smoke or combat that were overt, but there was something off about the location, there were no people anywhere to be seen. So from the outskirts of town, I decided to be the one to enter and look to see if anything could be found out as to why it appeared that this hamlet was abandoned. Moving into the village my keen eyes picked up on small things that told a very sad story, a scrap of bloody cloth blowing down the road, the appearance of drag marks leading out of a home, drops of blood on the window of a home. All these little signs prepared me for what I found in the center of the village, bodies, at least six that encircled the town well.
Moving back out to my family I told them of what I saw and we agreed to enter the village as a force, to see what else could be determined. As we all entered the town square the dead bodies rose to attack, as I had expected when I first went to investigate. We had a pitched battle with the dead, but were surprised when Mirri could not turn them as she has with the unliving in the past. We struck with speed and precision, slaying them without any real injury to ourselves. Once each one of them died a slick silver metal leaked out of the wounds and ears of the dead. Lor’Athorn once again set about collecting samples, and my siblings think I am the one to watch for signs of corruption. Lor’Athorn curiosity may turn to harm if he is not careful about the reason he collects such things, and the experiments he conducts afterward.
Amaras noticed that the well was exceedingly brackish and decided in his usual animalistic way that the best method to see if anything was in the water was to attack it. He summoned an orb of fire and threw it into the well, and much to my surprise his attack summoned a monster, some sort of plant creature from the depths. We scattered and allowed the mages to burn away the plant thing in short order, I personally clung tenaciously to my lovers arm during all this, as I have had enough contact with the fungal aspects of nature to last me a lifetime.
One of the bodies contained a tattered page of a journal that suggested that something may be happening at a mine, and seeing as how none of the bodies were Jaylinn or Cade we all agreed that looking for this mine would be the next logical step. Mirri’s companion, some mute half-elf ranger, proved to be very adept at locating the tracks and leading us on. During the long march to the mine, we encountered another group of creatures, unlike the bodies or the plant thing, that looked a lot like dog with tentacles. Magic proved to be ineffective in some cases, a fireball just washed over them without causing any harm, while the arcane missile that Palanon so frequently uses struck true on many occasions. The conflict with this new group did not pose much of a challenge so we followed their trail back to the den they stayed in, since they are not indigenous to this region.
The den proved to be the mine that was talked about in the scrap of journal we found. Upon entering there were a number of corpses that littered the enter way, taking this as a queue I used my ring to become invisible. As we moved into the cave we were confronted by one of the Dark Elves, standing with two half-elf lackeys, ready to fight. Yet as we looked closer we noticed that two of those strange flowers were supporting the cave roof and twitched with our presence. Jaylinn was also here, tied up in the back, held hostage by this dark elf.
Feeling the anger rising in my I walked across the cave while my siblings talked with this woman. I made my way behind her and after a moment looking for the best place to stab my dagger, I whispered every so softly into her ear “From my heart I stab at thee” as my enchanted dagger plunged into her neck, extinguishing the life she was trying so desperately to bargain for. Seeing their mistress so quickly dispatched the half-elves gave up on the spot. We cut Jaylinn free and made our way out of the cave, collapsing the celling in on those who would ally themselves with our enemy.
It was at this point that Jaylinn told us that Cade was dead. Personally I felt a good deal of remorse for him, since I had a hand in bringing the two of them together, yet Amaras was unusually stoic and reserved, and I can’t help but think that he had some other thought running through his head at that moment. The next morning he was gone, Amaras had left to look for something far to the west, or possibly run away from a woman I think he loves.