A new plan so crazy I might risk the restraining jacket.

It seems I did it again, committed to something that would have great effects if it works, but that has such a low chance of success even I'm wondering if I'm crazy to even try it.

To sketch the situation, I'm an IT geek who's daily exercise exists of walking up 2 flights of stairs a few times a day and then sitting still between hourly walks to the water cooler.
So when last week an email circulated at work that some people where signing up for something called a Spartacus run, I barely read past the title before skipping it.
Today however, my colleague brought it up again as he was trying to find more people to represent the IT department together with him and so I opened the site to have a look what it was actually about.

Spartacus run 2014, it turns out, is in the recreational domain right next to my door and it's a 10 km run with 15 obstacles along the way.
I do know myself enough to know that I can't run 1 km before falling over from exhaustion, but I can walk 10 km without too much trouble. And since my colleague kept mentioning that he was planning to do it at a walking pace, combined with the start being practically in my garden, I relented and signed up.

So now I've got about ten weeks to cultivate something resembling a healthy condition with which to try and finish the run. So what do I do? I turn to the sports enthusiast in the family, my sister and brother in law, who seem to actually enjoy walking up and down mountains. After sending off a mail and actually working a bit (since this is all still happening during the work hours :p ), I get a reply...

'You foul'... followed by a quite thorough mail explaining why I'm crazy thinking I can finish this run with only two months training and suggesting I try the next one in a year and two months, since that would be more realistic.
And the bloody mail actually made a lot of sense, which was of course the most annoying of it all. I had once again committed to something in my foolish go-lucky optimism while down inside me a tiny voice was trying to wake up my sense of logic, only to be silenced until about 5 minutes after I'd signed up.

Luckily, about half an hour after the 'you foul' mail, a second, slightly more positive mail followed, in which my sister did give some advice for if I would still try it, even if it was just for the team spirit and the dead drop about halfway. So there was still some hope.

So... why am I boring the mirror with all this?
Because I still got a sliver of home that I might finish the run and become a Spartacus.

And I'm working on a plan, a plan so cunning, you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel!
First I looked for some training programs, the most popular in belgium (start to run) takes 10 weeks to get you up to 5 km, a nice condition boost which could help a lot.
A bit more looking around, including for apps I could put on my smartphone to help me run and satisfy my data hunger and I found Zombies, Run! 5k Training which is similar to start to run but does 5 km in 8 weeks, which gives me some extra margin, and it's in a game format, which is always a plus.

So I'm once again feeling a bit more optimistic.

Now just to broadcast to the world that I committed to this so I'll have a harder time backing out due to peer pressure and hopefully I can keep myself motivated. After all, it's only two months until I enter the arena.

CLD - Reign of the fellnight queen - Entry eight

Dear Gilra,

My senses were right, right after resting we found the armory to the side of the main tower. Next to the numerous axes and swords, there were also some weapons like the Fey bane longsword, which looked exceptionally suited for what was soon to come.

After the armory we decided to keep what we suspected was the throne room for last and circled back to the stairwell we came up on, next to which we found several abandoned guestrooms, alluding to a glorious past.

But then it was time to finally conquer the throne room, and as we opened the doors to the majestic throne room, with it's row of viny pillars leading up to the throne itself, it looked quite empty.

We all seemed to suspect invisible creatures, so before anyone else could react Gnomy decided to fill the room with black tentacles, hoping to catch anything in it, visible or not. In return, something suddenly turned him into a rat, which turned out put an end to his spell casting for the rest of the trip, as his rat squeaking couldn't say the required words anymore, even though his mind was still there.

Surprised but ready, Kinley was the next to respond. As he walked into the room, he soon spotted the air elemental swirling on the side. And like Kinley usually does, he was right next to it within seconds, whacking it with whatever he was holding.
Meanwhile, Worf had taken Gnomy's rat body and put it inside his pocket for safe keeping while the rest of us followed Kinley into the room.

The air elemental was no match for Kinley, so I moved to the middle of the room instead, looking around carefully to try and see what had turned Gnomy into a rat, and to my luck, Queen Rhoswen must have flinched as I suddenly saw her quite well hidden eyes in one of the pillars. While we now knew where the queen was hiding, it didn't make hitting her any easier, and before we could try to hit her, she had summoned another wind elemental to annoy us and moved to another pillar.

The wind elemental had appeared between Delgo and me and within seconds Delgo was twirling around inside it's vortex, creating quite a sight with his twirling hand still on fire from the magical flames he had been producing.

On the other end of the room at the pillar with the queen inside, Draco, Kinley and Worf were trying their best to hit the queen, but even with Drako's pseudo dragon Zar'roc landing on the pillar itself and trying to sting the eyes with it's tail, it was still hard to do, and certainly not helped when another wind elemental appeared only to be beaten down.

Meanwhile I was thinking on how to prevent the queen from hopping from pillar to pillar and the numerous oil flasks I carried were my answer, so while Draco was swirling around behind me and the rest was hitting the queen's current pillar, I was pouring oil into the pillar closest to me and apparently attracting the queen's ire, as suddenly I got the urge to laugh, an almost irresistible laughter that made me unable to do anything but roll around on the floor for over a minute, a nasty spell to say the least.

As I was rolling around laughing, Worf with Gnomy in his pocket had moved towards the throne itself from where Whorf fired some arrows at Delgo's air elemental, destroying it too and making Delgo drop to the ground again.

Back at the queen's pillar, Kinley managed to score a hit on the queen through the eye hole who in turn tried and eventually succeeds in casting that same laughing spell on Kinley.

With only Draco, Delgo and Worf still able to fight, Draco decides to call upon his army of critters, soon swarming the entire pillar with spiders, including two enlarged ones inside, keeping the queen poisoned and nauseated, after which Draco even entangled her with the pillar's vines themselves.
Unfortunately the spiders soon disappeared to where they were summoned from, so Draco called a flaming sphere instead, burning the queen inside her pillar prison, and when he started calling down lightning too, it wasn't long before the queen was toast.

While Kinley and I were recovering from our laughing spells, the rest found the Crook of Cildhureen among the queen's possessions. So onwards and upwards we went, as we head up towards the towers roof, quickly dispatching the spriggans stationed there and using the Crook of Cildhureen to reseal the prison.

Afterwards we managed to get out again the same way we came in without any incident, meeting the waiting Palombier as expected. He and his buddies quickly got us home again, while also returning Gnomy to his human form.

Seeing as we are now once again in Westtown and I managed to live that whole adventure and tell about it, it seems my diary has served it's purpose. So while I might still write down some short notes to remember, I think I'll be using that writing hour while my companions prepare spells to get in some extra rest or preparation instead.

So, until I write again,
Maruk

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tl;dr: Explored upper level, found armory, guest rooms and empty looking throne room, Queen Rhoswen was hiding in pillars, summoning wind elementals and putting transform or laughter spells on us. Defeated her and got the Crook of Cildhureen, moved up towers and cleaned up spriggans waiting there, used Crook of Cildhureen to seal prison and returned home.

CLD - Reign of the fellnight queen - Entry seven

Dear Gilra,

After resting, we decided to explore the west end of the courtyard before risking another trap in the main corridor. As it turns out, the animal pens are to the west, so as we opened the door we came head to head with two worg, vicious looking over sized wolfs.

Gnomy was the quickest of us and seemed to have gotten inspiration from the vines, as the worg came to a sudden stop while black tentacles spouted out of the ground all around them. Pleased that for once it wasn't us who was being groped in unpleasant places, Draco and Kinley were quick to follow, Draco with his trusty lightning bolt and Kinley by charging into the enclosure.

It was Kinley's charge and sudden stop that revealed the true situation to us, as he started yelling back that there were four more worg waiting around the corner. Seeing an opportunity to channel the worg between the tentacles and the wall, I was soon standing at Kinley's side, holding the worg back as our companions dealt out some ranged pain from behind us.

While worg can be a real threat once they surround us, I think our quick thinking and the black tentacles channeling effect, allowed us to take on the worg's in smaller numbers, offering an easy victory to us once again.

With the nightmarish images of the field of rubbery black tentacles suppressed, we quickly moved on to through the next few doors, storming through the barracks and smaller towers, defeating several spriggans along the way. We finally barged into the man tower room, where we saw what appeared to be queen Rhoswen, pacing back and forth and paying us no attention.

It took an arrow and some disbelief, but in the end even this strong illusion faded to our inspection. So with the first floor cleaned out of any threats, we took the main towers stairs up and stumbled into a ballroom filled with dancing people. As they approached us and tried to make us join them in the festivities, Kinley felt three arrows bounce of his armor. Reassured by this that something was up, we once again managed to see the dancing people for the illusions they were and started looking around for the source of the arrows.

It didn't take us long to figure out that these shooters must be similar to the invisible pixies we encountered before, so Draco sent his pet Velo out to sniff them out, just as Manon went to the center of the room and cast an invisibility purge centered on her, revealing all invisible creatures around her.

With their invisibility gone, the three pixies we found didn't last long, so before long we were out exploring the second floor again.

A few doors down, we found two more satyr waiting for us, and when they cast a sleep spell on us all, they succeeded on me and Worf. When I woke up again it was with one of the satyr trying to coup-de-grace me, and only my quick wit to save me. Worf was more lucky as he had fallen asleep back in the safety of the hallway behind us, so within seconds we were all dealing out some heavy punishment on the satyr, who didn't last long enough to do much in return.

After dealing with them, we continued through what ended up being the kitchen and came out into the roof garden next to an angry looking plant creature. Luckily for me, Kinley was the one being grappled this time, as the plants heavy damage would have killed me in seconds while Kinley managed to put up quite a fight even while being held tightly by the plant.

With the plant occupied by Kinley, the rest of us managed to surround it and start dealing damage as well, and soon the plant was down and Kinley received some much needed healing from Manon.

By now we were once again getting winded from the fighting but decided to push on to the last floor before resting anyway.

Up there we soon stumbled onto the balcony where we discovered a badly hidden spriggan. While fighting that one however, his three better hidden brothers joined the fight. It took some work but even in our winded state these four spriggans were no match for us.

However, one of the spriggans managed to deal me a heavy blow to the head, making it hard to think, and we were now also running low on prepared spells, so resting seemed like a good idea.

We are now closing in on the queen's quarters, and according to that satyr in the basement, the armory must be around here too.

Until soon,
Maruk

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tl;dr: Continued exploring the first floor and fought several worg and spriggans, as well as an illusion of queen Rhoswen. On the second floor we encountered an illusion of dancing people and three invisible pixies. Followed by two satyr in the kitchen and a plant creature(barvus?) in the roof garden. Moved on to the third floor, fought four spriggan on the balcony and decided to rest.

CLD - Reign of the fellnight queen - Entry six

Dear Gilra,

The last hours have been tense, after our group reformed, we continued exploring the dungeon and soon came upon two more sprigans and a horned guy playing a flute who I think was a satyr. As soon as we entered he started playing a charming tune, but luckily for us, none of us was impressed and within seconds we were attacking the sprigans with our usual ferocity. After the sprigans were down, it only took a few hits before the satyr had enough and surrendered, offering us information about the castle in return for his life.

According to the satyr called jaxir, the castle was three floors and a dungeon high, with the main tower being even higher. On the first floor there where barracks for the troops, on the second floor a ball room, a roof garden and a kitchen and on the third floor we would find the queen's chambers and the armory.

Armed with this new information, we snuck up the stairs to the first floor where we once again prepare to rush through a door to surprise those behind it, unfortunately while we were sneakily getting ready, Draco accidentally made a ruckus while calling some lightning, which turned out to be a bit louder than expected. Still, it made no difference to the sprigan on the other side of the door, as he was down within seconds just like the others before him.

With our surprise ruined and a charged lighting running through Draco's veins, we decided to forgo stealth and just run into the next room, which turned out to be an empty courtyard. At least, it looked empty at first, right up until four carved plants came alive and turned out to be topiary gargoyles. They put up quite a fight, even making some of us retreat while others charged, but after a strong battle we did manage to defeat them.

We barely had time to breath before Draco once again urged us on from the rear lines, as his charged lightning bolts would not last much longer, so without delay we decided to take the main door further into the castle.

I was once again up ahead to try and find any traps before my allies triggered them, but the rushed move must have distracted my senses, for one moment I was sneaking through a 20 feet wide corridor and the next I was hanging sideways in a narrow pit, under attack from thorny vines which held me tightly in place. It seems, in hindsight, that there was a hidden trapdoor in the middle of the hallway, with a shaft below it leading down to the plateau with all the skeletons and equipment we found earlier in the underground tunnels. In that shaft there where three assassin vines waiting for anything that fell into the trap, dropping their victims only once they were dead, leading to the skeletons we found before. And now they were trying to do the same to me.

As I suddenly disappeared from my party's sight, they quickly rushed closer, Kinley managed to dodge the vines attack, but Draco got pulled into the pit too, but not after managing to discharge one more of his lightning bolts, which only taught us that the vines were immune to lightning.
Since both of us were now hanging inside a narrow shaft and the vines could reach out of it into the nearby area, our companions had a dilemma, if they wanted to do anything against the vines or for our rescue, they needed to get closer, which also meant they would be in the vines reach.

Luckily for us, some of them risked it and before long Kinley was lowering his animated rope while Gnomy and Worf were trying to hit the vines. By the time the animated rope was attaching itself to me, Draco had wrestled free, fallen into the cave bellow and moved to a safe distance, only suffering a few scratches and bruises from the high fall.

Meanwhile some acid arrows had hit the vines and proven useful, and made Draco think that unlike lightning, fire might help too. So while Kinley was holding a firm grip on the rope, ready to pull me up when I broke free, and Worf got grabbed by the vines for getting to close to the edge, Draco was thinking up ways to roast all of us that were stuck in the shaft.

Luckily for me, I got free before Draco's plan came into effect, and thanks to Kinley's pulling I quickly ascended out of the shaft, climbing out next to Manon, who slapped a needed healing on me now that she could once again reach me.

So while I was balancing on the edge of the pit next to Gnomy, Kinley and Manon, with Worf dangling below me in the vines grasp, Draco at the bottom of the pit had finally summoned a fire elemental, thinking that was the easiest way to get some singing fire tangled into the vines. That this would also singe anything we had dangling the the shaft must have escaped his mind, as I'm sure Worf was now getting hotter by the minute.

The vines I just escaped from didn't want to give me up that easily though, as they once again grappled me on the edge of the pit. Luckily this time I was still attached to Kinley with the rope, and his valiant pulling managed to pull both me and the vine farther away from the pith, allowing all of us to hit and kill the vine out in the open.

The other two vines in the pit were however still alive, with one of them holding Worf and the other trying repeatedly to grab the fire elemental, our party soon resumed it's attack on them except for Kinley who once again lowered the rope for Worf.

It seemed like the gods of chaos were watching us, as by the time the rope attached to Worf, the vines had grappled the fire elemental, pulling him up and singing both Worf and the rope. Worst of all, it seems the vines were quite resistant to fire too, so our fire elemental was more trouble to us than to it's intended target. To make matters even worse, Kinley who was now trying to pull Worf up tripped and fell into the pit too, dropping like an armored brick past Worf and the fire elemental, he soon landed in the cave with a resounding clang, probably waking everyone who hadn't heard our struggle yet.

Realizing that a fire elemental might not be such a great idea, Draco finally dismisses him and started summoning an air elemental instead, after all, one of the elements was bound to have some success.

By the time the air elemental appeared, we had killed another vine, releasing Worf to fall to freedom too and making it so only one vine remained. The air elemental soon started a whirlwind in the shaft, just as the last vine grabbed Gnomy from the top. Luckily the grab didn't last long as the last vine withers, and Gnomy surfed down the whirlwind into the cave below to safety.

With the vines exterminated, we once again grouped up in the courtyard and decide that a rest was heavily needed.

Until soon,
Maruk

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tl;dr: Continued exploring the basement, encountered two sprigans and a satyr called jaxir, who surrendered and told us about the castle. (3 floors + basement. 1st floor: barracks. 2nd floor: ballroom, kitchen, roof garden. 3rd floor: queen's chambers & armory. 3 towers, main/middle tower is highest). Snuck up a floor but blundered into a sprigan anyway. Fought four topiary gargoyles in the courtyard and fell into a trap while scouting the main corridor. After escaping/killing the trap, resting was needed.

CLD - Reign of the fellnight queen - Entry Five

Dear Gilra,

As our party just came together again, and everyone is being told what happened to the others, I have some time to tell you how I finally managed to sneak up to something and survive the it's encounter.

After following Tenzekil's instructions, we found the small river and followed it towards the tunnel under the castle, it started as a narrow cave and I once again went to scout what lay ahead.

It didn't take long before I found a small underground lake with the cave splitting into several different arms around it. I decided at random to follow the lake first, and it took only a few steps that way before a large rock elemental suddenly appeared. After smashing me once during my surprise, I managed to get a yell out to my lagging friends, so by the time the second smash hit me, my reinforcements arrived. With the five of us working together, it didn't much to break the elemental to pieces.

As the path near the underground lake offered a good place to rest, and it was already getting late, we spend a few hours there, after which I once again started making small scouting trips into the various tunnels.

While I did found a small plateau with some gear under what looked like a chimney going up with climbable vines all around, we decided that the two strong doors in the tunnels themselves needed examining first, especially the one with a voice behind it.

So after discussing some tactics, it was decided to throw open the door and rush in, ready to take on any enemy we might find inside. Once we did that however, we found what looked like a prison, with one prisoner inside and another, smaller door on the side.

We quickly hushed the prisoner to be silent and started questioning him. Apparently he was just an innocent woodcutter named Cort Finlen, who got captured some time ago and desperately wanted home. We where weary of him of course, but he did seem sincere, so in the end we just told him to be quiet as we let him sneak out to freedom.

Next up for our attention was the door to the side, we once again prepared to throw it open and attack whatever was inside, which turned out to be two combat ready spriggans. Kinley charged them while I dove over them to flank them, which together with Gnomy and Worf's ranged support made once again short work of them.

Meanwhile it seems everyone in our party has been brought up to date, so my time to scribble this is once again over.

Until soon,

Maruk

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tl;dr: We enter the palace through the underground river tunnel, encountering first a stone elemental, then finding a big chimney that seems to lead up into the palace and a few strong doors, the first of which has a prison behind it with an Innocent human woodcutter named Cort Finlen in it. After some suspicion we eventually decide to release him if he's quiet on the way out and we head on to the next door, behind which we find two Spriggans waiting for us. Some quick, acrobatic combat later and they are both down.

CLD - Reign of the fellnight queen - Entry four

Dear Gilra,

Like I assured you last time, I will now tell you about what happened that night before we set out for the faenguard plane.

As we were sleeping, Rhoswen managed to cast a nightmare spell on all but one of our party, the visions she gave us were horrifying and I'm sure she hoped that they would scare us from our quest. Luckily she couldn't affect all of us, so we were soon all awake, with Rhoswen's last cursing words still fresh on our mind.

Fatigued from our lack of rest, we eventually set out towards the portal to the faenguard plane, when we were once again stopped by a strange mumbling coming from up ahead. I decided to sneak ahead to find out what it was, only to suddenly appear in front of a huge waggling treeant. He seemed to be confused, as in his surprise he whacked me good, yelling something about us being dirty shadow creatures, destroying his forest and friends.

Apparently I manged a few more yells for help towards the party, but alas, by the time they came to my aid, the treeant had already pummeled me to a dying pulp. From what I heard afterwards, the fight was fearce, with the treeant turning some of the surrounding tree's alive, bringing their combined force to bear on the party but eventually our party did manage to subdue the tree, and the gourds of nodrim they found on him combined with his close proximity to the faenguard portal explained his drunken rage.

Luckily for me our friend Palombier was still nearby and able to resurrect me, as I had only recently recovered from my last encounter with death. And soon after, we finally crossed into the faenguard realm.

Once there, we could see Rhoswen's palace tower in the distance, with plentiful campfire light of her army in between. Knowing that we could do little against the army, we quietly set out towards the palace, encountering little trouble until we got close to the gap in the faenguard wall.

When we got close to the gap in the faenguard wall, a wasp swarm appeared before us, and some of us felt the sting of a dart on them. Once again, we had trouble with the swarm, so most of us just set out to find where the darts were coming from, during which I practically fell over something invisible and lost several minutes of my memories due to it, we quickly uncovered a pixie thanks to Gnomy's Glitterdust which didn't stand much chance against our combined attacks.

Meanwhile, Drako had been trying a new approach on the wasp swarm, and eventually managed to blow it away a few times, so while the swarm was busy returning, we decided to make some makeshift torches from branches, bedrolls and whatever else we had on us, in the hope the constant fire of those could deal some damage to the wasps. However while doing that, we noticed there were still some darts being fired at us, and set out to find where from, while simultaneously working out our cropped up swarm rage with the torches. It didn't take long before the wasps were singed on the ground just as two pixies, while our fighter Kinley was waiting to get his sight back after a close encounter with Gnomy's Glitterdust.

Meanwhile Delco caught up with us,he was a young druid that Palombier send as reinforcement, so after the introductions we set out exploring the other side of the gap in the wall. Once again I set out scouting ahead and once again I got a good beating for it, as it turns out Tenzekil had set up and ambush. He, his wasp companion and another wasp swarm had been waiting for us on top of a dirt knoll, probably with a great view of our approach.

Once again, my companions ran to my aid as soon as they heard I was in trouble, luckily I was only unconscious this time, a welcome aversion from my usual sprint to death's gate. Still, I missed half of what turned out to be a mighty battle, Worf drew the attention of the wasp swarm to him, fighting him with his still lit makeshift bedroll torch but eventually having to run without success, until he also joined the unconscious ones. Meanwhile Delco did his best to run around the knoll to try and get me back among the living, he managed to stabilize me and get me semi-conscious, but then he also got hit by the effect of battle, and fell unconscious next to me.

Since part of our party was still behind, looking to rebuild the faenguard wall, that only left Gnomy and Kinley, with Kinley successfully focusing on the wasp companion and Gnomy doing his best in attacking Tenzekil while also trying to convince him to give up, receiving the attention of Tenzekil's lightning bolts and fireballs in return. It seems Kinley managed to slay the wasp just in time to give some healing potions to Gnomy, resulting in a close save as Gnomy eventually convinced Tenzekil that he was fighting for the wrong team.

With Tenzekil no longer a threat, our small party was once again healed and Tenzekil explained to us that a frontal assault on Rhoswen's palace was madness, instead he convinced us that a hidden back passage, following a small river streaming out from under the palace, with it's spring in the underground dungeons might be a better approach. So we once again set out towards the castle, this time for the back passage, making sure to let our rearguard who were still repairing the wall know where to follow us.

The tale of how I finally managed to sneak up to something without getting killed will be for the next time however, as our party is once again preparing to move.

Until soon,

Maruk

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tl;dr: We ended our night in a nightmare spell from Rhoswen, encountered a hostile, drunken treant called Vinroot on our way to the planes portal. Eventually entered the faenguard plane and noticed huge armies between us and Rhoswen's palace, snuck between them up to the faenguard wall where we got attacked by two hidden pixies and another wasp swarm. After dealing with them we passed through the wall and ran into Tenzekil, his Wasp companion and another wasp swarm. After giving Tenzekil a beating he lost his last motivation and turned to our side, willing to tell us about the hidden entrance to Rhoswen's palace.

CLD - Reign of the fellnight queen - Entry three

Dear Gilra,

As I told you last time, the druid Devarre send us out to the Dead Man's Drop waterfall in search of the source for the magicall fog that has spread all across the land. A quick hike took us from Devarre's home to the waterfalls, where we once again set out cautiously exploring what we were up against.

As we were doing our best to scale the slippery slopes around the falls, Kupo, who had gotten ahead decided to throw a boulder into the pool between the falls. Instantly two water elementals rose up from the dept and Kupo became allot more eager to help the rest of us up the slope as fast as possible.

As we fought the huge water elementals, we were stuck on a small ledge between the pool and a deep drop, with the ever present fog seriously limiting our view, our only option was to get up close and personal while the elementals kept trying to wash us away or suck us into their spinning vortexes. After a dizzying fight, we did end up cleaning up the water elementals, just as their spinning had cleaned up some of our more muddy companions. So with the pool once again calmed down, we decided to take a break to steady ourselves.

Near the end of our rest, I was already getting anxious, so while my companions broke up camp, I did some sneaky acrobatics to explore between and behind the falls.

Luckily no new elementals sprang up while I did this, as the area seemed as benign as your usual fog covered waterfall. The only thing I did find was a small cave behind one of the waterfalls, and after I got the rest of the group to join me, we discovered a chest with enchanted stones within it, which we guessed must be the source of the mysterious fog.

As we left the cave again, our suspicions were confirmed, the fog was surely lifting. But it seems we weren't the only ones who had noticed, as suddenly the entire ridge around the falls was filled with all kinds of spriggans and wasps, while Tenzekil's voice once again rang out with anger.

While this ambush seemed bad to us, it seemed we had seriously annoyed Tenzekil, so my spirit lifted first from knowing we were stopping Tenzekil's sinister deeds, then from hearing another familiar voice coming to our rescue. It was Palombier the unicorn, who urged us to glide down the waterfall as he and his friends could get us to safety from there.

Once Palombier and his fellow unicorns teleported us away, we found out they had been gathering an army of forest creatures. And they started explaining what was going on to us.

Apparently, a long time ago, there had been a disagreement between a fey called Rhoswen and the other fey of the first world. When Rhoswen started dabbling in shadow magic, using it to twist and pervert the creations of the first world, the other fey somehow managed to use a magical staff called the crook of Cildhureen and several ward stones to create the faengard. They also constructed several 'anchor points' in the first and second world, attuning the staff to them and locking Rhoswen away in the Fellnight Realm. The strangely inscripted stones near Devarre's home were one of those 'anchor points'.

Now however, Rhoswen had somehow broken the faengard wall and reached out into our world, as the ward stones we had just found were part of that wall. They had also noticed that Rhoswen had started building an army which is why they were building their own, as Rhoswen's victory could only lead to even darker ends.

Then they asked us if we could help them once more, while their army might stand a small chance against Rhoswen's army, allot of deaths could be prevented if they could reseal the faenguard prison. For that they would need a small team, used to working together against bad odds, and capable of sneaking through the opposing army towards Rhoswen's palace. On the way they would need to rebuild the faenguard wall and steal the 'crook of Cildhureen' staff from Rhoswen, then move to the highest tower in the Fellnight Realm which was probably part of Rhoswen's palace and once again activate the 'crook of Cildhureen'. That should reseal the faenguard prison and turn Rhoswen's army into disarray.

Our party got the hint and we soon accepted the mission, deciding to use the unicorn's teleporting ability to resupply, after which we returned to the camp for a last nights rest before we set out.

Meanwhile rumors of our adventure in securing the warding stones had spread through the assembled army, so Palombier asked one more favor of us before allowing us to sleep, would we be willing to give a speech to the assembled troops, hopefully giving them some extra courage for the coming days?

Never the ones to back down from a challenge, we did our best at speeching, alas, it did not work as well as expected, so discouraged we lay down to rest for the night.

Once again, my time to write has come to an end, but I assure you, next time I write you will come to know what happened that night.

Until soon,

Maruk

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tl;dr: Explored the Dead Man's Drop waterfalls, fought some water elementals, discovered a small cave behind the water drop with enchanted stoned, got ambushed on the way back out but the unicorn Palombier and his friends came to the rescue. They explained the stones were ward stones part of and enchanted wall called the Faengard, which is supposed to keep the evil fey queen Rhoswen imprisoned. They task us to sneak into the Fellnight realm to restore the wall, after which we need to steal the crook of Cildhureen from Rhoswen and use it to re power the Faengard prison.