From the Diary of Elody Skullgrinder
Hello to whom may read this.
After clearing out most of the nasty mist-filled vine room, our courageous halfling Bartholomew opened the door with three locks so we could all escape. He's so brave. He was wearing our newly acquired Amulet of Passage—a arrowhead-shaped magic gem on a lovely silver chain that grants great powers of movement, which we all became attuned to. I remembered a legend about it, which said that the goddess Avandra created the Amulet to help guide heroes on their quests. She’s so wonderful. Penitence thinks the artifact was created by her Raven Queen but I guess everyone is allowed their own delusion.
The door led us through a tunnel and at the end we found a cavern and an underground lake. The water had floating, slimy wooden platforms that led two different directions. One arced around to the exit—a slime-covered wall, ledge, and another passage—while the other path of platforms went only partway across the lake. On the last plank of wood was a bundle of cloth. Something was clearly wrapped up inside it.
Finally, there was a lump of something in middle of the water. Something gross and unpleasant. We didn’t like the look of it.
Our courageous, shiny, and noisy knight friend, Ecaris decided to try the platforms first, the ones leading to the way out. He held one end of a rope and I held the other. He did a fine job getting most of the way across, with only a few slips along the way. Bartholomew was next but, unsurprisingly, went the other direction. He was obviously curious as to what was in that bundle of cloth. He was probably trying to protect us from any harmful surprise hidden it. He’s very brave. Our very pretty elf friend Edrathior, who has quite glorious hair, followed Bart to ensure his safety. Such a nice gesture.
Next on the platform was our tielfling, Penitence, who is a lovely lady if only she was a bit less fatalistic. Her horns recently curled a bit more, which she found devastating for some reason—yet I think they are very pretty and she's lucky because I can't even get my hair to curl at all in this nasty climate. As Penitence jumped toward the first platform, she slipped fell and partially fell into the sludgy waters and emerged with leeches clinging to her tail. Oh my! I really don't like those nasty blood-sucking critters.
Meanwhile, when Bart jumped onto the final platform, he was stuck fast to it. This, along with the commotion of Penitence’s splashing, seemed to draw the attention of the mysterious lump in the water. It drifted towards Penitence at first, then disappeared below the scum completely. Finally it emerged, first as a young (and not so healthy-looking) lady, then in her true form: a hag. A sea hag or bog hag, I’m not sure which. Quival, the will-'o-the-wisp, whispered a name: Agnethea.Hags, the old stories say, are the Feywild’s personification of ugliness. Well I don’t know if that’s fair. This poor soul, in any case, had an awful skin condition and seemed to have turned quite bitter over the years. I’m sure she wanted us dead but my wise friend Penitence offered to tell her a warrior’s tale, and this interested the hag greatly and made her stop to listen instead of try to eat us. Penitence's own story was about being from Malpheggi Swamp, and growing up with her tiefling brothers, and then it got a little more disturbing when she talked about fighting with them and she bit off one of her brother's ears. I'm not sure if this was perhaps just a story but she was quite convincing.
Edrathior also spoke up and drew the hag's attention. I think he used magic, because he somehow became even more colorful, his eyes brighter, and his hair seemed to shine as if newly washed. The hag looked very intently at him; she was either very pleased or very eager to eat him. Gross. Either way, he had her attention and the hag didn't seem to bother with the rest of us. Just those two.
The hag then ask of both of them something like, “If you had to pick one of your companions to die, which one would she pick?” I was shocked at the awful question, yet I soon became further shocked at the answer. Ecaris was too quick to answer “the orc” but I gather he was talking about Gregor, since he’s been in an awful mood lately. (And Ecaris hadn't even been asked!)
Yet Penitence, knowing she could not pick herself, she picked me! Well…I know my beautiful hat and horn helm combination doesn’t sit well with everyone, but that’s no reason to kill me off. Yet it satisfied the horrid creature and she said she'd let us all pass through her cavern safely. She said, "I do not like the dead that move, the dead that I did not make move. They foul my air. Make them stop moving." I guess she was talking about the foul undead creatures we keep encountering on this Isle, courtesy of the cultists of Orcus.
The hag also let Bartholomew go. Suddenly the plank he was standing on wasn't sticky anymore. She also allowed him to keep the cloth bundle, inside which was a thick wand-like stick carved at the tip with a closed eyeball. The hag told him to plant it in the earth to reveal its power.
Penitence, on the way out of the cavern, explained to me her reason for choosing me. It was quite nice actually—she realized that Avandra is quite a wonderful goddess to meet someday, and that I would be good company. Yet I better keep my eye on my tiefling friend anyway.
Beyond the hag's cave, we walked for a long time through a long and stretchy passage. Eventually we came upon a stone door with tiny slits in it that looked out into a new room. Apparently this was a secret door, because the people—too nice a term for them—on the other side didn't know it was there. In fact, the people were disgusting: A ritual-casting ghoulish man was standing at a table, consulting a book, and performing some sort of ritual. Beside him was a chest full of blue-purple stone shards; they looked like the inside of those stones the villagers were forced to break open. He was trying to conjure a horrific demon in some sort of blurry, smoky corner of the room! Not good!
Nearby were three dretches—minor but still dangerous demons. And some ghouls and even some of the Isle's native humans who didn't look much like the nicer ones we'd met so far. Well, we definitely had to stop whatever they were doing. Not only that, the ghouls were calling out for food—ghouls are cannibals!—and they asked for a child or two from "above." The smarter, robed one ghoul-man performing the ritual told them no, "the living must eat first." Gross gross gross.The will-o'-the-wisp said something about demon summoning here on the Isle of Dread. Apparently it's not easy to conjure such planar creatures here. But these stones seem to be used to aid in the attempt.
Well, we had a plan. Which mostly involved charging in and putting a stop to these troublesome people. Using Avandra's Amulet of Passage—which Penitence wore but we were all able to use magically—we had the ability to teleport a short distance. So everyone but Ecaris and myself simply teleported into the room to surprise our enemies. When they did so, weapon and spells started flying. Not my favorite part about this island walkabout.
Ecaris and I then barged in as gracefully as possible, which unfortunately isn’t graceful at all. Well, all my friends were very courageous in their fight. Edrathior always has such pretty spells—if it wasn’t that I’d be killed, I would like to just sit back and watch him, it’s like a fireworks show.
Everyone gave it their all because it was important to stop these cultists and what they were doing. Ecaris is always so strong and unafraid. Penitence was somewhat to eager to put these demons to rest and of course Bartholemew. He’s so brave. Gruff stayed in the back, as usual, and peppered the room with arrows. Sometimes they stuck somewhere and the bad guys didn't like that.
Yet I must say I’ve grown attached to my new friends and hope we finish our quest safely. May Avandra keep us safe.
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