These are the memoirs of Lindisty Alexander, captain of the Tahl'emar.

All events herein are transcribed directly from the ship's logs, personal diaries, and other papers of Lindisty Alexander, and may or may not describe actual events.

I'm safely at Idranorn now, and I'll be leaving my journal here when I depart, so I feel safe enough in writing a full account of what's been happening. Faranwedh will keep this information from falling into the wrong hands if I don't return, and I can't bear to keep this all bottled up any longer.

Lithandra has Tanowen and Aphanazar under her power. Kyron has Pelori and the Tahl'emar. Both of them demand that I aid them in their plans if I want to save my people who have fallen under their power. How can I possibly make that choice?

My attempt to scry on Tanowen last night worked. Lithandra has indeed turned him into a vampire, and he was haunting the rooftops of Rag's End. Aphanazar insisted on accompanying me to go look for him, over Faranwedh's objections. I hadn't realized before that the reason Aphanazar has kept himself confined to Idranorn is that his aid to the Tahl'emar after our first encounter led Sajisan's hunters to him. It was only through Faranwedh's intervention that he survived after he left us. And now he's in at least as much danger again because he walked into a trap at my side. We both knew it was a trap when we left here, but I didn't see many other options but to go if I wanted to have any chance of getting Tanowen away from Lithandra and bringing him back to us. I know enough from conversations with Valade to know that he can be restored to true life, but as long as Lithandra is controlling him, that can't happen. I wish I'd refused to allow Aphanazar to accompany me, but I was so intent on getting to Tanowen that I really didn't consider the consequences of having him with me.

I can't bear to relate the details of what happened when we reached Rag's End, but we utterly failed to free Tanowen from Lithandra's control, and Tanowen took over Aphanazar's mind. Which means they're both under Lithandra's control now. At least she's shielding Aphanazar from Sajisan's hunters so that she can continue using him as a bargaining chip with me. She's told me that if I don't aid her in her plans and show her the secret entrance into the Arvensoar that Pelori and I used to help the Ramdor's crew escape, she'll tell Tanowen to fly as far out over the sea as he can to wait for the sun to rise, and that she'll destroy Aphanazar outright.

What else could I do? I told her I'd do as she wished, and she immediately teleported us all to the Gold Dragon, where Nollin Stark and that tattooed were-shark priest we encountered back at Tibald Island seemed to be in charge. I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me that Lithandra would have allied herself with Stark and the were-sharks. Dorsa-- the priest-- took particular delight in showing me what he called a 'taste of the future' by introducing me to two sea-devils that he and Lithandra have managed to summon based on the information in Dagalar's book. And Stark clearly intended to provoke me to violence when I talked with him, though I didn't understand why until later. Lithandra assigned Tanowen to keep watch over me, and though it was painful to talk with him, the conversation did at least make it clear that something of who he is remains, in spite of what she's done to him.

Unfortunately, this morning while I was still aboard the Dragon and Lithandra and Tanowen had retired for the day, I received a message from Pelori, telling me that Kyron was giving me an hour to surrender myself at the Arvensoar or he'd sink the Tahl'emar with all hands. At the time, I didn't know how Kyron had managed to gain control over the Tahl'emar, but I knew that if Pelori was sending me that message, it was serious. When Pelori and Hogun parted ways with Tanowen and I several days ago, it was to surrender herself to the Hellknights and try to convince Menora and Kyron that she wished to switch allegiances and take Menora up on her offer to join the Order of the Nail. Given what happened when I finally got to the Arvensoar, I suspect she's really switched sides, though, and that she led Kyron to the Tahl'emar.

Escaping from the Dragon and actually getting to the Arvensoar within the time limit was incredibly difficult. Aphanazar provided a distraction for me so that I could sneak back to the launch and take it. Unfortunately, as I was making my way below decks to my old cabin and the secret door that opens out onto the deck of the launch, Captain Stark intercepted me. He was much better with his rapier than he was during the mutiny. I actually had a damnably difficult time getting past him and off the ship. And something very odd happened the first time he stabbed me with his rapier, it jolted me with a charge of electricity, and my shoulder has been tingling ever since. It didn't really hurt, but when I examined it after I got to Idranorn, I discovered a draconic glyph on my left shoulder and back. I think Aphanazar has some explaining to do, if we can get him back from Lithandra.

I really didn't want to kill Stark, but he kept pressing the attack and I didn't have much choice. The were-shark transformation overtook him near the end of our fight, though he was clearly resisting it. But as he was dying he transformed back to human shape and thanked me. I always wanted to believe there was a spark of decency left in him, in spite of everything he's done -- I wish there had been another way to reveal it, but I didn't have time to try to reach him with words.

I got the launch away, and headed toward shore, but those two sea-devils Dorsa introduced me to noticed my departure and came after me. I managed to kill them both before they could stop me, but it took more time than I would have liked. As it was, I barely made it to the Arvensoar before the hour was up.

I've never felt more alone than I did at the moment when the Hellknights dragged me in front of Kyron, and I saw Pelori standing at his side with that creepy bitch, Menora. Pelori has... changed. Her skin is blood red, now, and her hair and eyes are utterly black. Whatever she's done to maintain her cover and convince Kyron that she's loyal to the Order of the Nail has had obvious physical effects. I honestly couldn't tell if her behavior was part of the cover, or if she really has given her allegiance to Kyron. I want to believe she'll carry out the mission she went there to accomplish, but I fear she's lost to us. Kyron questioned me intently, and with my ship and crew -- not to mention Pelori-- apparently under his control, I didn't think I had much choice but to give him what he asked for. I told him about Lithandra's plan to attack the Arvensoar, though I didn't intend to mention that she planned to use the secret passage until Pelori brought it up. Kyron insisted that I show it to him-- I'm fairly certain he didn't know about it, though he never said as much-- and then offered yet another ultimatum. If I return to Lithandra, convince her to go ahead with her plan, and lead her through the secret passage into a trap, he'll leave my ship and crew go free. Me, he says he'll execute if I survive the battle.

Of course I agreed.

So he had his Hellknights throw me out into the street, though at least they returned my equipment when they did it. I have no way to contact Lithandra right now, so I came to Idranorn to talk with Faranwedh while I wait for her to contact me. When I arrived here, I found Hogun waiting for me. For a moment when I first saw him, I expected him to punch me in the face for sending Pelori into so much danger, but he just hugged me and told me we'd get Pelori and Tanowen back, whatever it takes. I don't know how long I cried on his shoulder before I started thinking clearly again.

Fortunately, Hogun's presence here gives me a good excuse for sneaking away from the Dragon. We'll tell Lithandra that I received warning that Hogun was about to be captured and imprisoned by the Hellknights, and that I was afraid he'd give away the location of the Tahl'emar and the rest of my crew. We'll also tell her that he knows of the secret entrance into the Arvensoar and could have given that away if he'd been captured. I hope I can be convincing enough to keep Aphanazar alive and keep her from harming Tanowen any further.

But when the battle is joined, I have no idea what I'll do. There's no scenario I can envision in which I don't lose something precious to me.

Maybe there's a god above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
It's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
But I don't even know the name
And if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which is heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

I almost never write music down, but these verses are echoing in my head and won't give me any peace until I've gotten them out, and my throat closes up every time I try to sing right now.

Lithandra has taken Tanowen. Scrying and other means of magical detection have been utterly unsuccessful thus far, but perhaps when night falls that will change.

He may go hunting at night.

Nollin Stark is in Xandros. Tanowen and I ran into him yesterday evening. He very nearly had me cornered, but I enchanted him into thinking he was mistaken about my identity. We followed him afterwards, though, and learned that he's apparently been 'recruited' by the were-sharks who were plaguing us for a while after we first recovered the Bloodstone from Tibald Island. It pained me to see him like that, after what Valade told us of his remorse when they spoke in Tharad-dum. Whatever he did in the past and whatever he's become now, he was my captain for a time and knowing he's been consumed by those beasts is not an easy thing.

We also made some valuable connections today, but the less said about that, the better.

Today was my most successful day thus far. I've recruited several new people to our cause and I think I have an agreement with the person I hope will provide leadership to the people of Xandros once we've removed the Hellknights and Itani from power. If this person can stay alive through the inevitable unrest that's to come, I think Xandros will be in very good hands until Lysenia is ready to return. Fortunately, I was able to say honestly that Lysenia is safe, and well, and in a happy home (thanks to Aphanazar and Faranwedh). That seemed to please our contact immensely, which makes me even more certain that I've chosen the right person for this task.

So much has been happening the last few days that I haven't written about a personally important event. Before everything blew up in my face the other morning with Lithandra, I was noodling about with a new song and happened to notice that I caught brief images of Elethwen and my father in the scales of my new armor. I spent some time talking with Aphanazar about it, and he agreed to contribute another scale so that Faranwedh could make a scrying focus for me. I can finally check in on my loved ones occasionally and know that they're all right, even when I'm far away from them. I can't say what a relief that is to me.

Itani addressed the nobles of the city yesterday evening, informing them that Lord Kyron has agreed to empty Fortress Vraid of the entire Hellknight force and bring them here to 'return order to Xandros'. She asked the nobles to prepare the people to welcome the Hellknights. Apparently, a singer called 'The Nightingale' talked her into relaxing the strict curfew that's been making my work here so difficult.

Unfortunately, Tanowen and I attracted the attention of some Drahgesh mercenaries in the course of our attempts to organize a resistance movement amongst the people of the city today. We defeated them easily and managed to sneak away and hide again, but we decided to lay low for the rest of the day, rather than risk drawing further attention. So there's been a rather frustrating lack of progress today, but the evening may yield better results.

{Editor's note: Captain Alexander's journal becomes unusually vague over the course of the next several entries. Other historical evidence, primarily papers and other documents left in Captain Alexander's personal library, along with some documents collected in the Xandros City Archives, suggest that Captain Alexander may have disguised herself as a mysterious and extraordinarily popular concert soloist known only as 'The Nightingale'. An invitation to the Nightingale from Queen Regent Itani, dated 23 Imareon, 3127, to perform at an important public function, was found amongst Captain Alexander's personal papers and memorabilia, along with several other notes and invitations addressed only to 'The Nightingale'. Additionally, some sparse documentation recovered from the Archives of the Order of the Nail indicate that Pelori Xiloscient was briefly associated with that organization during the time of these entries. There is considerable debate amongst scholars about whether Pelori's defection from Captain Alexander's cause was genuine, or part of a scheme to overthrow the Xandrosian government of the time. Unfortunately, the portions of Captain Alexander's journal that have thus far been translated and decoded do little to settle that controversy.}

Given the very real chance of exposure and capture I face now, there's much of what I'm doing here that I don't dare commit to paper, and even more that I simply can't bring myself to write about. I can at least record some facts, though, if not the full story. After breakfast yesterday morning, Faranwedh went to put some finishing touches on my armor, and relayed some interesting news about the city. The Arvensoar was attacked by the Night Scales, led by the mysterious 'Dark Lady of the Shadow', yesterday in the aftermath of the gnomes' escape. By the time we heard about the attack, it was evident that the Hellknights were preparing to raid the Shadow looking for her, so we decided to see what we could do to help matters along.

Unfortunately, Lithandra wasn't there when we arrived at her lair. She spoke with us through an illusion spell, though and offered a temporary alliance with me to retrieve the Bloodstone. I could immediately see the benefits of such an alliance, of course. I think Pelori was unhappy with the decision I made, but we didn't have time to discuss it right then. The Hellknights arrived soon after, and we all fought them off, though I did my best to ensure that Lithandra was seen by them and recognized before we all teleported away. Whatever my decision in this instance, I haven't forgotten that our main purpose here is to increase hostilities between the Hellknights and Meth Abelann.

Pelori and Hogun departed soon after our confrontation with Lithandra and the Hellknights. I tried to change their minds, but Pelori absolutely refused to be swayed by my arguments, and where she goes, Hogun goes. The two of them will be in terrible danger if the Hellknights discover them, but the best I can do now is hope they're both all right. I fear I've made a terrible mistake, though, in letting them go.

After the two of them departed, I decided it was best to go ahead with my other plans, though it pained me to do so without Pelori and Hogun backing me up. Tanowen and I made contact with several useful individuals in the course of yesterday evening, though, so I suppose it was worth it.

The slaves are free, and on their way to Brindisgloch. Writing those words fills me with pride, though when we parted ways with the gnome fleet yesterday evening, I was so exhausted that the best I could manage was to wish Admiral Wavecrest well and thank him for his offer of future help, should we need it. The gnomes' plan was ultimately successful, but at significant cost. Pelori and Hogun both nearly died, and many gnomes, halflings, and warforged did die. But most of them got out, and now I only hope they make it the rest of the way to Brindisgloch.

I can't possibly record all of the details of yesterday's battle. There was too much happening too fast for me to make sense of it now, but there were a few unusual events that I feel compelled to commit to memory. When we were making the initial push up Trade Way and Founder's Processional to the warehouse, an enormous pair of wings unfolded on top of the Arvensoar and a gigantic white dragon came swooping down upon us. I expected it to fight from the air, but it landed instead, and then I noticed that it had a rider. The gnomes and warforged scattered, leaving Pelori, Hogun, Tanowen, and me to face the thing on our own. It breathed an incredible blast of cold at the four of us, and I immediately went on the offensive with Scourge, knowing we couldn't withstand many more of those attacks. It was incredibly gratifying to see its armored scales melting away under Scourge's lash. Pelori managed to dispel several of the magical effects the dragon had been using, and drew its attention away from me. I was sure it was going to attack and kill her, but fortune smiled upon us. The dragon stumbled and slammed its rider into a wall as it was moving toward Pelori, giving Hogun and Tanowen both openings for attack, and then Pelori killed it with a fireball. The rider was Sabina Merrin, the leader of the Queen Regent's special guard. We killed her shortly after we killed the dragon.

After regrouping, we made it the rest of the way to the warehouse without any major incidents. While the gnomes were freeing their fellow slaves from their magical compulsion, Pelori, Hogun, Tanowen, and I went up to the roof of the warehouse to keep an eye out for approaching danger. We could see far enough to make out some of the battle over near Ordelia, and the gnomes' galleons proved to be just as remarkable as I thought. When they neared the shore, they actually seemed to unfold and stand up, transforming themselves into enormous striding constructs that rained death and destruction down upon the Drahgesh mercenaries stationed in Ordelia. It was quite impressive. We also caught sight of the Hellknight fleet approaching from the east, and they seemed to buying into the fake attack at that point, so we got our forces and the gnome slaves organized for our retreat back to the docks.

Unfortunately, before we'd gotten very far, we found ourselves bombarded by artillery, and then noticed two of those damned she-devils flying and providing targeting beacons for the catapult and ballista crews. I gulped down a potion, tossed another to Tanowen, and took to the air while Pelori cast a flight spell from a scroll and tossed a potion to Hogun. She was faster getting off the ground than I was, and I took off after her because I wasn't sure how long it would take Hogun to catch up, and I didn't want Pelori going after the erinyes without some physical protection. I needn't have worried. Pelori quickly magically dismissed the one she and I were dealing with, and we flew off to help the boys with the other one. Once we'd defeated her, Pelori cast a matching illusion spell and tricked the catapult crews into changing their targets. As we were returning to ground, we spotted a bunch of Drahgesh mercenaries heading toward us in an attempt to cut us off. I got the gnomes and everyone moving again, and Pelori, in a moment of brilliance, moved the illusory target beacons so that the artillery was targeting the mercenaries.

Once we'd gotten past the intercept point, I thought we'd be home free, but then a group of four Hellknights and a mage came charging up on us from behind. The four of us sent the gnomes on a head and stayed back to hold the rear, and Pelori and Hogun nearly died for our trouble. Pelori was keeping the mage tied up pretty effectively until she went down in the melee, and Hogun went down soon after, but he took the last Hellknight and one of their damned horses with him when he did. Tanowen was trying to deal with the mage, but the bastard turned himself invisible just about the time we dealt with the last of the Hellknights' horses. I knew better than to try to heal Pelori with an invisible enemy mage nearby, so I just listened as best I could, hoping I'd get a hint of his location in time to do some good. It worked. I heard him move and lashed out blindly with Scourge and somehow managed to take him down with a single blow.

We got Pelori and Hogun on their feet again, and made it the rest of the way to the docks without further incident. We did have a few tense moments when one of the galleons went berserk while we were loading up the gnome ships, but we took it out in fairly short order.

Pelori, Hogun, Tanowen, and I stayed with the gnome fleet until we were at the very edge of the range for Pelori's dimension door spell, then teleported back to Xandros, to find the last of the day's surprises waiting for us. As soon as we teleported back to Xandros, Faranwedh appeared and offered us a safe place to rest and recover. Normally, I'd have been a little suspiscious, but he'd dealt kindly with us before and I was too exhausted and shell-shocked to be thinking clearly. He's brought us to his sanctuary, which he calls Idranorn. He made a couple of cryptic comments about 'another guest', but I didn't really think much of it at the time.

The 'other guest', as it turns out, is Aphanazar. It's probably unduly paranoid of me, but I can't quite shake the feeling that there's something more to the connection between those two than they're letting on. Faranwedh seems to make it his business to keep track of any dragon he knows about, so I guess it's not terribly odd that they'd know each other. As it turns out, Aral had asked Faranwedh to keep an eye out for me when I left Dragonport-- the two of them are apparently old friends-- but Faranwedh didn't until we killed Phenakelagun, which piqued his interest. From what he says, it was that incident that led him to steer me toward the Tahl'emar and he's been keeping a fairly close watch over us ever since. He was watching when Aphanazar first appeared on the Tahl'emar, and Faranwedh sought him out after that and brought him here.

Considering what we all went through yesterday, discovering all of that would have been enough to take in, but after breakfast this morning, Aphanazar and Faranwedh presented me with a suit of armor crafted from Aphanazar's own scales. He told me that he felt badly for having put my ship and crew in danger, and that he understood how important their safety and well-being was to me. He said that he knew material gifts couldn't make up for the danger we faced because of him but that he hoped the armor would protect me, and in turn allow me to protect those under my care.

I'm still stunned. I've heard legends of armor crafted from the scales of living dragons, but never thought I'd see such a thing, much less have it given to me as a gift by the dragon who donated the scales. I made no secret of the fact that I thought he was a supremely selfish beast for putting my people in danger without my consent when last we met, so this gift caught me completely off guard. The armor itself is a marvel, but its beauty and obvious value are utterly insignificant next to the fact that Aphanazar has given the living scales from his body for my protection and that of my people.

I was utterly, utterly wrong about him.

After our conversation this morning, I don't think there was anything calculated about his behavior in giving me this gift. I believe that he understood why I was so angry with him before and genuinely wanted to make amends. And has done so in a way that is so perfectly attuned to me that it takes my breath away. The symbolism of what he's done resonates in me like someone is using my heart for a gong. I don't think anyone has ever seen so clearly what matters to me before-- and after having spent all of half a day in my presence. I never would have expected to find a kindred spirit in a dragon, especially after our previous encounters with them, but Aphanazar obviously understands a great deal about me. Whatever the circumstances of our first meeting, I now consider him a valued friend.

We've successfully made contact with the gnome fleet, and informed them of the situation. Fortunately, our relations with Admiral Wavecrest have been much more congenial than our contact with Mayor Roymerick and Captain Nambeddo were. Of course, it helped that we allowed them to use powerful magics to ascertain that we were being truthful with them. Once they were sure we weren't lying to them, the gnomes offered us healing and restoration magics, so at least the four of us are all back to full strength. They've also revised their tactics based on our information, and their new plan should work, though it's incredibly risky. The one thing that worries me is that they're sending their most powerful mages with the portion of the fleet that's staging a false attack on Ordelia. Pelori, Hogun, Tanowen, and I are leading a contingent of gnomes and soldiers that the gnomes refer to as 'warforged' to the warehouse in the Marches where the slaves are really being held. It's a small force, but it should work as long as the Hellknights and Drahgesh mercenaries don't see through the feint toward Ordelia. If they see through the ruse, though, this whole venture will turn into a bloodbath.

The gnome fleet is positively fascinating, though! Some of the ships are normal varieties, but some of them look like nothing I've ever seen before. The largest of them, called galleons, are particularly interesting-looking. I'd love to know more about them, but I've learned to be somewhat circumspect around the gnomes, lest an innocent question or remark be misinterpreted.

I didn't expect to have time at sea again so soon, and there's something very exhilarating about sailing a pinnace after having spent several months aboard larger ships. I'd forgotten how agile and responsive these small craft can be. Unfortunately, now that I've set our course and gotten us underway, Hogun and Tanowen insist that Pelori and I rest and recover our magical strength after the battles we faced yesterday, so they're not letting me handle the sails. So much for being captain.

I suppose I should back up a bit and record the events that led us to steal a pinnace and set out to find the gnome fleet that's headed toward Xandros at this moment.

When we went to seek out Father Atrius yesterday, we discovered that the Temple of Jahntar was closed down when the Hellknights and Itani Xandros took over the city. We managed to track down one of the former deacons of the temple, and she told us some very disturbing things. Father Atrius had gone into hiding with Loronil after that, but they were discovered by one of the snake-assassin things that have been plaguing us lately. It killed Father Atrius and used a disguise to assume his identity. Fortunately, Loronil was able to escape without attracting its attention. She gave us two scrolls to restore our life energy in exchange for our promise to kill the creature that was pretending to be Father Atrius. Hells, I'd have done that even if she hadn't offered us any help at all. I don't know what those snake things are or why they've been trying to kill us, but I'm beginning to loathe them beyond all reason.

When we arrived at the location Loronil had given us for the underground 'clinic' she and Father Atrius had set up, we decided to try to find out what the assassin was up to, so we went in under our own identities and asked 'Father Atrius' for help. Given the fact that it attacked us at the first opportunity, and completely ruined its cover in doing so, I'm assuming now that what it was up to was setting a trap for us. It's dead now, though killing the thing nearly cost Hogun his life. I should have insisted that we just attack immediately instead of trying to be all subtle and get information from the thing. Letting it get in the first blow was a huge mistake.

What concerns me is how the snake-assassin knew Father Atrius had aided us in the first place. Loronil didn't mention him questioning Father Atrius when he assassinated him, so I doubt he got the information that way. And other than Father Atrius, Pelori, myself, and my crew (and some of my former crew, now), I don't think anyone else knew Father Atrius had aided us or that we'd given him information about the undead infestation in the leg of the Irespan. The snake assassin knew about both of those things when we sought him out. So if Father Atrius didn't give that information to the snake assassin, who did? I don't want to think that someone who is or was a member of my crew would have betrayed my confidence, but I suppose I should have foreseen the possibility.

In the course of finding Loronil yesterday morning, we heard some very disquieting rumors about what's been going on with the gnome and halfling slaves. There were heralds in the streets yesterday proclaiming that a curfew has been put into effect due to the expectation of an imminent attack on the city. We also heard some relatively incongrous rumors about heavy foot traffic into Ordelia, and rumors of large trade caravans being assembled there to go to Azira and Laas, but apparently there's been very little outgoing traffic through the city gate on the west side of Ordelia. Tremina also contacted me magically to say that the Castaway had recently encountered a gnome fleet headed toward Brindisgloch. Something about all of that information made me uneasy, and since since it was getting on toward evening by the time we defeated the snake assassin, we decided to investigate a warehouse in the Marches that's been seeing heavy traffic to and from the slave camps in Ordelia. (I'm NOT stupid enough to deliberately go after a bunch of vampires in the middle of the night, after all.)

When we arrived at the warehouse, we discovered that it was guarded by a group of the Gray Maidens, Itani's personal guard. While Tanowen and I were discussing options for eliminating a few of the guards and getting a look inside the building, Pelori got impatient and just summoned a couple of giant owls to carry all the exterior guards away. So then we all went to the roof and Tanowen pulled up some of the roofing to let us have a look inside. The warehouse was easily large enough to fit all 1400 of the slaves we'd heard were at Ordelia, and every bit of it that we could see was full.

Suddenly everything fell into place-- it felt a bit like being hit between the eyes with a hammer. The Hellknight fleet never went north, and all the foot traffic into Ordelia has been soldiers sent there to lay a trap for the gnome fleet. The gnomes would attack Ordelia to free their people, and be trapped between the Hellknight fleet and the soldiers who have been garrisoned in Ordelia.

I was a little hesitant about acting, since it seemed awfully risky to try to save the gnomes from ambush, and as much as I want to free every slave I can, we do have a larger purpose here. Pelori was pretty adamant about it, though, and she and Tanowen came up with a plan that seemed reasonable. Had I known more about what we were going to face, I probably would have insisted on a more subtle plan, but we decided to eliminate all the guards and slavers in the warehouse and take a couple of slaves with us, then steal a pinnace and go out to meet the gnome fleet. Taking out the Gray Maidens was easy enough, but the slavers turned out to be vampires. By the time we took out the last of them, I was severely weakened by their energy draining attacks. We searched the warehouse, and found their account books, and their payment-- which took the form of diamonds. I've never seen so many beautiful gems in one place. Then Pelori dispelled the mesmerization effect on a couple of the gnomes, and we made our way to the docks to steal a pinnace.

What in the deepest hells have we stumbled into here?

Based on what we learned after we took care of the assassins who came after us last night, the 'Dark Lady of the Shadow' may very well be Lithandra. Since this 'Dark Lady' took over the Night Scales, she's set them to looking for a 'fist-sized red gem' that was purportedly sold in Xandros a few months ago. Both Pelori and I immediately seized on that thought, and we're both convinced that it's the Bloodstone we retrieved from Dagalar's cave all those months ago. From what we learned when we questioned one of the assassins, most of the members of the Night Scales who haven't been killed outright have been turned into vampires, and given Lithandra's penchant for having vampire flunkies trailing about after her, I'd be willing to bet Scourge that she's this 'Dark Lady'. If that's the case, I sincerely doubt we'll be able to gather any useful information from the Night Scales.

The thought of that... creature victimizing the people of this city makes me queasy. And the thought of confronting her makes me even more queasy.

We've rested the night in the hideout the assassins retreated to after we defeated their attempt to kill us last night. They were all vampires, and we've staked them in their coffins and burned the bodies. Unfortunately, both Tanowen and I are still weakened by their attacks, so we don't dare try to confront Lithandra until we've found a priest who can restore our life energy. Since Father Atrius was so helpful to us the last time we were here, we're going to try to seek him out shortly and see if he'll be willing to help us again.

"The middle of the night has an odd texture to it."

I think that's a line from a poem I read once, though I don't recall the rest of it, or the poet who wrote it. It's echoing in my mind now, though, because everything about this place feels wrong to me.

Xandros has changed since we were last here, and not for the good. We're hiding out in an abandoned house-- probably the former home of halflings or gnomes, given the size-- in Rag's End, and I'm a little unnerved by it. I suspect the former residents would probably not object to our using it if they knew our purpose, but I hate the thought of what's probably happening to them right now-- if they haven't already been killed. Having seen the conditions here, and learned a bit about what's been happening since our last visit here, I'm even more determined to remove the Hellknights and Itani Xandros-Drahgesh from power. This city needs someone who isn't a tyrannical maniac in charge until Lysenia is old enough to rule in her own right. Under normal circumstances, I'd say that it's not my place to interfere in the government of a city that isn't my home, but I simply can't stand to see so many people oppressed this way without taking action. What started as a desire to protect Lysenia has become a conviction that the people of Xandros deserve better than to be beaten into submission by tyrants.

We've spent the last two days asking around and looking for information that might expose vulnerabilities in the Queen Regent's government, relatively unsuccessfully, I'm afraid. We've discovered what's being done with all the halflings and gnomes who are being rounded up and enslaved, but I don't see any way to aid them without exposing our identities. There are rumors that the entire Hellknight fleet of dreadnoughts has sailed north to deal with pirates who have recently begun attacking Xandrosian shipping, so perhaps our little deception with the Jewel of Tandresh is bearing fruit. Tanowen wants to make contact with the Night Scales-- the local thieves' guild-- to continue our investigations, but I'm not so sure that's a good idea. From what little we've been able to find out, the Night Scales have been recently taken over by some of Justice Ironbriar's cult followers, along with some woman they're calling the 'Dark Lady of the Shadow'. Personally, I'd rather stay as far away from that cult as possible, given our experience with them the last time we were here, but Tanowen's the expert at this whole covert operations thing, and if he really believes that's the best way to get useful information here, I'll go along with it.

This is the first time I've been a passenger aboard a ship for any length of time since I left Dragonport aboard the Gold Dragon. It feels... strange. I sit here in what Tremina refers to as the 'Main Cabin', listening to the commands being passed by the crew out on deck, and I feel oddly out of place. It's only been half a year since I signed on as second mate with Captain Sobor/Stark, and I made many voyages as a passenger with my father before then, so these feelings surprise me a bit. It's unexpectedly hard, to be aboard a ship when I'm not part of her crew-- or if I'm completely honest-- when I'm not in command.

I'm keeping to my cabin largely because every time I venture out on deck, I bite my tongue bloody to stop myself from giving orders out of pure habit. This is Tremina's ship, and I'll not interfere with her running of it. But when I do spend time on deck, it's a joy to watch Tremina and her crew at work. Their ship-handling skills are top-notch, and they're all clearly devoted to each other and to their skipper. I dream of building a crew with this kind of loyalty and devotion-- to each other and to me. And maybe someday I'll even be worthy of such a crew. I think I've got a long way to go before that happens, if the way I dealt with Elethwen and Hadreon yesterday is any indication.

It was shortly before we were ready to depart, and I'd just moved a few of my personal effects over to the Castaway when I noticed Elethwen and Hadreon arguing. I'd already effectively ceded command of the Tahl'emar to Elethwen, so I probably had no business interfering, but I can't see two of my most valued crew members in conflict with each other without trying to resolve it. So I stepped in, and was absolutely shocked to find that Hadreon seemed to be about half a sentence away from refusing the order to go to Dahn'Varion aboard the Tahl'emar. He insisted that he should accompany us to Xandros because he believed I should have someone along on that mission who was devoted to my well-being. I was so taken aback by his vehemence that I told him bluntly that he'd endanger all of us if we tried to take him along, because Pelori's dimension door spell could only transport the four of us who are absolutely essential to the mission. (Technically, I suppose Hogun isn't actually essential, but gods know I'm not going to be the one to suggest leaving him behind so that I can bring my own bodyguard.) Taking Hadreon with us would have meant trying to sneak into the city using alternate means, or expending Pelori's spells a lot faster than necessary to move us all around in smaller groups. He grudgingly agreed to go to Dahn'Varion after I pointed that out, but clearly isn't happy with the situation.

I keep thinking I should have anticipated this, and thinking back on conversations with Hadreon that might have given me a hint that he'd react that way, and I honestly can't think of anything. It's true that he was amongst those who objected most strenuously to leaving the Tahl'emar in the Dead Calm, but so was Beregorm, who has since left my crew. So how was I to know that Hadreon would be so reluctant to leave my side? I honestly don't know how to feel about this development. But I do know that I can't afford to let his desire to protect me interfere with our chosen mission any more than I can let my personal desire to protect my ship and my people interfere with it.

I think we may have to look into establishing secondary boltholes, if I'm to continue collecting ships at the current rate. Right now, there are five ships docked in the cavern here: the Tahl'emar, the orc pirate ship, the Sin Cleaver, the Jewel of Tandresh, and the Castaway. I seem to have acquired a fleet, and it's awfully crowded here.

The Castaway was an entirely unanticipated and welcome surprise. I must remember to thank Ungal the next time I see him. Her skipper is a dwarven woman named Tremina Hammersail, a friend of Ungal's and a former associate of King Thunderfist. If I were the prayerful sort, I'd say the gods have been listening to my worries, and have sent her to us to alleviate them. She's a better sailor than I am, and it's not idle vanity to say that I was the best sailor we had until Tremina joined us. Her story is not mine to tell, but she's a remarkable woman, and she's put together quite an impressive crew over the years. They're certainly more skilled than most of my folks, and I'm honored that they'd consent to join our cause.

After discussing our options with Tremina, Pelori, Hogun, Tanowen, and Elethwen, I've decided to send the Tahl'emar to Dahn'Varion with the halfling slaves as we originally planned. Tremina has agreed to dispatch some of her more experienced crew to the Tahl'emar to fill in the gaps in the chain of command, which eases my mind about sending my ship-- and my people-- on such a long voyage without me. Many of the gnome slaves wish to go to Brindisgloch, so the Castaway will take them there, since Tremina has dealt with Brindisgloch on more positive terms than I have. On the way to Brindisgloch, the Castaway will drop Pelori, Hogun, Tanowen, and me off at Xandros so that we can gather more information and plan the next steps of our campaign.

Several of the gnomes amongst Tremina's crew have asked to remain behind to study and attempt to repair the Sin Cleaver, and I've agreed. While I'm not sure exactly how we can use a Hellknight dreadnaught, having her repaired and seaworthy again will give us more options than we have now.

The Jewel of Tandresh is ours, though we had a difficult fight in taking her. We spotted her about six miles off, and Pelori disguised the Tahl'emar with a spell and conjured up another illusion to make it look as though three orc ships were trying to intercept the Jewel. The Jewel's captain seemed to believe the illusion, because within moments, there suddenly appeared to be two identical ships running from us on divergent courses. Fortunately, Valade had prepared a spell that let him determine which was the real Jewel and which was the illusion.

Shortly after we'd committed to following the real Jewel of Tandresh, and I'd deployed additional sails to let the Tahl'emar get out ahead of our captured orc vessel, we found ourselves under attack. Suddenly, four creatures that Pelori immediately recognized as bearded devils appeared on deck, and attacked several of us. Pelori managed to get rid of a couple of them, and Tanowen and I were making some progress with the others, when an enormous sea serpent came surging out of the water and attacked Hogun, and then we spotted a creature flying just above the waves that both Pelori and I recognized as an erinyes. The details are a little fuzzy after that. I remember the snake wrapping itself around Hogun and rushing over to attack it as he lost consciousness. Everything after that is a blur, until I awoke aboard the orc ship with Valade casting healing spells over me and Hogun.

Tanowen told me afterwards that the snake had released Hogun, constricted around me and dragged me into the water, and that Pelori managed to dismiss the erinyes back to whatever plane spawned it, then left Hogun dying on the Tahl'emar's deck to dive in after me and finish the snake off before it could drown me. Once that was done, she got both Hogun and me to the other ship so that Valade could heal us before either of us died. I... don't quite know what to think of that. Part of me wants to shake her and tell her she has no business risking herself that way, and part of me wants to fall on her in gratitude. And I'm somewhat shocked that Hogun hasn't dressed both of us down over this. But mostly, I'm just baffled. Who am I, that the savior of humanity on Aralast should risk herself-- and her love-- to save my life? I know very well why I might have done the same thing she did, were the situations reversed, but I doubt her reasons were the same as mine would be. The whole 'savior of humanity' prophecy would be reason enough for me to make that kind of choice, but she's also the closest thing to a sister I've ever had. One of the few things I regret about becoming captain of the Tahl'emar and having her as part of the crew is the distance I've been forced to interpose in our relationship. No good captain plays favorites amongst her crew, but it's damnably hard not to sometimes, with Pelori. She was my friend long before I became her captain, and the shift has not been an entirely comfortable one for either of us, I think.

We decided to continue the attack against the Jewel, and shockingly, didn't lose anyone in doing so. We expended almost all of our healing magic and all of Pelori's most powerful spells, though. And then while we were securing the ship and taking a count of the slaves, we discovered another of those snake-assassin creatures, but we killed it in relatively short order. The slaves are still all mesmerized, and Pelori doesn't have enough spells left to bring them out of it tonight. We expect that they'll begin shaking off the effects naturally shortly after they were due to arrive in Xandros anyway, so we'll wait it out for now. We're en route to the stronghold to lay in supplies for their voyage to safety, and should arrive there sometime late tonight.

We traveled to the waters just south of Ferridorn Island this morning, and awaited the arrival of the Jewel of Tandresh. We've begun disguising the crew as orcs while we wait. I wouldn't trust most of our disguises to fool anyone up close, but they should do from a distance. I can magically disguise myself, and Hogun doesn't need a disguise, but I hope we can convince the Jewel's captain and mage, at the very least, to magically escape before they get close enough to notice that we're not really orcs. Anyone other than the slaves who doesn't make it off the ship via magical means before we close with them will, unfortunately, have to die. Dealing with prisoners in addition to the freed slaves would make this whole plan far too complicated. Besides, what would we do with them if we did take them prisoner? There's no legal authority to whom we could reasonably turn them over, and even if there were, we'd probably find ourselves in chains along with our prisoners. It's not as though we're operating within the law, or on the behalf of any established government, after all.

I think I'm ill-suited to this kind of venture, in spite of the fact that it was my idea. I don't play the role of aggressor with any joy, for all that I volunteered for it and for all that I know it's the most effective way for us to accomplish our goal. I've always valued life and tried to protect those who are weaker than I am. Reconciling myself to cold-blooded murder may be the hardest thing I've ever done, and it still leaves me nauseous. Given how much of it I've been doing lately, I suppose I should be grateful that I feel anything at all, no matter how unpleasant. The day I become indifferent to killing a defenseless person-- or worse, start to enjoy it-- is a day I fear more than anything.

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.

I forget which philosopher said that-- shall have to remember to ask Aral when I see him next-- but it's been echoing in my mind recently.

I haven't written much about what I want to achieve with this grand plan of ours. When I first suggested raiding Xandrosian commerce vessels back in Meth Abelann, I did it primarily because I wanted to distract Magnim Drahgesh from pursuing Lysenia while I hunted him down and killed him. Once we discovered that the Hellknights had taken over the city and I realized that they are at least as determined to turn Lysenia into a puppet for their own tyrannical purposes as Drahgesh was to kill her, I thought it even more important that we distract them from that pursuit. And since Lysenia bonded with the Eosian crystal at Castle Aganon, I've come to realize that this venture has much broader implications than simply removing tyrannical despots from power and avenging the pain caused to a child who came into my care. That's why I haven't simply dropped it and taken off to investigate my mother's disappearance-- or my brother's fate-- no matter how desperately I want to know what's become of them.

If Sigard and Zarinda are to be believed-- and I can't see either of them lying about such things-- Lysenia is heir to more than just the throne of Xandros. And their claims would seem to be validated by her bond with the Eosian crystal at Castle Aganon. If she grows up in a loving home, with the kind of honor, reverence for freedom and liberty, and care for others that Father has, she may well become the leader that humanity deserves. I've pledged myself to ensuring she has that opportunity, and I believe it's the most important thing I can do with my life. I also believe that the path to that goal will plunge the world-- or at least a significant part of it-- into chaos. I can't help but imagine Lysenia as the star to be born out of this particular chaos.

But now I find that the most important part of who I am is in conflict with the most important thing I've chosen to do.

I've dreamed all my life of being a ship's captain, but in my wildest dreams I never imagined I'd have a ship like the Tahl'emar. Being her captain is more than just a job-- more than duty or responsibility-- it's who I am. And in order to maintain any sort of momentum in our campaign against Xandros, I have to send her away and risk losing her.

Tanowen suggested earlier today that if we succeed in freeing the slaves aboard the Jewel of Tandresh, we send them to Dragonport aboard the Tahl'emar while Pelori, Hogun, Tanowen, and I go to Xandros to gather information. I so badly wanted to flatly refuse, but if we want to accomplish anything real in our larger mission, we need to go to Xandros, and there isn't time for all of us to cross the ocean and return before the information we have grows stale. And given that Tanowen presented it in front of all of my senior officers, there was no way I could refuse without leaving Elethwen and Valade believing that I don't trust their abilities or loyalty. I'm asking these people to follow me into war, and to risk their lives for the mission I've chosen. Letting them believe I don't trust them would be a grave disservice, both to them and to our mutual purpose.

I just wish this hadn't happened at a time when I've just lost my second officer and a full third of my most experienced crew. The crew we hired on at Elfhelm has only been with us for a week, and I'm less than pleased with their skill and experience. They'll get better with training, but they're nowhere near as skilled as the people we lost. A week's time is just not enough to have developed the rapport I'd like them to have before I send them off on even a short voyage without me, much less one that lengthy.

I suppose it's not surprising that in a tiny, dark corner of my mind, there's a voice whispering that I'll never see the Tahl'emar again after Pelori, Hogun, Tanowen, and I depart for Xandros. Sending a patched-together crew with holes in its chain of command on a voyage of several weeks in an overcrowded ship across some of the most dangerous parts of the ocean is pretty damned foolhardy, but then again, so is everything else we're doing. So I try not to listen to my fear, and gods know I don't let anyone else know how I feel about this. Undermining Elethwen's confidence with my worry would hardly be a good way to demonstrate my trust in him.

Enough.

If I keep gnawing at that particular bone, I'll talk myself out of this, and the day has been eventful enough that I should record some of what happened. Sheriff Hemlock seemed willing enough to accept our assurances that we figured out who was behind Valade's assassination and that he needn't worry about a rash of additional murders in his town. And Valade's cleansing of Chopper's Isle took less time than I expected, so we left Sandpoint earlier in the day than I anticipated.

As we were rounding the northern tip of Tandresh Island, though, on our way to an appropriate place to intercept the Jewel of Tandresh, another of those orc pirate ships came after us. I tried to make it look as though we were running so that we could lure the pirates into attacking us, but they saw through the bluff and tried to break off. So we wound up just chasing them down and taking their ship from them. Their mage got away, but I don't think anyone else did. Once again I was cast in the role of executioner, and to my shame, I don't even remember how many of them we had to kill once we'd secured the ship. At least now we have yet another way to convince the Xandrosians that they're being attacked by orc pirates when we take the Jewel. We tried questioning the captain once we'd taken the ship, but didn't find out much of value-- certainly nothing that definitely connect these pirates with Itani or the Hellknights. And the captain indicated that they were all free-lance, though most of them were former Red Dagger mercenaries. That makes our ultimate plans a little less certain, but it doesn't make them impossible.

I've dispatched Elethwen and most of the marines to the orc ship, and we're making our way toward the route the Jewel of Tandresh will be taking tomorrow. The orc ship is quite a bit slower than the Tahl'emar, but it's sturdy enough and has decent weapons, so it should come in handy tomorrow.

Valade's attempt to speak with the assassin's corpse was unsuccessful, so we know nothing more now than we knew yesterday. I'm not sure there's anything to be gained by continuing to investigate here, either. Valade has gone to cleanse Chopper's Isle so that the town will no longer be haunted by the undead from that place, and I think I'll pay a visit to Sheriff Hemlock shortly and let him know where things stand with our investigation, but we should be on our way as soon as those details are mopped up.

Late last night, I spent some time with Tanowen and Valade discussing various options for safeguarding the Tahl'emar against intruders, and I'm uneasy about what they've suggested, for many reasons. Valade says that if I'm willing to invest significant gold in it, he could purchase scrolls that would allow him to place divine glyphs at various places on the ship that would attack or magically affect any evil creature who came aboard. That's straightforward enough, if relatively expensive at a couple thousand in gold coin, and I think it would be a good idea. The other option is more expensive and more troubling to me, though it offers a greater potential benefit. If I'm willing to invest upwards of 6000 gold for the appropriate scroll and components, Valade could consecrate the ship, turning it into hallowed ground dedicated to a specific god. He says this would protect my crew as long as we all remain devoted to doing good in the world, and make it very difficult for any evil beings to come aboard the Tahl'emar without being detected or harmed.

I'm not the religious type, and I certainly have no personal devotion to any of the gods. I think that the gods-- assuming they still exist-- can't possibly be paying much attention to what transpires in the world. Admittedly, Pelori and Valade have each given me reason to question that assumption, but they haven't convinced me to change it entirely. Valade assures me that consecrating the ship in the name of a particular god won't impose an obligation to worship that god on myself or my crew, which is a relief. He also warns that if the ship were used in a manner incompatible with the god's tenets, the effect would fade or the ship could be cursed, depending on the anger of the god in question. I think he'd prefer to consecrate the ship in Vinivae's name, but he recognizes the inappropriateness of consecrating the Tahl'emar to the goddess of birth and life, considering our plans for the immediate future. So he's suggested some alternatives and will abide by my choice. Unfortunately, I don't feel particularly qualified to make this decision. If the gods still exist and haven't been destroyed or simply abandoned Aralast to its fate, I'm uneasy about bringing myself to their attention by asking any of them for favors.

And leaving aside for a moment the religious implications of consecrating the ship, this would put a serious dent in the Tahl'emar's treasury. Most of the money in the treasury right now isn't mine to spend in the first place, so it may turn out to be an academic question. Under the terms of our agreement, pretty much every bit of gold in the ship's fund at the moment belongs to Tanowen. If I broach the subject with him, he'll probably say he intends to stay with the ship for the foreseeable future and that it would be in his own best interests to spend his money on protecting the ship, so I suppose I needn't worry much about that. I couldn't very well spend his money without his consent, though, so I'd better talk it over with him, too.

So much for avoiding the topic of our lapsed investment partnership, I suppose. Ah well, it's not as though this has to be decided today. We'd have to go to a very large city in order to acquire the necessary scrolls and magical components, and we have other priorities before we do that.

We have some choices to make about our immediate objective, as well. We know the Jewel of Tandresh should be sailing along the the eastern coast of Tandresh Island tomorrow, and it seems a perfect opportunity to begin our campaign against Xandros. As I see it, there are a couple of ways that we could take advantage of this opportunity.

Assuming the Jewel isn't escorted by multiple warships, we could, of course, just attack the ship and free the slaves. Pelori's ability to disguise the Tahl'emar would probably let us take on some convincing ruse that would allow us to get close enough to the Jewel to board, and I'll take bets on my marines against a bunch of Xandrosian slaver-thugs any day. The straightforward notion of freeing another shipload of slaves appeals to me greatly on a personal and moral front, but probably wouldn't further long term objective by much.

The other possibility I see that has a chance of working would probably contribute more to our ultimate goals, but it's not nearly as satisfying. We could disguise the ship as one of the orc pirate vessels that's been plaguing the coast and attack the Jewel, only to let her "fight us off" and return to Xandros with the story-- and the slaves. If, as I suspect, Queen Regent Itani is paying the Red Dagger mercenaries for their services as pirates, this should be a significant step in creating dissent between Xandros and Meth Abelann. The problem with that idea is that it does nothing to free the slaves. And I could be wrong about the connection between the Queen Regent and the Red Dagger mercenaries, which would make it entirely pointless.

I wish there were a way to combine those two plans and attack the Jewel disguised as orc pirates/Red Dagger mercenaries intent on 'stealing' the slaves, while letting enough of the crew escape to carry the tale back to Xandros. But while Pelori can magically disguise the ship, and I can magically disguise myself, and Togo has some facility with non-magical disguises, I don't think we could disguise enough of the crew convincingly enough to pull it off just yet.

We're not any closer to finding out why Pelori was being set up to look like a murderer, but I think we discovered who was doing it, at least. Strangely, that seems almost trivial in light of everything else we learned today.

After a brief talk with Sheriff Hemlock, Pelori, Hogun, Tanowen, Valade, and I went to the leg of the Irespan to investigate those strange, whispering voices Pelori heard when we were on Chopper's Isle. When we arrived at the Irespan, Pelori's staff immediately opened the secret door I spotted, which probably should have been my first clue that something dreadful was waiting down there. I know Pelori's as attached to her staff as I am to Scourge, and I can't deny that it's useful, but I still can't look at it without remembering how she got it, and that makes my skin crawl.

We went down a long, winding stairway, and found ourselves in a lengthy hall. The moment we stepped into the hall, Eosian runes started glowing in gold along the walls. Fortunately, the time I've spent while we were at sea studying Eosian, Infernal, and Draconic recently proved valuable, and I was able to read most of them. I seem to have a bit of facility for picking up languages. Most of the runes seemed to be a history of the local community sometime in the distant past, but there were occasional warnings to 'tread lightly' over the threshhold, or 'usher in the end of years'. As we were proceeding down the hall, all of us started hearing those disconcerting whispers that we'd heard before in the Shrine of Sekolah and the other leg of the Irespan. When we got to the end of the hall, we discovered rather quickly what the runes' warnings meant, because the archway at the end of the hall was magically trapped. We managed to get past it with Pelori's dimension door spell, and found ourselves in a very strange room.

We had only a brief period of time to look around in the room before those distubing whisperings caught up with us and we were attacked by a wraith swarm, much like the one that nearly killed Pelori when we were following Justice Ironbriar into the Arvensoar back in Xandros. Fortunately, we had Valade with us this time, his ability to channel positive energy and stun the undead made a huge difference. For a few seconds, Pelori was caught by the swarm and couldn't move, but I tackled her and pushed her out of it, and then she let loose with one of her divinely enhanced fireballs and destroyed the remainder of the swarm. Once we caught our breath and started looking around the room, I really began to wish we'd never come there. We'd seen footprints in the dust outside the room that led us to believe that Dorwaen had been a frequent visitor to the Irespan before her death, and once we were inside the room, we discovered why. Apparently, her mental break was tied to the whisperings from the Irespan, and she'd spent a great deal of time in the room creating this bizarre relief/sculpture in the dust on the floor. We could make out the skeletal remains of a dragon and many humanoid creatures under the dust, but Dorwaen's work took up most of our attention. Well, that, and the magical barrier blocking the far end of the room from our sight.

At least, it did until Pelori actually touched one of the dragon's bones. What happened then frightened us all a bit, I think, because Pelori's face went utterly blank for a few minutes, and she didn't respond to any of us when we tried to talk to her. When she finally came back to us, she told us she'd had a vision of the end of Eos. She believes that the room we were in was the scene of the last stand of the Eosians, in alliance with the dragons of the time, against the strange shark-men who had invaded the world. It appeared to her that the Eosians used their crystals to destroy all they'd built, and in so doing, defeated the shark-men.

Once Pelori had assured us that she was all right, we started discussing whether or not to go through the magical barrier at the end of the room. Pelori could tell that the room itself extended beyond the barrier, because of her sense that the Eosian runes continued past it, but none of us could see through it. She knew enough about it to know that we could just walk through it, but we were all a little nervous about what might be waiting on the other side. Finally, as often happens, Pelori just decided she didn't want to discuss it any more and stepped through the barrier, leaving the rest of us to follow in her wake. Which of course we did. It's a good thing I'm not purely human, because I think Pelori's tendency to do things like that would have long since aged me into dotage if I hadn't any elven heritage of my own.

I fully expected to be burned to a crisp or something the moment we stepped through the barrier, but nothing happened. The room appeared to be the remains of a wizards laboratory. There were more runes on the floor, a skull and a wizard's staff, an Eosian crystal floating above a pillar, and several braziers that came to life when Pelori neared them. Oh... and a strange demon who appeared to be half shark and half troll confined by a small circle of runes near the back wall. The runes on the floor around the pillar seemed to be a final bit of history written by the wizard who owned the place, and told of the final battle of the Eosians against the Sea Devils:

The shark-demon has shown us how to attune the crystals. When they release their combined power it will destroy everything we have built, but it will also banish the Sea Devils to a far distant realm from which they cannot return. Sakulunath and his draconic kin have agreed to aid in defending the crystals while we few remaining wizards direct the energies so that no Sea Devil will go untouched. Whether this desperate gamble fails or succeeds, this is the end of beloved Eos. I pray to Jahntar that the fleet escapes and that our descendants honor our legacy and the sacrifice our dragon allies made on their behalf.

That certainly made what Pelori had witnessed in her vision more clear to us all. While I was translating the runes, Pelori spent a little time studying the crystal and the room, and thought she might be able to use the power of the crystal somehow. So she did something magical, and her staff changed again, but before she could explain to us what she'd done, another wraith swarm attacked us. Pelori detonated another of her fireballs, which took care of the swarm, but it also broached the circle which had confined the demon and loosed it. It burst free of the summoning circle and said something that immediately paralyzed Tanowen, Hogun, and Valade, leaving only Pelori and me to deal with it. I tried using my music to confuse it, but it didn't work. Fortunately, after a couple of tries, Pelori was able to dismiss it back to the hellish dimension from whence it came.

By the time we got the boys back on their feet, we'd all had quite enough of that place. Pelori didn't think there was any further magical information to be gained, so she teleported us all back to the base of the stairs so we could avoid the magical trap at the doorway into the room. Just as we reached the top of the stairs, I heard screams coming from the corridor below. We should have just sealed the door behind us and left, but no, I had to go back and investigate. When I got back to the corridor, I saw a woman in leather armor trying to fight off another wraith swarm with a couple of daggers. I barely had time to take that in before the wraith swarm attacked me, and then I was too busy to think about why the woman might have been there. It didn't take long to figure out that she wasn't a friend, though. While I was dealing with the swarm, the treacherous bitch stabbed me in the back with a poisoned dagger. I knew fighting her and the swarm at the same time would be a losing proposition, so I tried using the power of my music to confuse her while the rest of us finished off the swarm. Somewhat to my surprise, it worked, though she did attack me once or twice more with her damned poisoned daggers.

By the time we got rid of the swarm, the woman had overcome the confusion and used a scroll to teleport away from us. Pelori cast a haste spell on all of us and we all ran for the stairs. Hogun, Tanowen, Valade, and I are all faster than Pelori, so I sent them up the stairs and waited a few seconds for Pelori to catch up. She paused long enough to cast a spell that lets her see invisible beings, then the two of us started up the stairs, but she stopped me before we'd gotten halfway up. Pelori cast what I've come to recognize as a dispel magic spell, and the woman-- transformed into some kind of bizarre snake creature-- appeared before us. It only took one blow from Scourge to take her down, and then we bundled her up and took her out of the Irespan, sealing the door behind us.

When she fell unconscious, she'd returned to human form, and we bound her and healed her just enough to be conscious, with the intention of questioning her. Unfortunately, she wasn't very responsive, even when Pelori charmed her. She only looked at Valade and said, "He looks better." I probably should have continued the questioning, but I was so enraged by her casual confession that I just ran her through with my rapier and watched her die. Killing someone who's defenseless makes me queasier every time I have to do it, but I kept the contents of my stomach where they belonged-- at least until I got back to the privacy of my quarters on board ship. I swore the person responsible for Valade's death would die at my hand, and so she did. Afterwards, Valade said that with a night to rest and prepare the proper spell, he might be able to question her corpse and get information without her personality intervening. So we're keeping her body on the ship for the night and will try that in the morning. If I'd known he could do that, I wouldn't have wasted the time-- or the healing spell-- trying to get her to talk in the first place. And I wouldn't have had to kill her while she was bound and defenseless. But what's done is done.

The results of our investigation are thus far inconclusive, though it seems fairly obvious that whoever was behind the attack on Valade is trying to kill as many of us as possible.

We started this morning by retracing Valade's steps after he left the Cathedral last night and asking people if they'd seen anything unusual. Unless they were all lying to us, everyone between the Cathedral and the docks seems to have been stricken by night-blindness, for all they saw. Then we tried looking into the poison Pelori had discovered in Valade's wounds, but that turned out to be a dead end. Given that we weren't finding anything in town, and the obvious similarity between this attack and the murders of five years ago, we decided to investigate the island where Dorwaen/Chopper lived during her lifetime. Soon after we climbed up the cliff to the main part of the island and started through the forest to Dorwaen's house, we all began seeing and hearing odd things. Before long, it became obvious that we were under attack by an allip. I've never encountered one before, but I've heard legends of these poor, tormented souls who are tied to this plane by the trauma of being compelled to commit suicide against their will. This particular allip was odd, as it used magical abilities that I don't think most allips have. In particular, it seemed to employ the same kind of Celestial power that Pelori uses. When it first appeared, it shot through my body, and I very nearly succumbed to its power, but just managed to hold onto my sanity. Pelori tried to command it, and the power of its madness nearly drove her insane as well. Between Pelori's magical power, and Dagalar's bow, though, we destroyed it just in time to save Tanowen and Hogun from committing suicide as a result of its compulsion. Tanowen says he thinks we were lured to the island in hopes that the allip would kill us all, and I think he's right. Which makes me even more determined to find out who is behind this, and make sure they never have an opportunity to repeat this performance for anyone else.

After we destroyed the allip, there were no further impediments to reaching Dorwaen's house, and what we found there was profoundly disturbing. The house itself had been burned down, but we found an entrance to the basement, which was relatively intact. The basement contained many carvings and statues of the same kind of shark-men we encountered back in the Shrine of Sekolah so many months ago, and again in wraith form in the leg of the Irespan in Xandros when we were helping the elves escape from prison. We also found evidence (in the form of coins and some magical items) that Dorwaen had been from Arathel, originally. It seemed increasingly obvious as we explored the basement that Dorwaen had been driven mad by the taint over the mainland. None of us failed to recognize the similarities between that poor woman and Pelori, and I kept thinking of the passage she showed me in her father's journal where he theorized that if Pelori had remained in Fendoreth, she'd have been corrupted by the taint.

And that's when Pelori started hearing voices in her head.

She says she heard the same kind of dark whispering in an unknown language that she'd heard in the Shrine of Sekolah and that it seemed to be coming from the leg of the Irespan here in Sandpoint that's known as the Old Lighthouse. My only thought was to get her out of there as soon as possible and back to the ship, in hopes that distance from the Irespan would help. And she did say that the voices faded as we got further away from that part of town. Unfortunately, she wants to go back and investigate the Old Lighthouse tomorrow.

Personally, I think the first thing we need to do tomorrow is give Sheriff Hemlock an update on our progress, or lack thereof. We did promise to keep him informed, after all. Aside from the fact that I worry about what it will do to Pelori, I'm not sure investigating the Irespan is going to get us any closer to finding Valade's attacker, and frankly, that's my highest priority right now. We've exhausted all the leads I can think of, though, so it isn't as though I have an alternative course of action to suggest.

When we returned to the ship, Elethwen reported that the Captain's Lantern had rung shortly before we arrived, but that he and the marines found no one who didn't belong aboard when they searched. I had Pelori and Valade search magically, just in case, but they didn't find anything either. Our best guess is that when the alarm went off, the intruder was startled and left.

I am sick of having my ship invaded by invisible prowlers, by the gods! I wonder if Tanowen could construct some traps in the most likely spots for infiltrators to enter the ship...

So much for principles. I seem to be sliding down just the slippery slope I feared I would descend if I began using my music to override the will of other people. I did so today, not to protect my ship or a member of my crew, but to get a little extra information about Queen Regent Itani. I disguised myself as a wealthy merchant and took Tanowen along in a servant's role to visit the Sandpoint Boutique and see if I could make contact with some of the noble families here. I met Rin Valdemar (Ethram Valdemar's wife), and struck up a very pleasant conversation over some lovely music boxes that had come in recently from Xandros. She was happy to talk about the general state of the shipping business between Sandpoint and Xandros, but I could tell she knew more than she was saying. So once again I used my music to fascinate her, and wove suggestions into the song so that she'd tell me more. The information I gained by doing so is potentially very useful, but I rather loathe myself for the way I went about getting it.

What she told me was this: The major Xandrosian trade routes are along the west side of the Hook Islands to Meth Abelann, down the east side of the Hook Islandsto Mandorik, and southeast along the Merwyld to Dragonport. Although most ships sailing these routes are privately owned by citizens of Xandros, they carry cargo and passengers on behalf of the city for a truly miserly fee, by the Queen Regent's orders. And of course the captains are held responsible for the safety of the Queen Regent's cargo and passengers. It seems that the Mariner's Guild of Xandros has considerable clout, and is actually capable of successfully defending its captains from the Queen Regent's wrath if there's evidence that the captain acted properly under the circumstances, and if the Guild is willing to pay out enough gold in bribes to the appropriate officials.

The Queen Regent also employs a group of fast caravels for her own purposes, primarily making slave runs between Meth Abelann, Xandros, and Mandorik. That fleet is known as 'The Queen's Own', and its ships are often accompanied by military escorts and have armsmen aboard. One of the Queen's Own caravels, the Jewel of Tandresh, will be sailing down the east side of Tandresh Island past Siranur sometime between now and 14 Imareon, when it's due to arrive with a shipment of slaves from Meth Abelann.

While I was busy coercing that information out of Lady Valdemar and spending money on fripperies (I did find a lovely dress for myself, a dragonclaw hair ornament for Pelori, and a tooled belt for Tanowen that I noticed him looking at while I was engaged in conversation), Pelori and Hogun were approached by a half-elf who introduced himself as Noriel DeVries. He said he wanted to hire the ship to transport some documents that implicate Queen Regent Itani in political arrests that have been blamed on the Hellknights. He told her he wanted to take the documents to the Leeran Council in Elfhame, and thought we might be willing to do so because so many of our crew are half-elves from that village. Pelori says she told him we might be interested, but that he'd need to talk to me first, and told him to meet us later at Cracktooth's Tavern. We were there for several hours, and picked up some absolutely fascinating information, but DeVries never showed up.

Apparently the orc pirate ship we destroyed between Elfhelm and here is part of an organized (inasmuch as orcs are ever organized) bunch of pirates that appears to be operating out of a base on Rokugan Island. Rumor has it that a Xandrosian captain named Islan Krost claimed to have recognized the pirates as Red Dagger mercenaries from Meth Abelann, for all that they appeared to be Sajisani refugees to us. Unfortunately, poor Captain Krost died in a bar fight in Xandros soon after making that claim. (And if that bar fight wasn't contrived specifically to kill him, I'll sing a dwarven opera from the crow's nest-- naked.) Their recent depredations have caused several communities along the southern coast of Tandresh Island to request aid from Queen Regent Itani, who has increased the garrisons of Drahgesh mercenaries in the area. Something about that stinks of trickery to me, but perhaps I'm just paranoid. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that the Queen Regent has hired the Red Dagger mercenaries to harass local shipping so that she has an excuse to move her military forces into more communities on Tandresh Island without causing immediate civil unrest.

I wonder what would happen if one of those 'orc pirate ships' attacked the Jewel of Tandresh just before it arrived in Xandros...

DeVries's absence concerns me, because all of the reasons I can think of that might prevent such a meeting are unrelentingly sinister. Either someone found out what he intended and has captured him, which means my ship and crew will be under suspiscion, or he was an agent of the queen trying to ferret out those who might work against her to mark them for future revenge, and Pelori's expression of interest was enough to send him running off to make his report. Admittedly, I think the latter is unlikely, because if he were really an agent of the Queen Regent, he'd have stuck around to get more information and lure us into truly incriminating acts. And I suppose it's barely possible that he could have had other reasons for missing our meeting, but I'm afraid--

{Editor's note: The writing of this entry was obviously interrupted, as it stops in mid-sentence with a large blot of ink, and continues with the paragraphs below}

I swear on whatever honor I have left: I will find out who is responsible for tonight's atrocity, and when I do, that person will die by my hand and no other.

Valade was murdered tonight, horribly mutilated, and deposited on the gangplank of the Tahl'emar. His body wasn't there when Pelori, Hogun, Tanowen, and I returned earlier tonight, and Pelori said she didn't see anything between then and when the body was discovered, even though she was on deck the whole time. We all found out about when Hadreon started shouting for me from the docks, rousing the entire dock district in the process. I didn't even think about it-- I just grabbed the scroll of raise dead we'd taken from that damned Hellknight cleric and told Pelori to get us to the Sandpoint Cathedral immediately. I didn't move quickly enough to get us out of there before a crowd had formed and whisperings were starting about how 'Chopper has returned'. Once we were at the Cathedral, Father Zantus explained to us that the method of murder was very similar to the string of murders perpetrated here five years ago by the elven mage Dorwaen, also known as 'Chopper'. He was reluctant to try bringing Valade back because he feared that he didn't have enough power, or favor with his god, or whatever, to accomplish it. While I was trying to talk him into it, Pelori examined the body and found poison in some of the wounds, which Father Zantus said didn't match the previous murders. Between the two of us, we convinced him eventually, and he was successful in using the scroll. Valade came back to us, and while he's obviously shaken by the experience, he also seems very certain that he was returned by the will of Vinivae to fulfill a destiny.

Great. Now there are two of my crew with grand destinies to fulfill. As if we weren't busy enough already.

We returned to the ship, to find a large crowd gathered and Elethwen and Hadreon valiantly trying to stall the Sheriff and a detachment of Drahgesh mercenaries. Pelori took us through a dimension door to the deck of the ship, and I stepped down the gangway to try to calm the situation. Elethwen and Hadreon introduced me to Sheriff Hemlock, and I invited him aboard so that I could explain the situation to him. When I saw the Sheriff in in the company of the mercenaries at first, I was concerned that he might have been part of some convoluted plot against us, but he seems a basically decent man. I introduced him to Valade and told him roughly what had happened. He was quite taken aback, but recovered quickly enough and simply said that since there was no corpse, he wasn't sure what the proper procedure would be. Then he surprised us all by asking Valade if he wanted an official investigation into the attack, since he was the victim. Valade said exactly the right thing, and asked permission for us to investigate it ourselves. Sheriff Hemlock agreed, and we promised to keep him apprised of what we discovered.

Unfortunately, Valade remembers only being attacked by an invisible foe and stabbed twice. He remembers nothing else between the time of the attack and his return to consciousness at the Cathedral. We've surmised that he was stabbed and poisoned, taken to a secluded spot and mutilated in a manner reminiscent of the previous murders, and then deposited on our gangplank sometime between moonrise and midnight. Given the lateness of the hour, and the fact that we're all exhausted, we'll begin our investigation in the morning.

Ugh! I feel dirty. I'm not cut out for a life of political intrigue, I don't think. The amount of subterfuge and sheer lying involved makes me feel I'm in constant need of a bath.

We've acquired a good deal of information about the current situation in Xandros, the Hellknights, and Queen Regent Itani, though it seems those who owe her allegiance refer to her simply as 'the Queen', and leave off the 'Regent' bit. I wouldn't care to wager a copper that Lysenia would last more than a day if Itani got hold of her. We seem to have identified one of her agents here in Sandpoint, a man by the name of Listender Blange. I suspect he may be a useful source of information, so I played along with him, and he seems to believe my assertion that we're simply a merchant ship originating from the Habardine Alliance and are uninterested in local politics, so long as the trade is good. He said he wanted to give us 'accurate information about the Queen' so we wouldn't be taken in by 'the vile rumors that are being spread by certain unreliable members of Sandpoint's populace,' or some such tripe. I don't believe more than one word in ten that he says, but when taken in conjunction with those 'vile rumors' we heard, I think we're getting quite the interesting picture of upper echelon politics in Xandros.

We met Mr. Blange in Cracktooth's Tavern, which seems to be quite the center of political dialogue in Sandpoint. The proprietor is an oddly charismatic half-orc by the name of Jesk Berinni, but everyone just calls him Cracktooth. Hogun was immensely underwhelmed by Cracktooth, and says that half-orcs should be breaking heads, not expounding upon political matters in public. I'd never have suspected Hogun of such prejudice, given the rather unorthodox company he keeps. Then again, I suppose it's natural to be most critical of those who share one's own background. Interestingly, despite creating a bit of consternation amongst the customers by talking with Mr. Blange, Cracktooth seemed to take a bit of a liking to us, and even bought us a round of drinks after Mr. Blange left.

So far, we've learned that tension is growing between the Hellknights and the Drahgesh Mercenaries. Apparently, Queen Regent Itani pardoned the Mercenaries for the crimes of Magnim Drahgesh as long as they agreed to serve Xandros. But she placed them under the command of the Hellknights, and they're now being utilized as second class soldiers and watchmen, which is a far cry from the elite force reputation they used to have. Additionally, the Hellknights are purchasing dreadnoughts from Meth Gorrgaron, where gnome slave labor is being used in their construction. The ships are armed with cannons purchased by Xandros before the arrival of the Hellknights and from gnome ships seized in the war.

We've learned quite a bit about Queen Regent Itani, as well. Apparently, she's made large deposits in the Merchant Guild banks in various cities. She uses designated couriers (known to the banks) to make withdrawals via the use of certified letters of withdrawal and a series of passwords. Since couriers and letters are easier to replace than hard currency, she avoids sending large sums of currency on dangerous sea voyages. We've also learned more about the prank that was perpetrated on her during Mirthing. She has officially denied that anything she said at the time was truthful or accurate and that it was all part of the prank. During the event Queen Regent Itani was particularly insulting to Lord Kelbrin Addare, who is a much-beloved noble amongst Xandrosian commoners. There are rumors that a notorious gnome hero known as Whisper is responsible for the prank. She's issued a warrant for Whisper's arrest, but the hunt seems to have yielded no results thus far.

Incidentally, we found out also why so many of the townsfolk here in Sandpoint seem hostile to Pelori. It seems there was a string of gruesome murders perpetrated here about five years ago by an elven mage who went insane. I suppose it's understandable that they'd be uncomfortable around any elf who's also obviously a mage these days. I think we may want to consider trying to disguise Pelori if we spend much more time in the town here.

{Editor's note: Additional languages begin to appear in Captain Alexander's journal from this point forward. So far, linguists have identified at least seven separate languages, some of which share a common alphabet. Transcription becomes increasingly tenuous as the obscurity of the languages increases. Legends of Captain Alexander presented her as an intelligent woman, but her command of languages has been unrecognized until the discovery of this journal.}

We've been at Sandpoint for a short time, and have only had a chance to speak briefly with some of the dockworkers. Tomorrow morning I intend to get an early start and see what we can find out about recent events in Xandros under the guise of trading some armor, weapons, and magical accoutrement here. I imagine we'll get fleeced, but information is more important than money right now. Pelori believes she's mastered a new spell to disguise the Tahl'emar so that she won't be instantly recognizable as an elven wingship. So far it seems to be effective. Curiously, though, the dockworkers here are far friendlier to me than to Pelori. Usually people flock to her and practically fall over themselves to give her what she asks for, but I've noticed that most of the folks here seem oddly hostile toward her. Whatever it is that's causing the reaction doesn't seem to extend to me, though, so we have at least enough information to get a good start tomorrow morning.

Since we've had a significant reshuffling of the crew as a result of our stay in Elfhelm, and since Valade insists that this journal may prove to be of historical value as a record of our activities, I'll make note of the current crew roster here. I promoted Hadreon to fill Beregorm's position as second mate, although I considered Elisreth as well. It would do her good to have some command responsibility, but it would come at the cost of her musical training, and I think it's more important that she focus on her bardic abilities for the time being. I also considered Andure, a ranger we hired on at Elfhelm, but while she seems very competent based on her performance in our fight with the orc pirates, neither I nor the rest of the crew know her very well yet. We all know and trust Hadreon, and he's both capable and deserving of the post.

Captain: Lindisty Alexander
First Mate: Elethwen
Second Mate: Hadreon
Mage/Investor: Pel'ori Xiloscient
Mage Ward: Hogun Drahk
Prelate: Valade Dorant, priest of Vinivae
Bombardier: Togo Knotwise
Bosun: Findilas
Master Carpenter: Mindiril
Captain's Apprentice: Elisreth
Marines:
Elves: Githrelas, Araegaer, Arisel, Madhrel, Dunor, Celegnir, Foromith, Ansrevar, Dyleth. (All original crew of the Ramdor)
Humans: Llurrine, Ozanna, Herrain, Bennet, Dwinalt, Pwalkme. (All hired on at Dragonport)
Sailors:
Half-elves: Andure, Auryon, Firya, Salmo, Eandil, Valion, Tengolmo, Ondatar. (All hired on at Elfhelm)
Crew at Stronghold: Polo Boffin, Peregrin Bree, Hamson Treespinner, Brandobras Roper, Gaffer Crosswater, Marmadoc Thatcher, Donnamira Weaver, Belladonna Watchwater, Esmerelda Burrows, Amarylis Cotton

Until two weeks ago, I'd have included Tanowen in the roster as an investor, but I'm no longer sure that applies. Other than that one outburst, he hasn't mentioned taking his money back, and I've been too occupied with other matters to ask him what he intends. Oh, hells, I may as well admit that I've been using my preoccupation as an excuse not to discuss it with him, because I don't have the courage to face that conversation. I keep reliving those moments when that miserable piece of scum discovered this journal and thinking about what might have happened if I'd been forced to choose between seeing them harm Tanowen then and there or giving them information that would have led them to my father and Lysenia. The more I think about that, the more I realize that our relationship isn't just a danger to him, it's a vulnerability I'm not sure I can afford. I think I'm glad he was unconscious during that episode-- or if he wasn't, he was smart enough to keep quiet and fake it, at least. It was hard enough to keep my wits about me without hearing his voice just then.

I'm sure Tanowen would tell me I'm borrowing trouble unnecessarily, since the Hellknight actually believed what I told him, and he's dead now anyway. While there's some satisfaction in that thought, I wouldn't be surprised to find myself in similar situations in future, and I need to find some way to prepare myself for it.

Our visit to Elfhelm was productive, if brief. We have at long last succeeded in removing that bitch's magical writing from the hull of the Tahl'emar. The local sage, a half-elf named Iroloth, was most accommodating both in translating the word ('Pirate') for us and in providing us the means to erase it. He was also quite willing to share news of Xandros, and it sounds like things there have taken an interesting turn. Someone apparently magically compelled Queen Regent Itani to speak nothing but the truth at a state dinner recently, and the ensuing events completely destroyed the impression she's been trying to foster that she's a pawn of the Hellknights. Unfortunately, her reaction to this event was to declare halfings and gnomes (who she blamed for the compulsion) property of the state, and to begin rounding them up and enslaving them all.

We have also successfully replaced those members of the crew who departed at Elfhelm and are now en route to Sandpoint. The new crew members are all half-elves, and unfortunately they've neither the sailing capability or the arms training that the rest of my crew has. I hate the thought of taking a half-trained crew into the kind of danger we're going to be facing, but I see no other option right now. Elethwen and I will have our work cut out for us to bring them up to speed in what little time we have before things start heating up.

The fates seem to have obliged my desire for training them, though, by providing an orc ship bent on piracy for us to battle early this morning. They appeared to be renegades from the Sajisani Empire, for what that's worth. I was mostly pleased by the crew's performance in the battle. Togo's handling of the ballistas and catapult was masterful, and Pelori's fireballs were as devastating as ever, once she figured out how to circumvent the mage they had aboard their ship. It was a relatively short battle, and we left their ship holed and sinking. I hated leaving anyone to drown, but I could hardly justify rescuing those who clearly intended to do us harm.

I've left Beregorm with letters to my father, Aral, and Andoril in case he gets back to Dragonport anytime soon. I warned him that if he does deliver the letters, both Father and Aral are likely to try to worm information out of him about our plans. Also told him I'd trust both of them with at least as much information as he possesses, so he needn't worry about telling them too much. Aral, at least, wouldn't hesitate to charm the information out of him using music or magic, and I'd hate for Beregorm to feel he'd failed me if that happened.

{Editor's note: The following letters were discovered in the locked box containing Captain Alexander's journal and other papers. They appear to be drafts, and the papers of the recipients are not available to scholars at this time, so we do not know if final versions were ever delivered. They are each presented here in chronological order with Captain Alexander's other papers.}

To: Aral Eyllisrae
Care of: Arcanists' Guild
City of Dragonport

Dear Aral,

I suppose it won't surprise you that I'm writing to say that you were right about what you said to me in the ruins. I still take issue with your tactics, but I understand your fear for me better now, and I understand why you did what you did.

Oh, I understood from the beginning what you were trying to tell me when you said that it isn't having power that defines who we are, it's how we use our power that defines us. I understood that you wanted me be strong, and that you believed I might deny the power of my voice at a moment when it was needed to protect those in my care. You need not carry that burden of worry any longer. I have used the power of my music to control another's mind, and I would do it again under the same circumstances. An imp was plaguing the Tahl'emar, and when it proved too elusive to defeat by other means, I used my music to make it reveal itself to us. We attacked and killed it while it stood transfixed by my music. I'm somewhat surprised that using the power of my voice to kill hasn't tainted the music for me, but it hasn't, and I believe it won't so long as I'm using it to protect those in my care.

You were right to fear for me, though, albeit for different reasons than you thought. I was reluctant to use my power then because I saw in myself the potential to do the kind of harm Lithandra did to me when she took over my mind. That potential exists, and to an even greater extent than I realized at the time. Since I left Dragonport, the power of my voice has grown beyond what even you taught me was possible. I can summon and control the very wind with my voice, Aral. And I believe a day will come soon when I'll be able to make enemies flee the battlefield with the sound of my voice alone. And I will not hesitate to use that power. Before I left Dragonport, you told me that you promised my mother you'd see to it that I wouldn't forsake my voice. You've fulfilled that promise.

Having that kind of power isn't necessarily a cause for concern, because you and Father have instilled honor and responsibility in me from the time I was a small child. But I have charted a course for myself and my crew that passes through very rough waters indeed, and I believe that coming out on the other side with my honor intact may be impossible. War is coming to Aralast, and I and my crew will be in the thick of it. I can't give you the details-- if we succeed, the results will be obvious soon enough, though it's my devout hope that no one ever connects us with those results. All I can say is that it's likely to be a bloody undertaking, and if we fail, my name may be written into history alongside Reikin Dagalar's as the most ruthless pirates ever to exist.

I owe you more than I can ever repay for all you've taught me, but I must ask for more. Please keep an eye out toward this side of the ocean. It's possible that those who seek my father's foster child may have information that could lead them to him. I think we prevented that information from being communicated beyond the three who discovered it, but I can't be certain of that. I am, of course, warning him as well, but you have means of finding information that he doesn't. Also, you were right that Father feared music would take me away from him as he believes it took Mother from him. I can't tell him any more than I'm telling you, but I know he'll be worried about me. Please talk to him, Aral. I know you and he have your differences and he may not want to hear what you have to say. But please don't let his fear for me turn again to bitterness about my music.

I've never said it in so many words, but you've been as much a father to me as he has. I don't have the words to express to you how grateful I am for your care of me. I love you, Aral, and whatever may happen in the future, I want you to know that your teachings have made me stronger.

I will write when I know I have trustworthy messengers to send to Dragonport, but I don't expect that to be often. Until you hear from me again, know that I'm thinking of you often.

Love,
Lindisty

---

To: Anadar Alexander
Care of: Merchants' Guild
City of Dragonport

Dear Father,

I apologize for not writing sooner. I intended to send a letter from Tharad-dum, but our time there was far too eventful, and our departure too rushed, to be able to arrange it. One day, I hope I can tell you all about it, but it would be a tale of several pages were I to write it here, and I must put this letter in the hands of a messenger soon.

The elf who carries this letter should be known to you from our previous stay in Dragonport. He's been a valued and trusted second mate aboard the Tahl'emar, and would be still had I not chosen a course his conscience forbids him to follow. Please see to it that he is well-rewarded for his service in carrying this message to you, and assure him for me that there will always be a place aboard my ship for him if he ever wishes to return. If you can, and if he requires assistance, please aid him in finding a berth aboard agood ship. Any captain worth her salt should be thrilled to have him as a member of her crew.

I'm writing to warn you, Father, that those who are pursuing your foster child may well have discovered her location-- or at least enough information to lead them to her location, and to you. The three we know discovered it are no longer alive to tell anyone, but I can't be certain they didn't get the information to someone else before we killed them. I know that you, Zarinda, and Sigard will see to it that she is well-guarded, but have a care for your own safety as well, please. I'm enclosing a short note for your charge, and I hope that you'll give her a hug for me, and tell her I think of her often.

I'm writing also to say that you may not hear from me again for a long time. I'll do my best to write whenever I can find a trustworthy messenger en route to Dragonport, but I don't expect that to be often. My crew and I are planning a venture even more dangerous than that which I discussed with you before we left Dragonport. Dangerous enough, in fact, that many of my crew have chosen to depart the Tahl'emar. I've hired on a new compliment, and I now command a crew of elves, half-elves, and humans, in roughly equal proportions. I wish I could ask your advice, because there's much about the plan and my new crew that fills me with uncertainty. I have not, however, forgotten your words. I do not let the crew see my uncertainty or regret, though it's damnably difficult to keep up the facade sometimes.

Know that I think of you every day, and that I love you.

Your daughter,
Lindisty

---

To: Andoril Myrthhame
Crooked Lyre
City of Dragonport

Dear Andi,

I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits. It probably won't surprise you to know that I've been missing your heather ale almost as much as I miss you and your voice. No one on this side of the ocean brews ale the way you do.

I'm writing mostly to apologize to you for bringing you trouble when I was last in Dragonport. I do hope that the measures we took to remedy the situation have remained effective. I should have said as much in person before we left, but I found myself preoccupied with other matters. Now, though, I don't know if or when I'll be able to return to Dragonport, and it's important to me that you know I realize the trouble I caused you, and that I'm sorry for it.

You've been a source of great joy in my life, Andi, and I know I've never told you before how much your care and teaching have meant to me. I expect to be sailing very rough waters for the next several months, and I want you to know that the memories of my time at the Crooked Lyre will be a light in the darkness for me. I hope that when this is over, I'll be able to return and spend many more evenings there with you. But if I can't, please know that the evenings I spent there measure among the most joyous times in my life.

Take care of yourself, please.

Love,
Lindisty

Well, that was a disaster. We never even got to Brindisgloch, much less negotiated an alliance with the gnomes. Mayor Roymerich, despite all my efforts to deal honestly and honorably with him, is convinced that we have deceived him, and he made this clear to the gnomes who ventured out to meet us as we were escorting the Niggenot. His description of our interactions with his people was... not inaccurate, but he clearly interpreted all of our actions in the worst possible light.

So now we're en route to Elfhelm to drop off Beregorm and the others and hire a new group of sailors. I regret the necessity, and I'm not optimistic about our chances of finding compatible crew on this side of the ocean, but we haven't time to go back to Dahn'Varion. Shortly after we parted from the Niggenot, we had a run-in with a ship full of gnolls. I suspect they were refugees from Ulwahr, and had they not seemed intent on ramming the Tahl'emar and boarding her, I'd have attempted to assist them. As it was, they didn't leave us much choice but to destroy their ship and them with it.

I don't think I've ever faced harder decisions than those of the last few days. As I expected, many of the elves have chosen to leave with Beregorm. For a while, it seemed that the majority of the crew were going to follow him, which would have ... complicated matters considerably. Elethwen reminded me that elven custom dictates that the ship belongs to the crew, rather than the captain. If most of the crew refused to participate in this endeavor, I'd have faced the choice of leaving the Tahl'emar or abandoning our plans.

I can't leave this ship. Elven custom be damned, the Tahl'emar belongs to me. Or more accurately, perhaps, I belong to her. Even if I wanted to leave, I couldn't, after what I've discovered in the last few days. She's endured a thousand years on the sea and had seven captains, and only one other besides myself has learned her secret. And he served for over two centuries before it was revealed to him. In less than three months, she's revealed it to me. I can no more abandon her or betray that trust than I can sprout fins and breathe water.

Fortunately, after spending time with each of the crew individually, Pelori and I were able to convince most of them to follow us. I'm exceedingly grateful that I didn't have to try to make that choice. I don't know what I'd have done.

I've suspected for a long time that Pelori is destined for great things, and I've been content to go along for the ride. But this plan, if it succeeds, will change the world in ways I can only dimly imagine right now, and it's my brainchild. Tanowen says it's the greatest con game ever conceived of, with the three most powerful beings in the world as marks. I suppose that's true, if you squint at it in just the right light. Mostly, though, it's the course of action which seems to offer the best chance of making a real difference in the lives of decent people everywhere. Having recognized that possibility, I couldn't, in good conscience, allow the opportunity to pass.

I never set out to save the world. Oh, I suppose that when Pelori and I signed on with Captain Stark, I had some vague notion of protecting the innocent from the depredations of Sajisan and Ulwahr (ironic, that), but I've always just wanted to be a ship's captain. I'm no hero to inspire the masses, overcome impossible odds, and battle the forces of evil with clean hands and a pure heart. That events have conspired to put me in a position to change the course of history is a cruel and bizarre accident of fate, I think.

But for better or worse, I've set our course, and all I can do now is sail it and hope we don't find ourselves dashed upon a rocky shore. After we've gotten the gnomes safely to Brindisgloch and taken care of our other business there, I'll have to give some thought to replacing those crew members who are leaving, and deciding who should fill Beregorm's position as second mate.

Oh, my aching head. I've been studying the Hellknights' language, using some documents we retrieved from their bodies. Fortunately, many of the writs (including the warrant for my arrest and the seizure of the Tahl'emar-- I may just have that one framed for the wall of my cabin) are translated into multiple languages, so I've been able to work backward from languages I know. I think I'm starting to puzzle it out, but it's damnably complicated. Writing in languages I already know is a relief, after hours spent poring over the Hellknights' texts.

At least the headache and the study has been distracting me from my worry over our next venture. I'm troubled by Beregorm's decision to leave, especially. He was the most senior officer left of the Ramdor's crew when we freed them from prison, and certainly had every right to take the captaincy once we recovered her. I'm still not entirely sure why he stepped aside for me, but I'll never forget that he did. This ship is at least as much his (and the rest of the crew's) as it is mine, and I dislike charting a course for her that he can't follow. Practically speaking, I also fear that many of those who served with him under Captain Elarian will choose to follow him once I've informed the rest of the crew. I won't try to stop anyone who wants to go, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about the risk involved in letting people leave after revealing our plans to them. I haven't forgotten that King Thunderfist thanked every member of my crew by name, and that the Hellknight delegation was present when he did it. I don't doubt that they were paying very close attention to each and every name he mentioned. Nor do I doubt that they've been able to match descriptions to many of those names. Anyone who was part of my crew at Tharad-dum is most likely already marked by their association with me, and once I tell them of these plans, the risk to all of us should they be captured and questioned by the Hellknights is severe. I won't lead anyone into this unaware, but I'm worried about what will happen when those who know our plans leave our company.

The tactics I'm contemplating are unpleasant, and I understand why many of the crew may choose to depart rather than carry this on their conscience. But we have a chance to make a real difference, and no matter how distasteful I may find some of our plans, I think we have to do this. The alternative is to take petty pot shots at Xandrosian shipping, which would take forever to have any real impact. The risk of what I've proposed is huge, but success could mean ensuring the destruction of the Hellknights and freeing Xandros from their rule in the space of months, as opposed to the years it would take with the original plans I'd contemplated. I think the only one of us who's actually happy with this idea is Tanowen, and that's only because he's never met a con game he didn't like. I think he derives the same joy from the challenge of concocting plans like this that I get from creating new music. If there's a rewarding aspect to any of this right now, it's seeing him gleefully plotting various deceptions. It's a joy to watch him work.

Although our relationship isn't entirely without its own troubles. Now that I've had time to reflect on it, Tanowen's rather dramatic dissolution of our investment agreement has placed me in a decidedly awkward position. He's not a member of my crew, and I doubt anyone ever believed that money had much to do with why he was actually here, but he did agree to follow my orders in a crisis aboard ship. And the entire crew witnessed his refusal to go when I ordered everyone over to the Niggenot. Given how strongly some of them objected to leaving at the time, I'm not sure I can afford to let them see me give him a free pass on that. A captain who really valued shipboard discipline would tell him he's forfeited his investment and put him ashore at the next available port, I suppose. That's not an option I'm willing to contemplate. But the lives of my crew are my responsibility, and their survival may very well depend on following my orders. I can't afford to let them think that disobeying me in a crisis doesn't carry a price.

Father was right. Being a ship's captain does put a strain on personal relationships. And in this case, there's a conflict between my personal desires and my responsibilities. I honestly can't find the words in any language I know to describe how it feels to know Tanowen cares about me deeply enough to remain at my side even when he had to believe doing so would mean his death. It's no exaggeration to say it leaves me speechless-- I haven't even been able to put it in a song, and that almost never happens. Of course, I was furious with him at the time, and even now the thought of what might have happened to him ties my guts in knots. After reading my journal, that miserable cur of a Hellknight had to have known exactly who Tanowen was and what he meant to me. If he hadn't believed me when I answered his question about Father's address, I have no doubt that he'd have used Tanowen to... persuade me to talk. And it would have broken me, one way or the other. I've had nightmares about it every night since.

I can't ask him to leave, though. Aside from the fact that he'd just refuse again, he's not a child to be bundled off to safety at the slightest hint of danger, no matter how much I may want to protect him. He's aware of the danger, and he's not stupid-- occasionally reckless and always flamboyant-- but never stupid. He knows what he's getting into by associating with me, and he believes it's worth it. And truthfully, I don't want him to leave. He'd be safer elsewhere, but having him at my side is a source of joy and comfort most of the time, and there's little enough joy in the world that I'd be a fool to reject it when it's offered to me.

Which brings me back to my dilemma. I can't ask him to leave now, even though I worry about the effect it may have on crew discipline if I do nothing about his refusal to obey my orders in a crisis. In retrospect, I think perhaps the formal investment agreement was a mistake. If I hadn't insisted on the public ruse and created the expectation that he'd follow orders aboard ship, I'd be much less concerned about how the crew might perceive this. And I've spent enough time with them by now to realize that none of them would have cared if their captain had a lover aboard. But I wasn't certain of that at the time, and done is done. Second-guessing myself isn't helping me figure out what to do now.

I wish I could ask Father's advice about this. (Although I rather dread the moment when I have to explain to him why I didn't 'properly introduce' Tanowen before we left Dragonport.) I wonder if he and Mother ever sailed together aboard the Errant Venture before they married. I know they did after I was born, because one of the few clear memories I have of Mother is listening to her sing while the ship rocked me to sleep.

We've retrieved the Niggenot from the cove where we left it, and are en route to Brindisgloch. Over the course of the last two days, I've formed a plan for how we might proceed against the Hellknights. It's terribly risky-- an all or nothing proposition with no room for error. If we succeed, we'll virtually ensure the destruction of the Hellknights, but if we fail... Well, if we fail we'll be lucky to die in the attempt. It's also... likely to be very bloody. I think the results will be worth it if we succeed, but I can't pretend I'm comfortable with the methods we'll have to use in order to pull this off.

I've talked with Pelori, Hogun, Valade, Tanowen, Elethwen, and Beregorm about it, and all of them except Beregorm have agreed to the plan. Beregorm has asked to leave the ship at the next acceptable port of call. Valade objected strongly to the plan, but has agreed to remain aboard the Tahl'emar because, in his words, "You're going to get bloody, and you need someone here who will tell you when you're going too far." He's right, and I'm profoundly grateful that he's staying. I think that if he'd chosen to leave, I wouldn't have gone through with it. I know that what I'm contemplating flirts with the kind of evil that Dagalar succumbed to, and without help, I'm not sure I'd have the strength to pull myself out of it any more than he did.

Valade also told me he thought it was important to maintain my journal, both for personal reasons and in case it ever becomes important that there be a record of our activities. He seems to think that it might become historically valuable in future, though I'm not sure I believe that. If we do this right, no one will ever know our part in it. And I'm uneasy about leaving evidence of our involvement, no matter how well we secure the document. Valade says that he, Pelori, and Tanowen can help me keep it secure and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. I'm sure they can, but it will probably be some time before I'm comfortable recording the kind of detail I have up until now. I do think that once he and Pelori have added some magical protections, and Tanowen creates a secure place to store it in my cabin, I'll feel a little less... exposed when I write.

Because I don't think I could stop writing entirely-- it helps me organize my thoughts and understand my own motivations better than anything else I know, and that's going to be even more important in the coming months than it has been thus far. Valade is right that this isn't the time for me to deprive myself of the best means I have for clearly assessing my own behavior and motivations.

{Editor's note: From this point forward, Captain Alexander's log is written in a mixture of languages. It has been the work of many linguists to decipher the content, and much of the remaining transcription of her logs is extrapolation and even sheer conjecture. Several of the languages in question are simply not spoken in modern society, and there are few historic textual examples, so meaning must be reconstructed from context.}

Well, this is anticlimactic, isn't it?

I'm not certain of the wisdom of continuing this log, given the events of the last few days, but there are things I need to think through right now, and I do that best in writing.

My memory of the time immediately following my last entry is very disjointed and hazy. The one thing I remember vividly is thinking that once I slipped into unconsciousness, I'd never wake up and the Hellknights would come and take the Tahl'emar. Of course, that didn't stop it from happening.

Is it any wonder that when I did wake up, I was convinced that I was still in the midst of a fever dream? Under the circumstances, I won't record any of the details, but suffice to say that Tanowen and I were provided with aid when and how we most needed it. By the time we were revived and healed, we spotted three Hellknights on winged mounts approaching through the mist. Tanowen and I took cover below decks, intending to stay hidden as long as possible. From my hiding spot, I could see up through the grating onto the main deck, though, and I could tell they'd detected us the moment I saw one of them walk past the grating and pause at the top of the stairs.

I immediately cast a couple of defensive spells on myself, and Tanowen moved to a better position, and then we both waited. And heard the hatch open at the top of the stairs, and then heard chanting from the main deck. At that point, there was no doubt they knew exactly where we were and what my abilities are, because a magical silence surrounded us, and I couldn't sing, or speak, or cast spells. In fact, there was no sound at all in our immediate vicinity. I never realized before how deeply I depend on sound for information about the situation I'm in. It's just wrong to be aboard ship and not hear the creak of deck timbers below my feet, or the whisper of the waves against the hull, or the slap of the rigging against the masts as the ship rocks. My world is sound and music most of the time, and being deprived of that source of information would be enough to drive me mad in very short order, I'm afraid.

Gods know I acted very foolishly in the next few moments, though in retrospect I'm not certain I could have changed the outcome even if I'd made better tactical choices. I tried to charge up the steps to the main deck with a pretty single-minded determination to kill the mage that had enveloped me in silence. Unfortunately, I ran into an invisible Hellknight halfway up the stairs. Oddly, even after attacking me, the Hellknight remained invisible. I think I actually hit him when I attacked, but I don't think I did much damage. And then all of a sudden Tanowen was flitting past me, and somehow leaped and tumbled his way past the Hellknight and the mage who was standing in the hatchway without giving them a single opening to attack him. Even when I'm terrified for his life and mine, watching him do things like that leaves me breathless with awe. If I'd been thinking, I'd have done something similar to get myself above decks rather than just charging straight up the stairs, but I was so rattled by the lack of sound that I didn't even think to attempt it. I flailed away at the invisible Hellknight with Scourge, but it was useless. The last thing I remember for a while is feeling the flat of his sword blade crash into the side of my head before I went down.

And then I woke up on the main deck with water being thrown in my face. My wounds were bound, and Tanowen and I had been tied to the mast. There were three Hellknights, or rather, two individuals in Hellknight armor and one in robes wearing the insignia of the Order of the Nail. Given that one of the armored ones was carrying a morningstar, I gathered I was dealing with the prelate, mage, and another officer of whatever Hellknight vessel that damned imp had summoned. As soon as I was conscious, the armored one with a sword asked if I was the captain of the Tahl'emar. When I affirmed that I was, he told me I was 'bound by law' and that he was returning me to Xandros for trial on the charges of piracy and espionage.

Then the motherless spawn of a carrion-eater bashed through the door to my quarters and came out carrying this journal, which he read right in front of me. The moment I saw him exit my quarters with it in his hand, I knew what an enormous mistake I'd made by recording so many details of my activities. If I'm going to continue writing, I must take measures to ensure that it can't be easily deciphered in case this journal falls into the wrong hands again. I watched him reading every thought I've recorded during the last five months and felt much the same way I felt when Lithandra was crawling around inside my head. In some ways it was worse, because she commanded my mind for only a few moments, but he was rooting around in my deepest thoughts and feelings for what seemed like hours while he read my journal. It was profoundly painful to know he was learning not just about what I've done in the last five months, but nearly everything I've felt as well.

And there was not a damned thing I could do to stop it.

When he finished reading, he walked over and punched me in the face, then demanded Lysenia's location. I told him only that she was safe, but my heart went dead at the thought that he had all the information he really needed to find her-- and my father. All I could think of were the stories my father's friend Rakhath used to tell. As a young woman, she was part of Aganon's army, and was captured by the enemy more than once. She always said that the best thing to do when you're captured and interrogated is to lie. Lie as creatively and sincerely as possible, so that when they finally torture the information they want out of you, they've already heard so many different stories that they can't separate the truth from fiction. So when this bastard punched me again and demanded to know where Father's house was, I immediately rattled off Magistrate Prokal's address, hoping to start muddying the waters right away. Surprisingly, he simply told one of his companions to make note of the address and then stopped asking questions. Perhaps I lie a bit more convincingly than I thought.

Not long after that, all three of our captors seemed to be uneasy that their ship hadn't arrived yet, and bundled Tanowen and me down to some of the officer's quarters just as it was getting dark. Within a brief time, we started hearing the kinds of moans and squelching sounds I associate with the undead, and the prelate who'd been watching us told us to stay put and went back up on deck. The moment she was gone, I got Tanowen to loosen our bonds and cast a few healing spells to take care of our injuries, just in case the undead provided enough of a distraction for us to fight our captors and win. Unfortunately, we heard no sounds of battle coming from the main deck, and I concluded that the prelate must have succeeded in commanding the undead and recruiting them to her service.

Tanowen and I tried to doze, but neither of us got much sleep, especially after they set a ghast to watch over us for the rest of the night. Gods, but those things smell revolting. I spent the entire night trying not to vomit all over the place. The next morning, we heard one of the Hellknights take to the air, then return almost immediately and tell the others to prepare for battle. Then one of them came down, ordered the ghast up to the main deck, and beat both of us into unconsciousness, so I'm not sure what happened for a few minutes. Again, I'm reluctant to record any details, but suffice to say that we both regained consciousness and found ourselves healed of the beating we'd taken. We retrieved our weapons and other equipment and started out the door to make our way up to the main deck when we ran into Pelori, Hogun, Valade, and Beregorm coming up from the lower hold.

I was so shocked to see the four of them that I just blurted out, "What the hell are you doing here?" Pelori's blithe reply that they'd come to rescue us left me absolutely speechless. I just told her the whole story could wait 'til later, told them how many enemies were on board and that we couldn't afford to let any of them escape because they knew everything about Lysenia and my father. We went up onto the main deck very carefully because we knew they'd had time to prepare and that they had a mage and a cleric with the ability to keep them invisible even while they were fighting. Fortunately, Pelori was able to dispel the shield spell we detected near the helm, and Valade purged their invisibility, which negated those particular advantages.

I'd charged up to the helm the moment we came on deck, and as soon as they were visible again I attacked that hell-spawned swine who'd read my journal. Unfortunately, every time I hit him, the prelate screamed in pain. I found it madly frustrating, because it wasn't her screams of pain I wanted to hear most. The fight didn't last long, and I don't remember much of what happened, except for being absolutely enraged and attacking that mangy cur of a swordsman over and over again. Unfortunately, Pelori unleashed a horrifically devastating fireball before I could kill him myself. I very nearly told Valade to bring him back from the dead just so I could kill him again with my own hands, but I managed to get control of myself before I actually said anything out loud. I contented myself with kicking his body a few times before we disposed of it.

So then we towed the Tahl'emar out of the Dead Calm, and I had time to hear from Pelori what had happened once she and crew left aboard the Niggenot. I think the details of that story should remain unrecorded for now, but I've never been so proud of Pelori or the rest of my crew as I was when she told me what they'd done. They've all behaved exactly as I would have wished, and there's no greater compliment to a captain than to realize her people follow her wishes even when she isn't there to command them.

In any case, the ship, my crew, and I are safely at Stronghold now, and will be departing to rendezvous with the gnomes again as soon as we've replaced the Tahl'emar's sails.

{Editor's note: The following entry is written in rushed and shaky script, and contains some passages which are so smudged as to be nearly illegible. Passages with dubious transcription are bracketed and italicized.}

I expect this to be my last entry in this log. I'm light-headed from heat exhaustion and suntouch, so I'll record as much of the events of the last day as I can before I succumb to the delirium. I want our story to be told should the ship survive.

The Tahl'emar is dead in the water. Her sails are burnt, and all the spare sails have been shot through with acid. The fresh water and food stores have been fouled. We're adrift in the midst of a Dead Calm, and I expect that if anyone finds us, it will be the Hellknights. At least my crew has a chance to survive. They've all departed aboard the Niggenot intending to row out of the becalmed area. I wish I'd been able to convince [Tanowen] to go with them.

Early this morning, I woke aboard the Niggenot to find that we'd blundered into this Dead Calm overnight. I'd never encountered this phenomenon before, but I've heard enough tales and talked with enough experienced sailors to know we were in serious trouble the moment I realized what it was. It's a supernatural occurrence, with heavy mist that obscures visibility and concentrates the heat of the sun over an area as large as a hundred miles. And it tends to attract the undead. The Niggenot and the Tahl'emar had drifted far enough apart that we couldn't make out what was happening on the other ship, so I used my music to raise enough wind to get the two ships in closer proximity to one another. Between that and the gnomes' oars, we could at least move. And then I saw that the Tahl'emar's sails were burning. I had Pelori transport the two of us back aboard my ship immediately, and we managed to extinguish the fires, but then we discovered that all the spare sails and the food and water stores had been sabotaged, presumably by our friend the imp.

By the time the Niggenot had reached us and we'd gotten the grappling ramp deployed again, several of my crew were already suffering from heat exhaustion and suntouch delirium. Mayor Roymerich offered to take my crew aboard the Niggenot and row to safety, so I ordered those who'd fallen ill to go and told everyone else that they could leave if they wanted to. I expected everyone to go, until Elethwen pointed out that not a single member of my crew would abandon me unless I directly ordered them to. I don't know what I've ever done to deserve such [loyalty.] When I realized that Pelori was suffering from heat exhaustion, I ordered everyone aboard the Niggenot. Getting the gnomes to agree to take Hogun with them was nearly impossible-- they're positively implacable in their hatred of orcs, even half breeds like Hogun. They finally agreed, on the condition that he be unconscious, bound, and under guard at all times. Then I had to convince him to go under those conditions, which was nearly as difficult as getting the gnomes to agree to take him.

I thought Hogun was going to punch me in the face when I suggested it, but I pointed out to him that Pelori was already with the gnomes and suffering from heat exhaustion, and that if he stayed here the two of us would die together and Pelori would live out whatever remained of her life without his protection. So he finally agreed to go. Then Tanowen knocked him out and bound him, and we got him over to the Niggenot and turned him over to the gnome guards. It wasn't until Tanowen followed me back over to the Tahl'emar that I realized he intended to stay with me. I did my best to convince him to leave, and we had a huge flaming row right there on the deck of the Tahl'emar. I reminded him that he'd agreed to obey my orders in the event of a crisis as a condition of his investment in the ship, and he told me he wanted his money back. I told him to take it and get the hell off my ship, and he said I'd have to make him leave.

It was obvious that short of clubbing him over the head and throwing him off the ship by force, I couldn't make him leave. And the longer we argued, the worse conditions were getting for the rest of my people. And about that time, we heard this long, droning wail come from the Tahl'emar. I assumed it was that damned imp summoning a Hellknight vessel to capture the Tahl'emar. So I took the couple of small casks of water the gnomes offered and sent them on their way.

I don't know how long it took me to calm down enough to stop slamming things around and settle into my quarters with some water to conserve my energy. Once I did, he sat down with me and asked if I intended to stay angry with him until we both died, or if we could just admit that we love each other and that neither of us was going to abandon the other. How the hell was I supposed to respond to that? Of course I love him. That's why I didn't want to watch him die here. And when I told him that, he just put his arms around me and told me to close my eyes.

[I couldn't bear the thought of arguing with him again under the circumstances. I knew I didn't want our last conversation to be a fight, and I wasn't sure how long either of us would be able to resist the heat exhaustion and the suntouch. If a miracle occurs and I somehow survive this, I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for getting him into this situation. If I'd said that to him, he'd have told me I was overstepping my responsibility again and we'd have had another huge fight, I'm sure. So I kept my mouth shut and just sat there with him, waiting for the heat and the disease-- or the Hellknights-- to kill both of us.]

At least we got the satisfaction of killing that damned imp before we die. A couple of hours ago, the Captain's Lantern alerted me that there was an intruder aboard again, and I immediately went out on deck and began weaving bardic magic into a song I thought might fascinate the thing and convince it to reveal itself. It took a while, but it eventually worked and I persuaded the imp to drop its invisibility. As soon as it did, I moved close enough to tackle it and pin it to the deck while Tanowen beat it to death with his quarterstaff. We've mopped up the last of the mess from that, and the ship is as clean and orderly as she can be under the circumstances. [I may not be able to save the Tahl'emar, or Tanowen, or myself,] but I'll be damned if I let any part of that imp soil my beautiful ship further while I have the power to stop it.

[Gods, but I hate the thought of letting this ship fall into the Hellknights' hands. I saw what Drahgesh's people did to her, and I can't imagine that the Hellknights will treat her any better.]

I promised myself after Lithandra's attack that I wouldn't use my bardic magic to subvert another being's will, but I might as well admit to myself that when the situation is dire enough, I'll do anything to protect my ship and my crew. If that means overpowering someone's mind and subverting their will, so be it. The Tahl'emar may be lost, but my crew still has a chance to escape, and I couldn't risk leaving the imp alive to continue its mischief against them. It's not like I'll live long enough to regret it, anyway.

Tanowen passed out a little while ago and I've put him to bed. Even before he passed out, though, he wasn't really aware of his surroundings. I wish there were more I could do for him. For a while when he was delirious, singing to him seemed to calm him a bit, but now that he's unconscious there's just [nothing I can do.] And I'm beginning to feel the effects of the disease myself.

[I hope that if someone besides the Hellknights finds the Tahl'emar before she runs aground or sinks, they'll take better care of her than I've been able to. She deserves that.]

What's that old cliche? "Be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it."

I said an alliance with the gnomes might be our best chance to disrupt the current Xandrosian government, but I didn't quite anticipate this. We rounded the top of Rokugan Island this morning and turned south towards Tadresh Island. The change in direction gave us a much better angle on the wind, so we've been running at much better speed since then. A few hours later, we came upon a gnome ship that was burning and very near to sinking. As soon as we were within range, Pelori started summoning water elementals to douse the fire, and I organized the crew into a bucket brigade. Once we'd gotten the grappling ramp set up and started to board their ship to assist them, however, they took us for pirates and started attacking us.

And that's when our invisible, flying friend started meddling, making it appear as though Pelori summoned a snake to attack their leader. I killed the snake and ordered my crew to defend themselves but to avoid hurting the gnomes while we retreated to our own ship. They got in some lucky hits, and several of my crew were injured, though not badly. Eventually Pelori and I convinced their leader that we weren't trying to kill them, but then they discovered that their treasury -- all of about 300 gold pieces-- had been robbed. Of course they thought we'd done it. I just gave them 500 gold out of our own treasury, because I figured that if I offered to let them search the Tahl'emar, they'd find the money planted somewhere aboard. Unfortunately, that seemed to make them even more suspicious of us.

We were about to part ways with them when I heard one of them say they were searching for Brindisgloch, but weren't sure how to get there. I offered to lead them to within sight of the city, and they agreed, on the condition that we have a 'passenger exchange'. They wanted to have Pelori and myself aboard their ship, and offered to send over two of their people in exchange. Fortunately, I'd ordered Hogun to quarters when we sighted the ship initially, so he wasn't there to argue with us when we agreed. So Pelori and I are aboard the gnome TownShip Niggenot, and I think I heard Hogun roaring with rage a little while ago when he found out we'd gone without him. I'm glad I told them it wasn't necessary to have any of their people go over to the Tahl'emar. Mayor Roymerich is Captain of the ship, which the gnomes refer to as a town. Many of his people are reluctant to trust us, but he seems to like us well enough.

I must say that I've never met a more paranoid group than these gnomes. I expected them to be suspicious of tall folk, but I didn't realize their level of paranoia would be quite this high. It seems like everything we say is interpreted in the worst possible light, despite my efforts to be scrupulously honest and aboveboard with them. It's incredibly frustrating. Even so, they seem decent folk, overall, and I hope we can win their good will by the time we get to Brindisgloch.

We've discovered what our flying, invisible intruder was. About six hours into our journey yesterday, the Captain's Lantern alerted me to an intruder aboard. I ordered an immediate search, and Valade cast a spell to dissipate invisibility. Unfortunately, it seems that the creature wasn't within range of his spell. Pelori used a spell to dissipate all magical effects, aimed at the top of the mainmast, and that caught the thing in range. Once it was visible, both Pelori and I recognized it immediately as an imp. Unfortunately, it turned invisible again and flew off immediately, or so I surmise. Both Hogun and I got shots off at the thing with our bows before it got away, though. Hit it, too, though neither of us did much damage.

We departed Stronghold this morning and are headed for Sandpoint. I'd originally intended to go to Brindisgloch and ally ourselves with the gnomes, who are currently at war with Xandros. After discussing it with Pelori, Hogun, and Levethix, however, I decided to pursue other avenues to gather information about Xandrosian shipping first. Given the gnomes' well-known hatred of both orcs and lizards, I intended to ask Hogun and Levethix to remain aboard ship and out of sight while we negotiated with the gnomes. If I hadn't thought I'd need Pelori's diplomatic skills, I'd have asked her to remain aboard ship as well. Unsurprisingly, Hogun objected to the idea of being left behind while Pelori went into a dangerous situation. If he hadn't pointed out to me that what I was asking of him ran contrary to everything I've ever asked him to do, and if I hadn't realized he'd disobey my orders in a heartbeat if he thought Pelori was in danger, I'd have simply gone there anyway and ordered him confined to quarters. I still think an alliance with the gnomes offers our best chance at success against Xandros in the long run, but there are other options we can pursue for now.

Because Hogun was right. I knew there would be times when I had to place the good of my ship or my crew as a whole above the safety of any single person, no matter how much I care about that person. I asked him to guard Pelori because I wanted to know that someone would put her safety first. Asking Hogun to abandon that commitment, even temporarily, is unreasonable of me. Unfortunately, I can't always be reasonable when it comes to deciding what I need any individual member of my crew to do. I could afford to back down in this instance, because there are other ways to accomplish our immediate goals. But I have a feeling that eventually I'll have to order Pelori into danger without Hogun at her back, and when that happens, I fully expect him to try to beat me to a pulp. And I can't say I'll blame him when he does.

But there's no sense in dwelling overmuch on that. When it happens, I'll deal with it. Of greater immediate concern is the fact that I noticed when we were setting sail this morning that the crew wasn't as sharp at managing the sails as I'd like them to be. We've been focusing so much on honing their combat abilities that I think we've neglected their seamanship. I intend to remedy that. So despite the fact that we were tacking into a headwind this morning, I decided not to help them out with my windsinging. They need to be able to manage such things without my assistance, and better that they practice it in calm circumstances than have to do it in the middle of a battle. Have told Elethwen I'll be instituting regular sailing drills in addition to his usual combat drills.

I suppose they've been at it long enough now that I should do some windsinging. I want them to practice without it, but we're making pitiful time right now, and we do have things to accomplish beyond improving their sailing skills.

Who knew being wrong could be such a relief?

Reikin Dagalar was not the monster I believed him to be. Those words look so strange on paper. All my life I've heard stories about him that could give the bravest warrior nightmares. And I've always scoffed at people who claim that those thought to be evil are often misunderstood. I never expected I'd make that claim of one of the most bloodthirsty pirates in history. But I think it's true, based on what I've discovered after my magical explorations.

This is not to say Dagalar didn't commit acts of great evil. He did. But he was no demon, nor was he unrepentant or irredeemable. He was a man, with virtues and vices like any other man, and enough power to bring great harm-- and great good-- to the world. While he was the vampire Endawi's ward, he called up the Bloodletter from the sea of demons, and the two of them together built a fearsome reputation. But it was Endawi who used an Eosian gem to call forth the sea devils and massacre Jander's Well. And when he saw that devastation, Dagalar killed his guardian and sent the Bloodletter back to the depths and sea devils back to their home.

He was beloved of Illanwe Killenddare, and she bore him a son. It was fear that the assassins who trailed him would kill his son that turned him back to piracy after years of peaceful life with Captain Killenddare. And even after she fled and hid her son away from him, and he spent those years in piracy and mayhem, he repented again when he found love with a nobleman's daughter. And then he died at Glenethir's hand, keeping the secrets that would have loosed the sea devils on Aralast again.

(I wonder if history always emphasizes the worst in people, or if his is a special case? I wonder if history will remember me as a perpetrator of great evil, once I've embarked on the campaign against Xandros? I've been calling it commerce raiding, and everyone has been humoring me about that, but I know it amounts to outright piracy. The only difference between what I propose to do and what Dagalar did in his later years is in our motivations and our methods of choosing targets. But it's probably a delusion of grandeur to think that history will even note my existence, so I'll not concern myself with that.)

Is it any wonder that after following the spell to its conclusion, I was so stunned I couldn't think for a while? I'm not even sure how it is that I ended up sitting at the table in my quarters relating the whole tale to Pelori, Hogun, Valade, Beregorm, Elethwen, and Tanowen. Somewhere at about the point in the story where Dagalar met the nobleman's daughter, the implications dawned on me and I very nearly couldn't finish the tale. But I did, somehow, and got everyone except Tanowen out of my quarters before I fell completely apart.

I suddenly realized that I very nearly threw everything away because I didn't know enough. I was ready to let myself be killed because I was desperately worried that something would eventually happen to turn me into the kind of monster I believed Dagalar was. I was ready to let Tanowen walk away forever because I couldn't bear the thought that I might somehow harm him if that happened. I was ready to leave my crew without their captain because I was afraid I'd lead them into the kind of monstrous acts that Dagalar's crew committed.

But now that I know more of Dagalar's story, I understand that most of the wrongs he himself committed were due to very human weaknesses and failings, not some supernatural force of evil that tainted him. He was at least as capable of great nobility and sacrifice as of great evil, now that I think on it. And if there was no evil taint on him, then such a thing couldn't very well carry through his bloodlines to me.

I babbled about all of this to Tanowen for hours. More, I think, because I needed to say it out loud than because he needed to hear it. He listened very patiently and humored me politely, but he still doesn't believe I'm a descendant of Dagalar or that I had any reason to be worried in the first place. I'd be angry that he dismissed my concerns so lightly, if it weren't equally obvious that he loves me... and if I hadn't just realized that a large portion of the ground on which those concerns rested had suddenly crumbled out of existence.

Somewhere in the midst of all that explanation, I realized that most of the reasons I'd been building walls between us no longer existed, and blurted out an invitation to spend the night. If I were a cat, I'd have been purring loudly enough to shake the entire ship for much of the day, I think. But the conversation we just had made me understand that I'm in completely uncharted waters with him right now. I've spent my entire life learning how to be a leader and a captain. I think I know how to be a friend. But this is something different, and unlike being a musician, captain, or friend, I don't have any examples to follow for this.

What do I do when someone I love builds up an idealized image of me in his mind? How do I avoid disappointing him when the person I see reflected in his eyes when he looks at me is so much better than I am? Even when I tried to to show him the differences, he insisted that I wasn't seeing myself clearly. I'm at a complete loss for how to deal with that.

So that's why I'm here sitting on a rock by the beach and writing instead of being in bed, but even so, I don't regret an instant of the day. For the first time since Lithandra attacked us in Dragonport, I'm not afraid of what might be lurking in my blood. After having that weight lifted from my shoulders, I feel like anything is possible.

{Editor's Note: The following fragments of text were found on a tattered, water-stained piece of parchment tucked under the endpaper of Captain Alexander's journal. Because of the fragility of the parchment and the water damage to it, even the following partial transcription is extremely tentative. Careful study of the parchment leads to the conclusion that it represents the information Captain Alexander obtained about the pirate Reikin* Dagalar through magical means. Evidence elsewhere in her journal allows it to be placed in chronological order with her other papers. Ellipses in the following text represent words or phrases that are too blurred to decipher. Areas where several lines of text are obscured are noted in italics.}

{*Further Editor's Note: The spelling of Dagalar's first name is a subject of some controversy amongst scholars. Many historical sources, including the parchment transcribed below, use the common spelling of Riekin, but Captain Alexander and many other primary historical sources consistently use the variant, 'Reikin'.}



Of no particular note was this man of the sea when he washed on the shores of the dwarf wizard’s folly. Wandering lost on the ash laden sand, he ventured into a cave and fell into the depths. He woke to the sound of unliving feet for his stumblings had brought him to the gates of Nephri’thos ...

{Here there are many lines of text that are too blurred to read.}

In the Harrowing Deep ... The Sea Devils swam loose from their prison of old ... The vampire used them to become the Scourge of the Main. But the sun he could not tolerate so Riekin became his face in the day and the one with the name. The Bloodletter’s legend grew greater and the vampire’s bloodlust to match it ... a sickness the Sea Devils made and delivered it quietly to Jander’s Well. Twelve thousand died...

The horror of watching the deaths of those folk awakened Riekin’s heart ... He killed the old vampire ... When that deed was done he sent the Sea Devils back from whence they had come. The Bloodletter and crew he sent to the depths of the sea and alone in a boat he drifted free.

... Captain Killenddare rescued him ... love mended his heart and he repented his deeds...

... A blow meant for him found his love in her sleep. ... he sang to the sea and the Bloodletter rose.

{Most of the next paragraph is obscured, and the few words that are transcribed are in doubt, as this portion of the document in particular is heavily stained and worn.}

Illanwe Killenddare lived ... presented his son ... fear for his son only quickened his hate. Illanwe ... hid her son ... never was found.

...boarded a nobleman’s ship and met the man’s daughter... Tired of bloodshed and weary of soul, her kindness and innocence reached his cold heart. ... noble father called in favors ... the mightiest ship of the land ... Shield of Aralan set sights ... Bloodletter was no match for the mages and clerics the Shield brought to bear. Fearing for his bride, Dagalar called on the Bloodstone ...

... Humanity vanished from Aralast, no more to be seen. So Dagalar returned to help his people survive. ... His wife died by magic ... In Glenethir’s dungeon he was tortured and ... died.

I've finished my preparations and will begin working on the spell shortly, but I wanted to take a few moments to record the events of last night while they're still fresh in my mind.

As the tide was ebbing last night, our presence on shore here attracted the attention of a colony of monstrous crabs who'd been inhabiting the ocean floor hereabouts. It was shortly after I finished my watch and I was awakened by the sounds of shouting from the beaches. I threw on my armor, grabbed Scourge, and hit the deck running, just in time to see Elethwen arriving on deck. From the ship, I could only see one section of the beach, and there was a tidal wave of crabs surging up the beach and attacking Hadreon and several of my other marines. There were plenty of relatively small ones, but I could see at least two that were the size of horses, and one that was nearly the size of the ship. I told Elethwen to stay with the ship while I took off toward the beach. By the time I got there, the marines were backed up onto the cliff and barely holding off the smaller crabs. I could see that they'd die quickly if the three largest crabs got to within striking range of them, so I ran up to the front line and attacked the largest of the three with Scourge. As I knew it would, getting close enough to hit that one with Scourge meant getting close enough for all three of the really big ones to attack me, which they did. Savagely. My memory of the fight is blurry after that-- I remember Tanowen showing up at some point, and I thought things were going okay. And then suddenly I was waking up back behind the line of marines, and Tanowen was dropping an empty vial and running back for the front line. I followed him and saw Hadreon down, with smaller crabs all over him. I stepped up and cast a healing spell on Hadreon and got him on his feet again, then we all withdrew behind the line and let the uninjured marines deal with the smaller crabs.

Tanowen told me later that Hadreon had stepped up to defend me when I went down, and very nearly died in the attempt. I can't help feeling that I don't deserve such loyalty, but saying that would be an insult. And I suspect Hadreon would have done the same for anyone-- he's a good man. I've given him an officer's portion of the money we found in the cave, and thanked him personally, though I think he deserves far more than my gratitude.

As soon as I'd gotten myself and Hadreon healed a bit more and was getting ready to cast a healing spell on Tanowen, I felt the Captain's Lantern alerting me to an intruder aboard ship again. By this time, I was far enough back off the beach that I couldn't see the ship, so I shoved Tanowen at Valade, who'd just gotten there, with an order to get him healed up while I sprinted for the ship again. I nearly collided with Pelori and Hogun in the corridor, and she used her teleport spell to get us to the ship immediately. When we arrived on deck, Elethwen was backed up into the corner by the forecastle deck and an enormous glowing jellyfish/crab abomination was climbing up the side of my ship. Pelori and Hogun destroyed the thing fairly quickly, but it nearly killed Hogun in the process. I think that if I'd been even a second later with my healing spell, we would have lost him.

After that, it was fairly easy to clear out the rest of the smaller crabs, and I guess we'll all be eating well for a few days, until we get sick of crab soup.

When I was talking with Tanowen after the fight, I noticed that he was carrying a new quarterstaff and wearing armor. I've never seen him wear armor before, and when I asked him about it, he told me I'd been right about what I said during our argument on the mountain, and that he 'hadn't been taking things seriously enough'. We were both so angry and exhausted during that conversation, and the fact that he heard what I meant in spite of how clumsily I said it-- and went beyond hearing it to acting on it-- still leaves me weak in the knees. I swear I mean to limit our involvement until I've dealt with this whole Dagalar connection, but I couldn't help kissing him when I realized what he'd done.

I think I've put off casting this spell as long as I can, and I've no excuse left for not getting on with it. I'm torn between wanting to get it over with as quickly as possible, and wanting to chuck the whole idea. I'm afraid of what I'll find out, but I have to know more about Dagalar. And I have to figure out what our connection is and find a way to deal with it, before the worry over passing the danger along to my family becomes an obsession I can't control. Tanowen told me I nearly died from my injuries last night and I found myself almost regretting that I didn't. That tells me I'm dangerously close to letting my personal concerns prevent me from fulfilling my responsibilities to my ship and crew. I can't let that go on. And the best chance I have of either corroborating or disproving the information I've gotten from my father and Aral is this spell.

So, the sooner I begin, the sooner I'll know.

We've arrived at the destination King Thunderfist told us about, and he's right that it will make a perfect base of operations for us. (And I really need to find a better name for the place than 'Stronghold', if we're going to be here often.) It's well hidden-- we almost didn't find it, despite the rather detailed directions and descriptions the King provided us-- and already has equipment in place that we can repair and put back into use. There's space for a repair bay, and ample quarters for everyone to sleep off-ship if they choose, once we've expanded some of the rooms that were obviously used as cells before. When I was considering taking quarters in the caves, Tanowen hinted rather strongly that he might like to share them with me. But I've decided I'll sleep aboard ship, at least for now. I've been away from her for long enough, and I find myself reluctant to leave unless it's necessary. And fortunately, Tanowen didn't argue with me when I pointed out that the Captain's cabin aboard ship is at least as much working space as it is living space and that my crew need to know they can knock on my door without fear of interrupting a tryst.

I'm especially reluctant to leave the Tahl'emar when we seem to have an intermittent invisible visitor on board. That sounds insane, and if I didn't trust Ungal and the rest of the dwarves so much, I'd think they'd given me the Captain's Lantern just to drive me mad. Once again, about an hour before dawn, the Lantern alerted me that someone not attuned to it has come aboard. Now, since we were in the middle of the sea, I roused the ship and mounted a full scale search. Pelori cast a few spells and everyone else searched every inch of the ship, and though we didn't find whatever it was, we're fairly certain it was airborne and invisible-- and evil. I'm uneasy about having had an intruder on board that we couldn't find, but it hasn't come back since then, so I hope we scared it off.

I did spend some time exploring the the area with Pelori and Hogun today. Pelori was eager to see if she could do something about a water elemental King Thunderfist had told us was bound to one of the caverns near here, and after our last experience with an elemental, I wasn't about to let her go alone. As it turns out, my presence was superfluous, because she was able to talk to it via a summoned creature called a mephit, and then studied it and its bindings enough to learn how she could send it back to its own plane. All things considered, I'd much rather deal with elementals that way than by fighting them. We found that it had been guarding what appeared to have been the treasury and supply depot for whoever used this place last. Have decided to split up the money amongst the crew as a bonus.

After talking with Donnamira and some of the other halflings who volunteered to help us set up our stronghold, it seems that we need to berth here for several days at the least before we can depart again. I don't want to begin operations against Xandros until our base of operations is established and we have a working repair slip to come back to. I know the ship is going to take damage, and we'll need to be able to pull her out of the water for repairs.

So I've decided to take advantage of the downtime and cast a lengthy spell from a scroll we found in Serian Xiloscient's study, starting tomorrow. If I do it right, it should give me more information about Reikin Dagalar. I hope it gives me enough information to confirm or disprove our familial connection once and for all. I feel somewhat guilty about using such a powerful spell for what is essentially a selfish purpose, but Pelori doesn't object. And if anyone has a right to control how that spell is used, it's her, considering that it came from her father's study.

I am an idiot. I should have insisted on leaving immediately when we got back to the ship last night.

About an hour before dawn today, I was alerted by the Captain's Lantern that a stranger was aboard ship. By the time I was up and dressed, Beregorm was at the door to my cabin informing me that the dockmaster wanted to speak with me. Khuzul was there, along with Lord Kyron and several of his company, and a sizeable contingent of dwarves. He informed me that Lord Kyron had presented his charges to King Thunderfist and asked that the Tahl'emar be seized and my crew arrested and turned over to the Hellknights for extradition to Xandros. The King refused the request on the grounds that he didn't believe that an elven wingship would ever have been the legitimate property of Xandros. However, dwarven law required him to allow the inspection of a piece of contested property to verify or disprove its identity. It was painfully obvious that the dockmaster and guards didn't really want to assist the Xandrosians, and were only going as far as the law absolutely required of them, so I suppose it could have been worse. By law, the dwarves couldn't allow us to leave until the inspection had taken place, and I didn't see any way to get out of there without their assistance.

So I agreed to allow a single Xandrosian representative to inspect the ship, escorted by my officers and as many dwarven guards as the guard captain saw fit to provide. The person who came aboard was the tiefling mage Pelori had pointed out to me yesterday, named Menora, and I don't think I've ever met a creepier individual since Lithandra. She spent the entire time aboard ship flirting with Pelori in the most inappropriate manner. Pelori mentioned late last night that she'd encountered Menora at dinner last night and that she'd tried to convince Pelori to cooperate with the Hellknights in return for 'special consideration'. Pelori said she thought it best to leave the door open in case it provided an opportunity we could exploit in future, but she didn't mention the flirting. After seeing the way this woman behaved, I have my doubts about whether playing along with her is a good idea. I trust Pelori implicitly, and I don't doubt that she could pull it off if we needed to deceive Menora, but considering that she made my flesh crawl, and I wasn't even the target of her overtures, I can't imagine how Pelori must have been feeling.

The inspection went without incident, except for one rather amusing moment in the lower hold when Menora slipped and fell on her ass. I happened to notice that the deck planks had exuded some sort of sap when she stepped on them, but by the time she was on her feet again, the sap had disappeared back into the wood again. Have I mentioned lately how much I love this ship?

When we returned to the upper deck soon after that, the guard captain asked Menora if she'd found what she needed, and she said in a positively cheery tone of voice, "Oh yes, it's Magnim's Blade, all right," and blithely pranced off my ship. I saw her speak with Kyron as soon she got to the dock, and then he pointed to the ship and she made some sort of arcane gesture. Then a word in glowing red letters appeared on the Tahl'emar's hull, just below her nameplate. I came within a hair's breadth of storming off the ship and trying to kill both Kyron and Menora right then and there. How dare they deface my beautiful ship?

We haven't been able to get rid of the lettering, though Pelori has tried. We're not sure exactly what it says, because it's a language none of us are familiar with, but I'm sure it's some sort of mark to identify our ship to the Xandrosians and their allies. Pelori thinks we need a particular spell to erase it, but I doubt we'll be able to find it easily anytime soon. Every time I see those letters, it makes me feel sick, but it's just dawned on me that this may backfire on Kyron. I intend the Tahl'emar to become very well known by Xandrosian sailors indeed, and if they see a ship that's clearly marked for hunting by the Hellknights wreaking havoc in their own shipping... well, that could make the population of Xandros wonder if the Hellknights are capable of maintaining order.

Even so, if I could get rid of that lettering this instant, I would.

We did get underway soon after that, thanks to the dockmaster. Fortunately, we've had good winds so far today, so I think we'll be arriving at our destination late tonight, and then we can begin setting up our stronghold.

We went ahead with the Deep Day observances this afternoon, even though we were at sea. To my surprise, even many of the elven members of the crew chose to participate in part of the ritual. Only Hogun chose to go through the entire observance, though. Until recently, I'd have said that Hogun is the last person I'd expect to request absolution for his misdeeds from anyone. But he's changed so much in the last few months that I can't say I was particularly surprised that he'd have seen the Deep Day ritual as a symbolic way to cut the last ties with his former life and affirm himself as a member of my crew. As far as I'm concerned, it wasn't necessary, but it meant something to him, and I hope he got what he needed from it.

{Editor's Note: 'Kazak a'Tharad-dum' can be roughly translated as 'The Battle of Tharad-dum'. Scholars have long debated the origins of this song, and its accuracy in relation to the true history of the dwarven people. If Captain Alexander ever documented her composition, it has been lost, although papers found in dwarven archives record early versions of the song, dated late in the year of 3127, and attributed only to 'The Captain'.}

Despite my intentions to properly observe Deep Day by keeping the ship in dock for another day, after the events of this evening I we'd best depart at first light tomorrow. Valade assures me that those members of the crew who wish to observe the holiday won't object to being at sea, so long as they aren't required to work. Valade has made arrangements for the appropriate rituals, though they're a bit makeshift under the circumstances.

Late this morning, we went to visit Ungal after we'd checked in at the ship and taken a bit of time to catch up on things here. It had occurred to me that having allies in Tharad-dum could be very beneficial to us in our campaign against Xandros, and while I hate asking for favors, I knew better than to pass up the opportunity to suggest an alliance to King Thunderfist while we were here. Ungal agreed to come with us to the palace and request an audience with the King on our behalf because his presence had been requested at the palace for a meeting that afternoon anyway. When we arrived, the King's major domo escorted Ungal directly into the audience chamber. He was unable to fit us into the King's busy schedule that afternoon, but extended an invitation to my entire crew to a formal state dinner that evening and suggested that the King would be willing to grant me a few moments of private conversation then. He also asked if we'd like to witness the audience in progress from the viewing gallery.

As I should have expected, the audience in progress was with a delegation from the Hellknight Dreadnought we'd seen in dock next to our ship. When we entered the viewing gallery, Lord Kyron, Commander of the Hellknights of Xandros, was making a flowery speech offering the city of Tharad-dum the assistance of his army in restoring order against the undead threat they've faced. (He's the first centaur I've ever seen, and I must admit that I find him a bit intimidating. His delegation consisted of several Hellknights, several other armored tieflings, and a tiefling whom Pelori pegged as a mage immediately.) King Thunderfist refused the offer, more politely than I think he wanted to, if I'm any judge of character, and informed Lord Kyron that order has been restored and that the dwarves didn't require the Hellknights' assistance. After a bit more back and forth about the war between Brindisgloch and Xandros, King Thunderfist, apparently on the advice of one of his councilors, invited the delegation to that evening's state dinner.

As soon as I heard that, I knew the day was going to end badly, and I was so right.

We couldn't very well refuse King Thunderfist's invitation. Ungal, and the King's major domo, made it clear to us that refusing to attend a state dinner is simply Not Done. So I got the crew together, warned them all to take care around the Hellknights, and we took ourselves to the palace for dinner. Fortunately, someone must have whispered something in the ears of the King's servitors, because the Hellknights were at a single table on one side of the room, and my crew and I had our own table on the other side of the room, with nearly 250 dwarves in between. I was surprised and greatly pleased when the King not only thanked my crew generally for helping the dwarves recapture the city, but took the time to thank each of us by name. Every one of my crew deserves that kind of recognition, and I'm grateful that King Thunderfist understood that.

After the formal speeches, I made my way to the head table to speak with the King, and he agreed to step into a private chamber with me briefly. I was having second thoughts about requesting his help after having witnessed the audience earlier, so I asked if he'd allow me to present his court with the gift of a song I've been working on-- setting the tale of Tharad-dum's restoration to music. He agreed to that happily enough, and very perceptively asked if there was another reason I wanted to speak with him. I talked around the point for a while, until he said outright that my crew would always find friends in Tharad-dum. Given the presence of a Xandrosian envoy in his palace, I thought it inappropriate to ask him to go to war with Xandros on our behalf, but I did ask him to keep an eye out toward the city for us, and told him that my ship would be ready to stand in defense of his people whenever necessary. He agreed immediately, but said that he didn't know how often his ships would go to Xandros in future, given that their territorial waters were 'unfriendly' at present due to the war with Brindisgloch. Before I even thought about it, I'd blurted out that they were about to get even unfriendlier, and I'm sure it gave away far more of our plans than I'd really intended. I trust that King Thunderfist won't betray us, but I fear the knowledge may put him in an untenable diplomatic position.

After our conversation, I performed Kazak a'Tharad-dum, as I've been calling it. Composing in dwarvish is much more challenging than doing so in my native tongue, but the dwarves seemed pleased, even though I still think a lot of the phrasing is clumsy. Another week to work on it, and it would have been much better, but I couldn't stay here that long, and the opportunity to express my admiration for the dwarves in overcoming such daunting odds was irresistible.

It was perhaps not the wisest choice to sing it while the Xandrosian delegation was present, though. As I was making my way back to our table after the performance, Lord Kyron intercepted me to present a warrant for my arrest, and the arrest of my entire crew, on charges of piracy and theft for stealing Magnim's Blade. He said that he didn't intend to apprehend us at a formal state affair, or in a city outside the Hellknights' jurisdiction, but that he wanted to 'offer the opportunity to surrender without bloodshed'. He also made a comment about 'taking responsibility for one's actions' that made me think of Ungal. So much so that I couldn't bring myself to track Ungal down and say good-bye to him before we left. I would have felt compelled to explain the situation to him, and I couldn't face the idea of confirming his opinion of me as someone who avoids responsibility for her actions. I consider that I've recovered a ship that was stolen from my crew by Drahgesh to begin with, but I'm not entirely sure Ungal would agree with that, and I'm a bit afraid to find out. I told Kyron I'd take his offer under advisement, and got myself out of his presence before I said something truly regrettable and caused a major incident at a state dinner.

I gathered the crew together as quickly as I could without appearing rude after that, and got everyone back to the ship, and then went to ask the dockmaster, a very pleasant fellow named Khuzul, to lower the ship to the sea at first light tomorrow morning. He was extraordinarily helpful, and even said that he could arrange for 'paperwork difficulties' to impede the departure of the Hellknights when they leave.

Morning can't come soon enough.

I've never been so glad of anything as I was to see the Tahl'emar's mast in the distance when we flew into Tharad-dum today.

Okay, that requires a bit of explication. When we reached the tree line on Mt. Atharas this morning, Arahir and his brothers spotted us, and landed to speak with Pelori and me. When we told them that we'd not only succeeded in reaching the summit of the mountain, but that we'd destroyed the "nightstalker" they warned us of, they offered to fly us back to Tharad-dum. I was shocked, and deeply honored. Giant eagles just don't do things like that very often, and I think it left all of us a bit speechless. Flying with them was breathtaking-- exhilarating and terrifying, all at once.

And what happened when we were nearly back made it all the more so.

When I caught sight of the sea for the first time from the eagle's back, my desire to be back aboard the Tahl'emar surged into something almost like physical pain. I found myself singing one of the songs I'd sung for the ship's Naming, just because the anticipation of being on the Tahl'emar's deck again was so intense. Almost as soon as I started, I could sense power building in the music in a way it never has before. Within a couple of moments, I realized that if I directed the power just right, I'd be able to talk with the officer on watch aboard the Tahl'emar. It happened to be Elethwen, and he sounded utterly shocked to hear my voice. We were already flying into the cavern at Tharad-dum before I had time to explain, so I just told him to look up. He watched us land on the dock next to the ship with the most gobsmacked expression ever, and still seems a little stunned by both the communication and the fact that the eagles were willing to fly us back here.

I was so affected by the whole experience that I didn't even notice the ship docked next to the Tahl'emar until after the eagles had departed. It appears to be a Hellknight dreadnought, which I assume means it's from Xandros. I sincerely hope that my crew has had enough sense to keep their mouths shut about our intentions while I was gone, and I hope we can get out of the city without attracting any undue attention from this ship.

And now that we're back to the ship and I've had a chance to catch my breath, it occurs to me that tomorrow is Deep Day. I'd intended to depart as soon as we got back to Tharad-dum, but I'm uneasy about beginning a voyage on a day when it's traditional-- in human society, at least-- to do no work upon the sea. I'm sure the human members of my crew will want to take part in an observance of the holiday, and I should probably join them. I've never been particularly religiously observant, but given the composition of my crew and the tense relations between humans and elves on Aralast these days, I can't afford an appearance of favoritism toward either society. Nearly all of my senior officers are elves, and that alone could make it appear as though I favor an elven crew, despite my best intentions. It can't hurt to show a little extra respect for a human tradition, under the circumstances. And perhaps there will be some comfort to be had from the observance, when all is said and done.

The trip down the mountain is way too easy. We've covered ground in two days that it took us six days to cover on the way up. At this rate, we'll be below the tree line again by tomorrow morning. I keep waiting for something to attack us, but I almost have a feeling that the mountain is making it easy for us to depart. Not that I'd ever say that to anyone else, but the feeling is there.

Pelori and I had a bit of an argument over what we should do with the treasure that was in the chamber attached to the Dragonheart Shrine before we left. I had no intention of taking any of it for myself, though I couldn't-- and wouldn't-- have stopped Pelori, Hogun, and Tanowen from taking whatever they wanted. But Tanowen found this amazing emerald, and was trying to convince me to take it to replace the one in Scourge's handle. He must have heard me mention what Faranwedh said about a more valuable emerald making Scourge more powerful. I refused at first, and Pelori overheard the conversation and scolded me soundly. At first, I thought she was going to try to convince me I deserved the emerald as remuneration for almost dying on the way up the mountain. That argument, I'd have rejected out of hand, but instead she told me I was being foolish and shortsighted, and that if I really wanted to succeed in protecting Lysenia and overthrowing Xandros government-- or in taking on whoever is running the Bloodletter these days-- I'd better take advantage of any resource that would make me more effective in doing so. She also pointed out that hampering my effectiveness by refusing to take such items could actually endanger my crew, and damn it, she's right. I can't afford to give up any possible advantage, considering what I intend to lead my people into.

So I took the emerald, and a magical belt Tanowen found, but I left the money to the rest of them.

Presenting the emerald to Scourge was interesting. I'd rather expected that I'd have to have a mage replace the emerald when the time came, but that wasn't necessary at all. As soon as I got the new emerald close to Scourge, I could swear I heard a purring sound coming from the whip. Then suddenly the smaller emerald mounted in Scourge's handle flared and disintegrated into several shards, then the dragon claw opened, reached out and snatched the new emerald, and snapped back into place at the end of the handle. I've been practicing a bit during breaks in the climb down, and there's definitely something different about Scourge now. As much as I hated taking anything from that shrine, I can't deny that this will be useful.

Pelori has finished the ritual, but it's taken longer than we expected, so we'll start down the mountain first thing in the morning. Apparently, in studying the runes to prepare for the ritual, Pelori has also learned some interesting facts about the Fall and the fate of humanity. It's all a little arcane for me, but if I understand what she's been saying, the Fall was the result of Aralast shifting closer to the Abyss and further from the Celestial planes. The mainland on Aralast now overlaps part of the Abyssal sea, and all of humanity was left behind on another plane of existence when the world moved. Pelori keeps talking about the prophecy she received in Tharad-dum, too, and seems to think this explains parts of it.

I'm withholding judgment for now. It's so complicated, and while it explains a lot about the state of the world today, I'm not sure I'm ready to accept it without question.

Well, we're here.

We got through the cave without much problem, thanks to Pelori. She spotted an ambush in a cavern and we managed to defeat the goblins who'd been laying in wait for us fairly easily. When we got to the shrine, though, things got more difficult in a hurry. We opened the door to the shrine to find a clay golem rampaging around the room and smashing at the walls. Pelori knew enough about it to know that we had no weapons that could kill it, but that it was vulnerable to natural fire. We cast grease on the floor in the middle of the room and tried summoning monsters to lure it into the pit of lava in the center of the shrine, but it kept avoiding the pit. Finally, I realized that Levethix could probably fly fast enough to taunt the thing into the lava pit. He was reluctant, but willing, and when Pelori asked him to, he agreed to try. He succeeded, but at the cost of a severe injury which doesn't seem to heal, no matter what we do. I think the wound is cursed, and needs a much more powerful healer than I am to get past the curse.

It didn't occur to me until after the golem was destroyed that I could have accomplished the same thing with less risk of being killed. I still feel badly about that, especially now that Levethix is in so much pain and we can't help him.

Pelori is studying the runes inscribed on the floor and walls, and says she's making good progress. Hogun is, as usual, hovering in attendance over her. Tanowen has found a chamber full of treasure off the main room, and is as happy as a dolphin in a school of herring counting it all.

Me, I'm trying to make sense of my own feelings.

When Hogun woke me to take the middle watch last night, Tanowen was curled up next to me with his arm around my waist. I could tell by the tension in his arm that he wasn't asleep, but he didn't say anything when Hogun woke me and then moved off for one last look around before we changed the watch. Even when I touched Tanowen's arm and told him it was my watch, he didn't let go right away. He just told me to be careful, and then said he'd been wrong about our arrangement being a bad idea.

I didn't ask him what changed his mind. I didn't dare. I'm not sure I really want to know just how close I came to death yesterday. Objectively speaking, I suppose that having one fewer descendant of Reikin Dagalar in the world would probably not be a bad thing, but I'm selfish enough that I don't want to die just yet.

Waking up with Tanowen's arms around me is something I could get used to all too easily, though, and I almost wish I were selfish enough to be unconcerned about the implications of perpetuating my bloodline further. It wouldn't be fair to either of us, though, to get too involved before I've learned more about my connection with Dagalar, and at least made an attempt to eliminate the threat. I keep reminding myself of that, and it actually works until he kisses me, and then my resolve flies off on the wind and takes my mind with it. I should try to explain all this to him, because the hot and cold running emotions are frustrating both of us.

Unfortunately, given how quickly and certainly he rejected the very idea that I could be related to Dagalar, I'm fairly sure he'd just tell me I'm being stupid. And I wish that were the case, but I know there's a connection between myself and Dagalar, and I know it's dangerous. Even without the information my father gave me or the evidence of our family tree, I felt it the moment my blood hit the pages of Dagalar's log book and I saw the writing transform. And I felt it again when I saw the Bloodletter sink Jorgamjer's Light on King's Day. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.

I hope Pelori finishes this ritual soon so we can get back to the ship. For all that Tanowen and I are constantly in contact aboard ship, my duties keep me busy enough that it's not a constant struggle with temptation. Not to mention that the lack of privacy is a bit of a disincentive for romance. Of course, that doesn't stop Pelori and Hogun, now that I think about it, but their situation is a little different.

I was right. The mountain crashed down on my head. I'd be dead now if Tanowen and Hogun hadn't dug me out of the avalanche with their bare hands.

The entire time we were climbing this morning, I thought I could hear the wind growling more and more angrily, and it kept getting more severe as we went up the mountain, until it was blowing directly in our faces and actually slowing our forward momentum considerably. While we were fighting that and trying to climb up yet another vertical cliff, a bunch of gargoyles attacked us. We fought them off, mostly thanks to Pelori's fireballs, but before we could really recover from that, I heard another growl of absolute rage on the wind, and we saw an air elemental swooping down the side of the mountain at us. It whipped the wind into a vortex that swept Tanowen off the ledge we were on immediately, and I very nearly jumped off the ledge into the vortex after him. I managed to contain myself, barely, and tried windsinging instead. It worked to slow the vortex some, which made it easier to keep my feet under me, but Hogun and Pelori were still swept off the ledge. I think Pelori was knocked unconscious by then, but it was hard to see with the wind whipping around like that. I did catch sight of Hogun going absolutely berserk and slicing the thing up with his glaive, even though it was whirling him around in the air.

I kept up my windsinging, and tried to taunt the thing into leaving the others alone and coming after me. It worked, and I very quickly realized I'd bitten off more than I could chew. The vortex suddenly stopped, and Pelori, Hogun, and Tanowen floated safely to the ledge below us, thanks to one of Pelori's spells. That left me alone on a narrow ledge with an enraged air elemental. I kept moving, trying to keep out of its reach while still getting in as many hits with Scourge as I could. Everything seemed to take forever, but I know I only lasted a few seconds against it before it hit me hard enough to take me down. I think I remember hearing Tanowen yelling before the thing knocked me out, but I was too focused on what I was doing to pay much attention. The next thing I knew, I was on another ledge further down the mountain and Tanowen was pouring a healing potion down my throat. It came after us again, but the others damaged it enough to make it retreat, and then Pelori finished it off with a fireball.

We were all still in pretty bad shape by then, but before we could even start healing ourselves, the mountain started to shake. Hogun yelled something about an avalanche, and then I was tumbling down the mountain in a flood of snow and rocks. That's all I remember until I woke up after Tanowen gave me another healing potion. Hogun was still clearing rubble away from my legs, and I don't know where Pelori was. It was probably unreasonably bitchy of me to say to Tanowen, "See? I told you the damned mountain was going to fall on me," the moment I regained consciousness, but I didn't really care just then.

At least the rest of the day's climb was uneventful, after that. Either the mountain had vented its rage and decided we weren't worth bothering with anymore, or I was hallucinating after all and the attacks and the avalanche were just a string of naturally occurring coincidences.

We've reached the mouth of a cave that Levethix says is where we need to be. We're all exhausted, though, so we're camping for the night and will start out fresh tomorrow. With any luck, we'll be on our way back to the ship in a day or two.

The rock faces we're climbing are practically vertical now. We're camped tonight on a narrow ledge with a cliff above and a cliff below us, and I swear I can feel this cursed mountain's antipathy toward us. I haven't said anything to the others, because I'm sure they'd all think I was hallucinating, or making it up because I didn't want to come on this expedition to begin with, but sometimes I think I can hear the mountain's anger in the wind.

We'll be continuing up the mountain in a couple of hours, but I can't sleep any more tonight. I keep thinking about something my father used to tell me, "Power and responsibility are opposite faces of the same coin. Wielding power means wielding the responsibility it carries with it."

I know I have power. My music, my fighting, my magic-- all of it is more than most people can do. I can't deny that I'm a killer, when the right circumstances present themselves. No matter how much I may hate doing it, I seem to be damned good at it. I've always believed that the opposite face of that coin was the responsibility to protect those I love and those who are weaker than I am.

Maybe I was wrong.

Since last I wrote, we've all nearly died, and I've succeeded in destroying whatever relationship Tanowen and I had. Just another normal day on this gods-be-damned mountain.

I suppose I should start from the beginning. Pelori and I took the middle watch last night, and about halfway through, we heard something approaching stealthily along one of the cliffs above our campsite. We both immediately cast our mirror image spells, which may very well have been the only reason either of us survived. The same vampire who attacked us the other night leaped down from the cliff and cut through all of my images almost immediately and then hit me. I really thought I was going to die right then and there, but somehow I didn't. The last time we fought the thing, it didn't do anything but snarl and growl. I didn't even think it could talk, but this time it started laughing when it hit me, and told me I'd pay for 'desecrating its flesh'. It told Pelori she'd die for stealing its treasure, too, which made absolutely no sense at the time.

Tanowen hadn't had time to get out of his bedroll before the vampire leaped down to attack me, and was practically underneath the thing while I was fighting it. Instead of staying still and avoiding attention, he jumped up and swept its legs out from under it with his staff. Of course, that attracted its attention and it attacked him and almost killed him again. I've never in my life been so furious and frightened at the same time. All I could think in that moment was that if he died trying to protect me, I'd never forgive myself. Fortunately, Pelori set off one of her fireballs and damaged the vampire enough to turn it into mist and make it flit off to its lair again.

And that's when things got truly bizarre.

The moment the vampire turned to mist, these enormous, ethereal dragon wings seemed to appear out of the smoke, and then the rest of an ethereal dragon's body took shape. And suddenly I recognized the laughter and the voice the vampire had been using. Phenakelagun's ghost had been possessing it, somehow. I dropped Scourge and fired my bow at it, since it had been so effective against the ghost in the Eosian ruins. Pelori started firing magical bolts at the ghost, and Hogun and Tanowen both actually managed to attack and hit it, but we didn't take it out before it breathed out this cone of... something... that seemed to seriously weaken Pelori. And Tanowen panicked the same way I did when Phenakelagun took over the Gold Dragon. Somehow I didn't find him all that fearsome anymore. I guess killing him the first time reduced the fear factor a bit this time around. But all I could do was keep firing arrows until I finally put one through his throat and destroyed him completely. It seemed an oddly poetic touch that the arrow went through the ghost's throat at about the same place the ballista bolt did when we killed Phenakelagun the first time. I found the scream when the ghost was disintegrating to be oddly satisfying.

We hid out again and rested the night so that Hogun could tend to Pelori's injuries before we tried to go on. Early this morning, Hogun found the vampire's tracks, so we followed them back to its lair and got rid of it once and for all by the simple and expedient method of having Pelori command it and then teleport out into the mid-day sun with it in tow. It managed to attack her again before it died, but I think she'll be all right. Or at least, no more weakened by it than any of the rest of us are by the attacks we've suffered in the last few days.

I made the mistake of trying to talk with Tanowen about what he'd done during the fight with the vampire/ghost while we were resting before tracking the vampire to its cave. I should have known better than to bring it up when we were both so exhausted and irritable, but I wasn't thinking any too clearly. What I wanted to say was that I love him and the thought of losing him terrifies me, and what came out was a diatribe about how stupid he was to try to deflect attention away from me in combat and how I didn't want to be responsible for his death. That set the tone for the whole conversation, and it ended as badly as it began, with him telling me that our 'whole arrangement' is a bad idea. He's probably right, under the circumstances, but walking away without trying to change his mind was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

Father always told me that being a ship's captain put a strain on love and family life, and I used to think he meant that the travel made it difficult to maintain a home and family. Now, though, I think he meant something else entirely. The willingness-- and desire-- to take command and assume responsibility for others is necessary in a ship's captain, but it's not good for personal relationships. I've focused on developing the skills I need to be a good captain for so long that they're as natural to me as breathing, and I don't think I could change at this point. And... if I'm honest with myself, I don't want to change. I've never wanted anything more than I want to be a great captain, and I won't be that if I reject command and responsibility. I never really thought much about how it might affect someone I love, though, until now. Tanowen was absolutely correct when he said I have no right to assume responsibility for the choices he makes of his own free will, and I didn't even realize I was doing that until he pointed it out to me. Not that it matters now, I guess.

I suppose I should figure out how I'm going to come up with the 11,000 gold pieces to repay him for his investment in the ship.

I'm pretty sure Pelori overheard the whole conversation with Tanowen, but she hasn't said anything about it. We weren't exactly keeping our voices down, and sound does tend to carry a bit up here. I said some pretty harsh things about her in the heat of that argument, too, and I should apologize, but I can't face another confrontation right now. If she wants to talk about it, I'm sure she'll let me know.

The good news is that we now know what happened to Miruk Throatclutcher. The bad news is that we only figured it out when he ambushed us today, along with about half a dozen undead wolves. We killed them all, but we didn't come out of it unscathed. Pelori and I are both seriously weakened by Throatclutcher's attack. I suppose King Thunderfist will be pleased to know he's gone, if we ever get back to Tharad-dum to tell him.

The strangest thing was that after we killed Throatclutcher, we kept hearing this strangely familiar laughter echoing over the mountain. It was creepy. We burned his body and sprinkled holy water on the ashes, just to be sure he'd stay dead this time.

At least we made decent progress up the mountain today before Throatclutcher attacked us. By this morning, I'd recovered completely from the vampire's attack, but Tanowen still seems a little enervated. He said he was fine to continue, though, and we got in most of a day's travel up the mountain before the ambush happened. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to find a particularly defensible hiding place since then, but Hogun did his best. We're on a small rise that's surrounded on three sides by higher cliffs, so we really only need to watch the one approach.

I know it's stupid and paranoid, but every day we spend on this mountain makes me more and more uneasy. I've felt like something malevolent is watching us all day. I'd give anything to be at sea right now, with the Tahl'emar's deck rocking under my feet.

Ow.

I ache all over, but probably nowhere near as much as Tanowen does. We found out what Arahir meant by the 'nightstalker' warning. It was during Tanowen's watch, so Hogun and I were both sleeping and Pelori was meditating, when we heard Tanowen shout that there was an intruder coming from downslope. By the time Hogun and I were up and moving toward Tanowen, the thing had attacked him and nearly killed him. Pelori cast one of her fireballs, and Hogun and I distracted the thing long enough for Tanowen to get away from it, but it nearly killed me in the process. I've never felt anything as debilitating as the way that thing sucked the energy out of me, and I hope I never experience that again. In the end, Pelori hurt it badly enough with a freezing blast that it turned into mist and disappeared. After dealing with the vampires that were with Lithandra, I know better than to think the thing was actually permanently destroyed.

After we banished it, Pelori teleported us several hundred feet up the mountain to keep it from picking up our trail and following us once it's regained corporeal form. We found a cave to shelter in, and none of us really want to keep moving today. We've healed the physical damage, but Tanowen and I are weak enough from the energy drain that we've decided to hide out and rest for the day and hope we feel up to tackling the mountain again tomorrow.

I knew this expedition was a bad idea. After Phenakelagun, I can't imagine why Pelori would want to follow the advice of a dragon-- even a supposedly noble and benevolent one. It was stupid of me to agree to come along, too. I'd forgotten how much I hate being away from the water. I don't belong in the mountains-- they loom, and I can't help feeling like they're going to come crashing down on me at any moment. My place is with my ship, and on the open ocean. If I die on this gods-forsaken mountain, I hope Pelori at least has the sense to take my body back to the sea. I'd hate to be stuck here amongst these awful rocks forever.

So much for a restful night last night. Our sleep was interrupted when a flight of giant dire bats attacked us in the middle of the night.

Hogun found a decent spot for us to camp, and we set up a watch rotation. Pelori meditates rather than sleeping, so she can provide back up to whoever's on watch all the time, which meant we needed three watches. Tanowen drew the short straw and got stuck with the middle watch, with me taking the early shift and Hogun the late shift. Unfortunately, the dire bats hit in the middle of Tanowen's watch. Neither he nor Pelori spotted them until they were right on top of us, and we had a pretty savage little battle on our hands. Tanowen had taken up a position on a small rise near the camp, and wound up with about five of the nasty buggers attacking him, while several more went after Pelori, Hogun, and me down in the camp. Pelori was pretty badly injured, but the three of us were defending ourselves well enough, once Hogun and I woke up. Things looked pretty grim for Tanowen, though, until the eagles swept down and killed most of the bats that were attacking him.

Levethix found the second marker today, and keeps leading us along this invisible path. It's a bit disconcerting to be following a path he insists is there when none of the rest of us can see it, but so far it seems to be working. The climbing went well enough, though the terrain is definitely getting more difficult. We're well above the tree line now, and have parted ways with Arahir and his brother, because they can't manage this altitude. The only reason we're not having a harder time is the equipment and supplies that the dwarves gave us. Pelori is holding up better than I would have thought, given that physical exertion is just not something she's particularly adept at.

Tanowen's taken first watch tonight, and I'm on the middle shift, so I should turn in and get some sleep before I have to get up again. I hate splitting up my sleep hours this way, but I feel better about being on watch during the darkest hours of the night than leaving it to either Hogun or Tanowen. It's awfully tempting to insist on standing watch with Tanowen, too, but it won't do any of us any good for me to short myself on sleep.