Dizyk(?) Is employed by a Sentinel, Savol. Sentinel has been taking care of his people - and keeping them isolated - for centuries. Bit like Edswotha and the Balastheri, only less cracked up. He's the village champion, sent out to gather information for the tower, and carry out its wishes. Not sure what it wants overall - information on the Illendi, right now. Dizyk wants his people to be free to mix with outside world. Would be happy to assist - even if they've been well cared for, they shouldn't have to be under the control of a magical tower. And if they've been that isolated they'll have had no chance to buy lightweight modern cookware, and might have unusual goods to trade.And Parna - but I'll get to that.
[Click on image for larger version. It's worth it.]Halient filled in some detail on the map - and introduced Koren, a Guardian in tall-humanoid form who offered to come along. A Guardian explorer (seems there's a whole race of 'em), does some magic, seems like he can keep up and hold his own. Matsuko not thrilled, mechanicalness doesn't sit quite right with her, but ought to lighten the magic burden for her.
Headed for entrance into Delving, which turned out, once down a bit of tunnel, to be blocked by a large sphere of mixed-up metals. *Wrongly* mixed. Koren said it was a thing of chaos and would choose who to let pass based on that - tried to figure out who it might object to (me, turns out) but also could have been all of us, marked now for the Guardian side. Started doing a lightshow, nasty shifting blues and greens, then floated out from doors. Floor was soft like from the gibbering things, so worried about sonics, but Dizyk charged right in and opened up a crack, and everybody went in after that. Was quite hard to hit it in a way that hurt it, and it could fix itself magically somewhat. Koren did the throwing-the-magic-whammy thing, and Dizyk and the wolf, Ulgeish, got it apart - not before it had knocked me blind and deaf though, and I think a couple of the others too. Couldn't fix it by concentrating, though could still heal myself - ended up sitting around meditating until it wore off.
So more tunnels, then up a big spiral stair around a large natural well. Good four hundred feet up, only to hear Bats Of Unusual Size at the top, poised to swoop and knock us back down. Paused to discuss this, get ready, during which Parna deemed it a good time to pull out his extra arms without warning.
Shock set aside to go deal with stupid bats, which proved to be quite stupid - half of us made it well away from the edge before the bats got around to swooping, and those that did pretty much died instantly if you hit them, which you mostly did. One even tried to charge the wolf, hitting it like a wall and promptly getting gulped down to the wings, which kept fluttering a bit... the wolf thought this was great fun and went bounding around swatting (and eating) more of them. Stupid, stupid bat creatures. Biggest cave chickens I ever saw though... cave turkeys, we're talking. Roast tonight perhaps.
As requested by Emrin and the others, I have been attempting to track down information on the newly discovered companions of Matsuko Matsushita.Emrin's report may be augmented with the following data:
female dwarven monk Identity still unknown. Without a name or indication of clan, it will be nearly impossible to track her. Rufthus is attempting to infiltrate the dwarven monasteries, but with little success.
female elven mage Alakceleb. A junior member of what we call the arcane Nebovescij order (air elementalism). Her absence is due to the typical mission of their kind, in which she must gain knowledge and experience before returning to be initiated as a full member of the order.
male human rogue(?) Emrin's assertion that he is a thief seems well-founded, but we have had no success in identifying him. I believe it impossible for him to be of Rokanoi descent, due to his unusually small stature.
male human barbarian Identity still unknown. Joran claims to recognize him, though I think this is highly unlikely.
male human fighter Grettir Asmundar. Easily identified as a member of the Corellendor army. He was captain of the home guard in Saleth (to the north) under Lord Narlon until only recently. The reason for his sudden departure is highly speculated, but entirely unknown.
This is all that I have been able to determine.
Corienne
As I have heard nothing from Emrin or the others in several days, I am formally requesting emergeny contact.Please update with location and identification.
Corienne