Elwen vanwa dineth

Time passes slowly since the devastation of the news of Calethria, my princess, and I have not deigned to scrawl my thoughts in this journal over often.  For whom would I write when half of my soul has been burned to the ashes of despair?  As such, these once beloved journal entries have become more of a chore and less of a balm to my spirit.  Tonight…..tonight, however, I am once more buoyed by hope, even if it is the forlorn hope of the desperate.  Adelaide has led us deeper into this subterranean nightmare, and while I understand her direct logic, I have strongly felt that it was strategically flawed.  As a leader, she has great capability, but occasionally she will not see the errors in direct action.  A human failing, I suppose, to not be able to see the better course may be an oblique movement. She has no concept of what she now authorizes.  I acknowledge of course that it would be difficult to grasp the eons of betrayal and corruption the dark ones have visited on the world, and how dangerous the followers of the banished one will be. She allows her innate acceptance of those who are different to cloud her judgment of the realities of the treachery of the dark ones.

I presuppose Null and I had almost persuaded her of the dire nature of such actions, but, alas, good Eldan refused to leave, his faith in Pelor calling him onward.  So, we have spent the last days delving ever deeper into the forsaken underworld, searching for clues on how to find the center of power of Esmaraum and his demonic control over the unnatural undead, in order to halt this most recent incursion into the lands of the living.

Perhaps I will chronicle at another time the trials and tribulations we have faced in even reaching this minor house of Lloth’s followers, in the dark community of Szith Morcane.  There are many; combat with stone giants, the caverns we scaled, and in which Null fell, the death of our friend, and his resurrection through the glory of Pelor, the rescue even of a Lloth priestess, bereft of power.  We finally achieved the inner sanctum of this unholy house, and unveiled the death and destruction of the high ranks of Lloth’s followers.  We breached the wards, and death was my reward.  Death or a dream repeated?  Not true death either time, as with my fried Null, the might of Pelor, as wielded by the Confessor Eldan, has restored me to much of my health and vitality, although I still feel debilitated from its effects.  

All of which, my beautiful soul, means naught.  I know not what exactly transpired, as during my incapacitation the druid experienced another vision, and although he knows it not, it was of you….fighting a running battle against some unknown evil in the heart of glorious Calethria.  My blood thrums as the glimmers of hope return.  I know not why my magic cannot discern your ubiety, we even recovered a message from you.  Training and experience contend it has to be a trap but logic bows to emotion.  How and why would the trap be in your writing, visions of you for someone who would not and did not recognize your visionary beauty and bravery?  Maybe Adelaide would have, as I have expressed and lauded your effervescent charisma to her in the past before we learned of your rumored death in the fall of Calethria.

So now my trek is vengeance tempered with the slightest stirrings of hope.  Tactically, this mission is certain death for my friends and I.  While death is never welcome to those of us who should live centuries, and it would be even more tragic for the good I believe Adalaide can achieve in this benighted region if she would just choose to rule, it is one I swore my existence towards if it protected our people, and you my love, have always been the epitome of Calethria’s culture and love.  I would give all that I am to wrap my arms in your embrace one last time.

e’ lovien estela tanya lye elea ilye n’at au‘

Elyrienne