DAY 249 (15 Uktar)(November) cont ...
After the fight with the flaming skulls I was all for having a good old poke about in the library. By some magical means the books were unharmed and it looked like such an interesting place.
But well, Yli is a nice enough fellow you know, but he seems to have set himself up as the voice of caution, or to put it another way, someone who always seems to take the opposite view to me. It could be worse, I realise that, he is not as stubborn as Gurudor was or any of those other weirdos that turned up at the beginning, but I suppose I am just used to being the one in charge of this expedition.
Anyway, Yli didn't want to touch a thing and wanted to wait until we had recovered from the fight. I said that if that was the case we should head back to the 'Dragon Proof Cave' and he agreed to that.
We met the others, rested and healed ourselves. Another whole day sitting around in a cave. I cannot recommend the Plane of Shadows as a holiday destination.
I read and re-read all the books, letters and papers we had collected so far in this place.
DAY 250 (16 Uktar)(November)
I skryed the dragon again this morning, and as he was up to his usual tricks we went back to the library. Unbelievably all the skulls were back in their original places!
I gave Yli a long look, but I suppose he couldn't have known this was going to happen.
In whispers we discussed our next move. It seemed that these days our next step was always discussed between myself and Yli and the others merely followed along. Basil had hardly said a word in the last two days I think.
We decided to follow one of the paths out the library that would double back, according to my notes taken when I had used my magic to view the entire rift, and go to another area we had so far avoided.
It was the cave Drashnag had ran to when he was under the influence of the Fear spell but he could not remember what was in there.
We got ready for a fight anyway, just incase, then charged in. We saw three grey skinned women in robes, holding staves, with swords in their belts. Also in the room were six biers.
After all the trouble we'd had in the place so far, we were in no mood for nonsense, but I did call out at them, 'We are really armed to the teeth ladies so I suggest you surrender.'
I even walked up with my arms open, but since one of them had already been slain at that point the other two were not interested. Shump and Sylvia joined me, trying to convince the two remaining women to surrender, but it had no effect on them.
They were easily dealt with, two died and one ran off, but was shot and captured. On the biers, corpses would appear, then disappear a few seconds later. It was most odd.
Some corpses were old (as in had been dead awhile) some were fresh, as if just recently dead. Some were beggars, others were lords.
When a corpse of one of the women we had just killed appeared on a bier, Yli, for no real reason I could guess at, shot it!
Six shadows appeared and attacked us, draining the strength from all those they touched. Thankfully Sylvia was quick on her feet and used her powers to Turn Undead and destroyed all six on them in one go.
We all looked at the biers, but were too mindful of the library to touch anything. A richly dress corpse appeared, with lots of jewellery on it. No one went to take it though.
I looked at Sylvia, but she had no idea what this set up was. There was a table near the biers with some small amount of treasure on it and another set of shadow bellows in the south corner of the cave.
I watched the biers in fascination. A fresh body, still bleeding, with a dagger in its
chest appeared, then disappeared again. It was macabre.
Humans, lizardfolk, yuan-ti, beggars, skeletons, some naked, some finely dressed, people from all over Faerune. There seemed no pattern to it.
We go the surviving woman into the middle of the room, tied her up then healed her. I started to ask questions. As expected, and with the same sort of attitude of all the other people we had come across in this place, she was sullen and unapologetic about what she had been up to.
Her name was Beothea and when I asked her what was going on her she said,
'You'll find out when you meet the master.'
She meant Despayr, that annoying dragon that was picking us off one by one.
'He's quite irritating, I'll give him that.'
She wasn't very friendly, understandably, but at least she was talking. I felt I could get more out of her.
Then suddenly Drashnag decapitated her! Blood from her neck splashed all over my trousers as her body slumped to the cobblestones.
'Drashnag! What the hell are you doing!'
As usual I had to get Shump to translate. Drashnag just shrugged and wandered off though. Yli intervened, ever the voice of opposition, 'You were never going to get anything from her anyway. These are all really horrible people, perhaps it was for the best.'
I was rather angry with him and the one-eyed orc at that point,
'We could at least have found out what was going on in this room. But not just that, let me tell you about the Weave, Mr Yli,' I lectured, 'This stupid dragon is up to something. Meddling with things it doesn't understand. I've had nothing but days of sitting about in a cave thinking about this. The Weave can be thought of as a fabric, it is where all magic comes from, arcane and divine. That blasted dragon is ripping up the fabric with its claws like a dim-witted child with a pair of scissors. Now listen! This all started with Mystra, the Mother of all Magic. The notes of Zertharmas talk about an unravelling! They plan to create a dead-magic zone on Faerune. Think about that. Beothea must surely have known something about it. Why are they doing this? What do they hope to gain? You get a dead-magic zone by destroying the Weave... uhh! I wish I could remember form my spellcraft lessons...'
Basil, who was a master of spellcraft, would know more, but he was silent on the subject.
'Anyway,' I said. 'I know there is a thing called the Shadow Weave. It's like the Weave on the material plane, but here in this plane. How all that ties in, I don't know, but I bet Beothea would have done.'
'All we need to know, is that we need to stop them,' said Yli, seeing things in simple terms.
'Them? Who is them? The dragon? The priests of Shar and Cyric? The entire Plane of Shadows? We can't take on everyone. Maybe there is a solution to this that doesn't involve killing everyone we come across here.'
'Maybe...' assented Yli.
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