Journal of W. E. Tupper, Day 120-121

Day 120
Oh hells no.

With all due respect to the mighty and noble god of… loincloths, but Heracles needs to knock it off with the aggressive recruitment tactics. Another short and direct message this time: Strike the root of the evil rather than the branches, and that the town of Stone Keep is a lost cause.

Sztuczka and Jake had this vision as well, but Sztuczka had a vision from Pelor last time. The criteria for who gets which deity on their shoulder is flexible, it seems. Maybe if I start worshipping Pelor, then… but then that's just replacing one (highly majestic and honorable in all ways) yacky parrot with another.

Tried to bluff my way onto one of the black ships in the harbor. All I could find out was that their home port is a place called Karaleet'numat and that the captain of the ship had a better idea of what a trade inspector does than I do.

Besides the rumor that there is an island off of the coast of Oohmaya that's raided by the black ships, no leads in town. I think it was Arcadius that recommended we call in a favor of sorts with the drow. Apparently they rescued a dark elf princess or something before I showed up, and she gave them a handy teleportation device back to her hometown. The plan is to stop in and make a deal for information about this threat. Oh boy.

Contemplated sending out another report before we leave. Considering the fact that this little excursion has little to nothing to do with my original mission, the highly probable interception of any message, and that I would have to write another poem… I am, hesitant, to do so.


Day 121
I don't know where I am, I don't really know why I'm here, and I am sitting next to a rock in the shape of a pine tree.

Bought supplies this morning, sent out cash to keep Horse stabled in Oohmaya for a month longer. The trip to the drow lands was, well, instantaneous. This is the third time I've experienced a teleportation spell, and the first time I didn't end up injured afterwards.

It spat us out into a pitch-black forest with black trees, black rocks, and a black road leading into the darkness. After following the road for a while and likely attracting every native predator for 50 miles in every direction with our lanterns, we came upon a town made of vines that glowed purple. They let us in and we set about wandering around like tourists. We found a building, or at least a pile of vines shaped like one, with the same emblem on it as the one on our teleportation disc. After a brief walk through a home that costs more than my soul, we met with the head elf woman Gozhn, a person of that most dreaded amalgam of concepts: a drow politician. She welcomed us to the city of Docolth'piar.

The agreement goes thusly. There is another House of drow in a faraway city. These are Bad drow. They enjoy causing a political ruckus and kidnapping people from the surface for fun. We, in our natural role as peacekeepers, are to barge in and kill them all in their own home. But, the home in question, like most drow buildings of import, is rigged to block teleportation spells. However, the House of Gozhn has captured a laboratory out in the subterranean sticks which has a 'transit ring,' something that can punch through such protections and get us inside. When we're done, we simply use the teleportation disc to return back for our reward of vital information on what the crap we're facing in the north. Got all that?

Gozhn's daughter Lestrum will lead us to the laboratory, but won't be able to join us in the ensuing bloodbath because her House desires a level of plausible deniability in the affair; and nothing says "genuinely random bout of surface-worlder violence" like a paladin assault team porting directly into a well-guarded area using experimental magicks. The journey is expected to take a week on foot and takes us through a duorgar city. The road to this inevitably colorful and bright place started at a locked gate leading deeper into the ground. We are currently camped in a 'clearing' in a cave, and I am writing this by funguslight.

There's something distinctly off about all this, but it may just be that I've been feeling that way a lot lately.