From The Journal of Jacob Cayle

Date: Different Day, Same Crap.

So we played teleportation - leap frog to get closer to where we think the staff is and of course decided to leave the healer back in town as the last to come, so that when we fought the frigging Hydra we didn't have anyone to heal us. But we defeated it, finally. Although it seems to be slowly healing, so I get this bad idea that we'll have to fight it again. Won't that be delightful.

Then we headed into the valley with all the portals leading toward it. I would like to investigate the tunnels that go up someday, and see if they lead to other valleys or strange places, but that will have to wait till we aren't running to the next adventure (seems we never have time to pause and accomplish any of that stuff).

So we get back into the valley with that damnable Roc. Some day I will wield power enough to cook that thing in mid-air. But not today. So for now I kept my head low and we made it through the valley without any particular problems. Seems the temple from last time may not have been used since then.

So now we're trying to figure out what to do to get into this fortress and steal the staff back. Personally, I'd like to try just dimension-door inside with Ragnarr pointing me in the right direction. A quick attempt may catch them unprepared, but no-one in this group seems to like any of those "thinking on your feet" plans where we just go for it. Mind you, I can't blame them. Seems like whenever we try those, we end up failing utterly every time. But then we tend to fail a lot of the time when we do plan, so I'm not sure which is worse for us. And knowing my luck, any attempts to dimension-door into that fortress will get me stuck in there unable to get out, or get me stuck somewhere worse and unable to get out. Makes me wonder why I devoted myself to magic in the first place when it seems anyone who doesn't just brute-strength it gets smacked down by the universe.