The days have come so many times, dawning on this child of the Way in so many new lands, since the last touch of sunset on my face as I walked out the gates of our home. The Lady's face, as the moon, has shifted three times over now. The long journey has only begun it seems, almost everyday, and then to grow wilder and stranger once again.

As the other letters have told this place has much to speak for itself in beauty and wonder.

From the overwhelming heights of the city of Waterdeep, it's buildings beyond compare in my island experience. Their majesty challenged the mightiest trees against these more northern skies to my senses. The varied peoples that dwell in that city have such lives that whirl and sometimes chuff those that pass too closely.

It is a strangeness to wander amongst so many of the tallpeople. They often seem not to see me at all or to judge by something that has nothing to do with what they must have seen. I focus on their eyes to strive to see what it is that motivates them, for their words and their ways baffle me.

Great things and small wonders as well, I have seen both. I treasure the time I spent, silent over the skins and papers of my employers, four walls around and the close scribble and sigh of my fellow junior mappers; out in our minds-eyes' to the widest reaches as we dream of the places we scribe. I earned more than gold for the travels in return for my hours copying maps for the Guild in Waterdeep. I have fine memories of golden sun and candlelight both across the lines drawn that spin to the world's edges, boundaries, and shapes.

I have delivered the letters for this city, all but one. The one sent to the horsemaster still is with me for he is not to be found here. I was told that he would to be found till next spring. Perhaps I can locate him during my return journey. The long letter to the alehouse keeper was opened and read before me, such was the hurry to know what you had written. There was some laughter and a good number of deep wrinkles in his forehead along with a long mumbling frown near the close of the letter. I send his return letter with mine to you.

I continue to practice how to see and not be seen, to listen and be quite, to learn what I can and teach when I can. There is so much on this path that you have set me to.

After lingering in Waterdeep, to fill my pockets and mind for a time, I came to be overwhelmed by the press and pull if the great city.

Coming to see it was time to move on along my route, I sought passage on a river barge that ferries goods along to the small towns up river. At the dock, to gain a spot amongst the boxes and barrels, I was forced to playfully show my strength to the captain by way of setting a over muscled hulk of a boatman on his rump when he tried to lay hands on me. Our lady captain seemed impressed enough with me not to question or bargain at my help on her vessel any further.

I have been traveling with and odd bunch of folks since that time. There was a group of adventuring kinds as myself that joined the crew as I did (somehow minus the test at the dock that I met for the most part).

The first is a tallman flamboyantly covered in many bright fabrics and high airs, topped with a plume. I find it hard to puzzle out his meanings through a twisting accent. Others seem to be confused by this as well. He is of noble bearing and well meaning, if distracted by many things, certainly including himself. He is armed with a sharp rapier and wit.
The other tallman is of partial Elvish stock but sly and sidestepping in a way that unnerves me and keeps my back up. He has fast hands and searching ears. He is not to be trusted. I fear he is only a member of our party for his convenience and might not be where one left him at a critical moment
The last of our quartet is an Elfmaid from the forests. She is still rather raw to this place but wants more of the civilized world than any of her kind that I have heard tell of. She banters playfully with the men, and strides about with intent and focus on her deeds.

The days spent on the river where of great joy. My legs swiftly remembered the sway and rhyming of the motion of water. I found my mind eased after too long spent in one place and surrounded by the canyons of the city. A farming family was along with us. The children's wide eager eyes told of their mind's hunger for stories. I shared many with them, rambling from old folk-tales, teaching tales, and accounts of the places I had seen in my travels to their accounts of last winter's snow and the time the apple tree with the swing in it blew down in an autumn storm. I feel we were all charmed.

We passed a great-shelled water creature one day as we toiled upriver. It gurgled and sang, to us or so it seemed to me. I was told that it was a visitor from another plane. It appeared peaceful and curious. I am still wishing that there had been time to spend and see if we could communicate together. The boatmen were nearly completely uninterested in it. I fear that wonders seen too often blend into the mundane. I wove some tales about a watery world for the children to amuse them and to hold details for myself about the meeting.

I have a time to sit and think in a place that is well lit and the air is cool and moves. There have been too many days spent in a failed underground world. The soles of my feet tire of the broken stone and the dust of ages and the filth of the goblins. We are in the town Yartar this evening and there has been pleasant company.

We have greeted a new companion, as well as said farewell with fellows that have traveled with us. Gareth has had enough of our good doings and has gone his way in search of dimly lit bars and easy drunken gamblers. The Elvin ranger has gone to continue her studies. I will miss her songs. This new person to our band, she is strangely touched by another realm - one of earth. She is eager and has stories of herself to share.

When does an errand become an adventure?

After taking the riverboat to the town of Yartar, there to travel on by road northwards, we had taken on the seemingly simple task of asking after a debt owed to the boat's captain from a blacksmith's apprentice. He was not to be found, nor was his fellow worker. It being our duty to go to some reasonable length to fulfill our promise, we worked the town asking after them and finding some clues as to their absence.

The framework of the plot rapidly became clear if not the details. There were slavers that had a settlement near this town, Thayen Red Wizards. There was a truce and even commerce between the two. There is nothing good that comes of trafficking with such people. It seems the town "uses" the slavers to depose of its convicted criminals. The slavers sell magic items to the townspeople. Neither sees any harm and feel that it is the wealthier for the bargain.

Yet these slavers are evil and their wickedness takes them to deeds that one who sees no evil would think to accuse them off. We learned that the missing men had been lured away from town, drunken and well possibly drugged, by an unknown woman. The bar folk laughed and made rude remarks as to what men go looking for and what they might find following a female like that.

The local sheriff's help was enlisted, with some strong arming necessary. There members of our party as well that wanted no part of this errand and considered their "job" complete. The fate of these missing men was nothing to them.

At length we found then in the hands of a human slave trader, intending to sell them down the river. The trader insisted that these were his property and bought and paid for. There is a corruption to a soul that believes that such things are just. He was persuaded to return to town by the deputies that road with us.

The men were found to be as we thought and they claimed, captured freemen. There was to be payment returned to the trader in flesh by those slavers, these Red Wizards. The fellows that had stolen away were glad of their freedom and repaid the debt owed. So, as far as could be, justice was served.

That evening we were approached by a local gentleman, by the name of Krugar of the Hucrele household. He came seeking our aid. One deed often leads to another. The children of this family where adventures like ourselves who had gone searching in a fallen city, he called it the Sunless Citadel. They had not returned.

We agreed, some for the sport or the money but I go where I am led by the Hands. We were there joined by a wizard. He is a younger elf than comes to my mind's eye with the title wizard but a cheerful one, with a delightful little toad friend. Krugar offered to lead us all the along forest roads to the city, a half days walk or more.*

There we were attacked again, last time by wargs and goblins, this time by human bandits. What a nightmare place these lands where all must go in great caution or fear. This place needs order for its humanoids, so it may grow and flourish as it should. Gaston made great show of himself dodging between bolts and shouting, whirling that shining sword about.

There was only one roughen left alive when all had settled.

I saw to him and bound his wounds. It became far too clear that the others in the party wished to simply let him bleed out his life there. I could not let this happen. Even after, they were of a mind to do him in. I stood my ground at his side. There was part of my mind working at, "who is this poor fool to you?" and part at "you are small and alone and they are against you". It was a forever folded into the passing a several breathes. I was changed by it. They, at last, listened to my plan of action and allowed me to tie the man tightly and for Krugar to return him to the town for justice.

We entered the crack of earth that swallowed the Citadel. It is ancient and past dead. It is swarming with huge rats, goblins and kobolds, and worse yet than that. We have rescued a dragon wormling for the goblin and then returned it to its enslaved life. We have found and freed a gnome cleric. His conversation was a blessed distraction and I felt more like myself than I had since entering the complex.

I have spared lives that were not ours to take and killed more than I like to think on. I have lead charges and snuck about. I have made errors and learned from them. I was touched by a god as I slept and must continue to mediate on the path I walk.

We return with some news, only sadness for the Hucreles. We returned a signet ring from the remains of one of their children and found that another one of their company had been slain as well. Tonight I set myself to making a map of the halls and tunnels where we had been stalking. I fashioned a pretty thing, taking pleasure in the art to cover the disquiet of the mental images that I mapped from along with my notes. I then gifted it to the family before we set out again. If we do not return, at least there will a way to follow for others.

*I hate to slow up my companions as I do. I must find a proper riding dog to help quicken my pace. The fursnake says he will ride as well only if the brut will mind its manners. As if he does much more than ride in the comfort of my pockets as things are!

Our Adventure Concludes:

The adventure searching after the Hucrele siblings has come to an end. We do not bring back the missing children to their families or even their remains for burial. They had been taken and changed to things of undead wood that lacked any humanity beyond their forms. We slew them and burnt their bodies, taking home their personal affects and the story of their end.

We are all worn out, through and through. Our dandy suffers with a great weakness that does not seem to pass with healing or with rest. I worry for him.

We have met the evils that were within the Sunless Citadel and have removed their taint from this place as much as was within our powers. How I wish the whole dammed compound with its forever-aged and distilled hatred and corruption would sink all together and be gone!

We spent another full day and night in that underworld. Retracing our steps through the filth and glowing molds, always deeper it seems. We stand as unit now more than ever. We are learning how to work together to help us all to our best uses. Our wizard is a true shot with his bow and the newcomer, of strange earthy origin, she wields crossbow and dagger with grace and strength. There were many more monsters that stood against us, sprang out at us as we traveled or came at us while we paused.

There are terrible things below, beyond anything that your servant Lobelia has ever encountered before. There was a shifting gloom of a Shadow that would not be touched by anything that was not of magic itself. There was Beast of stone and fire, with sapphires in its gullet. There was the undead Dragon Priest that was perhaps once an elf prince. I want no more of these unholy fantastics now; I look to walking under the trees and letting my footfalls be part of the sweet music of the world.

Our final battle below was with the deviant druid (and his allies - twig creatures and tear and rend and a giant of a tree frog that seems to be companion of some sort) that we had spent so long questing after. This horrible man had forsaken the true harmonious ways of nature and found his path into a twisted lie of undead trees and captured spirits.

Our dandy cast a spell of friendship on the druid, confusing him and changing his view. By this device we learned of the origin of the dread tree that the druid guards as well as what he had done to change the Hucreles into creatures beyond our help. The Hucreles had been taken by druid and turned into dead tree-things with the shape of men but without any light of life in their eyes or warmth to their bark covered skins. There was nothing more of them left and no way to return them to themselves. The tree itself had sprung from a still green stake that had been used to kill a vampire of some great power, in years past. There was a menace and malice from this "tree" that nothing of the leaved and flowered ones ought to have. We burnt it near to ash, to cleanse what we could of its evil.

Amongst the dungeon of passages and rooms that we trekked through as we sought the missing Hucreles, we came into a library. The walls had once been covered in fine and sturdy bookcases. There had once been great broad tables for reading and study. Now, ravaged by time and neglect of centuries in length, there seemed only decay and ruin.

I begged a few moments time, to seek a while and see if there was anything left of this once wondrous place. I felt that this keep may not have always been one of such complete evil and there might be knowledge worth salvaging. There was muttering about wasted time, and other such complaints, but the dandy came to my aid and backed me up. He has a love of learning as well it seems.

We took care and moved the rotting piles of parchment, leathers, wood, and paper for a time. Which while not as long as I would have liked, pressed the others to their limit I fear. There were a few precious tomes saved and will be examined in daylight when we are gifted by that sweet radiance again.

As we stop along our journey back to the town I have some time to reflect on what has passed during the last week or so.

I grow in my connection to the Hand. My body responds and moves to defend in ways that I could not have when I left the Home. My hand darted out to deflect an arrow that would have surely caused me grave damage, the force the blows that my foes are hit with is more powerful, and I am continuing to learn of silence and the art of remaining hidden.

I have been visited by my deity. Barvan walked in my dreams one night and touched me gently. He spoke some to me as well, comfort in an awful place that seemed beyond such kindness. I have been having thoughts for a time before this of how to be the healer as well as the defender. It is easy to see that the world I wander has great need of both. I believe that I am lead to open my hands to the healer's art as well as to those monkly ways that I have studies at Home.

And more on how to serve the world:

I always sough to do right and be just. I strove to help when and where I was needed and to actively seek out these times and places. That seemed enough for a while and I trust that my deeds reflected very well both on the Home and on me as a monk of the order. As I left Home, I was of the mind that more active good needed doing. It seemed there was on me a geas of sorts, to seek out wrongs and evils and undo and right them. Now as I ponder, I cannot tell you which is the more important of the good to do: the planting and tilling for the hungry or the destruction of evil creatures and haunt the underdark.

We were unable to save the Hucrele siblings; they were in all likelihood already gone beyond that before we even heard tell of their plight. We did what we were able. We freed their bodies and killed that which had transformed them. The foul druid remains alive for now for it is not mine to hand down death to even him, if there is anything yet he might do for some good. We were rescuers turned avengers.

I wish to bring good into the world so much more than I wish to destroy and thereby take evil out of it!

In closing, I fear that my fellows have been harmed by our time spent in the Citadel. They take actions that echo the evil that has been too long surrounding them. They take lives that should be spared. They kill unconscious or unarmed foes, while I am away and cannot stay their hands or speak to them of the powers that be. They are, we are, all in need of healing.

Yours most humbly,

Lobelia Ethlehod