Hexblade Diary

[Mike Garrison]

To whom it may concern, I'll probably be dead, or worse than dead, if this is ever read. But I want somebody to remember who I was.

I'm Desdemona. Des, I usually go by to my friends. Those I have. Which isn't many. I'm a drow. Not one of those spider-lovers, though. I've actually always hated spiders.

I have always been weak and clumsy. It made childhood hell. I got beat up over and over and over. Although, it did teach me to talk my way out of fights. And, whatever else it did, it toughened me up. I probably would have been "culled" if I had grown up with the spider drow, but my parents didn't like that. They're gone now, though. I'm on my own.

Well, sort of. Because I met ... someone ... else. Someone or something. It promised me that it could help. It could give me a blade that I could use with my wits, not my feeble strength or clumsy fingers. And so I jumped at the chance.

And things were just starting to get better for me when ... this happened. And now I'm going to die.

I'm not sure how it even happened, but I ended up the prisoner of a mindflayer. After I awoke I watched it put a THING into the eye of some githyanki woman. And then it -- I can hardly write this -- it did it to me. I know that thing is inside my head. It's going to turn me into one of them. And there is nothing I can do.

==========

Des is a female drow. Her left eye is purple, but her right eye is kind of washed out in color. She has some facial scars from her rough childhood, but she got some tattoos that mostly let the scars blend in. She wears her hair short and has it magically colored a sort of teal with pinkish highlights. She's about 30. Like most drow she's messed around a bit with people of both sexes, but she prefers other women. She doesn't mind non-drow, but it gets tiresome that either they fear her or they think she is some kind of exotic animal.

S:8 D:8 Con:16 I:12 W:14 Cha: 16

[Mike Garrison]

Attacked by undead!

Lae killed one instantly. She said her new helmet gave her a hunter's instinct to make more damaging hits against selected targets. Nice.

What?! One of the undead raised the one Lae killed back to a new undead unlife. Not fair.

They all rushed us, so I opened up a portal to the Hunger of Hadar. Then I killed the one that had raised the one Lae killed.

Pretty quickly there was only one left. One of those "raise the others" undead. It tried to raise another one, but I counterspelled it. Then we finished it off.

[Mike Garrison]

Then we found some dead absolutists -- and some dead githyanki. OK, we were on the right path. Both right paths.

The absolutist had some full plate armor, and Lae wasn't above fitting it to herself. She looked good in it. I was starting to maybe regret that I had called off our fling.

But anyway, I tried speaking to the dead absolutist. He was following the orders of General Thorm, Chosen of the Absolute. So if this Thorm is the same as the Sharran Thorm and Halsin's Thorm, he used to be Chosen of Shar and now is Chosen of the Absolute. Also, the absolutist confirmed that they had Ravengard and were taking him to Moonrise. And he said *he* was the one who summoned the undead, in order to fight the githyanki.

Huh.

We looked around and saw a human man standing by the side of the road. I was going to ignore him, but Gale knew him. "Elminster". The famous Elminster? It seemed so.

Perhaps Gale wasn't puffing himself up as much as I had assumed about his "Gale of Waterdeep" and "lover of Mystra" stories.

[Mike Garrison]

So we went to camp and offered Elminster going-stale bread and some cheese we had scrounged from a crate in a goblin camp, but he pretended it was "delightful". Either that or he was *really* hungry.

Then he told us why he had come. He was able to "stop the clock" on Gale's orb, but in exchange Gale was to explode the orb, and himself, when he came near to the Absolute.

Gods. Mystra seems just like Lolth. Asking people to sacrifice everything they have for the benefit of the god.

Wyll was dubious. He believes more in heroism than in gods. SH on the other hand, is obviously dedicated to her god, but she admitted it seemed like this was a waste of potential. And Lae'zel was revolted. She felt Mystra should have faith in Gale ... and in the mighty company around him. Us.

Of all of us, Gale himself seemed most comfortable in the idea of this self-sacrifice. But I couldn't help reflecting on whether this is because Gale has always been ... confident ... of his own extreme importance to the universe. This probably fits in well with what he always assumed about his importance.

SH also revealed to me that she was scared and dubious about voluntarily entering a githyanki creche. Obviously she has strong opinions about the gith.

[Mike Garrison]

We left camp and continued looking for the creche. We found a woman. A human.

She was pleased to see me, and called me a "friendly face". Not exactly what I expect from humans meeting a drow. Then she pointed to a ruined monastery and said it was a hive of brutish, rude, and stupid githyanki. (Lae'zel accepted brutish and rude, but balked at "stupid".)

The woman said the githyanki had murdered the monks who used to live there and turned the place int a creche. And then she said they had run her off when she "did them a favor" by asking to buy one of their eggs. Wait. What?

It seems the Society of Brilliance wants to raise a githyanki in a peaceful, loving environment. Thus answering the whole "nature or nurture" question. One that RUDE people ask about drow, too.

She said that now humans know only SOME of "my people" are "blood-thirsty terrors". And then she asked me to *steal* the egg. For her. Lae'zel suggested we should slit her throat even for asking.

I decided ... Lae'zel was right.

Lae'zel leaped into action and nearly killed the woman herself, but then Gale settled the matter with a firebolt.

We found some interesting items on her body. Gale ended up replacing his robes, and I found a pendant that I liked. She also had a flyer calling for adventurers to bring a gith egg to a researcher in Baldur's Gate.

[Mike Garrison]

We found an old sky ferry. Lae'zel tried to use a wheel to call it to us, but couldn't budge it. {critical fail} Neither could Shadowheart, even with her enhanced strength. Of course it wouldn't move for Gale or me.

So we looked for another way down to the monastery.

We found a path, but it had been trapped. We only triggered a few of them. No one was seriously hurt.

We found a bluejay, and asked it about the githyanki. But it was only concerned about eagles that had stolen its nest.

Eventually we reached the other end of the sky ferry, and then the monastery proper.

[Mike Garrison]

We observed some githyanki herding three halflings into the monastery. One tried to run, but was shot dead.

I spoke to her corpse. She said they were on their way to Moonrise, following the orders of the general. What general? Chosen of the Absolute. So unless there is more than one general who is Chosen of the Absolute, this seems like it must be Thorm.

We tried to follow, but the doors were locked. I heard the voice of the Dream Drow. She told me to stay away from the githyanki. But ... I've promised Lae'zel.

[Mike Garrison]

We looked for another way inside, and came upon a kobald who was so blind drunk he didn't see me even as he collapsed at my feet. I wonder if this is the "drunk lizard" the bluejay mentioned? Lae'zel insured that the poor thing would not have a hangover later. Ever.

Then we walked into a whole room of the little beasts. They weren't much trouble, really except for the one that threw firebombs at us.

One of them was carrying, of all things, some sort of ceremonial holy weapon. And also a book of drawings of kobald sex acts.

We eventually cleared out the kobald infestation and even picked up a few bottles of wine for camp that night.

But we still were not able to find the creche. So we climbed some vines up to the next level of the building.

And with Volo's eye, I spotted them. Not gith. Gremishkas. Got to be careful with them, because they react ... badly ... to magic.

Lae'zel rushed in and drew the attention of most of the pack, while I killed them with my hexed drow sword. My tadpole helped too, because it seemed as if every time I injured one their mind just collapsed with psychic damage.

We were able to piece together the history of the place. It seems that the monks had supported themselves by winemaking. Pilgrims would come to pray and buy the wine. Sometimes the monks would offer the wine in barter, and some pilgrim offered to buy wine with a "cat". The cat was actually a gremishka. Maybe a pregnant one? Because somehow that one "cat" became a colony.

And then the githyanki came.

[Mike Garrison]

We climbed some more vines and reached the roof. The had once been a lovely and elegant rooftop garden. Probably used by the monks to worship the dawn. Or just to drink wine.

Eagles! One of them confronted me. I told it that the bluejay had claimed this was its nest. It was angry at the accusation, and attacked.

There were only two of them, and we killed one right away. But then the screeches attracted four more! They beat the air with their wings and blew us to the ground. Then they savaged poor Shadowheart, badly. But I kept her from bleeding out, and then she used her own healing magic to help us all.

The eagles were vanquished, and the bluejay arrived to claim its nest. A next that I couldn't help but notice was eagle-sized rather than bluejay sized. We did find another ceremonial weapon in the eagle nest.

We were exhausted, physically and magically. This rooftop seemed like a nice place to move our camp to. It was the end of Day 20. Two whole 10-days. But we had found the creche! Probably. Maybe we could be purified tomorrow.

[Mike Garrison]

Day 21. We had wine last night. Nothing *but* wine. This morning? Hungover.

Scratch, please, can you bark more ... quietly? Wait, what's that you have? A salami? For me. Oh, just the sight of that salami makes me want to ... ulp ... keep it together....

Um, thanks for the gift, Scratch. You're a good boy. Now go play with Owlbear.

[Mike Garrison]

We found some sort of tabernacle or shrine. There was a glowing ceremonial sword on a plinth. There was also a beautiful mosaic on the floor of four "dawnmasters". Shadowheart noticed that the one who had a sword in his picture also had a sword on his plinth.

Lae'zel had found a ceremonial hammer, so she threw the hammer onto the plinth of the dawnmaster with a hammer. It started to glow! But SH said, "We could probably just *place* them rather than *throwing* them, Lae'zel." Always with the bickering between those two, although at least now it is mostly friendly.

We had two more dawnmasters. One wasn't holding a weapon. The other had the picture damaged. But we had found a book that talked about Dawnmaster Vaseid and his battleaxe, so probably...?

We hadn't found a battleaxe. But SH had found a mace. Process of elimination? Yes.

All we needed was a battleaxe. I wondered if any old battleaxe would do, but I decided it would probably have to be the ceremonial axe that was supposed to be there. (Also, we didn't have any battleaxes anyway.)

[Mike Garrison]

We found a locked and enchanted door. Huh. We moved on.

Then we spotted a weakened wall that seemed to go to the same space as the enchanted door. Eldritch energy was too much for the crumbling stone.

Inside the room was a glowing spirit warden. A "Guardian Of Faith". They are deadly up close, but vulnerable to ranged attacks. So we rushed up for melee! No, of course we didn't. Gale killed it with a firebolt.

It was surrounded by the skeletons of people who had been more stupid than us. Also, it was protecting a ceremonial battleaxe! Or maybe someone had tried using the axe on it. Either way, we had it.

We also found a journal of a monk from the time that the githyanki had destroyed the monastery. It seems that while we came in through a wall, the gith had come in through a window. Either way, barricading the door had not saved this monk.

We were on a roll, so we didn't go back with the axe. Later.

Instead we found our way down to the lower floor. A magic mouth spell was triggered by our passage. Something about "firing the lance". Why would they burn a lance? Mysterious. They were probably human. Humans do strange things.

[Mike Garrison]

We sound a series of books about the founding of the monastery. It seems that Lathander had fought Sammaster, and some of his holy blood had dropped upon the ground. The Lathander priests had tried to collect it and preserve it, but it had been stolen by Sharrans. The priests eventually recovered it, but believed it would be safer to keep it here than to try to take it back to where they had come from. So they built this monastery to contain and protect and worship it.

Also, they apparently just left it lying around on a table in the middle of the entryway, because it was now looted and gone. Idiots. They should have hidden it away behind secret passages and traps and some kind of massive self-destruction device. Everyone knows that's how you are supposed to protect holy relics.

[Mike Garrison]

Anyway, the whole place was just trashed. Walls broken, skellies everywhere, vines overgrowing the place. I guess gith creches are pigsties? Or maybe ... is this just all a cover?

We checked the basement, and WHOA! Not trashed. And full of gith. So we have found the hidden creche! {level 7}

[Mike Garrison]

The guards challenged us, but Lae'zel said we had a right to come for the zaithisk. The guard was surprised. "You are infected? You are ghaik? I should kill you." But Lae'zel said it was Vlaakith's command that she should be purified.

The guard said, "Fine. Let the gustil carry out your fate." Um. That didn't sound good. I started to have a bad feeling about all this.

We found the tiefling we had talked to before. Back when we first saw the dragon. The one who said she would be better off on her own than with us. She was dead. We were alive. She was wrong.

So I spoke with her corpse. She said she had come here looking for the Blood of Lathander, but the gith had killed her. Slowly. Painfully. She said there was some rhyme about the Blood involving "east" and "west". A strange thing to die for a children's rhyme.

Anyway, the gith allowed us to enter the creche.

[Mike Garrison]

We walked into a room which seemed to be some sort of teaching chamber. A gith was beating a boy in the middle, while everyone else watched. This was far too much like my own childhood, so I told him to stop beating the boy. Instead -- he killed him! There was only one response for that: eldritch blast.

I don't know if my crew agreed with my decision or not, but they backed me. We killed them all, except for some children who ran away and hid, and one youth who was knocked unconscious. In light of his age, I left him alive. Perhaps I'll regret leaving a witness, but I'm pretty sure now that isn't likely to matter in the long run.

I asked Lae if all gith creches were like this, and she said that in her creche the teacher would have never beaten or killed the students. He would have left them to do that to each other. OK then, sounds like drow. She said she killed four of her own classmates, because they had made the mistake of thinking her too weak to defend herself. Sounds like drow.

There has to be a better way. Well, maybe we'll make one. Someday.

The dead youth (I mean, the one that started all this, not the ones we killed) told me that he was a follower of Orpheus. He had another one of those books of Orpheus on his person. According to this book, Orpheus battled Voss, and no trace of him was ever found again. But the boy said he had found the book while rifling through the possessions of one of Voss's warriors.