• 28/3/1017 (continued)

Well, these Wallaran's are polite, I'll credit them that. Unfortunately, I wish they would take me seriously when I try offering friendly advice. I was trying to tell them that it would be best that few outsiders ever saw the ruined city, with the hope that potential conflict could be avoided. Namely, with hope that those seeking wealth would not come here to steal it, using whatever means necessary.

Unfortunately, I'm left with the distinct impression that they are laughing at me. Well, I suppose that it is not of my concern. However, I can say ``I told you so'' if things go wrong.

Oh, it appears they may actually worship a dragon deity, not just a dragon. I guess we may well have been a touch condescending to think otherwise.

And my magic is not(!) primitive. That they suggested it is just them being condescending!

Well, they have been most helpful. We've thanked them, and are on our way back to the bunker.

When we get back to the falcon, we'll have to do some more identifies.

• 4/4/1017 (heading back to bunker � Wallara)

Ah, fascinating.

Our friend Lyril did a sending to me today, identifying a few points of note. Firstly, Alphatia (the Empire) is now called the New Alphatian Confederacy, and is ruled by one Emperor Zandor, a son of the previous Empress (he survived in one of the Alphatians underwater cities). Lyril indicated that this Zandor intends to take and hold Denwarf Hergon, and that it represents a considerable adventuring opportunity.

Gurzurk helped fill us in on a bit of the background of Denwarf Hergon. Apparently it was a dwarven kingdom in a mountain range on what was the main continent of Alphatia. Lyril indicated that the mountains are still there, but that the dwarves are not.

All very interesting. I'll have to communicate with Lyril via sendings tomorrow morning, to ascertain more details. Considerable adventuring opportunity sounds quite promising, especially coming from Lyril.

Ah, in other news, Lani has indicated she really could not bear a relationship with someone who does not have wings. So, to give him a sporting chance, perhaps I could polymorph Martin into a male Faenre? Then Lani could quite openly have a relationship with him. To be fair, to be fair.

• 5/4/1017 (Wallara)

Well, to avoid the sendings, Lyril teleported in to speak with us in person. Un unexpected but pleasant surprise.

Essentially, the mountain range is now an island, which has become known as Monster Island. Not a particularly complex name, but an amazingly concise, and highly descriptive one.

Lyril's sources have indicated that the commander of the sixth fleet intends to hire adventurers after landing at the island, presumably to help clear out the monsters.

Apparently no-one knows where the dwarves have gone. But there are plenty of monsters. Lyril says we should go to Belesaria (the southern continent of Alphatia) if we wish to get hired.

Do we? Yes.

Lyril also related another bit of interesting news. Apparently some chap by the name of Anglarian Canoclaris had an interesting financial scam. In essence, it seems he borrowed plenty of money, and then paid off loans by borrowing from other banks. Then apparently he burned down a bank that he owed money to. And he kept doing this sort of stuff. It is said that when he was finally caught, he owed on the order of a million gold.

What a daft nut. To get caught, that is.

Lyril says that she'll be heading down to the centre of Mystara, with Or-len, pretty soon now. Well, I hope they take care of themselves. I'll have to do a sending to them and see how it's going.

In other news, Tess is graduating soon. I did a sending to him earlier, asking why he was looking for us (we asked Leo if anyone without hostile intentions wanted to find us � depressing that it's just Tess really).

I'll have to do some more sendings to him tomorrow.

• 6/4/1017 (Wallara)

Did some more sendings to Tess today. He'd like us to attend his graduation ceremony, which is at the end of next month.

Well, we are heading back to that part of the world, so we'll have to see whether we can make it.

• 9/4/1017 (Leaving Wallara)

Well, we've made it back to the Falcon, and are on our way to the Darokin part of the world. Well, we may as well start identifying these magic items we've acquired. I guess it's likely I'll fail to identify some of them, so Lani and Zim may have to help sometimes.

Although that doesn't bother me too much. After all, who likes casting identify? At least we are (hopefully) safe on the falcon.

• 10/4/1017 (flying to Darokin area)

Well, that was tiring. But, all items identified, and hopefully identified correctly. Here's the summary of what they are:

• My ring of blinking, when activated, lasts for six rounds, and requires one hour to recharge between uses.
• Turia's ring of invisibility also renders her completely silent!
• When Leo draws with his pigments, what he draws will become real, although they must be normal, inanimate objects, and drawing things like gold bars won't actually create gold bars. He can create a 1000 cubic foot objects over 100 square feet. Not bad.
• Melany's boots allow her to fly for two hours a day, at a speed slightly faster than we normally move, but with high manoeuvrability. They require six hours to recharge each hour of use.
• Lani's chime of opening can be used to open virtually anything. Essentially anything that can be opened, can be opened with these chimes. Even wizard locks cast by wizards of level less than 15 can be destroyed. When used, it makes a loud ringing noise, can only effect one item, and takes ten seconds to work. The item is strongly charged, and can be recharged.
• Rolands silk shirt cannot be cut. Effectively, he will only take half as much damage from edge weapons than he would otherwise. The great thing is, he can wear it underneath armour (when he gets some).
• Gurzurk's jewel of flawlessness has a 10% chance of increasing the value of other jems. Each time another jem's value is increased, a facet disappears. When all gone, it is a circular stone. There are 32 facets. No doubt Gurzurk will have fun with this. He does so love his gems, after all.
• Safranna's bracers of archery essentially increase her level of mastery by one. Of course, it cannot help her exceed grand master level, and only works with bows.
• Zhi's bag has some dice within. Apparently, if one rolls these dice before performing an action, ones chance of success is increased by 25%. Considering theyan only be used four times, no doubt Zhi will be careful in his use of them.
• Zim's dust, when he chooses to throw it into an area, will make any invisible objects visible(including out of phase, mirror images, projected images, cloaks of displacement, etc). Just about everything really. The effect lasts for 2d10 turns. Zim has 45 doses.

The net value of this party really has just jumped.

• 12/4/1017 (flying)

We asked Leo what Safranna's sword actually does. Yes, it does destroy undead when it hits them.

He he he. May their souls rest in peace.

• 16/4/1017 (flying � wedding anniversary)

To think, it has already been one year. Time does seem to fly.

Well, the first year wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, we couldn't quite throw a wild party, given the confines of the falcon. But we have celebrated as best we can.

One thing that made us happy. Turia and I kicked Roland and Safranna out of the extra-dimensional space for the night.

Now, I do feel that polymorph self has a number of interesting applications that the original designer probably didn't have in mind when he made it. Not that I'm complaining mind you. And I didn't hear any complaints from Turia either.

• 19/4/1017 (flying)

Leo told us the best place to get employment for Monster Island is in a city called Alinquin, in Bellesaria.

So I guess we'll end up being there sometime. Well, it's about two weeks to Darokin City.

• 26/4/1017 (flying)

Unfortunately, try as he might, Leo could not determine anything about those who are powerful and are hostile towards us. Well, I guess they've taken some precautions by now anyway.

• 5/5/1017 (flying over Darokin)

An interesting journey, all in all. We're looking down on Darokin city at the moment. The mud stains from the recent flooding is clearly visible from above.

Earlier, we were flying over Sind. I admit it made me feel somewhat melancholic. Unfortunately, I cannot spare the time to help them fight off the Hule invaders. The Sundered Man business does seem somewhat more important. At the moment.

We've decided to head to Rockhome, and leave the assassins in Darokin City for later.

Leo has assured us that we have no significant enemies in Alphatia. This is good. It means we should be safe at Monster Island at least for a little while.

• 9/5/1017 (flying over Rockhome)

Ahh, the dwarves have come back out of Rockhome. I guess if they feel it's safe, then it must be.

Or maybe they just think things couldn't possibly get any worse than what they have been?

Gurzurk flew down, and chatted to his superiors. He was successful in obtaining a copy of maps to the first two levels of Denwarf Hergon. They could be quite useful.

Well, Gurzurk looks happy.

We're going to head to Serraine now.

• 12/5/1017 (Serraine)

We've arrived, once again, at the fabulous city of Serraine. Melany looks suitably impressed. Not that that's a good indication of whether something is impressive. After all, she's impressed by fake gems. She wears enough. But then, Serraine would impress most people.

We asked Leo another question today, and he told us the amount of mineable cynnabryl at the mine is eleven tonnes. More than enough to cover our costs. I did a sending to Martin, to see how things were coming along. He's indicated things are going well. They've moved several companies there, and have fought off any would-be new owners. They've even indicated they are getting better prices for the cynnabryl than they originally anticipated; something about a shortage.

Well, Serraine is much the same. T'zaz is in good health. She says the most important item she's made so far is a non-permanent carpet of flying. Not bad. She indicated she is dearly looking forward to acquiring sixth level spells, so she can cast enchant an item. In the meantime, apparently business has picked up a bit, what with Alphatia gone.

Actually, whilst on the subject of Alphatia, apparently Karameikos has gladly accepted a group of Alphatian mages (who were obviously not residing in Alphatia at the time), who have set up a school of magic. No doubt Karameikos, and therefore Darokin and the Five Shires, are happy to have them there. After all, they'd go a long way to help with defense. I guess that since they have gone to Karameikos, rather than signing up with Emperor Zandor, they're hoping for a quieter lifestyle.

In other news, Glantri has decided to allow priests. Apparently, the decision was made somewhere in the middle of that plague which was floating around. Fancy that.

We've decided to stay in Serraine for a while before meeting Tess at Glantri for his graduation ceremony.

Oh, we managed to get a good price for the two Manticore pelts. Sx thousand gold in all. Quite nice. Now we actually have some money.

• 22/5/1017 (leave for Glantri)

We've left for Tess gradutation ceremony.

Oh, T'zaz identified Safranna's sword. Apparently it is a +2 sword normally, but against undead it counts as +5, as well as the ability to destroy them. Should come in handy.

• 26/5/1017 (Glantri)

Well, Tessarael hasn't changed much. Well, perhaps he's even more paranoid than usual. I don't know how his familiar can stand him. Oh yes, his familiar. A tawny coloured cat named Dariel. Looks cute enough. I imagine she can only stand Tessarael if she has no sense of smell. Unofrtunately, we do have a sense of smell. I wonder if Tessarael made any friends. The all-pervading odour of garlic is really quite distasteful. He said something about the wooden swords being coated in it. Shocking.

Well, Dariel looks alright, for a familiar. Not sure about her survivability though. One fireball and she's toast. One reason I'm not terribly concerned I can't cast the find familiar spell. Too much bother really. I honestly don't think a familiar would survive long with a battle mage. Well, good luck Dariel.

Apparently Tess could die in his exam. I guess the test must be tough. Well, I suppose the Glantrians have a reputation to uphold.

Tess also has a nice elderly lady who does the cooking for him. I wonder how long it took before he felt he could trust here?

• 28/5/1017 (Tesserael's graduation)

Congratulations to Tessarael for graduating. It did take him over two-years to achieve this.

There was also a party held by the students after the graduation ceremony. Well, Melany looked right at home. She even had a student make a pass at her. Well, I don't recall her mentioning that she was a priest.

The party was pretty poor. They look so young. And naive. I guess time will harden them. Hmm. I suppose I was once like that. Well, at least I had private tutelage in the form of an apprenticeship.

There was also a duel at some point. Some idiotic elf charged in, waving a rapier. And challenged some person to a fight using `real' weapons. I think he was webbed.

Oh, Tessarel has commented about how some important Glantrian personage has gone missing. Apparently he disappeared at about the same time as the no magic week. Oh well.

Tomorrow we'll leave back to Serraine, to pick up Gurzurk and Lani (who stayed behind), and then we'll go back to Darokin where Tessarael wants to drop off some backup spellbooks.

Looks like we're back on the road.

• 5/6/1017 (Serraine)

We picked up Lani and Gurzurk today. On to Darokin.

• 7/6/1017 (Darokin City)

Tessarael flew down, with Zim (who can cast invisibility), and Turia (who I got to drop some stuff off in our safety deposit box), and deposit his spellbooks.

They flew down, invisible, in order to avoid the assassins. We'll deal with them later.

Tess really needs to do something about that awful smell.

Well, off to Bellesaria.

• 14/6/1017 (over Aegos)

Hmm. We took a small detour in order to fly over Aegos, the place where the whole to the center of Mystara is. There are two fleets here, one Thyatian, the other belonging to the Minrothad guilds. Presumably both are taking this hollow Mystara business quite seriously.

Unfortunately, it appears that Lyril is no longer contactable. In fact, when a sending to her failed, we tried to get Leo to find out what happened. Unfortunately, he said that he does not know.

It would appear that there is definitely something of importance in the centre of Mystara. We'll try asking Leo something else in a week.

• 17/6/1017 (Bellesaria)

We have arrived (and left) the city of Alinquin, in Bellesaria. It looked like a fairly quiet town. It was unwalled, and most of the surrounding countryside were farms.

We're now officially singed up to adventure on Monster Island. The deal isn't so bad. Essentially we're allowed to keep whatever we want, with the exception of a number of items of note (the list is about a page in length). In exchange, we won't be shot on sight as trespassers.

They'll also provide transport to and from Monster Island, as well as food. The accept means of getting to Monster Island is by boat, but that would take a fair while (it is 2000 miles away). We acquired some directions to Monster Island (from the captain of a boat called the Wavewalker). Apparently the sixth fleet is there, and they should be building a port.

Unfortunately, the island is mountainous terrain, if somewhat closer to sea level than normal. Given this, we may not be able to land the falcon there. However, we can fly there and check it out. It should still be far faster than going by ship all the way.

We've decided to fly there via Dunedale, the last civilised port before Monster Island.

• 21/6/1017 (flying to Dunedale)

Unfortunately, the last point at which information could be devined on Lyril was before she went down the hole.

Which pretty much tells us that someone doesn't want us knowing anything about what's down there.

Well, I hope Lyril and Or-len are alive and well. Hopefully they'll come back to the surface sometime and let us know how it is.

• 27/6/1017 (flying to Monster Island)

We passed Dunedale earlier. Tessarael flew down and found out that Moster Island is due north-east. There is a ship leaving tomorrow (journey time being six or so days), but we've decided to fly there anyway. Perhaps Gurzurk will be able to make us a landing strip.

• 2/7/1017 (Monster Island)

Gee. Monster Island is a big island. For some reason I had imagined A small chain of very small islands, but that certainly is not the case.

It's going to take a long time to explore this place.

On the south-east corner is a colony of sorts. There are several thousand people there. We spoke to some of them, and they indicated that the surface of the island, as well as the first two levels, are controlled by the Alphatians. The lower levels are somewhat infested by monsters.

Considering the surface seems pretty safe, and there are several thousand troops here, we're going to let Gurzurk build an airstrip, after which we'll land and begin adventuring.

I look forward to it.

Apparently the monsters aren't too tough. Generally things like the occasional manticore, trolls, ogres, orcs, and other things of a similar ilk. Apparently we should be careful if we see any gnolls, as they may well be adventurers themselves. The most powerful of the monsters encountered so far, or at least the most dangerous, appears to be some kind of mould covered skeletons. Apparently an adventurer was diseased by one of them, and had to be returned to the surface to be cured.

There are presently about fifty adventurers here. They've said that it's been fairly successful so far, and they've only been here a couple of weeks. Unfortunately there haven't been too many magical weapons found. It's suspected that some monsters have taken them to lower levels.

Which begs the question of how tough do the monsters get on the lower levels? Perhaps the monsters on the upper levels are keeping away from the more dangerous monsters below them?

Well, whatever the case, we're here, and it looks profitable. Good thing the Alphatians cannot spare enough troops to conquer the entire island. There'd be no takings for us that way.

Ah, a dungeon crawl. It's been so long.

I wonder what did happen to the dwarves? They say that there is just no sign of them. Not even any bodies. It would appear they got out before Alphatia was sunk. At least, that's a possibility I am willing to entertain.

It also begs the question: Did anyone else on Alphatia get out before it was destroyed and sunk?

Well, we know Alphatia was destroyed and sunk. No-one said that anyone died.

Then again, maybe the gods were just so thorough in their job, they didn't even leave a trace. Who knows? They do I guess.

• 4/7/1017 (Monster Island)

Airstrip built.

Let the dungeon crawl begin.