Journal of Kali Qingwyn

[Lalena Steele]

[the pages of the journal are pages of notes, and sketches, mostly of the various ruins of the desert]

[Lalena Steele]

Hziran 1st, IY 7787

I have been in the city of Ephia's Well since Iyar 14 7787.  Long enough that it is a new month, but I know not how long a month is here. Months and dates and years still seem an odd concept to me.  I don't know how long I was stumbling in the ruins of the fallen rings before coming here, but I am finding it is a land rich in history to study.  It has had its own unique history completely separate from that of the once, and now vanished outer rings. It would seem all history of the rings has vanished almost as if it never was. 

While the surface sand here is always moving and shifting, one does not have to go far before it becomes compact and impossible to penetrate.  As such the paltry artifact finds I've managed to get thus far are completely by the whim of the winds and if they choose to uncover anything that day or hour.   

But in ruins the land is rich.  One only has to go a few feet in any direction before finding a cairn, ancient statue, petroglyph, or ancient inscription. Perhaps most mysterious is the carved needles. The site is a ghost town, an ancient settlement, but it guards its secrets close.  Who lived there? Why did they abandon it?  What did they do? Who did they worship?  The buildings themselves offer few clues on the surface. Perhaps in time and with careful examination I might find answers.

Perhaps I need only read the right book.... Knowledge here is greatly respected, but it is also closely guarded, so learning more via books and talking to scholars is a slow path, but I am hopeful it will be rewarding in time, and my patience will lead to greater finds.

[Lalena Steele]

[A page with a rough sketch of  a slightly raised three sided platform with a bowl on one corner and a block above it.  One each side there are numbers corresponding to inscriptions. The inscriptions are carefully transcribed and translated]

II have been examining this platform for some time now. The inscriptions were hard to translate at first with a few of the parts completely evading me. I think I finally have it.

[Lalena Steele]

Hziran 20th, IY 7787

The second moot the the Ancient Order of the Archaz was today.  They are an order of dwarves determined to reclaim Mt. Kulkund from the warring clans that currently roam the mountain side.  I pledged myself and my skills as a scholar to them.  Probably seems a bit odd, an elf helping dwarves, sometimes feels a bit odd, that is to say I sometimes feel a bit out of place and perhaps a bit like an intruder.  Most of them are welcoming to me, and I have been learning much about the mountain. The old dwarven hall in the mountain is still blocked off to us, but I am starting to get a good sense for the types of items that were being produced on the mountain. There is much debris from more recent adventurers and from the ringfall that have to be sifted through so it is not an easy task.  I have also made strives to decipher the many texts and glyphs of the mountain with some success. There are some that are too complex for me at this time.   

Few notes I've managed to gather on the history of the mountain from oral histories:
Dwarves disagree to the causes that led to the causes leading up to the loss of Mt. Kulkund, but they agree that at some point pacts with creatures of abysmal nature and with orcs were made leading to a three way war.  Based off the words of the Elder of the Tablet it would seem that The order is not the first group to try to reclaim the mountain and that the other groups were unsuccessful. 

If we could learn what caused the other groups to fail we could perhaps take such things into account and try to avoid making the same mistakes. I will perhaps bring this up to the Order. I think it would be a good idea to see what the Elder knows of past groups.

[Lalena Steele]

Hiziran 27, IY 7787

A storm unlike any that has been seen has come to the Well. Usually they only last a few hours but this one has lasted nearly a day. During the first hour there was doubt that the Shade, a magical barrier put up by the Astronomers to keep the storm out of the Well would hold, and it ended up failing. Melek warriors and strange bugs breached the Well at both gates. We held the gates but three were mortally wounded by the attack, including my friend Durwin. Two of the three awoke shortly after the fighting concluded but the third was still unconscious when the Janisaries told us all to return into the Well. I left the man called Dai in the care of a friend, Donan in the hopes he would revise. An emergency assembly was called as it was suspected that the shade feel due to sabotage.  Many fingers were pointed, accusations raised with even the Legates being accused. Legate John Syter was murdered with another legate missing.

Seems the shade holds now though, with even the passage of refugees coming through to seek shelter or the restless sneaking out not causing it to fall. I went out exploring the storm with Brandy and Durwin. The storm blew many artifacts up to the surface, but it also awoken ash revenants and zephyrs of ash. We found that if we kept running we could out run them...mostly anyways. There were some close calls with the zephyrs. And we couldn't-stop-running, for anything. In a storm like this, you stop running, you die, either from the revenants catching up to you, scavenging lions, or the sand around your legs becoming so thick you can't move. The worst are the screaming revenants that can call forth pillars of sand on you. The storm though strong does have limits. We went to the wild machine and that area of the desert was clear.  It seems to be isolated to the the near desert, but it is still thick. Visibility is lowered, movement is hampered and the dangers are great. It is not a trick that the astronomer's told all to stay inside. It think without the sabotage the shade would have held even if people did pass through, but telling people that passing through will weaken it is a good way to keep the unprepared from venturing out and getting themselves killed. Our small band of explorers barely made it back in one piece. At one point the sand actually blinded me temporarily and Durwin and Brandy had to physically guide me through the sands. If they were not there I would have lost myself in the sands.