Dear Spellbook,

We are in a bit of a bind... But I need to catch you up on some things before we can get to that.

Riloth 19th the 1447th-1448th

“So how do we test it?” asked Daulf.

“I will test it,” Bearskin volunteered, heading to the door.

“Wait!” I shouted, stopping him. “How about I reset first and make sure I keep the tattoo. If I do, then someone else can test it.”

It was agreed upon, and I sat outside the Dahn waiting for the reset.

Once I’d woken in town and cured myself of my ailments, I cast Greater Teleport. Just as before, I sensed the seven new connections. I focused on the one I knew to be the Dahn, and a moment later stood inside the foyer.

“I couldn’t see the back of my head, but I am pretty sure it worked,” I explained as I appeared. “Also, we really need to do something about the pack rats. I don’t know how they keep managing to start so many fires.”

When I’d left the Parlor, I’d seen the remnants of a large fire that had wiped out the poorer district of the town before Tilavo had returned to stop the spread.

Trish quickly shaved the back of my head with her weapon, morphed into a razor. And confirmed I still bore the tattoo. What followed was a very long day of arguing.

Roland argued that he should be the one to test next, since he had the least to lose. Bearskin argued he should since if it failed it would be his fault. Personally, I thought Roland had the right idea, but Bearskin won out in the end, and he stepped outside the Dahn moments before the reset.

I wasted no time casting Greater Teleport, only it didn’t work. I could sense him still, suggesting the connection still functioned and the tattoos and bond were still present, but the spell failed.

“It didn’t work,” I said, but quickly followed that with an explanation of the sensation of blocked magic. “I’ll be right back—probably.”

Recasting Greater Teleport, I focused on Bearskin’s aura, and released the spell. Instead of appearing in a dimly lit slaver’s cave, I instead appeared inside a pitch black room barely large enough for me to stand in.

“Oh flood. This is bad,” I said aloud.

My Willsight showed the room to glow heavily with the aura of Tilavo. The walls themselves bore his aura, and runes snaked all over it. I couldn’t access any Font, robbing me of even my go to method of suicide.

It took some maneuvering, but eventually I got my hand inside my sachet and pulled out a sheet of paper from your pages.

Tilavo has a Spatial anchor. I’m in a box.

I couldn’t read a response if one was sent, and struggled to get my dagger in hand so I could forcibly end the reset.

Riloth 19th the 1449th

The next morning, I woke in town, slew the slavers, and teleported Bearskin’s sleeping form to the Dahn.

To everyone’s relief, he still bore the tattoo. Levar administered the restorative that would wake him, and shortly after he came to groggily.

“Where am I?” he asked, confused.

“You are in the Dahn,” Daulf explained cautiously.

Bearskin looked around, eyes focusing on Dagmar, and then said, “What? Who is the dwarf?”

The room fell silent as it hit us that it hadn’t worked, but a deep belly laugh broke us from our individual internal crises.

The laughing barbarian settled down and said, “Joke” before a snowball that was mostly ice struck him in the face.

“Bad joke,” Trish said, though she too was smiling.

“So, what now?” Levar asked the room.

We celebrated with Greater Teleport, I found I could teleport out of crossroads but not inside. I bought a lots of food and drink, and we had a day-long celebration where Levar cooked way too much food.

“This is great!” Trish said, working on her second cheesecake, “I can eat and drink as much as I want, and I can wake up the next morning fine if I step out of the Dahn and reset.”

“I still don’t understand how you aren’t as sick as I am each morning,” I complained. ”You drank more than I did, and I know I’m not that much of a light weight in comparison.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” she said, patting my head before walking off to talk with Dagmar.

Riloth 19th the 1450th

The next morning we recovered—and I had to physically recover Trish from town—before we began to plan our future.

The plan was pretty simple. We’d fight the golems and work out a more efficient way to kill them. After each battle we’d try to take on the party in the prison room, though from our last confrontation, none of us were hopeful that would be a simple task.

Riloth 19th the 1451st

The plan of attack was largely unchanged. We won the first battle against the golems but it took a lot out of us. The original plan called for Bearskin to occupy the Force anchor out of range of the rest so I could whittle them down with Magic Missiles, but as I always say, "No plan survives contact with soul stone powered dwarven stone golems."

Just because I've never written it before doesn't mean I don't say it. I do talk to other people. People people.

On this attempt the mood was much lighter with the threat of permanent death off the table. Roland and Trish though had a somber mood. They'd had a long talk the day before, and even I could tell things were super awkward between them. Returning the the scene of their loss didn't help their mood.

The battle went much more successfully. Bearskin destroyed the Force anchor golem with his opening attack while Daulf and Dagmar occupied theirs. With the one occupied by Bearskin and the other two restrained by Roland in a doorway, the three of us quickly destroyed Kim and moved on to finish off Roland's captive. By the time Fim was dealt with Bearskin had largely disabled Rim leaving Roland to entangle it to the ground. Bim didn't last long after that.

Afterwards we found Trish sitting next to a pile of mutilated duergar.

"I seem to remember you killing this lot a bit more cleanly last time," I observed.

"I was in a different mood back then," she replied, kicking one of the bodies before walking to the rest of the group.

We took a break, Bearskin hibernating briefly to recover from his Bond fueled self-destructive battle tactics. An hour later, we headed down the cave to face our almost certain doom.

By the time we were ready to confront the foes below, the effects of Levar’s potions had faded, and taking more would result in unpleasant long term complications. We’d reviewed what we’d seen in our brief encounter, but we didn’t know much.

In my first solo attempt down, I’d be covered in a globe of magical darkness and then slain by some sort of bladed weapon. They had a redcap wizard—or possible sorcery—who could cast at least fourth tier spells, judging by the Fireball they’d cast at two different intensities. In the battle to protect my flight with Trish, Dagmar and Daulf report battling three melee combatants. Thankfully, Daulf could see through the magical darkness, and reported seeing a duergar mace wielder wreathed in flames, a dark elf who seemed to battle with shadows itself, and a female Bearskin.

At this revelation, Bearskin had been quite angry, and I realized then that I’d never really seen him angry. It was a little terrifying, and Daulf had to perform some Dahn repairs in his wake. After he’d calmed down, we’d all talked it over. By then, everyone had read through each other’s stories, and we all knew about “the Lady” who’d taken control of his home. The presence of one of his kin here all but confirmed that the “Mistress”, “the Lady”, and the orchestrator of the fall of the Hardune were all one and the same—and likely a dragon.

So, aside from the three materials hiding in the darkness, they had the red cap wizard, and at least one other caster. Oh yeah, and a bunch of really creepy zombie looking kobolds.

With low hopes, and no solid plan, we crept through the tunnel to the cave just beyond the entryway to the prison chamber.

The room was dimly lit by the endless flickering of the trapped Primordial, which dominated the room. The massive sphere rapidly jumped to moments across time and space, too quick to comprehend without magical aid. The Primordial periodically plunged the room into darkness as it gave a glimpse of the far reaches of space or depths of Kaltis.

The orb stood at least a hundred feet around, floating above a heavily runed surface, in which no enemy dared step. The room around the orb extended for another fifty feet, before rising slowly inclined up to the walls, which in turn formed a large sphere. The cave we took brought into the room, a dozen or so feet above the runed surface. Boulders and other remnants of the construction of this unnatural chamber littered the included section, as if thrown about by a giant.

Bearskin led the charge in, protected with his new stoneskin ability, followed closely behind by Daulf, himself shielded from magic. As son as they left the protection of the tunnel, they disappeared into an orb of darkness, and we heard the explosion of a Fireball within.

I cast Light above Daulf as a fourth tier spell, and watched the darkness vanished, seemingly being sucked in by the glowing orb. Trish vanished into the air the next moment, and I lead Dagmar out into the room as Bearskin and Daulf continued their charge. Once clear of the tunnel, I saw our enemies.

A red cap stood almost out of sight behind the Primordial in the process of casting a spell. Bearskin’s fellow tribeswoman ran charging at him and Daulf, accompanied by a strange dwarflike creature that seemed to be made of fire and bronze. The shadow warrior was nowhere to be seen, and a sickly pale looking human stood amidst a horde of corrupted kobolds.

The redcap completed his spell, and a wall of flame appeared before me cutting everyone but Dagmar and Roland from view. I turned to run around the wall, but suddenly a figured jumped out of my shadow cast from the wall of fire and stabbing me in the back before Dagmar could engage them. Dagmar lunged at the dark elf, tackling it to the ground, only for him to disappear into a shadow in the ground.

I cast another fourth tier Light, ignoring the pain of my wound. The light burst into being in time to see the shadow warrior in the tunnel behind Roland. The black blades in the dark elves hands melted away a moment after my light hit, saving Roland from the unforeseen Roland had been firing arrow after arrow at the crazed kobolds swarming around the wall of flames, but turned to face his attacker and they fell to the ground wrestling beyond my sight.

Dagmar ran to assist, but she stumbled, falling to the ground in a fit of hysterical laughter.

Distantly, I could hear the battle beyond the flames. I took a clarity potion off my belt and chugged it, moving to dispel whatever had taken hold of Dagmar with Dispel Magic, but before I could finish the construct, the Light above my head winked out as someone did the same to me.

Roland cried out in pain as his foe regained his weapons. By the time I completed my casting, freeing Dagmar of her hysteria, the kobolds had reached us.

"Stay down!" I shouted to Dagmar as I cast Vortex at the third tier.

The air around us burst into motion, throwing the fungally infected kobolds away. Many flew through the wall of flame where this vanished.

I headed towards the flaming wall to see how my Wind magic would fair, and was gratified to see the fire part slightly at my approach.

But, then I heard it, distantly at first, but then it grew. The flickering of flames grew louder and I could hear it even over the torrent of Vortex. It spoke to me of death, and an overwhelming fear took hold of me. I turned and ran back towards the tunnel, convinced that the flames were about to devour my very soul, only to be cut down by an unseen shadow.

As I lay there bleeding out, a sickly pale bald creature that once might have been human appeared before me out of thin air. His face bore black lines below his eyes, as if he cried tears of ink that had long left stains. He just turned his head inquisitively as I bled out.

The terror faded, and I finally recognized it for the mental attack that it was. I moved to the Arcane Realm, and exploded with the power of Force.

I later found out that while Roland, Dagmar and I failed miserably on our end, the rest faired only slightly better. Bearskin battles his counterpart while Daulf dueled with the fire creature. Trish managed to sneak up on a fallen orc that has been controlling the kobolds, but as soon as she'd slit its throat from behind, appearing from out of literal air, the red cap wizard had spotted her.

Outnumbered, the remaining two did not last long.

Riloth 19th the 1452nd

The next morning, Dagmar woke me with some potions in hand, and we went downstairs where Daulf, Trish, and Roland sat at a table, staring blankly at the plates before them.

“First time dying?” I asked. “Don’t worry. You kind of get used to it.”

“Great, thanks,” Trish said, deadpan.

I reached out for Bearskin with Greater Teleport, and conjured him. He appeared with a subtle whoosh of displaced air, lying on the floor of the dining hall. We began to gain some curious observers. Dagmar administer Bearskin the restorative, and we all sat for a silent meal.

“This is pretty weird,” I said into the silence.

“The dying?” Daulf asked.

“No. Being here with you guys. It's been over four years for me. It's a bit nostalgic,”

“I think this may actually be the first time you’ve joined us for breakfast,” Daulf observed.

We finished our meal, and we all walked out of town in anticipation of Tilavo’s impending return. While we all looked unchanged to my Wllsight, there's no telling how we’d appear to the dragon’s senses. I teleported everyone back to the Dahn, finding that I could bring everyone along with me at once. I haven't yet confirmed, but I suspect our new Bond was the reason I could transport more than two people. Moving Bearskin and Trish that first time held felt like a huge strain, but now I moved us all with comparative ease.

We updated Levar on our battle, and then each went to our rooms to rest. I was physically tired, while the rest had to wrestle with the experience of dying in their own ways. You know how well I handled that. But, it brought me to the Dahn, so I’d say it worked out in the end.

Riloth 19th the 1453rd-1466th

We spent the time waiting for the door to recover its charge, resting and discussing plans. When the door reset, we made another attempt on the prison, this time trying to battle the golems without the aid of potions, leaving them for the next battle.

We won, but in the end were in a worse position. Bearskin had had to use his stoneskin, Trish had needed to assist in fighting the golems, using up most of the daily allotments of her weapon’s abilities. Daulf and Dagmar both broke many bones, requiring Daulf’s mending, and I’d used almost twice my Will capacity just to get through.

We rested and faced the enemy once more, this time infused with potions. It went much the same. The red cap wizard was too distant for me to Counterspell, and even if Daulf and Bearskin stayed close, he was able to separate us with his flaming wall. If I cast Light early, the shadow assassin would appear using physical weapons that hurt only slightly less when stabbed into one’s back. Roland managed to snare the assassin with one of his arrows, but it escaped into its shadow once more.

Prepared, I fended off the psychic attack from the safety of my mental vault, but the pale one stayed invisible, and I couldn’t rely on my Willsight to find them with the intensity of the ambient Will. We faired better, but still failed as Dagmar remained immobilized. I held the kobolds at bay, but the dark elf jumped from the shadows and killed me while I dealt with them. Roland slew the elf, just after it got me, but the pale one attacked Roland with mental attacks disrupting his aim and followed them up with purple bolts of energy.

Beyond the wall, Trish tried to take out the wizard first, but without the ability to disappear into the air, she couldn’t get close and the swarm overwhelmed Daulf and Dagmar.

We tried two more times, looking to optimize the golem fight for any advantage, but anything we gained came at a cost we couldn’t afford.

Riloth 19th the 1467-1522nd

“I’m sick of dying to that moldy bitch!” Trish shouted one morning over breakfast in the Parlor one particular morning.

“Aye,” Dagmar said over a mouthful of Ham. “The Faust cursed traitor needs to die, but I can hardly land a blow.”

One of our foes was a dwarf that had somehow become Blessed by Faust. Dagmar was not happy when she learned that the flaming enemy of stout stature was not a duergar. The “treacherous, Torc damned, shite-weasel of a red cap loving mud pounder” had a strong Blessing from Faust. He’d never spoken a word in the battles, but he could walk through the wizard’s flames unharmed, while conjuring flaming weapons of his own that struck at anyone in range.

On this particular day, Trish had failed to take out the blight druid that controlled the fungally controlled kobolds. She’d ambushed the human worshiper of Bilieth, materializing from air, just behind her. She’d even succeeded in landing a potentially fatal blow, but spores exploded from the wound. Trish had inhaled the cloud and died horribly, suffocating as the fungus grew in her throat. She then rose as a fungal zombie herself and shambled after Daulf

“You do know that blight druid uses fungus right?” I asked Trish teasingly. “And that fungus and mold are different things.”

“You do know that I can kill you and not feel bad about it at all, right?” Trish shot back.

I left it at that and went back to eating, after casting Mage Armor on myself and Force Armor for good measure.

Should I use Vortex? No, she can bypass that now.

The Fungalmancer as we’d taken to calling her was Blessed by Bilieth and had control over a small horde of kobolds turned fodder—well, kobolds were already employed as fodder by the forsaken, but these had fungus growing all over them which seemed to control them making then lose what little sense of self-preservation they might have had. They swarmed like regular kobolds, but exploded into suffocating spores if not taken down the right way. We were still trying to figure out what that right way was.

Bearskin too was nursing a grudge. One of the enemies around the Primordial’s prison hailed from his homeland. She not only bore the Bond to the Totem, but had studied Bonds, incorporating them into her combat. She went by Open Hand, and she was a pugilist. Bearskin refused to use that name, though. In his view, she’d betrayed the tribe in serving one who the Totem hadn’t Bonded, so he called her by her birth name, Maeva. She had somehow Bonded with some of the other members of her group. Through this Bond, she gained some of their abilities, and they in turn gained some access to the power of the Totem. Bearskin noticed this when he landed a blow on the Faust Cursed—Dagmar won’t let us say “Blessed”—and he felt the pain distantly through the Bond. This gave each of them more energy, strength, and pain tolerance than they ought to have.

As for the rest, The red cap wizard seemed to be a generalist, but they used fire magic to synergize with the Cursed one.

The dark elf of the group is some sort of assassin, with strong shadow magics, which Maeva too could tap into. We suspected this dark elf to be a Primal of Darkness. The last foe is the strange, pale... woman? It's hard to tell. She has these black lines stained into her white flesh, and she never spoke. I only suspect her to be female from her slender frame, but she could be some outsider being, throwing all assumptions out the window—or Realm, I suppose. Her powers are reminiscent of Abby in a lot of ways. She has some sort of illusion magic, at least enough to make her invisible, and her mental magic feels much closer to the aboleth’s than Tilavo’s. Along with her illusions and psychic attacks, she has powerful magical bolts, similar to my own Magic Missiles, but each hit with far more power, though with less accuracy.

Simon stood to the side, anxiously staring at our group, not really sure what to do. With Dagmar still filthy from her pre reset activities, and Bearskin... being Bearskin, we were quite a sight—and smell.

“I think we need to focus on defeating the golems as quickly as possible,” Daulf said. “Leave those below for later. The defeats are demoralizing, not to mention painful. Let us perfect the first battle, before attempting the second.”

We agreed, and over the following weeks, we dove back into the battle against the golems, ignoring the one for the Primordial’s cell. The enemies in the bottom room were more likely only slightly more powerful than us when we were at full strength, but we couldn’t face them at full strength. The battle with the golems took too much of our strength to conquer, so we needed to minimize our Will expenditure there.

On each attempt, we tried new risky tactics established the day before. The goal was to defeat these stone behemoths with the smallest expenditure of magic and stamina possible, leaving ourselves topped off for the battle below. Bearskin strove to battle without his Bond, Trish without the aid of her weapon’s magical abilities, and Daulf and Roland with minimal use of their Blessings. I on the other hand restricted myself to a full capacity of Will, leaving two more available for later via the use of clarity potions

We died a lot at the beginning. The days after each attempt were spent with each of us writing down every detail we could remember of the battle. We would reenact them, step by step, as I watched my companions pantomime through the combat as I simultaneously reviewed it in your avatar in my vault.

Slowly, we improved. The battles were tense, each of us avoiding blows by the narrowest margins and using magic as last resort. From many deaths, we improved to near victories, and eventually, we could defeat them with a considerably lesser expenditure of resources.

Occasionally, we would test ourselves down below after large breakthroughs, but still, we could not defeat them. The battles there were close, and they always knew of our coming and prepared an ambush. No matter how quickly we defeated the duergar and their captured golems, we could not get the jump on the party.

Through it all, my companions slowly became inoculated to the horrors of one’s own death, but with that came a loss in morale.

At times, we broke the pattern and attempted once more to interrogate the duergar for any sort of advantage, but their fervent devotion to their captured god kept their lips sealed.

Inbetween these attempts, I flew out to the farms to try to forestall the orc army that would shortly destroy them all. It was not a particularly hard task, but it took a lot of time and Will I Didn't have to spare. I kept these trips mostly to myself, not wanting to worry Daulf anymore than he already was about all the people in need.

If it came down to it, could we leave these people to their fates? How many other people are dying across the world, brought back each day? If we end these resets, are we killing them, or just failing to save them? Is there any difference?