Arcade’s Journal -- Elzid’s Doom

...fame may be attracting attention. A ranger has asked to join the Defenders. Since Grundo is our only true front-line fighter we have agreed to accept her into the group. Her name is Tao Camber. She seems very eager to hunt down and kill giants....

...massive explosion in the night away to the south, felt for miles in all directions. Ortigal says that it originated near the tower of Elzid, an evil enchanter with quite a reputation. As Ortigal will be busy with research for some time, he has asked us to investigate....

...arrived at the base of the tower only to find it in ruins. The entire thing has been blown apart, and is scattered around the area. We found a stairway leading to a basement entrance. There are a number of dead bodies on the grounds, mostly armored warrior-types. They all seem to have fang bites, and the marks of a poisoned stinger. There are tiny hoofprints all around as well. Very strange. Also extremely odd was that Nolin was suddenly struck by a desire to leave his magical weapons here rather than bring them with us....

...trying to enter the basement we triggered a trap on the floor. A huge stone block hurtled sideways, blocking the hall. Alix and I managed to leap outside, while the others leapt inside. We made a brief search above, thinking perhaps that we should bring Nolin’s swords after all, but we couldn’t find them. We could find no trigger to move the block back out of the way, so I asked my staff whether it could get us past the obstruction. It said that it could . . . for a price. It demanded that it be given fine oils and polished with a deerskin cloth, with metal polish for its base. Exasperating thing!

I agreed to its terms. The staff seemed to concentrate, and a ring of green fire rose up around Alix and I. We appeared to move briefly through a grey and empty space, and when the fiery ring lowered we found ourselves inside the basement next to our companions. They had been busy. (Note: I heard a bit of strained creaking during our transport from the magical Flatbox of Holding that we recovered from Ghend’s tower. Must be careful of that in the future.)

While we were trying to get inside, the rest of the party was engaged with a statue which had animated into a huge demon. While the demon turned out to be an illusion, Grundo broke his axe on the statue and finally tore it apart with his bare hands...!

...we found several goblins slain in the same fashion as those above. I suspected that we were being shadowed by an invisible foe, and used my new Wand of Enemy Detection. Out of thin air, a bat-winged, hooved imp materialized, cackling madly. It’s stinger-tipped tail dripped poison. It shook off my Magic Missiles and was hit by several blows from non-magical weapons, all of which bounced away harmlessly. The imp then made a try for Nyquil! Thankfully, Cambion was very effective. The sword glowed brightly as it neared the target, and one blow was enough to dispatch the horrid beast. It seemed to be drawn into the earth in a fiery vortex as it died....

...found various notes and pieces of a diary. It appears that Elzid had fallen in love with a local girl named Erilyn Windfellow. Love had changed his evil outlook on life, and he had planned to alter his ways, win her heart, and send his imp familiar Zotzpox back to the Nether Realms. Sadly, the imp anticipated Elzid’s move and contrived for the mage to mix the wrong chemicals together, blowing the mage and his tower to fragments....

...found a destroyed lab with a secret door. This led to a cobweb-filled room with a chest in it. The trap on it was quite diabolical, and it nearly blew Tom-Tom’s face off. Inside the chest we found treasure, and a map of a sunken dell in the mountains to the west, north of Flamegate....

...Erilyn is here, held prisoner in a magical stasis field! We suspect that Elzid was trying to protect his love from the wrath of his familiar, but the stasis might have been Zotzpox’s doing. She was being guarded by a pair of bugbear skeletons, but a well-placed Grease spell and some effective blows from Tao and Grundo took them down. We found the key to release Erilyn inside one of the skeleton’s ribcage. We then opened the three sealed portals and gathered the rest of Elzid’s treasure. Curiously, it was located within three invisible spheres floating around the ceiling. Erilyn was given the diary outlining Elzid’s change of heart as a keepsake. Tragic events.

A scroll with the command words for the stone block was also found....

...we camped overnight so that I might memorize Detect Magic and locate Nolin’s swords. Nyquil scouted the area and saw a giant traveling nearby with a well armed demi-human. We are hastening to return Erilyn home so that we may return and track them....