Arcade’s Journal – Winter’s Glade Continued ...found master bedroom and library. Also found what must have been the laboratory. Sadly, everything is destroyed, as if in a fit of rage. Were attacked again by goblins, but this time I Slept all of them and Grundo dispatched them. Again the bodies disappeared. After some thought, I believe that they must be summoned creatures.... ...Cadrienne seems disturbed by the need to slay the goblins. No one else seems to share her objections. I confess, her desire to spare evil creatures bent on our destruction has me baffled.... ...we found the main chamber, darkened, with rows of columns marching down either side. Although we approached with some stealth, it was to no avail. The columns blazed with light, revealing a huge room with a dais at the far end. A horribly gaunt elf dressed in black stepped towards us, plainly Sollers Vestius in the flesh. He laughed, told us that we would fall as had the others before us, and that the Lady’s Tree would never find root again. He brandished a wand and invoked the power of Imbindarla, dropping a curtain of darkness. We attacked, but he seemed invulnerable. Color Spray affected him not at all, and my thrown dagger simply bounced from his chest. He summoned a group of kobolds who engaged the fighters, and was using the wand again when it suddenly exploded (most mysteriously) leaving one shimmering blue wall behind him. Nolin attempted to distract the mage by taunting him with songs about spring, and doing a Morris dance. Vestius struck Nolin, and hurled him at Grundo, who caught him and handed the wounded bard over to Cadrienne. Grundo began to froth at the mouth once again, and struck the mage thunderous blows with warhammer and axe, causing no visible damage. Heeding the poem that we had found, I fled the room seeking a large icicle. Tom-Tom became Vestius’ next target, and was hurled against a column with some force. Calling on his berserker strength, Grundo struck again, this time knocking the mage back through the magical blue wall. As he passed through it, Vestius had not even time to scream as he fell to the ground, turned to stone. I returned with the icicle and stabbed it into Vestius’ tainted heart. It slid easily through the stone, and began to shimmer with a golden light. With this, the mage began to melt away before our eyes. The pillars and roof of the chamber started to collapse and we fled. Almost immediately, the air lost its chill....

Annotations It was many months before the party realized that Tom-Tom the rogue was a psionicist. Unbeknownst to us, he had used Soften on Vestius’ wand. Arcade spent a significant amount of time trying to calculate the odds of a wand backfiring. Being undead, and cursed to boot, Vestius could only be hit by plussed weapons (we had none) or an icicle in the right spot! ------------------------------ TomTom had indeed destroyed the wand of conjuration. If I remember correctly, it had left several magical prismatic and darkness effects standing, some of which disappeared quickly and some of which stuck around for a little while. That was a fun wand; no one knew that conjured monsters disappear upon death, so everyone thought that they were an illusion. They lost some time, and took some damage, while they tries to disbelieve the very real threat. This was also where Nolin learned that singing "fa la la la" to undead elves was bound to annoy them! I was pretty sure that the group hadn't remembered the icicle poem, and that they weren't going to be able to affect the undead. I shouldn't have worried. __________________ - Piratecat,

ars of gaming. You