Day ??, let’s call it day 10? Maybe -- Laird’s Triple-Locked Journal

I think…I’m going crazy. Do you know, necessarily, when you’re going crazy? Or is it when you’re convinced that you’re *not* crazy… that it’s totally conceivable that... oh, you just happened to bump into a 60 foot tall demon prince of the undead (who, by the way, doesn’t exist anymore)…maybe that’s the tip-off that, yes, you’re crazy.

So yes, did I mention that I went to the Shadowfell ?! And, you know, we fought and killed some demons, no big whoop, and then I was sneaking along, minding my own business, and I happened upon, um, ORCUS?! Who was standing there, not 20 feet away from me, surrounded in prayer (or something) by a vampire, a wight, and a demon? I couldn’t…believe what I was seeing, but I also wasn’t dumb enough to stick around for another heartbeat to either confirm or deny my vision.

I don’t even remember what I did next, it was like a dream…or a nightmare…I remember a lot of running and holding my breath. Then there was another ride in the bathysphere back to Malakar, I barely remember it.

It’s weird, I’ve been thinking moment-to-moment for so long now, I can’t convince my body or my brain to relax. Plus, I don’t feel like I *should*, even if I could. I don’t think the others believe me…what I saw…I don’t believe it myself. But what else could it have been?? And real or illusion, what could it mean in either case??

I swear, I never thought I’d be so happy to be trapped in an underwater Bathysphere with a re-animated dead body, a blabbermouthed and possibly psychotic alchemist, and of course the rest of the “chosen ones.” If you think about it, it seems so unlikely that the four of us could ever conceivably work together… if you take a step back for two seconds, it’s pretty funny, really…there’s me, a sarcastic and mostly useless (and possibly crazy) shoplifter, and we’ve also got a spoiled daddy’s-girl / leader of the Eladrin enthusiasm squad, a pimply-faced green suck-up, and a walking cliché of a brooding teen poet. But, work together we do…I have come to depend on Ashleigh, Saddush and Ileander to an almost inconceivable extent. I mean, I literally trust them with my life, and they’ve saved me when I thought I was a goner…more times than I can count already! It’s scary.

These last few days in particular… I honestly didn’t think I was going to make it out of that one to even WRITE in this journal! We are truly bound together now, for better or worse, to see the outcome of these sinister dreams out, for better or worse.

So we’ve come back to Malakar to see what we can uncover with our inquiries rather than our swords. We are just not powerful enough to face whatever evil is brewing in the Shadowfell. Some sort of cult or something? The lizardman who spearheaded (no pun intended, haha!) the ritual sacrifices / necromantic conversions of the halflings of Skaversmoore, we killed him, but now we see he’s just one figure in a larger plot. Some ancient evil is awakening in the tomb of the dragon emporer – some evil connected to an ancient Arushulan empire. Inside the tomb, we found a strange portal to the Shadowfell, where we saw countless evil beings wearing the same flaming-skull amulet (which I now realize is a reference to Orcus’ legendary skull-headed mace), and carrying similar scythes as our original adversary. We’ve all had dreams about a hyena man entering a mausoleum…an infant child being carried away by Jaquamule, the Eladrin poison-broker who Ashleigh and Ileander visited in Malakar.

My head spins with how all these things might connects. Actually my head just hurts. I banged it about 10 times when we were fighting these behemoths by the river…they had these mace-like tails, and they kept knocking me down, it was infuriating!! Anyway, I’d better get some rest and see if I can’t get rid of this headache. I just pray to Corellon to sleep peacefully, without dreams…or if I am to dream, let it be of frivolities of no consequence.