Once again, time to set quill to parchment.  But where to begin?   Well,
perhaps at the ruins where my last entry left off then.  Vasquez recovered
from her bout of the wasting sickness, and gladly redid all her spells upon
us which make us immune to the effects of normal fires, as those spell had
worn off somewhere during our river journey.  Bob also began casting his
lesser enchantment on those of us he'd had not yet done so on.  He is now
adept enough in that spell that it lasts for a quarter of the entire year!
We also spent the better part of the day searching the ruins, to see if we
could determine if this was indeed the village Marquessa had once inhabited
or no.  Our searches turned up some healer's herb garden long since gone
wild, but there were a few salvageable herbs still to be had.  We harvested
some sage and valerian and others of some use.  Merlaine put these at the
top of her bag, as we had no alchemist to powder them, thus they will lose
their effectiveness rapidly.  Of course, now we do have an alchemist, of a
fashion, but I'll get to that soon enough.  By our estimate, we were still
short of where Marquessa's former village should be, and so the next day we
pressed on, following the river.  We were headed for a large hill a day or
so ride away, from the top of which we could get a good look at this land.
We did not make it that day, but camped instead upon a smaller rise a few
miles from our destination.
	It was first watch, mine and Vasquez's, and we were conversing in low
tones when she signaled for silence.  A moment later, I heard it as well, a
tree breaking in the not so distant distance, no mere twig snapping, but a
tree being bent then broken.  Just as I was about to call out the alarm,
there came the most horrible bellow from the forest.  So loud and low was
this roar that it made my insides feel like pudding.  Then the ground
itself started to move as the author of the dreadful sound started toward
our position.  So thunderous were its footfalls that our party was pelted
with young acorns shaken loose from the trees.
	Since no wake up call was needed, this thing had done an admirable job of
alerting us to its presence, I hefted my axe and stood at the perimeter of
the firelight, waiting for our foe.  Nor did I have long to wait; in but a
few seconds my fears were confirmed as a monstrous troll emerged from the
darkness.  Fully fifteen feet in height, his skin so thick it looked more
like the bark of a tree than skin, and claws that were easily the length of
Merlaine's scimitar.  The remains of dead animals hung from his huge teeth,
giving the beast an odor most foul.   But the most dreadful point of this
monster, was that it carried in its right hand a sword.  This troll wielded
a two handed sword in one hand as if it were nothing but a dagger or
shortsword!  My one thought as I prepared for battle was.."this is going to
hurt."
	Shali and I exchanged brief glances, that confirmed that she was as
surprised as I that this beast had a sword.  But no slouch she, she had
been sizing up the situation from the moment she was awake.  She yelled to
us that trolls are susceptible to fire, but hate any who use it and will
attack them at once, but this may not be a troll, as trolls can't use
weapons.
	Vedrosh launched a javelin at it, but the shot flew wide, and Vasquez who
was to my left unleashed a bolt of flame at it, which struck the creature.
Then, with another thunderous roar, that we could now make out as the word
"hurt" it was upon us.  It of course, went straight for Vasquez, and even
though it hit her only a glancing blow, the impact of that sword sent her
spinning into the tree and stunned her.  The troll missed me with its free
hand.  Vedrosh launched more javelins, which hit home, and the troll,
seeing Vasquez was not moving, lit into me, its claws raking me badly.  I
evaded with my axe, hoping to keep that terrible sword from me, and hoping
the party would come up with something, in a hurry.  Nor was my faith
misplaced.  Shortly after that, Vasquez regained her senses, and then I saw
Brianna run up behind me and loft something at the troll.  It was one of
the barrels of oil that Shali had had made back in Nvym-Dar.  The tun had
been opened, and Brianna's toss was good, and oil splashed all down the
front and thighs of our foe.
	Shali, who had been running just behind Brianna, with another keg of oil
and a flaming brand from the fire, lofted her torch at the troll, but
missed.  Merlaine had not been idle either, for just as the lofted keg fell
to the ground, a large mass of pink webbing flew from the darkness and
wrapped itself around the troll, entangling him, arms, sword and all, in
its mass.  A loud victory whoop from Merlaine indicated to me that it was
her that had cast the spell.  Then Vedrosh, in an act that makes me think
there may be some berserker blood in his family, grabbed up two flaming
sticks from our fire, and launched himself at the troll, he literally dived
upon it as if he were in a wrestling match!  One of the brands touched the
oil, and with a whoosh, the troll lit up like a solstice eve bonfire!
	Well, now that the beast was alight and entangled, we all laid too with
gusto, hacking and hewing at the thing with weapons, and Vasquez casting
flame bolts.  The thing screamed and bellowed that same word, "hurt" again
and again as it tried to free itself from Merlaine's sticky spell.  Shali,
not trusting one barrel of oil to do the job, doused it with the second,
and last, barrel of oil her dogs had carried.  Then she lofted a brand at
that patch as well, but missed yet again.  I could hear Merlaine running up
behind me, scimitar drawn, as she loves a good fight.
	Just then, the monster broke free, with a bellow of rage it rent the
shrouds entangling it, which dissipated like mist once they were broken.
With a gleeful roar of "hurt" , it laid about it, striking myself a solid
hit, and missing Brianna.  Vedrosh had long since withdrawn from where he
had landed on the things foot, and was running to the fire for more brands.
Bob was repeatedly stabbing the thing in the leg with his spear, enraging
the monster even further.  Realizing that Shali was out of burning sticks,
and that Vedrosh was still some moments away, I dropped my axe and prepared
my runewand.  Behind me I heard Merlaine almost stumble, so quickly did she
stop, and then start a spell preparation.
	Did you realize my friend, that it is very hard to concentrate on opening
ones chakras, and then to channel and control the subtle energies of mana
when there is a twenty ton enraged bonfire in front of you doing its best
to step on you and separate your head from your shoulders with a blade
almost twice as long as you are high?  Well, take my word for it, it is.
But concentrate I did, and in a few seconds I hurled a pyrogenesis spell at
the still unlit oil slick that Shali had sloshed on the beast.  The spell
took, and with another thunderous "whoosh!" so did the oil.  The monster's
screams had reached truly deafening proportions, when they were silenced by
an enormous wad of pink webbing that wrapped itself about the troll's head
and arms, and thankfully, filled its mouth, thereby somewhat muffling its
screams.  Then those of us with weapons began hewing at the thing again,
and those of us that had torches, threw them at the troll.  Eventually, the
beasts screams subsided and he fell over, where upon we threw our entire
nights supply of wood upon it, and then went  to cut more.
	It took until well into the third watch for the fire to burn low.  We had
to dissuade Bob from cutting an ear from the troll and stringing it upon
the necklace of "trophies" he keeps.  We told him that even if he were
willing to fight a fresh new troll every half hour or so, we weren't.
	Bob was somewhat miffed, but agreed.  He then spied a shiny bracelet the
troll had about it charred wrist.  I can only surmise that the beast's
flesh must have regenerated over the thing until it was well buried within
the troll.  Bob reached into the inferno to grab the jewelry before it
melted.  Once he drew the object forth, his gaze went blank and he stood,
staring at nothing for several minutes, only occasionally muttering the
phrase "oh my god," while drool began to run down his chin.  Shali began to
focus on Bob, trying to read his aura.   I, being a bit more direct in
nature, slipped my axe handle under the piece of jewelry, pried it from his
grasp and gently set it on the ground.  It was a mass of gold and silver
bracelets, necklaces, rings and pins that the troll had squashed together
to make one big shiny bracelet.  Buried in amongst all the twisted wire and
filigree was one of the largest rubies I have ever seen!  Bob then spoke
calmly said "I'll loan that thing to you to look at, but it is still mine."
	We were all a bit taken aback by this, as it defies the rules our party
has about splitting up of treasure, but we let it lie for now.  Drawing
forth my runewand I detected the aura of the thing, and sure enough, there
was an intense aura of shaping magic around that particularly large ruby.
Shali, who had just finished her examination of Bob's aura, informed us
that there was a thin thread of Bob's aura that was drawn out and connected
to the ruby.  We all looked at Bob for an explanation.
	Bob told us that the second he had picked up the thing, he had just known
that there was a soul trapped within the ruby.  Furthermore, he knew what
the soul in the gem knew, all the skills, spells, memories...everything.
But he also somehow "knew" that such an intense contact would burn out his
mind in short order.  He told us that he had known that he had to pick just
one of the skills and talents of the soul trapped in the gem.  And the
skill or spell or talent he picked would be his to use and know so long as
the gem was in his possession.  Bob told us that the person in the stone
was an alchemist of a high degree of skill, and so now,  was Bob, as that
was the skill he had chosen.  So now Bob says, whenever he wishes, he can
access this soul-in-the-gem and use its knowledge of alchemy.
	We were all taken a bit aback by this of course, and asked Bob more
concerning this gem and the soul in it.  Bob said that now that he had
chosen the skill, the knowledge of whatever else this person knows is
fading.  But Bob recited off some of the things he could have known.
Included in them were Astrologer, broadsword, and then the names of a bunch
of rituals which had us all standing around with our mouths agape.  Bob
named the ritual of summoning Incubi, the ritual of summoning the demonic
Marquis Andrealphus, the demonic Marquis Shaz..and many others.
	So, it seems as if the soul of a greater summoner is trapped within this
gem!  Bob said that the summoner knew how to use the broadsword, and that
is the skill the troll most probably picked when it came in contact with
the item, and to a troll, a two handed sword is about the size of a
broadsword to a human.
	So, that mystery is explained.  We spent a good many hours asking Bob
questions and detecting auras and wracking our brains for any lore any of
us had concerning such magics.  We came up with nothing.  Shali suspects
that such magic, powerful as it is, is probably not 'clean' magics.  So,
with nothing left to do, we went back to our watches.  The thought weighs
heavy on all our minds however; if Bob can access the soul in the gem, can
that soul access him?  And if so, how much power does it/will it have?
For now, we are joyous that we survived the encounter with the troll with
so few injuries, but we shall be keeping a very close watch on Bob these
next few weeks I am sure.

	A day or so later we reached the top of the hill we had been traveling
towards.  We had been hoping to get a view of the surrounding country from
this, by far the highest point in sight.  But, during the night, rain set
in, so that when day broke we could not see thirty feet, let alone thirty
miles.  So, we waited.  Two days did it rain.  I spent the time carving new
runesticks and practicing with the great axe, oiling and cleaning my
weapons and suchlike.  The rest of the party spent their time similarly.
On the third day the rain broke, and we could see the land around us for
maybe a hundred miles.  Endless forest is what we saw.  We surmise that
there should be a clearing or somesuch at the site where Marquessa's
village once stood, as a village needs fields to grow grain and pastures to
graze the sheep; she did say that hers was a village of weavers.  Within
our sight we can see several clearing, and so marked them and their
locations, and resolved that on the morrow, we should start inspecting
them.

	An entire week have we spent now, looking at clearing after clearing.  It
has not been a hard task, only a frustrating one.  Tensions have grown
amongst us as we feel the days gained on the ship voyage slipping away from
us.  The riding is easy and game so plentiful that we have not had to use
our rations at all.  I fly my eagle daily as we travel, and he provides us
with hare and the occasional small deer.  Bob and I also hunt, and gather
herbs when we stop for camp.  These have been some of the more pleasant
days I remember having in quite a while.
	Bob has not shown any changes in his behavior, except that every now and
then he will stop and exclaim at some herbs or minerals he sees.  He often
will say things such as " You know, If I had a lab, I could make a flying
potion from these!" or "These are deadly poison, but if you mix valerian
with snakeroot, that will counter this toxin in seconds! "  We have begun
to relax a bit about Bob and his new found knowledge, so far, it seem to be
a one way link that he has.  Bob can draw on the alchemical knowledge of
the soul in the gem, but it does not seem to be able to affect him in any
way, and for this we are thankful.  Still, we shall not lower our
watchfulness of him too much.
	  We found one clearing that had the remains of a village in it, but there
was nothing about the ruins to indicate weather it was Marquessa's village
or no.  We think we are in the right area, but it is so hard to tell.  When
Marquessa ran through the woods after her escape, she had very little
woodlore, and so her estimate of the distances may be greatly in error.
Most of our party has some woodcraft knowledge about them, and we all agree
that we are in the area Marquessa described to us.  I find it disturbing
that we have encountered the ruins of several villages, yet not the one we
seek.  How many more villages lie in ruins out here?  Places that were once
thriving communities where people grew grain, harvested it, brewed mead and
ale, laughed, sang drank and loved... now gone.  How many such places were
here until the predatory orcs came and hauled their inhabitants to an
unknown, but most probably joyless fate?  I have a bad feeling it is a
great many more than we shall ever know.  These past days have assured me
that our course is a right one.  Whether they work for Dolgenen or no,
these orcs must be stopped.

	Day the next:  At last, we think we have found the remains of Marquessa's
village!  As usual, we camped on the top of a hill and come morning,
scouted the land for clearings, of which we marked three.  The first one
was too small, so we did not look at it.  The second one looked more
promising, but was a ways off, so we made for it straight away, figuring to
check on the third tomorrow.  We reached the edge of the clearing in the
evening and decided to make camp.  Then we got an unpleasant surprise.
Brianna, who is somewhat of an astrologer and so keeps her ephemeris handy,
said she had noticed an odd configuration of the stars, and so gone to look
up this date in her ephemeris.  And she had discovered that this very night
is a High Holy Night of the Powers of Darkness! It is called the Night of
Vengeance, and it is said that all those who have died in wars rise up from
their graves and search the land for those who slew them.  Rumors abound
that if a black magician raises the dead on this night, on the sight of a
battle, he will get ten times the number of risen dead that he would
usually get, as they are eager to answer the call.
	Our camp on the edge of the clearing was an uneasy one.  None of us slept
and we all stood watch through the night.  In the distance, off in the
clearing, we could see some lights moving about, and hear vague cries.  The
lights and cries went on for several hours, but never could we get a good
enough look to determine what they were.  The lights and sounds vanished as
abruptly as they had arrived, and we were all of us very glad to greet the
dawn.
	Our searches turned up evidence of a village having been here once.  Also,
we found the bones of some sheep in a nearby clearing, and the burnt ruins
of what  may have been a shepherd's hut.  Not much remains, and what does
is weed grown and rotted.  Some of the wood we found might have been parts
of a loom at one time, it might also however, have been the parts of a
wagon or even a saw mill.  But, the ruins are in the right area, and they
look as if they have been abandoned for about the right length of time, and
we have found evidence that they had wool here.  We agreed that given the
state of things in this area, this was about the best evidence that we were
likely to get, meager tho it was.  So, we decided to assume that this was
the site of Marquessa's village, and proceed on that assumption.  We spent
the day searching the ruins, and came up with nothing more.  Given the
events of last night, and the we knew none of us could go another night
without sleep, we got well away from the clearing before we set camp.

	Week the next:  Marquessa said that the orcs encampment was 75 miles
north-west of her village, and so it was in that direction we traveled.
The traveling was as easy as before, and within very few days we found
ourselves in a valley that once was home to a river of some size.  The
river is long gone now, most probably having worn through the earth until
it found a cavern and then disappeared into that.  The valley is flanked by
two fairly steep ridges which are difficult for horses to navigate.  By our
estimates of the rate at which the valley is narrowing, and at which the
land is climbing, the head of the now vanished river is almost exactly
where we imagine the orcs encampment to be... now fancy that.
	This day, our third in the valley, we have come across signs of humanoid
activity in the area, and on a somewhat large scale.  We saw the stumps of
several large trees, and on examining them, it was obvious that they had
been felled by an axe, and within the past three months.  We also came
across the remains of areas where the felled trees must have been dragged
over the ground.  Such activity leaves traces, hard to see unless you know
what to look for, but they are there.  So, since trees are plentiful in the
area, who ever cut these did not have to go far to find them.
	It was decided that we were probably within five miles of the orcs.  It
was generally agreed that this would make a good forward observation post,
but that our main camp should be some days travel farther removed from the
orcs.  So I drew out two of my portal runesticks and hid them on the ground
near trees where they would not be seen, unless a person was looking for
them.  Then I cast the portal spell upon them.  I had to try three times,
for on my first attempt I gave myself such a blinding headache as I have
not known since I was an apprentice.  I could not function at all until
Merlaine had spent the better half of an hour soothing the pain I had
caused myself, and making sure it would not return.  I then tried again and
managed much better.
	Having done that, we traveled back down the valley for the rest of that
day, and well into the next, putting well over twenty miles between us and
the orcs.  There we made our camp.  We made it up on a side of the valley,
and took much time in its making to disguise it and make sure it was not
visible to anyone who did not know where it was.  I then drew out the mates
to the two runesticks I had left up valley, and cast the portal spell on
them.  It is a good thing I left two sticks, as my first attempt at the
spell failed.  The second try however, worked well, and so now we have an
instant way to get from our main camp to our observation site.  Tomorrow I
will tighten the security of the portals somewhat by putting into play a
trick one of the Masters of the Collage taught me during my last visit.  If
you cast a ward about a portal runestick, and weave into the ward the
special knowledge counterspell to Runemagicks, then you can, by setting the
ward to activate exactly two seconds after a being other than you or a
party member uses the portal rune, create an almost undetectable, and
instantly deadly trap, which kills the first enemy to use the portal, and
closes it to any further enemies that might be there.  The Masters are not
called Masters for no reason.  Tomorrow shall I spend the day making such
wardings, and perhaps one about our camp as well.
	But tomorrow is tomorrow, and tonight I am tired and have the first watch
so now must go.

                         By my hand, this 2nd day of Juno
                            The Year of Our Lady 540.
                                                  Drashak Khea Malari