I must confess to you dear reader, whomever you may be, that I thought my
days as a chronicler were at an end.  The battle we have recently come
through was without doubt the most hard-fought and closely won battle I
have yet seen.
	Tis not even so much as a day after my last entry.  We pressed on into
this temple, following the dire wolves lead.  We passed through a small
room which was used for storing tack, harness and barding.  The narrow
corridor beyond that room had several branchings off of it, but the dire
wolves were intent upon their quarry and led us straight to a huge room at
the corridor's end.
	This enormous room must have at one time been a grand entrance hall or
court.  It has survived the great fire of the past better than most rooms
we have so far seen.  The floor was of close fitted and polished granite
and the frescoes on the wall were not as badly destroyed as the others we
have seen.  From what remained of them I could discern that they depicted
some great building or creature underwater.  Also I noted that the blue dye
in the fresco had had crushed topaz and lapiz in it, so that where it
remained it sparkled and shimmered.  The whole must have been a wonder to
behold.
	The mercenaries however, had put the room to a much more common use.  They
had strewn hay and rushes all about the floor and used it to stable their
horses.  Six draft horses were still tied to a post near one wall.  There
were several doors in this big room, and we feared an ambush.  The hounds
were almost frantic now.  They went straight over to a pair of enormous
brass doors, and kept saying, " Their in there!  Open the doors now wench,
we want our prey!"
	Since we were wary of ambush, we checked all the other doors in this room
first, to make sure they contained no nasty surprises.  The doors were of
course locked, and so Brianna had to fiddle with the locks a while before
they would yield.  But yield they did, and upon opening we saw that we had
discovered the store rooms of the mercenaries.  One room contained rack
after rack of weapons and several barrels of arrows, all silvered.  The
next contained boxes of hard bread, barrels of fresh water, salt and other
stuff that would be useful for surviving a long siege.
	The dire wolves had become impatient with our searching and so had gone up
the the great brass doors and begun to tug at them with their teeth, and
try to dig under them with their huge claws.   Upon discovering the portal
to be locked, they began to speak in low and menacing tones to the beings
they thought to be behind the doors.  The things those wolves whispered,
about what a feast they would have of the entrails of their prey, and about
how even the ceilings twenty feet above us would be red with the splattered
blood of our enemies, made a chilling backdrop to our searching.
	Eventually we were satisfied that no enemy could come at us from behind,
and we turned our attention to the great doors.  Merlaine said that she
could open them, as Brianna, no matter how skilled she was at picking a
lock, could do nothing about a heavy bar on the other side of the door, and
that is surely how these doors were closed and sealed.  We pulled a wagon
from a corner of the room to the center, for Merlaine to take cover behind,
for she has to be close to whatever door she opens with this spell.
Vasquez and Brianna also hid behind this wagon, which was positioned
directly in front of the doors, perhaps some twenty feet away.  To-gurrick
and Bob stood to one side of the doors while Shali and I stood near the
other side.
	As Merlaine began her incanting, the wolves crouched in front of and to
either side of the wagon, ready to hurl themselves through the doors the
instant they were open.
	They never got the chance.  As Merlaine completed her spell, we heard the
huge bar behind the doors thrown back and the doors swung open.  The wolves
threw themselves forward, and were met by a devastating hail of arrows.
These arrows were obviously silver tipped, for they slammed into the dire
wolves, killing some of them almost instantly.  So many arrows came from
beyond that their flight sounded like a great gust of wind.  Within but a
few seconds, what had been a horrid and ravening pack of nether wolves
capable of destroying a whole village, was cut down and transformed into a
stunned and yelping mass of bleeding, dying animals.  Not one wolf  that
had survived was unstunned, or had made more than two feet of forward
progress.  Then, just after the flensing arrows, a blinding ball of light
and energy slammed into Brianna, blasting away the wall of the cart she
crouched behind and stunning her.  Then their air was filled with flying
fragments and shards of ice.  This ice storm was everywhere, its razor-like
shards of ice lacerating and scourging everything in the room.   When the
storm of ice shards ceased, Bob and To-gurrick lay stunned on the floor
where they had fallen.
	After wiping the ice and blood from my eyes, a quick glance behind the
doors revealed a most unpleasant sight.  There was a corridor behind those
doors, a corridor lined with statues on pedestals and each set into its own
niche in the wall.  The far end of the corridor contained an altar, and
behind that altar stood a huge man in improved field plate armor, with a
magician to either side of him.  Between them and us, there were near to
fifteen mercenaries, crouched down behind the statues, and taking aim with
their longbows.
	I simultaneous heard Merlaine began incanting, and Shali yell "shut the
doors!"  Then another hail of arrows rained upon the direwolves, while
still more arrows drove themselves into the wagon, mere inches from
Merlaine and Vasquez.
	Then our course of action was decided, for Vasquez fired her crossbow,
hitting the celestial mage at the end of the corridor, and Merlaine
completed her spell, which covered an entire wall of the statue lined
corridor, along with most of the archers crouched near them and the air
magician at the corridors end, with a very sticky and durable pink webbing.
To-gurrick had begun to recover himself as had Brianna, Bob still lay in
the corner, unmoving.
	Our opponents commander, not wanting to lose the other half his archers to
another webbing spell, called for a charge.  His men readied their swords
and shields and charged forward.  He himself drew forth a huge two handed
sword and lumbered towards the fray. I with my great axe and To-gurrick
with his hand and a half sword surged forward to meet them.
	For a time the battle went well.  To-gurrick slew one of the mercenaries
in but two strokes, but that was sheer luck, as we would soon come to
realize.  These men had damn fine swordwork, and could take a terrific
pounding without getting stunned.   Bob eventually recovered himself and
began peppering our enemies with his short bow.  Vasquez and Brianna now
were standing on the wagon so they could fire over our heads with less
chance of accidentally striking one of us.  Every now and then I would see
one of Brianna's long arrows embed itself in an opponent or hear the chuunk
of a crossbow and the scream of a hit soldier.
	Merlaine for her part was continually chanting.  She would cause this
soldier or that to fall asleep, right in the heat of battle!  She tried
this on the commander with good effect on several occasions, but the
commander had a trustworthy shieldman who, upon seeing him hit the floor,
would go over and kick him until he awoke.
	So terrific was the carnage amongst the direwolves, that only one of them
had managed to recover its wits.  That wolf crawled to the side of the
battle and began to growl under its breath, incanting a spell!  Now I was
really nervous.
	To-gurrick and I were taking a toll amongst those who opposed us.  The
statue lined corridor was only ten or so feet wide, so but two or three of
them could face us at any one time.  We each would sweep with our weapons,
I smashing aside their shields and swords from a low angle and he, aiming
his sweeping roundhouse blows at their heads.  If it were not for the armor
of earth spell that Bob had placed upon us some few hours ago, we would
surely have died a quick death facing these men.  The fact that they were
good was brought home when To-gurrick took a solid blow to the stomach, and
went down.  The mercenaries surged forward and surrounded me, now I faced
not two but four of these killers.
	It was at that point that the few remaining dirwolves recovered
themselves, and leapt once again into the fray, for they could see, far to
the rear of the battle, the celestial mage they so badly wanted to rend
limb from limb.  The only way a direwolf attacks in combat, is by leaping
upon its foe , so instantly three of the mercenaries found themselves beset
and borne down by these hounds of hell.
	This gave us a bit of a reprieve, and Bob readied his spear and moved up
to take the place of the fallen To-gurrick, while Shali, who had been
crouched by the wagon, threw herself upon one of the mercenaries with
another one of her vaulting leaps.   Vasquez had thrown down her crossbow,
and launched another ball of fire down the corridor.  The roar and flash of
the flames were impressive, the ball of fire had nowhere near the
devastating effect of the one she had cast upon the archers and these very
same mages less than three hours ago.
	At this point, Vasquez became tired of the commander's shieldman
constantly waking him up after Merlaine put him to sleep, and so cast a
spell upon the shieldman's armor that caused the metal to heat up rapidly.
Now, this heating is not instantaneous, but it is quick enough.  Inside of
half a minute the man was thrashing on the ground, his chain armor a nice
cherry red in color and smoke pouring out of it as the padding beneath it,
and then his flesh itself, burned with the heat.  He took a long time
dying, and his shrill screams could be heard above the din of battle.
	As the shieldman began to scream in earnest, the direwolf who had been
repeatedly preparing and casting a spell, grinned with a feral glee and
said, in much less polite terms, to Merlaine, "Don't put him to sleep again
elf bitch. He's ours now."  So, Merlaine aimed the spell of sleeping at the
Air mage instead, who had just now been freed from the webbing spell as the
warriors who had been stuck to the wall had been very long about dropping
their bows and preparing a weapon which could cut the webbing.  But now the
webbing was cut, and the other half of the soldiers were unleashed,
charging forward, swords at the ready.  Fortunately, Merlaine is getting
good at this spell, and the air mage decided to take a nap behind the
altar.
	And then the meaning of the direwolves words became clear.  For the
commander in plate, who had been lumbering toward the battle and bellowing
orders to his men, slowly turned and walked back toward the altar.  He
moved hesitantly, as if wounded or confused.  When he got back near the
altar, he bellowed an order for the Celestial mage, Meeshena, to come to
his side.  A good soldier, she did as commanded and emerged from the
shadows where she had hidden herself behind one of the statues.  The look
of utter shock on her face as her own commander slashed his two handed
sword across her stomach was glorious to behold.  She died with that
stroke, and the direwolves howled in glee, filling the already noisy
corridor with their nerve shattering  chorus.  I never thought I'd be glad
of hearing that unearthly howling, but I was, for it momentarily drowned
out the screams of the man roasting in his own armor.
	The men beset by the wolves were prepared for such an occurrence, for when
attacked, they each drew forth a silvered dagger, and continued to fight
against the wolves.  So wounded were our lupine conscripts, that it took
but one or two strokes of these daggers to finish them off.  After but a
few seconds more of battle, only two wolves remained, one combating a
mercenary, and the spell caster who was grinning as he mentally controlled
the plate armored man to walk back and kill the air mage where he slept.
	Now, while all this was transpiring, the men who had been freed from the
webbing spell had formed up a shield wall, two men in front with their kite
shields held forward, while behind them three archers had readied their
bows.  Vasquez and Brianna fired upon these men, with little effect.  The
archers now fired at Brianna, hitting her badly.
	I meanwhile, found myself surrounded by a morass of direwolves and
thrashing men in armor.  There was but one man still standing next to me
now, and we continued to cross blades for some time.  His shieldwork was
exemplary, so I rarely got in a hit.  He got past my guard every now and
again, but my armor turned aside all but his most powerful blows.
Eventually the greater hitting power of my axe prevailed, and this fine
warrior rolled his eyes and toppled at my feet in a heap.  Around me, the
mercenaries and direwolves continued to fight on with the mercenaries
getting the better of the wolves.  Already one or two of the warriors who
had slain their lupine attackers were getting to their feet.  These took
much less time to dispatch than my former opponent, as these men had
already been mauled by the direwolves, and were at a disadvantage, having
to get up from the floor and prepare their swords that had been dropped.

 	High on the list of things not to forget during the heat of combat my
friend, is a row of archers.  It could save your life someday.  It was only
as my last close opponent went down; well, actually, he never got the
chance to stand up, that I noticed the arrows flying past me on their way
to Brianna and Vasquez.  None struck home in that volley, but that could
not be allowed to continue. I sheathed my great axe and prepared and
launched my battle axes towards the archers, wounding one badly, just as
they launched their next flight of arrows at Brianna. This time she was not
so lucky, and was most sorely wounded.  I thought for sure that we were
doomed as I saw her unconscious body topple from the arrow studded wagon.
	And sure enough, the instant Brianna lost consciousness, the  two
remaining direwolves set to howling in unholy glee yet again.  Dropping
what they were doing, they made straight for Brianna's body, intent on
finishing her off.
	It was by the sheerest luck that Bob was close enough to intercept one
with his silver spear.  The other wolf however, achieved Brianna's
unconscious body and grabbed her in its jaws and began to shake her
violently.  Of my two remaining axes, I used only the silvered as I engaged
the sole remaining direwolf.  The gods of battle and luck were with me, for
the axe hit the wolf square with the first blow, and ended its existence on
this plane.  I could spare but a glance for Brianna, who did not look dead,
at least to my much distracted eye.  I also noticed Merlaine was near to
overcome with all the death and dying around her, and was ashen faced and
shaking, clutching her silver scimitar for dear life and staying out of
harms way as best she could.
	The commander in plate, freed from the wolves mental control, realized
what he had done, and screamed a curse to rival that of the wolves.  He
then stripped off one of his steel gauntlets and removed a ring from the
body of the air magician he had slain.  With a speed surprising for one so
heavily armored he charged toward us once again.  I had a bad feeling about
this, as did Bob and Vasquez it would seem.  Vasquez fired her crossbow,
killing one of the shieldwall men, then she dropped that weapon to began a
spell.   Bob, figuring what she intended, ran forward.  I had an idea what
might be up, and knew that the next move of the archers that had taken out
Brianna would be to do the same to Vasquez.  I threw an axe at the missile
troops and then charged.
	I did not have time to prepare my hand axes, I simply charged the
remaining shield man, figuring that if I bashed his head against the stone
floor enough he would eventually stop fighting, and even if he didn't, my
hands around his throat would be enough of a distraction that he could not
prevent Bob, or whoever, from getting close enough to combat the archers
with sword and shield, thus forcing them to do the same, and spare Vasquez.
Much to my delight, Bob and Shali engaged the remaining archers, and made
fairly quick work of them.  My man was another story, he gamely drew his
daggers and met my charge.  We rolled around on the floor for some time, me
pounding on his helmet with my fists and he pounding on my armor with his
dagger.
	During the time all this was going on, Vasquez had obviously managed to
get off another spell of heating metal, for in the quick glances I got of
the battle surrounding me, I could see a warm cherry glow just starting on
the commander's breastplate.  Now this commander had obviously fought spell
casters before, and knew that the only way he would avoid the fate of his
shieldman, was to kill that spells caster, Vasquez.  Once he realized this,
his next move was to raise his fist, the one with the ring he had removed
from the slain mage.  From that ring came a bolt of lightning, as hot and
brilliant as those produced in the summers worst thunderstorms.  That bolt
of lighting struck Vasquez, shattering what remained of the wagon wall to
flinders and throwing Vasquez over the side of the now destroyed cart,
where she lay unmoving on the floor.
	Distracted by the crackling of lightning, I let my guard down for an
instant, and my opponent did not miss the chance, but rammed his dagger
home between two plates of my armor, straight into my elbow.  So forceful
was his blow that the blade of his weapon shattered, leaving bits of itself
embedded in my joint.  I realized now that we would be reduced to slamming
each others heads into the floor to decide the outcome of this fight, which
would take a very long time.  My opponent seemed to have better things to
do as well, so I pushed him off and rolled away, and he let me.
	Vasquez had recovered from the stunning force of the lightning, and
scooted back away, out of range of a second bolt.  Bob and Shali were
standing in the commanders path, refusing to let him get closer.  Bob was
barring the commander's way, while Shali engaged the blades of another
mercenary who had become shieldman to the their leader.  The commander let
loose with another bolt of lightning, this one striking Bob square in the
chest and throwing him to the floor.  These bolts must have a certain
distance that they travel before they expire, for Bob was much closer to
the commander that Vasquez had been, and the bolt bounced.  The lighting
sprang from Bob and struck Shali, scorching her badly, and the it went on
to strike the shieldman, sending him flying into the wall.
	Seeing an opportunity, I rolled a bit more, until I fetched up behind the
commander.  I had intended to use my great axe, but since every movement of
my left arm caused the most excruciating pain, I grabbed one of my battle
axes, which lay near me on the floor from when I had tossed at at the now
deceased archers.
	Just as I stood up, as quietly as I could, I saw Bob take a blow from the
commander's massive sword.  The force of the blow threw Bob back against
the wall, and great gouts of his blood reddened the walls.  Bob slumped to
the floor, unmoving.
	With a yell I brought my axe down upon the commanders back, and succeeded
only in denting his armor.  The commander desperately wanted to move
forward, to get within range of Vasquez, who had picked up her crossbow
again, and so spent his energy assailing Shali with a series of blows from
his sword.  His shieldman too assailed Shali, while I beat against the
commanders armor with my battle axe, to very little effect.  Shali parried
a blow by the shieldman, but when she spun his sword away, her main-gauch
went with it.  Still , she continued to  evade and parry the commanders
blows, allowing him no nearer Vasquez.
	Now, by this time the commander's breastplate was a fiery red color, and
smoke was leaking our from under his armor; he had to be in excruciating
pain, yet still he fought on.  Desperation made him careless, for he
launched yet another bolt of lightning at Shali.  The last thing I remember
seeing is Shali blown nearly to pieces with the force of the bolt, and the
bolt arcing back to the commander, and then to his shieldman, whom it
killed instantly and threw against a far wall, and finally the bolt fetched
up against me.  The last I saw of this battle was the searing white flash
as the lightning struck me, and then that all too familiar darkness.
	The rest of this account, was told to me by Merlaine.  Seeing all of her
party but Vasquez down, she crept gamely forth, scimitar in hand, prepared
to do whatever needed doing, even though she was barely capable of
standing, or holding down her meager breakfast.  The commander was really
suffering, his flesh charring and a continuous gurgling scream issued from
his throat as he lurched forward, toward Vasquez.  For her part, our
doughty Fire mage backed up, and kept the remains of the cart between her
and the commander as best she could.  Merlaine kept close to the sole
remaining mercenary, who, for his part, could not seem to decide if he
should fight on, and perhaps be next to roast in his own armor, or
surrender, or just plain run away.  This indecisive mercenary watched the
battle, and Merlaine watched him, ready to engage him if even made so much
as a move towards Vasquez.
	The battle ended as the commander, realizing he was going to die, and his
throat burned too badly by the steel collar piece on his breastplate to
utter whatever command word is needed to activate the lightning ring, threw
his battle axe at Vasquez, who did not dodge out of the way fast enough and
took the spinning blade on her arm.  Seeing his commander go down in great
boiling gouts of his own blood, the remaining soldier immediately
surrendered to Merlaine.
	Our Elven healer could barely tell the man to drop his weapons, so
clenched were her teeth to keep her bile down.  She had to wait a few
minutes for the waves of nausea to pass, and during that time Vasquez
recovered from the axe blow, and the trollskin spell Bob had had upon
himself brought him around.
	The rest of the wounded, myself included, had to wait.  No one had any
energy left for anything like healing or spellwork.  Bob had to raid the
larder of the mercenaries, and build a fire in their used firepit, so that
he could make a hot meal, and Merlaine could brew her tea.  Vasquez and
Merlaine saw that the captive was disarmed and stripped of his armor, and
well secured.  Only after they had had a chance to rest themselves could
the work of patching up in the aftermath of the carnage begin in earnest.
	It took Bob some while to heal himself to the point where he had energy to
spare for others, and Merlaine likewise needed much rest before she was
able to be about her business.   But now, thanks to their tending, and to
Bob's trollskin spells, we are all at least conscious, if not in fighting
trim.  It was quite a job for Merlaine to remove the splinters of dagger
blade from my joint, but with her soothing of pain and great skill as a
physician, my joint is now well on the way to being whole and hale once
again.  I wish I could say the same for my armor.  It has taken a terrific
beating of late, and now is only little better than leather, what with the
mashed-in helmet and now the battered joining in the arm.  But my leather
armor is back with our pack animals, and I am not about to go back and
retrieve it.
	Even our orcish warrior To-gurrick seems silenced by the carnage that
surrounds us, which is fine by me, as I do not know if I could tolerate his
boastings and bragging for long this eve.
	It took us a great many hours to clean up, even somewhat, the remains of
our handiwork.  Even though we live, our bodies are bruises and cuts all
over, and there is not a muscle amongst us that does not ache like the
fires of perdition.  But pain or no, there was still work to be done.  All
the soldiers had to be stripped and searched, and then their bodies moved
out into the large room with the hay and the horses.  The entire hallway is
covered in blood, which is no longer slick and liquid, but beginning to
congeal into a sticky brownish morass.  We of course retrieved the ring
from the charred body of the commander, along with a most wonderfully
crafted mace of silvered steel from the body of the Celestial mage.  Both
the Air and Celestial mages  carried a pair of wonderfully crafted copper
vials, with tightly fitting lids and clay lining inside.  These we suspect
of holding potions of a magical nature, and upon examining their aura,
Shali tells us that they are indeed magical.  Later will we try to discern
their exact use.  If I had a score of seeing runes with me, this would not
be a problem.  But alas, the lack of time before we left Nvym-Dar has
insured that I have none, nor do I have the energy or time to fashion them
now.  Bob is the only one amongst us who knows the use of a mace, and so we
gave him the silvered mace from the Celestial mage.  After examining it,
Shali detected an aura of Necromantic magic about it, and so now Bob is
much less thrilled to have it in its possession.
	Once all the bodies were removed, we set up a small space for ourselves
near the altar at the far end of the room, where there is only a small
amount of blood on the floor.
	Almost every statue was either damaged or upset in our fighting.  They are
oddly beautiful things these statues.  Of no recognizable form or figure
are they, yet it is obvious that they are crafted with the most loving of
care.  They are cut from semi-precious stone, rose quartz and lapis being
common, with some small flecks of opal or jet.  The smoothly flowing shapes
emphasize veins of stone still in them, or highlight the subtle shadings of
the stones themselves.
	Time later to puzzle about the potions and the statues. What we need now
is sleep.  We have had two  fierce and extended battles within a single
day, and we are spent.  Our captive seems to think that his employers, whom
he refers to as " the old men" are going to kill him for failing in his
mission.  His rantings are disturbing, for he goes on and on about how the
"old man" knows everything, and can see inside a persons heart, and can
kill with but a glance, or even kill a person at a great distance.
Tomorrow, when we have the strength, we shall question our captive more
thoroughly.   But for tonight, we must secure our surroundings.
	During our clean up efforts, Brianna detected what she thinks might be a
secret door behind the altar.  Now, we know from Marquessa's description
that the altar itself is a secret door, and Brianna confirms that the altar
does indeed show signs of having been slid back, recently.
	We do not want, nor could we probably survive, any surprises.  So, I have
used the energy I stored in my runewand a mere few hours ago, to activate
the three runes of Locking I have painted.  One rune I painted over the
main double brass doors, one over the altar, and one at the place on the
wall where Bri says there is a door, although I must confess I see no trace
of one.
	And so now, we sleep.  Of course we will stand watch as usual, each in our
turn, in pairs.  So now I will cease writing, and start sleeping, for my
watch is the middle one, and I am truly as exhausted as I can ever remember
being.



				                             By My Exhausted and Bloodied Hand,
            		                   	This is still, and the Very Bloody 14 th
Day of Juno
				                             The Year of Our Lady 540.


						                                                  Drashak Khea Milari