I am starting this journal because I have just found out that I am to leave in a fortnight.  My father is mildly perturbed by the timing as my training is almost complete and he says the distraction of such an upheaval will slow my training.  However, when the council of elders of house Brightleaf says go from this isle and help to re-establish our presence on the main land then you go, for they are far wiser than we of so few years.  Elusor, my father has told me to take this time to look around and write down what I see around me so that I will never forget my home.   The isle is a beautiful place; I am struck with the thought as I put quill to parchment that I cannot even begin to imagine the wonders I shall see.
        The first thing I wish to commit to the open page is the sky. it is the brightest and second most perfect shade of blue I have ever seen; no tapestry, no painting, and few illusions can equal this in the pure beauty of shade.  The wisps of clouds that are drawn across the sky by the ebb and pull of the wind enhance the sky.  The gossamer of the clouds by its concealment that does not conceal is like lady's private garments that make her only more alluring because not all is revealed, but conceal nothing.  If only I had the craft in me to make garments that do this a tenth so well as the clouds then I would perhaps be the most sought out tailor by women on this entire isle.  The sky, were it not beautiful enough, is filled with birds of all hues and sizes like living jewels wrought of pure rainbow flames that streak and intertwine.  The sky even has beauty in death when you watch a one bird come down and pluck another out of the air.  The sky at night is the deepest black; this black is so thick and palpable that You'd swear you could cut it with a knife.  It scares some of the younger children but it is so beautiful.  Then there are the stars, pin pricks of light; there are among the little white lights, scattered bright points of blue and red and green violet orange yellow and other colors for which I have never heard a name it is beyond all description.  If the clouds are like the gossamer of a woman's garments then the stars are infinitely more so to the night sky.  If the clouds of day are like gossamer, then the clouds of night are akin to veils of the finest silks.  On nights of the full moon, it is a light unlike all others: a perfect sliver-white with hints of gray and black that give it depth and texture.  I wonder what the foreign skies are like, I am certain they will be all together as beautiful as our own.
        I said that the blue of the sky is the second most beautiful blue; the first is that of the sea.  To its grandeur and splendor only the blue of the sky can be compared with out profanity.  The sea is both the most deep crystal blue, and the clearest, most transparent.  I can not imagine that this is so with out magic, but I can think of no mage in all the tales with a heart so pure and a power so grand.  Perhaps the gods created this beauty just for us, their chosen children to appreciate them and to know their glory.  The sea is not, however, without its own jewelry.   As its crystal, still blueness surpasses the hues of the sky, more grand than the birds are the schools of fish, like living silver or fires of all colors that dart and weave in and out, then scatter, then reform; it is absolutely breathtaking. The corals in all shapes and sizes where life teems are like rivulets of color, as though there was a plane of orange or of violet or green and a little gate had been opened and called a reef.  While the sea is splendid during the day it is sultry at night, the blue is the darkest, most impassible blue imaginable, and the creatures of the sea give the slightest hint of the depths beneath with a flash of blue or an explosion of silvery light.  If this were not enough the sky is reflected in all its glory on the rippling surface of the water.  The light of the moon, rather than being a mere reflection, is alive in it's own unique way; the ever-moving surface of the water never reveals the moon quite the same way twice, but rather it changes from moment to moment.  It is like the beating of the heart of some beautiful and unknowable goddess.
        Perhaps more beautiful than either sky or sea is the meeting of the two; When the sun sets it is the most fabulous great red and golden disk, sinking into a violet sea below a sky that looks as though some mad painter has had his way with it, with brush and pallet.  The setting of the sun is, however, nothing but a pitiable mockery of that celestial body's ascent into the sky, that we call sunrise.  First, the whole of the world becomes light; as the darkness of night is slowly pulled back the whole of the world seems gray and without color.  Then the first hint of violet touches the clouds that lie, still and voluminous, on the horizon.  Then the first golden rays break past the horizon and touch the beach, the forest, and the clouds.  As the first rays of gold touch the world it is like some miasma is washed from our eyes, and the world not only comes into focus, but also comes to life as the colors return to this gray realm.  Next, the sun comes so that it and its reflection make a disk.  The sky and sea turn all shades of blue, violet, crimson, orange, gold, green, and rich earthy browns that melt between red and gold as the still-black sky begins to become light.  If there is a hue not seen, I would challenge any painter in the whole of the world to prove me wrong.  Then is the part that can make a grown man weep, as the sun creeps fully into the sky, and just touches its reflection on the sea.  When the world finally begins to stir and the birds take to flight, the fish in the sea can be seen as brilliant flashes of light and color when a school comes near the surface and is seen or reflects the light of two suns on their silver scales.  As the sun slowly rises, the world is transformed from that of dawn's first light to the world of day, with its blue sky and sea, its utterly deep green forest, and with gossamer clouds and wave- tips.
        By day, the forests are grand, full of the rich greens and browns of plants, with a few spots of white as a whitewood tree is causally glimpsed, and all colors of fruit hang from the trees.  By night, the forest is a mysterious place filled with shadowy forms and half-imagined noises.  The forest is, in short, a forest just as it should be; I can see no other way for a forest to be but to be rich and full of all manner of trees and flowers and shrubs — and trees that are like great shrubs and shrubs that are like little trees and trees that flower.  What I have been told, that I do not quite find real, is that in the outside world people live in opposition to nature.  To think that there should be a clear line between the cultivated and natural worlds seems somehow wrong.  If you need wheat then by all means plant a clearing with wheat, if you need berries then plant a berry patch perhaps between some forest and a field of wheat.  If you need a place to live build around and between the trees; Or, like my great grandfather, use a few spells to make the trees grow as you wish them to, maybe even weave the living, growing branches together to be as thatch for your roof.  I can see some degree of molding by hand.  After all a smooth and level floor is important, and natural outcrops of rock should be worked to create a floor and maybe some wall as well.
        I will miss my home and my friends.  I shall miss terribly the hearth, around which my mother, Lena, told me and my sister and our friends stories of the gods and goddesses; my grandmother's loom, where I would sit for hours on end, going over my lessons; my grandfather's sewing rooms, where I have spent many a session learning his fine craft of needle and thread.  I shall miss our fine home and the deep forest where my father and I often would walk while he would instruct me not just in my lessons but also in some of the finer points of nature.

        Today is the last day before we and twelve other families leave on a mission to help repopulate the mainland.  I admit some fear of the journey, but I am excited.  My grandfather gave me a gift today; he said that if I'm to be a wizard soon I might as well look the part, and that I might as well have a few surprises to help me gain the upper hand.  He gave me a black armored robe with green trim, having had some training with armoring in his younger days.  He also laid a few enchantments into it: one just to help me avoid the blow easily turned away and another that will let me cure myself of some significant amount of injury.  I am most impressed with the healing powers of this garment as a spell of this kind is not as powerful as from the hands of a cleric.  I have seen my mother cast such a spell many, such an enchantment is very impressive indeed.
        Today my father got our one of our family heirlooms from above the mantle. This sword granted him by his great grandfather on his deathbed and has been owned by only the first son of the first son in our line back into antiquity, and every one a wizard!  The sword itself is a thin-bladed longsword whose cross-guard is a braid of what looks like vines and leaves. The shape of the sword is not the curious part however, while it is solid, it looks and feels much like quick-silver, not so heavy though, and not cold like frozen
quick-silver but like liquid that does not quite move. The metal has a slight greenish tint about it, and even before I invoked the cantrip I knew it to be magical indeed, though I could not figure out the slightest bit about the enchantment laid thereon.  What I do know is that when my father let me hold the sword it felt like I had just come home; not a change in place but just a sense of calm.  Or perhaps "completeness" is the best word to describe it, though I was not missing anything before or without this blade.  I also felt a sense of being recognized, not as a man recognizes his friends or a dog its master, but as my hand is recognized by me.  So I was recognized by this blade, and I knew it would only serve one whose blood it recognized as anything more than a finely crafted sword with perhaps an edge that is magically made sharper.  My father looked at me and told me that the powers this blade would grant one of our blood would make a wizard more powerful, and that how much more powerful depended on how mighty that wizard was already.
        I think this journey will be hardest on my little sister, Lilandra.  She is, I think, too young for this journey.  However, being a teller of stories and a singer of songs, I'm sure she will be able to learn much on the mainland.  If she decides to come back when she is older I sure she will have many new tales and songs to bring back from the mainland.  I'm sure the children who are staying behind will sorely miss Lilandra when we go, but I am equally sure that the other children coming with us will be happy to have her with them.  I feel sorry for Leadrik, however, as I think he shall miss Lilandra far more than the others; watching the two of them play right now I see the same desperateness in their eyes that you see when there are two lovers whom know they are soon to be parted.  Indeed I think, given a few more decades to grow into adulthood, those two would have been perfect for each other.  Perhaps they will one day be reunited when they are both old enough to understand the way they feel and shall have one of those loves that are worthy of great ballads being written about.  But that is only if the world is not too cruel, and if they don't forget about one another, or perhaps the bitterest tragedy, which would be if one forgot the other; then we would have a tragedy worthy of a great ballad.  Watching them I am reminded of how much alike mother and Lilandra look.  Her hair is purest blond in the shade just like mother except, when lit from behind, it is tinged red and looks like a living dancing flame.  Aside from a little of that redness that all the men in fathers family have, she looks just like a younger version of mother, who has had perhaps less to worry about, as she is still just a child.
        I am somewhat saddened to be leaving as my friend Cassandra and her family will not be coming, perhaps once the colony is established they will come.  We have been friends since as long as either of us can remember, but not in what I would call a particularly romantic fashion, despite what her younger sister and her and her younger sisters' friends may have spent decades sniggering and insinuating about.  I hope by the time I see her again her hair will have stopped growing pink from that little accident in the laboratory.  However that's all she could have expected, sneaking up on me while I was working with dyes.  I shall have to see her again tonight and say goodbye after late meal.

        Today is our first day at sea, and while I have been on boats all day in the bay many a tim,e I have never been out on the open ocean before.  The water is pretty choppy even when it isn't raining.  I must admit I was a bit seasick for a few hours, but there was nothing to be done and I got over it.  Mother is telling stores about the gods and goddesses to the littler children, and is managing to keep them quiet.  Many of the adults are taking the opportunity to sit and talk while their children are entertained, and taught proper values.  Some of the others, about a decade or two older than me, are taking their parents' preoccupation as an opportunity to engage in what are definitely less than chaste activities.
        I am somewhat confused and maybe a wee bit concerned about last night.  After late meal I went over to see Cassandra to say goodbye we walked for a bit and ended up back at my family's hearth where Lilandra and Leadrik were playing.  They should have been in bed, but my father, strict as he is, bent the rules in this case, and I agree that it was right to do so.  I must admit that I am not supposed to be out so late, especially not with young women, but as Lilandra was still up and it was only Cassandra I didn't think my father would be upset, and he wasn't.  My parents, knowing I was in, told me I should get some rest soon, but to stay up for Leadrik's parent's to come and fetch him.  We watched them for an hour or so until they fell to reverie side by side.  That's when Cassandra started acting oddly; she started tickling me.  Despite from the fact that we haven't tickle-fought for the last fifteen years, when I tried to wrestle her to her back to make her stop, I succeeded.  Now surprise could have given me a good position, but even at that disadvantage she has always been able to out-wrestle me whenever, wherever.   Then she made a weird little noise, so I asked if she was sick or something, and she got mad.  I know she'll miss me.  We've been friends since we were in diapers, but she never acts like that.  I have no idea what is wrong with her...
        I just had to chastise Lilandra for reading my journal over my shoulder.  She did say something odd though; she said "What's wrong with her is that you're a big dummy!"
        I think I was right, in fact I think Cassandra had the same flu her mother had last week.  So after she got mad at me she started crying so I put my arm around her like I do with Lilandra when she's been scared by the older boy's stories.  So then she calms down and just stayed there like that and wouldn't get up for about an hour when Leadrik's parents came to collect their child.  After that she went into the bathroom and came out about five minutes later with a locket of her hair in her hand, made me promise to keep it with me, and told me if I died she'd never forgive me.  So I put the locket of hair in my spell components bag, a nice safe place where no one will question the presence of odd things.  So then I walked her home and then went into reverie for a few hours left before dawn.

        The last few days have been utterly with out merit of writing; the sky has been overcast, the sea has been mildly rough, and it has been an all around miserable experience.  I have taken to spending my nights out on deck; it gets a bit cold and windy, but night, when the stars come out, seems so peaceful.  Funny, there don't seem to be as many stars in the sky and they're not so bright or provocative.  Quite on the contrary the stars are fewer and paler with less that shine the myriad collars of the rainbow, just a bunch of plain white dots in the heavens.  Oh how I long for the skies of my home, for the subtle reds and greens as they play out in an orchestra of color.  Soon I shall be on land and I pray that this lack of luster and brilliance in the world is a by- product of the sea and not of leaving the "Meet".
        Lilandra has been acting upset, and I believe she misses Leadrik very much.  I must admit I am more homesick than just missing the subtleties of color in the sky, I have been having visions of things from my childhood.  Last night, I vividly remembered a day about forty years ago when Eric, Cassandra, Julius, a few other children, and myself were playing a game of capture-the-flag.  Cassandra set up a little trap; I had almost got the flag when she sprung it.  Unfortunately she got trapped in there with me and we had to wait two or three hours for the others to go get her parents to get us out of it.  I was a bit claustrophobic after that for about ten years until my father took me to a cleric to have the fear healed from me, even so when I remember this I am always a bit frightened by it.  Last night, however, the memory brought on not a sense of fear but a sense of longing.  I can see why many of the others are frightened by their homesickness, but I must remain strong as I am the heir to a noble line.

        It's been another rather banal week, and I am heartened by the sighting of land today.  My father tells me that we will be landing near a port city called Waterdeep.  Then we shall be moving into the High Forest and taking a portal to Cormanthor Forest and from there we shall go and set up a post near the forest's periphery where we can begin to trade with the humans.
 I can see father watching mother telling stories of the gods and goddesses to the little ones, and he has a look about him like a man in love all over again, I suppose this adventure has been the best thing for their marriage.  They may be able to hide the troubles the have been having from those outside the family, and even from Lilandra, but I can see it.  I've seen it building for thirty years, and now it is as if a gust of strong wing has blown the gray clouds from the sky to reveal a brilliant blue.

        We made landfall today, just within sight of a city called Waterdeep and then the ship returned to Evermet.  There is something not quite right to the world I have been noticing ever sense I left the "Meet", and I have finally pinned down the problem.  This world is devoid of color!  I don't mean truly black and white or, even gray tones, but the brilliance is gone from the world around.  I have been trudging around in a world that is like it is not quite real, and I'm not sure if I can stand it.  The sky is not quite real, the sea is not quite real, the forest will not be real, and the plain I stand on is not quite real!!!  It is as though some great spell has been cast upon the world that has leached much of the color from the environment.  I can only think that perhaps this was for use in some powerful enchantment, or just hatefulness.

        The last few weeks have been monotonous and uneventful.  I believe I am more grateful for the knowledge of prestidigitation than of any other spell! This land is dirty everything is dirty there is mud everywhere.  The only thing prestidigitation isn't good for is removing the chill from my bones, I can warm myself with it but it does little good.  I have been noticing that I have been fiddling with something in one of my spell bags of late, but I'm not quite sure what it is.  Every time I realize I'm doing it, I stop before I can figure out what it is.

        We entered a forest today, I believe they said it was the High Forest, though I suppose it matters little what it is called.  We should be just north and east of Waterdeep on the map.  We are going to take a portal to another forest and skip a few months of walking, putting us within a fortnight and a ten-day of Cormanthor **Cormanthor is the forest, unless you are referring to the ancient elven kingdom, which is inside the forest.  The longest distance from farthest corner to farthest corner of Cormanthor would still probably take no more than a month to traverse, especially with magics to prevent the children slowing them down.  Wouldn't the elves know of any closer gates?  My expectations were that the gate was just a few days into the High Forest**   The forest is different from that of the "Meet".  I am told it's the climate that accounts for the differences.  Father tells me that the "Meet" is a tropical island, and that here on the mainland we have deciduous and narrow-leaf evergreen forests; I think he said this one was deciduous having mostly hardwood trees like Oaks.  The forest seems somehow home to me, even though I've never been here in my life; I suppose growing up in the "Meet" has just made me feel comfortable around forests and nature.

        Nothing of merit has happened this day.  It was nice and cool, though at points the bugs were unbearable.

        Today we have come to the portals; we go through them in the morn.  I suspect that much of the more powerful spellcasters' magic is taken up with making a group this large move so fast over unfamiliar terrain.   On a good day my father and I might be able to go at this clip, but not for the number of days we have been, and not conceivably with so many, many of whom are children.  Perhaps I shall broach the topic with Elusor this evening after we eat.  My mother is looking somewhat off as well; perhaps I shall speak with her of what ails her; no doubt it is merely the exertion of the journey.

        Last eve after late meal, I spoke with my father alone about the matter of magic to help a group so large move so fast. Elusor's response was to arch his left eyebrow momentarily smirk with the right side of his face, and tell me.  "You have quite an imagination my son, and even if this wild tale was right I would say to you, you are still a child for a bit yet, so be a child."
        I of course know I'm right; he only ever does such things when I'm right.  So I said to him "In that case I would say to you ‘yea, but I am your son, and will some day have to take responsibility for an old and noble line.  Should I not have all the practice as a leader possible to prepare me for that day?'"
        He just beamed at me and said, "there will be time enough for that my son."
        I had a free moment to speak with Lena before dawn, we were both up and scant few others were not in reverie.  I told mother that I had noticed she seemed not feeling quite well, and asked if she was all right.  She smiled at me and pointed to a little brooch she wore on her heart.  She said it was a gift from her great grandmother who she knew little because she was taken by illness when my mother was young.  The brooch is a simple bit of silver knot-work around a green opal.  She told me that the enchantment on the brooch is a diagnostic one; the color of the stone shows the condition of the individual whose heart it covers.  My mother went over about two dozen colors and what they signified — the fact that green signified pregnancy was not lost on me.   I asked if father knew yet and she said that no, she hadn't told Elusor yet.
        This morning was my first experience with travellling by portal. The portal seemed to be an ovoid disk that had blue edges, and through which I could see more forest, but the trees looked different, and there was more light on the other side of the portal.  The surface of the portal seemed to ripple just a little bit like looking through a water lens.  As I watched the others go through one by one I was amazed at the way people seemed to stretch and ripple as they stepped through the shimmering gate.  Finally came my turn to step in through the mystic gateway. I held my breath for a moment, reached my hand in and closed my eyes.  Then I realized that I might be missing a great opportunity and opened my eyes.  I stepped through.  When my hand was in the gate it was an electric sensation like water that put my hand to sleep, rippling at its presence.   When, however, I stepped in I felt as though for a moment I had been let free my mortal existence and was outside my own cosmology.  I, for an instant, felt as though existence was far greater than I had ever imagined before.  This paled with what I saw; all to fast to be comprehended or recognized but it was there nonetheless.  It was I think seeing a much greater space than was between the two gates, but only in my peripheral vision, as that "tunnel" must have been a thousand miles long!  When I stepped out of the gate on the other end, I felt both a sense of claustrophobia, which passed shortly, and a sense of majestic serenity.  That serenity has stayed with me all day, and I can imagine no grander mode of travel than by these gateways.
        I found myself listening to my mother's tales this late afternoon and wondering, for I think the first time in my life, at their validity.  Not their literal truth, I discounted that some time ago, but at the necessity of the stories and at how much truth is in their core, because obviously the details are probably all wrong at this point.  She was telling the story of the fall of the Drow, and explaining how their pride made them believe they could not possibly be wrong in which gods they followed and then when their gods rebelled.  Then, when their gods were banished, they were so blind as to follow them into exile and so were no longer welcome with others of our kind.  She then went on to tell a few tales about the Drow that were meant to scare the youngsters, then she said "Now be good or the Drow will get you", I suppose it's a good way to frighten the kiddies into behaving.  Actually I must admit I got some use out of it when Lilandra and some of the others her age decided to come and pester me I sent them scattering away. This was accomplished merely with a "now what did my mother just get finished telling you would happen if you don't behave yourself."

        Today was another banal day, though after yesterday I don't think it could have been otherwise.  There are fewer bugs in this forest, however, and I felt a bit lighter in my step then I did before.  Though the grayness of the world pulls at the edge of my mind, it is lessened by the fact that I now know the nature of the beast.  That feeling is also much lessened after my experience with the portal yesterday.  That experience makes me wonder, however, how much I really know about things.

        This morning while hiking, I was able to walk with my father and ask him about the portal.  After telling him what I had experienced he actually smiled.  Then he told me that he was proud, and that many of the grown men had been too afraid to keep their eyes open through the portal, and only a handful of we children.  It is ironic that, due to the point in my training, I am the only one my age with us.  The elders did not wish to interrupt the training of those almost ready to be adults, but my family was needed, and they obviously decided separation would be more of a hardship to my training.  I told my father that, while I was glad I had his approval, what I wanted was to understand, he smiled at this too, and then obliged me.  He spent the day explaining the concepts of planes of existence to me.  I'm not exactly clear on if these places are in separate spaces or if they are in the same space; Father said that they sort of were and were not in the same spaces.  He said something about four-dimensional space; so that they are in the same three-dimensional space but in a different four- dimensional space, wait now, it was fifth- dimensional space.  What was the fourth dimension again?

        I am told we are about a day away from our destination.  I also noticed that I've been fingering that something in my spell bag again, every time I notice I pull my hand out and I'm still not quite sure what it is.  I know I'm the youngest other than the children, but I feel a strong responsibility to show a good example the others, I suppose with a lineage like mine it's only reasonable, or maybe I've just finally internalized what father has been telling me since before I can remember.
       It's late and I should enter reverie.

        They're dead.  They're all dead!  They killed them all.  I can't believe they're all dead.  The blood and the screaming, and, and, and, and the death.  I saw it.  All, they killed them all.  I, I, I... I was walking with Father in the front of our troupe, and I turned to ask him a question and I was sprayed in the face with blood.  My father's blood, an arrow hit him right through the head, I think he died right then and there.  I called out an alarm as I headed for cover.  Then they were all over us.  The dirty hateful things, they were all around us.  I couldn't see my sister — and my mother, I saw a sword go through her, the tip came out her belly they stabbed her in the back and the tip came out right where her unborn child would have been growing.  Corellan help me I couldn't do a dammed thing. Then one was on top of me sneering and laughing, laughing my gods laughing and he swung at me and I thought I stepped out of the way.  I played dead.  I knew I hadn't dodged when I felt my face burning by my right eye was wondering why when I was blinking what felt like tears out of just the one eye.  Then I saw it, saw the crimson stains on the leaves under me.  I waited until I didn't hear anyone near me, then I ran Corellan forgive me I ran, I didn't try to save the others, not even my little sister.  I just ran.  I felt a stabbing pain in my back and I could barely breathe, I fell to the ground.  Then I was flipped over I saw it, face like a demon, a Drow holding my family's sword and I know it was my blood it was wiping on me as I lay there.  I saw it leave, it didn't even give me a quick death just a mortal wound and then it left me to die slowly.  But I lived; I beat them all because I lived, holding off the sweet black of unconsciousness I lay waiting for it to leave.  Then once it had gone I spoke the words, I spoke the words and I could feel the wound in my back closing and the blood draining from my
left lung, and then I just slept.

        I don't know how long I slept, but I did.  Sleep is so odd to me; that was the third time in my life I've slept.  I don't know how long I lay there, but when I awoke all was quiet around me, and my face burned, and I couldn't open my right eye.  I listened for the sound of running water I heard some and went towards it; I looked down into the brook and saw a freakish gargoyle staring back at me.  On one side were the features I had seen in all my life in ponds and mirrors — dirty, but me.  The other was caked with grime, and the whole face was swollen blood was crusted about it and a line of puss stretched from above the eye to the middle of the cheek.  I immersed my face in cool clear water and I think it was worse than receiving the wound.  I washed my face while holding my breath for a long time, because I knew if I took my face out of that water I would not put it back in.  Once I did that I used my robe to heal myself of the wound on my face, it left a scar anyway.  It could be because I had already mostly healed that wound naturally, I really don't know.  Then I sat down with my spell book and prepared myself.  I mended my robe and cleansed myself with magic, and then I went back to the seen of the massacre.
        I think I'm still reeling from the shock of it and will be for a long time to come.  Everywhere, just lying there all those bodies, all over the place. I saw them all butchered like animals.  There were seven bodies not even there; Lilandra was one of them.  I was almost glad there was no one left alive, because I wept like a little girl.  After that I did the only thing I could I started burying bodies, I've been working all day, I'm utterly exhausted, and I'm not done.

        I spent another exhausting day at it, and I'm done.  I can attest to the weight of their lifeless bodes, but the Drow shall attest to the weight of my vengeance!  I saw them all dead, cut apart, and left for the beasts.  I buried them in a ring with my parents in the middle.  All were given a head stone, and my father and mother, and unborn sibling were burred in the middle together, I think they would have wanted it that way, and I honored them with a cairn of stones.  The Drow will feel my vengeance, by Corellan I may not be able to kill every last spider-loving one of them, but I can kill some before I die.  If I had my way, I'd send them all die an agonizing death right now, and my only regret would be that I wouldn't get to see them suffering as they died.

        I have become lost in the forest.  I'm not sure where I'm going, but I don't think I can find my way back to the portal. Besides even if I could find my way back, it wouldn't do me a hell of a lot of good; I wouldn't know what to do in the High Forest any more than I do in the Cormanthor forest.  I still wouldn't know a way back to my homeland across the sea.  So I'm just walking on this trail we were going to use for trade with the humans.

        It's been about a tenday, and I'm in Scardale.  I'm told by the locals that I'm near Scarsville.  There has been nothing of interest happening since I left the forest of Cormanthor, but that is very good.  I should make it there by nightfall tomorrow, though I'm not sure what I'll do once I get there.