Editing Game-Summaries:2/16/2018 Recollections (section)

==Recollections by Ci==

Yet again I find myself at odds with my Master's teachings. We set out to track down and stop a cell leader of [[Black Ice Gang| The Black Ice Gang]] named [[Valas]] that we suspected would be sending a party to the ruins of [[Old Solace]] in search of an ingredient for this mysterious [[The Chaos Curse| Chaos Curse]]. These [[Drow| dark elves]] certainly seem to have sinister intentions for [[Solace]], and the [[Magistery]] certainly considers them to be an intolerable race, but I remember [[Zifu Poe]] on the day I left the [[Temple of Shan Sua]]: 

''"Will the earth fall away from under their feet? Will the sun, shining on all else, withhold light and warmth from them? Will water turn to mud when they stop to drink? If sun, and earth, and water refrain from judgment, who am I to withhold the same?"''

Yet, as approach two [[Drow]] sentries, I hear the words of [[Master Fēng]] in my head, as I often do: "The seeds of hatred destroy themselves. The bow is but the instrument." The knowledge of their actions on this plane, make my blood boil... as I loose my arrows and watch the first fall, I feel like the hand of justice. When we capture and interrogate the second, however, I find a being who is, while cruel and self-interested certainly, not as irredeemable and war-like as we were led to believe. I remember a small boy, orphaned and scarred, witness to unspeakable tragedy, who might have turned out much the same had he not been taken in by the Monastery, and set on the path of [[The Study]]. That is ancient history, however, and our problems were more immediate.

We descended into [[Old Solace]] and found the operation to gather Rust Monster saliva well under way. We thought to destroy their cache before moving to find the leaders, but we were discovered.As our Bard companion, [[Callie| Callie Tealeaf]] dispatched the first [[Drow]] in short order, we decided to press on before we were discovered again. We quickly encountered two more [[Drow]] who proved to be little challenge. One ran away, and the other fell to our blades and our fire quickly. The third [[Drow]] however, having been altered to our presence, proved to be another matter. He leapt through [[Ember]]'s magical flames as if they did not exist, and overcame my defenses quickly. Wielding two glittering swords, he nearly felled me with his first attack. With some timely healing from [[Callie]] and [[Ember]], I managed to stand my ground, and with help from our entire party, this self-proclaimed Champion of [[Valas]], was defeated. We had not yet faced our our most dire test however, for waiting in the next room was [[Valas]] himself.

Again we seemed to face a [[Drow]] Mage of considerable power. I begin to wonder if magic users dominate the culture of these Dark Elves, as we have found them as the leaders of each the cells we have encountered. [[Valas]] unleashed spells to poison us and slow us down, but I would not now be stopped! I rushed ahead to disrupt his casting, and we managed to bring him down. With his magic now dispelled, bringing down the rest of his companions was a trivial matter.

If I had felt some compassion for these [[Drow]] before, that ended when I saw the locals they had enslaved to do their bidding here underground. I shed no tears for enslavers of men. One who would keep another like chattel, has left the path of life behind and declared himself an ally of evil and an enemy of all good beings. We freed the townspeople, destroyed the cache of saliva, left the docile rust monsters unmolested, and collapsed the tunnels that the [[Drow]] had used to gain access to them. It might have been a futile gesture, given the many points of access to [[Old Solace]] and the numerous  quantity of rust monsters throughout, but we have at least thwarted this attempt, and eliminated yet another cell of Drow here in Eomas.

The less said about our adventure AFTER returning to the Magistery, the better. It is enough to say that our curiosity far outstripped my tracking ability, and that the Magistery underground is vast and featureless.