I don´t know how I can tell all the exciting things that happened the last few days. I guess I should start from the beginning.
Well, first, we met a Priestess of Jvelto. She just appeared (I guess) where the elves´s treehouses were, and the elves brought her to us. I mean, really, just appeared-- POOF-- out of thin air. She said she was just as surprised as the elves were (of course, everything seems to surprise the elves).
So we introduce ourselves to her, and as far as I can tell, she lost a bet and had to come save the world with us. No wonder you told us that gambling could be dangerous! But once she saw that we had a paladin of Estereal with us, she probably felt a lot better about the whole thing.
That night I was on watch with Nikkita and that Elf-guy. That Elf-guy asks a lot of stupid questions for someone who´s supposed to be so smart, and is always poking into everything. He looked at Nikkita´s paper ferret (I don´t know why she keeps it, but she likes it), and unfolded it and then couldn´t get it back together. That made Nikita really sad, so I made him fix it. I think he fixed it, because the next morning it was all fixed except for one of its legs.
The next morning, we set off. The ground was really rocky, and Nikita (who could talk to us now ut still didn´t have any shoes) was having a lot of trouble. So we got her to ride on Canliss (who was practicing being a Wemic), and then she just rode on my shoulders when Canliss had to turn back to Canliss. I know I´m kinda big, but I still couldn´t believe how light Nikkita was-- I hardly noticed her. Of course, I was trying not to notice anything, because Canliss was talking with the Elf-guy the whole time about plants and stuff. I just don´t understand how there can be that much of anything to talk about, but at least it kept the Elf-guy from asking any more stupid questions.
After a bit of walking, we found Wolfram´s dead horse. He just rode it to death trying to get wherever he was going. I heard that paladin´s horses are special-- like no one else can ride them and stuff, so it must be Wolfram that we were following that killed all those people. But why would he kill his horse? And all his stuff was still on the horse-- even his water. Rhavin detected evil, and said that the ground was evil. I looked down and didn´t notice anything special.
I think around here was the time when it really started raining. Well, the wind had been picking up, and these big dark clouds had been blowing up, but then it really started raining. Really hard. Fortuneately, Kareya´s dog still had the trail.
Soon we saw a big shape up ahead. Like a big part of the ground that had just been shoved up from underneath. Rhavin detected evil and almost fell over. I guess things were really evil. As we got closer, we could see people standing all around the base of it. After a while, we could see that the people were dead. We could see their bones because their skin and everything was gone, but they were still standing up.
This was pretty scary. Not like the attacking shrubs-- that was just strange. But this was dead people who could still move around and stuff-- when we got closer, they all sort of turned toward us like they were watching us. Rhavin went ahead a little bit to get a closer look, and they all started moving forward to attack him.
Nikita started dancing, and everyone else started going after the dead people. They may have been dead, but they got even deader after I smacked them a couple of times. And then the creepiest thing happened. There were only a few left, when MORE started coming out of the GROUND right in front of us. No wonder Rhavin said the ground was evil.
After a while, none were left. It was still raining, like standing under a warm waterfall. We were trying to figure out what to do next-- where was Wolfram? Were there more not-dead on the other side of the rock? Canliss decided to climb up the rock and look down the other side, so that was that. We all waited in the pouring rain for him to come back. I figured out why Wolfram left his water with his dead horse-- who needs water with all this rain?
Canliss finally came back, and told us what was on the other side. More of the not-dead, a floating skull, and Wolfram. The floating skull really scared him, and seemed pretty scary to me too. What kind of not-dead thing is that? Canliss asked Nikita to bless him, even though she said she couldn´t. I guess maybe he thought he was going to die and Nikita was the closest thing to a priestess of Torodin. She got really offended when I said that, but I didn´t mean anything bad by it-- she was the one who said she couldn´t bless Canliss in the first place. But I said sorry anyway, because it´s not nice to hurt people´s feelings.
Canliss said I shouldn´t attack the floating skull. Which was okay with me; if it scared him so much, then I didn´t want to get near it. And Rhavin said we couldn´t attack Wolfram, because we were trying to save him from whatever made him kill people and burn down wells. Which left the not-dead people, and I felt pretty good about being able to kill them.
So Nikita started dancing, Wolfram and the not-dead started walking to us, and the floating skull moved up really fast to attack Rhavin. These icky colored clouds shot forward and tried to hit him-- I was really glad that I wasn´t supposed to attack it. I stay in our line and wait for a not-dead to come close enough to chop it up.
So I´m doing a really good job of chopping up not-dead, and I see Wolfram coming forward and attacking our line where Jvennika is. I know Jvennika is a priestess and all that, but she didn´t seem to be doing so well against Wolfram. So I went over there so Wolfram could attack me instead. I tried to disarm him, but it didn´t work. So I got a really good idea. Everyone seemed okay chopping up the not-dead by themselves, and Rhavin was dealing with the floating skull, so I figured I´d just take care of Wolfram so he couldn´t hurt anyone else. Then, after the battle, Rhavin could do whatever he had to to make Wolfram not evil again.
So I jumped him, after dropping my sword. I know charging an armed man with my bare hands sounds sort of stupid, but I figured if I could get him down on the gound I could just pin him until battle was over. After I finally got him down, I get hit from behind with a staff-- it was Wolfram´s staff all by itself! It really hurt, and I tried to hang on, but the mud made things really slippery. The next thing I remember, is Wolfram was loose and that dang staff hit me again and made me not move. I mean, I couldn´t move.
I´ve never been so angry-- everyone was fighting around me, Nikita was dancing, Wolfram was loose, and that staff was hitting other people. I saw someone try to grab the staff, but they couldn´t get to it-- like there was someone using the staff, but we just couldn´t see him. After a few minutes of watching everyone fight WITHOUT ME, I could move again. Someone had taken Wolfram down; there was just that dang staff. I grabbed Last Laugh and started swinging-- whatever was wielding the staff got chopped up really good.
We all tried to look for a symbol of Torodin in the mud -- maybe one of the not-dead had had one. Someone found one! I was so happy for Nikita... She was kinda nervous, like she wasn´t sure it would work, but I guess it did.
There was a big opening into the rock. Rhavin walked toward it and said he could feel it was very evil inside. We decided to spend a night nearby and rest up before going into the very evil. We tied up Wolfram, because he was still evil, and camped.
Kareya made her hut, and we all went in except the Elf-guy, who said he liked the rain. Good thing, because there was a lot of it. Some of us were really hurt-- I felt like a little kid could´ve taken me out with one shot. Rhavin was hurt too, so was Jvennika. With two priests, everyone got really healed. Nikita cast one of her spells that lets her figure out things, and she figured out that to make Wolfram better we had to kill the grey philosopher. We figured that the grey philosopher was whatever was in the rock making all that evil.
I thought we should send Wolfram back instead of taking him with us, all tied up, into the very evil. Rhavin said that Wolfram would be okay and would help us find the grey philosopher. So off we went, with Rhavin and Wolfram in front, and me holding his leash, and Jvennika ready to tie him the rest of the way up so he wouldn´t get away while we were fighting. I felt like I was walking a dog-- he´d pull at the rope and try and go in a certain way. Toward the evil, I guess.
So we followed him into a room full of... well, I don´t know how to describe them, but them looked like ghosts. I know you say that there isn´t any such thing as ghosts, but I just saw people made of bones and floating skulls, so I think there may be such things. So I´m calling them ghosts.
Nikita, Jvennika, Kareya and Canliss started casting spells-- and the ghosts started to attack. One of them hit me and... it hurt, even though not like when you get hit with something real. And I felt weak... I didn´t like it, and I could tell the people around me didn´t either-- the ones that got hit by the ghosts. Someone cast a spell on me, and the ghosts didn´t try to hit me anymore. The ghosts are flying around and screaming, Jvennika is tying up Wolfram, and I can see that the ghost´s tails are all attached to this grey hooded guy on a throne at the end of the room. Must be the grey philosopher, I hoped.
People are casting spells, attacking this guy, and the spells are working. So I figure I´ll try too and run up to give him a few whacks with Last Laugh. Making a paladin burn up wells and kill his horse, indeed!
I gave him a good whack, there are spells flying all around from the wizards, there´s a big BANG!
--and the next thing I know I´m looking up at someone healing me and feeling very very sore. And even weaker. Rhavin is talking to Wolfram, who isn´t evil anymore, but is very confused. He doesn´t remember anything he did while he was evil, so Rhavin took him aside and told him, paladin-to-paladin. Wolfram looked really unhappy after that.
We look around the rest of the inside of the very evil (which Rhavin says is only a little evil now). No more not-dead, or floating skulls, or ghosts. There was a lot of money and pretty jewelry, that Rhavin says we should give to the farmers. Which makes sense-- what could anyone do with that much money?
I still feel weak. The other people who the ghosts hit also don´t feel right. I´m glad that we made Wolfram all better, but I want to be like I was before. I can still do most everything I did before, but I can tell there´s a difference.
Wolfram is going back with the elf-guy, and he´ll stay in the elves´s forest for awhile until he feels better. I´m not sure where we go next. I hope we have a chance to rest-- we´re all pretty tired and banged up.
Tell momma I love her, and I´ll write again soon.

love,

Ester