Year 2, Day 9

Following our tactical withdrawal from Rose Quarry we had Faelian drive the cart an hour away from the ruined town, putting a good 15 miles between us and any pursuit. Knowing we had to return and investigate the town further, but wanting to be at peak levels, Kaellana and Arad used some of their healing magic to augment any strength we'd regain from resting. It was only as we were bedding down and trying to decide on a watch schedule that I noticed that Aramel and the strange demonic looking companion we had recently acquired were nowhere to be seen. Apparently in our flight they must have been split off from the group and gone to ground instead of returning to the cart.

Volunteering for first watch, I slowly patrolled around the wagon, peering into the darkness but failing to see anything of note, my turn on guard duty was over quickly. Tired from the day's battle and my turn on watch, I quickly bedded down in the wagon bed with Kaellana and Tara, taking a moment to admire the elven druid's face as it was nestled against the fur of her companion's back.

Seemingly moments later, my eyes were rudely jolted open by the two flares of light and fiery heat as unknown assailants targeted our wagon with successive fireball blasts. Arad, on watch, failed to notice the attackers, determined to be kobolds, but was a great help in healing our wounds and while Faelian and Burr were somewhat apprehensive about their personal safety, the promise of more gold always convinced them to hang around. We decided to change location and instead of camping out on the middle of the plains, got Faelian to take us to a depression he figured we could use as cover, though with his somewhat hazy grasp of its location, it took us the entire night to eventually make our way there.

After having rested and healed once more, we hired Faelian on again to take us back to Rose Quarry where we'd try employing more subtle tactics than on our last visit there. In hindsight once we noticed the glass covered dwarven zombies and camp of the Emererald Claw, we should have been more discrete as it was. This time we circled the majority of the town's depression to see if we could identify a relatively clear route in but a number of the zombies we had seen before were spread along the perimeter of the town. Deciding that entering the town and searching the two still standing buildings was our best bet of discovering information about White Hearth, we charged down the hillside from the west to bring us to the rear wall of the large, roofless building. A series of sinkholes and clumps of zombies seemed to be our only true obstacles at the moment and so we dove into the fray, trying to neutralize them as quickly as possible.

From our last battle we knew that when these zombies were struck, glass shards would be flung from their body. Luckily for me, my great spear's reach protected me from this effect, but Tara was not so lucky and Kaellana quickly removed her from the fight to protect her. Through brilliant positioning on my part, the first zombie that attempted to charge me lost its footing and fell into one of the sinkholes. Remembering how tough these zombies were, I realized that it would probably be faster to push them into the holes instead of taking the time to kill them all, and would decrease our chances of being discovered. While I battle with another zombie, Kaellana created a rolling ball of flame that went and engulfed a zombie, slowly charring it as it fought Arad's own minions which had occupied the other half of the first zombie group.

Arad, remembering that he could control the dead, to an extent, managed to force the zombies we were fighting to cower in fear of him, allowing us to begin the process of pushing them into the sinkholes. This process would have gone on perfectly until another zombie quartet decided to investigate our presence with their fists and teeth. Luckily Arad performed the same action and by using their inaction, we managed to neutralize them all by pushing them into the holes. My brilliant plan working flawlessly.

Now that we had created a breach in the enemy's cordon of the ruined town, we crept down the clear alley next to the roofless building we would investigate first. After deciding we couldn't climb the walls to investigate the picking sounds we heard before, Kaellana crept forward and scouted the front of the buildings for guards. Seeing none, we quickly hurried inside and same more of the glass zombies at work, chipping away at the glass that covered the floor. Just as we entered, a zombie carrying rubble came in our direction but we gambled on it being completely focused on its current task. Our luck held out and we proceeded to the main chamber in the building after it had walked by. Several zombies were mindlessly working on clearing the floor here and we saw that a large map seemed to have been engraved on the floor. On each of the other walls, a fireplace was flanked by two animal statues and each one was constructed from a different type of marble; white, red and black.

Taking our time studying the map, we realized that it portrayed central Khorvaire as it must have existed around the time of the Great War. Studying the boundaries on the map we could tell that there were many notations within the boundaries of Cyre, but none were labeled so we could not determine the location of White Hearth until we found out how to read the map. As we considered our dilemma, a low voice said, "Kill them", and we found ourselves under attack by the zombies. Having no convenient sink holes here, Arad stunned the zombies into submission and we whittled them all to death. Hearing and seeing no further response to our presence, we searched the fireplaces, certain that they must yield some clue about the map. Growing frustrated we decided to clear the glass from the two fireplaces that had yet to be uncovered and by happenstance, Arad either saw, or decided to look, at the back of the heads of the statues he was working on. Here he found, written in Common, a location's name, a number, and a direction.

We then worked out that by standing at the fireplaces and following the directions, they led to specific dots on the map. One of the statues bore the directions for White Hearth, and as its position on the map lay within the Cyre, we assumed it was correct. Realizing the value of the map I tried to make a copy of the map with the only materials I had on hand; a chunk of charcoal from the building's burnt timbers, and the back of one of Lady E's letters. Kaellana and Arad, wanting me to get the map right, helped point out locations and relative distances until I had a had a copy of the map inset on the floor.

I didn't know why the Emerald Claw was in Rose Quarry, but just in case they were after the same information we were I took a pick axe to the back of the statues' heads to obliterate the directions that could be found there. Seeing nothing else of interest, and having what we came for, we ignored the temple across the street from our building and departed Rose Quarry as quickly as possible, though Kaellana did notice a gigantic bird sitting on the building's steeple.

We made our way back to Faelian uneventfully and then had to haggle with him to convince him to take us into the Mournlands. Initially he wanted a fifth of whatever we found at White Hearth but we managed to convince him with a hefty sum of 2000gp to settle for that and leave us with the spoils of the Cannith facility. Of course, now that I think about it, we'll probably encounter warforged loyal to the Lord of Blades, who we've already run afoul of, death clouds, aberrant abominations, and an innumerable amount of ways to die in there. Putting some distance between us and Rose Quarry, we began to heal a final time before heading into the blasted ruins of Cyre.

-A.N.-