Dollano 26, SP~4,909
Rhonda Floam
Allsassring Departs
It has been three days, and little has happened. We wait in this immense, and very strange, cave, biding our time and hoping that the creature outside will lose patience and go away.
Sheshoffiss keeps checking. He is able to tell whether or not the creature is there by checking in with his Stone (or Eye or whatever it is). It takes him a few minutes. I don’t know exactly what he’s doing, but my guess is that he’s scanning the Energies outside of this cavern. He holds the Stone, closes his eyes and then mumbles something indecipherable in that ancient language I’ve heard before. He sometimes turns his head a bit this way or that, and then suddenly I see him jerk up, like he’s found it. Then he puts the Stone away and turns to us and shakes his head to let us know that it’s not yet safe.
Donnessling is still unconscious. His shallow breath shows us he’s alive, which is a huge relief to me, and to us all, but, other than that, he’s been unresponsive.
I know Allsassring is upset about his good friend, but he doesn’t show it. He’s taken charge since Donnessling has been out of it.
Our time has been spent exploring the cavern. If the situation weren’t so perilous, I’d be enjoying myself. There are small tunnels that extend far into the mountain. They, and a lot of the main cavern, where we are now, are covered in a light green algae that emits a soft light. We discovered that we could extinguish our torches and in a few minutes, once our eyes have adjusted, we could see very well by this eerie glow.
Sheshoffiss spends some time each day healing Donnessling’s wounds. He’ll take the Eye of Darmyn, the green stone, from Donnessling’s pocket and place it on his chest. Then he’ll pull his own white Stone (the Eye of Dey) out of his coat and hold that in his hand not far from the other. He shuts his eyes and speaks an incantation, almost singing. I heard something like, “ta eemessetra doll ara felshadala”. As the chant gets stronger, both of the stones glow each in their own color and this seems to help Donnessling.
When Sheshoffiss did this last night something quite peculiar happened. The green moss that covers the walls of the cavern started to glow, and they glowed in rhythm to the cadence of the chant. At one point I thought I saw something like a stream of smoke or cloud come out of several of the larger mosses in the ceiling and reach down to touch the green stone on Donnessling’s chest. I think everyone else was asleep, so I may have been the only one to see it. Except, Allsassring, of course. He notices everything.
Before we slept tonight, Allsassring announced that he was going to explore some of the tunnels more deeply to find a safe way out. There is one tunnel that leads out of the cavern, and then soon descends, quite quickly, down into the depths of the mountain. He took two others with him.
They’re leaving first thing in the morning, before the rest of us are up, so I said my good-bye’s tonight.
I’ve seen that tunnel. In fact, Allsassring doesn’t know it, but I spent some time following it the other day. It’s long and it kept descending into the roots of the mountain. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the feel of it. There was something unnatural about it and something that felt evil or at least dangerous. I turned back when I started smelling something terribly foul and not just foul, but like something that had been foul for a long, long time. And, now my friends are going to explore it. I’m worried.