Eleasis 6, 1373 DR, Outside the Crystal Palace

As we walked towards the palace, we were serenaded by woodland creatures. We hadn’t seen or heard anything the least bit threatening since we first caught sight of the majestic building. We were at least halfway to it when we decided to stop and camp for the night. We got a fire going and I was pulling out some trail rations when Roscoe came back from “hunting” — with a sweet little bunny corpse he’d killed for food! He had the nerve to skin it, cook it, and offer pieces of the poor thing to us! Right at the same campfire where Widget and I had to eat! Widget gave him quite an earful, or rather, he tried to, but I don’t think halflings speak to small creatures. Come to think of it, I don’t think humans or dwarves do either. I’m sure if they had talked to a few, they’d have at least been hesitant to eat one. Widget (who managed to find out that Roscoe doesn’t like the color of slime green and soon had turned his fur, and my hair, just that shade) was so distressed about it that I just couldn’t speak to Roscoe— I wasn’t sure if I’d be expressing my feelings or my rat’s.

As my friends settled down to rest, Widget and I took the first watch. The forest seemed more ominous as night fell, so I set up an alarm spell around the perimeter of our camp— just in case. I am so glad I did! About an hour into my watch, the alarm went off, waking my companions as I turned to see a little brown rabbit had hopped into range. I quickly cast a spell to speak to it, to warn it away from the Rabbit Eaters, when it bared its teeth. It had a lot more teeth than a rabbit should have, and they were pointy and razor sharp! It never replied to me (but my spell let me hear exactly what Widget had been saying about the incidents of the evening), and as it leaped across the camp, intent on biting, No stabbed it with a kukri. Moments later, the alarm went off again, and again— soon we were being accosted by five more of these vorpal bunnies. I was bitten by one (as were all of my comrades) in spite of Bryrgar’s courageous attempts to keep between me and the rampaging rabbits. I cast the image of a wolf (with a potato on a collar, so my friends would realize it wasn’t a real wolf) and one of the bunnies kept occupied attempting to attack it. Soon all were dead or unconscious.

I didn’t stop Roscoe from skinning these, even though they did look like bunnies (I couldn’t talk to them, so I’m just not sure what they really were). However, when I found out he skinned one of them while it was still alive, I was horrified by that. He apparently doesn’t have a problem with eating anything that hops past him either.

Widget tells me he whizzed in the halfling’s backpack, and considered the matter settled.

Dawn arrived without any further incidents, and after we ate (rations again for Widget and I), we headed off towards the crystal palace again. We traveled most of the day, eventually arriving there shortly before sundown. The palace is 100’ wide, with very tall spires, and (what we couldn’t see from a distance) a white shimmering field or wall surrounding it in its entirety. We tried bouncing rocks off of it with no apparent harm to the rocks or the magical dome, so Bryrgar bravely tossed Roscoe through it. The halfling arrived safely on the other side, though all of his clothes and equipment stayed on our side. He quickly came back out and got dressed, while Bryrgar disrobed and walked through, no doubt counting on his beard to cover his nakedness at the palace doors. He walked in through the unlocked doors and, though the palace is translucent; we couldn’t see him on the other side. Nosila eventually decided she’d better go check on him. I wanted to go look too, but with my spellbook (admittedly, not worth much, but all I have to work with at the moment) and the silver rod (the only thing we absolutely could not replace) to keep watch of, I stayed outside. Roscoe did too. When it became apparent to us that they were going to be in the palace a long while (we had no idea that the entire inside was enchanted and literally swapping rooms around as our two taller companions attempted to navigate the inside), we started trying to figure out ways of getting inside with our belongings. Widget tried to burrow under the wall, but discovered that the force field went down as far as he could dig. Roscoe tried to climb it, but fell through and all of his clothing slid down the outside of the dome. We tried to push the silver rod through, attempted to attack the wall with a minor spell, and I even tried to use a net of shadows to “hide” us as we went in; none of these things worked. And, I’m not sure I am comfortable with the way the halfling was looking at me after that!

We had all but given up when we saw Bryrgar and Nosila coming out through the main entrance with three very realistic-looking statues— two winged sprite creatures, and one that looked like an elf. As they pushed the two sprite figures through the barrier, they each became animated, made a horrified shriek, and disappeared. I hope that is normal for a surprised sprite! The elf, on the other hand, seemed to wake from a spell of some sort as he was pulled through. Interestingly, his clothes remained inside the wall.

He seemed alarmed at first, but we tossed him a few cloaks to cover up with and gave some hurried introductions. He didn’t seem to understand Common, but Roscoe was able to talk to him in Elven, and he understood my questions in Draconic as well. Elzen, as he called himself, is the Chief Advisor to Queen Avaria. Nosila and Bryrgar wondered about that as we translated for them— they had seen a court full of still-life elves, including a jester and a king, but no queen. Elzen did confirm that we are no longer in Faerun, and I suspect, since we are here, we will do our best to help these people, and hopefully, someone will in turn be able to help us get home!