the eyes of Optalis

[cellio]

April 11 (Wednesday), morning

We just can't get a rest from the monsters out here. Early last night we were attacked by a huge foul zombie "dragon". That is, it was manufactured; it wasn't a dragon that died. It came from the direction of Garrett's keep, which isn't too surprising I guess. Prolix said we were scried, so they know we're close to them. We're not headed for them, but they don't know that.

Fortunately, being in the tower of Optalis, we saw the creature coming from miles away. Unfortunately, it was very nasty -- it spat a huge ball of acid at us, which damaged me quite a bit, and its bites were quite painful. Turok was knocked down in three bites. I took two (in addition to the acid) and was barely standing (another might have killed me!), but I did hit it with Sunrise. I missed it with my circlet; the creature seemed to be shrugging off a lot of magic. Turok finally killed it the old-fashioned way; being magically enlarged helped.

Prolix vanished this morning and re-appeared a few minutes later, gasping for air while smirking and clutching a sack. He says he recovered his spellbooks without encountering Melisande. He said he also found and smashed what he says is Melisande's scrying mirror. That's good news if that's what it was; I guess time will tell.

And, more important than his books, he brought back Charlos! I wanted to hug him, but how do you hug a ghost? Charlos definitely looks worse than when I last saw him; he said that Melisande has been able to damage him, and that a large undead guard-beast that Melisande keeps outside her lab was able to damage him. In fact, one of the creature's teeth was embedded in Charlos' arm, and he told us that if we can retrieve his holy sword from Cardior and enchant it so that he can pick it up, he will gladly join us in an attack on these creatures. Having Charlos along would certainly help. He seemed excited by this, actually, saying "if it can bite me, I can hit it!".

I wonder how we can go about healing Charlos. It's hard to do much when we can't even touch him, and Liandra says that healing spells might not be good for ghosts. Can Charlos lay hands on himself and heal? He ought to be able to; he has the same blessings of Agondre that I do. (Well, more of them, but the same kind, I gather.)

Meanwhile, the plan for today is to attempt to restore Bertolf's sight. The poor man has been waiting months for this day; I hope we can deliver. And then, we must get away from the tower before nightfall. Now that Melisande has seen us here, I don't want to be here when she can next safely teleport.

April 11 (Wednesday)

That's done. How fascinating!

Yesterday we saw that there are some lobster-men (ok, you figure out what they are, then!) living in the lake. They have little villages and everything, and "colonies" of giant oysters which we surmised contain magical pearls. Liandra was prepared; she gave us all the ability to breathe water, and then we walked down to the bottom and sought out some to talk with. Prolix did the talking, which always makes me nervous, but none of the rest of us could speak their language.

The lobster-men were none too happy to see more "invaders" -- they told us that they have already been invaded once, by a foul creature that lives in the sea under the tower that they called the "eye-stealer", and it has been stealing their pearls. They opened an oyster to show us -- no pearl, and some of the oysters appeared to be dead. It also, apparently, has the ability to rip eyes out of living creatures; three of their people have been blinded. Ugh! Scary!

They pointed out the crevice from which the creature had emerged, and Prolix sent some prying eyes of his own in to scout it out. He said he saw a large creature that looks sort of like a jellyfish, and that there were lots of eyes floating in the water. The creature also looked right at his sensor, even though it was invisible. Ok, scratch that method of attacking.

The creature was in a spherical -- eye-shaped, really -- cavern with a small corridor leading to it through the floor. That's very smart; we would have to swim in one at a time, and could do nothing from the corridor. I suggested that the room might be particularly vulnerable to blinding with a bright flash of light, but Liandra pointed out that this might be bad for the land, depending on what's connected to what. She's probably right, and anyway I don't want to take the chance.

In the end, we prepared defensive magic, Bertolf blessed us, and Liandra summoned a water elemental to lead the way. The creature was very strong and healed very quickly, but we were able to subdue it. Unfortunately, killing it turned out to be more of a challenge -- weapons, magic missiles, and -- once we hauled it up onto land -- acid, fire, cold, electricity, and holy water were all ineffective. Eventually Turok thought of silver, and when I sliced it with Sunrise it stayed sliced. So we were finally able to kill it, but we were getting worried.

Meanwhile, it appeared that its belly was full of eyes or pearls, and Liandra sliced it open and carefully removed as many as she could. The "eyes" ran the gamut from actual eyes to hard pearls, and all stages in between. They glowed of magic -- some more strongly than others -- and also of poison. (The poison, we surmise, was from the creature.)

We summoned the lobster-men, who brought their shaman, but he didn't know how to use the eyes either. Guessing, we chose two that had strong magic, and Liandra neutralized the poison and placed them in Bertolf's eye-sockets -- and he could see! Just like that! It was amazing, and he was very grateful to her in particular. They have spent much of this evening talking quietly, in fact.

We spoke with the shaman and made sure he understood what to do to heal his people who had been damaged. The lobster-men allowed us to take many of the eyes; they radiate strong vision-magic, and I am looking forward to experimenting with crafting something appropriate. Just as soon as the party can come to an agreement. They probably won't let me make a crystal ball for myself, but later, when all of this is over, I hope to return here and negotiate with the lobster-men for that on my own.

We were still left with the problem of leaving the island. Liandra turned into a hawk and I polymorphed Slade, Bertolf, Prolix, and myself into birds as well. (Hawks for them, an owl for me so Hrolf wouldn't feel like the odd bird out.) Kyle, Turok, and Tasha would have none of this, and chose to walk across the bottom. I'm not actually sure what Charlos did -- I guess he just sort of passed through the lake in ways specific to ghosts. I'll have to ask him. Eventually everyone emerged and we began to walk toward the gorge of fire, our next destination up here.

I say "up here" because we really need to visit Oakhame, which we can do in stages by teleport. We owe Seamus the magic from Laryn, and I want to discuss with him ways to use it to make something to soothe Agondre. Meanwhile, Liandra of course wants to visit home -- and frankly, we could all use a rest before we go to the gorge of fire and take Bertolf home. And Garrett will probably be looking for us up here, not in Oakhame.

Charlos seems more subdued, perhaps weary, than he was when we met him in Cardior. I told him how sad I was that he was left behind in Garrett's keep and how glad I am to have him back. My Agondre-bestowed powers have grown a little since we last saw each other, and we discussed this some. I feel there is much I can learn from Charlos.

I have not yet discussed Lord Marius' "interesting" proposal with Charlos. I want his input, but I think I also need to know a lot more of what Marius has in mind. It still sounds like a wacky idea to me -- why me, and why does he think I'd be qualified, and why would people even accept me? I'm not a leader of armies, let alone of a nation! But I suppose part of me wishes that this could work out somehow anyway. Maybe I should discuss all of this with Charlos before speaking with Marius after all. Hmm.