From the secret journals of Tescelin Maratim

End of Eleasias through Mid-Nightal

26 Eleasias -- Learned about Selunanaria, an enclave to Selune, saved by Her power at the Fall of Netheril. It has been on a celestial plane ever since. Shydra, a High Arcanist and High Priestess of Selune was the leader of the enclave when it was brought directly to Selune's realm. Mr. Tuskgrin shared a memory with me about the place. He showed me when Lord Shadow deposited a Nether Scroll on Mystra's Alter. Peraus Wands set another beside it. Light and dankness battled. Shydra touched the dark aura and it quieted.

27 Eleasias -- Spent the day in administration in our village, now bursting at the seams. I'm glad Oskar and Kerith are good at this stuff. I find it draining and far too time consuming. Kerith introduced me to a couple of new arrivals, folks who came to meet him and listen to his tales. They expressed interest and claim some aptitude in magic. I agreed to work with them a bit and set them on the task of assembling a working laboratory in the tower at Griffon Keep. The keep and my tower is near to completion and with a few exceptions, the dwarves are done with my chambers. I couldn't wait to move in.

Xan learned from Brother Cole that the Spelljammer was likely going to be in Cluster Space in a few months and that it would be a good time to intercept it. Cole found a way to this strange sphere but unless we are aboard the Spelljammer, getting out again might be difficult. If we are leaving our sphere, now might be a good time to go after Borem's Heart.

Talked the others into going back to the lighthouse at Saerloon tomorrow. I think I've got a plan that will get us in and out quickly, but it is hard to know just what to expect.

28 Eleasias -- Started the day with a hero's feast and we all prepared for an unwelcome reception in Saerloon. Fortunately, my plan went smoothly. After preparing for the worst, we teleported to the old menhir, I shapechanged into a xorn, burrowed down a few feet to Borem's Heart and the Jathaman Dagger, grabbed it and returned to the surface. I had to hold the thing in my mouth, and even after changing back to my normal shape, I couldn't seem to get the taste of the foul mud out of my mouth. Yuck.

Teleported back to Daggerfalls. After a bit of negotiating with Lord Morn and residents at the mountain stronghold Dragonsmere, we got a lift on the Spelljamming galleon "Too Many Goats" to the Rock of Brall. There we found a ship, a small damselfly class ship that we could handle ourselves, and bought it. We outfitted it with a minor helm. Oskar, grinning from ear to ear, informed us that he bought an "accelerator", a kind of magical weapon that shoots out whatever is laded into the ammunition pan. When the tall, blue Arcane engineers arrived to install the helm, they also brought the accelerator and a rotating railed turret on which to mount the contraption. It is a rather fascinating weapon but I sincerely hope we don't need to use it. I don't think this frail little ship could survive much ship-to-ship fighting.

By the time the Arcane were done, we had food, water and other supplies loaded and we were ready to depart.

Mid Marpenoth -- it took us six weeks of quiet travel to reach the inner surface of the crystal sphere. During this time I was able to do a tremendous amount of reading. The fascinating thing about the Nether scrolls is that the more I work at it, the more I seem to uncover. There seems to be no end to the layers of knowledge woven into these texts. There are chapters on theoretical aspects of crafting constructs and long passages on technical matters relating to design details, materials lists, and practical instructions to aid in building all manner of constructs. Only a few of the necessary materials for building a construct could be found on board, but as I began to actually assemble some of these components, even more layers of understanding began to unfold before me. It seems that the theory and practice of creating these constructs is both used herein to teach deeper lessons of the Art.

Having Borem's Heart and the Jathaman Dagger to examine has also proven to be a great boon. The dagger is an amazing artifact in itself and it has revealed a few clues to how a mere mortal might be successful in slaying a god. I am moving carefully with these artifacts however for from time to time it seems that my examinations cause the heart to beat more strongly and mud to ooze ever so slightly from the wound filled by the dagger. I tend not to sleep well after working with the evil thing.

Primula opened a portal to the rainbow sea beyond the crystal wall and we spent another long quiet stretch of time traveling to the strange sphere that surrounds cluster space. Since the phologostin is highly explosive, I was a bit limited in the work I could do in the makeshift laboratory I set up in a corner of the ship's hold. I focused my efforts on reading, writing scrolls and fiddling with minor components for crafting my construct. One day, shortly after my shift on the helm, Xan approached and handed me the massive magical Tome of Clear Thought. When we had found this potent book we had agreed to roll dice to see who would have access to its benefit. Xan had won and I had gotten an extra share of gold in compensation. Now he offered it to me in exchange for helping him out in his effort to master the Art. I'm not sure if I should give him the gold that was my share or do more than teach him to the limit of his abilities. Regardless, the book was a joy to read and even now that it is no longer magical, its insights into memory and logic are remarkable.

The surface of the Cluster Space sphere appears cracked, but it too was impenetrable without the aid of a spell by Primula. I know there are arcane spells that would be useful in this, but I've never run across them. Perhaps the next time we visit a spelljamming port I can track some down.

9 Nightal -- We arrived inside the Crystal Sphere with little trouble. Br. Cole used a set of instruments to study the interior of the sphere but detected no planets, just a remarkable number of asteroids. There were two suns, one red and one very bright white. Cole began almost immediately drafting a map to chart the positions of the many lines of planetoids and asteroids. We also discovered an unfamiliar type of ship, a square fort-like structure within a flat triangular construction.

Cluster Space is inhabited by the Thoric. People who seem filled with a vibrant lust for life. They engage in much trade via spelljamming ships that travel routinely between the planetoids and inhabited asteroids. They follow the god Thor and several others in a pantheon of the "Vikings." They seemed uninterested in hearing much about Aoskar or our mission but suggested that if we cleared an icy asteroid of a menacing wolf-monster, perhaps they might be willing to trade information with us.

The way they described the really big wolf (the size of a horse), the giggles of the young maidens, and the knowing smiles from the grizzled old warriors, hinted that this was more than just an oversized dog. They told us that its howl scattered even the bravest of warriors and that weapons could not harm it. We found out just how challenging this primordial grandfather-of-all-wolves was shortly after we landed on the huge block of ice that was its home. Shane spotted it first and the fight was soon on. I played little more than a support role in the battle as it seemed to shrug off nearly every spell I threw at it. Our warriors were more effective however and after a terrifying battle in the howling wind and cold, the great beast tried to run away. We chased it down and killed it on the icy asteroid and great volumes of its blood stained the snow. It was likely just my imagination, but with it dead, the asteroid seemed a little duller, a little less vibrant. It was, without doubt a lot less dangerous. We took the great monster's pelt as a trophy, partly to prove to the Thoric that we had done what we said we would, but also I think to honor the the huge wolf known to the Thoric as Bracyurus.

On the way back to our ship we searched the bits of a corpse we had found along the way. The illithid that had been nothing but several steaming body parts a moment ago was now frozen, gray-mauve meat. We also decided to investigate the frozen ruin of a crashed spelljammer not far away. After all, where better to hide a worlds-destroying artifact than a place like this, guarded by a beast that could have sprung from a god's nightmare? Perhaps Aoskar himself has had an influence in guiding us to this destination and speeding the rebirth of his church.