Dear Father,

Did you ever find it amazing how easy some creatures are to bribe and how hard some others are no matter how greedy they seem to have been in the past and in the stories. I told you before about the Wizard’s Tower and the guards there seemed to exemplify both of the above in one go. One the one hand the Duergar there who we never really believed that trustworthy stuck to their duty despite offering to give them 50% of all the treasure within the dang tower whereas one of their Xorn slaves gave up and left for two rather trivial diamonds. Anyway, after the partially successful bribery attempt we were forced into combat with the Duergar and one remaining Xorn. Being on a stone bridge which was only 10 feet across it was impossible for the group to manoeuvre into any sort of effective fighting pattern so I took upon myself to change this and to ensure that our Battle Standard was suitably planted where the sight of it would give the group the biggest morale boost possible. With that in mind I signalled to Gregg for a boost and with a running start leapt over him and the Duergar Fleshreaper he has battling. Unfortunately for me the fleshreaper chose that moment to poke Gregg in the chest just hard enough to be a distraction and instead of the planned acrobatic display I found myself bumping back and forth around them until I finally came facedown behind the fleshreaper. At least it put me within 5 feet of where I’d intended to be and I could plant the standard for all to see. The battle after that was hard fought but, one in which I think everyone managed to excel although it was a bit of a shock to see some of the Duergar grow to large proportions upon being bloodied I think it was handled very well indeed even when they managed to get behind us and attack Belgarath.

Having gained entrance to the tower I was rather mistaken in hoping for a unoccupied entry hall and instead we came across a spell-throwing gnoll who having heard the ruckus out-front had managed to summon up two cambion hellswords and nearly a dozen undead minions. Another fight where we spent sometime pinned in, this time by the witherings. Gregg used the magic of his Berzerker badge to charge the Gnoll Wizard and the rest of us tried to dispose of the minions before the hellswords could do us in. The Company of the Purple Eclipse has its ups and downs tactically and if I’m honest I’m not sure this was one of our best outings but, we did manage to get through it mostly unscathed and bravely set off for the next level of the tower. Knowing that there was a great source of undead power at the top we were surprised to find not undead in the next room but, trolls and thunder lizard type creatures called destrachors. Tactically we were much more sound in this battle and worked well to ensure that the trolls were taking as much fire damage as we could dish out and harming the destrachors anyway we could. We managed to concentrate enough fire power on single targets that we made relatively short work of them and decided despite our weariness to press on ahead.

Oh we also found some things in the Gnolls' library books for conjuring demons and undead and a scrap of paper with perhaps part of a ritual written on it. I of course destroyed the books and am hoping the other things we found will prove to be useful.

Give my love to Mother.

Sincerely,

Delamor