Accompanying Quicksilver on this quest were a number of other adventurers, Merlin, Brother John, Myrkul, Crystal, Tornado, Erf, Sargon, Sky and Giles.

My friend Quicksilver has for many years been seeking for other Ice elves. Some 500 years ago when they were at war with the Drow he was entombed in ice by his father the King of the Ice elves in order to save him. Since that time he laid in ice for several hundreds of years, thawing out some ten years ago (or so). I got to know Quicksilver soon after we came to Orin Rakatha, and when he finally died for the final time, giving his life in a mission to stop Erelan Black I was greatly saddened. A few years ago I heard rumours that he was returning in the body of another elf, I did not think that this was the case, but when I finally met him I was astonished and overjoyed to find that I was wrong, and that my friend was alive again. When he told me that he was going on a mission to try and find his people I of course accepted gladly. We met with a Halmadonian guide, one who knew something of the lower planes of the Abyss, for this man had travelled far and told us that he had heard rumours of the ice elves on one of the planes. As we had been on some of these planes before we reviewed as a group what we knew about them. But as it happens we were on a totally different plane to one we had been one before, so our pooled knowledge was of little value. Travelling to the plane was accomplished by means of a gate invocation. Arriving there we could all feel that we were alien presence’s on the plane, that the plane itself sought to reject us. In particular myself and Sky who are more dedicated to the cause of Law than the others were assailed to a greater.

The guide knew of an enclave where law had a bastion and we began to walk there. Soon after though we encountered some Law Guardians, automatons. These creatures were dedicated to destroying creatures of Chaos, and amongst our number they detected some that were of Chaos, or were tainted by Chaos. The creatures detected Sargon and Erf as they wore items that were tainted, chess pieces, and Quicksilver. We battled our way through these to the domicile myself and Sky going on ahead, we tried to persuade those in the building to call off their creatures for we did not want to destroy all their defences. Eventually we all made it to the building. We could not enter, as the place was warded, but giving the Law Lords of the place something of great value to each of us allowed them to attune the wardings so that we could enter.

Entering we met the Law Lords, who were all Drow. It seems that these were some offshoot of the Drow who had cleaved to Law and not to Chaos as all other Drow seem to. They told us that this plane did indeed contain some ice elves, and that all ice elves were attuned to Chaos. Quicksilver confirmed some of this tale, telling us of the Elven Soothsayers who had corrupted many his race, by tainting them in some way or other – and it looks as though it was with Chaos that this happened. The Ice elves on this plane were the servants of one of the two powers who fought on this plane. We persuaded the Law Lords to aid us by offering to try and remove the Ice elves from this plane, and they agreed to point us the way in the morning.

Resting the night we awoke feeling much refreshed, following the directions given to us we set out, some of our party, the weaker members being strengthened by the Law Lords use of Law invocations. We encountered some chaos beasts/elementals and these we destroyed, taking the time to cast our powerful spells and invocations. Travelling down a hill we were assailed by a cold wind, one that seemed to penetrate into the heart, weakening the fortitude of some of our number, bringing a sense of hopelessness and despair. After a while this passed, and those affected returned to normal. We walked to the bottom of the hill and there met with Kryakin, battle lords of the Windborn (elemental knights of air is how I would describe them). These took council with Giles and Tornado, air elves, although they called them traitors at first. It seems that the air elves and the Windborn are related in some way. They bore a message from their master, Sandaster that he wished to see them and speak with them. They said that they would look forward to the meeting and the Windborn vanished into the air.

Moving on we found the bridge we had to pass, but there was some powerful undead spirit there guarding it a Rank 9 Soul Devourer. Long and hard was this battle, but finally we destroyed the spirit, having to cast a cosmic good invocation on it to remove its protections, then destroy its form with power weapons. However in the battle the creature assailed our Halmadonian guide and stole his soul. Slaying it did not return him to health. From then on he accompanied us as a soulless being.

On the other side of the bridge we walked on for a while until we met a trader. She had been on this plane quite a lot and had dealt with both sides in the war, we concluded various deals with her, and discovered that there was a fragment of one of the chaos lords called Maelstrom that had an ice elf with him. We resolved to go to this Maelstrom fragment and “liberate” the Ice elf. Along the way we fought with various chaos beasts of one sort or another, but our skills were easily the match for these challenges. However in one of these the Halmadonian turned on us, his soulless body being taken over by some being or other. We were forced to slay him, after we did so his body decayed to nothing, the effect of the plane. Finally we confronted this Maelstrom fragment, the ice elf and a number of others. A long and arduous battle was fought, in with all except the wizards were brought down by having Mana drained out of us. The Maelstrom fragment was able to focus the repelling effect of the plane, and as he could only be harmed by magic that was how he used it against us. However our mighty sorcerers, Sargon, Tornado, Giles and Quicksilver were a match for him and destroyed this Maelstrom fragment.

The ice elf having been disabled was brought round and persuaded to take us to his other comrades, all the remaining Ice Elves on the plane. We were greeted with a feast, both food and wine in plentiful quantities. In these pleasant surrounding the initial coldness between our two groups thawed, breaking the ice between us so to speak. Much of the night passed in pleasant carousing, however several important events happened.

We discovered that the ice elves were celebrating their last night of life, for tomorrow they were being sent out to fight Chaos Golems by their master Maelstrom. They were sure to die, for as creatures of magic they were unable to harm the Chaos Golems – creatures that needed power to harm them. We swore to take on this task for them and fight the Chaos Golems in their place. This was the lesser event. Soon after this they brought out something that they had possessed for five hundred years, ever since they had fled from the battle against the Drow, the Crown of the Ice Elves. There they crowned Quicksilver their king and swore to accept him as their sovereign and accompany him back to the Valley Alliance Towers. The night passed away as did several others, myself included.

Come the morning, we recovered from our night of carousing – slowly. As we were doing so, a strange creature came to fight us, it reflected the damage we were doing back to itself. But it was quite tough, however after several comedy incidents we did, in the end, slay the creature. After that we prepared for the Chaos Golems, the Ice Elves came and told us that they had had the signal and it was time for us to go. We went to where they directed us and there we fought the Chaos Golems and another of these reflectors. The battle we managed without a great deal of difficulty, for whilst these were powerful creatures we also were might – far mightier than they. After doing this we returned to the domicile of the Ice Elves, and with them travelled back to Orin Rakatha.

Merlin