back. As she coiled her rope, she thought about how much she wanted to wrap it around Corran's neck. Instead she stowed it and the grappling hook in her pack. She retrieved her dagger, noting her surroundings as she cleaned it
They'd arrived on a street lined with buildings in various states of destruction. Even in its ruined condition Kestrel could see that Myth Drannor had once been a city of incredible beauty. The wood, stone, and glass buildings of the former elven capital had been constructed as extensions of the very trees that sheltered them, wondrous feats of architecture that enhanced nature even as they altered it. Spires soared toward the sky, prompting Kestrel to raise her eyes. In doing so, she discovered a network of bridges that spanned the trees.
Now many of the bridges were destroyed, and the buildings below looked like an earthquake had violently shaken them. Broken spires lay in fragments on the ground, their jagged stumps rising no higher toward the stars than did human constructions. Collapsed walls exposed the rooms they had been meant to protect, inviting creatures mundane and malicious to make their homes within. Statues of exquisite elven maidens lacked limbs or heads and stood watch over dry fountains choked with moss and debris. Weeds and thorns overtook the gardens. Rubble littered the streets.
A feeling of sadness, unfamiliar but genuine, washed over Kestrel. Something more than a city had been lost here.
At last she approached the others.
'You certainly took your time coming over,' Corran said. He gestured toward the adventurers. 'They're all dead-if you care.'
'Good thing we almost killed ourselves getting here, then,' she responded. 'You had no right to force me into that portal.'
'You would stand idly by while others suffered?'
'This isn't my problem.'
'You did volunteer,' Durwyn piped up.
Was he ganging up on her too, now? She fixed him with a withering gaze that caused the burly man to step back a pace. 'My commitment began and ended in Phlan,' she said.
Corran shook his head in disgust. 'Don't you have the least concern for anyone besides yourself?'
'I saved your arse in that damn gate, didn't I?'
'Enough!' Ghleanna, her expression strained, stepped between them. 'Corran, she's right-you shouldn't have forced her to come. Kestrel, now that we are here, can we at least search for clues to what happened?'
'Sure,' Kestrel responded, her gaze remaining locked on Corran. She'd settle this later.
The adventurers appeared to have been dead for hours. Ghleanna hypothesized that time had become distorted in the malfunctioning gate, suspending the travelers in limbo much longer than the few seconds usually required to journey through one. The party also looked to have suffered wounds the orcs could not have inflicted.
'I believe their opponents wielded magic,' Ghleanna said. 'Look at those deep burns on Allyril, the party's sorceress. Ordinary fire doesn't burn skin quite that way-I suspect lightning bolts. The cleric over there seems to have had the life drained right out of him, as does Loren. Athan is missing. I–I fear he was disintegrated altogether.' She cleared her throat and looked away.
Corran uttered the opening words of a prayer for the ill-fated band's souls. Kestrel, never one to take much interest in religious observances, rolled her eyes but remained silent during the invocation. As she waited, paying little attention to the words, she noticed a smooth rectangular bulge under the cloak of the man Ghleanna had called Loren. When the paladin finished his prayer, she bent over the body to investigate.
'Have you no respect?' Corran hissed.
'What? I thought you were done.'
'You would steal from the corpses of fallen comrades?'
She clenched her jaw, fresh ire rising within her. If Ghleanna or Durwyn had reached for that object, he wouldn't have said a word. 'I thought we were investigating what happened here.' Pointedly turning her back on him, she unclasped Loren's cloak, slipped her hand into its inside pocket, and withdrew a slim book. She opened its leaves, quickly skimming the pages. 'It's a journal.'
Corran reached for it. 'Let me see.'
Kestrel snatched the volume out of his grasp. 'I can read.' She flipped to the end, hoping the last few entries would prove the most informative.
Elminster was right, the last page read. A new Pool of Radiance exists somewhere in Myth Drannor. The pool's creators know our mission and already send agents to stop us, even though we have not yet learned who's behind the plan. Fortunately, we still have the Gauntlets of Moander, and once we find the pool we shall use them to destroy it. Mystra- and Fate-willing.
Kestrel read the passage aloud. When she finished, Ghleanna turned to Corran.
'I saw no gauntlets when we examined the adventurers,' the mage said, a note of panic in her voice. 'Did you?'
'No, but we weren't looking for them, either,' he said. 'Let's check again.'
Their search yielded several vials of bluish liquid, a plain, battered silver ring sized for a woman's hand, an assortment of weapons, and numerous other provisions- but no Gauntlets of Moander.
'Well, we will just have to tell Elminster what happened and let him worry about it,' Kestrel said. She turned to Ghleanna. 'So go ahead and do your thing.'
The mage regarded her quizzically. 'My thing?'
'You know,' she prompted. 'Conjure up one of those gate things so we can get out of here.' As much as she hated the thought of trusting another magical portal, twilight approached, and she was even less enamored with the idea of spending the night in this haunted city overrun with the minions of some unknown foe.
Ghleanna was silent a moment 'I cannot do that, Kestrel,' she said finally. 'I have not the power.'
'What do you mean?' A sick feeling spread through her insides. 'We're not stuck here, are we?'
'You're welcome to try to find your way out of the city and walk home,' Corran said. 'As for me, I choose to take up this party's mission. The cause of good cannot afford the time it would take us to reach Elminster. We must instead pick up where these fallen worthies left off.'
Kestrel stared at him. The paladin really had an over-inflated sense of his own honor. Fallen worthies, indeed. Did anyone actually talk like that?
'Yes, we must!' Durwyn exclaimed.
She closed her eyes. Of course Durwyn would follow the knight. He was lost without a commander, and apparently he'd settled on Corran as his new one.
'I'm glad you both agree,' Ghleanna said. 'I would have taken up this quest alone if I had to.'
Kestrel sighed. Was she alone possessed of sense? 'Aren't you all forgetting a few facts?' she asked. 'Our foes already defeated the original party-we're fewer in number and less prepared. Even if we do manage to find this new pool, what are we going to do when we get there? Skip stones across it? The bad guys have the gauntlets.'
'But we have the advantage of surprise,' Corran said. 'They won't be expecting a new party so soon. We can figure out the rest as we go along-we haven't even read the whole journal yet.'
She bowed her head, rubbing her temples. They were insane. All of them. They would end up dead, and they wanted to take her with them.
Yet would she fare any better trying to make it out of the city, through the forest, and back to civilization alone?
'Kestrel, you were really smart back there in the portal,' Durwyn said. 'We could sure use your help.'
As if she had a choice. Get killed here or get killed trying to leave here. Nonetheless, if she was stuck on this suicide mission, there was one thing she wouldn't tolerate. She looked up at Corran. 'No more insults from you.'
'Agreed.'
She glanced at Durwyn and Ghleanna. 'All right then.'
Ghleanna responded by suddenly raising her palms and hurling a spell at her. Kestrel dived to the ground. 'What the-'
A burst of light appeared about ten paces behind her, followed immediately by an inhuman cry. A hideous
