Author Note: While most of what Cato says is true, he is not a fully reliable narrator. He is somewhat prone to misremembering details, wishful thinking, exaggerating his own heroics, and misplaced humility. Some text is written to make the story less offensive to the Drow.

This is a memoir written along the way, detailing my attempts to escape the Drow. My hope, and perhaps my delusion, is that one day I will be able to get this published by some great bard like Jamick Stardancer who will tell my tale for generations. But I am willing to settle for some Drow pulling this journal off of my corpse and retelling it as the epic of a worthy opponent. Or as a warning. Or a joke. Look, whatever gets action figures made of me. I'm not picky.

A few details before we begin, namely some introductions to myself, my town, and a few people I've gotten to know:

-The Village of Laxa: We are from a village known as Laxa, built over the ruins of a lost elven kingdom that was destroyed in some great battle. I would later discover that the Drow did this.

-Cato Smith: A genius artificer who bravely sought to resurrect the lost elven kingdom with technology! Extremely dashing, charming, intelligent. His talent is recognized by the wisest individuals, but ignored by his blacksmith father.

-Laxa: A member of Australopithecus Laxas (Fireblorg) whose race was wiped out by the Drow. He hid from us for centuries, being a sort of legend of the village.

-Pavel: A kid who occasionally hangs around my lab and I like to show my inventions to. A very good-natured boy, he works at a goat farm. Please do not turn out like me.

-Bianca: A member of Draconis Anthros Blanc (White Dragonborn), who serves as a paladin to the goddess Artemis. Laxa's best friend.

-Ember: Female Homo Hobbitus, whose family burned in a fire when she was but a lass. She serves as a waitress at the local tavern. A bit psycho, but she isn't the only one who the underdark has...changed.

-Ilvara: The cunning leader of my betters, whose intellect was far too tempting of a challenge for a genius like myself.

-Asha: Ilvara's second-in command I presume. She taught me interesting things about Drow culture and showed me a semblance of discretion. Did you know that the Drow use spider silk to collect water? Dew forms on it and they have it run down into pots and the like.

-Shushar: The idealistic but unwise pacifist. He's a fish-person (a kuo-toa, as they're called), I call him Pacifish.

-Stool: The cutest thing ever and any play written about me should also sell plushies of him.

-Buppido: A wizard. I'm not fond of wizards, they always think they're so cool with all their spells. They don't know what true genius is. He is smart for a wizard, though.

-Turvy: A gnomish kid whose sister was murdered. Worst rogue, but he seems decent enough.

-Derendil: A sentient quaggoth who claims to be the Elven prince of the lost kingdom.

Log 1: Chooser of the Slain

My experiment was finally ready. For a long time, I have taken an interest in the lost elves. Their spirits still roam around our city, but they have never communicated with us. We are like two cities, that coexist but never speak.

There is a ghost of an elven warrior who regularly wanders near my home. I have decided to make her the first. She had fought on the day her kingdom died. My mother always told me stories of how the ghosts protected us, and she was the guardian of my home.

I had told the town I was about to reveal something big. A crowd emerged. Ah, my friend Pavel was in the crowd! That's very good, I'm glad he could make it. I said "I have studied the ghosts surrounding us, and when I showed my theories to the world they called me mad! Well, except for everyone watching right now. But tell me...could a mad man turn ghosts into robots? The answer is yes, but that's beside the point!"

I had constructed a machine in the likeness of the subject, with some angelic features-I named it the Valkyrie. I called up Pavel, Bianca, Old Man Twigs, and Ember to pull the levers to activate the machine. As they pulled the levers a soul gem was raised and absorbed the ghost. The machine animated. My experiment was a success! I put on my medallion, my arcane focus. It should allow me to communicate one-way to the subject. I said to her "Hello" and shook her hand.

After introductions, the Valkyrie wandered a bit, bumping into a few objects. Subject initially appeared confused for a few minutes while it adjusted to its new body. However, subject does not appear to be suffering aside from mild confusion. After a while, the subject appears to be enjoying new body. The experiment will continue. Unfortunately, the prototype is incapable of speech. I am still working on inventing "speakers".

In order to celebrate, we went to the local tavern, Oaken's shield. We began to drink when a Tabaxi about my age walked in. I recognized him as Rex Jr, the son of the richest man in town. Two half-orcs came beside him. Rex Jr. was not popular among my compatriots, but when he offered to gamble we decided to humor him. After all, somebody has to fund my experiments.

I lost badly twice. Ember managed to get a draw with him at the end. We were running out of money. We began to get ready to leave, but Rex Jr got upset with us for "leaving so soon".

An Orc grabbed Old Man Twigs. Mr. Twigs suddenly transformed into some form of rodent, and began to scurry away. I called for the Valkyrie. The tavern had a rule about barfights: No weapons, no magic. This was perhaps a loophole, but technically Valkyrie wouldn't need a weapon given the nature of her robotic hands.

The fight was between a machine with military training and some hooligan was a bit unfair. He punched her, but he injured his hand more than the machine. Now, the machine was not well-armored and actually rather fragile, but less so than typical flesh. She punched with the force of a mace and hit the guy in the gut. He collapsed.

During the fight, I saw Ember raise her hand, holding a pair of brass knuckles. I found out later Pavel had snuck the brass knuckles out of Rex's hands and gave them to Ember. The bartender was outraged. He broke up the fight and he threw us out. Ugh. I hope this doesn't stop any return visits.

…

Night passed. It was a new moon, which meant the battle was about to take place. I tracked the ghosts as they rose to reenact the battle in which the city was destroyed. The people that killed them appear only as shadows. Valkyrie walked out to enact her own part of the battle, fighting at shadowy figures until she fell. That must be a terrible fate, forced to relive the destruction of her kingdom.

…

The next day people began to raise a fuss about something going down at Pavel's farm. Pavel was a good kid, so The Valkyrie and I ran on down to see what was going on. There, I saw 25 goats brutally mutilated, with their entrails scattered and painting the fields crimson. I was the only one who checked to see if they're dead. It turns out: They're dead. Damn, I had stock in the goat milk industry.

I found some bluish fur in there. There had been rumors circling about of a creature known as the Laxan beast (sometimes just referred to as "Laxa"), a bluish ape-man who guarded the forest. I had not believed in such things-just because dragons does not mean there aren't hoaxes too. But it seems either I was wrong or the hoaxer had gone too far.

I volunteered to join a hunting party, bringing The Valkyrie with me. I needed to test out her combat abilities and I imagine she'd appreciate a new battlefield. I set out with Pavel, Bianca, and Ember.

We headed out for several days, trying to follow claw markings I had found that didn't seem native to these parts. For a paladin of Artemis, Bianca was oddly having trouble with this. But after a while we saw Old Man Twigs approach our camp. I asked him what brought him here.

He told us to not be afraid, and magically transformed into the beast of Laxa. He said "I have been hiding for a long time, with my friend Bianca protecting me". It hit me. That's why it was so hard to find the monster!

I asked to see his hand and I noticed that he didn't have sharp claws like whatever killed the goats.

"So you aren't what killed the goats after all", I said. "How would you like to join us?".

Laxa looked around, and humbly said "I will go with you".

Eventually, we tracked the monster down to its cave. It was some sort of bear-like creature, very strange. We snuck up on it, and we all began to attack the beast with all our weapons. I shot a firebolt at it, Ember insulted it magically, Bianca and Pavel stabbed it, and the Valkyrie kicked it in the face. It died before it awoke.

We walked outside and then noticed some black robed figure. The uniform rang a bell, like something I found in my studies before. The figure spoke to me. It said "You have killed the High Priestess Ilvara's pet! You will pay for this!" and before I knew it, poisoned crossbow darts rained into me. I passed out.

…

We awoke, I don't know how many days later. I heard a voice speak and say "Welcome to Hades".