Voz's Journal and Notes

In addition to Voz’s gear, she also carries a knapsack containing her journal and papers—which includes her correspondence with the Scarlet Triad. The correspondence doesn’t make it clear exactly what sort of organization the Scarlet Triad is, but the group promises to sponsor Voz’s plans to found an assassination guild and necromancy laboratory in the basement of Citadel Altaerein. Before they’ll initiate this patronage and proved her support, though, the Scarlet Triad correspondent tells Voz that she must first confirm the existence of Alseta’s Ring, find a way to secure it, and then activate as many of the portals as possible. Once she proves to this shadowy group that she’s done this, the Scarlet Triad has promised hefty compensation, more than enough for her to get started setting up her guild and laboratory under Hellknight Hill. Voz signs all of her letters “By Norgorber’s hand,” a phrase that a DC 15 Religion check reveals marks her as a dedicated follower of the Reaper of Reputation.

Voz has been careful to avoid writing much about the Scarlet Triad in her journal, however one key clue is the name “Laslunn,” which appears to be the name of Voz’s mysterious Scarlet Triad correspondent.

The pages of Voz's academic journal are written in Necril. Its contents are mostly about Voz’s plans for an assassin’s guild and necromancer’s school, but several pages near the back contain her research and notes about Alseta’s Ring. The bulk of the information comes from old reports from the time of the Goblinblood Wars, when a group of soldiers confronted a clan of goblins who’d taken up residence in a series of caves near Breachill. These reports indicated that at the deepest portion of the caves, an entrance into a much older ruin that the goblins feared to enter was discovered. The soldiers explored a bit further, discovered a “ring of strange archways,” but were ultimately driven away by powerful animated statues that “emerged from nearby doors” to attack.

Voz’s additional research, which includes copious notes on the necromantic ritual she performed recently to interrogate the spirits of the dead in the crypt below Citadel Altaerein, seem to confirm her theories that this ring of portals is an ancient elven ruin called Alseta’s Ring. Her research suggests that Alseta’s Ring was among the first of the aiudara—ancient portals created by the elves before Earthfall—and that the six portals that made up the ring linked six different sites. One of these she has confirmed as having once linked to Kyonin, but this section of Alseta’s ring has fallen into ruin and now leads to the goblin caves (providing a back door into the dungeons below Citadel Altaerein), but observations from soldiers in the Goblinblood Wars suggested the other five portals still stood at that time. Voz’s research indicates that for a portal to be activated, a key item has to be used. Where the remaining five portals might lead and what keys are required to activate them, alas, Voz has not yet been able to determine, but in her notes she is optimistic that, once she secures the site and has the chance to study the portals in person, clues as to their function will present themselves.

The final few pages of the journal cover Voz’s last several days spent exploring the caverns between the campsite and the deeper Goblinblood Caves she suspects links to Alseta’s Ring itself. The final entry mentions an encounter with a “strange woman who seemed to be able to manipulate spiders as easily as I command my undead minions”.