Fragments of visions and sounds flashed through Castinar's unconscious mind. An image of the deepspawn surging out of the lake. Sane paralyzed at his feet. The monster's teeth grating against his own skull.

Slowly the nightmarish images began to fade, replaced by blessed oblivion.

Later, the druid wasn't sure how much later, Castinar began to slowly gain consciousness again. His first conscious thought was wondering about the cool wind on his skin. Shortly thereafter a cascade of sensations flooded into his slowly waking brain. The smell of vegetation. The buzzing of an insect. The sound of a small brook bubbling nearby.

"Where am I?" Castinar thought. As this question came to mind so did the memories of his last moments in the lair of the deepspawn. The bite that robbed his body of strength. The attempt to use an orison to stop his bleeding. The horrible feeling that something had gone wrong with the spell. While lead to this... where was he now?

The gray druid opened his eyes, and saw the bluest sky he had ever seen before in his life. It was so blue it bordered on black. Lowering his gaze towards the horizon Castinar saw half a dozen tall mountain peaks, covered in deep snow. His confusion mounting he raised his head to take in his immediate surroundings. But that did nothing to answer the questions in his mind. If anything, it added more. He found himself in a small valley nestled on the side of a tall mountain. All around the valley were signs of winter. Yet this small valley looked like, and smelled like, spring. The grass was green. Butterflies were darting through a meadow of wildflowers on the other side of the brook. There was even a deer standing about 30' away looking at the druid.

Castinar sat up and continued looking around, asking silent questions. As he did so he became aware of one other thing - a profound sense of peace and tranquility. This tickled some long forgotten memory in the back of his mind - something about vales like this - but he still couldn't put his finger on it.

Deciding to let the matter rest for a moment, Castinar looked down at himself. He found that he had been healed of all his wounds. There were still signs of the fight - blood on his studded armor and teeth marks in his shield - but his body was fine.

"Ah! About time you woke up, sleepy-head!"

The high pitched voice just about scared Castinar to death. He leapt to his feet and spun around, looking for the owner of the voice. His eyes darted to the nearby trees, looking intently.

"Down _here_, tall-boy."

Looking down, Castinar saw a brownie standing about 10' away.

"Pip is my name! At least, that is what you mortals call me. My actual name is much longer, but even elves like yourself tend to get bored when I recite it. So just call me Pip, and it will be easier for all of us."

"Pip," Castinar responded, a little hesitantly "ah, could you tell me where I am, and how I got here?"

"What, you don't know?" the brownie responded. "Wearing the Lady's symbol and all?" he asked, gesturing to Castinar's chest, where his medallion of Mielikki lay hidden under his armor and clothing. But the brownie's
question helped him to put all the pieces together, and with a growing sense of wonder and awe he realized where he was.

His patron power, Mielikki, Lady of the Forest, was not like most of the other deities worshipped by mortals. Instead of spending her time in the upper planes, playing whatever games the Gods played, she lived here on the prime material plane, actively working to further her aims on Toril. Although any forest was her home, she had special places that she came to relax and rest from her labors. These sites were as close to temples as Mielikki had, holy sites. These sites symbolized the harmony of nature. They were sites of eternal spring - just like this one.

With a new sense of awe and wonder Castinar looked around once again, this time with a newfound sense of respect. Pip watched the elf, having seen reactions like this before. But this one was different. He wasn't invited. Once Pip felt the elf had spent enough time gawking he said "So, who are you? I can see you worship the Lady, but not ever worshiper of the Lady has an open invitation to visit her glades."

"Castinar. Castinar Eleas. I do follow the lady, as both a druid and a ranger."

"And the reason you are here is..." Pip prompted.

Castinar could only shrug. "I don't know why I'm here. One minute I was with my friends in the Underdark, battling for our lives, the next minute I wake up here."

"Are you an Archdruid, perhaps? Maybe it was some kind of contingency spell you had that went wrong."

"Oh no," Castinar replied with a laugh, "it will be many, many years before I could attain that level."

"Well, I guess Tarnithar will have to figure it out then" Pip said with a shrug.

"Tarnithar?"

"Yes, the keeper of the glade. Just a word of caution - he's not overly happy about you being here. When mortals are here unannounced and uninvited - like you - the Lady won't come here. Not that she comes here all that often, but if she did want to come here, and you where here, and so she didn't come, then that would be bad. Get it?"

Castinar just nodded.

Time passed, although in this place one got the impression that time wasn't measure the same way it was in the outside world. Castinar and Pip conversed for a while, but the gray druid didn't get any closer to figuring out what was going on.

A rustle in the trees behind them caused Pip to perk up. "Ah, that must be Tarnithar!"

Castinar stood, expecting some ancient druid or treant to come walking out of the treeline. Instead, his jaw dropped as a blazing white unicorn stepped out, walked over to him, and eyed him sternly. <What are you doing here?> Castinar heard in his mind. Accustomed to telepathic communication from his time with Sane and Hunter, Castinar replied "Castinar Eleas, at your service, noble creature". Just to be on the safe side the elf topped his introduction off with a deep bow.

Tarnithar was unimpressed. <Mortal, you trespass on holy ground. The only reason you still live is the medallion around your neck. You are a worshiper of the Lady, I can see that.> The unicorn's eyes narrowed as he looked closely at Castinar. <Yet, there is something strange about you. You don't feel quite like most mortals who pass through here.>

Castinar was puzzled - and worried - for a moment, until he realized what the unicorn must be sensing. "I am not a... a standard druid, or ranger. I have forsaken the green of the forest for the gray of the Underdark. It is there that I do my work, attempting to keep the balance, rooting out evil where I can and disrupting the plans of the denizens of that land of eternal night." Castinar was getting a little worried, but he remembered that Jasovani had spoken like this when explaining his unorthodox working style to other druids.

<A gray druid. Yes, I have heard of your kind, although I do not necessarily approve. Meilikki is the Lady of the Forests, not the Lady of the Tunnels.>

Having had this argument before, Castinar was about to start explaining that the Underdark was part of nature too, but then he had second thoughts. It probably wasn't a good idea to argue with a Keeper of one of the Lady's glades. "It is an unconventional approach, noble one, but be assured my heart is with the Lady, no matter how deep I delve."

The answer seemed to satisfy Tarnithar, at least for the moment. But he wasn't through with the elf yet. <So how is it that you arrived here? This place is warded.>

Castinar proceeded to explain the events leading up to his appearance in the glade, just as he had done with Pip. But Tarnithar proved to be knowledgeable about magic. He asked several specific questions about the orison that Castinar was casting. After a while the unicorn announced <You must have been teleported here through some kind of magical conduit opened by your spell. My guess is that since your spell was powered by your faith in the Lady, the surging spell somehow brought you to a place holy to her. You are fortunate. It could just as easily delivered you to one of the levels of the Abyss.>

As Castinar mulled this over, Tarnithar continued on. <Now the question is how to get you out of here, and perhaps even get you home.>

"Ah, that does bring up one question I have," Castinar said "Where am I?"

<This place is deep within the mountain range which the elves refer to as Ranidar dal Vassian - the Cathedral of the Sky. Humans call it the Spine of the World.>

"The Spine of the World!" Castinar thought silently to himself. "I'm hundreds - no, thousands of leagues from home!"

As Castinar struggled to come to grips with his location Tarnithar said <Hopefully there is a way to re-open the conduit which brought you here. Barring that, you'll have to wait until high summer, when the snow in the passes finally melts. May the Lady provide us a way to avoid that!>

With that Tarnithar turned and walked back into the woods. With a shrug, Pip followed him. "Excuse me," Castinar called out to the brownie "is there anything I should - or shouldn't do?"

"Nah," Pip replied, "there isn't anything here that you could break. Just relax a little. I'm sure Tarnithar will figure it out.

It had been almost an hour since Tarnithar and Pip had left Castinar alone in the clearing. At first the seriousness of his situation weighed the druid down, but after a while the peacefulness of the holy glade seeped in. When Pip returned to summon the elf he found Castinar sitting on a rock, contemplating his relationship with his deity. Pip, having become sensitive to such moods during his time working in the glade, stepped back and waited for the elf to come out of his reverie.

After only a few minutes the brownie grew impatient. "Ah, excuse me, but are you going to sit there all day?"

The brownie’s voice again startled Castinar. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were there."

"Of course not. I'm a brownie." Pip replied matter-of-factly, "Tarnithar awaits you. I'll take you to him."

Castinar got up and followed the brownie into a new area of the valley. Off to his left he saw a small garden plot. "That's my job" Pip said with pride in his voice. "I keep up the garden."

Their destination turned out to be the top of a small hill near the south end of the valley. As they climbed the hill, Castinar saw a ring of toadstools at the summit. Although he had never seen one himself, he knew what this place was - a faerie ring. Standing in the center of the ring was Tarnithar.

<I have consulted with experts among the faerie on your situation> Tarnithar said without preamble once Castinar made it to the top of the hill. <It is not as serious as I first feared. The faeries are able to sense the distortion that brought you here. The passage still exists, but the gate at this end is closed. The faeries believe that the doorway will re-open for a short time if I temporarily drop the wards around the glade at the moment the moon rises. You will be able to re-enter the passage, and should return to wherever it was you came from.>

"That's good news" Castinar replied, "but is there any risk to you or the glade from dropping the wards?"

<Your concern is... appreciated, but there is no risk. If a horde of orcs were prowling around the edges then yes, it would be a problem. But this glade is very isolated, and especially in the winter we receive few visitors.>

Out of the corner of his eye Castinar saw Pip suddenly sit up straight at the unicorn's words. He turned and slipped back down the hill, fading from view after only a few steps. If Tarnithar noticed the brownie's departure he didn't react to it.

<Moonrise will be three hours before dawn tomorrow morning. Until then I recommend you continue with what you have been doing. It is not often one gets the chance to spend a day in the home of one's deity.>

Castinar again bowed to the unicorn, not surprised that the unicorn had been aware of his activities. As he did so he noticed for the first time that several tiny creatures were watching him from behind toadstools and the unicorn's legs. He felt a very strange sensation of deja-vous as he spied one little being that looked like a tiny fusion of elf and cricket, but he wasn't sure why.

Understanding that he had been dismissed, Castinar made his way down the hill and back to the clearing with the stream and the butterflies. His hands went to work on sharpening his scimitar while his mind and heart did as the unicorn recommended and he again started thinking about his faith.

It was with some degree of surprise when Castinar looked up and realized that the sun would be setting soon. He must have been sitting there for several hours, lost in thought. Standing up he stretched his cramped muscles and looked around. He was hungry, but wasn't sure if he could eat anything here or if he should use his trail rations.

He set off in search of Pip, heading first to the garden plot. There, instead of Pip, he found a female brownie who introduced herself as Jrezella, Pip's wife. The two had a pleasant chat as they awaited Pip's return, which Jrezella said would be soon with the sun going down.

As predicted, Pip showed up as the last rays of sunshine were turning the mountain tops to gold. Castinar's sensitive ears also picked up that there was somebody behind Pip, somebody that didn't come out of the woods. Figuring it was Tarnithar the ranger didn't say anything.

"Come! You must be starving? Pip said, inviting Castinar to dinner. Turning to his wife he good- naturedly chided her. "How could you sit here talking this poor elf's ear off while he was wasting away before your eyes?

"He didn't say anything about being hungry? the little female replied. "But," she continued, turning to face Castinar "I'll make it up to you. I normally don't bake meals sized for big mortals like you, but this evening I’ll make an exception."

The next several hours were quite pleasant for Castinar. He discovered that the brownies lived in a hollowed out tree not far from the garden. Pip lit a small fire in the area under the tree. Castinar was introduced to the rest of Pip's family - two brownie children, twins. Twins were quite rare among the quasi-faerie brownies, and Jrezella was obviously proud of them. Castinar entertained the children with tales of his adventures while Jrezella and Pip prepared the meal. Although the portions were a little smaller than Castinar was accustomed to, the food was delicious, unlike any he had tasted before. He had a feeling that he won't be able to truly enjoy mortal food again after eating such a delicious meal in the peaceful setting.

As the meal started to wind down Castinar observed that Pip started acting strange. Jrezella picked up on it too and every once and a while would cast a concerned glance at her husband. Soon Pip was fidgeting nervously, tying his napkin into a short rope of knots. Finally Jrezella had enough. "Pip, if you don't spit out whatever it is inside you it's going to eat it's way out."

Pip sighed and reluctantly looked up at Castinar. "I need your help. A little over a month ago I did what I thought was a good deed, but it turned out to be a bad idea. I was scouting around at the north edge of the valley for some herbs when I spotted something in the snow, just outside the barrier. I thought it was a deer or something, so I went out to help. Well, it wasn't a deer, it was a wild elf. I brought her into the valley. She would have died had I left her in the snow, so it's not like I had any real choice in the matter. I just couldn't have left her there, could I have?

Well, you've seen how thrilled Tarnithar is with your presence here, and you are a follower of the Lady. You can imagine how he felt when he discovered I had a wild elf holed up in a thicket near the northern boundary. It wasn't pretty. But eventually he agreed to let the elf stay. Putting her back out in this weather would have been a death sentence.

She's been here ever since then, up in the trees to the north. She's a little strange. She won't speak to anybody and doesn't like to be touched. But she's smart enough not to have made any trouble."

Pip paused, as if gathering his courage to ask a difficult question. "What I was wondering is, well, if maybe you could take her back with you? Your gate that the faeries spoke of is her only way out of here until the passes thaw out, which won't be for many months. I know you're busy being an adventurer and all, but this would really help me out of a thorny situation, and I think it would be the best thing for her as well."

Pip stood up and gestured to the woods behind him. Slowly and reluctantly a figure moved out of the forest to the edge of the flickering firelight. She didn't move fully into the light and her features were hard to make out since her hair hung down over most of her face, veiling it from view. But she looked elven, with the almond eyes and high cheekbones of the race.

"She doesn't talk" Pip said as the woman - barely more than a girl - stopped. "I don't know what her name was or why she was lost up here in the snow. But she hasn't harmed anything here, so I think she's safe." Eyeing Castinar closely Pip gathered up his courage and asked "So, will you take her with you?

Please?"

(Castinar does take the wild elf with him. She becomes one of his followers. You can find out more about her on the Party web page - Shadow. They leave when the moon rises and meet back up with the Party in the Grell caves complex.)

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