Due to my brothers and sisters i must use what Dorin taught me to hide this book.

I am Argos Balaedor, this book will be the only thing that hears my secrets. I have lived with my family all my life, fighting, training, blacksmithing... so damn much blacksmithing! I must act as though i enjoy it to hide what i really want to be; a wizard like my sister, Dorin. If i get lectured one more time about breaking the rules i may just leave, so what, i helped a evil goblin child when it was in need! Is it so wrong i give a crature born of darkness a chance at light!? Because the others shun magic i have to keep my skills secret and tell pa that i dont even know what magic is. But when Dorin's robe desintigrated in acid they became a little suspisious and Dorin turned me into all sorts of things that night. While i have kept the dragon that follows me around hidden for now i dont know how long i can keep it up, Leather-Head is a shifty little thing to be sure. If i master the art i promose i will cast something to make it all better, to make the others see that magic isnt so bad and that if i get really good at it i might beat up Lona for once.

Argos Balaedor, Age 12

It has been two years since last time i wrote in here because i havent really had anything to write; fighting and blacksmithing, fight and smith, fight and smith, fight and smith, fight and smith damn it!!! is that all i was born for? Making the other's damn armor!? It just makes me want to leave more, but where would i go? Neverwinter? Amn? Baldur's Gate? Luskan? And how would i earn gold, im fourteen summers old and inexperienced to everything but smithing and i am not going through that. After nearly blowing myself up i have desided im going to avoid magic for a little while, not forever just untill i can controll it. Liz, a half elven girl who lives in the inn down the street has left for some other city so thats one friend gone, she had the ability to use magic without learning and was rather sneaky. I know im going to miss her and have made a metal plate with her name embroided on it, i know the others are going to be teasing me about this so i am going to ask Dorin for a spell to make armor so uncomfortable to wear that it hurts just looking at it.

Its been a year and i am now an adult and capable of leaving whenever i want to. But i am not going to leave, it took me a night in the forest to realise that. Kim, Jesse and Erik have all left to Neverwinter together and wanted me to come with them but i have to stay and make sure that Lona Lor and Lothor dont end up buying overpriced hunks of second-rate metal. I didnt cast for half a year and when i was making a sword something unexpected happened; light burst out of my hand and into the hammer i was using, i hit the sword-metal with the hammer and the soon to be sword caught fire, i was interested to see how metal was on fire and what it would be like to finnish it. When i did the sword continued to burn aflame, i hid the blade well in a scabbard i had used some weak magic on to made fire resistant and it kepted the blade contained untill we went out as a family to kill bandits. I took the sword even though swords arnt the best wepon i can use. During the fight i was disarmed, my shield was knocked away and i was knocked to the ground from behind, a bandit half orc was charging at me and i knew my brothers and sisters couldnt get to me in time so i quickly move into a kneeling position and drew the sword off my belt, holding it up pointed at the half orc. He chrged directly into in and it pirced his chest, his body cought fire and he died quickly, i got up and continued in the fight with the flame-sword. After Ma and Pa asked me where i got the sword and i blamed it on Dorin, they said "that'd be right" and didnt really care she used magic and then gave it to me, if its possible to make swords like this i may continue this life of smithing and combine it with my love of the art, maybe if i make a name for myself as a enchanter i may see Liz, Kim, Jesse and Erik again and make wepons and armors for them that would make them famouse aswell. I will have to talk to Dorin about this sometime.

Argos Balaedor, aged 15

Its been two years already. Liz has been sending me mail by way of magic and i have been getting into trouble for it, just like old times. I have realised that i am the only Balaedor that keeps a record of events and frankly; i dont care. I have found smithing isnt so bad but still it does get annoying when i get told that they broke the training swords on a daily basis... I have been thinking about going to Neverwinter or Amn, where Liz is. News that Jesse has died from some plauge has caused me to go into mourning, the others know not to tease me about it because they know i have my limits. I would go to Neverwinter for a funeral untill i found that no one wants to get near the plauge bodies so she was just going to be burnt. I have been less willing to conceal my ability of the art, but i dont want to be shuned like Dorin is sometimes. My full plate with Liz's name on it has been broken so i will make a better one, a magical one, maybe with Dorin's help but with her 'studys' i dont think i want the house blowing up... The flaming sword i made is being destroyed next week, i dont want it to be, its the most powerful wepon i have ever seen! but Pa says " if ye get to involved with tha' crap then ye'll end up like yer sister ". I have recently found a spell to create a hammer with the power to destroy even the strongest armor but there is no way eaither me or Dorin could cast it, so im just going to keep quiet about it and probably try it behind Dorin's back...

Its been two nights since my last wrighting and i went off to a clearing in the forest in the middle of the night alone to try that spell last night. I nearly blew my hands off! I did everything right i guess it was insuficant skill. If i continue to try i may end up killing myself so i have desided to leave that spell alone for now. The hammer wasnt destroyed though, it glows red and feels oddly evil. I hit a tree with it and the tree fell, maybe i am becoming stronger but i dont think i am going to try any dificult spells for now... but if i continue to learn then i will become stronger.

Its been a year already, time flys when your killing monsters and making things to hurt them more. I have gone off alone to see about selling some of my finer crafts to a dragon, not the smartest move but could be a good opertunity to find resorces for a greater craft. I have taken the hammer i made one year ago with me to see how much this big red lizard thinks its worth, its to dangerouse in my hands anyway. I am moving along the sword coast and will be there in a day or two, then ill b heading back home.

Its been a week and im on a boat headed back home from the dragon's den. He gave me a considerable offer, ten thousand gold and the chance to leave with my life. He said what i had made was a Bloodforge Dark Death hammer and when i told him how i did it he just laughed and said an amature made one of the most powerful hammers in current existance, i told him it was luck. Maybe its good i got rid of that hammer. I felt an unusual evil towards it.

Its been six whole years and Lothor, Loristan, Dorin and Lona have all gone missing, i have into where i think they were to find them; the underdark, good news follows, Liz has come back to her home city, our home city, and has come with me down into the underdark. I took the full plate with Liz's name on it that i had remade a few years ago, it had a resistance to arrows and crossbow bolts, a mild resistence to fire and acid and a temporery hardening that would last about a day. I also took a tower shield straped to my back and a war hammer in my hand, and of course i took a tourch aswell. No signs of anything this far but i know about the drow elves and mind flayers that i have small doubt of finding.

Its been three days and still no sign of them.

I have lost count of the days, me and Liz were ambushed by drow and Liz is dead. They destroyed my armor and memorys are all i have left of the girl i loved. I am escapeing tonight and i am going to kill every last drow that is damned foolish enough to get in my way. They should have never killed the girl i had dreamed of marrying since i was fourteen summers old. Theres going to be blood tonight.

I escaped without too much trouble and have killed three drow on my very polite way out of that damn city. I have been in the underdark for about nine hours now, but down here its impossible to tell the time. I will kill that same matron woman that killed Liz and im going to make her and all her kind, half blood or otherwise, pay for what they did to Liz, i swear it.

I have found Dorin in a cave that colapsed behind me and after a rather informal greeting we went back to a place she called Sanctuary, i havent told her about Liz.

Three days after i found Dorin i found Lona in Sanctuary and after a even worse greeting from her i knew i was half finnished in the task that Ma and Pa had given me, now for my brothers. I havent told anyone about Liz yet, they know that at the moment i am emotionaly unstable or... Dorin does being the only one that will know what that means. This city Sanctuary is filled with people who share my hate for those damned elves. After loseing Liz and Jesse that means theres only Erik and Kim left, i know they are marryed now because they got marryed as soon as they both reached fifteen summers. After i kill some more drow and get my brothers and sisters back to the surface i will go to see Erik and Kim as what they say they are... an "item".

Argos Balaedor, aged 24

advice to whoever found this on my corpse "Keep thy friends close, keep thy enemys even closer still, so if ye loose thy friends, thy enemys will be in striking distance". -Argos Balaedor

*the wrighting on this page is pushed in hard with the quill, causing some rips in the page*

DAMN HER! Lona found out about my ability to cast and then she said that family means the most to family! I LOST LIZ FOR DAMN FAMILY THEN HEAR THIS!!! I have never been able to beat Lona but i will find a way to hurt her for this, i will, sister or not i will get her back for this insult, somehow or other.

I have found it was foolish to swear revenge on a sister. I can never cause true harm to a sibling and have given up trying, but next time i see her i will make it clear to her that she should never say that to someone who has lost his most treasured friend and soulmate for family.

I have begun craft on fullplate dedicated to Liz again. Third time the charm, huh? I guess it doesnt matter, she is dead and i live, i was unable to save her and will never forget it, no matter how hard i try, Elizabeth Arinsunt was a good hearted and kind half elven woman who was planed to be Elizabeth Balaedor, she was born one year three mounts and nine days after me, she was raised by her human mother, and i will never let her be forgotten by me or any of the others, they always warned me not to get too close to someone incase something like this happened, they didnt know Liz like i did. We met when i was only seven summers old and instantly became friends; she helped me find my pet frog named Turtal and i helped her make friends.

*a magicaly drawn picture of a half elf with dark hair, a happy look on her face and a kind look in her eyes.*

This same thing happened when Jesse died, i didnt wright about it baceuse i was beyond the words to describe it but i will never forget her eaither Jessica Blackleaf was a elven girl living with human parents, she was adopted when her elven parents gave her up. Her golden hair and love for nature that none of us could understand made her different, but we didnt care, she grew up alone for a long time, i knew her in the last three years of her life. We met on the night i ran away and stayed in the forest, she showed me what i did was foolish and that i had a real family back home. Her mother and father never wanted her but she didnt care.

*a magicaly drawn picture of a elven girl with blonde hair and a happy look on her face*

Erik Nightsbane was a human who i grew up with, unlike me at that age he loved to craft wepons and armors, and i used to use magic to enchant his creations, he was raised by the orphanige untill he reached fifteen summers, then he left with Kim. He never had enough coin, not even enough to buy bread, so he had skill in stealing. I found him trying to pick my oldest brothers pocket and saved him from the greatest beating in his life, we were friends ever since. When he came of age, before he left, he marryed Kim.

*a magicaly drawn picture of a human with dark hair and a care-free, cheerful look on his face*

Kimberly Nightsbane, formerly Kimberly Goldheart, was the kindest most compassionate girl i have ever known, she was a short human with a love of the 'lesser' people, she was born a nobel of the city but had to go live with Erik in the orphanige when she was seen giving money to the poor and hungey by her family. She fell in love with Erik upon first sight, they came from such different backgrounds, she was the daughter of one of the most rich families and he hardly ever had more then a coin to his name. She left carrying his child. I met her through Erik when i was thirteen summers old.

*a magicaly drawn picture of a human woman with light red hair and a look on her face and in her eyes that can only be discribed as selfless kindness.*

these were my friends all my life and will never be forgotten, not by me or my family, i wont let them be forgotten after all they did for me. When we were young we made a promose, that we would always be there for eachother, they were always there for me and i will always be there for them...

I have been working in the mines for the last few weeks, trying to earn enough money to buy the parts for that full plate. I met a halfling named Rudeth in the mines, he wanted me to forge him a mace, told him to find me in the Rock Bottom later for it. When i got to the tavern i found the lad nearly dead with a crossbow bolt in his stomach, after he was healed he said that when he was leaving the mines he was attacked by a human woman, i may have to talk to Lona about this

*what ever he was going to wright next is unreadable.*

I am close to having enough money to make this full plate armor. But i do not want it to be any ordinary armor, im going to ask Dorin to help me enchant it as best we can, my plans are:

Make it arrow/bolt resistant

Place resistancys to all elements on it

Make it flexible so i can still move well enough to hit most enemys on angel that would otherwise be impossible.

Make it like the ainchent "Darkmail" but blue instead of black.

Mak *it seems he was cut of in what he was wrighting*

*this page, along with a few others, is covered with blood in a pattern suggesting he was hit from behind*

Damnable drow. Cant someone go walking around in the underdark alone in peace? Oh well, that one that hit me learnt. Well, i have no idea where i am, no where near enough magic left in reserve to contact anyone, and my head hurts even more then that time i head butted Lona... I guess theres little chance of me getting out of this damn hole now. Not only is my torch nearly burnt out but im so bored in this damn cave that im sitting here wrighting in this damn book, half of the skin on the back of my head is probly missing but i *he has been interupted in what he was wrighting*

*after he screams curses at the body of the drow that interupted him he sits back down and wrights:*

These drow are weak, inexperianced, but they're tactics are strong. If i rest to regain my magic charges i would be vonerable to have my throught slit, if i let one of there scouts escape they will call on a larger force, eaither way i cant keep fighting them for much longer, im going to have to make a run for it.

Im going to have to use all the power i got from resting for short periods between running and killing beasts in this cave to send a message to one of the others, Lona or Dorin, havent decided, but knowing both of them they will probly come together, but casting will draw all kinds of moster-freaks here. No choice, im starting the spell

*this page is covered in blood, making it almost unreadable*'

Need elp. an figh ny mor

*the journal is found on Argos's body by Leaf Silkmoon*