His death was swift and, as it turns out, entirely avoidable. He died at the touch of the ghost-spiders in the Drow temple, and he died before any of us could even react. His very health was destroyed in seconds, and his body gave out though it was barely wounded.

After a hasty retreat, we sat and thought of what we could do differently, and it was then that Vernon spoke up and said that he had magic that could render the Drow and his minions nearly harmless. His divine magic, though, can only protect one or perhaps two of us, and so it was decided that only Kestrel would venture in, and here we discovered an entirely new sort of problem.

Kestrel, wearing Covalence and Blink's mighty belt and Vernon's divine protection and my minor arcane enhancements and using his own weapons, proves to be quite a formidable fighting machine. If his Covalence Double dies in combat, we simply need heal his original body, and if the double does not die, it can be dismissed and restored at full strength with no sapping of our magic. All the while, we need simply lounge around in a Tansor's Glass House and watch. We attempted just this scheme with the ghost Drow, and it worked flawlessly.

I believe we shall bring Errol's chef next time, for I will require my favorite blend of muddled tulla leaves, rock sugar, and Pavlarian rum if I am to be forced through the strenuous exercise of casting a Glass House and a Cat's Grace once again. The whole thought is so depressing that I'm contemplating retiring to Lumin at the ripe old age of nineteen. The indignity of it all is almost overwhelming, but nothing in my Art -- mighty as it is for my young age -- can compare to the onslaught that Kestrel can unleash in a matter of seconds with no chance of injury. Short of succeeding with a Disintegrate -- which has never happened in combat -- my magics are simply feeble compared with a Covalence Double armed with every strength-enhancing item and spell we can find. With a single sword blow, Kestrel dealt more damage than my lightning bolts, and he swings three or four times in the time my incantation takes to speak aloud! Needless to say, he does not tire for hours, while I can exhaust my bolts and fireballs in less than a minute!

I fear I am to be relegated to the role of extra-dimensional coachman if something doesn't change soon. I might as well simply commit Teleport and Tansor's Glass House to memory exclusively, for they are likely all that will be required of me for the foreseeable future.