Progress. I think?

We headed back to the rooms we first entered in this complex and set to looking for materials that would help us burn trolls. Some table tegs, bedding, and cooking oil gave us seven more torches. While searching the odd store room, we found a number of valuables (like silverware). And we got attacked by a taxidermy eagle. We took it down without too much trouble but it was creepy. I called on Mitra for help detecting magic and swept the area from the aviary to the tentacle monster pit. It turns out that a bag we picked up earlier is a magic item. There is also some residual contamination all over the place. Bedrooms, kitchen, observatory desk. Some other things also showed up. Like runes on the kitchen hearth and the telescope in the observatory.
 
We spiked a door and took a long rest. We checked on Ermanguard, making sure she was fed and has drunk water. She continued to not provide any information. She seems to accept that we can kill her but she makes no attempt to bargain for her life. I have to wonder if she is not right in the head. When we get to the end of this location, we are going to have to determine what to do with her. I hope Solomon can give us insight on what is going on here. Of course, it has been a long time since he and his party were captured…
 
I have a theory that whatever Embric and company are working on here, it has some nasty side effects. It makes stupid dwarves and trolls with frost breath weapons or tentacle faces.
 
In any case, we headed back out to continue searching this place. Back through the tunnels. We ran into some bell alarms. Nice to see that the locals are that smart. In any case, in the cave with the tentacle monster pit, we held a defensive line while a bunch of Murlend’s eyeless stalkers attempted to over run us. Our fear of troll breath weapons had us spread out. This helped because, sure enough, eventually there was a frost troll and his breath weapon only got three of us. I’m counting that as progress. We also were fairly coordinated in wiping out the eyeless mooks, taking down the troll, and then applying enough fire to burn the troll to ash. Still, I am concerned about our supply of fire. I have five remaining torches. I think Tuath has a few. After that, we have to rely on Murlend . This might be doable with a single troll where the rest of the party reserves for regeneration and keeps the Troll down. Still, this might take a long time if we count on Murlend to do all the required fire damage.
 
Oh, and just like a bunch of other journal entries, we are kinda beat up and low on spells. It is worth noting that we made zero progress in exploration since the last time I made a journal entry. I suppose I am hoping that we are wearing the opposition down.
 
Tuath reminded us that he is having blackouts. We are going to have to look into that. Unfortunately, that is beyond me. We will need help of some kind. Hmmm.