Letter to Gideon 10

Hey Brother,
 
Sadly I'm not writing from the comfort of our home in Keralon, but I'm writing from the comforts of the Southroad inn, right outside Keralon.
 
So last I wrote you we were in Logvale. Gael managed to talk Farah into not immediately going through the tunnel we found and explain we are leaving through there. It felt kind of bad, but at least we can comfort ourselves that they would run into trouble if they mess with the gate. E.J. and Elsa were kind of enough to pay Farah to look after Torrin and Faerin, and their carriage until we can recuperate them. And poor Onvyr would have to stand there until some patrol passes by that can cure his petrification. We did promise Farah that we would report the mist and the troubles in Logvale to the authorities in Keralon.
 
So after gathering our stuff we went back to Vivienne, who was talking to Liliana and Luke. Seems like my previous hunch of Vivienne having a gift for Liliana was correct, as she was happily showing me this new sword she gained. It was a truly beautiful sword but one that also symbolized her forced servitude, which Vivienne said started in about 15 days. At which time she should be, alone, at the other side of this gate. Which does not ease my worries. She activated the gate, showed us our destination, some hills very close to Keralon, but clear of the Lorewood. Vivienne also made it clear it was a one-way trip and she wouldn't come with us and then we went through. After the shivering experience of stepping through a portal we did end up where she said we would. The Lorewood was behind us, and Keralon was ahead. There was no road so we just decided to go towards the city we could see in the distance. As the grassy hills finally led to a poorly trodden road I did ask around if anyone had plans to go back to Logvale after we settled in a bit, if nothing to distract from my legs that still ached from the last few days of trouble. Most seemed disinterested, leaving it up to the patrols but Gael did mention an interest in going back into the Lorewood, but didn't really make it sound like he'd appreciate a travel companion, which is fair, an experienced traveler like him is faster by himself. Another thing that was noticeable on this side of the Lorewood was that there was no mist to be seen, did it not cover the entire Lorewood or is it ebbing away?
 
Regardless of that question we did see signs of smoke coming up as the evening approached. Of course we decided to go towards it, and we ended up at a tower where a fight was in full progress, a wizard who we later learned was Amarra, was fighting a brass construct and two pixies. In the fight that ensued the tiredness in my legs was really keeping me out of the fight, I resorted to helping Gael and Liliana land extra strikes. The pixies both tried their magic and while they did land, Gael and Luke struck them down which undid the magic. Gael knocked one pixie out while Luke's magical fury eviscerated the other Pixie. Leaving us to focus our might on the contstruct, with our wizard ally using the power of her tower to create a storm of fire that damaged it greatly. I would also be remiss if I didn't mention a collosal hit by Lil, unleashing all the fury from her holy powers but also some new power (possibly another gift from Vivienne?) onto the poor construct. As the fight ended Hayley immediately revived the fallen pixie to ask them what is going on. Now the conversation was in Sylvan but the gist of it was that they didn't remember the fight, they only remember being in the Feywild and running into the mist and then they blacked out until now. So it seems like the mist manipulated them? Or did someone else use the weakened barrier to enchant these pixies to do their bidding? The remaining pixie was also heartbroken at the loss of their sibling, who was killed by Luke (to be fair, they were attacking us) and so they decided to find their way back to the Feywild alone, regardless of Gael's proposal to help.
 
The second ingredient in the fight, the construct was being investigated by Amarra, who also introduced herself as the master of this tower. She mentioned that this construct was strangely resistant to fire, which was the specialty of her and everyone who studies at this tower as it is a place of power for fire magic. Especially in combination with those pixies it seems like a targeted assault? Regardless we spent our evening there, since Amarra kindly offered lodging for the night, allowing us to raid the (self replenishing) pantries and Luke to devour her library of fire magic.
 
Amarra explained she recently came back from a study trip in the cities down south, which have a high concentration of magic users. And that she's now returning as master of this tower, which has a strong connection to the elemental plane of fire. And as we were going to Keralon she gave us a rundown of the rules in Keralon, like how magic items aren't allowed in and that guilds are forbidden. And since everyone of us at least has one of these stones on us this could be an issue. Apparently knights are allowed to have these items but none of us are knights yet. She did say different gates are less guarded to spot these items but it does make me a bit uncomfortable to smuggle magic items in.
 
Amarra also had a talk with Luke who came back to us, apparently he has a weird connection to the element of fire and the feywild and in specific the Summer Court there. I honestly don't really understand it, but apparently people have natural connections to certain elements, usually two. And Luke and Hayley are special in that they have a connection with just one, Luke fire and Hayley air (she would do the ritual to figure this out the day after, but I'm trying to be brief). It would explain the weird magic that happened around them a few days back. But how this connection came to be is a bit of a mystery, but at least some of their lineage must have a fey influence. Luke also expressed interest in doing the tower's apprenticeship test and since he's allowed help asked us which of course we would help him. But the test had to wait until the next day.
 
The test would consist of two rooms and are themed around fire, Amarra did give Luke some advice: "Contemplate the nature of fire, fire is not subtle" and with that we were let in. The first room consisted of a bunch of trap doors and a series of levers, after some searching we figured out that the levers could be switched between 0 and 1 and there were letters over them, and read in a certain order read "Everything or Nothing". Since fire is explosive and consumes all, and not subtle, the idea to put all levers on 1 was quickly formed, which was the right answer.
 
The second room was a bit more dangerous, pits of lava were slowly consuming the room and and an ice wall was blocking the exit. But four crystals that warded the lava were available, seemingly our first instinct was putting the crystals in a specific way as to ward us from lava while lava hit the wall. But this did nothing, in retrospect fire is not subtle should've been the hint that should've told us this wouldn't work. What obviously worked was Luke slinging a fire spell at the ice wall and that destroyed it. So after some further maneuvering of crystals we did make it out and finished the trials. Amarra was clearly impressed and offered Luke an apprenticeship at this tower, she extended the offer to all of us but out of all of us only Luke was really suited for it. She also gifted him some spell scrolls he could scribe into his book when he had the time and ink.
 
With that though, we went back on our trip to Keralon, saying goodbye to Amarra. And it was the calmest day of travelling in a long time, the roads became more populated and we started to see farms and inns as the silver city came into view. Majestic walls, towers and castle almost blinded us as the sun reflected off their silver coatings: Our new home. We also saw species of people we only heard about: Orcs, Hobgoblins and even Half-giants. But as we approached the gate it was clear it was closing for the day as the sun was setting. As we also had our magic item dilemma to discuss we decided to settle at an inn for the night. Something E.J. and Elsa were happy with, as they didn't take well to walking so far on foot. Which is how ended up at the Southroad Inn, owned by the very friendly and likeable Brok. Hayley and Gael were kind enough to foot the bill for the food and rooms, allowing us to settle in at our tables. The rest of the tavern was filled with travelers like us so as the evening went on most went to bed early. But as Brok gave us a complementary cake (what great service) we noticed a few men entering and pouring over some papers and being very paranoid about anyone seeing. According to Hayley the papers are about something called the Freehold Guild, but as we know guilds are forbidden, so this was indeed a very strange group.
 
To be Continued.
 
The rest of the evening was uneventful. We mostly talked about what to do about our magic items. The innkeeper didn't have any ideas on if there's any services to keep the items, but he did propose to keep it for a fee until we figured something out. Though Gael and Lil were adamant on getting horses to go back to Amarra at Caen Fussil (the tower she lives in) for her to store the items. Anyhow hopefully we can come up with something so we can all go into Keralon together.
 
See you soon brother,
 
Ali
 
P.S.: Quick thing, the night itself was quite strange. Liliana woke us up (Dadroz and myself) because there was noise in the room next to us. Lots of discussions in hushed tones about being careful, or declaring someone's a coward. Dadroz knocked at the door and we were greeted by the six guys we saw downstairs peering over the piece of paper about guilds. They were quite aggressive, though maybe I shouldn't have antagonized them by calling out that they could at least do their scheming in silence, or ideally not scheme at all. At least they are quiet now and we can go back to sleep.
P.P.S.: Another thing happened a few hours later, the six left and left something burning in their room: a sigil proclaiming "Death to the Usurper King". Very strange since as far as I know, the kings of Keralon come from one single bloodline. Though maybe a bunch of angry schemers in an innroom in the dead of night don't have the most coherent thoughts. Or maybe my annoyance at being denied sleep is coming through. Regardless, I pity the innkeeper who now has a damaged wall.