The wizards tower and proving ourselves (session 15&16 or 28&29)

Dear Nori,
In my last letter I told you we were in an abandoned apothecary on the way to the graveyard. When we left the apothecary building we saw 3 people in the building on the other side of the road. Remembering how nice Mildred was, we went over to say hi. They quickly told us to get inside (they were afraid of fiends and such, which seemed logical despite the third person just leaving their company). When we were inside we realized something was wrong. One of the women turned her head 360 degrees, while the other bent backwards way too far and proceeded to walk like that. They turned out to be debook demons. It must have been so fucked up to see this kind of thing in someone you know. I mean, it was fucked up enough for Leo to get the fuck out of there and to be honest, I don’t blame him. Once we kicked the first one out of its host it grabbed me with its tentacle. I wish I had run away. Seriously, why do all those disgusting, slimy tentacle monsters grab me?
Anyway, We did beat the fiends, although they were too fast for us to kill them. The third one came back for a little bit, but when it saw it was alone it left again quite fast. So we moved on to the wizards tower. The area around the wizard tower was littered with corpses. Well, most of the area. The surroundings directly next to the tower were empty. No corpses, no magical residue. It creeped me out. After some simple spell casting we figured out it was an anti-magic circle of some sorts. Fenrir, tired of carefully observing an invisible wall, walked into it. When nothing happened, the rest of us followed. The door to the tower was locked, but there were strange letters above it. Ron said it was a riddle in celestial. It was something like “time existed before me but history behind me”. Our first answer, “language” was wrong (and Ron got zapped) but our second guess, “writing” got us inside.
Have you ever been in a wizards tower? Because believe me, it’s weird (kinda like Candlekeep, but just one house instead of an entire keep). I don’t understand how they can concentrate on their spells and studies in there at all. Why would you fill your house (where you live) with traps and riddles and other dangerous stuff? Just imagine coming home after a night at the tavern and you have to remember the answer to a fucking riddle in fucking celestial to get inside. While you're drunk! I think I’m starting to understand why Bear Normol never goes outside…
Anyway, inside the tower we came into a big room. There were four statues inside, four different color lights, 5 different kinds of mushrooms and an altar. We inspected the room for a bit, not touching the altar. Despite searching every nook and cranny of this room, we didn’t find a way out. So, eventually we decided to step on the altar. Our instincts to steer away from the altar proved right, because when we did a magical darkness set in (once again, imagine doing this while you're drunk) and we heard moving from the statues. Luckily Ron was fast to dispel the darkness, and the statues, which were going to attack us, became statues once again. However, the magical darkness did show us the “eye color” of the statues. Which we tried to match with the lights by dragging the statues to the right place. It was an exhausting job, but we succeeded. A new riddle became apparent. It was once again in celestial and had something to do with night and falling and moving on or something. Anyway, the answer was “stars” and we got to the next room.
Once again, the room had no apparent door. However, there was some furniture, a big ornamental egg with the constellations and 3 big mirrors with strange symbols on the edges. It didn’t take long until we realized that the symbols were mirrored letters, and these were once again riddles. The first riddle was in infernal, and was something like “call me a king, I have eyes, hiss and fangs of a snake but I'm not a snake” to which the answer is cat. The second riddle was in celestial again, and was something like “I have towns, forests and rivers but no people, trees or water” and the answer was “map”. The last riddle was in common and went like this: “I am the beginning of the end and the end of before”. The answer is “E”. The letter. You probably didn’t guess that. Or you might have. You have always been good at this kind of thing.
Anyway, this was only half of the riddle, since we said the words, but nothing happened. So we raided the cabinets hoping to find some clues. Which didn’t work. They were all empty, except one which had a homunculus named Bully in it. Bully didn’t want to help (or rather, isn’t allowed to), and when he thought it took too long he flew away. To be fair, it took ridiculously long before we figured out we had to write it down on the altar to get further.
The next level was a living quarter. No ridiculous puzzle, but just a room with ordinary stairs (and a bed and some other “normal” stuff). On the roof was a telescope, and if you used the stairs to go down you came into the room we saw in the mirrors. Which apparently wasn’t a mirror image. In these ‘normal’ rooms we found the diary of Wemba Oshrat, the apprentice of Bear Normol (apparently they divined something bad going to happen as far as a year back, and a portal around Elturel a few days before the descent), a couple of spell books and some high quality ink. Ron couldn’t have been happier, and spent a couple of hours studying them (it’s Candlekeep all over again, with books and boredom).
Now our wizard was happy, we continued to the graveyard. When we arrived there we saw hordes of undead walking around. While discussing what to do (Fenrir was very keen on smiting them all, while the rest of us wanted a plan to not get overwhelmed) someone snuck up on us. It turned out to Fenrirs uncle, Gideon. He seemed happy to see Fenrir. We talked for a bit and told him about Thorms helmet. Gideon, who is a follower of Kelemvor, told Fenrir he isn’t dedicated enough to use the helmet. But slaying the fiends on the graveyard would be a good start to show his dedication. The undead walking on the hallowed grounds weren’t a problem, Gideon raised them to protect the hallowed grounds (I’m wondering if Fenrir knew his uncle is a necromancer, or if he became one because of hell).
Because of the description Gideon gave, we assumed the fiends were minotaurs (or maybe spiked devils). We were wrong. They were Balgura’s (we defeated one at the Antlers), although they did look different. Also, defeating one was doable. Defeating 3 at the same time was a lot harder. It didn't help that once we defeated 2 of them, their blood fused into a new, worse, fiend. It was some kind of crab demon who can also casts spells. It stunned me the moment it appeared. I couldn't do anything, but I did see how the crab demon got a hold onto Fenrir, and dragged him all over the graveyard, with Ron running after him, doing whatever he could to free Fenrir. Bertha and Leo were having a though time defeating the last Balgura, especially since those things do turn invisible every now and then. But with their combined efforts they did get him down. However, the three of us were too late to help Fenrir, since the fiend knocked him unconscious, and was still hammering into him. When I finally was able to do something I stormed to fiend, hacking my way into it, believing Fenrir to be dead. I killed the demon, and Leo was able to heal Fenrir back to life without the use of the diamond. Me and Fenrir chopped the corpse (which was slowly turning into a black liquid) to tiny pieces to make sure it wouldn't hurt us again.
I hope your day has been better than mine, with fewer no demon attacks and almost dead friends.
Hopefully the gods watch over you.
Stay strong, stay safe,
Your loving sister,
Caja