Letter to Gideon 5

Dear Brother,
 
Going to Hillfield was going to be a fun family reunion before moving on to Keralon, I thought. But it seems life has different plans.
The day started off well enough, we met up at the Inn across the street and went for some shopping. Luke tracked down a very shiny pearl, he claimed it was for a magic spell, haven't seem him use it yet but hope he didn't borrow money for the pearl to be some expensive gift for Elsa. Though that would be beneath Luke to be honest. During the shopping I did finally find a violin, I can finally stop using Lil's violin and we can finally play those duets we've been talking about.
 
After shopping we were looking for something to do and I proposed we see what we could do about the attacks in the city. Seeing as we might be able to help and honestly, helping the city out seems a lot more fullfilling than finding some entertainment. Seeing as the guards were being prejudiced against Satyrs I though maybe they weren't allowed into the city and were smuggled in, but the rest brought up the good point that maybe we should check these things with the guards first. Luckily we met Sergeant Berris the day before and we helped him with the attack at the gate, so it should be easy to get a talk with him. So when we arrived and a guard at the door asked us who we were I thought to go over the entire group, as we all fought together at the gate. But Luke seemed to have little patience and said the De la Roost name would be enough. The reason why I don't like pulling on my family name became clear when the poor guard started bowing and stammering that he'll talk to the Sergeant. Gideon, how do you deal with it? Does it become less uncomfortable to see reactions to the family name? And maybe more importantly, should it? Then again, I think you've been going on enough adventures that you've surpassed our family's name to have men open doors for you. But still, the discomfort of people being uncomfortable around you because of a name or who they think you are must still be there right?
 
Anyhow, when we got to the Sergeant we quickly got some clarity on the situation: the incidents are irregular, happening every few days, the largest attack happened on a guard post, and they might have a base around the Woodgate district. With this, Lil offered our help which the sergeant happily accepted and we got back on our way. Now as we went out the sergeant made some side remark about him not wanting to cross our family, making me ask him if he has had some problems with our parents (or perhaps even you, brother). But he didn't elaborate, just making sure we stayed on good terms.
 
So as we were outside Gael and I proposed some next steps. Gael proposed to use Ileas as an infiltrant, something Ileas did not seem to think he was ready for and seeing as he's under our family's protection and the tension around satyrs in the city I wasn't going to let him out of my sight while not at home. But while I was trying to explain my plan, to use the grudge against our family to bait out an attack on us and use that to track them back to their base, we walked onto the square around the Monastery of the Five Saints and saw a small crowd angrily shouting at the small chapel dedicated to Belenus that was next to it. Naturally, we went to check it out and learned that the Abbot closed the chapel without explaining and the followers of Belenus were denied their morning prayer. To me this shows how high the tempers have gotten in Hillfield, that being denied a moment of peace with Belenus would drive them to such anger. Trying to help, some of us wormed our way to the temple guards trying to offer our help. Meanwhile Hayley used her raven friend to scan the square and found some suspicious dwarves lurking about, and had her familiar follow them, Dadroz mysteriously vanished in the shadows and Luke was chanting and drawing with chalk a bit away from the crowd to cast a spell. After some convincing the temple guards did go and talk to the Abbot to see if we could speak to him, leaving just one guard to stand between the crowd and the temple they so wanted to visit. So to help out I tried to calm some of them down and point out Belenus would probably be fine with them praying at home for once and while it didn't disperse the crowd it did almost half the crowd. After a bit the guard came back and told us the Abbot would see us. We managed to enter the chapel through the main monastary and were met by Father Abbot Eton standing in front of a statue of Belenus flanked by two other statues that were destroyed, he did seem to remember Lil and me as he asked us if we've been attending church the last few years. To avoid some embarassment (sorry brother, I know we owe the World Tree for saving the world but mass is just so boring) I immediately pointed to the statues and steered the conversation to what happened. Abbot Eton didn't seem as worried about the statues as he was about the statue that remained and was crying tears of blood, and the mystery of how the vandals got in.
 
Like a well oiled machine, at hearing the information, everyone set out to find out more. Lil used her divine senses (feel like I haven't said this enough, our sister is getting cooler by the day) to determine the temple was now desecrated. And Hayley and Ileas found that the footsteps just kind of stop from the wall to the first row of benches. Leading us to think there's some secret passage but we couldn't really find anything. At this point Hayley checked in with her familiar and saw the dwarves entered the sewers through a hatch a bit North from the Monastary. So thinking we might find something there we immediately went there. The smell from the sewers as went down was something awful, almost made poor Hayley vomit from the smell. Through it all I could hear some faint sounds of pickaxes hitting stone in the distance, so after pointing this out Gael and Dadroz proposed to go on ahead to scout. They came back with news of four dwarves cutting out a room from the sewers, damaging public works. But also they saw a creature they described as an Ettercap, a spider-humanoid creature that was locked into a cage off to the side. Gael was adamant on sneaking up, which worked out well even as Hayley and myself just kept knocking into each other and bumping against loose stones. And Lil and I were looking to go in and talk to the dwarves as they spotted Dadroz sneaking up to some crates, he tried to talk his way out by claiming he was leading us along some smuggle route. As this didn't really help us figure out what they were doing Lil and I started asking what was going on.
 
Now here the conversation heated up quite fast, our unquenshable thirst for answers colliding with famous dwarven stubborness. We were talking to their leader, a remarkably pale dwarf, who admitted they were doing something wrong. Now here we should've probably went and got some guards, probably we could miss one of our friends, but the way the dwarf was egging us on and hoping we would split up convinced us we should try to arrest them, especially when I realized we're right underneath the vandalized temple. With Lil declaring a citizen's arrest everyone started setting up and while I moved towards the leader one of his compatriots took a swing as I passed. And while he missed this did start the fight proper. Things got a bit risky as the Ettercap broke free and jumped on Luke, but Lil and I managed to get there to cover for him. During the fight we tried to knock out as many of them as we could but Dadroz accidentally made a lethal shot on one of the dwarven miners and put him beyond saving. Taking on what we've done we bound up the unconcious dwarves and Gael, Hayley and Luke went to get the guards. As the rest of us waited a group of monks came, lead by a blonde young man who asked us what was going on claiming to hear sound upstairs. Since we were close to under the temple I didn't think much of it but at least wanted his name, which he impolitely declined to give. Not really looking for another fight we let them go, barely noticing they went the other way we got here. We took this moment to wake up the leader dwarf to ask some questions, and between understandably snide remarks about his fallen friend he did reveal the person he worked for matched the monk's description and that his name was Marik, and he hired them to find some ancient artifact, a book, that was hidden underneath the temple. What trouble that could be saved if they just said this but let's not dwell too much on this.
 
When the guards came they immediately took the dwarves into custody and asked us to come with them. And after a very quiet hour in the guard tower, where I noticed Hayley didn't join us after getting the guards, she must've really hated that smell, is when Sergeant Berris came in flanked by our mother. Feeling my stomach drop down to what must've been my ankles, they explained that the dwarf dying was seen as self defense and we were free to go. It was clear mom pulled some strings here and the unfairness of it all made me protest, saying there should be some justice here and I was willing to take responsibility. In response I got the scolding of a lifetime, the scolding only a mom that you barely saw while living in Tarn could give you, some very intense stuff. I wasn't planning on backing down but when she insinuated I would get off lightly anyway or Dadroz would have to go to jail is when I couldn't justify the protest anymore. I couldn't just throw my friend under the bus for something I myself caused. So while I cursed my powerlessness, mom was giving us a speech about maybe doing some 'normal stuff', like going horseriding or drinking in inns... boring stuff you know. Only giving a warm goodbye to Ileas, she then stormed off to continue her work.
 
Writing it out again it really does make me wonder, am I bad at being from a noble family? Did living in Tarn make me 'go native'? (sounds like something mom would say) I always believed it's a noble's duty to serve those who serve them, to take responsibility for your actions and raise to a higher standard to help and inspire others. But talking to my mom it seems I'm wrong? It really makes me anxious to see you again brother, hoping to hear your side and I could definitely use your advice on how to handle mom.
 
Now Lil clearly didn't let this ordeal weigh on her (or at least she didn't show it) as she immediately proposed to go talk to the Abbot, tell him about what we found. Once there Abbot Eton told us about Brother Marik, how he left the order after being caught reading off-limit books in their library to do with dangeous magicks and Belenus, oh how Luke almost started levitating at the sound of it but sadly for him it is still very much off limits. Looking around we resumed our search, as the question of how they got in was still unanswered. Here Luke came up with a, frankly genius, idea of using some incense to spot a draft. Thought I should help him out so we can cover more ground and we found a draft near a relief of Belenus in the wall. Which allowed Dadroz to set himself loose upon the contraption to try and open it. And when it opened we ended up immediately fighting cultists that were hidden behind in the darkness, and we quickly recognized them as those who accompanied Brother Marik in the sewers. I'm ashamed to say I fought poorly then, being unable to see the enemy in front of me and missing my axe throw, but luckily Liliana was there to block an otherwise nasty blow with her shield. The fight ended quite quickly once Hayley magicly forced them to go to sleep.
 
Once we took a look Father Eton told us the altar and face carved in the wall were signs of worship to Morrhim, the Lich doomsayer of old who still rules much of the Gry Kingdom and fought against Keralon in days of old. Ileas and myself remembered how he was born in Hillfield, contemplating all this information combined with Brother Marik our eyes fell upon the open well in the room, going down, with sounds of footsteps reaching up.
 
**To be continued**
 
So going down we didn't see any signs of Marik. And I couldn't help but have a little laugh as we went down and realized we were right next to the hole in the sewers we were a few hours ago. Guess all the excitement made us not look further ahead. So we took the time to interrogate the cultists who were coming to. The two who were former friars were tight lipped but the other one was happy to share in exchange for a good word with the guards. He told us Marik wanted to find a spellbook of Morrhim underneath the monastary, hoping to find a path to immortality through becoming a lich. It still left a mystery of the blood crying statue, but we were stumped for what could've caused this.
 
Father Eton wanted to give us a reward but we declined, seeing as we just were out for help. Though Luke did get access to their library, though not the books he probably wanted to read.
 
The day ended quite simply. Lil, Ileas and I went back to our home as the others went to the inn. And I spent the evening tuning my violin and playing music to Elsa. We also offered them a tour of the city tomorrow. Mother retreating around midnight for reasons that have now become crystal clear.
 
Hope you're doing well and can't wait to leave for Keralon.
 
With love,
Ali