Letter to Ileas 3

Dear Ileas,
 
A week has passed since my last letter to you. We had quite an adventure at Caern Fussil, the tower Luke spend time training under Amarra. But that's not the story I write to you about today, though I recommend you ask Luke about it.
 
No, I am writing a sequel to our last tale. About the dragon's emissaries, Rachnar and Norgar. They would make an official entrance into Keralon with their delegation on the 10th of Nuan.
This would be accompanied by a grand feast. So in the week running up I (and Hayley as well) took the time to help out as knights at the Circle of the Long Table, they were overrun with requests to guide merchants, protect travelers and help set up the feast. Not all glamorous work, but work that needed to be done. The others spent time carousing, my sister with the commoners while Gael and Luke chose to hang out with the merchants and bards (though Luke confided he was trying to get Gael to a bar with single women, but Gael was more interested in the non-romantic form of networking). Also Robert Talespinner arrived in Keralon and stayed at Erna's Wish and also brought a letter for Hayley from a village she lives at a bit up North. Apparently some strange things are happening there and if I had to guess, we'll soon set out there to investigate. Maybe you'll hear about it in a next letter.
 
But then the day came and we all agreed to meet up at the roof of Erna's Wish. But even early in the morning the streets were filled with people and celebrations. Food stands selling dragon themed food (though honestly it was just normal food with a dragon name attached) and kids running with scale shaped toys and candy. Feyris' bar was also teeming with life, already housing drunks before breakfast was done. Feyris asked us to not take anyone else to the roof, as he feared damage (not completely unfounded, as you'll hear later). The city square before the Foregate was empty besides a few knights that were waiting before an empty gate. And as we saw a delegation from the Velora Morenthene's army reach the gate, it opened and we saw Norgar and Rachnar wearing beautiful scale armor and riding drakes together with an honor guard of their own. We were far from the square so we couldn't hear but words were exchanged and then they started their march to the Palace Hill. Rachnar and Norgar were happy to wave at the citizens who seemed overjoyed at seeing the dragonborn go through their city. And thanks to Liliana's magic and some shouting of my own we drew their attention for a second. They decided to wave and make a small bow to us as thanks for all we did as we noticed Norgar bowed a bit deeper than expected and fell off his drake.
 
Immediately people started panicking as Hayley and Liliana pointed at a group of three hooded figures holding bows, clearly the cause of Norgar's affliction so we charged at them. The hooded figures were Elven assassins that tried to flee but tangles from Gael and spikes from Hayley kept two busy as I lept from roof to roof to corner the other one. It was here that we saw an undead figure across the street (away from the parade) that struck quite a nasty blow with a magic blast. As Dadroz knocked out the one next to me and the others were dealing with the trapped assassins I made a run over a washing line... Yes, it sounds impossible but I will stress that I ran over the washing line balancing for my dear life to get a chance to strike at this undead warlock. And after I struck a nasty blow to it Luke burned it to death with a sphere of fire he conjured, and at the same time a Manticore landed on poor Feyrís' roof, shattering some tiles forcing Liliana to hold it off as I had no easy way back. But here it became clear that during our fight, the parade was also dissolving into shouts and clashes of steel so I made way to see what was going on there as the rest easily dealt with the Manticore. Over there Norgar and Rachnar's guard and Keralon's knights were fighting off cultists in the same red robes we saw at the guard's barrack over a week ago.
 
The cultists clearly didn't stand a chance but when I saw one of them shun their cloak and sneak up on Norgar to take something from his coat. Yelling from the top of my lungs at the others who we should focus on I charged after him. Gael teleported magically besides me and Dadroz followed behind as Hayley used her raven to help us, Luke stayed to ward over his sister and Liliana would clean up the knocked out cultists. Thanks to Hayley's raven we managed to track the thief down to an empty square where he was reinforced by a few extra cultists. I left Gael to fight a cultist who ran up to him to make sure the thief did not get away. And together with Dadroz reinforcing and Hayley's raven cawing encouragingly when the thief, who revealed himself to be a brute with greataxe, shouted something in an unknown language to us. But when the raven spoke it showed Hayley was still following and could translate: "Release the beast" is what was said and a cultist slammed open a door to reveal a walking patchwork of skin lumbering forward. Luckily Dadroz managed to knock out the thief and I grabbed the item he stole from Norgar, a gem, as we all took position to fight this Fleshy Golem coming at us. But quickly it became clear our non magical weapons had no effect and we resorted to using a torch, but after Dadroz confirmed through the immerglade stones no help was coming soon we had to retreat, baiting the Golem from street to street until we came across some guards and knights. Luckily some of them had magical swords and told us to take some rest, we were looking quite injured by then, and slayed the monster. Here we reunited with the rest of our group and we were approached by Ser Donovan and a group of knights seated on horseback. Back at the parade, Liliana healed Norgar and apparently they informed Ser Donovan about our help and where we were headed. This is also the time Liliana stuffed her magical sword in my hand, as she didn't want to be caught wielding magic items while she wasn't a knight. Maybe I should take the time to set her on the path of becoming a knight, I'm convinced she'll be one in record time. I took five years, she'll need two weeks tops.
 
We explained to Ser Donovan what happened, and he was thankful and curious that it's again the same cult attacking, and with quite the menagerie of creatures (though menagerie was Lil's description of it). He did decide some rewards were in order, and apparently was appalled by me not having a magic sword while being a knight. So he asked one of his companions to give me his, and reassured us he'll have a replacement as soon as they get back to their circle. I was taken aback by how flippantly a magic sword was handed to me, but I was impressed by a knight of the Octagon handing me a sword that I could only sheepishly accept it. He also offered some ring with gems to Gael as payment for us, and while Gael at first declined the others were happy to take the reward. And honestly, if a rich knight who hands out magic swords like candy wants to give you money, taking it isn't going to make him go hungry.
 
I also completely forgot about the gem I took from the thief and luckily Dadroz reminded me as I quickly ran after Ser Donovan as he was departing to give him the item to give back to Norgar. They were setting out to the site where we fought the cultists to investigate further. Leaving us to go back to Erna's Wish to relate our story to Feyris and Robert, and tell them the roof needs some fixing. But luckily Hayley knows a spell that can fix most of the damage.
 
So that's where the story currently ends. All the bards in the city do make me miss our time together: rehearsals as the Fey-roost Five with Lil and Gideon, helping the farmers in Tarn, traveling the Lorewood,...
It's a shame you're not here to share in these stories unravelling but I can only hope you are happy in the Eastmarks with your clan.
 
With love,
Alistan
 
P.S.: At her unrelenting nagging, Liliana also sends her love and wishes for me to ask if you're still keeping up with your sword training.