Letter to Ileas 8

Dear Ileas,
 
It's with sorrow that I have to write that Torrin, our brave companion, passed away yesterday. So did Gael and Dadroz, but we've already revived them at the temple earlier today. But I'll get to how that happened soon.
 
Yesterday started off with a mysterious note, Liliana Hayley and myself all woke up with a headache and since this has not been the first time this happened we decided something must be wrong and we should investigate. After Luke spotted a illusion aura fading off us and theorized a Dream spell could be involved, we just decided to ask Pim, as he might've been the only one awake during the night. He mentioned an old lady moving through the keep, going from room to room, though skipping Gael's for some reason. Our minds all went to Auntie Patty but as Pim didn't recognize a picture of Patty it was anyone's guess who it might actually be.
 
Since this would mean we could only act in the night we went about our day the usual way: Dadroz, Lil and I went and helped the Ravensfielders set up a few buildings while the others went to visit Tommel Dresner who was finally well enough to speak. They finally managed to put together the cause of his curse: Patty visited him on a day and claimed his daugther Naira would die within the coming weeks, she would stop it but in exchange wanted the unborn child that him and his wife was unknowingly expecting. And when forced with the impossible decision Tommel had to make the impossible choice of giving up his unborn child in hopes of saving his daughter, making a deal with the hag. It's hard not to pity him, being taken advantage of by a hag and pushed into an impossible decision.
 
Regardless, when we got back together we had to decide on what to do. Deals with Fey had to be honored at great risk, but loopholes and possibilities could open up depending on the specifics of the deal. So we should speak with Tommel again and get as many details as possible. It looked grim, as Hags tend to make for vindictive and meticulous hagglers. But we were the Lords and Ladies of Wolf's Rest, charged with the protection and prosperity of its citizens, and this unborn child was ours to protect. If there's a way to save the babe from being put in a cooking pot or worse, we would find it or forge that way ourselves if need be.
 
They also asked after the feud between Tommel and Darrion about their favorite fishing spot and learned that while Tommel doesn't really remember what started it, Darrion claims it was a fight over whose wife's packed lunch was better which escalated into a row where things were said they probably didn't mean. Let's hope Hayley's words gets them talking again, otherwise we might have to resort to do what parents do to kids that are fighting over a toy: take it away. But for now Tommel, at least, has a lot on his mind.
 
Before evening fell, I also took some time to visit the massive graveyard at the abandoned church. Quinn wouldn't show up for a few days yet but such a massive graveyard for a small town fascinated me, maybe I hoped to see names of old Keralonian heroes or signs of known families but the stones all weathered the tides of time poorly, and its history washed away.
 
We then set up for the evening, some of us trying to actually sleep while most of us waited awake in our beds for whatever would skulk about the keep. And indeed, by midnight the sound of a struggle came from downstairs. Cursing my choice of accommodations at the top floor I rushed down and waded through a magical darkness to close off the only way out, hoping to catch whatever was trying to escape. And when Liliana landed a blow it cut through the darkness to reveal Auntie Patty throwing up her hands in surrender. I would later learn that she actually got to Liliana who was awake but a sleep spell knocked her back out, it was Dadroz who raised the ruckus.
 
When asking what Patty was doing here, she apparently was eating our dreams, skipping Gael's only they're closer to Fey dreams which are 'more boring', whatever that means. When we pressed her about Naira she was quite tight lipped, saying she hasn't done anything and nothing happened yet, but it is going to happen. But she suddenly dropped her 'old lady' act to glare at Hayley, who had apparently just cast a mind reading spell on her to learn what would actually happen. And clearly she didn't like it when it was her mind being probed. She sneered at us that we made a mistake and she'd have to teach us a lesson. With that she stormed off as I stepped aside to let her through. Though not before Liliana healed her for whatever damage she was just dealt by my sister's swing.
 
After she left Hayley told us what she saw: Niara was to be eaten by a giant toad inside our keep. Thousands of questions about how this could come to be came up and what to do, but we decided that for now we should head to bed. Although not before deciding on a watch, I offered to join Gael but he insisted he could handle it alone. It only felt like a few minutes when I was shocked awake and it felt like the floor was shaking from all the fighting going on beneath. Cursing once again my choice of sleeping on the top floor as well as sleeping through what seemed like most of the fighting, though Lore also seemed unperturbed by the noise. We had to hold the line on the second floor as I managed to intercept a few of the Redcaps that were going after Luke, as Hayley on the other side had a summoned spirit hold the line. Slowly and with difficulty we fought our way downstairs where Hayley brought back an unconscious Liliana and together we slayed the last of the Redcaps.
 
But the damage was already done, Gael laid broken and trampled on the foot of the stairs, Dadroz laid inhumanely still and twisted in the corner of the planned Armory. And in the stables, Torrin was murdered, as were the warhorses of Dadroz and Gael gifted to them by the King himself. Not since our brother's death did I feel such fury and sorrow as at that moment.
 
The next day we resolved to bring back Gael and Dadroz, going to the Temple in Keralon to perform the ceremony to revive them. But despite relief at our friends returning something still dominates our mind: how to handle Auntie Patty. All my instincts shouted to ride over to her cottage, lay waste to her geese and burn her house down, for starters. But is such petty vengeance worth risking any plans to save Leen and Tommel's baby? Should we focus on that and take solace that preventing Patty from taking that baby is enough vengeance?
 
Hopefully I write you back with a happier tale next time,
 
Alistan
 
P.S.: For Gael we already had a song to sing at the ceremony, but for Dadroz I wrote a small refrain as well. In honor of his ressurection. I've named it "The Benevolent Shadow":
 
The Benevolent Shadow, stalking the night
Protecting the lands, with all his might
A trader of whispers, in alleyways and halls,
Gathering truths, where the moonlight falls.
 
In Tarn, he was born, a shadow to the light
A rogue who danced where secrets hide
To Keralon he came, the city of heroes
In the Moonblossom Circle, exposing foes