Letter to Galiene

Dear Galiene,
 
I know you're very busy but you might like to hear that I've become a knight of the Long Table! How that happened is quite a tale actually: Catching up with old friends, being approached by Vern Skald, sneaking out of the city, getting to the army of Velora Fenhunter and winning the right to escort an emissary by fighting their champion, a giant dragonborn. Then we escorted the emissary through an attack by constructs possibly made from stolen dragon babies (don't ask) and into the city where we eventually got ambushed by guards in red robes hellbent on killing the emmisary. So, quite some action and like you might expect I took quite some hits. But luckily I've been reunited with my friends from Tarn and especially my sister Liliana. You should definitely come to meet her when you get the chance. I think after nagging your ears off with stories of my sister and friends you might actually want to see them. Oh and we met Ser Donovan, from the Octagon! I didn't realize it at the time but how cool is that. And when we told the story to Vern we got our mettle and the initiation into the circle, long story short they have a spectral dragon down there.
 
Writing it like this, it is a bit weird that we struggled so hard to tell the story afterwards. After Hayley (you might remember Luke's sister from his wedding feast?) and I had our initiation we went to Feyris's bar, Erna's Wish. You might remember it from the few times we went there and how the owner is a good friend of ours. But we tried to tell this story about our quest but somehow Liliana and I couldn't bring our A-game, guess the day itself drained us more than we wanted to admit. Luckily the jist of it was communicated and we had a good time celebrating.
 
But this brought us to yesterday, you definitely remember Luke from that wedding party I took you to? He knocked on our door telling us his master Amarra from the wizard's tower Caern Fussil was requesting urgent aid, she sent a message in the night through a tiny fire elemental. So we grabbed whatever horses we could and spent most of the day on the road, I took Torrin from his stable and you might've been laughing at me training him a few years ago, but that timid draft horse we got from the villagers of Tarn was now a well-trained and strong horse, easily carrying the weight of two armored warriors. When we arrived Luke said the lack of smoke coming from a fire wizard's tower was concerning, and Hayley managed to scout that the tower was under attack from beings called Umber Hulks, monstrosities with giant claws and mandibles and a gaze that could influence your mind.
 
Not wasting any time we charged in. It was a rather hectic fight, as I tried to protect my sister, Torrin was hypnotized by one of the Hulk's and started running away, taking two nasty attacks that almost got him. It also lead to Liliana taking a lot of hits, I could not protect her from, and hitting the ground. But in the end, with Liliana and myself holding down the line and the rest peppering them with attacks, we downed the Hulks, with Luke landing a final Magic Missile that obliterated the last Hulk. So we set out to find Amarra in the wreckage, in the end Gael found that only Umber Hulk tracks led to the tower and Luke found a hidden door behind some illusion magic where Amarra was nursing some wounds.
 
She told us the attack was from a rival wizard seeking her destruction, a former lover if I understood the subtext better, though a quite aggressive break up since he is chasing her and sending massive armies of creatures after her (Guess a side effect of studying fire magic is that fiery nature gets to your love life too). And since she thinks Caern Fussil is a lost cause she is considering to go into hiding and shake off this wizard, and despite my worries she reassured us that Luke wouldn't be a target since he's not that strong of a wizard yet. Though she had some parting gifts for him, a scroll to get him to the heart of the tower and a crystal there that would allow him to make a future tower of his connect to the elemental plane of fire like this one. Something we would do the next day as we settled in for a good night's rest, though we did put some rocks and beams in place on Luke's recommendation to keep an exit open if the tower collapsed, and we made sure Torrin and the other horses were safely tied up. During the night, Gael saw Amarra use magic to teleport out, apparently she was never much for goodbye's according to Luke. Hopefully she can keep herself safe. But meanwhile, we set out to the heart of Caern Fussil.
 
We ended up in a hot place with a bunch of magma. It was quite the puzzle but it involved some books in a language we didn't know yet and fiery circles that locked the one standing in it in place when carrying a certain marble we obtained from a flaming brazier that was supposed to go into a statue blocking our way with magma, it gathered some energy from the circles. We had to leave one of us in each circle that summoned a few minor elementals to fight, so we always were down one fighter in the following fights. I volunteered to stand in one so I had to hear Liliana, Hayley and Gael fight the last group. Now here we probably should've caught our breath a bit but we were energized by powering up the marble, and Luke was ready to wade through fire to put the marble in the tongue of the statue, which then allowed us to jump over it into the next chamber, where a giant crystal hovered over a pool of lava: the heart of Caern Fussil. But the heart was protected by a fire elemental that did take quite a lot to beat. Not helped by us being a bit spent from the last battles. But after being burned a few times and Liliana almost succumbing to the fire completely, a final arrow from Gael managed to finish the job. The elemental itself shrank into a staff that was clearly meant for Luke, a second to last gift from Caern Fussil for its remaining wizard. He then braved the lava to get the last gift, the crystal, which triggered the final collapse of the tower. Luckily we managed to crawl out and then start to make our way back to Keralon.
 
Also, did you know the guards just know if you're a knight? We didn't have to identify ourselves or show any signs. They just know. It also means I can finally get that sending stone I buried outside the city and take it with me, as well as use the shield my brother left me. As you said, it was wasted hanging on the wall.
 
And it's been a relief to have my sister and our friends together again. You know how my family's deal with Ulther has been hanging over my life. With them on my side, maybe we can do something about it. If we can find the time of course, the last few days have been incredibly busy, and something tells me that won't let up anytime soon.
 
Carnwen, Petra and Krys send their love. As do I. Hope your work at the temple goes well.
 
Yours,
Ali.