Letters from Lexi #5
Dear Freddie
So, I said we were going to go and talk down a sentient volcano, right? Well it was amazing. You are going to be so jealous! I got to be attuned to an ancient magical artifact and actually perform the ritual to re-balance the island. I know - my hands didn't stop shaking for about an hour afterwards.
I don't often envy you your magic (and I still think I win this round) but feeling that additional connection to Caerule and Rhaeteth... I don't think I have the words for how incredible it was.
And that was just the finale. I don't know if or when this business is going to be declassified - I promise I will give you all the details as soon as I'm allowed - so apologies if some of this is a little vague.
Firstly, we got initiated into the pygmy orc tribe which was incredible. Then, when their shamans told us what we were going to need to do to help fix the problem, they picked me to take the artifact! Apparently I was the only one of our patrol group to show interest in it.
She performed a ritual to allow me to attune to it and fortunately Alberich warned me I wouldn't have sufficient innate magic to cast it without pain because that bit was less fun but then the information I got from it... it was almost overwhelming. It showed me this whole ritual - I could feel the energy within it. And just thinking about how old it was - how many hands had held it before me, wielded its power.
Then we fought a bunch of dark speetles and elementals. Dark elementals seriously skeeve me out - way too much like shadows for my liking but they definitely weren't undead. They do this thing where they basically entangle you in darkness (which obviously didn't take...) so I ran around being awesome at them, even got made immune to their darts when we found a portal to the Plane of Darkness, then got weaknessed. Not so fun from the other side. Alberich blew the portal up with sun darts and we went back to the camp.
The next morning we had to go rescue some rock goblins who were being enslaved by fire goblins - I was actually in agreement with our order Paladin. He seemed pretty cool to be honest once he'd gotten over the knee-jerk 'chaos-bad' reaction. And it was entertaining listening to the orcs trying to copy his old-fashioned speech patterns - all "thou shalt" and "watcheth thine back" and warning goblins he was coming up behind them.
Later we made our way through some collapsed tunnels to a workshop which had apparently belonged to the ogre-magi whose artifact we had. More of the interesting runes - a series of riddles again to empower a grid which allowed the artifact to be recharged without any mana. I got to put my hand in what was possibly the actual glove the ogre had used to do it to. I may have been a little over-excited - I think I even worried Eorith (our Warden in command).
In the same room we found another artifact which Perak, our orcish general shaman friend, had been working on. I don't think the others realised quite how smart she must have been to come up with it and she denied any especial brilliance but it combined earth and air magic together in order to balance the fire of the main portal and the water in the artifact.
After a feast, we set out to the Heart of the island - we stopped overnight in a 'safe room' where another golem (there were two in the workshop) put up some kind of warding and took Isambard away for resurrection. The golems were fascinating and to think of how old they must be... In the morning (probably, we were underground) we reached the island Heart where there was this immense fire elemental. Fortunately the gladiators dealt with it while I activated the artifact and then we pushed forward to the portal and performed the ritual. It felt like hours but was probably only a few minutes as the portal shrank and shrank and then, as I stopped and stepped away, the artifact and the earth/air item hung in the air by themselves in eternal balance with the portal. Pretty awesome, yeah?
So, beat that...
May the blessings of the Seven be with you
Love Lexi
xxx