To the Authorities of Restov,
Progress has begun relatively quickly at extinguishing the bandit menace in the Stolen Lands. Bandit forces are complacent, poorly armed and inexperienced with fighting equipped opponents. Some twelve bandits have been dispatched thus far, including one active campsite. We expect a note of credit forthcoming.
Team morale is high, despite the…
Sanguinius, the emperor tamarin monkey familiar, held the quill tightly and looked up quizzically and silently at his master, who had stopped mid-dictation. Nephele Orvathar was wrapped in a thick olive green cotton shawl and she paced the timber battlements of Oleg’s Trading Post impatiently. Above, the cold lights of night sky shimmered away, washing the nearby fields in a blue light.
“Sorry San, I am looking for the right words.” She scratched her chin with a long fingernail. Sanguinius’s beetle black eyes followed her, waiting for the next sentence. It was not proper to complain about her team mates…
There was Zogarn Gronzi, the hormonal human teenage barbarian, whose belligerence about his dubious birth-right was matched only by his seemingly endless self-confidence. He referred to Nephele as "Princess", a comment that Nephele had misunderstood to convey a regal nature, rather than a term of derision at her constant need for luxury.
There was the pleasant yet hopelessly delusional ranger Koby, who could at any time, be joined by his ghostly partner, Emerson Medyved, who constantly dripped with water and cold after falling in a cursed ‘icy lake’ somewhere in the Gronzi forest. Nephele suspected both Koby and Emerson were cursed, but she didn’t have the resources to research their magical affliction properly. She also was loathe to get close to Emerson, who had the most frightful way of speaking, half stutter and half babbling of waters.
At least there was another spellcaster. Antal, the diminutive male Witch. He was joined by Barnabus the Raven, who hopped about on the halfling witch’s shoulders insulting others constantly.
She almost suspected that the excursion to the Stolen Lands had been a method for Restov authorities removing some of its stranger adventurers. Nephele thought better of complaining of her teammates and turned to the greater problem.
…Team morale is high, despite the threat of one named the Stag Lord, a self-appointed ruler of the Stolen Lands. Word is the bandits the Stag Lord surrounds himself with are far more disciplined and deadly than the rabble we have encountered so far. I will report more when we have solid information.
Sanguinius held up the quill. Nephele took it and deftly signed her name in Elven. She picked up the parchment, folded it, and placed it within her shawl. Shivering, she breathed out steam and gazed out at the cold fields beyond the wooden walls.