Missive to Arbiter El Endande
Storm Season Third Quarter First Horn’s Day
One of our most venerable members, Greyslan Amberglass has gone outside his purview in your region. We request you muster your talents and when the time is available, call upon your underlings to commit to a search for him. It is possible he may merely be settling somewhere pleasant to wait out the end of storm season and the worst stretches of Cold season.
We would appreciate that you discharge your duties with a gentle but firm hand. While he still remains powerful in the way elder wizards can be, he has grown somewhat chaotic in recent years. You understand you have the allowance to use whatever persuasion is necessary to encourage his safe and speedy return to council.
Missive to Council From Arbiter El Endande
Storm Season Third Quarter Second Wheel Day
While there is some trace of your errant member having entered my purview, through the port of Kattan, his presence appears to have vanished somewhere near the Grey Forests. And while that is the entrance into the protected realm of the daughters of the black oak, I cannot believe even one in a chaotic state would dare enter into such a darkly enchanted region alone.
It is more likely he skirted the region and headed south to the more enchanted marshes of Abdekalar. They are the perfect sort of area to refresh oneself during the less pleasant seasons. They however are governed by Arbiter El Kishinik. With your permission, I will send a missive to her to begin a search for the Venerable Amberglass.
We lay in her warm garden. For how long I could not tell. As an enchantress of great power time did not pass in the same manner in Gwyn’s domain as it did in less enchanted locales on Aethros. And while a part of me was concerned what was happening outside its green walls, much of me longed to remain.
A small and curious marmot approached us. She took in her hand, stroked its fur while it chattered under her care. I watched her, thinking about all the contradictions inherent to such a powerful being as herself.
Gwyn turned to me and lowered the creature, a smile on her lips. She moved to me, her soft breasts pressing into my chest, the light touch of her fingers began a caress that started at my temple and slowly made their way down my ear.
“I have an answer to your quandary,” she told me in a playful tone. “And I think you may even like it.”
I looked into her bright green eyes, felt her warm breath on my face. There was mischief in those eyes.
“What do you suggest?” I asked her.
“If you cannot overpower your opponent, then you need to bring him down to a level where you are more equal,” she started, then stopped as I stiffed in response. “I am sorry, to question your command of the arcane, but the solution is to ensure that you can defeat him. And also what I propose will also prove he is the one who pilfered the missing stones.”
I thought for a moment.
“You mean gather others, so much that they will stunt both of our powers.”
She nodded. The look on her face was now wholly mischievous.
“How many would it take to make a wizard utterly powerless,” she asked. “No more powerful than any other man. It can’t be a great number, not of collected within a short distance of each other.”
I thought about it, remembered. No, not many. More than the thief would have garnered. But not many more.
“Four,” I told her. “Five, at the most.”
“Then you have your answer,” she told me, stroked my cheek, my beard, sounding pleased with herself. “You take the stones to your adversary. Whoever holds the ones from the March will be rendered powerless. Then he can be dealt with, by sword or staff, in whatever manner you see fit.”
“You suggest, I, as he did, steal them from another March,” the idea did not sit well with me. “I cannot do that. They are promised, until they are no longer needed. I will not bring myself down to the level of a common robber.”
