8th of Nguvu, 971

Thadius,

I resume my writing a few days after my previous effort. The snow is falling outside this little tent that Sabine and I share. It’s a lone from the Ore Cane whom we are coming to realise know much more about the conditions here than us. Fortunately the expedition enjoyed a measure of success and so we no longer share a tent with Hank.

I like Hank, but things are much better now that he has his own tent. He’s a nice guy and we get on well for all that he can’t speak compidg and I can’t speak common. But no matter how well you get along he was a definite third wheel. It was awkward having him share a tent with us, almost as bad as when Sabine and I stayed with you just after we were married. Anyway I’m getting ahead of myself.

A week passed after Hank left with Ruadh and the majority of the horses. There’s nothing for the horses to do at the moment so it only made sense. It was about then that things started to get tense. We had estimated that it would take them about three days to get to the previous Ore Cane camp. So with a day or two there picking through things and packing the horses, we thought that they would be back about seven or eight days after they left, nine at the latest.

Days nine and ten passed before Ninyette’s nervousness got too much and she asked Sabine to sit down down to discuss what options there were. I have to confess that things looked bleak then. Winter coming on. Lots of children to feed. Two missing adults. And a forest where the things that go bump in the night are a warm up for the genuinely frightening things that roam.

In my previous letter I mentioned that everything in the GNF is nastier than elsewhere. I can say that but I suspect that you don’t understand the depth of my meaning. My love, as you know is the first of the brethren to break level 20 in almost fifty years. You are one of the few that appreciate how hard it was for her to reach such a level. Reaching levels that high invariably mean confronting things that are of similar level. In the GNF things are regularly much higher level than your daughter. In fact I came across a plant recently that had captured and was digesting a level 19 snake.

As always your daughter cares nothing for the true danger of things. Well that’s the appearance she gives out. We both know that she is a worrier at heart and can’t handle suspense at all. She was genuinely in a bind as to what to do. The decision was eventually made at the prompting of one of the older children. He is a ferocious thing who goes by the name of Thys. Hasn’t made his majority yet and so there is no SCKAT yet. I haven’t seen an Ore Cane grade in the SCKAT yet but I imagine that some of the tomes that Ninyette wants to recover pertain to pre levelling.

You know the way that you and aunt Ailsi had all of us kids doing all sorts of strange things when we were young. I guessed you were all hoping that the we wouldn’t all end up miners or fighters when our SCKAT came in. We all hoped that we would have lots of classes to choose from. But triggering the rare classes seems to be hard for everyone so everyone seems to that their secret parts to some class or another.

It does sort of leave me wondering about Hank. Level 9 and still not class elected it’s… well odd. Which is understating it, I know. Certainly some places wouldn’t welcome him for fear he’s taken a hidden class and you and I both know that hidden classes, no matter how benevolent, lead to problems.

You remember that wee green eyed lass that liked poor Bean, came from over the way. What was her name, or class for that matter? Some kind of soul bonding thing, hidden from day one, it caused no end of trouble. What did happen to Bean anyway? Sabine and I went off to the southern wars and saw him no more.

Anyway back to Thys. He’s one of those boys that believe that they are capable of anything an adult can do. He also seems to look up to Hank. Maybe it was because Hank rescued him or maybe because Hank is a bit unrefined but is surprisingly good with the children we rescued. In any case he declared that someone needed to go and get Hank and he was going to be the one. Foolish wee sprat, except of course he’s not one of us Wee folk. You get the point.

So back to the main thing. I am not one to lead as you well know. I am happy to play my role and I am content to let Sabine be the general of the Hammer Brethren. Still all leaders can suffer from some kind of decision lock. I’m not sure how it works, sometimes you just can’t make a decision. I still don’t know why this was an issue here. Perhaps it was the thought of leaving one semi adult alone with a double fist full of sprats.

I mean the decision wasn’t that hard. Leave and look for Hank. Come back in 7 days no matter what. Or stay with the children and hope they come back. Seems relatively straight forward. Stay. With one small issue. Ruadh and Hank were the people stocking the larder previously. Having taught both Sabine and myself, you know that I am reasonable with a bow and Sabine is Sabine. You know, useless if its a straw target or a dummy or anything that doesn’t get her blood up. Once the adrenaline is pumping she’s flawless. Any how she decided to pick up archery semi recently. Don’t take er hunting for rabbits or gofers or dear, she’s useless. No danger so no adrenaline I suppose. Hunting the dangerous stuff here on the edge of the GNF is a completely different story. She loves it. Anyway side tracked again.

We all realised that if Hank and Ruadh didn’t make it back we would only have supplies for another two or three weeks at best. The fishery that Hank had built was good but neither Sabine nor I would have the first clue as to how to fix it if it broke and at the moment it was providing about 60% of all our protein. Really since we didn’t now enough about the local flora we were a little concerned about sampling the local grass and berries. Not that any self respecting wee person goes out of their way for salad. But truth be told I was getting a little sick of the rabbit fish diet.

That changed the decision a bit. If we were out looking for Hank and Ruadh it would be easier to hunt. We would be in the GNF after all. Here there was not much that we could reach that would be good. Yes the grass lands were filled with rabbits but not much else besides I don’t know the first thing about traps.

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That night Sabine and I chatted it through. She is never one to be persuaded easily. Far be it for me to suggest that she gets that from you, obviously it is a trait from your wife. Still by the time we got to sleep we were agreed that it would be best for everyone if she and I headed into the GNF to rescue Hank and Ruadh.

Little did we realise that crazy Thys had taken it into his pretty little head that he could best the GNF alone and rescue his lost heroes. He left alone that same night. Caused quite a commotion. Ninyette was all for fetching him back herself but we talked her down. Well Sabine did. And a good thing too, there was no way I was being left to look after that baby Agnita. Still it wasted a fair amount of time consoling Ninyette that we would rescue him too.

The outpost, where we are based is now located on the north side of the Tabor. Here the slope has trees and undergrowth similar to the woods near where aunt Ailsi lives. There is some concern that we cannot see far enough into the wood to truly feel safe. However when we left to find Raudh and Hank we started out from the old camp. It was located in rolling grassland on the south side of the Tabor, much closer to Gruffly’s mine and the GNF. So blessing and curse. I mean anything can walk out of that place.

We set off that morning and as we travelled along the south side of the Tabor I remember thinking that this place is truly something. Yes out here on the edge of the great northern forest you are never far from real danger but also everyday there are new things here. New animals, plants, strange and dramatic landscapes. Wherever you look new things. That morning was no different we saw a strange species of butterfly and caught one for Hank.

Hank is an interesting character. One moment it seems he wishes he was more martial by nature. Like he wishes he was as good a fighter as Sabine but just never quite got the knack. But if I’m being honest, if he pursues that avenue it will be a waste. I discovered something about myself in the souther wars. There is a darker side in those of us who are good at war. In my love it is her glee when fighting all out. Hank is not built that way. Don’t get me wrong he’ll kill things before we’re done up here. But, if I was to pick one overarching characteristic I would say, for him, curiosity killed the cat. His mind does not stop and he is always reading books. Not that he is rude about it, well actually that’s not true he is rude about it. But he can be riding a horse through the woods, reading a book and following a conversation, sort off.

Anyway the reason we took the butterfly is because Hank has decided that he needs to document and reproduce a book on the fauna and flora of our surrounds. We have, well Hank has, a book that covers the GNF. Which he thinks is quite poor, but at least it’s a start. Anyway we don’t live in the GNF proper as far as we can tell because both the flora and fauna are quite different. So Hank believes that we need to understand our environment to be able to live well here. Fine. Neither Sabine nor I care enough to argue about it being a waste of time and paper. Especially as we don’t have an endless supply of the latter all the way up here.

As I said before Hank has built a fishery. The fish there are strange. They are obviously trout of a kind but it took us so long to realise that they were in the Tabor because of their colouring. We have decided to call them silver trout. Whilst olive green in colour when when out of the water they can only be seen when submerged by the occasional silver flash such is their camouflage. So it was as we were walking past the fishery that we noticed the trout jumping to feast on the swarm of butterflies flying by. The trout I’m familiar with do not normally jump. Sabine says that do, hey, I’m not a horticulturalist or what ever the fish version of that is, so who know. I just maintain it’s weird. If you die from breathing the air stay the heck away from the air, know what I mean.

Anyway those butterflies are more weird. Even I know, butterflies do not normally fly in swarms. And they’re big, like the size of your hand big. Butterflies are always some kind of pretty and these are no exception. Naturally, it took way longer than expected to capture the one we have for Hank. Still it was worthwhile.

The fish eat the butterflies and the butterflies seemed to be eating fish eggs not the normal pollen for them. So one set of weirdness over. We’d caught one for Hank and where about to leave the fishery behind when strait out of the blue. I mean there is not a cloud in the sky, a fish jumps to take this one butterfly that looks a little different and a mini bolt of lightning hits the fish.

I was looking right there when it happened. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I have never seen anything create lightning except the sky and here is some random bug putting out lightning on a fish. Obviously something didn’t go quite to plan as the butterfly cooked itself better than that klutz, Rhuane, who burnt his own house down trying impress Gerter with a home cooked meal that one time. Yep his house was definitely cooked, just like this butterfly who turn himself in a charcoal blow away by the wind.

Not that the fish was any better off. Fried that thing too. Too cooked for anything to get a meal out of, even his cannibalistic buddies who seem to eat anything and everything. Like I said weird fish. Anyway the reason I bother to write this stuff out for you is because of that notification we all go up here.

I assume that it came through to you as well. Some world wide notice that even those who don’t have a SCKAT yet could see. Far as I can tell someone did something somewhere and now ‘power’ is here to turn life into some sort of guessing game. I am mean there is no way that butterflies normally electrocute recalcitrant fish. That has to be some of this ‘power’ stuff.

Still I’m gonna learn from the butterfly story. Be careful you never know when some weak little nothing bit of insignificance in your life has a big enough trick up it’s sleeve to fry your eyeballs to liquid. Secondly if I ever get a message saying I can fry the bad dude, I ain’t choosing the yes in case I fry me too. Well, if I’m being perfectly honest I’ll get Gruffly to try it out first and then if he doesn’t fry I’ll have a go.

No, don’t tell me I’m being mean. You and I both know that if I tell Gruffly not to do something he will anyway, just to spite me. And if I tell him I’m going to do something nobody’s done before, he’ll race me for it just to be better and first. I mean it’s just like that time when I told him I knew a genetic trait only us wee people have. That our beards don’t burn in the blacksmith fire. Told him I was going to be the first wee person to test it. He almost burnt his chin off discovering I was lying. Course I almost wet myself I laughed so hard then. It still makes me laugh thinking about it.

But the point remains he didn’t learn. I bet if I told him I had found a way to shoot lightning out my dumb he would try it first just to beat me. So between you and I, please tell me what you learn of this ‘power’ thing. But seriously don’t trust Gruffly with it.

I would continue but dinner is ready and the light is failing so I scratch out another chunk of the story in the next letter. Since she’s featured so much in this letter, send my best wishes to aunt Ailsi. I doubt she understands more than one word in two these days the poor dear, but I’m still grateful for the way she helped school us rabble all those years ago.

All my love to everyone.

Your son in law

Fritz