By Beth Griese

Date:   October 12, 1996

Quote of the Day:
"Rug cleaning. You can't beat that." -- Brian

To Garen Thundersson, cleric of Mielikki. From your faithful servant, Jade.

Praise Mielikki, Garen, that I write to you today with hands that are once more the hands that I know and the age I belong to. After our huddled night spent in our home near Eveningstar, and much discussion in the morning, we decided our best chances for having our true ages restored to us lay in Suzail. Suzail housed many great clerics, although none I knew of Mielikki, and also was the home of Maxer, the wizard who had helped me investigate my mist mystery.

So, to Suzail we travelled. Telaran bartered with some exotic merchants to gain a cart for the goods we had brought from the Haunted Halls, and our party made a blissfully uneventful journey through beautiful forests. Just having leaves above my head again helped restore some of my calm, and I even began to feel I could accept the dozen or so years stolen from me if it was to be. My greatest worry was still whether I - and some of the others - could keep adventuring, and whether my and Borreau's path could still be joined. He insisted that this would not bring any change to his company with me, but the concern kept me watching many moon tracks during the nights.

When we reached Suzail, we found lodging at our Adventurer's Club; our membership fees were beginning to bear fruit! Our first order of business was to divide and sell our treasure from the Halls; we were sure that whatever solution we were going to find to the ghost's curse would cost us dearly. As it turned out, Tymora mixed our solution right in our trade.

The party spread out to sell the various things we had gathered - what a job, trying to figure out where and how to sell such oddities as a goblet and a humidor! We ended up in art shops and homes of wealthy people who turned out to be followers of the BeastMaster, much to my disgust. But our luck came to us in the form of an archivist from the castle who collected stray art objects. We were asking almost everyone we met about cures for age, and amazingly, this eager collector said he had a friend with some potions that could grant back years.

Apparently, these potions are a favorite thing among the nobility. They do indeed grant years, although an apothecarist we spoke to warned us that, when used many times, they became more unstable. This was not a concern for us - most of us would just need one of these potions, Telaran perhaps two. This was our answer at last!

I had been the one fortunate enough to stumble upon our Archivist friend, so I continued with the negotions with him - five potions in exchange for the beautiful rug we had recovered - and had to have cleaned - from the gnoll's nest. The rug was indeed a fine piece, but oh, how hard it was to try to keep calm when speaking of these potions we wanted so dearly! The trade was made, both sides very happy with our luck, and all of us who fell victim to the ghost are now looking more or less as we did before the encounter. Of course, now I'm double unsure about my true age, but since I never knew my true birthdate, anyway, that's not as strange to me as I think it may be to Borreau and Telaran.

With our problem solved, we decided to stay in Suzail for a while to give everyone a chance to spend some time with their own people and their own professions, a ritual that still leaves me worried when I see Nory and B'rinth swagger out the doors in the evenings and not return until dawn. I found sweet escape in the forests outside of Suzail with Serrill, a ranger who also had membership at the Adventurer's Club. Why on fearun do people stay in such enclosing streets when grassy fields lie not two miles away? Serrill was a fine teacher, eager for stories of our adventures so far, especially, of course, the release of Weston, and he told me about many of the animals and seasons in the southern part of our land that I hadn't noticed up in Eveningstar.

It's been a good way to spend the past few weeks, but as I return to the Club, I feel that same restlessness in the party that seems to come up after any amount of time away from the road. It won't be long before boredom - or a need for change, who can say? - will take us to having swords at our throats again. I admit I'm beginning to look forward to the excitement, too. Awaiting MidSummer, I remain...

Your faithful servant,

--Jade

The Jade Letters are the property and copyright of Beth Griese, not to be published or redistributed without permission.

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