Dear River,
Today was crazy! It was absolutely nuts!!!!!! I mean I love it! I love the great games. I haven’t had this much fun… in a long time. I also feel guilty because part of me feels bad that I haven’t been out looking for you but there is a purpose to these games and it’s a good cause. It could help me find you in the long run, but it is an indirect approach. Part of me wants to drop everything I am doing here in Ellandyr and start searching but there’s a few of problems if I were to drop everything and come looking. One, we are dealing with Khar’shan, a titan. If she has you in custody I don’t think I could find and free you by myself. Two, I have no idea where to start looking for you. Where would Khar’shan hold you? I have no idea and it would be so inefficient to go look randomly trying to find you. Even though this is a more round-about way of finding you, I have to trust the oracle. Trust the mission and path that my friends and I are on. That by competing in these games, finding the ship of Arkelander, lighting the mithril forge, drinking from the horn of Selesnya, and retrieving weapons from the necropolis would eventually lead me to you. I have to trust that or there is no hope. Even though I am not currently actively looking for you, I am working on trying to find you. I am competing in these great games to find and rescue you. Please be patient and I will try to be patient as well and I try to find you as fast I can, but we all just have to trust the oracle. Trust the oracle.
Speaking of the oracle, she invited us over for breakfast this morning. We had some conversations and she shed some light on a few things. She told us that there might be a member of the League of Storms that might turn on the league and be willing to help us. She also gave Rendu some hints on the whereabouts of her mother’s instruments. It was a pleasant breakfast. It was very delicious.
After breakfast we headed to the colosseum for the next contest of strength which was… boxing. During the qualification for the great games I competed in the boxing match because I thought it would be fun. I didn’t know if I would do well and qualify. I did qualify but I did not think this would be an event that I would do well in. In reality I shouldn’t do very well. My first match was against Spira. I know! It was so fun! I would have never have thought I would be boxing with Spira back in the day! But here I was and I don’t know how but I pulled out the win. After the match I did let her know that we were big fans and she appreciated the compliment. She’s awesome! She is a cool cat. Actaeon then destroyed Jorge, and Torag destroyed Cy. Both were great fights. Rendu became huge and fought Egan. Rendu also defeated his opponent. This left the four of us remaining in the event. To be honest I didn’t want to fight them for multiple reasons. I am not a boxer so I shouldn’t try to win and save my energy for the great spectacle. I also didn’t want to waste Lumi’s spell slots as well because again I wanted to save her spell slots for the great spectacle. Lastly, I was glad that it would be one of us that wins so it doesn’t matter if I continued to compete. So I planned to throw in the towel for the next fight. I was picked to fight Rendu next and I explained to Rendu that I didn’t want to fight.. Rendu didn’t accept my forfeit. He felt similarly that he wasn’t the strongest boxer. In fact, he thought I was a better boxer than him. After some discussion we agreed that whoever can launch a punch first the other will act out being knocked out. With pure luck I threw the punch first and I swear I didn’t hit him but Rendu is a very good actor and made it look like I took him out with one punch, I stood there in shock and confused wondering if I did punch him. Unbelievably I moved on to the final round. Next, Torag and Actaeron put on an amazing fight. It was a ton of fun watching them go at it. But Torag was able to pull out the victory. That left Torag and I for the final round.
Again, I didn’t want to fight Torag for the same reasons. Torag is a way better boxer than me and I wanted to save myself for the great spectacle. Torag wouldn’t accept my forfeit either. Again, after some discussion we agreed that there would be no help from our mystic coaches so we wouldn’t waste anymore spell slots. I agreed but I was convinced that I would lose. The match started and Torag was kicking my butt. I was giving my all and I was landing some lucky hits but it was apparent that he was the superior boxer. However, when I was at my limit I threw three crazy punches and Torag was down… I won… at boxing… When Torag was down I tried to explain that this was not supposed to happen. He was supposed to win. But no one was listening. He should have won… I have no explanation for why I won. I shouldn’t have won. Torag is a way better boxer than me. That was completely pure luck.
Then for the great spectacle it was the Trial by fire. Actaeron, Torag, Rendu, Spira, Kano, Hatria, Jorge, and I were competing in this one. I don’t know if you remember this event but there are multiple rounds of monsters released and we were to kill as many as we can. With each round the monsters become more and more dangerous and the one with the most points wins the event. From the very beginning you can tell that this event was going to be very different from the other ones. In the past events it was mostly everyone fighting for themselves to win. My comrades and I participated a little bit differently because we never attacked each other and worked a little bit together to give each the best opportunities to win. But we didn’t go out of our way to help each other either. Everyone else competed for themselves completely. However, during this event you could see alliances starting to form. Hatria and Jorge were working together while Spira and Kano wanted to work with us. Spria and Kano warned us that the last round monster is usually very deadly and they said that they didn’t think they could do well without teaming up with us. It was awesome fighting beside Kano and Spira. It made this event that much more fun to participate in.
Round one: they released some 12 fiery mephits. I didn’t do very well in this round. I only got one mephit. However, everyone else did pretty well including Kano. He killed three mephits. Jorge barely survived the round and neither Hatria or Jorge killed one of the mephits.
Round two: they released the 6 hell hounds. Again, I didn’t do very well in this round either. I got one of the hell hounds and the rest were killed by the chosen ones.
Round three: they released 3 fire elementals. This round I did pretty well. I got 2 of the 3 fire elementals. Torag eliminated the other fire elemental.
Round four: They released 1 charrog. This was indeed a deadly creature. We agreed to have Kano (who was invisible) and I in the very back of the arena to be used as snipers while the remaining members were grouped together in the middle of the arena. Hatria still hasn’t killed anything by this point. Torag wasn’t feeling super well after that last event so he turned himself into a full on bull for some extra protection. The charrog came out with a charge and spewed fire everywhere. Torag was pushing Hatria toward the monster and eventually pushed her in the line of one of the charrog’s fire spews that came from one of its fire sacks and she went down. I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw that. Then suddenly, Kano said something to me and placed a charm on me. I accepted it because I have to say that I trust him. After he placed the charm on me I had an urge to protect Kano at all costs, but by doing so my aim on the charrog got suddenly much better. I couldn’t miss the beast. However, at first I noticed that my arrows weren’t finding as much purchase on this beast as it normally does. But after noticing his fire sacks that were under each of its legs I thought to take aim at one of those. I did and I could tell those arrows were causing quite a bit of damage on the beast. I told my comrades to take out the fire sacks. Soon enough the fire sacks were eliminated and the charrog was in a lot of pain. Lastly, Actaeon got the final blow on the beast and he won the event.
What a day! Again, this was so much fun. When the round was over, Kano removed the spell and he gave me a bro hug and I couldn’t help but say, “I suddenly care less about you.” He luckily laughed instead of being offended at my comment. The scores came out and Actaeon won, I got second, and Torag placed third. Somehow I am still in the lead overall but just by one point. Actaeron has one less point than me and Torag only has three less points than me. It’s all very close. Again, I don’t care a ton about the results as long as one of us wins but I can’t help but enjoy myself in these games. To be honest I really needed this. Maybe I need to implement more games in my life because I feel like it is a good outlet for me. I seriously haven’t had this much fun since… Soon the great games will come to an end and I think I will try to implement more games to create these positive outlets for myself. It’s like going back to my roots. Just playing games with my brothers.
I miss you, love. I hope you are not in pain and are well enough considering your position. I am sorry if I am enjoying myself while you and Rare are distraught. I hope you know and understand that I am coming and the great games is a stepping stone towards your direction. Just hang in there. Please, just hang in there. I am coming.
Love,
Shadow