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[Medriev]

Telkya looked up into Lavren’s eyes as hey swept around the floor of the cavern in the wild and speedy dance that all elven couples shared at their wedding feast.
“You might have told me that your father was Lord of Semberholme,” she said, smiling at her new husband.
“I thought you knew,” Lavren answered with a smile of his own. “There are few of us left and I thought you would have known me from my clan name.”
“Well I did not,” she answered.
“And now you do,” Lavren responded and kissed her firmly as they spun again past the high table where the parents of both sat along with the companions that they had travelled to the underground village with.”

“They are truly a wonderful couple,” Erlmoor rumbled quietly to Lavren’s father who sat beside him at the long table.

The cavern that formed the heart of Semberholme was illuminated with lights both magical and mundane and field tables of elves celebrating the marriage of their Lord’s son to a prominent daughter of the Elven Court. Everywhere were smiles and dancing couples as the elves marked a wedding in the way that they had done for millennia. At the far end of the natural hall, across from the high table, a tree stood in a wide basin of earth. It marked the birth of a new union and would be planted amongst the ancient trees of Cormanthor the next morning by Lavren and Telkya as a timeless symbol of their marriage.

“Glad I am that Lavren has found lasting love,” answered Lord Casharri Strongbow, Lavren’s father. “Ever his affections have been fleeting and ill-judged. I feared that he would never seek a union such as this.”
“He has grown as I have known him,” Erlmoor replied. “We have seen many terrible things but Lavren has ever found beauty despite the dark places that we have walked through. Telkya has calmed him and made him a wiser elf.”
“Perhaps,” the Lord answered thoughtfully as though pondering something. “And yet you came through Durgen’s Pass to get here. Lavren should have counselled against it given what dwells there.”

“And what is it that dwells there?” Telkya asked as she and Lavren ended their dance and returned to their seats in the centre of the high table, between both families. “Lavren told us of no danger as we walked the ancient dwarf road through the mountains.”
“Well he should have,” answered Casharri, glaring at his son who sat beyond Telkya next to his bride’s father. “But ever has my second son refused to heed my advice. None travel that road now lest the wyrm Caustrex come forth and prey upon them. She is the bane of this place and the reason why we rarely venture into the Hullack Forest as once we did.”
“None told us of this wyrm when we ventured through the pass to the Hullack seeking the hobgoblins that had raided our lands,” Litiraan said from beyond his and Telkya’s mother.

“We did not tell you, son, for we did not know,” answered Malmah, Litiraan’s mother. “This wyrm has seemingly kept its raids to the western edges of our forests for now. For how long that will continue we will not know.”
“Then when we return to the west, we will seek out the lair of this dragon,” Lavren answered. “We venture into the Hullack next seeking a place that the red wizard Paldemar sought to gain great power from.”

“If you defeated the wyrm then your father and I would be truly grateful,” answered Lady Nylynzara Strongbow, Lavren’s mother. “But beware the Red Wizards. They hail from Thay, a dark land of slavery and undead on the eastern shores of the Inner Sea. They are dangerous foes indeed.”
“And yet some were grateful to us for driving away Paldemar,” Erlmoor rumbled. “On the day we left the Seven Pillared Hall, a letter from the Mages of Saruun, also Red Wizards, was brought to us. It thanked us for ridding them of a rogue who opposed their aims of trading with western realms.”
“Perhaps,” answered Nylynzara. “But even that I would not trust. Rarely do the Red Wizards come only for trade. And more rarely do they trade only in the goods that merchants here would trade in. Often they trade in poisons and drugs that seduce the mind and weaken the body.”

“Then we will be even more careful than we have been,” answered Enlishia. “Your son and new daughter-in-law have good friends here who will protect them to their last breath.”
“Then I will take comfort from that,” Nylynzara answered with a smile. “Now we should enjoy the feast.”