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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 3398902" data-attributes="member: 11760">"LEACH!"Katadid Leach starts at Bailey's shout, and finds himself looking into the bailiff's angry face. Kat looks down and sees his hand clutching a flower just about plucked free of petals. He didn't even remember it getting there."What did I say earlier?" Bailey sighs, when he only gets a mumbled response from the apothecary. "I said to check with your father to make sure we have enough Undermile Moss on hand. It's been an unusually long winter and Mother Bridger thinks that may mean a wet spring. We don't want our crop to rot as soon as it hits the ground after a storm.While Bailey's attention had been on Kat, Renraw has broken the wax seal of the envelope with his envelope and scans the letter as furtively as he can."Do you want me to make you write this down?" Bailey asks Katadid, trying to keep his frustration in check.Kat shakes his head."I can remember."A skeptical look on his face, Bailey turns and goes back to barking directions to Kem. Kat simply tears the last petal off the flower. The petals number six; they used to number nine.Kem's job requires a great deal more attention then Kat's. Renraw has a constant stream of numbers being rattled off toward him whereas Katadid is only needed after this data was collated and if a special problem becomes apparent.Bailey was currently walking up to the Coopers' place, where the eternally drunken Miles Cooper lined up his barrels filled with apple seeds with a red-faced sulk and bleary eyes. He hands his tally to Bailey and they confer for a bit.Katadid's attention soon wanders, spotting Hazel with her brother, and realized he has another set of notes to give her. And nearby, he sees a group of gnomes, and idly wonders if Bufer is among them. He taps his foot while knocking on one of the barrel's rings, and peers over Renraw's shoulder, as he finds the ordered rows of numbers comforting. His eyes fall on the letter Renraw has surreptitiously opened."Anything?" Kat whispered. He cranes his neck forward and reads reads:"Renraw:"I suppose I should be shocked that you have the temerity to write me, particularly given your outstanding debts, both monetary and potentially criminal (the magistrate still wants you to appear before him, and should you return to Tarsis, it will certainly happen), but by now, I know better than to expect good taste or sense to check your hand."In answer to your question --""HEY!" The bailiff barks. "You two, get back here and get back to work. If you sneak a peek at that letter again, Young Kem, I'll just confiscate it until we're done."In a fit of silent righteous fury, Renraw shows Bailey the note, crumples it in his hand, and crams it into a pocket."Now, then," he says, making a contemptuous show of readying his quill to resume his duties. "Where were we?"Instantly, Katadid is bored again, and begins tapping the barren trees. He looks across the river past the cemetery and to the revelry starting to warm up at The Cat & The Fiddle. Normally, Kat would avoid large crowds but he finds the music and knowledge his friends are in Maidensbridge tugging at him.The constable and Renraw begin moving again, and Katadid follows after them, dragging a stick through the wet earth behind him."There, we're done," the bailiff says finally, at the end of a row of apple trees. "Now, mind sharing what's so important about that letter, Kem?""It's nothing," the bookkeeper tersely answers, then thinks better of stonewalling the bailiff. "At least, it's nothing now. It looks like returning to university is a long way off. It's very frustrating, you know. And so I think, if we're done here, that I'll go drink myself to the brink of death."Katadid wanders over with a raccoon skull he found in one furrowed row, hands covered in wet earth."Yes, the answers ... I think ..." Katadid looks toward Bailey and shrugs. He wanders after Renraw, playing with the raccoon skull. Once out of earshot of the perplexed bailiff, he whispers loudly to Renraw."School? Sorry.""It's about more than just school, Leach," Renraw replies in a normal voices as he  slowly ambles towards town. "It's about a different life. One away from here.""There are things here," Katadid replies, realizing that the answer won't satisfy the older wizard. "The Letter? Statues? Questions, maybe.""Tell you what," Renraw sighs. He reaches into his pocket, fishes out the crumpled letter, and holds the balled-up paper for Kat to see. "I'm feeling strangely generous. Buy me my alcohol for the day and this letter is yours."Katydid nods eagerly and fishes into his pockets. Herbs and other crumpled notes spill out to the ground below. Finally, he retrieves what he was looking for and pulls out an entire gold piece Renraw wouldn't have bet Katadid had."Five pitchers of ale, five pitchers of cider, five pitchers of cheap wine, five shots of vodka or one bottle of brandy," he rattles off."Brandy, now there's a thought," Renraw says as snatches the money from Katadid's muddy palm. "Do let me know if you find anything interesting, old boy."Taking the crumpled letter from Renraw's hands, Katadid eyes dart across its contents eagerly as they walk. He continues from where he left off:"In answer to your question, in ancient days, Kem was perhaps the greatest magocracy the world has ever known, but in time, their rule grew cruel, and they made pacts with beings wise men would avoid. Eventually, they and the Cthorn made war upon one another, and the world still bears the scars of these Wars of Fire. Had you paid better attention in class, none of this would be news."What is not discussed in most classes are the theories that some of the ancient Kemite mages survived, or at least, some of their 'lost' magics may have. "Of the Great Lost Crafts, three may have survived the Wars of Fire and the destruction of Kem. It is possible that more pre-destruction crafts, of which we have no record, may have also survived. "According to legend, the Wars of Fire were foreseen by the greatest of the Kemite and Cthorn seers, and three great exoduses out of Kem occurred before the wars began in earnest. Two of them, whom we know only as the Namers and the Binders, went south across the sea, settling in Uraq or perhaps the Distant South. What their magic entailed and what happened to their practitioners are both unknown."A number of the Shadow Mages, however, are known to have traveled north, along with their owl-headed servants, into the still-wild Prustan Peninsula. Being as close to Kem as they were, the Shadow Mages sought to research new magics that would hide them from their fellows and the Cthorn and prepare new defenses against them, should the coming wars sweep northwards and seek to draw them in."Turning away strictly from the study of shadows and shadow magics, these mages began experimenting with mirrors and mirror magics. Eventually, it is said, they made some great discovery, unlocking the doors inside every mirror, enabling them to travel to unknown destinations and hide from their countrymen and the Cthorn. The few references to this splinter magocracy refer to them as the Invisible Kingdom for this reason."But it is said they also enslaved those whom they found on the far side of the mirrors and sought to bind them as guardians and soldiers of their own. It is unknown how long this state of affairs lasted before their mirror-servants rose up and turned on the Shadow Mages, killing most of them and driving the survivors and servants into hidden places, shattering their mirrors behind them."Or so it would seem."The cache of mirrors you found are likely tied to locations that the Invisible Kingdom used as refuges of some sort, although I doubt they reach the lairs of the Shadow Mages directly. More likely, they lead to another catacomb, almost certainly better protected and guarded, which in turn protects another set of mirrors."Researchers of the modern age from St. Feldin's, the Inverted Pyramid and Redhurst have all found suggestions that some knowledge of the shadow magics still exists in the ruined lands of Kem. It may be that you can find the means to unlock the mirror doors there, and thus begin the dangerous task of pursuing the shadow mages through their mirrors to their hidden fortresses."But beware: The mages of Kem did not resign themselves to death. It is likely that, even now, some have survived that war thousands of years ago. In what form, I cannot say, but I doubt the years have been kind to their sanity, and they were cruel and half-mad, even in life."I look forward to future correspondence on this matter in future and would urge you to recover the mirrors –- or discover another such cache -– for study by university scholars. This is not a task for apprentices not yet halfway through their training."I await your response. Go Ermines!"</blockquote>

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