(2025-04-20) A Formal Request For Assistance

Details

Author:	Athena
Summary:	Natalyah calls on a connection with Admiral Siamus Fallon to ask him for not one, not two, but three favors, which is how you know things are really desperate for the lepidopterist worgen who hates asking for help. 520~ words.
Rating:	T for Teen

Arc: The Red String Game

[in simple, no-nonsense formal documenting handwriting]

April 20, Year 29

Dear Siamus,

I am sorry to impose on you and our connection with so little preamble, or proper congratulations to your family that are surely due, but we are at something of a crisis.

I’m sure you remember Lathrik’s condition, and how it relates to his mana. Earlier today, it hit a breaking point. He’s no longer able to slow it with potions, and we think something is interfering with the bond – specifically, the assassin that tried to kill Count Amerith.

We very badly need more options, and while I have learned how to call mana down through the scientific application of the Light, it’s not going to be enough, and he has to sleep sometime. Ren said that his studies say that druids can do something stronger, but we don’t happen to have any druids immediately on hand, so if you do know some who can be called away from their business and entrusted with this, it could be the difference between life and death.

And of course our time has nearly run out to remove the condition entirely. We know of the one way, the permanent one, to end it but we have to at least try another way first. Lathrik, Peril, and Fray are the only ones who even know what Solari looks like. The last person who knew anything about where Fray Farrens was is Count Amerith, and I will make no excuses: if we ask him, he will ask for something we can’t afford, and we would have to take the deal out of desperation. So I beg of you on behalf of Lathrik, to please go to the Count and find a way to make him part with the information on Lathrik’s father. I will owe you anything it takes, but I would rather owe you than Count Amerith. I know you to be a fair and honest gentleman, and I trust you to not take advantage. We both know the same cannot be said of Count Amerith.

To further compound the favors I must ask of you is that we need to get to the Highlands immediately, especially if that’s still where Fray Farrens is, since we also suspect it’s where Solari Farrens is. The permits for portal usage that we’d need to apply for with everyone will take us so long that we might as well just start riding off on foot if we went the usual ways. If you could expedite it, so that anyone who can go with us can, it would mean so much. I can get you a list of those people as soon as Ren tells me.

[there is a long pressed on blot of ink where someone’s held it too long on the paper]

My correspondence teacher is probably rolling in her grave now, but I don’t care.

Siamus, I’m terrified Lathrik is going to die, and there’s going to be nothing I can do to stop it. I’ve never had to ask someone for so much before, but please, please, please help him. I will do anything.

Sincerely,
Natalyah Kensington-Whit