Dear Master Gouken (and or Grand Master Shao, if she’s there)
We are on a ship! The ocean is massive, bigger than I ever would have dreamed. The waves and the salt spray are very enjoyable, and the boat heaves and groans like a living thing in the water, with the crack of sails and the calls of the seagulls a kind of music. It’s nice!
Being incapacitated for the entire last week has… been less so. The term, the sailors tell me, is “seasickness”, and it happens to people new to ships a lot. As I have never been on one before, well. It hasn’t been pretty.
I have continued my training regardless. I have to be stronger if I am going to wrap up a few loose ends with Warmaster Nathrek and Veleus, not to mention Master Saizoth. The good news is, if this works, my balance will be much improved!
If I survive. I may not. It feels like I might not. Though that may be overly dramatic.
Will write more later, the sailors are telling us to put things up because a storm is coming.
—-
I am back now. The storm wasn’t that bad. Have you ever heard of a city called Purity? I read about it in a book, but the landmarks mentioned were all unfamiliar. Apparently it’s very… hedonistic, to put it mildly. And hard to leave, or bordering impossible? Is that familiar? Is there anything in the Archives about it?
The sun is rising. Time to train. Will write more later.
—-
Apologies for how strung together this letter is. I write, and we move, and I write some more, until I have something substantial to send you.
I am better, being off the boat. Four weeks of training while seasick on a moving deck has, I think, improved my balance and footwork and concentration immensely.
We are now on the way to Alkenstar, to help Agatha acquire better gun technology. To get there we have to cross this bridge- it’s AMAZING. Over twenty miles long, a hundred and fifty feet wide, and over five hundred feet off the ground!! It’s a marvel! I have never seen anything like it! What did it take to build? Magic? Centuries? This was someone’s perfection, maybe more than one someone’s. I included a brief sketch, though my artistic skills are less than stellar.
[The sketch is actually decently passable, showing it to scale.]
—-
We have arrived in Alkenstar, a city that is half in a no-magic zone. There’s a waterfall that divides the city in two, dropping hundreds of feet (it’s magnificent!) and the bridge marks the divide. We are exhausted. We planned to spend the night in Dongun, but Emi and Lini reacted very badly to the no-magic zone there. I seem to be relatively unaffected so far. So we traveled the night through. There’s rumors of an inn on this side of the bridge. Hopefully, we will find something there.
[Another sketch, this one of the city.]
I hope you and Grand Master Shao are doing well. I don’t know how frequent my letters will reach you, given how far we are and how far we have yet to go, but still. The writing helps me center myself. Who knows? Maybe someday these letters will be in the Archives too!
-Chiro
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