Kahlan Theonroran – blogpost 1

In the middle of the night, I see the princess run off into the darkness. I have my orders: keep Aelin Galanthynius safe, whatever happens. That is what my king tasked me with on his deathbed. I cannot cross her path anymore to prevent her from leaving, so I decide to follow her. She doesn’t notice me the whole trip to Baldurs Gate, and I catch up to her in front of a door to a big mansion. On the door, it says Syndra Silvane. I know this is a family friend of miss Galanthynius and her house, but it doesn’t explain miss Aelin running off in the dead of night.

She walks in, and I follow. When I close the door behind me, she startles and turns around.
“Kahlan! What are you doing here?”
“I followed you; your father said to protect you, and I will do so.”
We sit at the table and before I can finish my sentence, a halfling walks in.
“Why the heck did you leave the castle, miss…” I start. “And who might you be?”
The halfling stops walking toward us and says: “I am here for a quest. I’m Flynt Brimstead. Who are you guys? Are you here for a quest as well?”

“No, we’re here for an audience with Syndra Silvane. I am Aelin, and this is Kahlan.” says miss Aelin.
“I am here to meet her too, I saw pamphlets describing a quest all around town.”
I think he is telling the truth and hasn’t been following us, but I have to be careful. We hear some muffled voices upstairs. I look around the balcony and see a rough hobgoblin talking to a servant. He is holding a pitchfork. He doesn’t seem hostile, he has his pitchfork on his back, and his facial expression is calm, yet worried. The servant walks down the stairs – slowly, I might add.
Flynt, who didn’t see him, obviously, asks: “Helloooo? Can someone help us please?”
“Patience, please.” says the servant.
Finally, the servant reaches us. “Syndra will see you now,” he says simply.
Flynt, miss Aelin, and me in the middle, walk the stairs. We’re much faster than the servant, and have to wait at the door upstairs. Flynt knocks on the door, but there is no response.
“Hey, who are you?” he asks the hobgoblin.
“I’m Nasaar.” the hobgoblin responds.

The servant lets us in. Miss Aelin and I walk in first and see someone sitting at the fireplace. The person – Syndra Silvane – has a red cloak over her shoulders and head, and wears a mask.
Flynt runs forward, and suddenly, like transportation, stands in front of Silvane.
Silently, I hear: “Welcome…”
“Um. Hi,” says Flynt tentatively.
I walk forward too: “Greetings, Kahlan Theonroran and Aelin Galanthynius, at your service.”
“Most of the time, you need to ask for an audience, but in this situation, I forgive you all.” she turns to miss Aelin.
“Galanthynius… I recognize that name. What do you know about the curse?”
Nasaar answers from the back of the room: “I know that my ruler is dying.”
“I saw it mentioned on a pamphlet in a bar – I was completely sober of course,” says Flynt.
Silvane offers us a drink. I kindly decline: I don’t drink on the job.
“How can we fix the curse?” miss Aelin asks.
“I am looking for a solution. Twenty days ago, everything got worse. I’ve got symptoms myself, but people from my adventurers-guild, family, and high-borns are all affected.” Silvane sighs.
“I have clues about how it can be stopped, but we cannot be sure. There is a sickness that lies in Chult, in the jungle. Information about the island of Chult is scarce, but I know the sickness has its origins in the jungle – most adventurers haven’t returned.
In the jungle, there are volcanoes and even dinosaurs. The only place I know is Port Nayanzaru.”
“Those dino-, dinosaurs…? What are those? Can you milk them?” asks Nasaar.
There is a short silence. Silvane clearly doesn’t know how to respond to that question.
“All I know is that you need to stay away from the creatures who are in charge of the dinosaurs, they’re not to be trusted.”
Duly noted. I nod.

Miss Aelin asks me: “We’re going, right?”
“No. I am going to bring you back to your family after this is over.”
“Yeah, we’re going,” she looks at me, determined. “Take your orders, I am going, I need to save father.”
“Okay,” I say. I know I cannot stop her, and to protect her, I need to go with her.
“Yeah, what else are you going to do?” asks Silvane.
“Okay, okay!”
“Yeah, I have to go too, my king is dying and I want to protect the status quo,” adds Nasaar.
In Celestial, miss Aelin says: “I know these people are idiots, but we have to go with them. We cannot go alone. Furthermore, you know my father isn’t doing well, I have to find something to help him.”
“But, we’re going to a dangerous place, I need to protect you. We need to be careful.”
“I also don’t want YOU to get hurt, Kahlan. We are returning home together.”

“Can we take the map you’ve shown us?” asks Flynt.
“Yes, of course,” says Syndra.
“By the way, can I also have a shot of booze?”
“Yes, you can.” Syndra pours Flynt a drink.
Flynt drinks the shot, laughs, and falls over on his back. He is knocked out by the power of alcohol.
Nasaar lifts Flynt up and tosses him over his shoulder – head to the back, legs on his chest.
“Join me in this circle…” says Syndra, gesturing to come closer.
We all hold hands and close our eyes.

The first thing I notice is the sun burning on my skin and the different sounds around us.
I open my eyes. Adjusting to the bright light, I notice we’re in the middle of a harbor in broad daylight.
It’s super busy at the harbor and the marketplace near us. I see a lot of stands with vibrant colors, tapestries, and carts pulled by large beasts. Those beasts are probably the dinosaurs. There are flowers everywhere. “Get to a tavern to rest your friend and then you should gather intel about what is going on here. I’ll wait at the palace of Wakanga,” says Syndra, ready to leave.
Nasaar agrees but first puts down Flynt to plant a seed in the ground. I attempt to lift Flynt as well, to take over from Nasaar, but I collapse because of the heat.
“Let’s buy new clothes to fit in! We all have dark clothing that gets really warm in the sun.” states miss Aelin.

After a long time of looking at fabrics, miss Aelin finds a shop, but nothing is good enough for her. We’re all feeling very hot, so we ask someone for help. The person in question is a sleazy man who sells fabrics. Before we can ask him for directions, miss Aelin finds a fabric she thinks is suitable.
“Oh, oh, miss! Do you want to buy that wonderful, pretty piece of fabric? For 15 silver pieces, it’s yours.” he says.
“Oh, that is reasonable,” says miss Aelin at the same time as Nasaar exclaims: “Oh, that is expensive!”
Miss Aelin bargains for 13 silver pieces and takes the fabrics. We change and wrap ourselves in the fabrics like cloaks. The cloaks are white with some nice colorful accents.
“Can you tell us where the tavern is?” I ask the fellow.
“Yes, yes, of course. We have the Frisky Fool and the Red Lagoon. The second one is more luxurious, and if you need money, you can earn it at the dinosaur races.”

We walk to the Frisky Fool, just outside the city. It is a shabby building: bamboo and dirt hold the walls together. It is nothing like miss Aelin and I are used to, but Nasaar feels right at home. He takes Flynt to the back of the building to the barn, and miss Aelin and I walk into the inn, to the bar.
“Are you okay with this inn?” I ask miss Aelin.
There are separate rooms that cost 1 silver piece per night. Miss Aelin thinks that is way too expensive.
The bartender notices, and tells us that we can join the executioners’ run – “It’s beautiful!” -, there are dinosaurs in a pit with a criminal. If the criminal wins, he/she is free to go. Some people have survived. I’m shocked: if someone evil has enough strength to get out of the dinosaur pit, still has crimes on his/her name. This legal system is odd. The guy from the inn tells us that we can also join the dinosaur race. We decline all his advances to get us to join the race or pit.
“Hey, do you want to earn some money, I hear?” a strange man asks. “It has nothing to do with dinosaurs, only getting money from someone who owes me.”
Miss Aelin looks at me, and says in Celestial: “His story doesn’t sound completely true.”

Flynt walks in with something brown on his head. Nasaar follows him to the bar.
“Hey, Flynt, what do you have on your face?” I ask. “UGH! It is poo!” he says.
I pay the bartender four silver pieces, giving each of us our own private room. Flynt walks over to the bathhouse to wash, and the rest of us goes upstairs to freshen up as well. I enter my room, it is simple, but it’ll do.

After our short rest, we meet up again in the bar. Nasaar asks miss Aelin why she is here: she seems like someone of high born.
“Watch out what you say…” I whisper to her.
“Um. One of my family members suffers from the curse,” she says.
“Where are you guys from?”
“Erilliea.”
Luckily, Flynt walks in, carrying little drums with him. They’re a bit battered, but not broken.
“Hey!” Nasaar says, “Are those bongos?”
“Yes. The bongos are the last thing I got from my parents before I ran away.”
Another runner… I listen to his story.
“My parents had an inn, and long story short: I went to a different city. The bongos I took with me, and I have them for ten years now.”

“YES! I WON!” it sounds from across the bar. “I WON SOMETHING!” A bell sounds. “A ROUND FOR EVERYONE!” the same man shouts.
Again, I decline the alcohol, but miss Aelin, Flynt, and Nasaar walk up to the guy. I follow. Before miss Aelin can take a sip of her drink, I put my little pinky in it, tasting it. I deem it not poisonous, so I leave the party to drink, and take a seat at an empty table where I can overlook the entire bar. I watch the winner for a while. He seems friendly, but VERY drunk. In the short time I observe him, he drinks about four tankards of beer. I hear him explain how he won the money: he betted on Talban the Cruel. Talban was the prince’s executioner. I ask around about the princes. Apparently, there are seven princes in Nayanzaru. The princes are businessmen, but also have a lot of influence because of the information they have.
In the middle of my conversation with someone, miss Aelin interrupts: “Are those princes HANDSOME?” she asks tipsily.
“Hey, calm down please,” I ask her. “If you betray our goal here, we cannot save your father.”

I walk up to the winner and ask: “Are those dinosaurs from the jungle?”
“Yeah, they’re caught by the villagers.”
In the corner of my eye, I see Nasaar taking Flynt off the table – he was dancing and got a lot of attention.
“Some people go to the jungle to explore, but not many of them return.” the drunk winner continues.
“Why are fewer people returning?”
“I don’t have a clue…”
“Can you refer me to someone who has returned and has more information?”
“Ah, miss,” he says. “I am celebrating my win. Look for those people yourself.”
He closes in on me: “I can help you look in the morning…?”
I try to stand up to him and make myself big, but I hop off my chair and fall on top of him. Luckily, he falls too and stops his attempts to woo miss Aelin or me.

I turn around and see Nasaar heading for the door: “I want to go check out the dinosaur fights!”
After all of those hard-to-believe stories of all those people, I’m actually interested. Thus, we all follow Nasaar.

Just outside the Frisky Fool, the fighting pit is located. We mingle in the crowd and watch one dinosaur, two somewhat smaller dinosaurs, a panther, and a human walk around in the pit. In upper excitement, Flynt starts playing his bongos. Then, in a flash: the dinosaurs close in on the human and the latter is ripped apart. During the struggle, the human – who is very muscled, by the way, slashes one of the smaller dinosaurs. Not long after the man is dead, the dinosaur also dies from his wounds.
The other creatures in the pit start eating the man and dinosaur. I get why these dinosaurs are so ferocious – probably they don’t get anything to eat here and need to feed on their kills.

Suddenly, I look around and cannot find Flynt anymore. I ask to miss Aelin and Nasaar, but they haven’t seen the halfling either in the last five minutes. We look for him in the crowd and shout his name. After a couple of minutes, Flynt pops up again. “Sorry! I was asking around and heard someone say something about the blue mist.”
“Oh! That is what Syndra mentioned to me, the symptoms start after exposure to blue mist. The next thing is a fever and madness, I believe.”
That sounds worrisome… “We need to look for Cio, he sells stuff from the jungle and has been exposed to the blue mist,” says Flynt.
We plan to visit Cio next thing tomorrow morning. Right now, I’m hungry and we find someplace to eat.
They only serve dinosaur meat or fish, but we find a nice place to eat. Afterward, we walk back to our inn for a good night’s sleep.