Dragons, Curses, and Spicy Regrets

Hey Auntie,
 
Sorry I overslept and missed you this morning. I know, I know, you were probably already brewing some weird druidic tea and humming to the lake spirits while I was still tangled in blankets. But I did eat breakfast. A small one, but I swear I ate. Don’t give me the “you’re too skinny” look.
 
We planned to go to the Bahara Library today (you know the one), and I was so thrilled… but “unfortunately” I had to make a detour first. Alizée left her little snowflake dragon at Ori and Yuri’s scammy teahouse. So I hopped a dragonfly ride there and, Auntie, you wouldn’t believe it, the dragon had grown. Huge. Like, really huge. Of course, before I could deal with that, I got scammed by one of their staff, Lordi. Ten gold for a pot of water?! I might be short on coin now. Wink wink. Anyway, the dragon attacked me (nothing I couldn’t handle, obviously), so I had to knock it out and shrink it back. Alizée wasn’t thrilled about her unconscious dragonling, but hey, I did what she asked. She should train it. Maybe the library has a copy of How to Train Your Dragon.
 
The library itself was… okay. Impressive, sure, but honestly, I’d rather have gone to poke at that cursed pillar outside the city. Ori asked for every single book about curses, and the poor staff hauled out hundreds of tomes. He read like… three pages and then left. If that’s how he treats his own staff, I’m definitely not working at their teahouse.
 
While Ori, Aura, and Alizée went off with Kaleb Al’Arshif to dig through dusty expedition notes about the cursed obelisks, I stayed with Yuri, Frederick, and these two spies, Neriah Brielle and Cravine. (Nice people, for spies.) I read up on Ayn Almara and even a little on the Silver Calling. I still think Mom might be tied to them somehow. There’s an event soon, and I’ll be going.
 
Neriah and Cravine also told us about new murders, not the ones we didn’t commit before, but fresh ones. At least this time we have an alibi! We tricked the spies into staying behind and went to investigate. Before that, though, we stopped at a little stew shop. I tried the spicy one. Auntie. Big mistake. Pure fire. I thought I was going to give birth to a fire elemental right there on the street. Nothing like Ayn Almara’s refreshing, healing food . This was just molten torture.
 
At the murder scene we found the same weird carvings, the same ancient sand (don’t worry, I snagged some for Uncle Tholim). Then we got ambushed by shadowy versions of the people killed the night before. I fought like a young god. You’d have been proud. Even if I did take a few hits. Then some mummy-like goblin-alien thing appeared, muttering about killing more people. We scared it off… for now.
 
Ori then had a vision. Black tears, speaking with a woman’s voice, telling the story of the Sixth Prince (that creepy goblin-alien-thing) stealing people. The whole scene was… yeah. Creepy.
 
After that fight, I was leaking more liquid than an overripe Waterapple. Mostly blood, don’t worry. I’m fine. We ended the day at Frederick’s parents’ house. Fritz and Ann. Lovely people, really talented too, like Frederick. We talked about how no one in this city can seem to remember their dead. Isn’t that strange? Frederick even remembered his dead sister for the first time. It was touching, but also… unsettling.
 
Anyway, that’s my day. Right now, I’m paying the ultimate price for the spicy stew. Pray for me, Auntie.
 
Love,
Siham