To my beloved grandfather:
I hope all is well with you. After more than ten days of rather unpleasant trudging through the snow, I finally managed to find a decent enough table and chair to write you this letter.
Teacher Anderson, if you're reading this letter on his behalf, please don't be angry. There really isn't any paper or ink here that could be used to write the fancy letters you taught me. In fact, I only found any writing materials at all thanks to the heavy snowfall—some travelling merchants who'd taken a shortcut had also been stranded in this nameless little village, and it took them quite a while to dig out this pen, which doesn't look very reliable.
As for the paper, I brought it with me, but unfortunately it got wet. A few other sheets were reduced to ashes when I tried to dry them by the fire. Luckily, I didn't have much to write.
Now, to business.
I wasn't able to meet the "genuinely talented" "Spellcaster" you mentioned before, the one you asked me to invite to be some kind of "instructor" (if I remember right, that's what you called him).
He's got a nickname now, something like the Firehand of Wenden Port. He only got it about half a month before I arrived in Wenden Port.
From what I gathered, he burned his own left hand while demonstrating his spellcasting to the local Academy. It must have been pretty serious—the scholar I spoke to described it in such a way that I'd rather not repeat it. Of course, that isn't important, and it wouldn't be appropriate to put it here anyway.
What matters is that when a few scholars who hadn't fainted from fright took him to a doctor, some little props fell out of his scorched sleeve. I heard they were connected to his so-called "spellcasting."
If nothing unexpected had happened, then, like other less clever frauds, he and his disciple would have ended up in Wenden Port's notorious seawater prison. His disciple had spilled the beans without even being questioned, and what he'd revealed would have been enough to send them both there.
But now it seems the man won't get the chance to find out whether the ghost stories are true by spending a night in prison.
The doctor said Mr. Firehand didn't survive the amputation. As for how things got to the point where he needed an amputation, all I can say is that it's a great shame.
Honestly, I know you're going to start lecturing me again about how "there's no harm in giving it a try" and all that. Ever since I was little, you've been telling me about the strange things you encountered on the battlefield back then—people with fire in their hands, people with light. Teacher Anderson likes your stories too, and helps you study those books.
If you ask me, when you killed them, you probably didn't check their sleeves very carefully. And even if "Spellcasters" really exist, the bigwigs would have recruited them long ago. Why would one come all the way to a place like Wenden Port and put on such a show, demonstrating "spellcasting" for those scholars?
I don't have much paper left. I'd like to copy out the things Teacher Anderson assigned me, but there isn't enough.
I'll be staying in this village for a few days, while my cousin Ryan sets off ahead of me. By the time he delivers this letter to you, I should be home in a few more days.
Signed: Kraft
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