The journey from Morpezo to Milinia was a quick one. Mirgia knew the forest well and although it wasn’t a route he was personally familiar with, the signs that his brethren left behind along the trees were enough for him to bring his companions through the most efficient routes. Still, even knowing exactly how to travel it took them a little over five days before they reached the edges of Milinia. Mirgia held up his hand and they waited for the guard to appear. When he realized that Mirgia was a familiar face, the two elves shook hands. “Pazil, good to see you.”
“Mirgia, you as well. I thought you were with the prince of Blueyerd?”
“A lot has happened, it’s a long story.” He pointed at the others. “These are my companions, Kimi’thania has been here before, but Rolin and Teddy are new companions.”
Teddy chuckled. “You can call me uncle Teddy.”
Pazil frowned. “I’m well over three centuries old.”
“Uncle is a state of mind.” Teddy replied before laughing loudly.
Pazil couldn’t help but smirk. He turned his attention to Rolin. “Pardon me, but may I ask about your eyes?”
Rolin smiled and nodded. “I received a blessing from a woman recently who gave me this sight after I was blind all my life. We are now here to see what this power really means.”
Pazil exchanged a look with Mirgia who nodded. “We came here to see Karnisal, and quickly if possible. I have much to discuss with him.”
“Very well, go on. And friends, welcome to Milinia.”
“I know,” Rolin said. Pazil gave him a strange look but moved back into the treeline.
“Explain what you mean,” Mirgia said.
“The trees, they’re different. Their color is a deeper green. At least I think it’s green, I know trees are supposed to be green so the color I see on them is what I’ll call green.”
“Man, it has got to be weird to deal with whatever you have going on,” Teddy said. “You just need to have faith that whatever colors you see are the colors you think they are.”
“Not necessarily,” Rolin said.
“What do you mean?” Mirgia replied.
“We use the word green for things that we perceive to be green. If a tree looks red to me, then it doesn’t matter if I call it green when it looks green to everyone else. We are all thinking about the same thing.”
“It does get tricky if your tree actually looks red, but something else that is green looks blue.”
“Hmm, I didn’t consider that. I suppose we should take some time to test that out.”
“Alternatively, you’ve ascribed emotions to the colors you see in us, but perhaps we can also figure out what colors they relate to.” Mirgia suggested.
“Interesting idea. I do not know what that would help though.”
“Maybe you can correlate certain people to certain things with that color.”
“Does a thing get imbued with the color it is?” Rolin asked.
Kimi shook her head. “This is getting far too philosophical for this early in the morning, shouldn’t we just get on with it and worry about this later?”
Teddy chuckled. “The lass is right, let’s talk to your elven leader first and worry about the colors of the rainbow later.”

Knocking on the door of Karnisal’s office, Mirgia felt nervous. It was an unusual feeling for him to feel nervous in Milinia. It was his home and he’d grown up being very comfortable with the place. And as a guard, he’d made reports to Karnisal many times, but having to talk about something so intricately linked to the old elf’s past felt almost rude. Still, a familiar voice responded from the other side of the door and the familiar sight of Karnisal’s office was there when he opened that door. “Mirgia, I didn’t expect to see you so soon. I only just got your letter the other day.”
“Karnisal, it is good to see you again. I have come here to introduce you to some friends and talk about some things, including what I wrote in the letter.”
Karnisal smiled. “I see a familiar face there and some unfamiliar but very interesting faces.”
Teddy chuckled. “People say that I’m interesting a lot.”
Rolin nudged him in the side. “I think he’s talking about me.”
“I knew that.”
“Oh.”
Karnisal laughed. “Kimi’thania, good to see you.”
“You as well, Lord Karnisal.”
“And you are?”
“Theodore Pasture, but you can call me uncle Teddy.”
Karnisal raised an eyebrow but nodded. “And?”
“Rolin Fiedser, a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Karnisal looked into Rolin’s eyes, clearly studying them. “What do you see in me?”
Rolin looked back at Karnisal, a bit taken aback. “I see conflict. I see a clash of colors. I see what looks like how I imagine a sunset to look but at the same time there is a stillness like a pond in a forest clearing. It’s definitely different from the people in my village.”
Karnisal pondered this for a moment. “Could you tell me a little bit about yourself?”
Rolin nodded and proceeded to give Karnisal a quick recounting of his youth, how he had no sight and spent much time at home, learning how to help out in the inn without eyesight. Then he talked about how Brela showed up to the village and gave him this strange gift of sight. He then told Karnisal about how Mirgia and some Sahilid showed up and how they then discussed their options before heading to Milinia. It was at this point that Mirgia took over.
“So we met a person who is the leader of the Sahilid unit in Severanti. This person initially introduced himself as Ankh and seems to be a powerful sorcerer. Then when he needed my help he explained that his name was Sorda’Thun the wanderer. He talked about the fall of Kanarth and how he and you are both originally from Kanarth. He told me that he cannot keep control over these buildings from Kanarth that have been appearing without your help. And when we went to Morpezo we met Rolin after which we decided that we might need your wisdom on location to open the tower outside of town.”
During both stories, Karnisal sat in their chair, no reaction on his face besides sometimes nodding along to show that he was still listening. When Mirgia finished his story a long silence filled the room. It would be more than two minutes before Karnisal gathered his thoughts and spoke.

“There are a few things that stand out to me from the things you all have told me.” He looked at Rolin. “I will need some answers from you if I am to figure out what to do with this situation.”
Rolin nodded. “I trust Mirgia’s judgement in people.”
Karnisal smiled. “I’m glad to hear that, that makes me happy.” He looked at Mirgia. “First things first, this Ankh person is lying to you.”
“To what extent?” Mirgia asked. “I have little trust in the man, but it’s been very difficult for me to figure out which things are true and which things aren’t true. But considering that you call him “this Ankh person”.”
Karnisal nodded. “Exactly. I don’t know who this person is, or what their relationship to the flying city of Kanarth is, but that person is not Sorda’Thun. At least I would be very surprised if they were. Sorda’Thun hasn’t shown himself in several centuries and his abilities as a sorcerer are so incredibly dangerous and so beyond anything I can do myself that he would be able to clear out or destroy every single dungeon on this side of the Feral Wildlands without even breaking a sweat. However what worries me most about this situation is how you described this person when you were inside the dungeon in Redsan.”
“How come?” Kimi asked.
“The appearance he took on while down there, the one you described to me with the lack of eyes and the floating gemstones around his head, that appearance does match that of Sorda’Thun in his prime. It’s a visage he doesn’t take on very often so whoever this Ankh is must know Sorda’Thun personally or at least have done his research. Not to mention, I don’t quite understand why he would take on that appearance inside the dungeon. Even if it makes him look like Sorda’Thun himself, you would have no idea that this is what he looked like.”
“You’re right, that is weird.”
“So with all that in mind, I think I want to meet this person. It’s risky, since I don’t know what reason they have to try and get me to come to them instead of visiting Milinia, but I am also worried that leaving this person without oversight is equally dangerous. Now,” they turned to Rolin, “let’s talk about what might be happening with you. And I will warn you that a lot of what I am going to say here will be speculation. I have never seen this phenomenon before although I do believe I have heard about it a long time ago and I will now tell you what I remember.
If this is what I think it is, then there is a very good chance that this Brela woman came out of the tower to speak with you. This means she didn’t go in there to explore the tower, but she instead went back into it because she had done what she needed to. She had given someone the key to entering this tower. The tower itself is what we call a Vincula. It’s a prison made specifically for spirits.” Karnisal looked at Kimi. “Think of it like the realm you were locked in, but in a much more powerful capacity. Still, when a spirit is powerful enough and stuck in this Vincula for long enough, they can figure out a way to get the lock opened. You said that the keyhole in this door looked similar to the kaleidoscopic look in Rolin’s eyes, correct?”
Mirgia nodded. “It definitely looked like the two were related in some way, but we couldn’t figure out how and what to do.”
“Then that probably means that the spirit locked inside this Vincula gave the key to Rolin and had faith that he would be able to figure out how to open the tower.”
“But you have no idea how to help us then?” Kimi asked.
Karnisal shook his head. “I will however go with you to see if I can be of help when I see the prison for myself. I’ve read a lot about magic in my time and perhaps there’s something we can all figure out together. Besides, I also want to figure out who this Ankh person is and why he is impersonating one of the most dangerous sorcerers that have ever walked this realm.”
Teddy sat down, cross-legged. “Can you tell us a bit more about this Sorda’Thun person? I’ve heard from different people now that he’s dangerous, but besides being a weird chap and him looking very strange through Rolin’s eyes, he didn’t seem all that unreasonable nor powerful.”
Karnisal pondered this. “That just adds more credence to the idea that this was not Sorda’Thun but some sort of imposter. But in the event that it is my old colleague, let me tell you a little bit about my time in Kanarth. Do promise not to freely share this information with other people, I’d like to keep any knowledge surrounding Kanarth to not be commonly available. Let it stay shrouded in mystery.” They sighed. “Although with this sudden appearance of relics from the past I don’t know how much longer it can stay hidden. Let me tell you a little bit about myself then.”