Dear father, I must report quite the detour from the usual trade routes. Linglorel, the wood elf I spoke of from the previous entry, has requested my assistance in a sort of quest. Now, I know you would scoff at the idea of offering my services for free, and rightly so! But there is great potential profit in this. Well, allow me to explain the situation: Linglorel is in love with a human by the name of Thindaer, but in order to obtain her father’s approval for their marriage, Thindaer must reclaim an ancient treasure known as the ‘Green Jewel’ from a dragon. Now I could hardly understand why Linglorel and Thindaer ‘love’ each other so much as to agree to do this, but that doesn’t matter! What matters is the Green Jewel! This sacred gemstone was wrought in Valinor and brought over to Middle-Earth in ancient times. It is endowed with a special magic as to have special healing properties. And it is said to be more beautiful than the sunlight shining through the leaves of a summer afternoon. Needless to say, I intend to claim this Green Jewel for our family! I of course should like to see Linglorel and Thindaer married first; they deserve at least that much. But once their marriage has been officiated, I shall take the Green Jewel for myself. I still need to devise a plan as to how to get it…Linglorel’s father is a difficult personality to deal with. But the Green Jewel shall be ours!
But before that we have the issue of the dragon to deal with. This dragon is a cold-drake by the name of Vethug. Upon arriving in our beloved Erebor, we met with a scholar by the name of Rakul in order to learn about how we might get past the dragon. I was referred to her by others from the order I had joined. She was a worthy Dwarf and quite generous with her knowledge…perhaps too generous for her own good! She could have easily charged Linglorel and Thindaer for her consultation, but didn’t! I should mention that Passerose was also with us, but for most of the time she was preoccupied with eating her snack. A great warrior must be well-fed after all! But with the help of Rakul, we learned many terrible things about dragons, and particularly of this Vethug. Apparently we Dwarves have a grudge against him, as he had slain one of our kings before the gates of our hold in the Grey Mountains many centuries ago. I should like to have the dragon killed for that, but alas that is beyond my skill. We would have to settle for just taking a single jewel from his treasure hoard, albeit an extremely valuable one. Rakul informed us that a dragon would never suffer the loss of even a single item from its treasure hoard without terrible wrath, so we had to think of a way as to take the Green Jewel without incurring this said wrath upon our kinsmen fighting the good fight to reclaim our ancient holds in the Grey Mountains. Sneaking into the dragon lair may be possible, given Vethug has likely never smelled a hobbit before (there goes Passerose singlehandedly saving the entire company once again), but that still doesn’t account for the following wrath of the dragon. I suggested we replace the Green Jewel with a fake version produced by yours truly. Having fooled a dragon with my skill would fill my heart with pride! But alas Rakul said a dragon would be able to discern the difference no matter how convincing my work was, especially given that this said Green Jewel is magical in nature. I think they simply doubt the quality of a Gembeard product! So what we ultimately decided on was to essentially frame the Orcs for having stolen the Green Jewel, so as to unleash the wrath of the dragon upon them. A brilliant idea, and with great shame I must admit it was not me who devised this plan but rather Rakul. She would make a better merchant than she suspects! So now we have the beginnings of a proper plan to retrieve the Green Jewel from the dragon. Let us beseech Mahal to grant us his favor in this quest, so that we may glorify him with the beauty of the Green Jewel.
