Recovered Letter from General Scourpax to Professor Winkleboop, 377 BDR

## Background

In an attempt to describe the actors leading up to the events of 0 ABR, I, along with several other scholars, have worked to analyze the letters of Former Hand to the Throne and General Scourpax Bartleby.

Below is one recovered between General Bartleby and Professor Aliaralle Handender Veliciam Winkleboop, a Professor at Mernaliene, then a famous academy from which General Bartleby also graduated. The letter is dated directly after the end of the War of the Leveled Mountains.

## Letter Contents

> My dearest, the esteemed Professor Aliaralle Handender Veliciam Winkleboop,
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> My thanks for the letter of congratulations (the included profanitie of which will no doubt surprise and delighte future historians, as every letter I write and receive in my officiale capacitie as the Hand is now archived. For this same reason I will attempt to refraine from profanitie during my response. I realize the ironie in historie recognising you as my profane compatriate, and am certaine that you will read this with a mischievieoueus grin, to which I say "stuffe it"), and also for every letter I failed to respond to over the course of the last five years.
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> I have been an abysmal\* penpatriate, but I hope you will forgive me given the circumstances (I noticed the particularlie playful relish with which you wrote "General" next to my name in the previouse letters -- I too occasionalie find the title ridiculouse.) Whenever I have found time for letter writing since Shuos reared his head, it always went to condolence letters.
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> I am not certain whether the short lifespan of humans makes their deaths more or lesse tragick. On the one hand, in death, they lose fewere years. On the other, they do seeme to try to do so muche with each one of those years.
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> I am deeply enviouse that you've managed to spend the entirety of the wartime within the Halls of Academia, a fact which I at least partially accredite to my deftness at warfaire (I jape! Earnestlie, it was my greatest comfort and fortune that the belltowers of Mernaliene remained far frome the warfronte and thus from Shuos's claws).
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> As to your currente researche on the confounding physical affectes on the materiale plane of the elemental plane of fyre that you described in previouse letters, I would urge you to send an assistante to do some digging at the Inravalones Mines, where you will find some stones that fluctuate in heat and malleabilitie particularlie near some planar lines. As one not fully studied in that fielde, I nonethelesse assume it may be of intereste to you (if this is olde news, then forgive an older gnome.)
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> On the subject that academics dither on the most, discussions about academia itselfe, I must say I've had an interestinge finding in my service as a General in the armie of this nation: Untrained, uneducated humans can be wickedlie clever, especialie when it comes to killing.
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> I wish I could say that all my clever manoueveuring was my idea, and my name is already tied up with the drowning of the Shuos army beneath the rocks at the Battle of Jagged Passe (for which the war is already being called "The War of the Leveled Mountains" -- I know. I find it ridiculouse, too.)
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> However, the idea itself came frome one Ensigne Olfav, who, in a drunkene stupore one nighte at the camp, saw me passing and indiscreetlie said "hey General, why can'te you juste use magick to drop a mountaine on them or somethinge?"
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> After I amusedlie reminded him that that's not how magick works, he suggested the Jagged Passe has naturale rockslides all the time, to whiche I quietlie muttered "sone of a bitche." Soon, we had done a quick geological survey and determined that, withe modificatione of the Shattere spelle and some blasteing and digging, along with some clever engineering, we coulde make it work.
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> That level of cunning, which surpassed even that of our japes as part of the Order of the Enchanted Bells back whene we were students, seems to be the core traite of humans facing death.
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> I couldn'te liste all the times at whiche humans have surprised me withe their quick thinking, and ended up wondering if our caste of thinkers and students of the theoreticale misses out by not includinge the simple, though if they are only as clever in the face of deathe then perhaps it may be impossible to recreate their performance in a setting academick (or at least unethical. You put a pin in that devilish smirk I imagine you manifesting, Aliaralle.)
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> I have also been noting the length to which powers magickal were no match for the logistical and economic abilitie of a nation in warfaire. That we saved Crinnea from a prolonged and miserable death by hunger in siege was in parte due to the happenstance of a food caravan having pulled into the citie that morning on its way North.
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> I wondered though that if their meager farm yield within their walls had been grown with more efficiencie it would have fed more people, to the point where any citie could hold itselfe in the face of a siege.
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> I conjecture that, shouldst even a couple of our elite members academick focus themselves on mundaine goals such as engineering, architecksure, or even horticulturie, instead of the mysteries of the arcane, we may create more lasting good.
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> For consideration as a retirement plan! (I jape again. Imagine me on a farm.)
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> Now that travel restrictions have lifted, I do hope that the future brings me to Mernaliene or you to the Palace (to whiche you always have an invitation, though as per discussions previouse I understand your research takes prioritie), as I miss seeing your wicked smile. I hope that the last five years of warfaire have not aged me so considerablie that you are disappointed by mine. (I have a beard now, befitting a General.)
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> XO.
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> -Yours Ignomeably,
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> General and Hand to the Throne, Scourpax Bartleby.
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> \*Upon revisiting this letter before sending, I realised I should probably clarifie that I meant the word "abysmal" figurativelie rather than literalie. "Poor" or "inept" may be a better word.
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