Lepora,

It is I, Lola. I am writing you this letter so that you might have something to read that may or may not be a little more exciting, if only to break up the dull, ever-looming dread and annoyance that comes with visits from family members with whom you do not particularly get along. Think of this as a way to ground yourself, darling, so that you do not remain dissociated and uncertain of what is happening around you, floating somewhere behind your own body while diligently avoiding eye contact with everyone in the room. Now, I wished to recount to you the story of the quest upon which I have just embarked. Wesley had gathered myself, Piprim, Bik, Locke, Sevas, Cori, and Talun, along with all of their little friends. You know Talun, of course. He works for us. Quite important, actually, and does a rather splendid job. Anyway, Wesley informed us that a strange affliction, almost plague-like in nature, had been affecting one of the towns a few hours outside of Springreach. So, without much further ado, and considering that I had little need for money, coupled with Wesley's assurances that this would be a relatively safe mission, I saw no reason to procure any significant provisions. After all, I do not eat, as you are well aware. Furthermore, I have yet to properly inform everyone that I am entirely capable of performing a considerable amount of healing magic, rather comparable to clerical work. And I intend to keep that particular little secret to myself for a good while longer. It was only a few hours of travel, so we saw little reason to bother renting horses, carriages, or anything of the sort from the local stables. A rather economical decision, I thought. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by a quaint and rather interesting little town. Almost as though a plot hook had thrown itself into the sea in hopes of catching a fish, an individual emerged, hunched over in a most peculiar fashion. Piprim promptly declared that the individual was using something called fentanyl. I am not entirely certain what this substance is, but the poor creature was foaming at the mouth. Cori, however, disagreed with Piprim's diagnosis, insisting that it could not possibly be fentanyl, as the individual was not bent over sufficiently at the waist. A fascinating distinction, apparently. Nonetheless, we approached the unfortunate soul, and through a little skeletal manipulation on my part, I was able to set them right as rain. Unfortunately, this treatment resulted in a rather unpleasant collection of worms emerging from their mouth. The individual had been muttering something about not being whole, or perhaps that they were unfinished. I confess, darling, I have since slept, and the finer details have become somewhat fuzzy. An unfortunate consequence of having a brain that occasionally insists upon behaving like one. It was around this time that Cori and Bik began playing with the worms, which appeared to possess a remarkable degree of excitement. They vibrated, writhed, and wiggled about one another with considerable enthusiasm. Curiously, however, they displayed far less interest in the women than they did in Piprim or Talun. I have developed two working theories regarding this peculiar behavior. The first is that the worms possess some preference for the male anatomy. Cori and Bik are women, whereas Piprim is very decidedly not. Talun, I believe, is also male, although I cannot say with certainty whether Sevas bothered to furnish him with genitalia during his construction. I have never thought to ask. Perhaps I should. My second theory concerns the nature of the individuals themselves. It may be that the worms were responding not to their physical characteristics, but rather to some underlying inclination of their respective natures. Either possibility is fascinating, though I confess I am somewhat reluctant to conduct further experimentation by placing worms into Piprim's mouth. At least without asking him first. It was not long after our discovery of the worms and our attempts to understand their peculiar behavior that one of the town guards approached us. We were escorted to a local tavern, where we were graciously provided drinks while being informed of the rather unfortunate situation at hand. A little silliness ensued, as I have recently been attempting to channel my inner silly goose, thanks in no small part to Grok's influence. You see, darling, I have been making a conscious effort to become more approachable to my coworkers. I should very much like to make friends without my undead condition having an adverse effect upon their perception of me. Although, during this particular exchange, I was informed that I was apparently a DIA hire, brought into the guild to satisfy some manner of diversity quota. The reasoning, as it was explained to me, was that the guild would otherwise be populated entirely by pretentious elves, and that employing someone such as myself might encourage the common folk to apply. After all, if an undead girl can secure employment, surely anyone can. I am still deciding whether I ought to be offended or whether this is perhaps the most successful recruitment strategy the guild has ever devised. But I digress. It was during our discussion that we learned the strange plague had begun shortly after the death of a young woman belonging to one of the town's aristocratic families. The poor girl had succumbed to a fever, and around the same time, there had been reports of grave robbing. Now, naturally, you might assume that I would take a particular interest in the grave robbing. And you would be entirely correct. In fact, I was rather eager to visit the graves myself and conduct a little grave robbing of my own, purely for investigative purposes, of course. However, we instead elected to seek out the gentleman responsible for the disturbances. Upon finding him, I proceeded to thoroughly pillage his collection of works. Which brings me to a little gift I have included with this letter. Enclosed, you will find a collection of five different romance novels, each concerning an individual engaging in rather intimate relations with a skeleton. You are very welcome, darling. I thought of you immediately. I also managed to acquire a spell scroll and several other interesting items from the gentleman's belongings, although I suspect you will find the literature considerably more entertaining. Now, this particular gentleman fancied himself something of a doctor, and had apparently been conducting experiments upon a cadaver. He explained that he intended to restore the deceased to life through the application of electricity rather than magic. Naturally, this was an incredibly silly proposition. As we all know, one must first bind the soul back to the body. It is elementary necromancy. Quite literally the sort of thing one learns in their introductory courses at university. I can only assume the poor man was homeschooled. And quite insane. Nevertheless, Piprim decided to indulge the experiment by casting a lightning bolt upon the cadaver, which was certainly one way of testing the gentleman's hypothesis. This does, however, bring me to a rather interesting philosophical question. What, precisely, distinguishes a doctor from a mad doctor? I have given the matter some thought, and I suspect the distinction lies almost entirely in funding. A respectable doctor receives public funding, whereas a mad doctor must rely upon private financial support. The actual experimentation seems largely identical. But I digress once more. Having established that the strange worms and their associated plague had first appeared around the time of the aristocratic daughter's burial, we decided that our next logical destination would be the graveyard. There, we intended to locate the young woman's resting place and determine whether her unfortunate demise had anything to do with the peculiar infestation. Fortunately, we managed to locate her tombstone with relative ease. Upon locating the young woman's grave, we discovered that her body had been almost entirely consumed and corrupted by these peculiar worms. Very little remained of the poor girl, which was rather unfortunate, as I had hoped there might be something worth examining. We did, however, discover several additional worms, which promptly began wriggling and writhing together until they formed the shape of a hand, pointing us toward a cornfield some distance away. Naturally, we decided to follow the directions provided by the collective mass of grave worms. A perfectly reasonable course of action, I thought. It was around this time that we made the ever-popular adventuring decision to split the party. Locke and Piprim went their own way, while the rest of us continued along the path indicated by our little collection of enthusiastic invertebrates. It was there, near the cornfields, that we made a rather fascinating discovery. The worms had not simply consumed the young woman's corpse. They had, in fact, begun eating her while she was still alive. You see, darling, the poor girl had never actually died from her fever. She had merely been dying, and someone had apparently mistaken the two conditions. Believe it or not, a remarkably common mistake. I myself am mostly dead, but not entirely dead. And considering that I spend four hours each evening lying perfectly motionless, I can certainly understand how someone unfamiliar with my particular condition might mistake me for a corpse. Although I should hope you would check before having me buried. In any case, the worms had consumed the young woman, but in doing so had seemingly developed some manner of collective consciousness. Rather than simply devouring her and moving on, they had begun attempting to reconstruct her, giving her something resembling her former shape and identity. It was quite fascinating, really. A collection of worms attempting to become a person. Bik, upon witnessing this extraordinary phenomenon, supplied the young woman with a substantial amount of magic, seemingly stabilizing her reconstructed form into something more permanent. Meanwhile, through telepathic communication, Piprim informed us that an angry mob had begun making its way toward the castle, led by none other than our peculiar doctor. Curiously, the townsfolk referred to him as the good doctor. Which I found rather odd, considering his questionable experiments, apparent insanity, and complete misunderstanding of the fundamental principles of necromancy. Although perhaps that only lends further credibility to my theory regarding public and private funding. Nevertheless, we made our way to the castle, where I was fortunately able to speak with the gentleman and persuade him to abandon whatever foolishness he and his angry mob had intended. A rather satisfying conclusion, I thought. No unnecessary bloodshed, a fascinating new understanding of collective worm consciousness, and even a modest reward for our troubles. All things considered, it was a rather pleasant little excursion. And there you have it, darling. The tale of my most recent adventure, recounted for your entertainment in the hopes that it might provide some small reprieve from the dreadful business of familial visitation. Oh, and one final thing. In addition to the five skeleton romance novels, I have also enclosed a rather generous collection of nude portraits of myself, should the reading material prove insufficient to hold your attention. I thought it only considerate to provide a variety of entertainment. After all, if your family insists upon making you uncomfortable, I see no reason why you should not have something considerably more pleasant to look at.

With all my love, Your Lola

P.S. Do be careful which pages you leave lying about. I should hate for your family to discover that your undead girlfriend has provided you with both necrophilic literature and an illustrated anatomical study of herself. Although, admittedly, the thought is rather amusing.