~Dangerous things lurk in the wild
It is a wisdom costly bought
Despoiling the innocence of a child
By not sparing his rod~
Izek, poet of perverted proverbs
-
Every boy has a memory of a childhood sweetheart. The first kiss behind the barn, a dance at the flower festival, the experimental touches in the hay. Well, mine certainly didn't need to experiment. The Maiden of May, as they call her in the country. Passes herself off as as reincarnation of the harvest goddess in mortal form, charms a yokel, kidnaps him for a night of carnal pleasure, leaves him longing the next morning, gone at the sunrise.
You're supposed to settle down afterwards. Hide your heartache, content with the idea that you were beguiled by charm magic. Didn't see myself marrying a local lassie, fathering a few kids and watch the family fall apart as my bitterness festered. I had an older brother to take over the business, so perhaps I had a choice others didn't.
A good pair of hands is welcome anywhere in the border regions, especially if you can read and write. It's fertile land, but all the capable fellows have a risk of being fished up by the midara in the wild lands. The steady stream of adventurers scoffs at doing seasonal farm work or clerical chores, but they do have to eat and get their wills notarized. It's a risky profession.
Suppose you can just call me Sam. You'll get to know me over the course of these letters. I'm doing this as a diary type thing, as you told me it didn't matter how the information was conveyed as long as you got the details of midara activities in the region. Send whatever coin it's worth to my brother and parents: I can more than manage to make ends meet on the road.
Now to get to the part you'll find interesting: what those wily wenches are up to. Most places I pass through are hit up by midara once every two months on average. The creatures choose to appear at times in which their victim is alone, or occassions in which they can blend in with the crowd. Festivals, market days, and such. Most of 'em seduce their victim, have a quick romp and then go back to the wilderness. Rarely do they actually abduct a person, for all the scare stories. My estimate is that only one in a hundred actually gets to go along with his mistress, no doubt because the midara find it easier to let the adventurers simply come to them.
As for the lingering damage they cause to the victim's psyche, it is partially dependent on the disposition of them. Loners and romantics recover the slowest. Cads and down-to-earth folks struggle for about a month, but the tightknit nature of the communities has an accelerating effect on the process. Mind you, this is an observation on 'regular' midara. The more powerful they are, the longer an effect their magic has (I can use my own condition as a reference here).
More severe cases can become unhinged or depressed. They try to seek out their erstwhile paramours, or catch their attention in some way by appealing to their midara's particular interests. Copperbrook's blossoming honey business was started by a previous lover of the Bee Queen, for example. Less fortunate was the Fire Vixen's victim, who is incarcerated lest he puts his hometown to the torch.
As you know, any midara that specializes in a certain type of magic beyond generic charm spells is likely to be stronger: they've extracted enough energy to actually discover and develop their own nature. Even more powerful midara have to maintain a permanent harem of minions in order to supply them with a steady stream of affection if they want to effectively exercise their might. Luckily these midara rarely set foot outside of the wildlands, only sending raiding parties of lovesick dopes to expand their followers once in a blue moon.
The Dragon Lady, the Mushroom Mistress, Miss Mantis and more recently Thira of the Thorns: these are the beings that have made a name for themselves on the edges of midara land. Curiously, adventuring parties either think they are too strong to be driven back, or that there's no glory in it anymore, resulting in them being more or less tolerated by the populace. I can understand this preference for the status quo, as folks around here are old enough to remember the days of the Ravishing Raiders, and any power vacuum in the region could easily be filled by a more ambitious midara than the above list.
Little of this information is new to you save for the frequency of the incidents, I presume. No news is perhaps good news, as they say. I have an early day seeding the fields tomorrow, so this is where I end this letter. You will hear from me again soon.
Kind regards,
Sam
P.S.
Send a copy of this letter to my family, and confer my well wishes to them
-
A weathered man tore the letter to shreds, and threw the pieces into the flames of the campfire.
"That isn't nice, Brand, his family was going to get a stipend for that," a female voice chided him.
Brand spat back: "You know the Academy isn't going to send them a penny, Loretta."
The woman, dressed in the same black garb as the man, shook her head.
"Always so cynical. We're supposed to be a movement looking out for the little man, but not in this manner."
Brand argued: "There's little we can do for a Lovestruck, Lor. His family's better off thinking he's bitten the dust rather than trudging around the countryside in the hopes of finding his harlot."
Loretta bit her tongue, knowing her partner was on the verge of another rant about how midara victims were weak of character. The Sons of the Sickle couldn't be picky with their recruits, but why did she always get stuck with the worst curmudgeons? She proposed it was time to turn in, and offered to take the first watch.
The final musings of Sam on the status quo and powe vacuums didn't leave her head as she stared into the dark. Would they actually be making things better, or worse, if their ambitions came true?