It had been a whirlwind week for Nanaly, who'd been traveling through the Adelan region for the majority of it. The work of a thaumaturge was never done, it seemed, and neither was the education of one. In her travels, she was asked to help a young boy, a son to a Kestran family of three. The boy had very suddenly fallen ill one day after the family took a trip to the Thunderblacks, and within a day of showing signs of some unknown disease, or perhaps a curse, he fell into a deep sleep which he could not be woken from.
Nanaly spent an entire hour in the boy's room, watching over his condition as she attempted to use her words of power to heal him; He proved, however, far more resistant to her magical words than she expected, reinforcing her belief that a curse was at hand. There were not many ways to break a curse, save with the self-same magic that inflicted it... And after researching his condition, and employing various diving spells, the young Thaumaturge managed to track down the source of his 'curse'.
She had to explain to the family that the boy had fallen victim to the toxins of a plant most commonly known as 'bringbout', a rare herb used sparingly in muscle-relaxing tonics. It was a beautiful blue flower, most commonly located near and inside of the Thunderblack's treacherous mountain caverns, but it's barbs were most commonly collected for alchemists' use; If she were to save the boy-- and she swore that she would-- She would have to travel to the Thunderblacks to collect enough of this flower's thorns to produce a cure.
And thus, here she was, traveling through the lesser foothills of the Thunderblacks in search of stray bringbout; The higher mountain ranges were dragon territory-- she knew it wasn't wise to intrude as such unless absolutely necessary. However, as she traveled the lower ranges, she did come across an unusual find; An old, yet vast castle, situated within the foothills of the Thunderblacks. "..." She would have, on any other day, left it for another day's exploration, and nearly did, before she spotted something very important from the walls of the castle; the occasional healthy, green vine, covered in black thorns, and blue flowers. Bringbout, perhaps? Lured as such, Nanaly proceeded towards the castle's walls, in an attempt to be sure.