D&D background sketch: Gadget the Artificer
Her initiate cowl creeps forward, sliding down her furrowed brow. Sweat beads of concentration begin to form, a vein bulges, and her breath lets out with an exasperated sigh. Tears well up in young doe eyes. Screaming with failure frustration the temperamental youth lashes out on the texts before her and dispatches all the scrolls, books, and learning aids to the ground.
"Thats IT! Gadgae..." The scholarly magi's eyes flare with energy as he struggles not to reciprocate the temper flowing off his student, "You are done. Leave."
Hopping down from the stool, her crocodile's tears dry in a flash, she saunters toward the door. "Tomorrow then. Same time. And if you think I have so much energy, you should be better prepared with some way so that I can tap it. Father would be oh so displeased with you if I haven't mastered the basics of Prestidigi-whatever by the time he comes back from his hunt."
"Actually, your father is back."
Her breath catches to a whisper from her blood running cold, "He's back?"
"This morning, I don't think I've ever partaken in meek before. He's also up to date on your progress. No. You will not be back tomorrow then, or any other day. Ever again." Fey stepping past her, Basteal snatches the initiate's cowl off of her head. "This never fit you properly. You will be trained state duties and sent to the lower barons. Good bye, and don't explode with that potential of yours." The magi faded into the hall leaving but a mocking laugh trailing behind.
Stepping from behind one of the ancient stacks of tomes, a small but solid figure steps to the door and peers down the hall.
"Hmph, cheap trick and a waste of the precious little power left in the stones of this land."
Maruh knows the bindings of despair, and did not fear being whipped, this time. Taking advantage of the situation he turned his attention to the mess of a person on the floor as his foot steps draw near. Probing for energy slowly with each step, examining his subject. He did not balk at escape for half a century to doubt his purpose, but he must be daft to try probe an Eladrin for potential in his way. Such a slight thing, even for Eladrin. Too tall and lanky, she looked streatched, even for her kind. Her first yearling horns were painted an offensive teal in an attempt at covering her 'unfortunate' discoloration. A natural black that reminded him of the best slate, beautiful if only she'd not cover it up. His eyes widen suddenly in disbelief. Startled, he backs away and tries again. This time concentrating on the ritual, not the girl before him.
A hum as gentle and soft as a rock tumbler starts in his throat. Using the floor he knows so well from scrubbing every day, he risks discovery. Precisely lined up north to south, at a set distance as measured by the stones, he begins by stepping forward. Ten paces out, nothing, tap. The hum grows louder. Seven, tap. A gravel bucket would sound better. Gadgae's sobs quieted in proportion to the crecendo of noise as it moved from pebbles to rocks. As the rocks grew to small boulders, silence consumed the gravel hum. A complete envelope of quiet and solitude consumed the quiet mess frozen on the floor, and began to gently glow. The glow was warm and red orange like rock from the core of the earth. Not the glow of arcana of the Warlocks who enslave his kind, nor from the calculated rote learning that is channeled by the Wizards who came after. The glow responds to the Gravel Call. The magics of the so called magic-less race. The power four steps out, untrained. Maruh sighs and releases the ritual.
Making the four steps quickly he takes the child devoid of energy from the ritual, the sobs, and the despair that has permeated her life. Scoping her up he thinks of her past. No wonder she was so stubborn, more makes sense now than ever before. Taking the odd souled child into his small side suite of the library - really a single room with a cooking pot in the corner that serves as his kitchen - he sets her down gently on his resting pad.
"There there child, you won't be going anywhere you don't want to. Your safe for now, rest."
As though those words broke a spell she clutched as his neck and wept. Wept for being locked away for insubordination, wept for all the times she lashed out on his kind, and wept most of all for never having been shown such compassion. Then, so unlike her kind she slept and dreamed of mountainous passages, songs of thunder and gravel, and the Mechsmiths of a world separated by an ocean of distance and a canyon of time.