In the beginning..
In the beginning, there was a city of wizards. It was closed in on four sides by towering walls of granite, Within it are a jumble of long houses and one massive citadel where the wizards would sometimes meet for displays of power, feasts or just some good old drinking and dancing. There was only one kind of tree present and that one only rarely seen. That was the cherry tree and the scarce few examples were in full blossom.
And Roderick, a wizard in the possession of twenty five full and legitimate years, saw that it was not good. In the beginning (but not this beginning, the one that began about thirteen years ago when he had joined the enclave of wizards), he had thought that the life of a wizard was one where you went on adventures doing mighty deeds of magic. Not sitting around and learning how to manipulate the elements in tired old ways that every decent wizard, mage or sorcerer knew.
That was because, in the beginning (no, not this beginning or the one before that, but the beginning before both those beginnings when he had been a simple farm-boy and hadn't had any aptitude in any of the normal things a boy would learn to do), no one had told him certain things about wizards. Namely, a wizard couldn't just set off into the wide world to do mighty deeds of magic without having some things. Most of them were easy to find, like a staff, a beard and a basic knowledge of fire magic. Any magic would do, really, but most wizards preferred to blow things up to any other approach and fire was the best for that. Unless you really mastered air, but that was lot messier. Left stains on your beard and robe. Not the sort of thing a respectable wizard would do unless he had a fair maiden to wash his robe and tickle the beard.
But the hardest thing a wizard had to find before an adventure could begin was a Hero. See, in the realm of Kathmaran, any wizard found adventuring on his own would face a fate worse than death. The abscence of anyone to tell his story. After all, what good was it if you found the fundamental spell that could make a phoenix if no one knew you did it? And so, on the roads to most standard adventuring areas, there had sprung up cities full of mages, wizards and sorcerers. Never a city of all three in one place though. That kind of thing got messy with fire and ice and lighting and mud and wind and stuff flung all over the place whilst they debated the "right" way to do things.
The fundamental problem wasn't even the abscence of Heroes. Roderick knew that there'd be at least five of them stopping by this week alone. They were like weeds. Every single village had a healthy export in Heroes. Not that many of them returned with anything, but you figured if you sent a lot of them out, you'd get a good enough return every now and again. Most villages didn't, but hope lived on, for some strange reason. If it wasn't for the harrowing aspects of the quest, there'd be more Heroes than there were Evils to be fought off.
The thing that kept wizards, mages and sorcerers from going out and adventuring was actually the second rule of the Recognized Quest. Not only could you not go adventuring all by your lonesome, you had to be asked to join a group of adventurers by the Hero of said group. If one skilled in the magical arts just joined a group or even asked the Hero for himself to be included, that would mark the whole group down as one to be always unsung and always forgotten in the lists of those who had Gone Places and Done Things and Rescued Fair Maiden.
Now, this would be a fine state of affairs if the ...
660 words (Minus those included in next entry)
And Roderick, a wizard in the possession of twenty five full and legitimate years, saw that it was not good. In the beginning (but not this beginning, the one that began about thirteen years ago when he had joined the enclave of wizards), he had thought that the life of a wizard was one where you went on adventures doing mighty deeds of magic. Not sitting around and learning how to manipulate the elements in tired old ways that every decent wizard, mage or sorcerer knew.
That was because, in the beginning (no, not this beginning or the one before that, but the beginning before both those beginnings when he had been a simple farm-boy and hadn't had any aptitude in any of the normal things a boy would learn to do), no one had told him certain things about wizards. Namely, a wizard couldn't just set off into the wide world to do mighty deeds of magic without having some things. Most of them were easy to find, like a staff, a beard and a basic knowledge of fire magic. Any magic would do, really, but most wizards preferred to blow things up to any other approach and fire was the best for that. Unless you really mastered air, but that was lot messier. Left stains on your beard and robe. Not the sort of thing a respectable wizard would do unless he had a fair maiden to wash his robe and tickle the beard.
But the hardest thing a wizard had to find before an adventure could begin was a Hero. See, in the realm of Kathmaran, any wizard found adventuring on his own would face a fate worse than death. The abscence of anyone to tell his story. After all, what good was it if you found the fundamental spell that could make a phoenix if no one knew you did it? And so, on the roads to most standard adventuring areas, there had sprung up cities full of mages, wizards and sorcerers. Never a city of all three in one place though. That kind of thing got messy with fire and ice and lighting and mud and wind and stuff flung all over the place whilst they debated the "right" way to do things.
The fundamental problem wasn't even the abscence of Heroes. Roderick knew that there'd be at least five of them stopping by this week alone. They were like weeds. Every single village had a healthy export in Heroes. Not that many of them returned with anything, but you figured if you sent a lot of them out, you'd get a good enough return every now and again. Most villages didn't, but hope lived on, for some strange reason. If it wasn't for the harrowing aspects of the quest, there'd be more Heroes than there were Evils to be fought off.
The thing that kept wizards, mages and sorcerers from going out and adventuring was actually the second rule of the Recognized Quest. Not only could you not go adventuring all by your lonesome, you had to be asked to join a group of adventurers by the Hero of said group. If one skilled in the magical arts just joined a group or even asked the Hero for himself to be included, that would mark the whole group down as one to be always unsung and always forgotten in the lists of those who had Gone Places and Done Things and Rescued Fair Maiden.
Now, this would be a fine state of affairs if the ...
660 words (Minus those included in next entry)