Tag: fantasy

Arriving back in camp after an uneventful ride, I immediately depart to find Val Maxis. With bad news, it is better to deliver it personally and immediately so as to mitigate its effects. Never let another be the first to speak of one’s failures. I find the area of camp that the other apprentices are staying at but do not… Read more →

I don’t know whether to be impressed or alarmed when Corporal Level returns with permission to head out immediately. It does not take long to prepare the patrol and we leave with the evening’s meal still working its way down the gullet. My owl, full from its own meal, comes to rest on my broad shoulders. Its talons clink against… Read more →

I am distracted and I don’t look before I turn. Rounding a tent corner, a come upon a squad of men sitting on short stools. I am able to catch short my stride and stop before I topple over one of them. They seem to perceive this all as fairly ominous. I sense the palpable tension but pay it little… Read more →

The Elysian force is camped close enough that magical travel is unnecessary. A contingent from the army meets us at the base of the tower just after breakfast. The trip is uneventful and we arrive at the edges of camp shortly before supper time. My owl follows at its own pace: flying in wide arcs, taking naps, and catching up… Read more →

When I had envisioned training under Val Maxis, I imagined an accelerated education and much more lenient access to tomes and artifacts. I’d assumed, wrongly, that there would be competency tests to assess my level of arcane knowledge and ability, and my education would begin there. His method, however, demands at least fifteen years of academic instruction and then another… Read more →

I am called to Val Maxis’s study that evening after supper. I have been at the tower for nearly a year. The war has been raging through Elysium while I have spent my days studying in safety. Val Maxis’s tower has countless wards and protections cast on it so, even without guards, there is no chance that the orcs could… Read more →

The study of magic is not for the frail or meek. I am learning a great deal as apprentice to Val Maxis and there is a great deal more to master. Because I had not received any formal training before, I did not know that the arcanum is comprised of five elements which make up the world: wind, earth, water,… Read more →

All my possessions now accounted for, I am faced with the decision of what to do next. Stay here? Hardly. This place is a prison to my ambition. I would be unworthy of Ner Ngal’s favor if I stayed here; to live out my days a tamed wolf among sheep. Head west to Plor and set my eyes on a… Read more →

He is considering taking me as an apprentice? This may be precisely the break I need to strike out on my god-given path in earnest, once again. My mind alights with imaginings of his great library and I envision myself bursting with knowledge and power. If this conversation is to be my interview, then it behooves me to set some… Read more →