This choice: (Age 30) An independent adventurer and fugitive • Go Back...Chapter #2(Age 30) An independent adventurer and fugitive by: Yote   A bull had been killed for the purposes of your punishment. The carcass lies in the deepest catacomb of the castle of the Grey Order, putrefying. Its belly has bloated and burst. For six months it has rotted away in total darkness until with the clatter of a key and the screech of iron hinges the door is opened. A wizard enters, his mouth muffled against the thick stench. He holds a flaming torch over the carcass, examining the areas where meat still hangs from the bones. In these areas is a carpet of maggots, thousands wriggling and crawling and fighting over each other for the last scraps of rotted flesh.
He studies them for a long time. From his cloak he takes a pair of tweezers and a glass phial. He plucks one of the squirming maggots from among the others, holds the thin pale body up towards the light to check it before dropping it into the phial.
He walks the catacombs back to the surface, ascending through the boundary between the Colleges of the Grey and Green Orders, and from there climbing the tower to Father Rechard's study, finding the him asleep at his desk. He gently rouses the old wizard. As he leaves, he tips the maggot into the green leather chair that sits across the desk, stands back and utters an incantation.
The maggot squirms, boils and bulges, sprouting limbs, a head. You're pinned to the chair, reeling at... everything. What is this place? What is this thing sitting in front of you?
Slowly it comes back to you. "Oh..." you croak, feeling sick. "I was... right. It wasn't a dream. I am human."
Father Rechard smiles. "Yes, Meade. You have been sent away from us for some time. Do you remember why?"
"I was... being punished... for something..."
"That is how it is," Father Rechard nods sadly. "And why were you being punished?"
Slowly your human memories come back to you, though they are muddled and alien. "I was on a mission.... I... I was trying to help someone," you murmur. It was a thought that had kept you sane during your punishment, at least for the first few weeks, that one thought repeating over and over in your head. "I was trying to help someone, I'm sure of it." Faint memories resurface. "There was a woman... she was in trouble..."
Rechard scowls darkly. The old wizard grows feral, fur bursting from his skin in ugly tufts, his claws digging into the frayed wood of the desk. "You strayed from your post. You were supposed to be protecting your brother, yet you abandoned him when he was relying on you! The pack is only strong when we work together."
It comes back to you. You and Zedicus had been assigned to root out a nest of Dark Stalkers in the tunnels beneath the city of Arundel. It should have been simple - a show of force would have sent the cowardly creatures scurrying back to the deep underdark - yet Zedicus had lost it, become bloodcrazed. He been intent on butchering every last one, firing off uncontrolled spells that injured your guide, a dwarven woman and destabilizing the tunnel. You had thrown the guide over your shoulder and bolted as the tunnel collapsed all around you.
"Zedicus was mad. He nearly killed-"
"Still you spout this nonsense! The life of a dwarf is inconsequential compared to that of a wizard. The Colleges can not afford to lose even a single man. Had you not run, Zedicus would still be alive. I thought your punishment would have given you time to consider that... Perhaps another twelve months are in order."
You don't dare speak. The Father's anger seems to ebb away, he sinks back into his chair, an old man once again as the wolf in him retreats. "Get out of my sight," he mutters. "Don't let me see you in this office again."
As you leave, you notice an absence, the loss of a comforting presence in your mind that has existed since the early days of your training. "My familiar? What has become of it?"
"Destroyed. In your absence, it became uncontrollable."
Destroyed... With sudden resolve, you realise your time with the Colleges is over.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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