Author's Note.

This is a story involving one of the original lesser villains in my Dungeons and Dragons campaign. The arcane mage Gale Ivory is plotting her revenge against her former allies that abandoned her in a collapsing cave, else they would have been trapped as well. They went on to achieve wealth, power, fame, and glory... leaving her with nothing but her clothes and what few belongings she had. Take note that they are former allies.

The perspective of the story is written from the point of view of Neranna Glesst, a young woman from the city of Corinth in the Corinthian Kingdom, in pursuit of learning the trade of alchemy and potion making. She was the first person to help Gale after she emerged into a main trades road, despite the wishes of the caravan driver to leave her be. Wizards are dangerous after all.

I tend to skip character descriptions besides their culture and attitude. Neranna is your good old dependable adventurer, Alakai is a friendly pacifist, and so on. I'm hoping all my characters will be that easy to describe.

I'm also putting this part, and perhaps the other parts, as separate entries as an entry in zachstar's informal writing contest. Here's one to you, zach. This thing is barely 700 words, so you should be happy (Edit: Didn't read that I could only enter once. Darn)!

Read the next part here.

Just an Apprentice, Part 1: Introduction
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It had only been a year since I had signed on with Master Lanses. All the knowledge of herbs, medicines, and potions in my grasp, all in exchange for but a few years of my service after my training is complete. How could I refuse? My life's work is nothing compared to what I could learn from Lanses, let alone any projects after my training.

Evening approaches, and the caravan we are traveling with makes camp. The desert sun hides itself behind the sand dunes, and our camp fires flicker and flash to provide warmth from the cold nights of the expanse of the desert lands. I pitched tents for our small party of alchemists on the far side of the campsite, near the mountain ranges to the east. I never think of the country of Khaldun to be able to extend its reach beyond those mountains. The terrain on the other side is icy, cold, and worst of all, humid. Many have tried and failed to blaze a path on the coastline just east of the mountains, where the water in the air coming in from the ocean simply freezes over whatever road is laid. I thought it curious that a tundra lay just beyond a desert, separated only by mountains. It was not even to the north; it was to the east.

Master Lanses had explained it to me before, however. His explanation didn't convince me one bit. He said that the warmth of the desert is the work of the magic of dragons near the center of the desert. Some kind of miniature sun radiating heat? An old wives' tale it was, I told him. These are modern days. We understand aerodynamics and air pressure and can build our own flying machines now. Humanity and the dwarven peoples have no need for applied magics. Simply gather the materials necessary to bind elementals, and a power source is then available to provide the means to nearly anything we can think of. Although it would be helpful to have a wizard assist with the binding of these elementals, that is besides the point.

While looking for some reference books in the back of our wagon to show one of my fellow apprentices, I notice a dark figure stumbling down the mountain. An injured man? No, the figure is too skinny for that... unless it is a very malnourished man? Knowing the dangers of the wilds, I ready my handy shortsword, but just then-

"Whoa, hey! What are you doing?" My friend was wondering where I had gotten to with those books. He is a rather plain fellow from a local city, unlike me, a foreigner. His name is Alakai Ischmit, and, like any other Khaldunese name, impossible to pronounce with my Corinthian upbringing.

"Ssh. Look there." I draw my spare dagger and hand it to Alakai. The damned fool. He never carries a weapon on him.

"Why, whats...? Oh, I see it. Do you think it's hostile?"

I blow out the nearest lamp to us. "If it was, it would have attacked by now. Too close, and it's not being very stealthy, tripping and stumbling like that."

"Do you think we should go investigate?"

"Yes, lets." It takes us quite some time to get up to where the figure is, as neither of us are experienced mountain climbers. Two city folk going up a mountain? Such a task is reserved for the rich, who have nothing better to do.

As we get closer, I see it's not a malnourished man at all. It's a malnourished woman. Big surprise there. Alakai gives me a puzzled look, and instinctively reaches for his waterskin, just as he has done so for every other wandering vagrant.

This woman collapses in front of us. She makes a motion as to grab Alakai by the leg, but she can't quite summon the energy to do so. She must have been lost for quite some time. The first words I hear her utter are not demands for water, but something neither I nor Alakai expected.

"A library... I need a library..."

She passes out shortly thereafter.