Winter in Derenemyn

The shouts and clanging mugs around him could not penetrate the grinding mind of Brusen.  The men around him, neighbors and workmates, were pleased by their actions and celebrating as if they’d won a victory.  Ale flowed as deeds were recounted, particularly choice blows re-enacted, and the students’ ignominious retreat rehashed.  Spirits high all around him, the stonelayer kept his fists at his side as his brow furrowed.  In his mind he could feel the blow crunching into the green-eyed wizardling, his rage and grief pouring onto the head of the one who had cursed him.  Brusen couldn’t understand how the man had gotten up and managed to avoid him thereafter, when the blow should have scrambled his brain and left him unconscious or dead.  In the confusion after the table was flipped, his quarry had already fled by the time he pushed past the men in his way.  After that, calls for drinks and cheers had stopped the momentum that had carried the group to the tavern in the first place.

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Derud laughed along with his fellow students, although he hadn’t understood the joke.  His reaction was automatic, a reflex born of a life where he never felt like he truly fit in.  Although he was the same age as his fellows, he didn’t have their experience with women, wasn’t privy to the gossip they heard, and couldn’t match their ability to spin a tale.  His modest upbringing didn’t help, as most of the better-born students looked askance at those who grew up with dirt on their hands.  He was sure that his presence was tolerated only because of his ability to study and help those who hadn’t, and his willingness to laugh at the most stale jest. 

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Elder Patrician Merrus, head of the Circle of Magi of the Dreaming Tower, sighed and pressed the fingers of his right hand against the short grey hairs at his temple.  This man, who could engulf an entire village in fiery ruin, summon and bind the Demonlords of the Void, or raise a tower of stone from bare dirt at a gesture, could do nothing to quell the rising rage of pain in his own head.  He briefly considered turning to Nicoreus for succor, but allowed the notion to disappear.  As the first Elder Patrician in a century to head a Trial of Expulsion, Merrus could not afford to appear weak.  Even if the trial itself was threatening to turn into sham, as Elder Patrician he had the dignity of the last Arcane Academy to maintain. Read the rest of this entry →