Euri Rambles
I am a healer of the most advanced skill level, and the Empress herself knows my name, and knows that I am loyal, trustworthy, discreet, and far more than competent. I can even resurrect the dead, under the proper circumstances, although that isn't much talked about in polite company, the fear of the undead being a potent, and prudent, and widespread taboo that is better left undisturbed. I don't hobnob much with the powers-that-be, however, though I am close friends with, and old travelling companions with, some that do.
I am not mostly known as a healer, though, as I have never hung out a shingle in this seaport town. I am also a viciously competent swordsman, an accurate bowman, a fine physical specimen, in spite of my shock-white hair and obvious age, and a puppeteer of ludicrously high skill. But even those are not my main claim to fame.
I am a mage. Of unprecedented skill, if I do say so myself. I practice ensorcelments and enchantments, and have mastered the arts of my college to nearly the limits of their capabilities, as well as developing a few wrinkles of my own along the way. These achievements are not won lightly, and I would bear many a scar, and far fewer arms, had I not grown to be such a competent healer. Not to mention that I have enjoyed the companionship of true heroes over the decades, and we have watched each others backs down many a dark path on this journey to a ripe old age that many adventuring types do not reach.
These days, though, I mostly teach at the University, shepherding young adepts into the trivial mysteries that will eventually allow them to glimpse the true power of the abilities they now so barely wield. Against my wishes, I run the department, being senior in both age and skills to anyone else available, and I tire of the pointless meetings, the endless bickering, and the beauracratic tedium necessary to keep the machine of learning oiled and slogging along. It is a penalty. It is a tax on competence. And yet, I would not willingly see the old skills die out, so they must be taught.
Who among us will wrap his brain around Telekinesis and puzzle it out if we do not train them to recognize the tricks that hide behind the curtains of our minds? Mastering the mana is not the issue, we are born to that. But, any fool can study flame and set his hut on fire, or observe the shadows and learn to hide in them. Fools they be, though, when they realize that the path you choose is the only one you can walk. Want to fly on the winds? Then don't learn to burn down the house. Want to master the weather? Then don't learn to control another's thoughts. Want to consort with the demons? Well, that's another kettle of imps entirely. Want to command armies of the dead? Seek counseling, please. Something is wrong with you, and you will never have any friends.
But the point is, magic is somehow exclusive, and it chooses what you can do. Not you. You don't choose. Not after the first choice, anyway. I chose ensorcelments and enchantments, and I couldn't bring rain if you drilled me in every single dance step. I can open doors, though. Not like a thief. A thief concentrates and listens and feels his way through the complexity of the lock, and then gets lucky. I mumble the right words, wave my hands, and the door just opens. In the last five decades, only one door has ever resisted my skill, and, let me tell you, we were damned sorry we ever got it open. Harsh lesson learned.
But, I digress. Constantly, if you ask my friends. All those years of holding conversations with the salt shakers and the napkin dispensers tend to give your thoughts a wandering bent. Constantly finding things to talk about with yourself will lead to a tendency to free associate and ramble. It's the Ventriloquism spell, of course. The most basic of the college's spells, and usually the starting point of the young student's journey, since it has the highest chance of being cast successfully. I refuse to teach it anymore, myself, and farm it out to the others, because my tolerance for listening to young unformed minds try to invent chats with themselves is matched only by my dismay at stumblers who fail to successfully learn a spell that works three times out of five even without any ranks or other modifiers. It's too painful. And, do they practice? Do they pat themselves on the back for casting it, or do they realize that it's useless if they don't train themselves to use it well? They tend to be as tiresome as the meetings.
Ventriloquism is hardly the bread and butter of this college. I have not once found it useful in a battle in all these decades. It's just a toy of the mind. It would be the most useless spell in the college except for the existence of Speak to Enchanted Creatures. There are no enchanted creatures, and, believe me, I have searched for them. I've been across most of this continent, portions of the other, any number of the islands, and several other planes of existence, though not willingly. And that includes a long hazardous trek from Chicago to New York, in a world where magic does not work. If I ever do discover who sent us there and how they did it, there will be blood shed.
So we all begin with Ventriloquism, and move on to the useful enchantments, such as Invisibility or Location. And, as it is now part of us, we dabble with it. You do not want to spend much time visiting our Guild Hall. Everything in it talks to you. I wonder if, when no one is there, all these artifacts chat with each other. I have no urge to find out.
My companions have themselves developed a tolerance to it, as, over the long years, I always seem to be talking to something inanimate. One time, as we were wandering about in some dusty deserted castle, we came into a grand hall with a fireplace on one end and a large moose head mounted over the door at the other. On a lark, I said hello to the moose, and to my surprise and delight he answered back. No one would believe the moose head was talking, because they all assumed it was me just being me. Even when the moose revealed the trick to the secret door, everyone just assumed I'd gotten lucky and was playing tricks. And, of course, secret doors tend to be easy for us to find, since we are in the habit of casting Wizard Eye and searching in and beyond the walls of whatever we're exploring. To this day, they don't believe me.
A Day In The Life
A few blocks from the square, where the buildings are taller-but-not-tall, there is a little park. It’s not lush, or filled with flowers. There’s entirely too much shade for that. On the other hand, there’s not much direct sun, either, and any number of elderly gentlemen from the neighborhood drift in and out for quiet contemplation, checkers, chess, and ancient card games. Penny a point. No one’s keeping score. Sometimes a rare monk sets up a soapbox and tries to spill some light upon the path. Some listen. Some don’t. Barefoot children appear and disappear, with and without guardians. No one is well-dressed. No one appears to be starving. On many a morning, a quiet, sturdily-built young elf comes by, with a bag of assorted pastries fresh from a nearby market. He looks around for one particular elderly face, and proffers a penny in exchange for a chess match. The silver is always acknowledged, but rarely accepted. “How can you be so lavish?” the gentleman inquires. “Chess is logic. Logic is training. Training is power. I hope to be a respected mage someday,” Euri answers. “Money means little. I never expect to be rich.” “You never will, with that attitude.” “Perhaps, but I will not stand alone in that regard, and many will have worried harder and gained less.” Other regulars stop by to watch, and critique, their play. The pastries slowly disappear. “He’s traded queens again.” “The queen is the center of power. An average player relies on that. Learn to play with or without the queen.” Euri listens. “You’ve weakened your control of the center again, pursuing a line of defense that you may never need.” Euri listens. “The end game is as important as the opening. In a well-played game, it may come down to counting pawn moves, square by square.” Euri listens. Sometimes a few of the ragged children gather. “Make the pieces talk! Make the pieces talk!” “Off with your heads, you little tattle-tales!” the red queen squeaks. Squealing with delight, the urchins dash away, shielding their heads with their arms. “Make the pieces listen,” says the old man, drily. The morning passes into mid-morning, the crumbs are brushed away, the pieces are back into the worn velvet bag, and Euri excuses himself. “I need to spend at least an hour at the gym before my afternoon class.” “You’re a bit of a workaholic, you know.” “A sound mind in a sound body. That isn’t work. That’s life.” “See you tomorrow?” “I believe so.”
Two hours in the weight room, twenty minutes in the hot soak, two minutes in the shower. Euri was dressing when Jer, the young and somewhat over-enthusiastic towel attendant, approached him. “You’re practically a fanatic about your exercise, aren’t you?” Euri demurred. “All you really have is your health, young man. That and your mind.” “Well, it’s really paying off for you! You look great!” “Jer,” Euri remarked patiently, “I’m three times your age, you’re a human and I’m an elf, and and I’ve neither demonstrated nor expressed any interest in physical contact with other males in the whole time you’ve known me. Give it a rest, will you?” Taken aback a bit, Jer began to mumble, possibly an apology, when there was a sudden banging from farther down the row of lockers. “What the heck!” Jer jumped and turned, clearly startled. The banging came again, and, was that a muffled cry for help? Jer stared at the locker door. “Well,” Euri asked, “Are you going to let him out of there?” “What! Who? And how, who would be in a locker?” Jer sputtered. “The last guy who tried to hit on me after my workout,” Euri calmly explained. When a search of the lockers turned up nobody, Jer calmed down visibly, but began to eye Euri suspiciously. “Maybe he slipped out the back,” Euri volunteered, as he stepped into his sandals and left the gym.
Lounging in the dancing shadows of the lanterns at the old tavern’s front door, the slender elf barely acknowledges the passers by. Not so the brilliantly plumed parrot in the over-sized cage nearby. “Hurry home! Hurry home! Your sainted mother would never approve of you stopping to have a drink here!” Respectable citizens of the neighborhood tend to choose the other side of the street, rather than provide a target for the parrot’s exotic wit. Tables and rows of the college-aged crowd fill the small courtyard, juggling their mugs and jostling for elbow room. No one remembers the tavern’s original name, faded on the wooden placard. It’s just called, ‘The Parrot.’ “Let’s go see The Parrot!” A tipsy coed in high-heeled sandals trades banter with the bird. “You’re particularly salty tonight!” “You don’t appear very particular tonight at all, yourself.” “Dirty bird!” “Takes one to know one.” "Why don’t you come home with me?” “Please take a number for faster service.” Business has doubled, and doubled again, and again, since the bird first began to speak. A few hours, and but a few beers, later, after the second rush of the evening, the elf quietly wanders off. The bird, still beady-eyed, bright, and beautiful, falls silent for a while.
Another Lesson
I was very proud of myself when I invented Teleportation. I don't know why it isn't taught at the College. It's such an obvious fit with the other spells we learn. I spent several months, a long winter, in Elari's library, and the College library, researching, and also spent many hours with Grey trying to explain just how he could twist the mana to hop from one shadow to another. I can't cast it on others, though, or invest it in an article for others to use. I developed it as a talent, and I can just be in another place that I can see or know very well. I no longer walk down dark alleys to get to the alehouse. I have an arrangement with several innkeepers to use their storage rooms as an entry, so that I don't suddenly appear in the common room. I could pop over to the Empress's Grand Ballroom if I chose, but it would be a very bad idea to startle the guards there.
I learned some caution and respect the hard way, after I first developed it. We had tracked down a Necromancer, after the third time he attempted to kill us, and after the dozen times he changed his name and left us a cold trail. He was in the next room, we could see him through the Wizard Eye, and I had the bright idea of popping in and hitting him from behind, while the rest of the party charged through the door. What I did not see was that he had a pet air elemental with him. It was idle, not blowing dust and the curtains around, and I never suspected. It hit me. Out of thin air, as they say. I believe that's as close to death as I've ever been. It knocked every bit of wind out of me, and no one was with me to watch my back, or distract it, or cast a healing spell. I don't even think anyone knew I'd been clobbered. Another blow like that and I would have been a bloody heap on the floor. In perhaps my luckiest moment ever, I immediately recovered from being stunned, and was also lucky enough to be faster than the elemental. They are powerful, but tend to be clumsy, having no need for finesse. I teleported back out of the room, and grabbed a Healing investment, just in time to see the party bust through the door and on into the next room. He was already gone, though. We found the runestick, but by the time we did, he'd already broken the connection at the other end, and we had no way to follow him, or even guess where he'd gone. He was out of range of the Arrow of Location, and we were clueless and angry all over again. But I had learned a lesson, and I've been very cautious about teleporting ever since. Grey finds that amusing, as he Shadow Walks constantly, but he's born of the shadows, and has never been stunned half to death by a giant fist of air.
Euriopa
Euri is what I'm known as, and have always gone by, but it isn't what I was christened. My formal name is Avari Orne. My mother always called me Euri, though, and it stuck. She said it was short for Euriopa, but never explained where that name came from. I've never heard that name anywhere. Avari, of course, is Old Elvish for reluctance, and I can only guess why I was given that appelation as a child. No one ever told me a story about my naming. I was always Euri. The family name, Orne, is Elvish for tree, and is such a common name that you don't even bother to wonder if someone is related to you if you hear that their name is also Orne. There are just too many.
My parents were farmers. Comfortable. Happy. An eye on the long long term. Elves, you know. Nothing exotic. Nothing elegant. Nothing extraordinary. Although, I think back to the fresh strawberries, and I wonder if it's just nostalgia, or if they really were the best I ever had. But, looking back, I guess I had too much untapped magic in me to settle into a comfortable life. I saw the recruiting poster for the Empire's Rangers, and I fell in love with the idea of travel. And off I went. My parents did not encourage me. My parents did not discourage me. Off I went.
Among the things the military wants to know about you, is your magical aptitude, and mine is as high as can be, and even has a bonus from my elven heritage. I had no idea. There were no mages in our little elven farmer village. They ran me through a series of tests to determine my proclivities, offered me a number of options, and I absolutely fell in love with the concept of invisibility. Now, if I had known that they could still smell you, I might or might not have chosen differently, but Invisibilty swayed me, and my path was chosen. I was an adult, I was a Ranger, I was in training to be a mage, and I was off to travel the world.
And that's when I learned Ventriloquism. That was the stepping stone to a lifetime of annoying side conversations with inanimate objects. I don't even apologize for it any more.
That wasn't all I learned, not by a long shot. The main thing, the big thing, the royal package, is Ritual of Enchantment. I can enchant you so that anything you do has a better chance of happening. It takes a huge amount of time, practice, and experience to become good at this, and I must commend my friends and associates for tolerating me and keeping me alive while I ranked this ritual, but in the long run, we are all better at everything we do because of it. But I'm getting ahead of the story. It took many many years to rank this ritual, and those years were full of risk and trials.
Off we were sent to travel the world, our young green squad of Rangers, and it was there I met and bonded with perhaps the most important people in my history.
Scholarly Advice and Irrefutable Lore
"You need to study geometry. You really do. You need to put as much effort and energy into learning the mathematics of spatial relationships as you have into swinging a sword or healing the sick. You're flailing about, wasting huge amounts of time, covering the same ground over and over, and never being sure of where you are. It's great that you can see through walls, but if you can't say where you saw something, in relation to where you are now, you're no better off than if you had walked there. You need to search in spirals, and keep count of your progress, instead of randomly poking about and losing track of distance. It's easy to say, 'It's on the other side of that wall, and the door is to the south,' but as your range develops into hundreds of feet, in all directions, you need to do better. And there may be times that your life depends on it, if you continue these dangerous paths you've been adventuring down."
"You can cast shadow wings on your horse until Doomsday. That horse was not born to fly, and it will never occur to him to try. And if you're strong enough to carry his weight, and cast them on yourself, and try carrying him with you, you are going to experience one very very unhappy recalcitrant horse. Either fly where you're going or ride where you're going."
"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, unless you are a mage of the Mind college and cast Control Animal on him. Then you can even make him waltz, but he'll still be as clumsy at it as both you and he are separately. As well as at half-speed."
"If you piss off a Demon Summoner, make sure he dies. Make no mistake about this. This matters. If you fuck this up, you won't be sorry very long."
"There isn't much chance that the world we know won't eventually be overrun by the humans. They breed like rats, or rabbits, and indiscriminately on top of that. The Old Races cannot hope to compete. The only positive outlook is that there may eventually be so many of them that they kill all the orcs."
"If you have the showy habit, as so many young men do, of testing the points of your arrows to see how sharp they are, do not put poison on them."
"If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, start actively disbelieving. What would a duck be doing down in this dungeon?"
"The minute you have enough spare change to afford a horse and cart, you will travel to a place that you cannot take them."
"It is not a good idea to fly in and land in the town square of a village that does not understand magic."
"Telling the Fire mage to calm down is pointless. If they understood calm, they never would have chosen that college."
"No matter what you summon and control, it is only going to be as smart as you are. Learn some strategy and tactics. Better yet, study Military Science."
"Learn to cook. You're going to get very tired of beans and rice after a few years on the road."
"Heroic actions are usually accomplished by ordinary cowards like you and me who backed themself into a situation with very limited options."
"If your horses don't like him, keep an eye on him under the full moon."
"You should always be courteous, and not inconvenience your companions by dying."
"The term 'adept' is a very misleading description of a fool who knows spells."
"'Your mother was an orc' is an insult to any sentient race, even orcs."
"A mage of any college can be neutralized by a small amount of cold iron, preferably through the heart or between the eyes."
The Bones of the Dragon
might be too much to ask
to find yourself a home
it might be best to hitch the team
and head out over yonder
when you’re born to wander
we built our home in the bones of the dragon
it made sense at the time
the ribcage made a garage for the wagon
the fields nearby were ripe and fine
the fertile hills full of fat slow rabbits
the air was sweet, the winds were mild
a right good haven to weather the winter
perhaps conceive another child
a luxury that we rarely encountered
we even gave our home a name
and life was rich and peaceful and steady
until the strangers came
there’s a lesson that we learned
a truth we came to know
you might as well wear a belt that says
seven at one blow
when you wear the armored cape
the world assumes you’re tough
there’s always one more gunslinger
who wants to call your bluff
and damned be him who first cries hold, enough
we built our home in the bones of the dragon
we found them lying there
the dog didn’t bark but its tail isn’t wagging
there’s trouble lurking everywhere
they must have thought that we were the slayers
and therefore judged us worthy foes
they saw us as arrogant and prideful
and for that offence laid us low
the onset of winter held something for us
the promise of home and of happiness
with consequence that we never imagined
and price we couldn’t guess
there’s a lesson that we learned
a truth we came to know
you might as well wear a belt that says
seven at one blow
when you wear the armored cape
the world assumes you’re tough
there’s always one more gunslinger
who wants to call your bluff
and damned be him who first cries hold, enough
we built our home in the bones of the dragon
a choice we now regret
you’re tempting fate when it looks like you’re bragging
the strangers surely taught us that
the harsh attack both surprised and stunned us
as though they’d leave no one alive
it’s a hard cruel world at the best of times
and only those who ran survived
a rout so swift we abandoned the wagon
like leaving behind the family name
our heart and soul through the generations
and fled the way we came
there’s a lesson that we learned
a truth we came to know
you might as well wear a belt that says
seven at one blow
when you wear the armored cape
the world assumes you’re tough
there’s always one more gunslinger
who wants to call your bluff
and damned be him who first cries hold, enough
when your home is on your back
you best not plant your feet
you ought leave well enough alone
before it’s torn asunder
when you’re born to wander
when you’re born to wander
Another Rusty Broadsword
another rusty broadsword
thhrow it in the wagon
we haven't got a wagon, you damn fool (why don't we get one)
another rusty broadsword
man, my ass is dragging
wish I'd studied gym back there in school
I wish we had the funds to buy a mule
what good are they doing us, what
value have they got
why should we be carrying this weight
no one is pursuing us, or
we'd have all been caught
I should have studied how to levitate
another rusty broadsword that
we've added to the pile
we trudge along, the weight just
slows us down mile after mile
we're wearing down our patience
and our strength league after league
I foresee us collapsing from fatigue
another rusty broadsword
another copper penny
you're carrying too many, you dumb jerk
another rusty broadsword, we
can't leave it behind us
if only this was not so much like work
I should have been a parson or a clerk
why are we collecting them, what
else is there to loot
we'd prefer amassing gems or gold
what are we even doing here
I guess the question's moot
I should have got a job or so I'm told
we haven't looted mansions
or found a dragon's hoard
we live on beans and rice because
it's all we can afford
we've got so many that we could
equip a mongol horde
hey buddy, do you want to buy a sword
another rusty broadsword
throw it in the wagon
we haven't got a wagon, you damn fool
another rusty broadsword
man, my ass is dragging
these damn things aren't even good as fuel
a wagon sure would be a useful tool
why don't we get one
we can't afford one
hey buddy, do you want to buy a sword
cheap
