“He’s no archmage. He’s a damned fool.”
- Hemlock the Shaper, Archmage
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“I cannot do much for him,” said Gunther. “He’s been ill, that much is clear. I can heal away the exposure and fix the frostbite, although he’ll be sensitive to the cold in his toes from now on. But whatever ailment weakened him so, he’ll have to pull through on his own.”
“How old would you say the child is?”
“Based on size? Fifteen or s...
2025-03-18 17:32:50 +0000 UTC View Post“Heard about your mother, kid,” said Hjorvarth as he paid her four full marks for the pig. “I’ll be at the funeral. So will the other hunters.”
“Thanks. Need a new place to sleep. Know anywhere?”
“I’ll ask around. Town is pretty full these days. You don’t have to worry for the next week or two while we’re on the hunt, at least.”
Aina nodded, her grief tight in her chest. She was grateful for Hjorvarth, even though his help was p...
2025-03-17 18:57:09 +0000 UTC View Post“No one should expect anything from Archmages. They are too powerful to be ruled, too easily distracted to rule. At best they are an unreliable weapon that can be pointed in the general direction of your enemies in the hopes that they do some damage. A wise ruler should rather placate them with shiny toys and pray they stay in their ivory towers.”
- On Royalty and Magic, Volume I
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The town of Buverik’s impressive walls loomed ahead of her as...
2025-03-17 18:56:48 +0000 UTC View PostAuthor's Note: Updated to include a bit more reaction from Runolf after Taliesin expounds on his mission to defy the gods. Minor update, doesn't really impact the outcome, but makes it flow a bit smoother and more believably.
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“Yes, I am looking for armsmen. Have you a senior officer? Aside from the Arbiter?” Taliesin looked over the armsman appraisingly and determined that he looked both too experienced as a warrior for the village and too junior in rank to be...
2025-03-17 18:56:30 +0000 UTC View Post“Will the world end? Can it end? Many learned men have debated this over the generations. While I have long had rationalist leanings, I also believe in empirical data. We have witnessed lines being drawn on the map by the three Pantheons of the West. With no pantheons left in the East to pose a challenge, they need not conspire together. The world may end, it may not. Yet the empirical evidence is clear.
A war is coming that may yet doom us all.”
-Augusti...
2025-03-17 18:55:21 +0000 UTC View PostA loud crash and sudden screams sounded from outside. An explosion swiftly followed accompanied by yells and shouts. Taliesin jumped to his feet as the girl jerked upright in bed. She slid from the blankets and began grasping for her clothes.
“You should stay here,” said Taliesin as he threw on his cloak. “If the village is under attack, I expect this house is the safest place to be.”
“I can’t,” she said as she pulled her tunic on over her head. “I have to get to m...
2025-03-17 18:54:52 +0000 UTC View Post“The Ostmen are given their Forgings. The men of Kemet take animistic traits. Only the Hellenes draw power from sacrifice. The Ostmen and the Kemet are granted their power directly from their gods. I would argue that only the Hellenic tribes know the price of their might, for they are the only ones honest about the price.”
- Ibn Sina, Philosopher and Healer
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The hour was late when Taliesin rose and dressed, nearly midnight by his estimation...
2025-03-17 18:54:29 +0000 UTC View Post
It took around thirty minutes to save those who could be saved. Taliesin had been able to cast just enough healing to stabilize two guards, while Gunther healed another four. At that point, he did something with the gem-studded leather bracer on his right arm. One of the two guards that Taliesin had cast his spells upon was faring poorly from some injury Taliesin’s limited skills had failed to find. Gunther used his healing ability once more, only this time the glow was laced with black lin...
2025-03-17 01:59:32 +0000 UTC View Post
“He had a quiet dignity, unfailingly polite but I swear there was mischief in his eyes.”
-Jarl Arnulf Swifthand
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Taliesin plummeted from a distance of about five feet off the ground, piercing through the veil back into reality as he did so. He could see the ripples of aether shudder away from him in a riot of Chaos and broken affinities. If he hadn’t landed on his side, bare-assed and already shivering from the cold morning air, he...
2025-03-17 01:47:43 +0000 UTC View Post“To each man shall his own free actions bring both his suffering and his good fortune. Jupiter is inevitably king over all alike. The Fates will find the way.”
- Zeus, The Aeneid
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Like he had never stopped, Taliesin could breathe once more. He could see, although the light was bright to his eyes. A strange villa floated in the middle of the Void, in the hellenic style common around the Aegean Sea. Taliesin was floated into it, only to...
2025-03-17 01:41:12 +0000 UTC View Post"But thereafter he shall suffer whatever Fate and the dread Spinners spun with her thread for him at his birth, when his mother bore him."
- Homer
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All sensation ended for Taliesin after he fell through the gate. He tumbled through the void beyond. This was no realm so far as he could determine, nor was it a dimensional space. It lacked stars and moons, air and gravity. The agony from his wounds stopped instantly, as did his ability to breat...
2025-03-17 01:39:21 +0000 UTC View Post
The old wizard stared deep into the scrying pool built into the highest room of his tower; Paris burned, Versaille was in ruins. Hot winds howled outside unheeded as he stared at endless scenes of devastation. The Grand Spire of the Magus in Rome was shattered. In Constantinople, fire efreeti and hell hounds stalked the streets hunting for survivors amidst the wreckage of the once proud city. The Seven-Sided Pagoda lay broken on the slopes of Mount Tai, and the scholars and mages of Izumo Tai...
2025-03-17 00:51:40 +0000 UTC View Post