“You’ll never amount to anything, you ungrateful wretch!” the wizard shouted at the figure seen hustling from the front door of his tower. The figure, clad in simple robes with a travel pack on their back, a simple staff in one hand (and the stride of one who wishes to be anywhere but where they are in that moment), walks away from their studies in magics having learned only the most fundamental of lessons in spell casting but a profound lesson in choosing life paths.
He was too old to take on another fresh-faced, eager student. They both knew it. Neither wanted to admit that their time would be too brief, so they took up their roles and for two years it was amazing. He felt the satisfaction of seeing another young mind open up to amazing possibilities, and she took to it like one born to mysteries. Now, as she finds him cold in his bed, she realizes she will likely not find another willing to teach her anything beyond the simple manipulations she has already mastered. She’ll need to see what she can make of these tricks of hers in the world.
No matter how they come to it, there are a fair number of those whose arcane abilities never advanced beyond those lessons in the fundamental manipulations of the energies from the lattice of magic around Olingar. Many take up positions that require little to no magic and that is the end of it. Others, however, like sculleries who have a fine palette, learn to balance the flavor and textures of magic to create complex magics with simple ingredients and combinations not normally thought of as ‘proper magic’ through trial, error, and persistence. They will never make court magus, or grand artificer, but they do make for fine companions on the road.
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