I hate to break this to you, but as a rule, wizards are nasty people. They're powerful, capricious, ruthless, egotistical, used to getting their own way. That's being kind.
Balthazar Orilon, Headman of Nede
"It is intolerable! It shall not stand!" Ulysson banged his staff upon the oak table furiously. Thalimar sighed, and lifted up his mug before it slid off. "The pissant little village cannot treat us this way! I demand recompense!"
"I had to sleep on the
ground!" another wizard called. "Do you know how bloody uncomfortable that is?
And it was cold!"
Thalimar groaned and buried his head in his hands. "You slept on the ground that entire journey. Don't act like you somehow suffered."
"Well," the offending wizard said, looking peeved, "I didn't have to that night. I was denied an opportunity. I'm sure you appreciate -"
"I don't. Believe it or not, your mistreatment at the hands of untrained peasants does not register as highly as the fact that there are a bunch of untrained peasants that outnumber us four-to-one nearby, among other things."
"Oh pish-posh," Eudamon snorted. "They're peasants. They're not even wizards, let alone
mages. One sniff of Gaulir's Resplendent Fireball and they'll go running."
"Be that as it may," Thalimar said evenly, rubbing his temples, "I'd rather not have them showing up at our doorstep. Even then, we've got barely enough water to last us through the year. That troubles me." Dear gods, he thought to himself, I need a drink. It was like managing children. Arrogant, smug, unempathetic children.
There was a low hum, and the entire room turned to watch a food elemental whirr past. They had given them the run of the Institute - they went where they pleased, mostly unconcerned with whatever happened, periodically lashing out at anything they considered a threat - luckily, that last category didn't include the residents. One of them, Thalimar remembered with a chuckle, still had a hand embedded in it - Foromir had reached in to snatch an apple, and had watched it taken away, ripped clean off, along with the rest of the food in it. Thalimar wondered if it was possible to get it out, and study the forces that animated it... perhaps if you lopped off Foromir's other hand, and initiated a sympathetic resonant connection, and swapped their places... no, now was not the time. He'd sort that out later - Eudamon was speaking.
"...perhaps, a way to ensure a font of water for several hundred people," he was saying.
"Unlikely," Ulysson cut in. "The cost in thaums energy would be immense. We're talking nearly 120 gigaThaums here. It would be a decade before we could summon up that much energy."
"
There issssss... one way," a voice hissed from the wall. Seoror the Unclean disengaged from it, his ebony black cloak billowing around him - despite the lack of wind. Against the light his skin was a clammy pallor, and the shadows clung to him as he spoke. "
The sssorceriessss that man wassss not meant to wot of... The forbidden artsssss... blood majyk."
"Seoror, literally half of us practice blood magic. Hell, Eudamon sacrifices a random pretty much annually," Thalimar said. "I dunno why you keep acting like it's forbidden."
"
Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!" Seoror hissed. "
You do not understand its true power!" He wrapped his cloak around him, and fled into the night. The effect was spoiled slightly when he tripped over his cloak on the stairs, but they watched him go anyway. There was an awkward silence.
"What I want to know is," Ulysson said, breaking it, "how do you pronounce a y?"
Thalimar shrugged.
"He's got a point. There's no other way to get the thaumic energy we need," one of the Wizards said.
Thalimar's eyes alighted on the map again. He grinned wickedly. "Oh, I know a way. Eudamon, break out that book you talked about. We're about to use it." Eudamon's eyes lit up. "No, we're not about to sacrifice the grad students," Thalimar said, heading him off. "Alright, maybe a few. But I know
exactly where we can find 120 gigathaums."
