Hello! I invite anyone to have a bit of writing fun .
Harax: “Master, where did magic come from?”
Tytalus: “My boy, I don’t know. Work it out for yourself.”
Harax: “But I heard from Tremere that Bonisagus invented magic as we know it.”
Tytalus: “Tremere!? Bonisagus!? Boy, don’t listen to that cunning old dog. Fine, I’d better tell you what I know. Sit down and shut up.
No-one knows where magic started, though some magi think it’s this or it’s that, it’s the old gods or the new God or whatever. Truth is no-one knows, they just think they’re on to something that feels right. Much like people believe in this God.
Harax: “Master! Blasphemy! Our priest says that speaking against God is a great crime, punishable by…”
Tytalus: “Yes, yes, a thousand burning snakes in my eyes and all the other places too. I’ve heard that fat pompous churchman yammer on more than once. Now, I said sit down and shut it and I’ll tell you what I know.
In about 462 AD, in Palermo, the wizard Triceritus Magnus pretended to grow mightily offended when his apprentice questioned him before the audience about all of his powers, calling him a fake. Triceritus, who mostly used magic to fool mundane folk into believing they should give him money or else risk his frightening wrath argued in a voice filled with doom and despair even when the apprentice poked holes into his bad acting; to the audience’s general amusement.
Triceritus Magnus (A name Triceritus had made up years before on a whim) then summoned the spirits of the earth with the ancient bracelet he had won in a game of Hazard to come and rip his young apprentice into the earth. As expected, the stone hands reached up from the floor and seized the apprentice’s feet as the audience gasped. Even as Triceritus began his speech asking magnanimously for forgiveness and the apprentice began to beg for his very life, something happened off script.
The hands sucked the young apprentice into the earth; none were more stunned than Triceritus; his mystical bracelet had never done that before. But true to form he turned and demanded money from the audience who paid in full. He searched for his apprentice for about half an hour, saying half remembered mystical words to coax the spirits who did not come. He eventually gave up and moved on to the next town.
Harax: “Master, that doesn’t sound anything at all like… Arrrmmm!”
Tytalus: “I said shut it. Now your lips are bound together. If you apologise I’ll undo it.
Harax: “mmmmrrrrmmm!”
Tytalus: “Didn’t catch that. Anyway. To continue from where I was rudely interrupted…
Unlike his fallible master, the apprentice was sucked right under the earth and found himself deep at the bottom of an ancient roman well. Using the one magic his master had actually known (little to the apprentices disappointment of the ‘Master Wizard’ he had signed on with) he created a little light with a prayer to Helios, similar to the one we even use now. Looking around, he found himself not just in a well, but an ancient series of rooms with dozens of scrolls and tablets from the Cult of Mercury, a Roman cult of magi that were rumoured to have more power than the Emperor himself whom Caligula had executed.
The young man began to study his true passion; magic. At that time, being a wizard was quite dangerous, much more so than now; wizards are jealous creatures that horde power at the best of times, and before the Parma there was almost no chance that spells would fail to work. So he went off and searched the ancient places of the world for magic, for that first storehouse of the Mercurians had some notes in it; evidence that a magical defense was not only possible, but wizards had already found it!
As it always is with wizards of the time the young man learned so much he wasn’t so young anymore and the few times people had tried to fight him it hadn’t gone well. But he was good Christian and tried not to kill, though I daresay he raided more than a few wizards for their magical trinkets. I mean, just because something is in the past doesn’t mean things were rosy. You have to understand we were like animals back then.
…I’m sorry, I digress. The young man found this idea and eventually he came to the cave in the Alps. No-one is sure why, particularly, but I suspect Criamon knew something about the place, likely powerful in magic. So the young man disappeared for some years and the rumours about this master wizard got worse.
Harax: “Aarrrrgh. Worse? And this story isn’t right at all, I heard it was much later. Are you lying again?”
Tytalus: “Well done, boy. You managed to stay silent for at least a diameter. I’ll have to think of how to do this for longer periods of time. It’s relaxing. You being quiet when I’m telling the truth, that is.”
Harax: “…”
Tytalus: “Excellent. Now.
So there’s all these rumours and this fairly attractive young witch, with wonderful tracts of land in Thessaly and a serious penchant for snakes and being tied down has a dream about our now aging man. It’s somewhere about 530 or so by now, and a young man named Tytalus and his brother Wolfie are suckling from a fetid breast in Normandy and having a miserable time…
Harax: “I could care less, master. What of the actual story?”
Tytalus: …Well, this rather amazing young woman with three nipples called Trianoma –
Harax: “What!?”
Tytalus: “Oh yes. It’s actually more common than you might think. I studied it, you see, along with the other two…”
Harax: “Master, I can’t believe you can say this in Durenmar of all places. You’ll get a challenge to war! You know Flambeau is itching to show he’s superior to you in battle. And what if Mistress Trianoma comes over?”
Tytalus: “Ah, he won’t do anything, he’s all wind. And just you think about those nipples whenever you see her, my boy.
Harax: “Gross.”
Tytalus: “Exactly. But also amazing.”
Harax: “I mean you’re disgusting. How did I end up with you as my master?
Tytalus: “Good luck.
Anyway, Trianoma has this dream and starts travelling about with her bitch of a sister. She hates the Romans, the man is roman, blah blah blah, dragon, blah blah blah, they end up fighting and the man beats her and her sister because he’s got the Parma now. He ties them up to Trianoma’s endless pleasure and because he’s who he is he can’t help start teaching everything he knows like a complete idiot. The rest you probably can work out. Trianoma comes to meet us, Wolf boy and I eat Guorna the Fetid and steal her power, Criamon hugs himself and mutters a lot, Flambeau starts screaming “Join or Die!” whenever he tries to meet new people. You should go and try and be his friend, Harax, he really needs help.
Harax: “Why don’t you call him Bonisagus?”
Tytalus: “Who?”
Harax: “The man you keep mentioning who discovered the Parma.”
Tytalus: “Did I say the man who was Triceritus apprentice was Bonisagus?”
Harax: “Er… no… wait, what?”
Tytalus: “It’s the bells for Tribunal. Time to go.”
- Lies of Tytalus to the Apprentice Harax the Doomed, 15 of 3412.