With all the confidence of the rich, powerful, and uncaring, Theobald Ripspell pushed the door of the Barfing Minotaur open with a crash that nearly shattered the heavy wooden door on the half-stone wall it came to rest on. Whirling at the sudden, loud noise, Willow Stouthammer watched as the tall, robed figure entered her family's tavern confidently before he began to speak.
"Madam," he began before immediately being cut off by the now furious Elven woman.
"Who do you think you are to come in here and nearly break my property?" she demanded, not noticing the smaller figure following after the rude Human that had just forced himself into the tavern. "I don't care if you're the King Martin himself resurrected! You do not slam my doors in my home! Am I clear?!"
Taken aback at the angry woman's shouting, Theobald blinked at her dumbly, prompting her to speak again as she approached the man and came nose to nose with him.
"Am I clear?" her hissed demand sounded in his ears as he gazed into her blazing, hazel eyes.
"Crystal," he said, hoping his voice wasn't quavering at the fury the much smaller woman had shown. "I offer my apologies for my actions."
"Accepted," Willow said, trying not to spit the words at the man. "Why are you here?"
"I'm sorry, Miss Willow," Pear finally spoke up, grabbing her attention with his words. "We're here for me and I tried to keep him from barging in like that, but he was already pushing the door open as I spoke."
"You," Willow said, turning back to Ripspell, "you will make sure my door isn't broken. Now."
"Right away, Madam," Ripspell nodded before turning to the door and carefully examining it as the Elf woman turned to his Elven apprentice with a critical eye.
"If you're trying to intimidate me into giving you your staff back then you're going to have to pick a better way to do it, or do it yourself," she told him coldly.
"That's not what we're here for, honest," Pear said, trying to salvage the situation and what small, friendly relationship he might have had with the woman. "Master Ripspell insisted on getting my staff back before he took me wherever we're going and he wouldn't just give me the money to do it myself. I was trying to slow him down enough so that he wouldn't do something like that, but I guess I didn't do a good enough job.
"Clearly," the glowering woman said to the all but cowering young man. "What did you say his name was?"
"Theobald Ripspell, at your service," the wizard introduced himself. "Might I ask your name?"
Both of them still facing toward Pear, who nodded at the woman, Ripspell didn't see the Elf's face move through several emotions before settling itself on shock and no small amount of fear.
"Ah," she said, hoping the quaver she heard in her voice was her imagination. "How might I help you, Sir Ripspell?"
"My new apprentice told me that he offered his staff as collateral in place of payment for a tavern debt," Ripspell said easily. "I was hoping to offer a different item as collateral until he earns the necessary money to pay you back. Is this acceptable."
"It is," Willow nodded. "Provided the item offered is equal to or exceeds the cost of the staff in question."
"Would this ring suffice?" Ripspell asked as he offered a gold band studded with small emeralds around its circumference to her.
Carefully holding her face in a mask of neutrality, Willow turned and examined the ring carefully before speaking.
"It will do," she said, beginning to make her way through the scattered tables and benches toward the door that lead behind the counter. "Provided that you don't want to just pay the debt yourself."
"My apprentice put himself into this position and he will get himself out of it or find himself in debt to me for a sum equaling five Silver," Ripspell told the Elven woman.
"Even if his debt isn't more than a single Iron and two Copper?" she asked as she pushed through the door and disappeared into a back room.
"One Iron and two Copper?" Ripspell turned toward Pear curiously. "Why didn't you tell me that before?"
"I did," Pear sighed wearily. "A lot of times. You didn't listen to me."
"Hmm, this will be much easier on my wallet than I expected," Ripspell said as flicked the ring into his fist and caused it to disappear before reaching for his coin purse. "I suppose you will now owe me the Iron and two Coppers, rather than that lovely woman."
"Fine," Pear said, trying not to sigh again, "just please don't scare anyone else whenever we're doing stuff like this."
"I cannot make such a promise," Ripspell told him as Willow entered the room again with Pear's staff.
"Here it is," she said, offering the gnarled oaken wood to Ripspell. "Will you still be offering an item in its place?"
"Cold coin, now that I know how much it is, actually," Ripspell said, offering a single Bronze to the woman. "If you would also be so kind as to prepare a traveler's lunch for two, I would be most appreciative."
"Wine or water?" Willow asked, accepting the coin. "Fruit and bread or meat and cheese? Another combination?"
"Two servings each of meat, fruit, and bread," Ripspell said easily. "And one skin of wine and one of water."
"Just a moment then," Willow said as she passed Pear on her way back toward the room she'd come from with Pear's staff. As Pear stood there waiting for the Elven woman to return, he watched as Ripspell carefully studied the staff from one end to the other before the taller man snorted and passed it to him.
"I hope you didn't make that garbage yourself," Ripspell told him. "If you had, then I would need to teach you the finer points of magical crafting so that you don't embarrass either of us as you carry that around."
"It was one of the things I started with," Pear said, feeling oddly defensive of his wooden staff. "I know it's bad, but it's all I have."
"You 'started' with it?" Ripspell asked, rolling the word as he spoke. "Are you a Last Star?"
"What's a 'Last Star?'" Pear asked.
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"Last Stars are what we call the folk sent to our world by beings that even the Divines of the three Pantheons must answer to," Ripspell said. "The term was coined by the words of one of the first of their number. It is said that after he sealed our Plane from the Faerealm, Abyss, and Hells, he spoke these words to the Divines as they gathered before him. 'When peril threatens the people of Astrana, others like me will come to their aid. Always and forever. Until even the last of the stars have burned from the skies and the only light left is that offered by those sent from those beyond you Divines.' Since then, we have called those people Last Stars in remembrance of his words that promise light from those brought to us from beyond our gods' purview. Not all of those we call Last Stars have offered safety and shelter to our people, but all of them have ignited hope and light for all of Astrana to see. Even when they appear among us and fight each other with no regard for the rest of us."
"Those people," Ripspell continued, taking a seat on a bench as he faced Pear, "the Last Stars, appear to us as members of our people, though many of them move as though they do not know their bodies. And all of them move without immediate care for our histories and our cultures. It can be jarring to our people, but it is something we have come to accept."
"Okay," Pear said. "I guess, knowing that now, I am a Last Star. There's a lot of us running around Astrana now. Some of us are choosing sides from the Pantheons and others are planning to conquer whatever they can for themselves. Some are just planning to have fun and play around."
"And you?" Ripspell asked, his storm gray eyes piercing into Pear's soul as he gazed at him sternly. "What do you hope to accomplish whilst you are here in Astrana?"
"I want to learn as much magic as I can," Pear said honestly, meeting that piercing gaze with his own blue and gold one. "There's no magic where we come from and I've always wanted to witness it myself. All we have are stories and artwork, things we've imagined for ourselves, but I don't want to limit myself to that being the extent of how I experience it. I want to move oceans with a wave of my hand, raise mountains from flat plains, send storms careening through the world. I want to play with fire and watch it dance with me. I want magic."
"Those sorts of words are the type that create the best spellflingers," Ripspell said to him. "The path you want to walk is one that you have barely set your foot upon and, lucky you, it's the right foot. With me as your teacher, I will teach you to manipulate darkness and light with the same ease as a master musician. You will learn to weave life and death with all the artistry of a master tailor. Your paints will be the elements themselves and your canvas the world. But it will be difficult. This is your only opportunity to turn away from this. Accept what I am offering you or deny it and know that it will be the last we speak of it forevermore."
"I'm in," Pear said before he could think long about what the man was saying. "I want to learn it all."
"The first thing to learn," Ripspell said sagely as he led Pear deeper into the forest, a picnic basket tucked in the crook of his elbow, "is your limits. And the limits of what your spells can do. Watch that tree root."
The warning came just a hair late as Pear stumbled over the root and fell, groaning to the ground. Ripspell continued walking with all the practiced ease and grace of a man that regularly moved over wilderness areas, still speaking.
"Your spells will do exactly what they always do, regardless of your creativity with their use," he said, raising his voice slightly as he moved further from Pear while he pulled himself to his feet and hurried after the man. "The spell Missile for example, will only send a small dart of magic toward a target. But what is a target? The answer is that a target is whatever you're aiming at. A monster's eye, a sturdy rope, a loose rock, so long as you're actively targeting the object, Missile will accept it as the point to strike and will fly gleefully toward it. Should something intercept Missile on its path, it will be blocked. How do you remedy this?"
"I guess you send a lot of Missiles out and use the chaos of all of them to hide the true target," Pear said as he stumbled over a rock in his haste to catch up to Ripspell.
"Another perfect answer," Ripspell praised him. "One of the greatest things about the Missile Spell is that it has no limit to the amount of darts that can be sent or the amount of targets that can be chosen. It, like all novice Force spells, is capable of being cast over and over without waiting more than you need to choose a new target. Additionally, with a bit of effort, you can use the spell to target more than one area. It's an advanced use of the spell, but it is something that can be done. Should the first area be guarded while the spell is still in flight, then it will alter its course to send itself into another target. Understand?"
"I can cast Missile almost forever and I can eventually control it to go after more than one target," Pear said.
"Yes," Ripspell said, a note of happiness in his voice as he stepped beyond the trees into a clearing with a herd of deer grazing peacefully in the center. "And we've arrived."
"What are we doing?" Pear asked nervously as he eyed the deer uneasily.
"You will be attempting to kill ten of these White Horned Deer," Ripspell told him as he reached into his basket and removed a checkered cloth that he spread upon the ground. "To learn your limits, you will fight them alone and I won't tell you their weaknesses or strengths. That will be up to you to determine. Good luck, Apprentice."
Gazing nervously at the man that began to lounge happily on the cloth as he turned his face to the sun, Pear drew his wand and staff and prepared to step toward the deer. Studying them, he watched as they grazed on the knee high grass, nibbling happily at a few strands before raising their heads and looking across the clearing for danger. When the first of them turned its eyes on Pear, he froze, hoping not to startle the herd. Contendly, the antlered beast chewed its grass before gazing around the rest of the clearing and dipping its head toward the ground again.
"It's just a deer," Pear told himself. "You can do this. It's just a deer. Think. What's the biggest danger with these? They have long legs and wide antlers. All of them. Are they all males? No, I don't think so. They're fast and they'll charge me so I need to be ready. Shield through the staff and Missile through the wand. I can do this."
Lifting his wand higher at his side and planting his staff firmly into the ground, Pear cast his Shield spell attempting to push as much magic into it as he could from the start.
"Show resources," he muttered under his breath, forcing three colored bars to appear in the lower corner of his vision.
HP: 100%
SP: 63%
MP: 70%
"That should be enough MP for the shield," Pear told himself before raising his wand higher and pointing it toward the first deer he had chosen. "Missile!"
With a firm, low spoken word, Pear formed the dart of magic at the tip of his wand and watched it fly through the air at the White Horned Deer. A slight thud sounded throughout the clearing as the deer swept its head from side to side and the dart impacted one of the horns without causing any damage to the creature. No damage, but it still pulled the beast's attention to snap upward and face toward Pear with eyes that suddenly glowed red.
"Shit!" Pear swore before casting again and again. "Missile! Missile! Missile!"
As the three glowing darts flew across the clearing, the deer let out a snort and lowered its head toward Pear before charging toward him, ignoring the magic darts flying through the air toward it. As the first of the newest Missiles impacted the deer's antlers and again caused no damage, Pear belatedly remembered his third spell which he hoped might be helpful in this situation.
"Bind!" he cast, flicking his wand toward the charging deer's legs.
With speed he couldn't follow, magical ropes bound the deer's legs, sending the creature crashing heavily into the ground with an impact that was harsh enough to cause a snap to ring out three times as two of the deer's legs broke and the momentum and packed earth broke the creature's neck.
"Wonderful," Ripspell said from behind Pear. "Let's take a moment to retrieve your prize and its bounty. As well as discuss anything you might have learned."
Nodding to the man behind him, Pear began to approach the creature while looking toward his resource bars he'd asked for.
HP: 100%
SP: 63%
MP: 58%
"I'm going to be at this for a while," he muttered to himself unhappily as he gripped the dead deer's front hooves and began to drag the creature back toward Ripspell. "And I'm not looking forward to what's coming next."