Year: 5224

Clicking the heavy door open carefully, a small boy no older than seven squeezes into a large, cold room. He shivers as he steps inside, then turns around and closes it again, carefully. The sounds of bubbling could be heard throughout the chamber as small beakers and vials were shown stored on a worktable, some of them over miniscule flames.

Half-finished contraptions lay around on other tables, a marble statue partially carved stood in the far corner, and the beams crossing the ceiling of the room were littered with knives, hatchets and even a spatula embedded into them. Snoring peacefully and loudly among the partially completed projects was an older woman hunched over a worktable, a charcoal stylus in hand and a small stone slate in front of her covered in her drool. Her thin, grey hair hung lankly around her shoulders, her robes a stained, wrinkled mess.

The boy patters gently and quickly to the vast, open window. Grasping the two large shutters in his hands, he looks down to the streets far below, still filled with people celebrating the Festival of the Keeper. The festival was one that told the tale of an ancient wizard king that had brought peace and prosperity by raising the lands from below the sea, shaping them to be livable by all of mortal life.

The boy sighs, before drawing the shutters fully closed and latching them. He didn't know anything about kings or queens, he could barely deal with his taskmistress, let alone the Ring of the Eight that ran half the continent. His present was more important than the past.

'Damnable wizards...,' the boy grumbles. He'd had enough at this point, with their enchantments and research. Many of the wizards were clean, tidy and organized, keeping their lives set into place without issue.

But not his mistress, he thinks sourly. 'I just had to get a crazy one...' He patters back over to the fireplace, it's light soft and dying, the coals glowing cheerily. Taking a few pieces of wood, he places them carefully in the massive hearth, guiding the flames back to a roaring life. His hands and bare feet hurt as the warmth spread through them, and he basked in the radiance before the snoring caught his attention again. Mumbling, he steps lightly to his mistress and pats her on the back gently.

'Mistress....mistress, it's noon, it's time to wake. The moons are high in the sky, and the Council are calling all to the Grand Hall.' She sputters and snorts, her eyes flying open and looking around blearily. The left side of her face was covered in black charcoal print from the stone slate in front of her. It would have been comical, if it didn't mean that she was working on runes last night and could have blown apart the entire tower. The boy winces, cursing his luck and thanking all of the gods in the sky for letting them all live another day.

'Henri, what in blast...why is it so cold in here,' she yawns out, giving the boy an evil eye. 'You know how the cold makes my old bones hurt. At least I had enough sense to make sure the fire was going so well!' Henri says nothing to this, but he thought the vast annoyance was probably radiating from him like the heat from the large hearth. 'Ah, what was it you said? The Ring are calling? Don't they know how important my work is?!' The old woman continues to grumble while hopping off of the stool she had been sleeping on, her back cracking as she stood up straight with a groan. She walks over to the tall mirror next to the worktable to look at herself, wipes the charcoal off of her face and turns toward the door, hair still disheveled and robes wrenched all over.

'Well Henri, come along now, we'd best see what those old coots want from us,' she says in annoyance. Henri grabs a few scrolls, a portable ink pen and a wooden writing surface before hurrying after her, pulling the door closed behind him. The old woman strode quickly down the stony hallway, her shoes scuffing heavily against the solid floor, Henri hurrying after her. Those they passed would pointedly look away from the pair, and Henri couldn't blame them. Some of the older disciples whispered how what his mistress had was contagious, which was why their masters all stayed far away from her. It seemed as plausible of a reason as any other to him, so who was he to question their vastly broader expertise? He just hoped he wouldn't get it as bad as she had it.

The pair took various flights of stairs, going up, then down, straight across, back up, halfway down and then up again. The staircases never made any sense to him, and the insides of the buildings were far larger than what they seemed like outside. The pair finally got to a massive double door, and a panting Henri cried inside that they had finally made it and he could rest. Without breaking her stride, his mistress flicked her wrist and the doors creaked open heavily, the sound reverberating throughout the hall they were in.

Just beyond them was a massive central tower, connected by three different walkways from each of the eight towers surrounding the tower. The brisk air made Henri shiver again, the wind chilling him to the bone this time and making his teeth chatter quickly. The thin, grey robe disciples were given were hardly protective when it came to weather...or fights. His mistress looked askance at him with a blank look before placing a hand on his shoulder. Immediately his body felt suffused with heat, calming and wonderful, warming him to his core. He sighed with relief.

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Without looking back, his mistress strode quickly across the massive walkway toward the central tower. Henri chased after her quickly, doing his best to keep up with her long strides. He took quick glances over the side of the stone railing to the ground far, far below. He recalled what he had been taught in his mistress' lectures about the Ring of the Eight. There were eight towers, equidistantly encircling a central tower that housed a massive crystal called the Aether, which itself contained a swirling cloud of magical energy. Those who were placed on the Ring of the Eight's council were all masters who pledged themselves on the Aether crystal, binding their entire being with protecting the land it inhabited. The central tower was only accessible from the eight other towers by way of floating stone bridges, each on the top level of the towers. Each of the surrounding eight towers also connected to one another by way of five curved walkways, creating the famous Ring of the Eight.

While Henri ruminated about the towers, the central tower quickly got closer and before he knew it, the massive double doors like what they had left behind loomed far above him. These doors, however, were inlaid with runes, glyphs and symbols of power, the tracings themselves made from rainbow-colored *mirin*. He gulped heavily, knowing that to make each symbol, it probably cost the amount of a small kingdom, and there were dozens on these doors alone, with more doors on each floor and surrounding the tower.

Again, without breaking her stride his mistress flicked her wrist to the side and the doors creaked open heavily, the sound muted this time compared to the roaring of hundreds of voices in the Grand Hall. The tower was circular, and every inch of the walls was covered in desks to seat the multitudes of wizards, sorcerers, druids, alchemists, rune masters, and more that inhabited the entirety of the Ring of the Eight. The floors extended far below and far up past Henri and his mistress, the tower bowing outward from the center, having an almost spherical shape. The massive Aether crystal shone lazily with a translucent white, the white, cloudy chaos swirling inside it making the rest of it opaque. Threads the color of gold, silver, and brass constantly striated through the clouds like rivers on a map, before disappearing again, only to reform randomly. Just below the bottom of the crystal was a large, round table where the council would sit, the floor it sat on nearly completely see-through.

Henri's master only paused to look at the crystal, as all do, but clicked her tongue and walked toward the middle of the aisle they were at, then sat at the seat heavily, a strangely blank look on her face. Henri stood by her side, trying to be as still as a statue. Normally disciples weren't allowed into the Grand Hall, but he was an exception as his mistress would otherwise leave to get things and forget about the meetings entirely. However, he had only been in the Grand Hall once before, and had nearly passed out from locking his knees in place too hard and for too long, making him tumble downwards and nearly off the edge. He focused to avoid making the same, possibly deadly, mistake, the mental effort making him lightly sweat.

The roar of the multitude of voices were excruciatingly loud, some of them angry, others laughing, some speaking about local or world-wide politics, others complaining about what they had for breakfast. Henri could only pick out a few words here or there from just above his mistress' seat among the tumult.

'Have you heard, the Chancelor of Geromine surrendered to Villitov!' This from a guttural, croaking voice. Henri recognized it as the voice of a Di'vash.

'Indeed I have, Tul'kie. It seems the great cogs of the world are moving forward.' This time a gravely voice, probably from a mountain elf.

His mistress snapped her fingers to gain his attention, and he jumped slightly. 'Yes, mistress!', he exclaimed, looking in her direction.

She was staring forward at the ringed table in the middle of the hall, expressionless, as she crooked a finger to him. He leaned forward close, as she whispered in his ear.

'What do you see, Henri..?'

He looked at her in surprise and hesitation, then looked around. He took in the hundreds upon hundreds of faces in the hall. He recognized the different races, elves, dwarves, Di'vash, human. The colors and cut of their clothes were varied, each one different from the other. Some denoting loyalty to clans, or to studies. From regions of the known world to the unknown. But all of them had a strange air about them, as if they could smell something putrid underfoot. As Henri looked, he began to recognize the emotions of the people in the hall as ones much like bullies had when they knew the weak would follow their power.

He hesitated slightly, then leaned toward his mistress, whispering back. 'Mistress, these people...it feels like they're acting in a play...'

She glanced at him, a humorless smile curled upward. She grasped the back of his neck tightly, making him wince, and spoke so low into his ear that it seemed almost non-existent.

'And so they are, a play where they each think themselves the protaganist, when instead they're only the poor wretches whose backs are stepped upon by the talent...'

She released him, the pain of her fingers leaving red marks on the back of Henri's neck. He kept himself from rubbing the area, but stood back up and, finally looking away from his mistress, glanced around the hall.

Then who are the talent..., he thinks to himself.