[Text post] Just another day in Rhyhan

I became an independent wizard about three years ago. I failed my graduation the first time and had to retake it, but on my retake, I ranked second in class. The Archiereus of Time said I just needed another six months of training to get my confidence up, but I think I was held back because I accidentally rewound the sentience of a golem back into being just a rock again. And the boy kissing. Shouldn’t’ve kissed that boy.

Since then, things have really changed around Rhyhan, the City on the Lake. I came here about seven years ago as an apprentice to my father and aunt, who are spellblades. The Silver Eye have been fighting with the other dominant mage guild, the Golden Eagle, for over a century or more now. All the Silver Eye does is hold rallies and meetings about the nature of magic as an ancient art. The Golden Eagle, meanwhile, got a contract from the castle to lay the glyphs for the next levies and architecture over the lake.

I got a job with the Christoff Weston Channelers, a partner company of Golden Eagle, right after receiving my certification. We laid gravel, mostly, using speed enhancement rune equipment and speed boosting potions. I quit six months in because of the controversy with the master wizard who was caught abusing change potions to change basically everything about himself/herself/themselves/itself. I literally have no idea what to call the former master wizard. He was recorded as having four genders, two hearts, three brains, two souls, and being part echidna when he was arrested.

It was around that time Rhyhan started getting weird. I never noticed it before, but I think the city has something magical about it inherently, which tells me there’s either a raw mana vein under the city or a lab that is spilling chemicals in the water. At night, orcs and goblins break into the city and wander around, acting like they own the place. They keep disappearing when sunlight shines on them, and some places have taken to conjuring traces of real sunlight over their properties, but it’s been reported that they just cease to exist in our reality when exposed to sunlight. They sort of intangibly keep going about their business until they reenter the darkness.

Also, the bands of adventurers who keep coming in here. They stop at the Dancing Dragon tavern to ask about monsters to hunt, and most of them either get ground into gristle or get humiliated. It’s mostly the vibe they carry I think. The really dour ones keep getting mutilated while the bubbly ones with all the sexy girls just keep getting thrown into the lake or having their clothes ripped off. You know I’d never seen a naked woman before I came to Rhyhan and these adventurers started getting slapped around? Dozens of moaning buxom women keep getting undressed and I’m frankly both disgusted and desensitized to it. If I want to look at a naked woman, I’ll buy a copy of Play Elf like any sensible person.

With the rise of creatures on the night, the Silver Eye keeps insisting that warding spells have stopped working, but most of us think they’re the ones summoning the goblins and such. Like, I have a new job where I routinely interact with wards, circles of safety, and barriers. The only ones that aren’t working are the ones the owners are turning off. Do you know how hard it is to turn the security spells on and off? You know you can’t turn off a security rune? They only buzz or make lights, but the only way to stop a security rune is to grind the thing off. (Well, there are other methods, but those are illegal.)

The headmaster over at Silver Eye went on NOX News over the orb network and said immigrants in the city brought the orcs and goblins, and that caused a big fuckin’ to-do at Castle Rhy. The count and the archmage had to have an entire conference with the nobility and the merchant federation head honchos about the hubbub the Silver Eye dude said over the orb. Now, half the guilds are taking sides about the whole thing. The downside of this is now there’s mob violence, a curfew, infighting between previously allied factions, and people sailing up Lake Rhy from the capital to try and make a quick buck off of people’s misfortune. The upside is I talked to my supervisor and got a 20% raise, and am being transferred to the Sun Warrior’s barracks to inscribe runes on their weapons and armor.

Rune inscription, can you believe it? I grew up carving runes for fun, and now I get to chisel them for the Sun Warrior’s of Castle Rhy? I can have their swords spewing fire and their armor healing their wounds in an afternoon—I’m a menace at runecutting. If I can impress the high champion of the Sun Warrior’s, I might be able to get a job inside the castle, itself.