- Spoiler:
There’s no fair or unfair in battle.
( There is only victory or in your case, defeat. )
Now this seemed like a decent challenge for his mentee.
Vandrad had wandered down from his after-training shower, grabbed a quick meal and was now heading over to the job board, as was his usual routine. That game plan had changed drastically in the last few weeks with the addition of Magnus joining him in his early morning sessions. While Mercury was still present every other day, she was far less chipper and excited about it until she’d had her infusion of caffeine. The wild mage was far more thrilled to work out and train both his body and his magic, which made him the perfect student for the Prince of Bellum. He respected Magnus’ drive for power and desire to test himself against anyone -- hell, he’d challenged Nessa on his first day without so much as a second thought. And every morning he was there, willing to take blows and dish out attacks back at Vandrad.
But while training in the room was great, it only offered limited options. He likened himself to a creative teacher but he couldn’t account for every scenario or situation. In truth, he needed to do something outside of the training room with Magnus to truly understand his capabilities. A job was the perfect opportunity for such a thing but he needed the right one -- it couldn’t be something mindless or simple. He wanted a true challenge -- not just for himself but for the wild man as well.
He’d searched the board several times over the last couple of days for something to strike his fancy. So far, he had come up with nothing and had simply resorted to waiting until the right opportunity arose. As he wandered over to the board and took up position before it, his eyes lazily rolled across the manuscripts without much hope. But then a parchment caught his eye, Vandrad raising a brow as he leaned over to inspect it further. A man by the name of Arthur Fish, who was an elder for a village in the Mysterious Canyon, had sent out a notice about mysterious and alarming disappearances.
According to his account, a group of people had settled into the canyon without fanfare or notification to the rest of the villages. They kept to themselves, simply visiting the other villages so they could trade and purchase supplies. But shortly after that, villagers started disappearing in the middle of the night. It was highly suspected that the new neighbors had come to the villages under the guise of buying supplies so that they could scout out victims.
Their suspicions proved correct, as Arthur detailed that they had discovered this group to be a dark guild called Iron Corpse. Their intent, apparently, was to wake some kind of monstrosity that lived beneath the canyon by sacrificing human villagers. Woefully unprepared to face down neither dark mage or monster, they needed wizards to come and stop the dark mages from raising the creature from its slumber.
It was just the kind of excitement that could truly push Magnus’ abilities. With a smirk, he tore the paper down, claiming it as his own. When the wild man finally made it down to the guild hall, Vandrad would be there waiting for him. He shoved the paper towards him so that he could read it. "How do you feel about hunting some dark mages?”