“Emmaline!!!”


There were wizards and then there were wizards, Emmaline Von Morgenstern thought with a sigh. Albrect Wallenstein, or Albrect the Magnificent as he preferred to style himself, was in the second category. 


“Get up here girl!” he roared again. Emmaline carefully added a sprinkling of iron filings to the potion she had bubbling on the alembic, then read the spidery looking words from the open spellbook, all but dislocating her jaw in the process. The golden shimmer of Charmon rushed up around her and the glassware rattled alarmingly, the greenish fluid in the glass vessel turned distinctly blue and the glass frosted over. Emmaline finished the incantation in something closer to a yelp and slammed the book shut. The glassware settled down and the fluid gained something like the color the book suggested it would. Emmaline gave it a skeptical glance, unused to such apparent success.

“Emmaline, get that plump ass of yours up here!” Albrecht yelled. Sighing, Emmaline headed up the stairs, deliberately taking her time just to spite the old fool. Like many senior magisters of the Gold Order, Albrect lived in one of the many interconnected towers which overlooked the Reik. Such towers were reserved for the most senior of the Gold Wizards and how Albrecht had inveigled himself one did not bear thinking about.  Probably won it at cards, Emmaline thought sourly as she climbed the spiraling stairs. She passed the library with its floor to ceiling book shelves and comfortable chairs, then passed Albrecht's dusty and unused laboratory, much larger and better stocked than the small laboratory she was permitted to use. Finally she reached the top level where Albrect made his lair. It was a single open chamber dominated by a massive fireplace flanked by more book shelves. A large four poster bed stood opposite the fireplace, alongside a large copper tub with intricately carved claw feet. Albect was in an overstuffed chair by the window, a book in his lap and a peevish look on his face.


“What took you so long,” Albrecht grumped. He was an old man, although as with many wizards this was at least partially an affectation. Bald and liver spotted he made up for his lack of hair with a rather magnificent beard of a white so snowy Emmaline doubted it was natural. He was a big man, probably muscular in his youth though long since gone to seed, and his face had a wisdom and nobility it certainly didnt deserve. Emmaline had seen him rouster all night with high priced courtesans, and outdrink the most veteran blades of Altdorf’s Street of a Thousand taverns. He was a born deceiver and the most dissolute man Emmaline had ever met. Those shared attributes probably went a way towards explaining why Albrecht had selected the then eighteen year old Emmaline Von Morganstern to be his apprentice. Well her name hadn’t been Von Morganstern then. Albrecht had entered it that way in the College records to make her sound more noble than her lowly background would suggest. Like the Tower, the fact that he had secured her as an apprentice was something of a wonder. Emmaline was possessed of great beauty, with a heart shaped face and plump full lips. Her blue eyes, blond hair, and almost overly generous curves, she might have served as the picture of Reikish beauty.  It had been the despair of her parents when her considerable magical abilities had manifested and their hopes for a rich marriage had been comprehensively scotched.  It was the looks rather than magical talent which had attracted Albrecht who had immediately began a comprehensive education in the arts of debauchery and petty swindles which separated many a noble from his coin. Of magical education there was little, save for the occasional drunken lecture on the nature of Charmon and access to an extensive collection of spellbooks.


“I was in the basement working on potions,” Emmaline responded defensively. Albrecht grunted and made a dismissive gesture.


“Make sure you don’t set anything on fire,” the elder wizard said with evident disinterest. 

“Take this to the Magisterium, it needs to be filled with the Master of Scribes,” Albrecht instructed, gesturing to a series of scrolls on a marble side table. Emmaline’s face lit up and Albrect rolled his eyes.

“I suppose you may enjoy the festivities after you are done,” he grumped.


[i]...Apprentice Emmaline Von MOrganstern has made only modest progress owing to her youth and inexperience. While she possesses considerable strength my attempts to help her improve her control have not yet borne fruit. Her frequent breaches of curfew are part of her rebellious nature which has not yet been corrected by my strenuous attempts to impose discipline…[/i]


It went on in that vein. Emmaline pouted as she read Albrecht’s rather unflattering report on her progress. Once she had returned to her room off the library, it had been the work of a second to unseal her master’s scroll with a hot knife. She muttered a spell and waved her hand, dissolving the ink with ease. Ironically it was one of the few spells Albrecht had bothered to teach her, a useful trick for the various frauds he committed. Emmaline took a quill and ink from her desk and penned herself a rather more glowing testimonial in an exact duplicate of her master’s hand. Once that was done she resealed the scroll and headed out, winding her way through the series of laboratories, foundries, and alchemical halls which formed the grounds of the Gold College.


The Magesterium was a riot of activity. It was rare to see apprentices, even of a single college, gathered in any numbers but Pie Week was an exception. Acolytes, apprentices, even master wizards were eating and drinking. In theory spells were discouraged, but here and there apprentices couldn’t help showing off. Emmaline watched enraptured as a young pyromancer set his drink on fire with the tip of his finger, another young woman with wild hair, snapped her fingers and convinced a rat to dance. Nor was her own arrival unremarked, two apprentices of the College of Light collided with each other in their enthusiasm not to take their eyes from the young Gold Apprentice, prompting laughter from an older sorceress in the purple robes of the Amethyst College. Emmaline snatched up a goblet of white wine from one of the tables and tossed it off in a single swallow. She tucked her forged papers into her pouch and took up a plate which she promptly piled with ham, pickles, cheese, and fruit. Turning she bumped into another apprentice, the collision knocked the plate from her hand and food flew into the air. With a desperate swipe she managed to catch everything except an apple in a precarious tower on her plate. The newcomer neatly snatched the apple out of the air and rather insouciantly took a bite of it, the ripe fruit crunching.

“Hello.”