Role

Chapter 5

Phindarn had to be honest.

His mother had got this one right. Artifice was amazing. Before they'd sat
down he'd been shown a brief demonstration. His mentor had pointed a wand
he'd apparently made at a target dummy, and the whole thing had been
engulfed in a fireball bigger than anything Phindarn had ever seen a mage
make on there own. The old guy definitely had his attention.

"What is the measure of a wand, young man?" asked the ancient artificer
Phindarn was working for. "What is the metric by which we determine its
value?"

Phindarn knew this one, but admittedly he was cheating. He'd heard it on
the training ground; what was the measure of a sword?

"What it can kill," he said proudly, much to his mentors chagrin.

"And a barrier wand, young man?"

Phindarn scratched his chin. Maybe...

"What it can help you kill?"

The mage sighed, pushing his spectacles up his nose. Phindarn resolved to
get some, they made you look like you knew what you were doing. "The metric
by which we measure the value of a device is by the potency of the affect
that it may exert upon the context in which it is used."

Phindarn nodded. That's what he'd said.

"Scrolls are simpler than wands," his new favourite person in the world
lectured. "Before you can run, you must walk, and before you can walk you
must crawl. Thus we shall begin with scrolls, and to begin with scrolls..."
He set a pen down next to a sheet of parchment in front of Phindarn. "We
shall work upon penmanship."

Phindarn winced.

Okay. Maybe this would have give and take.