Graf
Explorer
Just so I have it up somewhere.
[sblock=Mirna's Background]No one in town was particularly happy to see the robed woman come to town one frigid winter night all those years ago. The shimmering runes on her robe were trouble. But the half-elf was frightfully pregnant and dragging along a half frozen young daughter and the worst winter storm of the year was blowing down on the town. So they put her up in the old stable house among the horses. That night saw strange, ominous signs in the sky and around the barn.
It had been a difficult winter already; Norsten and half of the men of the village had traveled out along the road to get a wagon train filled with essential supplies back to the town and been trapped in the heavy snows.
Phillian had struck down a visiting warlock a few weeks back, with a blast that leveled part of the inn. Twenty witnesses had seen the elf blow a man (and part of a building) away with a flick of his finger and sharp word. No one wanted to be the one to wake him. (The townsfolk as a whole have a poor appreciation for how little elves sleep).
Nobody wanted to get involved. Nobody wanted to travel to Phillian's tower in the storm to ask him what to do.
Morning came and the woman was found dead. She'd arranged hay around her daughter in a circle of funny little marks that gave off an unnatural warmth. She'd apparently collapsed from exhaustion and died before she could complete the second circle around herself.
Her child, showing traces of elf in her face, exhausted from the travel, slept peacefully the whole night .
This was magic obviously, and one of the stable boys was sent for the elf. He arranged for a quick burial but could find no-one to take the girl. Lacking Norsten's ability to cajole the townsfolk (they feared him, but they feared the trouble of taking in some strange part-elf witch-girl more) he was forced to take the girl back to his tower.
It was a terrible bother at first. She wouldn't sleep at night unless he sung to her in elvin (even then she was obviously bright and spoke both languages with facility) and spent the day roving through his carefully organized tower like an imp doused in holy water. Research had to be put on hold, rules had to be explained (three times).
Still, Oakspine was not an elf to be trifled with, and by the time that Norsten had gotten the caravan back to the town a few weeks later something like order prevailed over the tower. The girl's knew her name was Mirna (which, improbably came from the elvin word for "dutiful") but at a few years old she understood little more about herself.
The girl was fostered off, of course, once the winter abated. Once Norsten assured people that they'd receive rations from the town storehouse in exchange for taking in the girl many families were happy to oblige. And no-one thought any good would come from having the girl stay with scary old Oakspine (including Oakspine himself of course -- he had research to attend to.)
No one, that is, except Mirna.
It was around this time the town developed the saying "dutiful in elvin" which would, for years, be applied to any situation where something was supposed to be one thing but was really it's opposite. The girl was uncontrollable. She refused to speak common. She pretended not to understand common. If she was outside she wanted to be inside, if she was locked up she'd get out as soon as someone looked away. Skinny and "only a pound heavier than a cat" children twice her age soon feared her teeth (and her habit of extracting revenge at a later date). She seemed to delight in havoc, most famously when she let out 20 pigs and rode around for almost a minute on the fattest one laughing with glee.
And each night, no matter how she was locked up, the girl would manage to get away to Oakspine's tower.
After he caught her dangling from the second window of his house Oakspine took to simply leaving his front door unlocked with a magical light and a bundle of sleeping furs. He explained that "My research isn't disrupted this way, and I don't have to worry about finding some frozen body under my bushes in the morning".
Soon he was leaving hard boiled eggs and bread for morning meal before he went to sleep for the night. "Keeps her from banging about in the morning and disrupting my trance."
Then cheese. "She'll dig it out anyway."
For her part Mirna was as mindful of the elf as she was insolent toward everyone else. She kept his rules, followed his instructions and even stopped fighting (more or less) with the other children. She only obeyed the letter of those things, not the spirit - but Phillian had no problem crafting airtight rules and debating them with great facility in common and elvin - so the effect was much the same.
It was fairly obvious to everyone what had to happen. Mirna got her own little room - a nook really - under the stairway in the entryway to Phillian's little tower. Phillian's food was already made for him and brought by a nearby family, so it the amount was simply increased slightly. The girl finally started to put on weight (Rule: All food is to be eaten before you leave the table.)
And peace descended upon Evenfall again.
In the tower peace was too strong a word. Rules requiring the consumption of all vegetables brought to the table seemed to coincide with a disappearance of spinach from the delivery box. The discovery of a mound of rotting spinach in the cellar led to increased security surrounding the delivery of food. And so forth. Phillian laid rules with the same focus that he applied toward crafting a magical circle and enforced them with the same rigidity.
The girl had terrible night frights, necessitating a regular nightly pause in research so that Phillian could sing her to sleep.
When she was bored (which was all the time) the girl roved the house. Everything that didn't have a lock had to be warded shut. Interesting looking containers that were warded shut seemed to mysteriously fall from heights and break open. After a little dwarven iron box Phillian kept on his bedstand mysteriously fell from the third story window (it didn't open, but it did have a large dent) Phillian embarked on a desperate course of action.
Aware that humans develop more quickly than elves but unaware of the details Phillian taught the girl to read. Not that he had proper books for children. Phillian simply started on "simple" history texts. Never mind that most of the townsfolk couldn't read something that complex. They were the simplest he had and Phillian made do.
This necessitated a whole new set of rules (To cut down on the constant questions all new words had to be looked up in three different appropriate reference works).
The definition of appropriate reference was debated exhaustively (the cookbook didn't count, nor the book of heraldry). But eventually the flood of questions trickled down to a stream. And from Phillian's standpoint intellectual challenges weren't challenges at all. His house was quiet, the girl was suddenly imminently trackable (she was wherever he left her, surrounded by a mound of books).
Meals were attended promptly and over quickly -- Phillian allowed no reading at the table, if anything he had to struggle to get the girl to chew properly, but the elf over a decade would ultimately prevail and basic table manners would be absorbed (Phillian 's idea of "basic" table manners being rather more developed than a common person's).
When they did speak the girl was vastly more interesting (from Phillian's standpoint); occasionally she'd even say something insightful. Oakspine found a dinner companion fluent in elvin, even a child, to be somewhat more agreeable to dining alone. He had little opportunity to use even an iota of his vast knowledge during his regular life, it was pleasant to revisit various historical periods and areas in light conversation.
When it got out that the six year old was reading elvin and common her reputation as some sort of strange witch-child was secured.
When Phillian looks back over that four year period he recalls it quite blissfully. His tower was quiet, Mirna was, if not dutiful, then at least not troublesome. His research was finally back on track.
The problems started around her tenth year.
Phillian's library was modest and while he lovingly collected them over the years he freely admitted that no matter how good a book was it could only be read so many times before growing a bit repetitive. Phillian had magical books of course, and various pieces of contraband seized from troublemakers over the years but those were locked away (and in fact never mentioned to the girl -- though she would eventually divine that he had a stash of contraband books the powerful wards denied her access for many years).
So new books were acquired. And devoured.
Around this time Norsten, mindful of the fact that his elvin associate had a tenuous grasp on how quickly time passed for humans, innocently suggested that the girl ought to develop some sort of "useful skill" for her marriage.
After a somewhat pointed discussion about what skills were and were not useful it was agreed that, at the very least, the girl ought to be able to clean things.
Up until this point Phillian had used a cantrips to keep the place in order, but he agreed that he had no idea what humans expected but that Norsten probably did and he presumed that, lacking facility with even the most basic magics, humans would probably clean things and that, if Norsten said that human males expected women to clean things then he probably was right.
Teaching Mirna to clean proved troublesome... Phillian had no idea how to actually do so himself (he understood it involved impliments like brooms and so forth of course, but he'd never done it himself and had no idea how to). Neither did Norsten, who was too busy teach a girl how to clean in any case. Attempts to arrange for someone to teach Mirna were ... politely rebuffed (it was allowed the witch-girl behaved tolerably well under Oakspine's supervision, but none of the townsfolk had any illusions about her tractability -- or any desire to spend time with her in the elvin wizards tower).
Having Mirna learn-by-trying lead to a series of disasters. After spending 30 minutes knee deep in water in the cellar debating whether or not it was cleaner than before ("the water absorbs dust BEFORE it lands" the girl argued). Phillian finally dealt with the situation the only way he knew how. He taught the girl prestidigitation, the cantrip he used for cleaning.
The girl absorbed it with the same rapidity she learned everything else.
Soon the tower was spotless and quiet. Phillian could not have been more pleased. He resolved to simply deal with things like this in the future.
Rumors that the which-child was summoning things to do her housework circulated, started by the boy who delivered the food, and who certainly had no magic to allow him to avoid his housework. Norsten quietly despaired. But it was very difficult to reproach Phillian. For starters he wasn't "teaching the girl spells, they're can-trips. It's barely magic at all."
To this day Phillian can't really recall exactly why he wound up teaching the girl mage hand. He'd agreed in the middle of some crucial calculations, and handn't been paying full attention. Not to teach her, per se, just to just show her how it worked; but when he did that she'd picked up the basics of it so quickly that she could soon cast a crude version. Phillian's innate dislike of leaving things "half done" as well as an awareness of the sort of destruction someone with a poorly controlled mage hand cantrip could inflict caused him to finish it off.
Even Phillian admits teaching her ghost sound was not a good idea. But he was at a very sensitive stage of his research, it was the dead of winter, the shipment of books he'd been counting on to tide him through the winter had been delayed by gnoll attack, the sweet yam shortage meant that even with his considerable position in the town he hadn't managed to secure any of Mirna's favorite treat and she'd honestly seemed so sincere.
How was he supposed to know that it wasn't actually true that "human children my age love to imitate animal calls".
And the tower had become so blissfully quiet after he taught her. For the first time in years Mirna was leaving during the day. Sometimes she's stay out all day and into the evenings... Perhaps she was finally making friends and being accepted by the townspeople. Reports of odd happenings always went up in winter, townsfolk staying in doors had more opportunities to work themselves into a fright over nothing. So if that particularly year there seemed to be more and more of them... how was Phillian to know they was something amiss?
He even continued to hold out hope when he heard that the Loghods scarecrow had apparently animated, fired of gouts of green mist from it's eyes, announced it was "Rhixallithen's avatar" and demanded a third of Loghods the sweet yam crop as tribute.
"It could be fey," suggested Norsten diplomatically (or so the guard who was with him says when he tells the story). "Some sort of sweet yam loving fairy perhaps?"
That hope was dashed upon the discovery that Mirna's little nook under the stairway was filled, floor to ceiling, with sweet yams. When the full truth of the avatar scam came to light (no less than 7 assuredly non-possessed animals, scarecrows and spooky looking rock formations had apparently presented themselves to townsfolk who were known for their superstitious natures, succeeding in at least five cases to get the person to bring at least a few sweet yams in tribute) Phillian was forced to take action.
A warded room was created where Mirna was compelled to stay unless she had business elsewhere. Mirna was forced to learn the light cantrip while maintaining prestidigitation and mage hand; effectively forcing her to forget ghost sound (ghost sound being, in Phillian's reckoning, the key component in demanding things without revealing one's identity -- no one is going to be scared of a little girls voice).
Regular demonstrations of facility with all three cantrips were required and much greater efforts were spent implanting morality, ownership and property rights in the girl. Culminating in a massive paper she wrote isolating the key concepts in three different cultures (human, elvin and dragon) which Mirna was forced to read in the public square. Phillian spent a good six months helping the girl and thought the whole thing was rather well done. In fact was confident the girl would be forgiven. He was secretly quite proud of how quickly the girl was mastering draconic. Surely the town would accept her now.
Norsten never really found a way to articulate to the elf that the sight of a twelve year girl reading fluently in three languages from an arcane and complex treatise on property rights was not going to help with the girl's acceptance.
It seemed, to Phillian at least, that the girls behavior was improved significantly by the ordeal. Partially as a result of her maturation she was growing into a pleasant (if slightly acerbic) conversationalist.
Nor was this the end of strange happenings. First there was the "whispering cave" (which revealed secrets but only if you told it secrets first), then the "monster in the pond that was eating livestock" (it left behind peculiar giant claw marks in the mud -- the livestock was later found tied up in the woods), then the "exhortations of the holy statue" (when a particularly naive and pious young lady was encouraged to speak gibberish during religious ceremonies by a statue of the sun god that spoke to her only when she was alone).
In each case it was hard to ignore the fact that the event in question shared certain characteristics. It was overtly supernatural, wildly improbable and seemed to abate or resolve itself instantly upon Phillian's appearance on the scene. Mirna naturally had air-tight alibis during all of the occurrences.
There was much muttering in the town, but in each case it was true that the person who had been tricked had been foolish.
Norsten was not about to encourage witch hunts without solid proof, no real harm had been done and at any rate, he didn't like the idea of trying to put the girl on trial. If the town had given the girls mother shelter when she first arrived then the woman would probably have lived and the girl would have left the town the next day. He had confidence that Phillian would reign the girl in, or she'd grow up eventually.
Between watching Mirna more closely and the spate of reported supernatural occurrences Phillian found his research time impeded, going into her fourteenth winter. His little tower was crammed with books and some sort of re-organization needed to happen. So he grudgingly agreed to allow Mirna to take care of the reorganization. He was barely surprised when it was suggested that some of his contraband books, the books he'd seized from troublemakers and spell casters who'd come to Evenfall and gotten into trouble, would stored in an impressively solid-looking cabinet near her little nook. A cabinet with a weak back that could be easily pulled back and replaced by cunning little hands.
Conveniently, from Phillian's point of view, contained within the contraband were many books that illiterate and spooked townsfolk had turned over to him over the years, but were of no threat to anyone. His love of writing forced him to hang onto them, for their original owners obviously cared little for them, but they were totally harmless and a tremendous waste of space.
He took the chance to get it out of his workspace with relish.
Mirna was devastated to discover that there wasn't a single book of dark magic, or even gray magic, or even any writing about magic at all in the cabinet. Bored silly and stubborn she decided she was going to read every page until -something- salacious, or at least a little bit naughty, turned up.
Reading from a slim white volume on proper etiquette during social visits written by a woman named Lira l'Ranara a hundred and fifty years ago she made a discovery that would change her life. The book, which was suspiciously well maintained for it's age, reacted strongly to the application of cold immediately after heat . (She found this out after she tried to burn the book to see if it was as durable as it looked -- she found reading about etiquette to be excruciating -- and then dropping the hot thing on the ice block when it singed her fingers).
It turned out that Lady l'Ranara (the book was a combination diary and spellbook) had not actually been nearly so modest as one would have thought. Mirna was thrilled by the salacious details of the lady's various lovers and trysts and of the intrigue amongst the greatest magical clan of the northlands. However that emotion was dwarfed by what she felt about the contents of the second part of the book.
Spells.
Real ones.
Violently illegal, horribly damaging spells. The sort of spells that beautiful wizardesses from previous ages used to best their rivals and claim the hearts of the men they desired (Lady Lira l'Ranara was not one to sit around and let someone else, let alone a man, do things for her).
Heedless of how little need she actually had for spells that could rending her foes limb from limb or freeze them solid Mirna set out to transcribe the spells into a more useful form (quite an undertaking since the whole heating and cooling process revealed the lines only briefly and the arcane characters were tremendously complex). But a year of late nights and she was done. Then all she had to do was master them.
This... she discovered was vastly more difficult. So she turned to the only source of magical knowledge in town, the man she ate meals with.
Phillian reacted to his adopted daughter's renewed (and positively feverishly) interest in matters arcane with an understandable degree of wariness. But, it was honestly his favorite topic of conversation in the world, and he was hard pressed to give up the chance to have a proper discussion of the topic. Their evening chats extended long into the night and crossed many times over into practical application.
This was the source of no little concern to Norsten.
Not that he didn't like wizards. Per se.
But the idea of Mirna developing any sort of increased capacity for magic did not sit well with him. He'd assuaged the townsfolk more than a few times with assurances that the happenings, which couldn't be directly connected to her, were just pranks. The idea of Phillian's witch-girl knowing actual combat magic was troublesome.
But Phillian assured him that she had no spell book, without which it was simply impossible to learn spells. Even the greatest of wizards couldn't learn magic without their spellbooks. "Like riding a horse without a saddle" he explained. When Norsten pointed out that some people could ride horses without a saddles Phillian promptly explained that "it was certainly then the opposite of horse riding, because, the spellbook is an essential, necessary part of the education process. I still refer to my spell book every day in order to ensure I can call forth my greatest magics."
"So you don't need it for your less great magics now?"
"Well, no. But it takes years to reach that level of mastery."
As the years have dragged on, Norsten, in between governing the town, keeping the peace, trying to keep traffic flowing on the road and bandits off of it has glanced up to see the lights on in the dining room his elvin friend's tower late into the night and noted that years have passed since anything that seems like a prank has happened. That his men have found odd holds blasted in trees, areas of the forest burned clear by fire and strange pools of chilled water, with chunks of ice floating in them.
Phillian assures him that he has only two spell books and they are both kept in his most heavily warded and protected room in his tower, one that Mirna can assuredly not get into.
But even so Norsten has a bad feeling.[/sblock]
[sblock=Mirna's Background]No one in town was particularly happy to see the robed woman come to town one frigid winter night all those years ago. The shimmering runes on her robe were trouble. But the half-elf was frightfully pregnant and dragging along a half frozen young daughter and the worst winter storm of the year was blowing down on the town. So they put her up in the old stable house among the horses. That night saw strange, ominous signs in the sky and around the barn.
It had been a difficult winter already; Norsten and half of the men of the village had traveled out along the road to get a wagon train filled with essential supplies back to the town and been trapped in the heavy snows.
Phillian had struck down a visiting warlock a few weeks back, with a blast that leveled part of the inn. Twenty witnesses had seen the elf blow a man (and part of a building) away with a flick of his finger and sharp word. No one wanted to be the one to wake him. (The townsfolk as a whole have a poor appreciation for how little elves sleep).
Nobody wanted to get involved. Nobody wanted to travel to Phillian's tower in the storm to ask him what to do.
Morning came and the woman was found dead. She'd arranged hay around her daughter in a circle of funny little marks that gave off an unnatural warmth. She'd apparently collapsed from exhaustion and died before she could complete the second circle around herself.
Her child, showing traces of elf in her face, exhausted from the travel, slept peacefully the whole night .
This was magic obviously, and one of the stable boys was sent for the elf. He arranged for a quick burial but could find no-one to take the girl. Lacking Norsten's ability to cajole the townsfolk (they feared him, but they feared the trouble of taking in some strange part-elf witch-girl more) he was forced to take the girl back to his tower.
It was a terrible bother at first. She wouldn't sleep at night unless he sung to her in elvin (even then she was obviously bright and spoke both languages with facility) and spent the day roving through his carefully organized tower like an imp doused in holy water. Research had to be put on hold, rules had to be explained (three times).
Still, Oakspine was not an elf to be trifled with, and by the time that Norsten had gotten the caravan back to the town a few weeks later something like order prevailed over the tower. The girl's knew her name was Mirna (which, improbably came from the elvin word for "dutiful") but at a few years old she understood little more about herself.
The girl was fostered off, of course, once the winter abated. Once Norsten assured people that they'd receive rations from the town storehouse in exchange for taking in the girl many families were happy to oblige. And no-one thought any good would come from having the girl stay with scary old Oakspine (including Oakspine himself of course -- he had research to attend to.)
No one, that is, except Mirna.
It was around this time the town developed the saying "dutiful in elvin" which would, for years, be applied to any situation where something was supposed to be one thing but was really it's opposite. The girl was uncontrollable. She refused to speak common. She pretended not to understand common. If she was outside she wanted to be inside, if she was locked up she'd get out as soon as someone looked away. Skinny and "only a pound heavier than a cat" children twice her age soon feared her teeth (and her habit of extracting revenge at a later date). She seemed to delight in havoc, most famously when she let out 20 pigs and rode around for almost a minute on the fattest one laughing with glee.
And each night, no matter how she was locked up, the girl would manage to get away to Oakspine's tower.
After he caught her dangling from the second window of his house Oakspine took to simply leaving his front door unlocked with a magical light and a bundle of sleeping furs. He explained that "My research isn't disrupted this way, and I don't have to worry about finding some frozen body under my bushes in the morning".
Soon he was leaving hard boiled eggs and bread for morning meal before he went to sleep for the night. "Keeps her from banging about in the morning and disrupting my trance."
Then cheese. "She'll dig it out anyway."
For her part Mirna was as mindful of the elf as she was insolent toward everyone else. She kept his rules, followed his instructions and even stopped fighting (more or less) with the other children. She only obeyed the letter of those things, not the spirit - but Phillian had no problem crafting airtight rules and debating them with great facility in common and elvin - so the effect was much the same.
It was fairly obvious to everyone what had to happen. Mirna got her own little room - a nook really - under the stairway in the entryway to Phillian's little tower. Phillian's food was already made for him and brought by a nearby family, so it the amount was simply increased slightly. The girl finally started to put on weight (Rule: All food is to be eaten before you leave the table.)
And peace descended upon Evenfall again.
In the tower peace was too strong a word. Rules requiring the consumption of all vegetables brought to the table seemed to coincide with a disappearance of spinach from the delivery box. The discovery of a mound of rotting spinach in the cellar led to increased security surrounding the delivery of food. And so forth. Phillian laid rules with the same focus that he applied toward crafting a magical circle and enforced them with the same rigidity.
The girl had terrible night frights, necessitating a regular nightly pause in research so that Phillian could sing her to sleep.
When she was bored (which was all the time) the girl roved the house. Everything that didn't have a lock had to be warded shut. Interesting looking containers that were warded shut seemed to mysteriously fall from heights and break open. After a little dwarven iron box Phillian kept on his bedstand mysteriously fell from the third story window (it didn't open, but it did have a large dent) Phillian embarked on a desperate course of action.
Aware that humans develop more quickly than elves but unaware of the details Phillian taught the girl to read. Not that he had proper books for children. Phillian simply started on "simple" history texts. Never mind that most of the townsfolk couldn't read something that complex. They were the simplest he had and Phillian made do.
This necessitated a whole new set of rules (To cut down on the constant questions all new words had to be looked up in three different appropriate reference works).
The definition of appropriate reference was debated exhaustively (the cookbook didn't count, nor the book of heraldry). But eventually the flood of questions trickled down to a stream. And from Phillian's standpoint intellectual challenges weren't challenges at all. His house was quiet, the girl was suddenly imminently trackable (she was wherever he left her, surrounded by a mound of books).
Meals were attended promptly and over quickly -- Phillian allowed no reading at the table, if anything he had to struggle to get the girl to chew properly, but the elf over a decade would ultimately prevail and basic table manners would be absorbed (Phillian 's idea of "basic" table manners being rather more developed than a common person's).
When they did speak the girl was vastly more interesting (from Phillian's standpoint); occasionally she'd even say something insightful. Oakspine found a dinner companion fluent in elvin, even a child, to be somewhat more agreeable to dining alone. He had little opportunity to use even an iota of his vast knowledge during his regular life, it was pleasant to revisit various historical periods and areas in light conversation.
When it got out that the six year old was reading elvin and common her reputation as some sort of strange witch-child was secured.
When Phillian looks back over that four year period he recalls it quite blissfully. His tower was quiet, Mirna was, if not dutiful, then at least not troublesome. His research was finally back on track.
The problems started around her tenth year.
Phillian's library was modest and while he lovingly collected them over the years he freely admitted that no matter how good a book was it could only be read so many times before growing a bit repetitive. Phillian had magical books of course, and various pieces of contraband seized from troublemakers over the years but those were locked away (and in fact never mentioned to the girl -- though she would eventually divine that he had a stash of contraband books the powerful wards denied her access for many years).
So new books were acquired. And devoured.
Around this time Norsten, mindful of the fact that his elvin associate had a tenuous grasp on how quickly time passed for humans, innocently suggested that the girl ought to develop some sort of "useful skill" for her marriage.
After a somewhat pointed discussion about what skills were and were not useful it was agreed that, at the very least, the girl ought to be able to clean things.
Up until this point Phillian had used a cantrips to keep the place in order, but he agreed that he had no idea what humans expected but that Norsten probably did and he presumed that, lacking facility with even the most basic magics, humans would probably clean things and that, if Norsten said that human males expected women to clean things then he probably was right.
Teaching Mirna to clean proved troublesome... Phillian had no idea how to actually do so himself (he understood it involved impliments like brooms and so forth of course, but he'd never done it himself and had no idea how to). Neither did Norsten, who was too busy teach a girl how to clean in any case. Attempts to arrange for someone to teach Mirna were ... politely rebuffed (it was allowed the witch-girl behaved tolerably well under Oakspine's supervision, but none of the townsfolk had any illusions about her tractability -- or any desire to spend time with her in the elvin wizards tower).
Having Mirna learn-by-trying lead to a series of disasters. After spending 30 minutes knee deep in water in the cellar debating whether or not it was cleaner than before ("the water absorbs dust BEFORE it lands" the girl argued). Phillian finally dealt with the situation the only way he knew how. He taught the girl prestidigitation, the cantrip he used for cleaning.
The girl absorbed it with the same rapidity she learned everything else.
Soon the tower was spotless and quiet. Phillian could not have been more pleased. He resolved to simply deal with things like this in the future.
Rumors that the which-child was summoning things to do her housework circulated, started by the boy who delivered the food, and who certainly had no magic to allow him to avoid his housework. Norsten quietly despaired. But it was very difficult to reproach Phillian. For starters he wasn't "teaching the girl spells, they're can-trips. It's barely magic at all."
To this day Phillian can't really recall exactly why he wound up teaching the girl mage hand. He'd agreed in the middle of some crucial calculations, and handn't been paying full attention. Not to teach her, per se, just to just show her how it worked; but when he did that she'd picked up the basics of it so quickly that she could soon cast a crude version. Phillian's innate dislike of leaving things "half done" as well as an awareness of the sort of destruction someone with a poorly controlled mage hand cantrip could inflict caused him to finish it off.
Even Phillian admits teaching her ghost sound was not a good idea. But he was at a very sensitive stage of his research, it was the dead of winter, the shipment of books he'd been counting on to tide him through the winter had been delayed by gnoll attack, the sweet yam shortage meant that even with his considerable position in the town he hadn't managed to secure any of Mirna's favorite treat and she'd honestly seemed so sincere.
How was he supposed to know that it wasn't actually true that "human children my age love to imitate animal calls".
And the tower had become so blissfully quiet after he taught her. For the first time in years Mirna was leaving during the day. Sometimes she's stay out all day and into the evenings... Perhaps she was finally making friends and being accepted by the townspeople. Reports of odd happenings always went up in winter, townsfolk staying in doors had more opportunities to work themselves into a fright over nothing. So if that particularly year there seemed to be more and more of them... how was Phillian to know they was something amiss?
He even continued to hold out hope when he heard that the Loghods scarecrow had apparently animated, fired of gouts of green mist from it's eyes, announced it was "Rhixallithen's avatar" and demanded a third of Loghods the sweet yam crop as tribute.
"It could be fey," suggested Norsten diplomatically (or so the guard who was with him says when he tells the story). "Some sort of sweet yam loving fairy perhaps?"
That hope was dashed upon the discovery that Mirna's little nook under the stairway was filled, floor to ceiling, with sweet yams. When the full truth of the avatar scam came to light (no less than 7 assuredly non-possessed animals, scarecrows and spooky looking rock formations had apparently presented themselves to townsfolk who were known for their superstitious natures, succeeding in at least five cases to get the person to bring at least a few sweet yams in tribute) Phillian was forced to take action.
A warded room was created where Mirna was compelled to stay unless she had business elsewhere. Mirna was forced to learn the light cantrip while maintaining prestidigitation and mage hand; effectively forcing her to forget ghost sound (ghost sound being, in Phillian's reckoning, the key component in demanding things without revealing one's identity -- no one is going to be scared of a little girls voice).
Regular demonstrations of facility with all three cantrips were required and much greater efforts were spent implanting morality, ownership and property rights in the girl. Culminating in a massive paper she wrote isolating the key concepts in three different cultures (human, elvin and dragon) which Mirna was forced to read in the public square. Phillian spent a good six months helping the girl and thought the whole thing was rather well done. In fact was confident the girl would be forgiven. He was secretly quite proud of how quickly the girl was mastering draconic. Surely the town would accept her now.
Norsten never really found a way to articulate to the elf that the sight of a twelve year girl reading fluently in three languages from an arcane and complex treatise on property rights was not going to help with the girl's acceptance.
It seemed, to Phillian at least, that the girls behavior was improved significantly by the ordeal. Partially as a result of her maturation she was growing into a pleasant (if slightly acerbic) conversationalist.
Nor was this the end of strange happenings. First there was the "whispering cave" (which revealed secrets but only if you told it secrets first), then the "monster in the pond that was eating livestock" (it left behind peculiar giant claw marks in the mud -- the livestock was later found tied up in the woods), then the "exhortations of the holy statue" (when a particularly naive and pious young lady was encouraged to speak gibberish during religious ceremonies by a statue of the sun god that spoke to her only when she was alone).
In each case it was hard to ignore the fact that the event in question shared certain characteristics. It was overtly supernatural, wildly improbable and seemed to abate or resolve itself instantly upon Phillian's appearance on the scene. Mirna naturally had air-tight alibis during all of the occurrences.
There was much muttering in the town, but in each case it was true that the person who had been tricked had been foolish.
Norsten was not about to encourage witch hunts without solid proof, no real harm had been done and at any rate, he didn't like the idea of trying to put the girl on trial. If the town had given the girls mother shelter when she first arrived then the woman would probably have lived and the girl would have left the town the next day. He had confidence that Phillian would reign the girl in, or she'd grow up eventually.
Between watching Mirna more closely and the spate of reported supernatural occurrences Phillian found his research time impeded, going into her fourteenth winter. His little tower was crammed with books and some sort of re-organization needed to happen. So he grudgingly agreed to allow Mirna to take care of the reorganization. He was barely surprised when it was suggested that some of his contraband books, the books he'd seized from troublemakers and spell casters who'd come to Evenfall and gotten into trouble, would stored in an impressively solid-looking cabinet near her little nook. A cabinet with a weak back that could be easily pulled back and replaced by cunning little hands.
Conveniently, from Phillian's point of view, contained within the contraband were many books that illiterate and spooked townsfolk had turned over to him over the years, but were of no threat to anyone. His love of writing forced him to hang onto them, for their original owners obviously cared little for them, but they were totally harmless and a tremendous waste of space.
He took the chance to get it out of his workspace with relish.
Mirna was devastated to discover that there wasn't a single book of dark magic, or even gray magic, or even any writing about magic at all in the cabinet. Bored silly and stubborn she decided she was going to read every page until -something- salacious, or at least a little bit naughty, turned up.
Reading from a slim white volume on proper etiquette during social visits written by a woman named Lira l'Ranara a hundred and fifty years ago she made a discovery that would change her life. The book, which was suspiciously well maintained for it's age, reacted strongly to the application of cold immediately after heat . (She found this out after she tried to burn the book to see if it was as durable as it looked -- she found reading about etiquette to be excruciating -- and then dropping the hot thing on the ice block when it singed her fingers).
It turned out that Lady l'Ranara (the book was a combination diary and spellbook) had not actually been nearly so modest as one would have thought. Mirna was thrilled by the salacious details of the lady's various lovers and trysts and of the intrigue amongst the greatest magical clan of the northlands. However that emotion was dwarfed by what she felt about the contents of the second part of the book.
Spells.
Real ones.
Violently illegal, horribly damaging spells. The sort of spells that beautiful wizardesses from previous ages used to best their rivals and claim the hearts of the men they desired (Lady Lira l'Ranara was not one to sit around and let someone else, let alone a man, do things for her).
Heedless of how little need she actually had for spells that could rending her foes limb from limb or freeze them solid Mirna set out to transcribe the spells into a more useful form (quite an undertaking since the whole heating and cooling process revealed the lines only briefly and the arcane characters were tremendously complex). But a year of late nights and she was done. Then all she had to do was master them.
This... she discovered was vastly more difficult. So she turned to the only source of magical knowledge in town, the man she ate meals with.
Phillian reacted to his adopted daughter's renewed (and positively feverishly) interest in matters arcane with an understandable degree of wariness. But, it was honestly his favorite topic of conversation in the world, and he was hard pressed to give up the chance to have a proper discussion of the topic. Their evening chats extended long into the night and crossed many times over into practical application.
This was the source of no little concern to Norsten.
Not that he didn't like wizards. Per se.
But the idea of Mirna developing any sort of increased capacity for magic did not sit well with him. He'd assuaged the townsfolk more than a few times with assurances that the happenings, which couldn't be directly connected to her, were just pranks. The idea of Phillian's witch-girl knowing actual combat magic was troublesome.
But Phillian assured him that she had no spell book, without which it was simply impossible to learn spells. Even the greatest of wizards couldn't learn magic without their spellbooks. "Like riding a horse without a saddle" he explained. When Norsten pointed out that some people could ride horses without a saddles Phillian promptly explained that "it was certainly then the opposite of horse riding, because, the spellbook is an essential, necessary part of the education process. I still refer to my spell book every day in order to ensure I can call forth my greatest magics."
"So you don't need it for your less great magics now?"
"Well, no. But it takes years to reach that level of mastery."
As the years have dragged on, Norsten, in between governing the town, keeping the peace, trying to keep traffic flowing on the road and bandits off of it has glanced up to see the lights on in the dining room his elvin friend's tower late into the night and noted that years have passed since anything that seems like a prank has happened. That his men have found odd holds blasted in trees, areas of the forest burned clear by fire and strange pools of chilled water, with chunks of ice floating in them.
Phillian assures him that he has only two spell books and they are both kept in his most heavily warded and protected room in his tower, one that Mirna can assuredly not get into.
But even so Norsten has a bad feeling.[/sblock]
