Whizzfiddle understood that quests were tedious things, so starting off correctly was paramount. 

The problem was that Whizzfiddle had done so many over his years that he had grown bored with them. Doing magic was amazing, certainly, but the questing part of the gig was tiresome at best. There were too many details, they required tons of effort, and they took away time from life’s most important enterprise: relaxation. 

When it came to selecting quests, a wizard had to be choosy. Newer wizards grabbed after easier quests, as they were cheaper to hire, but established magic-doers tended to be a bit more cautious, carefully seeking different options with each new contract. After all, it was a rare wizard who wanted to be typecast.

Regardless, wizards were always in demand because there was a limited set of them. 

Magic was an easy thing to command, but a difficult thing to start. There were no grid lines or runes or things of that nature in the world of Ononokin, so in order to get into the profession, one had to dedicate time to finding their particular magical essence. It literally came down to locating the power source that fueled each hopeful sorcerer, and everyone was different. Some toiled for years, working as an apprentice to a seasoned wizard, only to meet the finality of life while having never successfully fired off even the simplest of spells.

Whizzfiddle had been one of the lucky few. He’d happened upon his magical source the day his father took him to the pub for his adulthood celebration. Prior to that evening, it looked as though he would inherit the family farm, carrying the name Lenny Flepp for all his days. But that night the booze ignited a sizzling augury that all but flipped his eyelids inside out. He’d taken on a new name, found a master, and toiled to learn the ins and outs of his new profession so that he could get to a place where toiling was no longer necessary. 

The beauty of each substance that became a wizard’s fuel was the balance that kept them from becoming too powerful. There was no such thing as a single wizard that could go on about casting grievous levels of magic. They either couldn’t get enough essence to manage it or they would overdose on it and become completely useless. If Whizzfiddle wanted to do a massive spell, for example, he’d have to drink a lot. That would make him drunk, which in turn would set his channeling into a slur of words, haphazard lightning bolts sizzling this way and that, and Whizzfiddle himself being chased by an agglomeration of bunny rabbits and geese. He never quite understood what caused the rabbits and geese.

And that was how the world managed to keep wizards from having too much potency.

Having alcohol as one’s magical essence was far better than what many wizards ended up with. One poor lad learned during a duel that his magical essence came from being stabbed in the heart. His wizarding life lasted only moments.  There was one lady living in Argan who had to hang from a tree limb with her right hand only. This made swinging her wand around somewhat clumsy since she wasn’t left-handed. 

Whizzfiddle recalled the day that his former apprentice uncovered his particular source. They were walking the fields when an obstinate ostrich of some size took to chasing Treneth around. Being less than an athlete, the young man was no match for the speedy bird. Whizzfiddle had yelled for Treneth to lie down before the beast smashed him. Treneth kept turning this way and that to avoid dropping to the earth. He was far too prim and proper to subjugate himself to such an act. But he was tiring and the bird began pecking at the back of his head. Finally, which he later insisted was due to a trip and not an intentional act, Treneth dropped and slid face down into a mixture of mud and ostrich feces. The concoction slipped under his fingernails and his power was born. Whizzfiddle still cringed at what his apprentice had done to that poor bird.

The elderly wizard sighed as he strolled through the town of Rangmoon toward Gilly’s Pub, his place of operation.

Gilly’s stood near the center of the bustling streets in his beloved city. It wasn’t much to look at. The roof shingles had been laid out in a haphazard pattern that made one wonder how many buckets were needed inside during a rainstorm. Most of the windows were either cracked, dulled, or both, and the frames were rotted. The siding had all but lost its most current painting, which, if Whizzfiddle’s eyes weren’t fooling him and his memory served, was a yellowish-reddish-bluish color. The building’s only redeeming quality was being situated between Furnitureland and the town’s clothier, A Hint of Moon, a shop known for its somewhat transparent garb. 

But Gilly’s had the finest ale in all of the land. To a wizard whose livelihood depended on liquor, fine ale was more important than looks.

The familiar stench of stew and soured booze filled the air as Whizzfiddle pushed through the main door of Gilly’s Pub and headed purposefully toward the back. 

He stopped at the decorative rail that bordered a lofted platform where a single table sat in the corner. It was Whizzfiddle’s table. Not just a favorite table. No, he had paid for it when the original pub had opened many generations of Gillys ago. It had cost him a good deal to ensure that the table would be cleared for him whenever he entered the establishment and he still paid a yearly fee to maintain that right. 

It had been quite a while since his last visit to Gilly’s. He only attended for quest-seeking, quest-preparation, and post-quest celebrations. 

A part of him wished he had selected a different pub for wizarding purposes. He much preferred Gilly’s ale to Libertin’s Tavern or the horrendously bad Cuts & Ale Depot, but those places had more pizazz.

He shrugged, rubbed his hands together, and stepped up into his “office.”

As was his custom, he knelt to take a look under the table. “Whizzfiddle was here” was engraved above the series of lines that indicated how many quests he had sought over the years. After getting to twenty-five he lost interest in the count and instead set about carving in a new line.

“Master Whizzfiddle, sir,” said a familiar voice.

Whizzfiddle peered up and gave a quick nod to the greasy-haired pub owner, then resumed his work under the table.

“‘Tis a right pleasure seeing you again,” Gilly said. “I was just tellin’ the wife not two days back how we’d not seen Master Whizzfiddle for quite a spell.”

Whizzfiddle held up a finger to convey he needed a moment. He heard Gilly grunt and then watched the man spin and storm off, his boots pounding the rickety wood floors with each step. 

Whizzfiddle paused his carving. He retraced the scene, unveiling that his attempt to convey pause had yet again failed.

It never ceased to amaze the elderly wizard how significantly one’s communicative intent was changed by holding up the wrong finger.