The Book of Warlock

The Book of Warlock 7. Magic vs Magick.

Lucinder was just in time for a spot of lunch. The travelling party had been sipping tea and eating biscuits in the shade when she had been assaulted by those horrible gnoll creatures. The group was travelling light, by the looks of things, as they weren't carrying much in the way of luggage. Much the same as me, she thought. The goblin Lieutenant offered her a drink of tea in a pretty cup, poured from a large teapot. There was no fire to be seen as she glanced around. So, they'd magically made tea? That wouldn't have been allowed back home for a start. A wanton waste of precious Power.

Everybody here was rather curious, and no exceptions. She'd certainly never seen a real dragon before, and yet here was one wearing crude sunglasses, sat politely on a rock with his pinkie out as he delicately supped. She wondered where his treasure hoard was. All dragons collected something: gold, jewels, crystals, magical artefacts, weapons. People, even. The books back at the Polytechnic suggested they could shape shift and blend in with other races to keep themselves safe on their travels, but this guy was clearly reptilian and scaly and dragon-like. He even had his wings and tail showing.

The goblin Lieutenant lady was small and green and sprightly. She was currently drawing in the dirt with her dagger tip.

What a whimsical thing to do. "Is that the horse, er, Nightmare?" she asked her politely.

"Yep. It's alright, isn't it? I've always liked drawing. I suppose you can magic a picture and make it come to life?"

"No. No I don't think I can. If I wanted to draw a picture, I'd just use pencils and paper."

Brook looked disappointed. "And then you'd make it come to life?" she asked, hopefully.

Lucinder shook her head. "we only use magick for important things."

"Art is important."

"Really isn't. You can have a licence to make artistic decorations if you're so inclined, but only a few take that branch. In the society I'm from, magick is only used by those trained in arcane arts, and it's rationed out carefully. It's... not like that here, huh?"

General Warlock held his hand out and let his power flow through into a blue swirling sphere in his palm. "It's an organic element in this world. You can mine for it, hunt for it, you can extract it from magical creatures like dragons and unicorns, or use it straight from the source, like the horns of the mythical Tri-Horn."

"Ah," she said quickly, "but the Tri-Horn isn't a myth. I'm hunting a Sceptre that was stolen from our vaults that has the three horns in its grip. It has an uncommonly strong magickal potential, completely unregulated and totally illegal to use of course. It is said that just one scratch from it can kill a living entity instantly."

There was a hush.

"I know, right? Scary stuff," she frowned grimly.

The aardvarkian wild magick user guy was giving her an even more intense glare now. He was a bit scary, not least because he appeared to have an almost unlimited source of power and no discipline in its proper uses.

He pulled down the creased collar of his long red leather tunic and let her take in the black, spidery scar that sat there on his upper chest. "It is very scary stuff," he said flatly.

"Wait, what? That's... that's not from the Sceptre I'm looking for, right? Because you'd be dead. Like proper dead. You know? There's no coming back from that type of dead." Lucinder looked around at the others, but they just sat quietly. The horse grunted, loudly. It sounded like a snort of derision.

"If you survived a stab from a Tri-Horn, I would write a book on it, that's how impossible it is."

"And yet, he did," The Dragon smiled. "With a little help from myself, of course."