The Book of Warlock

The Book of Warlock 13. Rules and Regulations.

A flash of blue. A short, sharp rumble of shockwave as a portal opened, connecting two points of time and space. This world was an old one, a forgotten one. A useless one. Nothing here was worth investigating, nor collecting. Its large, single sun sat in the sky, steadily getting darker with the aeons it had shone. In less than a million years it would begin its dying process. Two crescent moons huddled together in the reaches of the far heavens. With no rings around this planet and nothing of note in the immediate constellations it would be no great loss when its star burned up and it was gone.

The Senior Mage leading the trio of distant travellers frowned. He'd have rather not been involved with this, but it was he who had reluctantly accepted Lucinder's application for the job post, so it would be he who gave her the inevitable bad news that she had failed her work trial spectacularly.

The women always did. Give them a tough task, and they fell to pieces. But it was good PR, offering jobs to the girls, and the mutants, and the idiots from the Job Centre that they had agreed they would take a quota from. The Council of Sorcerer's was a vast and ancient institution with a proud and noble history. Least they could do was give uneducated citizens the unwanted jobs like cleaning and cooking. It wouldn't do to waste magick on such menial tasks as those.

This Lucinder lass had managed to gain enough academic kudos to actually apply for an Inner Circle post, and they'd all been rather worried that she'd actually prove herself competent, and they'd have a tough time wiggling their way out of turning her down.

She'd been gone nearly two days now on her mission to get the Tri-Corn Horn Sceptre back, and from their careful tracking back in the Institute on their world, they'd seen she'd found it almost immediately. The magic signal surrounding her location was immense. It was anyone's guess why she hadn't immediately been in touch with them, or returned to them to deliver it. They'd expected the rat to have put up some sort of fight that she'd need to call back-up for because she couldn't handle it, or for the nasty old dusty world to have made a mess of her outfit, causing her to run back home. Disappointingly she had done neither, as they were easy excuses to be rid of her. Instead she'd just hung around for seemingly no good reason.

They most certainly didn't want to spend a minute longer here than they must!

The MagiMeter beeped. The signal pulsed on the screen. Lucinder was just ahead, through the trees.

They trod heavily, stomping through the dirt, bending branches with a flick of their fingers. They didn't have to justify any use of magick. They were in charge. The pearlescent orbs on their carry staffs had enough of the stuff to last them until the next quarter review, and then some.

Still, one eye on the sky, eh, here be dragons and all that.

Only there were no dragons in the sky here, instead they saw a wide, burning rift. A rip in the fabric of reality. No kind of magick they knew of would have been able to do that. Good job they weren't hanging around long enough to worry about it...

Lucinder stood on her own, by the tracks they'd all been following. The rat's army's refuse was scattered around her, hoof prints lay in the mud. Her official white robes, hemmed with bronze thread, were splattered with filth. Her lovely locks were showing signs of dullness from lack of 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner, and her eyes were tinged with redness from trying to sleep in an unfamiliar setting. Her Skecher pumps were now an unfashionable shade of brown.

She watched her superiors approaching and flashed them a confident smile. Or what she hoped was a confident smile, anyway.

"Ah, here's our little lady!"

Her smile faltered. Why did old human men in positions of power have to be so UGH?! She had no reply to that which wasn't going to get her in trouble.

"Well?" The Senior Mage looked around and gestured. "Where is it?"