"Ugh my head. What did I do last night?" I opened my eyes and saw that I was in a medium sized wooden room with Trindus, Mested and Christa all sprawled over the ground, unconscious while I was laying on a yellow, woolen couch. A couple meters across from me was a table that had unfinished plates of food and open bottles of booze. There were also many more bottles all over the floor, staining it with alcohol that had spilled out of them. All of this however, was inconsequential to the head splitting migraine I was having.
"Had your night of fun eh?" Eeuna said suddenly.
"Night of fun? I don't know what you- oh wait I remember now." That's right, after we liberated the town the people of Elquarith decided to hold a huge part in celebration of their new freedom. Celrith, the young mage who betrayed his allies yesterday, and is the reason we are alive today used his magic to conjure food, tobacco and of course, alcohol. I chose not to drink at first but due to peer pressure from my allies, I drank. Then I thought "hey, this isn't so bad." So I drank. And drank... and drank.
"Then I hope you remember how much of a fool you acted like! I did not think someone as bright as you could act so stupid!" Eeuna lectured me. One side effect of drinking alcohol is that it makes it easier for mages to use magic. Alcohol is a depressant which slows your thinking, making it easier to focus and thus easier to cast spells (It is for this reason why many mages are also alcoholics). That goes out the metaphorical window if you're too wasted to make rational decisions. I set flammable objects alight, summoned tornadoes and took part in many other shenanigans. I can see why Eeuna is so mad right now, I really did act like an idiot.
"Remembering last night is making my hangover worse. And so are you." I mumbled.
"I could say the same to you! Do you think you're the only one who can feel that hangover of yours? I'm living in your head and it's as irritating to me as it is to you! Do you think it was fun for me, watching you act like a retarded, headless kobold!?" Yeah that settles it. From now on I'm not drinking a drop of alcohol. I hate feeling out of control and I also hate getting an earful from Eeuna. "Now get up. You do at least remember you have a meeting to attend to right?"
Oh yeah, there was supposed to be a strategy meeting with Mathra, the former knights and a few others. As it currently stands, this resistance of ours is pathetically small so it's vital for us to prepare ourselves for when we have to face the count's vastly superior forces. The circumstances aren't favourable, but we planned to kill the count with only 6. Now we have an entire town at our disposal. That's got to account for something. "Right, right. I'll get up." I groaned as I got myself of the couch with great effort and I tried not to step on the three sleeping knights as I walked out the door
"The only reason you're here and not in a grave is because my lord wills it. But rest assured that if you make one suspicious move then I will not hesitate to-" It was Ralith's voice, and it sounded like he was threatening someone. I haven't known him for long but he seems the kind of person who would do all sorts of dirty work for his lord.
"Morning" I came into the same old basement where I originally met Ralith and the others. There were 7 chairs positioned around the counter, which had a map of Thele with a knife staked through it to keep it in place. Mathra sat in a chair facing me with the dignified pose of a noble, Ralith sat to the right of him with his hands firmly on the counter and opposite to both of them was Celrith, the turncoat cultist who was looking Ralith in the eye. The cultist in question had chestnut hair and pointy ears.
"You're late. I assume the knights are late as well" Ralith said with a cold yet judgeful voice.
"That's right."
"I see. It's no matter, we have time. I just hope the count doesn't take us by surprise" Ralith's voice still felt as if he was weighing my every word on an invisible scale.
"Come now Ralith, we only won a day ago, it will take some time for news of our victory to reach even the nearest town of Ilonleena and even then it's a day's march from there to here. Oh and please, take a seat Sorace."
I took the seat on Mathra's left and Ralith spoke "Even still we cannot afford to waste time, or to underestimate the capabilities of the count's mages."
"If time's such an issue then maybe we can start the meeting without Trindus, Mested and Christa? " I suggested
"At this rate that might be our only option, it's already midday. *sigh* Alright then, if you could do the honours, Sorace" Ralith said
"Oh ok" I cleared my throat " Uh I now pronounce this strategy meeting to begin. Everyone, please clap"I'm not sure why I said that but it seemed like the appropriate thing to say. Everyone in the room including me applauded and when the applause died down we continued.
"Our first and most pressing concern is manpower." Ralith said "As of now we have only a little over a hundred men. The closest town from here has double that number and Gualmalon, our ultimate destination has 500 troops guarding it including their several mages."
"Our goal is to kill Count Ilhalis so that Mathra can take his place right? We could appeal to the royal family for troops. I hear they're nice folk." Celrith proposed.
"Out of the question. The royal family has made it abundantly clear that they want no part our struggles. Even if we did try to appeal to the royal family do you think they'd listen to a ragtag team like us?" Ralith said
I butted in "If reinforcements are out of the question we'll just have to defeat the count with what we've got. To do that we'll have to take out Ilonleena or else we'll be flanked when we go for Gualmalon." The rest of the meeting went back and forth between us like that. We spoke of everything from food to strategy.
"And with that, I declare this meeting over" Ralith said, just as the three knights walked into the room. They seemed confused when everyone else left.
YOU ARE READING
Chronicles of a Mage, Book One
FantasíaAbout a year and a half ago as of when this story is being uploaded I had the random inspiration to start writing a book. At first I only wrote for fun but now I realize that there's no reason not to share my stories with the world. Granted, this wa...
