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The rain fell in what seemed like sheets, its torrents battering the top deck of the ship as equally strong winds buffeted wildly against both port and starboard. It seemed no matter what the intrepid sailors standing upon the deck did, the weather was fighting against them just as bitterly as any combatant.
“Fynn, secure the hold!” an order was barked out, to which a white-haired mage immediately sprung into action.
Accustom to floating, the violent seas had only served to set them that much more unbalanced, as the ship rocked to and fro. Bracing themselves against the magically-reinforced bannisters, they had only one thought on their mind: Wynn.
Wynn, you see, was their son, and he was barely four years old. It was the first time he’d been taken out on any sort of ship. A right of passage, almost, to go visit the child’s mother, Ursa, in the wildlands that sprawled over the Fremennik homelands.
Real Romeo-and-Juliet relationship, that one. Forbidden. Filled with passion. Markedly less corpses by the end, though.
Regardless, it having been Wynn’s first time out at the sea, Fynn had thought it might be a nice time to try stretching his magical powers. Wynn was young, still, but he was around the age where the Lunar Clan’s latent connection to the runescape would manifest.
Under Fynn’s watchful eye, he helped to construct the protection charms that had been scattered about the boat – The charms that should’ve protected them from the bad weather…
So just what in V’s name was going on, that they were failing!?
Fynn, rapidly flinging his hands around in a semi-fluid motion, didn’t much care anymore. Sabotage, of course, had crossed his mind, but his foremost concern was finding Wynn.
Crates rocked unsteadily, even the ropes that had previously been taut against them seemed to have found some slack. Forcing them down telekinetically, Fynn continued his duties, the entire time keeping a lookout for his darling son.
Straining his powers, trying to amplify his hearing, he could just about make out the sounds of Wynn crying out for him, towards the back of the ship.
Racing towards the stern of the ship, he could just about make out the tiny silhouette of his white-haired son…
Right as an absolutely gargantuan wave crashed against the ship, nearly submerging them. Coughing and spluttering, feeling like he’d swallowed an entire bathtub of seawater, Fynn sprang to where Wynn had last been.
But it was too late. He was… gone.
“Wynn!” he cried out in anguish, forcing as much of the rain and wind out of the path of his sight as he could. He stopped just short of jumping into the water, in his frenzied state.
Several continents away, however…
Meanwhile, elsewhere on Gielinor, in a place that looked suspiciously like either Falador or Draynor depending on which universe one currently inhabited, an old man sat on a weathered chair whilst he fiddled with a puzzle-cube. He’d not been having much success, as evidenced by the discontented look drawn upon his face, and his growing urge to smoke. “Oh, Gods damn it…” he grumbled to himself.
Dressed simply, he would look simply like any other traveler or passerby, should one of those nosey adventures who thought they owned the world come barging into his more-than-humble abode… again. Maybe the most inquisitive among them would notice the strange hue of his clothing, but dismiss it as nothing more than strange fashion sense. That was the point, of course.
Anonymity through obscurity.
Having dashed down his puzzle-box on a nearby table in frustration, he withdrew a small pipe from within his cloak and began to pack its bowl with a blend of herbs enjoyable to naught but him. To most everyone else, it smelled positively foul – most would rather spend an entire day with a camel fed nothing but infernal hot sauce then spend time nearby this stench. He’d be lying if he stated it didn’t bring him a small amount of joy to see people turn tail as soon as they could.
Yet again, this was good for him, anyway. It kept people from looking too hard at him.
It was quite an odd-looking pipe; the treated wood seeming to shimmer and waver despite not moving at all. A neat trick for most things made of magic wood, to those who knew. Seemed that this was what forty years of dedicated service was rewarded with. Too bad that was he reward with the now well-used pipe near fifty years ago.
Oh well.
Perhaps he’d be pleasantly surprised for his centennial year of service. Then again, likely not. Why break tradition, after all?
Tamping the herbs tightly into bowl with his thumb, he proceeded to strike a fire rune against the side of the pipe, the flames danced and flickered in his eyes as the concoction began to burn – its heady aroma reaching his nostrils before taking even the first puff. Having slowly wrapped his lips around the well-chewed stem, he took his first puff as he settled back into his chair once more.
Casting an annoyed glance once more at the puzzle box, he considered what he should do next. He was beginning to feel the itch again, after all. A small, if not incessant reminder of the job he held. Eventually just like all itches, it would have to be scratched. He typically preferred to deal with it in the now, rather than later. Continuing to puff on his pipe, the smoke began to fill his tiny room as he reflected.
Just what was this itch?
Well, to inconvenience adventurers, of course! They’d always been his number one annoyance.
They all thought they were so high and mighty, tramping about the world like it was their divine right. Invading people’s homes, committing wonton murder, stealing people’s life savings out from under them, littering anywhere and everywhere, like others didn’t work hard to maintain the natural beauty of the world. Not to mention, every single calamity that befell the world seemed to have one of them directly at the center. They just couldn’t leave well enough alone.
Therefore, hundreds of years ago, a small group of magically gifted and mostly immortal beings got together, and decided to strike back in the only way they knew how – petty revenge. A demon with a penchant for military training, or a dragon with a desire to have at least one student pass their course, all shapes and sizes of random distractions had gathered and begun their work.
This group had come to be known as Righteously Annoyed (and) Numerously Discontented (and) Ornery Mass (that) Ecstatically Vexes Explorers Now, Tomorrow, Sempiternal… Which was immediately agreed upon as being far too wordy and much to say, quickly becoming known instead as “RANDOM EVENTS”.
He was one of the more recent additions to the crew, after some older jobs had been… “retired”. None of them had been bad at their jobs, per se, but…
It just wasn’t as satisfying to watch an adventurer get cleaved into the river or run away from an angry tree as it was to watch them lose their mind having to help Leo sort out his graves for the hundredth time, or be forced to participate in a quiz show, it had been decided. Plus, the insurance premium from Harold was just something they couldn’t keep up with, it’d just gotten to be too bloody much. That was when he was brought into the fold.
During his mortal life, he’d been somewhat of an inventor, and practitioner of magical arts that the Wizard’s Tower had claimed were “useless”, and “dangerous”, and that he needed to “stop sending these papers, we’re not going to publish them”. Bah, what did they know?
Though he had little report and fairly limited success, he had managed to invent two things which quickly got him inducted – Firstly, he’d managed to find his way to a pocket dimension of sprawling mazes, which changed every time someone went into it, and took absolute ages to get to the center to leave! Secondly, he’d found a way into a dimension where a mime was able to force someone to copy them correctly, in front of what seemed to be three heavenly deities, or else they couldn’t leave! It had been just what RANDOM EVENTS was looking for when the old guard was retiring, and he quickly found a contract to sign on his desk after his interview.
The only thing he could say he didn’t quite like was being stripped of his name. How come Flippa and Tilt, or Leo, or Molly and her evil sister got to keep his names, but he was forever more to be known as “The Mysterious Old Man”? It wasn’t a problem, it just annoyed him.
It was a fairly standard job otherwise, he supposed. His mind finally clearing from his reflection period, as well as his pipe having burned down all of the herbs that he’d so skillfully packed inside it, he let out a contented sigh.
Perhaps it was time to do his job.
Stowing his pipe inside his cloak once more, he drew up his hood and fluffed out his beard. Reaching into the depths of his mind for his next unfortunate target, he quickly found himself with a name:
Wynn. A strange name, but then again, he once had the displeasure of meeting “1337CowKiller”, who had, in fact, killed all of his cows. What kind of parent put numbers in their child’s name, anyway?!
It was a shame he never got a mental image of those he was sent to harass. It was always “in next year’s research budget”, something he’d been hearing for the past sixty years.
Then, a location popped into his mind as well:
The Fremennik Woods. He couldn’t help but let out a silent string of curses.
How he despised those woods. It was cold, and blustery, and miserable, and those damn rock crabs never kept well enough away from him. Plus, the last time any of those Fremennik clans had seen him, they tried to string him up by his arms for the crime of using magic or something. He’d just teleported away, of course, but still.
With any luck, he’d be able to pop in, annoy this adventurer, and pop back to this blasted puzzle-box that had confounded him for weeks.
With a thought and a puff of magic, he disappeared from his home, and reappeared in front of his target. He could immediately feel the cold whip of the Fremennik air lash at his skin, and he was already eager to be back home.
“Wynn! Would you like to solve a maze for me – “he trailed off, expecting to see someone at roughly his eye-level once the smoke had cleared. What he saw next was a first for him…