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Hello, I am your DM Lillian Forest. It’s just me today so you get a nice lore story in a sort of audiobook form.
Persaea (Per-say-uh) stared Kubera (Koo-bear-uh) in the face. Kubera’s sharp jaw and short brown hair complimented the mischievous smirk she had on. His suit was tailored to fit her body perfectly.Her skin was shaded in ivory tones highlighted by the moon on his skin. His sharp, dark, copper eyes turned to look at Persaea. Her elbows rested on the metal railing of Persaea’s balcony.
“They aren’t telling us something,” Kubera said to Persaea.
“The main circle?”
The main circle. The gods who ran not just the parthen but a few other planes as well.
“Isn’t that the point?”
“Not exactly. They’re refusing to tell us something that’ll impact our lives more than normal.” Persaea put his own elbows on the railing, looking out over the city of Parthen. Bright lights from the houses and the streets lit up the ground.
Persaea’s eyes traced the spiral of the city to the middle, where the giant marble building sat. That was where the main circle met almost daily.
“We can’t really demand they tell us,” he said quietly.
Kubera gently put his hand on top of Persaea’s (hand, elbow). Persaea glanced at her, she seemed nervous. Persaea wouldn’t say anything. That’s not how they worked. They met up in the quiet of the night to talk and exchange looks. But being open was never the goal.
“I’m going to go looking,” Kubera breathed out with determination.
“Ku what does that mean?” Persaea asked, concern lacing across his face.
“It means if I’m not careful I’m gonna get in some trouble.”
“Really? Are you just going to sneak into the building and try to find paperwork? I’m sure Fate or Time will see it coming.”
“That’s the nice thing about Fate and Time being in charge of so many things. They only allow the inevitable. The fact I’ve gotten the information I have is a sign I’m at least going to get more.”
Persaea looked at Kubera, his eyebrows pulling into an anxious look.
“Oh don’t look at me like that,” she put her palm on Persaea’s face, laughing gently. “I’ll be careful, and you’ll be the first to know, okay.”
“Okay.” They both sat there leaning into each other's shoulders. The smell of incoming rain started blowing in from the west.
“Did you know that Kymomatsteia (Kim-oh-mats-stee-uh) brings the rain at around 11pm every Tuesday during the summer,” Persaea lifted up on his toes. He loved sharing the things he learned.
“I didn’t know that,” a gentle smile was on Kubera’s face.
As Persaea started to infodump about all the weather patterns he had picked up on, the rain started to drench them.
The two stepped back into Persaea’s study room, filled with loose papers and experiments.
“Damn I’m drenched.” Kubera avoided loose papers as she headed towards the supplies closet. He pulled out two towels and tossed one to Persaea.
“Why do you keep it so disorganized?” he asked, tousling his hair and then smoothing it back out with the towel.
“It’s not disorganized! It just looks like that. That stack is the destruction spells, and that one has all the transportation information. Dark MAgic only cataloged the dark spells, so I pretty much have to figure out where every magic spell goes, how it’s classified, what type of people use it most.” Persaea wiped off his blue hair, stepping over a stack. “It’s how my brain works.”
“If you say so,” she picked up a book, pretending to flip through it. “I gotta head out. Tezcalia (Tez-caw-lee-uh) is going to help me with my plan so I need to meet them to finalize the last details. I’ll see you later, nerd.”
“Be safe, I’ll see you soon Ku.” Kubera set the brown book into the wrong stack and walked towards the door, making Persaea cringe slightly, but he didn’t say anything.
Persaea sat holding the book Kubera had set down. An entire magic system. Somehow he had to get it organized. There were so many other types of magic, so how did he get stuck in one of the biggest rolls? The youngest of the Magics. He sat the book into the stack of illusion books picking up a small stack of papers. At the top of each list was the name of a god and what their magic is used for. It helped that he was finally finished with almost all of the lists. Feyide, goddess of ducks? Most common spells; shape water, plant growth, speak to animals, etc, etc. She goes in what would be labeled as the druid category. Hekalene (heck-uh-leen) had given him permission to take similar magics, categorize them, and label each category.
Druids were normal care-ers of plants, animals, and life in general, and most of their spells revolved around those things. There were so many spells created by people that he wondered if he would ever have them organized. Persaea spent a few more hours organizing before passing out on his desk.
The next few days were a blur for him. He’d forgotten that the Parthen Games had been going on, barely leaving his library other than for food. Or if Discordia got fed up with him, so he was relatively surprised when she showed up with a small gnome named Bonk. His joy of making a new friend did not last long as he failed to create a magic item, instead trapping Bonk’s soul inside of a staff. He made Discordia leave. She left the staff there, mocking his failure.
He sat there, elbows on the floor, scribbling on a piece of paper. From the symbols on the floor to which stack of books were where. He had to. If not he would cry. He hated crying, it hurt. Physically It didn’t make him feel weak, crying was a natural resonance for the body. It just meant that anything he wanted or needed to get done was on pause until he was done crying.
A knock could be heard from the balcony door. Who had he invited, and why were they on the balcony? Persaea stood up, dusting the chalk from his pants and walked over to the wooden doors. He took a deep breath, slowly opening the doors.
“Hello there mi adamas (aw-dom-us)- Persaea what’s wrong?” Kubera had opened her arms to be all show-y but he quickly brought them down. One on Persaea’s shoulder, the other on his face.
“It’s nothing,” Persaea tried to take a step back. The one person he would fully breakdown in front of just had to show up. Kubera let Persaea slip back into the room, shutting the door as she walked in.
“Persaea, darling,” a gentle hand was placed on his face. “You don’t have to tell me what happened but I’m here to help you.” Kubera did his best to avoid eye contact. Persaea had told him eye contact could be really hard. His hands were rubbing together as he rocked himself slightly on the heels of his feet. Back and forth and back and forth and …
“I messed up a spell and things happened and someone got hurt and it’s all my fault, and I could’ve done something different, I should’ve done something different and it’s all a big mess and Discordia hates me and, and, and it’s all my fault.” Persaea blurted out all in one breath. His muscles started to feel tight and he wanted to scream, cry, punch something, break something. Anything to get his mind free, anything to help control this mess of emotion.
Two ivory hands came into his field of vision. Persaea wrapped his shaky hands around them and squeezed. Nothing was said as he squeezed Kubera’s hands tightly, scrunching his face and arms up, breathing in and almost exploding. He slowly lowered himself to the floor, tears starting to fall. Kubera followed, her arms wrapping around his sobbing frame. He held the sobbing wizard until the wizard felt safe.
The next event that flew past him was the reveal of an idea for The Beginners Guide to Magic. The Main Circle had requested Persaea to write the book for those who had little to no experience in magic. It had taken him nearly a year to finish it.
He stood in front of his mirror taking long, deep breaths. Maybe a book like this would lighten his load. He barely got to work on anything he wanted to. Almost everyone was learning magic and needed his help, for one reason or another. His light aegean (uh-gee-in) blue hair looked way too nice for the fact he barely touched it. He had on his favorite loose red shirt and pants, adding his thick purple cloak that ended at his waist. The clasp was on his right shoulder, leaving an opening for his arm.
He grabbed the leather covered book and ran down the steps to his library. Waiting in one of the chairs was a dwarf. He had a dark brown braid framing his dark terracotta face. He wore a dark maroon shirt with a dark gray woolen overcoat. His dark brown plaid pants matched his braided beard. Hekalene (heck-uh-leen). His predecessor.
“Oh, Hekalene. I thought you were up in the circle.”
“I wanted to come check on you.” He stood up from the chair, walking over to Persaea, motioning him to lean down. “Are you ready?”
“I guess.” Hekalene shifted Persaea’s cloak to sit correctly on his shoulder, his anxiety knotting in his stomach.
“Have you eaten?” Persaea nodded as the started walking out of the library.
“Yeah, I made some porridge.”
“Good. Do you have your speech planned?”
“Most of it, I decided not to stress over the questions. There are just so many that could be asked.”
“Good.” Hekalene said with a stout nod.
The two walked in silence up the marble steps of the building, into the double doors, and past the seating area. There were so many people waiting for an audience with the Main Circle. It was considered a big step for non-magica users, so they could start their personal learning process.
“Now Persaea, you need to be confident. Understand? You are a powerful wizard. Don’t act like you’re not,” Hekalene patted Persaea’s shoulder, turned, and walked through a random door. Persaea made his way down the hall and through a doorway. The gold painted door in front of him led to the floor of the Main Circles meeting halls.
He paced, shaking his hand vigorously. He had so much anxious energy he could barely think. It’s not like if he messed up it’d be in front of the entire city and the Main Circle!
He waited impatiently to hear a soft but firm voice to call him in.
“Persaea you may come present your new item.”
He opened the door, pushing forward, foot over foot, as he walked down the small walkway that led to a standing area in front of a semi-circle table. He looked up past the table of the Main Circle to the bleachers behind them, filled to the brim with Parthen citizens. He couldn’t see Discordia or Kubera.
He slowly lowered his gaze to look at all the main deities. Finally stopping in front of the ebony-skin goddess of life and the sepia toned goddess of death. The goddess of death, Catēcacihuātl (cot-tay-call-see-wattle), had a dress of many different layers of neon pinks and oranges, a few paper mache mariposas sewn onto her dress in a serpentine like pattern. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into a tight, low bun. The goddess of life, Adroabuluwa (uh-droe-uh-boo-loo-wah), was in a black dress with delicate white lace outlining (her body). Her afro hair was pulled back into two big bubble braids with two smaller braids framing her face. At the end of the small braids was a white bead on her right braid and a black bead on her left braid.
“Persaea, it’s wonderful to see you here today.” Catēcacihuātl spoke. “What have you brought with you today?”
“Lady Catēcacihuātl, today I have brought a grimoire of magic,” he turned slowly trying to make appropriate eye contact with her, not too much but not too little. He hated eye contact, it never felt right or appropriate, it was always a guessing game of when it was okay to stare into the person’s eyes or look away or how long was too long. But it was always better for the performance. “But unlike your average grimoire it’s not filled with jargon that needs to be learned beforehand. I have spent the last year of my life designing a grimoire for anyone to use, with basic instruction for anyone who so desires to learn. I’ve designed each page to be written simply and straightforward with an added pronunciation guide in the back.” He opened the book and flipped through a few pages. He knew this spell and didn’t actually need the book but demonstrations always awed people. He cast dancing lights, colorful orbs of light came floating up from the pages of the book. When the lights have floated up to the ceiling Persaea turns back towards Adroabuluwa and Catēcacihuātl. Bringing the book forward he set it on the table in front of them. Adroabuluwa picked up the book, taking a second to flip through the pages before passing it to Catēcacihuātl. The book slowly made its way around the table. Each member of the Main Circle carefully inspected the pages, a few trying out some of the spells themselves. A heavy silence filled the room, not even a shuffle was heard from the crowd. Moments like this were life changing, in a good way or a bad way Persaea wasn’t quite sure yet.
Once the grimoire was returned to Adroabuluwa, she set the book down and placed her hand on top of it.
“Persaea, god of magic, you have done well.” Persaea let out a silent breath of relief. “Not only will this help your fellow people learn magic but this new tool will be used to teach a new generation. Please take a seat as we continue.” She nodded to the door that would lead to the stairs.
He bowed and turned, making eye contact with Hekalene who gently smiled at the wizard. Persaea had to use so much energy to bounce up the stairs. He managed to find an open seat right on the edge left open for anyone coming up from the floor.
“People of Parthen,” Catēcacihuātl said as she stood, “it has come time to announce a new life.”
The hall began to murmur to each other. Births and reproductions were rare, the last child from the Main Circle had been Tolemuse.
“We understand this may be a new thing for many of you, but just like when each and everyone of you came to join Parthen, these new lives will create their own history.” Catēcacihuātl nodded at Adroabuluwa to give her the floor.
“The new life we have created are called mortals. Unlike us they will never be given a duty but will find it on their own. Mortals only have a limited time on their plane, or any plane. Eventually they will die and live through stories and their children.” A hush had fallen over the crowd.
This is what Kubera had been talking about, this is why the main circle had been so busy lately. Were they trying to replace them? Why would a new race be necessary? What was the purpose?
Persaea sat in his thoughts, mind whirling, until he felt people starting to exit around him. His hand was grabbed and he was pulled to his feet. Stumbling down the stairs, he looked at the tall figure, in a dark purple suit dragging him.
“Kubera?”
“Not now, we have to go to your place.” Kubera whispered, quite firmly and a little harshly. Once out of the building the pulling stopped, but she didn’t let go of his hand. He squeezed Persaea’s hand, a tight, stern look on his face.
Climbing up the stairs to Persaea’s study she let go of his hand.
“SHIT! This is fu- this is shit, this, it’s just, no!”Kubera exclaimed.
“Are they replacing us?” Persaea asked, still trying to wrap his head around what all had happened.
“Yes. No. Kind of? I couldn’t get much information before you headed out. You know how distracted the Main Circle has seemed? Yeah! They’ve been creating a mortal race. They’ve been ignoring us for their new little pets.” Persaea slowly lowered himself into a chair as Kubera continued, livid. “People died at the Parthen Games because of their distraction. So many of us have been hurt or killed and they did nothing about it! All because of their little side project.”
“Well, I mean, really though, what can we do about it?” Persaea spoke up, using what Kubera recognized as his thinking voice.
“I would bet that a lot of gods feel the same way. I know Discordia feels the same, and I’m sure there are others.”
“So what if… what if we,” Persaea thought out loud.
Kubera’s frown slowly, slowly turned into a mischievous smirk. “What if we collected a group of people to stand up against these new ‘mortals’? ANd show the main circle that we matter”
And that’s where we end today's episode. Next week join us for another episode with (hopefully) all of our normal players. (OutroFF and stuff)