Normally, I wouldn’t have been subject to a duel. I’m not a noble. But the academy had a formalized duel system in place to allow students to settle disagreements without doing any permanent harm to each other. So it was either I accept the duel or admit that I was afraid of him. Naturally, it was on.
The day of the duel, we found ourselves in an arena, standing across from each other. One of the instructors, a bit of a bloodthirsty man with a talent for evocation magic(You know, the magic that goes boom), was officiating, along with a cleric of Abadar, who was present to heal any wounds that might occur.
The rules were fairly simple. You start off with a few moments of trash talk(It’s tradition.) while magical barriers are set up to protect the crowd. Once that was over, you could only fight with your magic, your wits, your bare hands, your familiar and your bonded item. You were supposed to try not to kill each other since it costs a fair amount of gold to resurrect someone, but accidents could happen and there was no penalty for accidentally sending someone to a temporary grave. It just lacked style.
Duels between more advanced students are something to see. Magical energy will arc through the stadium as each tries to counter the other’s spells. I once saw the sky over the stadium ripple with multicolored lights while the ground trembled with the steps of a tyrannosaurus.
Less advanced students, like myself, were left with much less advanced magical options. I had a few brute force options at my disposal, such as missiles of force, small gouts of flame, etcetera, but those weren’t the winning options. What often decided these lesser fights was who was just a bit faster in casting a spell that would temporarily disable their foe. Sadly, I hadn’t yet learned any spells that would do that. So, lacking a familiar, I was left with brute force and my bonded object, since the only other spell I had was for helping me craft things.
You can tell a lot about a wizard by what choice he makes for a bonded object, and if you know enough about a wizard, you can conversely make a good guess at what he has chosen. A wizard that favors either the security provided by complete concealment of the nature of his bonded object or the value of having it always in hand will choose a ring or an amulet. This is important because it is very difficult to cast a spell without your object already worn or in hand.
Other wizards favor tradition, and as such, they choose for their bonded items a staff. They’re handy for use a walking stick or to bludgeon someone. They can also be used to store some rechargeable magic if you’re advanced enough. A little bulky, however.
Some other wizards favor a wand. Unlike the finesse of a staff, a wand can only hold a single spell at a time, but it can hold enough magic to cast it around fifty times before needing to be infused with a new spell. This makes wands the favorite of those who prefer the ability to brute force their way through situations with repeated application of a single spell. I don’t like this choice because when all you have is a hammer, every problem begins to look a lot like a nail. Now, that isn’t to say I wouldn’t carry around half a dozen wands with various spells, since sometimes your problem really is a nail. I just wouldn’t limit my options like that.
Chadwick, as I had learned, was the exact kind of person who would wield such an item. As part of my campaign to mentally destroy my opponent, I had looked into his activities. He had recently purchased the materials required to enchant his wand and, if my information could be believed, had enchanted it with a spell that produces a bolt of magical force meant for striking foes directly. I had tested whether I could weather a blast from that spell, and could take one direct hit, though it left me wobbly enough that a second might bring me down. So if he chose that as his first action, I could win it if I could end the fight in a single move even if he was faster.
Finally, there’s one last class of bonded items. Sometimes, someone with an attachment to a particular weapon will choose to forge their bond with it. You see this most often in elves and half-elves, who carry one of their ancestral weapons. There’s something touching about forging a magical bond with a sword that may have been carried by the last three generations of your family. Sometimes someone with military training will seek to study the magical, and will choose a weapon that is simply familiar to them. Nothing wrong with that.
I had chosen a weapon to bond with, but it wasn’t some ancestral weapon, nor was it a weapon from training I’ve had(Can you even bond with a paintball gun?). No, my weapon is a reflection of who I am, a statement of my origins, perhaps even more than singing that anthem had been. You see, I’m an American. Not hard to guess what I bonded my magic to.
Chadwick started the trash talk. “I hope that you’re prepared for more humiliation. You know, I took your manhood away, perhaps after this is over, I’ll take you somewhere quiet and make a woman out of you.”
I wasn’t going to let that slide. “I doubt you’d even know how. I’d bet that a real woman is a quite a bit different from your pillow.”
“You dare speak to me like that? Me, the descendant of the great wizard Maerin Voidstrife?!”
I had been waiting for that. It was apparently a point of great pride to him that he descended from some wizard who had saved the world or some such hundreds years past and had been given a noble title. “I’m glad you brought that up. I did a little research. Did you know that not one of your ancestors since Maerin has done anything of note? Not one has done so much as saved a damsel from the predations of her terrible uncle. Not one has saved a king from his court’s intrigue. That’s in fifteen generations. Yet it seems that still you all trade on Maerin’s name, secure in your knowledge that in your veins flows the blood of greatness. Blood that you. Are. WASTING!” (If only I’d had a pit to kick him into.)
He was shaking with anger at what I had said. “How dare you speak to me like that! I shall put you in your place. No commoner, much less a woman, has the right to talk to me like that! You speak of what I have done, yet I bet that one such as you could not possibly have any accomplishments of your own.”
I laughed dismissively. “That’s where you’re wrong. Many people in this city live with conveniences the likes of which they never dreamed thanks to me. Sure, I based much of that on things that I had seen before elsewhere, so my success is owed to standing on the shoulders of those who came before me. You, however, have been given everything you need to be great, some of the tallest shoulders to stand upon as you reach up for a brighter tomorrow, yet you can’t even be bothered to stand on your own two feet much less reach for your dreams. You’re a puffed up, pompous, self important, petty excuse for a man who will likely go to his grave having never accomplished a single thing. So go ahead and comfort yourself with your lineage. It’s all you have.”
The crowd had gone silent as I had spoken. “I’ll kill you!” Chadwick screamed, reaching for his wand.
I glanced at the instructor and saw his quick nod and I was off. Now, you can’t say Chadwick was slow, but he had never had a PE coach who forced him to run wind sprints until he threw up three days a week for a year of high school. Nor had he ever spent over fifty dollars in quarters in an arcade getting every single high score on one of those quick draw games.
I dashed straight at him, reaching under my skirt to the leg holster I had strapped to my right thigh. I drew my weapon and noted that he was chanting a spell. I identified it as a spell for disabling a foe. I knew I had to stop it, so, upon reaching him, I smacked him in the face with my gun. (In case you’re wondering, I wield a pepperbox, a type of pistol that has six individual muzzle loaded barrels that you rotate in order to fire the next one. I’d use a revolver, but no one has apparently figured out how to make proper bullets around here yet. Unfortunately, I’m also not all that familiar with how to make them either, so I’ll just have to deal with this.)
If you’ve never been punched in the face while you’re talking, let me tell you something. You’re going to bite your tongue, hard. And if you’ve never bitten your tongue like that, you need to know that it’s going to hurt like hell and bleed like a faucet. And if you’ve never bitten your tongue while casting a spell, you should know that it’s really hard to keep concentrating on a spell when you’ve done that.
He looked at me in disbelief and tried to bring up his wand, but again I was faster. I took aim at the right side of his chest and squeezed the trigger. I figured that as long as I didn’t hit his heart, magic healing would be able to fix him up before he died with little trouble. I didn’t figure on it going a bit far to my left and somehow blowing his arm clean off.
Either way, one shot and he was down. I had won. God created men, but Samuel Colt had indeed made them equal.
Victory was mine. I should have felt elated. But it was supposed to be a contest of skill, and I had maimed the guy. Sure, his arm would be regenerated, but I have to imagine that something like that leads to a ton of psychological trauma. So, in order to alleviate my guilt, I went to the infirmary to check up on him.
I’ll never forget the sight of his arm regenerating. If it hadn’t been for the arrival of another person drawing away my attention in time, I probably would have thrown up.
The middle aged woman who entered the room was fairly tall, perhaps half a foot shorter than me. She had a regal air about her, carrying herself like one who is used to authority. “You look a bit pale, dearie,” she said to me. I simply nodded. “Don’t worry, he isn’t feeling the pain of it. I had them put him into a deep slumber.” I was relieved by her reassurance that at least he wasn’t going to have this particular part of the trauma inflicted on him. I told her as much. “Come now, let’s have a seat outside. I think, perhaps that we should have a chat.”
My heart sunk into my stomach as I realized that this woman must be his mother. “Sorry for wounding your son,” I said softly as we took a seat in the other room.
“Oh, don’t worry about it. That boy needed a good swift kick in the head anyway.” My confusion must have shown on my face, because she elaborated. “What you said to him was true. This family has become too complacent. It has driven me to despair for years as I watched my sons loaf around doing nothing.” She mused for a second. “You know, we could use someone like you in the family. You sure you’re set on changing back? I’d be delighted to have you marry my son.”
“No!” I said a little too quickly, glancing over at the other room.
“Of course I didn’t mean that idiot,” she said with a laugh. “I have other sons.” My expression must have given away the fact that I wasn’t too keen on spending the rest of my life as a woman. “I didn’t think so, but I had to try. You’d have made an excellent daughter-in-law.” She sighed. “I suspected as much already, so I’ve already paid for the enchantment on you to be broken.” She handed me a piece of paper with a name on it. “That’s the instructor who will take care of that for you. Just make an appointment with him and he’ll set you right.”
“Thank you,” I said sincerely.
“No, it is I who should be thanking you, for the lesson my son has learned today. Let’s hope it sticks.”
I spent one final night as a woman with Nerina, who wasn’t happy about my changing back. She was, however, amused at the fact that I was changing back the next day because I had just started getting cramps and was eager to avoid one particular womanly condition.
The instructor cast a simple spell on me that consumed no costly reagents. I was more than a bit irritated that I was expected to pay for such a simple thing when I already paid tuition, but I let it drop since I figured saying something likely would accomplish nothing.
A few weeks later, Nerina came and spent the night with me again, saying that she had missed me. One night was apparently enough to confirm that she wasn’t into men, though you wouldn’t have known it from listening to her. She finished her studies two years later, and I haven’t seen her since. I heard that she’s now court wizard to a very lovely young queen somewhere, and I wish her all the best.
About a month after the duel, a messenger arrived at Hanuun’s house. Apparently Lady Voidstrife had decided to pay my tuition and asked me to come visit. I sat with her for tea and we chatted for a while before she revealed that she wanted to formally make me a part of her family. She said that if she couldn’t have me as a daughter-in-law, she would settle for making me into a son.
Two of her sons were against the idea, but surprisingly, Chadwick had agreed with his mother that it was the right course. Over time, he and I actually became friends. He was an alright guy once he dropped the self absorbed assholery. (Yes, that’s a word now. Deal with it.) I introduced him to a nice young woman last year and was best man at their wedding about two months ago.
I may have found a new family, but I always knew that I had to find a way home. I continued my studies, learning magic faster than most others at the school. To be fair, most of them didn’t have my upbringing and education from an early age. Unfortunately, I think I’ve exhausted what I can learn here. I’m convinced that the magic to get me home exists, but it has been lost to time in most cases. I’ve run across stories about an ancient civilization ruled by wizards who had magic of untold power. Maybe I can find my way by heading out to Varisia and searching the ruins of this ancient civilization called Thassilon.
Once I finish writing this, I’ll say goodbye to my friends and set off. Chadwick has already begun gathering supplies for me. I’m certain that if I asked, he’d come along with me, but his wife hasn’t told him yet that he’s already gotten her pregnant, so I can’t do that. I’d wait until after the baby is born, but I know that the longer I stay, the harder it’s going to be to leave.
He’s had my old messenger bag enchanted for me so it can hold all my supplies and bought me this awesome new wide brimmed black fedora for the trip. It looks awesome with my old duster. I’ll probably be the only wizard walking the world dressed in cargo pants and Vietnam era combat boots with a gun holster on his thigh wearing a billowing coat and wide brimmed hat. I’m certain I’m the only wizard from Arizona that this world has ever seen. And I’m absolutely certain that I’m the only wizard who spends his spare thoughts trying to figure out how to use magic to make myself a suit of power armor. I’m trying to figure out how to turn into Guyver, but I’d settle for Iron Man.
Well, it’s time for me to go look over what Chadwick has purchased for me and pack my other stuff. I have to hit the road tomorrow. Oh, and in case you’re wondering about the ball sitting in the bottom of my bag? I keep it just in case of emergency.
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