Umber

Enai has an unexpected visitor with an alluring, and dangerous, offer. (sab)

It has been the end of another long day of training. The weather has turned cold again, and you sit in front of a roaring fire with your comrades for some much deserved respite. Without warning, everything stops – your friend’s voices – the crackling of the fire – the motion of the flames – the wine, midair as it pours from a jug – everything. Everything, that is, except for a faint, ever-so-slightly moving glow to your left…

A figure, barely visible even as it moves, enters from the hallway on your right, hands raised in supplication. “Greetings Enai. I apologize for this forum, but it is… more convenient… to speak this way. Generally, there is so little time to talk.” He smiles, apparently at his own joke. Growing serious again, he continues. “You are far along your path, though I sense that you are nearing a decision point. To truly master what you have learned so far, or to branch out and expand?

“You see, once I began to teach a different member of your group. I thought that he was the person in my vision… but he wasn’t. In any event, that’s a different story, for a different time.

“And speaking of Time… Time is the subject upon which I have focused my attention for many decades now. I have approached it from every direction possible. Arts magical, powers mental, acts physical: all touch Time, some shallowly, some deeply. Without Time, there could only be Nothing. But manipulating Time is maddeningly difficult, sometimes seemingly impossible. Sometimes I am sure that underlying Time is… Mind.”

He seems distracted, lost in his own thoughts. “But I digress,” he says suddenly. “The point of this meeting is for me to make an offer. I can give no guarantees, as I have never had a student complete my training, and no student’s path has been the same as another’s. Some have even suffered breakdown – and worse – from this path. And they were far from weak.

“If you choose to take training from me, communicate with that monochromatic meddler Tenser. He knows how to reach my brother, and through him, me. Tempus Fugit.”

With those words, he vanishes, and conversations and movement resume where they left off. You look around the room, but no one seems to have noticed. Then, to your left, you notice the remnants of a fading glow. It emanates from the Traveler’s Star, but was it just a trick of the firelight? You catch Kuhlefaran’s eye, but fail to read her expression.