Three centuries earlier. The Chamber of the Crescent lay nestled in the heart of Garland’s burgeoning Magic Academy, its walls still exuding the musky scent of fresh mortar and the sharp tang of drying spell-paint from its lavish frescoes.
Five figures sat beneath the guttering witchlights on high-back chairs, their elongated shadows over the floor tiles clawing at the edges of the table. A sixth seat of power stood empty, as it always had in all arcane circles since Magic's inception.
Archmagus Zelayun exhaled heavily, a sound like the croak of a disturbed sarcophagus. “It is well known, at least in this room,” he began solemnly, “that Magic is not a bountiful wind that fills all sails alike, nor the boundless seas that roll without measure; it is a primordial bonfire, diminished each time a torch is pulled from its hearth.”
Opposite him, Archmagus Wardas tilted a vial of starlight between her fingers. The silver veil covering her face did nothing to hide the disdain in her voice. “And now here we sit, ready to dim the divine fire by scattering its embers among peasants and paupers, until no spark burns bright enough to matter.”
A murmured outrage slithered around the table. Archmagus Qaelios's voice rasped like grinding stone as he unfurled a scroll with a snap that echoed like a breaking bone.
“Consider the alternative, then. It’s etched in history: every century has spawned its own monster —a power-hungry wretch who would hoard Magic until the whole world bent to their will. What we debate now ensures no single sorcerer will ever grow that strong again... and never as strong as Him, the worst of all.”
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Archmagus Vanstrel, youngest of the order, fidgeted nervously with a quill. "But don't you see, or care?" He protested. "By spreading Magic so far and wide, we cripple ourselves as well. What happens the next time darkness returns? Who will be up to the task of pushing it back?"
“Better that darkness contend with ten thousand candles than wield a single blazing inferno!” Zelayun’s voice cracked like a whip. “We shall teach every farmer’s child, every merchant’s brat, and every street urchin. Qaelios has said it all: we shall dissolve Magic’s potential for harm and ensure Vexohatar was the last of his kind!”
The witchlights flickered and dimmed, as though the chamber itself recoiled from the Necromancer’s name. No one spoke it lightly. A thousand years gone, and still his shadow stretched across time to oppress the living.
Archmagus Reptis scoffed, her bitter thoughts left unvoiced: "This is no noble sacrifice, she mused. It is the cowardly act of lesser sorcerers who cannot bear to be surpassed."
Qaelios’s jaw tightened before he growled, “The vote.”
Four hands rose immediately. Archmagus Vanstrel hesitated, trembling like a man about to sign his own death warrant, before finally joining the consensus.
As the seal stamp touched parchment to seal their decision into law, a sound shattered the silence: the insistent tap of a crow's beak against leaded glass. Bird's eyes gleamed with unnatural crimson light through a window close to the chamber's ceiling as it peered in.
Zelayun stared at it, his throat moving convulsively. "We should gather just enough light to find our way —never enough to burn the world", he whispered to himself.
And so, every morning since, the great bronze bells of Garland have tolled, calling commoners from all kingdoms to their lessons.
