The Sorcerer's Scribe

The life of an adventurer isn’t always an easy one. The quests we take on from one day to the next may be vastly different, whether we like it or not. Battling ravenous beasts isn’t a complicated task, but sometimes there aren’t enough attacks to go around.

That was the case this morning. The ravens, or their mysterious master, seemed to hold some grudge against me. At least, that’s what I thought as I angrily stomped out my signal fire after no ravens came to me. I imagine Karina was none too pleased with my seemingly sudden change in demeanor, but if that was actually the case, it didn’t show. She didn’t even flinch as I rifled through the pouch on her saddle.

I stomped away from my cottage, leaving Karina behind to graze or whatever horses do when their human companions aren’t around.

Here’s the thing with us adventurers. Sometimes, the quests we seek— rely on, even— aren’t always available to us. On days like today, I turn to one of my backup plans.

And thus, I find myself here. Bells hanging inside the door to the shop jangle as I push my way through.

The sorcerer was standing on the other side, a big grin across his wrinkled face. “You’re right on time.” He stares at my chest, his arm slowly reaching toward me. “Is that for me?”

I find myself sighing in relief as a pulled the raven’s feather from a pocket within my cloak.

He smiles again as he holds it up to the light streaming through the window. “It’s perfect.” He turns quickly to face me again, his robes fluttering with the spin. “But this isn’t why you’re here. You’re here to work.”

I notice that it’s not a question, but I nod a confirmation anyway. He always seems to be ready with some odd task I can complete. I follow him through a door into the back of a shop.

He moves over to the large round table, strange symbols etched all around the edge. I can’t see what he does at the table before he turns to face me again, his arm outstretched holding…

A feather? Is this the same feather I gave him earlier? No, this one has been cut into a quill. I let him guide me over to another table, long and rectangular with parchment and bottles of ink.

He licks his gnarled thumb and places it against my forehead before I can object.

The sensation is strange. Not the wet spot now on my face. My usual daydreams are shoved to the back of my mind and I suddenly know what he wants me to write.

He dramatically waves an arm at the table before rushing back through the door.

I dip the quill and begin writing on the parchment. I know the words I’m writing, but they aren’t in any order I would normally put them in. Some of it seems rather technical, some anecdotal. Writing, I can do, but I can’t draw. Some of the pages have large blank gaps. Thanks to him, I can imagine the pictures and symbols that go there. “The devil’s in the details,” he told me once, so I leave the detail work for him to complete.

For hours, I sit and write, dip the quill and write more. My back aches from hunching over the table, my hand cramped from clutching the quill. The sorcerer glances through random pages from the once blank stack, nodding in approval.

As he walks me back to the front, he passes some coins to me for the work. Not as much as I would normally make battling the ravenous beasts, but that didn’t seem to be an option.

The sun is setting as I leave the shop, leaving me to walk home under an orange and purple sky. I feel good about my work today.