[Mkguild] Nunly's Lutins - part 1

[Mythril Vulpes]

                          Nunly's Lutins

                         by Mythril Vulpes


--------- Part 1 - The Competition


  Nasoj. One of the most hated and feared names on the planet.
He had grown into a master of mayhem, of bribing, of threatening and
cajoling diverse groups to join with his own private troops to form an
effective and loyal army - well, loyal as long as Nasoj held actual power and
provided proper recompense for their efforts. There were times when his was
mastery would ebb and flow, depending upon the success of his schemes, and
he would seek help with problems that in more successful times
would be taken care of by simply snarling at a flunky.

  One such problem was a mage named Muddo who believed Nasoj was a
failure waiting to happen, and when he failed, he would take down all
of those around him. As a mage, he recognized that Nasoj could make life
difficult until then, so he would reply to Nasoj's requests for aid
and alliances with a diplomatic form of "No, thank you." This worked
well, as the mage wasn't particularly powerful, nor did Nasoj actually need
the specific skills or power Muddo commanded.

That is, it worked fine until one of the messengers sent by Nasoj
returned from yet another alliance attempt with the mage with the
standard "No, thank you". Nasoj had recently made an example of a messenger
who failed on an assignment with a death designed to impress the remaining
messengers of the importance of success. The messenger feared Nasoj would
make him the next example because of the Muddo's rejection,
so he decided to embellish the mages "No, thank you" into something
just short of a declaration of war. Nasoj was furious at Muddo's reply, but
was in the middle of planning his greatest attack ever against Metamor Keep,
and had no time to deal him.  His only recourse was to convince some other
power to eliminate the mage, since the thought of just letting Muddo live
in peace could not exist in Nasoj's world.

  The problem Nasoj faced was political. Muddo was far from the most
powerful mage around, and recruiting an army to crush him would be a
simple problem. In fact, Muddo's castle was situated directly between two
of the strongest tribes of Lutins Nasoj currently had as allies. Allowing
one tribe to attack and loot the castle would result in offending the other
tribe, at a minimum.  Having both tribes attack would probably result in the
tribes racing for the best loot, and Muddo's castle could not possible hold
enough to satisfy more than 1 tribe. The results would be a small war
over the remains of the castle, and a dent in his forces. Choosing another
tribe would only provoke the first two tribes, and create even more problems.
Another approach was needed.

  Nasoj looked over his current crop of mage wannabes. Several of the low
level mages present were almost good enough to take on Muddo, but they
all would need more training before any single one could be expected to
win. He needed a test to sort out the ones most likely to succeed. Not
only would a test help him sort out the ones who might defeat
Muddo, but major failures would show who he should be rid of.
The problem was that a test sufficient to determine who should be sent
against Muddo required a target as difficult to defeat as Muddo himself.
Also, the target needed to be expendable, as a successful attack would
likely kill the target. The time and effort involved to set up the test
was developing into a major project - the exact thing he was trying to
avoid. Just thinking about it made him want to throw things, throw them
directly at Muddo, like the useless apprentice who had problems keeping
the torches lit. He allowed his imagination to build a scene of the
apprentice flying through the air toward Muddo, and when he was blasted
out of the air, more apprentices following until Muddo was buried under
a pile of apprentices, blood flowing, and one apprentice rising from
the pile with Muddo's head held high.

  Nasoj smiled. That was it! He would make getting rid of Muddo the test.
The perfect solution - getting rid of an obnoxious mage with what
amounted to an apprentice.  If the attempts failed, the failure wasn't his,
it was the apprentices.

  He quickly made his pronouncement, defining who was the target, and
announcing that the prize for the the mage who defeated Muddo would
be to be proclaimed Clan Wizard for a noble group of warriors.
Content with what he had done, Nasoj turned his attention to other
matters, content that his problem with Muddo was taken care of.

  The only problem was, Nasoj had overestimated the perceived value
of his reward. He had underestimated the egos of the apprentices
he had targeted. Most apprentices had extremely high opinions of themselves,
and in general believed that a position that they had never heard of such as
Clan Wizard couldn't be anything good. But then, they all believed that
anything other than a position directly under Nasoj was simply not acceptable
(as opposed the the reality of being unobtainable.) This attitude led them
to avoid the contest, while demeaning it at every turn to deter others from
attempting it, as well as reinforcing their own opinions of the contest.
This left those with a limited amount of ambition, or with only enough
ambition to find a place where they would be secure - kind of like being
the only blacksmith for three towns around.

  Nunly was a mage of small natural ability, but a large ego and an even
larger ambition. He knew he was destined for great things, but his natural
ability just wasn't going to get him anywhere. So he cultivated other
abilities - mostly in the category of obtaining items through any means
available. This had not gone totally unnoticed among his peers, and he
had become a bit of an outcast. Mages who wanted to live long learned to
avoid creating any more enemies than they had to, so Nunly didn't face
open hostility, but was shunned in every activity the other mages
could manage.

  Nunly had managed to collect a large number of magical devices, most
of which were just a step above trash. He did have three devices that
were true magical objects. Known as Hella's Looking Glasses, they were
ancient magical devices that anyone could use. Nunly's ego did
not allow him to realize the power of the mirrors, but led him to believe
that largest part of the results were due to his abilities, and he
unconsciously limited his use of them to avoid facing the facts.

  Hella's Looking Glasses were actually three magical devices that looked
like stackable hand mirrors. The first enabled the user to see anywhere he
wanted if he could form the location in his mind clearly enough.  The
second was a perfect mirror, so perfect that it could reflect spells cast
against the holder back to the caster.  The third appeared to be the
outside loop of a frame that could hold a mirror, but the mirror was gone.
The missing glass was intentional.  The third mirror allowed a spell caster
to direct a spell through the mirror, which amplified the power of the
spell so that a mage of only minor rank could cast spells that challenged
the power of the greatest mages of the world.

  Use of the Looking Glasses required care, however. The original Hella
was famous for her grace and movement, and the Mirrors demanded anyone
who touched them to treat them as she had. If handled in the wrong way,
roughly or carelessly, the Mirrors would extract a price. The price was
always extracted after they were used, without warning, so all of the
Mirror's previous owners handled them with care are respect, or failed to
own them for long, even though they mostly lived.

  The combined power of Hella's Looking Glasses allowed Nunly to manage
feats that would have astounded mages who were superior to Nunly in
every way, if they knew.  Even though he refused to acknowledge it, he
knew that the loss of the Glasses would render him virtually powerless.
Nunly became a secretive, paranoid creature, using the shunning by the others
to avoiding any close contact with the other mages. His subconscious
drove him to avoid others to the extent that he became more and more
obnoxious to others to drive them away. This turned out to be one of his
few real talents, and resulted in them avoiding him with as much vigor
as he avoided them.

  This mutual antipathy often had a cascading effect between Nunly and
the other mages. When a mage would express an opinion on almost
any topic, Nunly would contradict him. The other mages soon returned
the favor, so that when Nunly made a statement, the other mages were
instantly of the opposite stance. Thus, it seemed inevitable when some
mages disapproved of Nasoj's contest, Nunly expressed the thought that
Nasoj's contest was interesting. The other mages immediately were of the
opinion that it might be a waste of time.  Nunly then countered saying that
he thought the reward was worthwhile for the effort involved, and the other
mages immediately assumed the position that the reward was less then any of
their positions would expect. This caused Nunly to state that he would be
proud to go on the quest. The others immediately ridiculed him for it. This
left Nunly with no choice other then loudly stated "I'm off!", and left to
settle up with Muddo. The other mages immediately followed, but once out the
door headed for the nearest tavern, where they spent the rest of the day and
most of the night betting on the likelihood of Nunly's lack of success.
In this case, lack of success translated into failure to return in any form.
The expectation of Nunly's failure was so universal, the betting turned
into a pool that bet on the notification date of Nunly's failure, rather than
if he would fail.

  * - * - * -

  Nunly's trip to Muddo's castle was marked by a pleasant absence of problems,
other than Nunly's usual ones. Nunly had a distinct problem with directions.
Also, he found himself passing through barren lands, causing him to detour
looking for something to drink. Thus it took him several times longer to
come close to Muddo's castle than it would have taken any one else.

  Nunly decided to approach defeating Muddo using his most successful
methods, which were the only methods he knew.  He approached Muddo with
the utmost stealth, through the barren lands surrounding his castle.
He carefully used Hella's Glasses to determine where each of the traps
Muddo had set were located, and how best to get around them. The closer
Nunly drew to his target, the slower and more carefully he proceeded.

  Nunly took extra care in finding the weakest point in the castle. He spent
hours with Hella's Glasses looking for a way that had a minimum number of
spells he would have to counter. However, Muddo's castle was an impenetrable
brick.  Any windows that did not have bars thick and closely set only a mouse
could wriggle through had a multitude of spells set that would take
days to penetrate. Some windows were even false windows, backed only by
an air space and walls several feet thick.  The route that way required
far more strength than Nunly could hope to muster.

Nunly looked for doors, but the only door he could detect was the main
door to the castle. Nunly had left that way in to last, since it should
be the most protected way into the castle. When he scanned it looking
for traps and spells, he only found a few basic wards that would announce
his presence to Muddo. These he quickly disarmed, but he spent several more
hours looking for other traps. The fact he found none bothered Nunly more
than the fact he couldn't sneak in through a window. Nunly then proceeded to
march in to the castle, feeling slightly sorry for Muddo that it was so easy.
The notion that he might have missed something never crossing his mind.

  Herra's Glasses had shown Muddo in a hall close to the main door.
As Nunly made his final approach to Muddo (from the back, of course) he
quickly fired off a of spell through the spell magnification glass to
change Muddo's outlook.  The spell caused Muddo to believe that Nasoj
was a natural born leader, one that he should be honored to serve.
Something in Muddo's look gave Nunly pause, ad he began to doubt the
spell's success. Nunly jerked the mirror up and fired a second spell
designed to cause Muddo to believe that Nunly was his best friend and mentor.
Nunly had come prepared to cast the two spells, believing that if one spell
failed, the other should allow him to still achieve his objective.

The spell effected Muddo to the extent he was willing to share everything
he had with his "mentor". Muddo took Nunly on a tour through his workshops,
gleefully describing his latest experiments, confiding in Nunly his plans
for new magical enchantments, and in general laying out the history of
what he had been working on for the last 10 years.

  This left Nunly totally confused. Since he had always avoided working
with other mages, he wasn't sure what to do. When Muddo offered Nunly
various magical instruments to test, Nunly declined, saying that he didn't
need proof of his student's progress, it was enough to see him achieving
his full potential. The truth was that Nunly knew so little about the magic
involved that he dismissed half of what he was shown as junk, and was deathly
afraid to touch the other half.

  The tour of Muddo's domain proceeded in this way through half of the day,
jumping from subject area to subject area, with the areas as diverse as
re-animation experiments, to one room with a partially finished mural of
a group of royalty who Muddo claimed were his direct ancestors. Muddo talked
at length about his lineage according to the books on royalty he had,
until they reached a large room that looked to be a natural cave,
filled with kegs.

  Muddo turned to Nunly and said "And this is one of my finest creations,
if I do say so myself, my own ale.  Would you care for some?"

  Nunly having had the novel experienced of listened for hours to a man
speaking only of his accomplishments (the speaking he was used to, his actually
listening for that long was totally new) was more than ready. With an amount
of control that surprised himself, he politely said "I do love a good ale.
I would love to sample some."

  Muddo drew two flagons of ale from a nearby keg, and handed one to Nunly.
"Sorry it's not really cold, the weather just isn't right for that. But a
cooling spell and the depth of this room keeps the ale drinkable. Enjoy!"

  Nunly smiled and put the flagon to his lips, and sipped. Then, he sipped
again, and then he drained the flagon exclaiming "Magnificent! This has to
be the finest ale I have every had!  Might I have another?"

  Muddo drained his flagon, and with a grin that seemed to split his face,
drew two more ales.  Both men drained their second flagons almost as fast
as the first.

  Nunly gave a large sigh, and said "Now that is magic I wish I could learn.
The magic of growing yeast has escaped me, and I fear I will never learn."

  Muddo's jaw dropped. The spell Nunly put on him caused him to believe
that Nunly was capable of almost anything. The chance to teach his "mentor"
something new was simply irresistible.

   "The recipe is simple, and the raw ingredients few. I would be only too
happy to provide you with my notes on how to make this ale. But first,
we should try a few others. Reading about making ale and testing the results
are two different things."

  Nunly couldn't believe what he heard. A mage willing to share what must
be a true secret.  Now this was turning out to be a real prize. He smiled
in anticipation as Muddo moved to another keg, this one almost black in
color. Muddo filled both flagons from the keg, and gave one to Nunly as the
foam rose up and spilled over the side, resembling a string of black pearls
down the side of the flagon.  "Taste this one slowly. It has a bit of a kick."

  Nunly took a sip of the black liquid, and was rewarded with a taste of
ale overlaid with a bit of licorice, and other flavors melded in the
background. One sip, and he was smiling with Muddo smiling back. Ale this
good was not found in common taverns, but kept in reserve for special
occasions only.

  The look on Nunly's face caused Muddo to smile back, and say "I can teach
all of my secrets of brewing, they are mostly patience, after all. If you
wish, that is."

  At that moment Nunly wanted nothing more that to learn how to make one
of the finest drinks he every had the privilege to sample. "I would be
honored to learn any that you would be willing to teach" he said.

  Grabbing the two now empty flagons, Muddo filled them again and handed
one back to Nunly saying "Come, I have a copy of my research I can let you
have. let us adjourn to the library" while leading Nunly up the stairs.

  Several landings later, Muddo turned into a large room with books lining
the walls on shelves, open on reading podiums around the room, piled
haphazardly on desks, and stacked about in piles on the floor.

  "Here, you will need this one, and this one" Muddo said as he started
piling books into Nunly's hands. "Oh, and this one give the background of
yeast, and .."

  Muddo kept heaping books in Nunly's hands, and Nunly was trying to take
another drink. The book pile wobbled back and forth, until Muddo exclaimed
"This will not do at all. Here put those books in here." while handing
Nunly a small bag.

Nunly had drunk enough ale that he didn't question what he was doing,
but started putting a dozen tomes into the bag. Then, he kept adding others
as Muddo handed them to him.  After exhausting the books on brewing,
Muddo straightened up and said "now you can brew ale as good as mine."

Nunly looked sad and replied "I will certainly try, but I have as much
chance of matching your ale as I have recreating your mural with my own
ancestors."

  Muddo just smiled. "Of course you could. Here, I'll even throw in some
books on painting.  Oh, and here are several on royal succession and such,
you might even find some pictures of your ancestors in this one. Oh, and here
are a few on heraldry. Make sure you get the details right, 'cuase that's
what makes it great. Oh, oh, and here are a couple on knighthood. I see to
remember something about a knight named Nunly. Maybe this will help."

  True to his word, Muddo added book after book, all dropped into the
bag. Nunly had just enough coherence to realize the bag was magic, and
seemed to hold an incredible amount of anything. It was too bad he just
couldn't seem to concentrate on what should go into the bag, other than
more books on ale, of course.

  "And now all that work made me thirsty again!" exclaimed Muddo. "We
need another round or two, eh?" And with no further encouragement than that,
they proceeded down to the ale cellars again.

  Along the way, Nunly sobered up just enough to remember why he was really
there, but he found he didn't care that much. He did know that if Nasoj
found out he reached Muddo but failed to get rid of him, there would be
no place he would be able to hide. That thought brought him a long way toward
sober. But as much as he feared Nasoj, he found he now cared what happened
to Muddo. What he failed to realize was the spell he cast over Muddo was not
as precise as he had planned, and he had been hit with the backwash of the
spell, so he now felt like he really was a mentor and friend to Muddo.
The conflicting emotions were a first for Nunly, and he was at a total loss
as to what to do. Fortunately for Nunly, Muddo solved that problem by
handing him a full tankard of ale. At least Nunly still knew what to do
with that.

  After a few more ales, Nunly's thoughts came to their obvious conclusion.
He simply could not cause harm to Muddo. Instead, he should return to Nasoj
and try to convince him that Muddo was not a threat.  Indeed, from what he
had seen so far, the greatest threat was that Muddo would drown Nasoj's armies
in ale. That was hardly the threat he was supposed to be. What to do, what to
do. Perhaps another ale or two would help clear his mind.

  Sure enough, with the aid of another tankard of ale,  or maybe three
(counting was becoming a problem,) Nunly's course was clear. With the
strength of yet another tankard of ale, he stood up more or less straight,
and proclaimed:

"Muddo, old friend. The time has come. I must leave. There are vicious
rumors about you floating around, and I must put them down. Down like
a tankard of that excellent ale you brew." He pause for a long draught of
ale. "And I must do this quickly, since I have found the truth. And the
truth is," Nunly pause to take a breath, "The truth is you make one good ale."

  Nunly stood, more or less upright, and said "My only regret is that I
must leave your friendship and you ale, but I must go quickly as the trip
is long, and I must go quickly, as the trip will take me a while, 'cause it
is long. So I am off quickly, now."

  Muddo stood and replied: "Wait old friend, I have an ale. I mean an idea.
Well, I do have ale also, but you know that. But I have an idea. I will
come too. We can take my wagon, so we can get there easily, and load the
wagon up with ale. We can have an adventure. It will be a glorious adventure!
It's been too long since I've had one, so lets go!"

   Nunly knew that this sounded wrong, but the thought of riding a wagon instead
of walking, not to mention the ale, was just too much to pass up. This was true
for several reasons, not the least of which was he had so much ale he wouldn't
have been able to get out the door without help. With that thought in mind, he
agreed, sort of.

  Muddo was inconsiderably more control of his facilities, so he was able to
harness a horse to a wagon that was already filled with several kegs of his
finest ale, plus a few small casks of a very potent brandy he had yet
to try. This was going to be a great adventure, he thought, as he helped Nunly
get up on the wagon. With a small spell, or maybe just yelling at the horse
and pointing it in the right direction, they were off with a tankard each,
and a song in their hearts that mutated on the way to their lips so that the
resulting noise resembled bull frogs arguing. But an adventure is an adventure,
and they were off.

  The adventure was limited to yelling at the horse to keep to the right road,
cursing the dust his hoofs kicked up, and learning to fill tankards while
the wagon was moving. Draining the tankards while moving seemed to require
no learning at all.  They soon learned that their singing was not a pleasing
adjunct to their adventure. However, they made up for it when Nunly remembered
an old spell he had discovered when young that made a loud cracking sound. The
sound could be made to originate from any location the mage desired. The only
practical use he had found for the spell was to cause a loud crack to sound
directly behind someone causing them to jump. But then, watching people fall
flat on their faces was funny, so the spell became memorable.

  Nunly taught the spell to Muddo, and they amused themselves using it to
urge the horse to go faster.  Soon they were competing with each other for
the loudest sound, or the one fartherest from the wagon, or perhaps the one
that chased the most peasants. The surroundings had few peasants to harass,
and animals rare, but they kept trying. The very few who actually objected,
or thought they could take advantage of a couple of drunks were taught that
drunken mages are not something to mess with, even when they are only
minor mages.

  Eventually: the horse no longer jumps at the noises - it seems he is deaf;
the load on the wagon is lighter, as they threw several empty kegs away;
one group of bandits learned drunken mages can be even nastier than sober
ones; and notice of the chaos they created reaches Nasoj.

# - # - #

  The reports that reached Nasoj were confused. They ranged from Nunly
hauling Muddo back in chains on a chariot driven by thunder announcing his
victory, to Nunly joining with Muddo in an attempt on attacking Nasoj,
and practicing war magic on the way.

  The reports were so contradictory with each other, and with Nasoj's
expectation of both mages, that he decided to find the truth. He ordered
a group of mages to cast a scrying spell and determine the truth of the
matter, and just how much power the two mages had.

  The results were surprising and disturbing. Both wizards being drunk and
seemingly friends just didn't make sense. Riding on a wagon of ale made
less sense. Finally, the way they were combining spells seemingly at
random was so stupid that they must be doing it for some specific reason.
And the last report of his mages seemed to show what that was.

  Nunly was a Nexus of Change.

  The good news was that Nunly wasn't the type of nexus that caused change
wherever he was. Changes would happen only once he was triggered. The
bad news was that he had the potential to change anything or everything.
The change could be as simple as changing the eye color of every
living think he could see to blue, or turning an entire valley floor
into a lake.

  A power like Nunly had to be neutralized, or removed to a safe distance.
Any intense, highly charge experience, either physical, mental or
emotional, could set Nunly off.  He would have to be intercepted as soon
as possible, and then dealt with.

  Nasoj checked the route that Nunly and Muddo were taking, and smiled.
A plan for a very sophisticated ambush came to mind, and he sent out
orders that would take care of the two mages to his satisfaction.

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