A Journey Never Begun Pt. 04

"Earth nymphs will grind your meat like dragging it through sand or gravel. I have not had the pleasure of experiencing that but one of the street orphans I knew did. It was brutal. He peed in three directions at once. A passing healer took pity on him and fixed him, but he was never truly the same. He hated all nymphs from that day forward. It was said that he disappeared one night and was never seen from again, but the rumor was that he pissed off a water nymph and she drowned him.

"Of all the nymphs, the water nymphs or naiads are the safest and most dangerous to play sex games with. The safest in that you rarely have to worry about splinters but they do have power over water and that includes the water in your body. If you piss them off or offend them, they can drown you by making your water flood into your lungs even as you stand on dry land. They can also so enthrall you that you don't realize that they have brought you back to their home and take you under.

"In my case, I was just a big stupid horny kid looking at the most perfect breasts I had ever seen heading my way.

"When she was close enough, she reached out and gently grabbed my erection and giggled as she stroked it. 'I have never held a man this big before,' she said in the most divinely sexy voice I had ever heard. 'Are you sure you are not a satyr?'

"When I didn't respond, she looked into my eyes and asked, 'Cat got your tongue young human?'

"I just nodded and she giggled and added her other hand to my erection. It was like having the skin on your cock massaged by a waterfall but a gentle waterfall. I was completely transfixed and then suddenly I was spurting my seed out into the water of the stream.

"When I became aware again, she had wiped the last of my cum onto her finger and raised it to her lips. As her tongue licked her finger clean she purred and then said, 'I can taste great power in you and a great destiny. I thank you for our time this day and your gift to my stream.'

"She turned and walked off the rock and back into the pool at the base of the rock and as I watched she melted back into the water and was gone.

"I pulled up my trousers and headed back to the house. I spent most of the way there trying to come up with a plausible lie about what I had been doing, but when I got back all I got from my Master was 'Are you ready to try again?'

"In case you wanted to know, the second time I did not lose my focus and I was able to infuse the potion correctly. Later, much later, I explained to my Master what why I had lost focus and he was interested to see if it was possible to create a potion that would make dwarfs grow. We worked on it together and a month later we headed into town to find Mudtim.

"I would love to say that the growth potion was a rousing success, but it was not. Mudtim grew sick for three days and when he recovered he did begin to slowly grow. He added almost two feet to his height over the next year, so that he became the size of a short man, but his arms did not grow in proportion, they remained shorter than normal and his head was also not quite right. His disappointment was quite evident but he tried to put a good face on it.

"It was one of my last trips to town, when I found out that he had been apprenticed to the miller. The miller, whose name was Thomias, was a hunchback who took pity on Mudtim and took him on as an apprentice in the Choosing. Thomias gave him the name Bardethe, which means 'The Strong One' because even though Mudtim's arms were short they were very strong. He was happy in his new life and I wished him the best of luck. He hugged me and said that he wished the potion had made him whole, but he had found a kind Master that was teaching him a trade so that he could have a good life. We parted promising to stay in touch, but I think we both knew those for hollow promises.

"Years later I did hear of a funny looking miller in Derrydale, but I did not go to see if it was Bardethe.

"And now Mr. Frog, by your leave, I am going to go into the night and water a bush or two with my pee and then retire for the night."

The frog slowly blinked his eyes and waddled towards the door.

Muddle shrugged and thought to himself, "I wonder if I have all my beans together. Talking to a frog every night. I might be a crazy as the Lady on Crabtree hill."

With that thought, he got up and went out to water a bush. When he returned, the frog was nowhere to be found. Shrugging, he unrolled his bedroll and then slapped his neck.

"Damn night biters!" he cried out. Pulling a little mana from his internal stores, he cast a spell of exclusion around the house. Satisfied, he lay down on his bedroll and thought, "Tomorrow I need to make some hinges for that door and some glass for the windows. A mattress would be nice," and a thousand other chores crept unbidden into his mind as he drifted off to sleep.

Muddle woke to find himself in a room of uncertain dimensions. It seemed to pulse in and out like smoke. As he marveled at this, he noticed that across from a fire that was not there a minute ago was his dead Master Delfim.

He rubbed his eyes, but the apparition was still there. "Master?" he called out.

"Yes. Hi. I was waiting to see how long it would take for you say something," his Master's apparition said.

"It can't be you," Muddle cried. "Can it?"

The apparition poke itself a couple of times and came around the fire and slapped Muddle across the face.

A startled Muddle picked himself up off the ground and sputtered, "What was that for?"

His Master stood there and pondered the question. After a minute, he spoke, "Because I wanted to see if I could."

"But you are dead," Muddle cried out. "The house was burned to the ground and all I could find of you were your ashes and your skull."

"Hmmm. That does seem familiar. I remember feeling a sharp pain when something or someone came through the ward. As I turned, I was hit by fire and that was the last thing I remember," the old man said. "Not a very pleasant thing to remember being burned to death. Can we talk about something else?"

"Certainly," Muddle said. "Like what?"

"You said the house was burned to the ground, did anything else survive?" his Master asked.

"Not much," said Muddle. "Your grimoire was dirty but intact. Your familiar, but he circled the house three times and flew off to the west. The gold you had been hoarding all melted together into one big lump. Apparently you had some cursed gold pieces and the whole lump was cursed."

"Pity," said the old man. "That took a long time to collect that much gold. Especially that much cursed gold. What did you do with it?"

"Since I couldn't touch it, I managed to get it onto some holly branches and dragged it out into the woods. I buried it next to an oak after lining the hole with holly branches and then more holly branches on top."

"Holly branches?" the old wizard mused. "Very clever my boy, the holly will dampen and dissipate the curses given enough time and you will be able to go back and claim it. Good work."

"And what about you, my Master?" Muddle asked. "If you are dead, then how can you be here? Wherever here is."

"That is a good question, my apprentice," his Master pondered.

The long silence was finally broken when he spoke again, "I feel alive, but I don't remember anything that has happened since my death."

Another long silence descended which was finally broken by the old wizard with a demanding question, "What did you do with my skull?"

Muddle shrank before the question and finally answered softly, "I put it in one of the leather bags of keeping and brought it with me. I didn't know what else to do."

"And where is this bag?" his Master demanded.

"It is in my backpack," said Muddle shakily.

"And where is your backpack?"

"It was under my head when I went to sleep," Muddle replied. "I was using it as a pillow."

"I see," said the old wizard. "I think I know what has happened.

"I am sorry; I did not mean to frighten you. Old habits die hard it appears. When I don't know what is going on I tend to get big and authoritarian."

"You said something about a story," Muddle prompted.

"Oh, yes. There is an old, old story about a wizard who kept the skull of his master after his master died. One day he went walking with the skull and after several hours got tired and decided to take a nap. He prepared for a nap and he decided to use the skull as a pillow. Well, while he was sleeping he had a dream about his master and they had a long conversation. When he woke up he remembered the dream and the conversation as if he had had it while awake. Later he tried sleeping with the skull many times but no dreams ever occurred. Years later he went walking with the skull again and again made the same preparations and took a nap on the skull. Immediately he was with his master again and they had a long talk. When he awoke, he realized that the first time and this time had begun with the same preparations before taking a nap. And after that when he wanted to see his master again, he would make the preparations and sleep with the skull.

"Now many people thought this was weird and in fact there were some who said that they thought he was fucking the skull. But he confided in one of his master's other apprentices about being able to commune with their master. The other apprentice just laughed and said that was foolish.

"So the first wizard asked the other to tell him a story that only he and their master would know. The second wizard pondered and told a story of picking apples. He stopped the story and said, 'If you can truly contact our master, he will know what happened next.'

"The first wizard said he would ask the master that very night. He made the necessary preparations and went to sleep using the skull as a pillow. The next morning the first wizard smiled at the second wizard and said, 'Those meliades can be very unforgiving if you do not ask their permission before picking their apples. Our master said it took several healing potions to fix your broken arms and straighten your legs.'

"The second wizard was aghast. No one else knew what had happened that day so he believed that his fellow wizard really had talked with their master.

"That night the second wizard conceived a plot to steal the skull so that he too could commune with their master. But the plan went awry and he ended up killing the first wizard. But he had the skull.

"Year after year he slept with the skull of their master but was never able to commune with their master. Finally he died of old age and out of respect for the tradition his last apprentice removed the second wizard's skull and slept on it but never communed with his master.

"The tradition has pretty much died out now, but there have been some who still try to commune with their masters by sleeping on their skulls.

"So my apprentice, like the first wizard, what did you do to make this communion possible?"

Muddle thought and thought and thought. Finally he gave up. "I don't know Master," he said. "I sat telling a story of my apprenticeship to a frog that keeps wandering into my camp at night. When I was done, I went out and took a piss and then a night biter bit me on the neck, so I cast a spell of exclusion so I could get a good night's sleep. Then I went to sleep and woke up here."

"Hmmmmm," said the old man. "I think we can ignore the frog for now. A spell of exclusion might have been the key. The old wizard never said what his preparations were, but if he was sleeping outdoors a spell of exclusion would keep bugs and predators away.

"Wait! You were telling a story to a frog?"

"Yes Master," Muddle said. "He wandered into my camp a couple nights ago and I was really telling the story to the dryad whose tree I was camping under, but I made it seem that I was telling it to the frog. And when I got here, this place was a ruin and I tried my new staff with a spell of repair and renewal, it was repaired and--"

"Staff!!" the old man yelled. "What staff???"

Muddle replied, "The staff the dryad made for me, or with me, together--"

"No wizard has had a staff in over a thousand years!" his Master shouted. "How did you, an apprentice wizard get one?"

"Well," said Muddle slowly. "You know how you got your wand? It was like that only bigger."

"You made love to a dryad?" the old wizard asked.

"Well," stumbled Muddle, "not exactly. She danced around and I got horny and beat off and she scooped up my seed and blended it somehow with a branch and it got made."

"By all the dead gods in the seven circles of hell, first my dumbass apprentice fucks a tree and gets a staff and then cracks the wizard's conundrum that has stumped the greatest minds in the history of wizardry for over seven thousand years and made contact across the veil and he doesn't even have the brains to tell me how this could happen," the old wizard stopped pacing and sat down on a chair that just appeared out of nowhere.

Muddle just looked at the chair and decided not to mention it. Instead he tried again, "The First of the oaks did tell me that it was a staff of destiny--"

The old wizards head snapped up, "You talked with the First?"

Muddle scratched his head and said, "I was talking with the dryad of the oak and her eyes got funny and her voice got deeper and she said I had been talking with the First." He didn't think that this would be a good time to mention that he may have met the First in person while building his grimoire.

"What did she tell you about your staff?" his Master asked.

"That it is a blending of the three; the tree, the dryad and the wizard. And that I would have to discover what powers and secrets it had on my own," replied Muddle.

"Typical," the old wizard said. "They create the greatest weapon or tool the world has seen in over a thousand years and tell you to go 'play with it and find out what it does. Bye.'

"The world hasn't seen a staff or felt its power since my Master passed beyond the veil and the Staff of the Righteous fell silent."

Muddle's head started spinning with that last fact dropped so nonchalantly. The words started pouring out of his mouth as the thoughts fought from inside his brain, "You - Do - What - are over - all staffs - do you -- a thousand - have names - mean the - years old - greatest weapon or tool????"

Muddle's Master blinked and then said, "I think you asked 3 questions all at once. If I heard them correctly, you asked 'If I was over a thousand years old?', 'Do all staffs have names?' and 'What did I mean by the greatest weapon or tool?'"

Muddle just nodded.

"In order then," the old wizard began, "Yes, I am over a thousand years old. Eleven hundred thirty seven years old on the summer solstice to be exact. Or I was. I am not sure that is material anymore.

"All staffs of power have names. Yours must have a name also. Even my wand had a name. It was named The Wand of Lesser Retribution.

"Staffs are the greatest weapons or the greatest tools in the world depending on how they were created and how they are first used. If the parties involved were coerced or were not in their right minds a staff can be warped and become a very dark and dangerous thing. And even a staff that was created with the best intentions by sane and sober individuals can be broken and warped by the first spell cast through it."

Muddle paused to collect his thought. He felt like a leaf in a whirlwind of ideas, blowing him thither and yon without respite.

Muddle's voice suddenly came forth without thought or hesitation, "I am the Staff of Tomorrow, so named by the First of the Living Oaks. I was born out of love and respect given freely by the three of the triad. The first and seminal of my works was the healing and restoration of the ruin of the farmhouse of the farmer named Garret."

Eyes wide Muddle clasped his hands over his mouth, too late to prevent the words they both had heard.

Delfim sat for a long time with his eyes closed and then softly chanted,

"From across all the years,

a debt came to borrow.

From beyond all the tears,

came the Staff of Tomorrow.

Fruit of the wizard, the dryad and tree,

Bonded the staff with the Child of Destiny."

With that Muddle sat up in the kitchen and looked around.

"Weird dream," he thought as he looked down and saw his grimoire on the floor next to him. It was opened and neatly lettered above the Prophesy of the Dyads the words of his Master were inscribed there. Just as the words of the Prophesy of the Dyads were not in his handwriting, the words of his Master were in an older cursive style not at all like his usual scrawl.

To make the scene even more surreal, the staff was balanced on its tip next to the top of his grimoire and beside the staff was the frog. The frog blinked and croaked, "Fam-ili-ar".

So ends the fourth part of A Journey Never Begun.