Legends of Belariath

Scathien

Revenge of the Phoenix: Chapter 3: Deception

Three days had passed and so far “Marcus”, the son of a human noble and a torian slave was doing excellent in his various classes. Of course, Scathien was careful not to let on that he had mastered such simple skills years ago. He was doing so well in his lesson s that the teachers had decided to give him and entrance test in order to determine where exactly in the school he should be placed.

He decided to show off his talents, showing mastery in everything except for a few specific areas (on purpose mind you) and the evaluators decided to place him at the top of the graduating class which coincidentally was having its graduation ceremonies at the end of next week. As the week progressed “Marcus” continued to show great improvement in the areas that he had been found lacking during his placement test. Others besides the teachers noticed his rapid improvement as well. One student in particular, Jared, noticed his rapid advancement and grew slightly suspicious of it.

Jared was a spindly little man with a smart assed attitude toward people he felt were inferior to him, which turned out to be nearly everyone he met (in his own mind anyway). He was also a competent thief that had grown to adapt the arts of the pyromancer in his line of work. One of his more notable accomplishments was an odd mastery of the “Whispers of the Flame” spell which allowed the caster to hear or speak through a set of flames connected by the magic as if two people were sitting beside one another and the distance the flames could be from each other depended on the mage’s capabilities.

What was odd, however, was how Jared was able to bend the rules of the spell and not only hear, but he could also see through the burning flames and spy upon whatever target he was looking after. Because of this advancement that no one else was able to duplicate, he was placed at the head of the class and for a time was without peer despite his lacking in a few areas.

Now this upstart half-breed was taking his spotlight! Jared decided that it was time to dig up some dirt on this prodigy and send him crawling into the darkness from which he emerged. At first, he headed into the area where student records were kept, pulling up Marcus’ file.

Apparently according to the provided history, Marcus came from lands distant enough to be classified as “uncharted” to people in this land. He however had a noble heritage since his father raised his slave born son to take over in his stead when he grew old and passed away. It was also revealed that he arrived in this land roughly two or three months ago to visit the Elemental Master of Fire, the surly and easily angered dwarf Flameforger in order to unlock his growing talents with the flame.

Something seemed odd however. It was nothing more than a gut feeling with no actual proof behind it but something simply felt wrong with this Marcus boy. The way that he moved, talked, and acted felt nothing like the exuberance that youth should possess. It was because of this that he felt more… invasive measures needed to be taken.

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