The Wizard's First Job

“Hey kid, you’re a wizard aren’t ya?” A big meaty hand landed on the Wizard’s shoulder and shook him.

The young wizard was rolling a dirty piece of copper around the table with one finger, with his hood up so that it was hiding his features. When he looked up past the hood of his blue robes it fell off as he looked up, revealing red curly hair and bright blue eyes. He must have just turned 18 recently and looked like he didn’t know how to shave.

He looked up at the man who had asked the question and was surprised to see a very muscular man that had to be at least six foot and six inches tall. His bald head looked like it shined in the light of the guild hall and his beard hid the entirety of his neck. Even through the beard the young wizard could tell that he was smiling as he waited for the answer he already knew the answer to.

“Uh,” the wizard replied nervously, “yeah I am, but I just graduated from the academy about a week ago. I haven’t gotten any jobs or actual experience yet.”

“That’s ok, kid! You can do basic elemental attack spells right? The job we are going to do is low level and even a noob like you will do,” adding a loud laugh that almost shook the hall. “We haven’t had a wizard in a while and it would really help our group out to have another long range fighter.”

They were gathered in the guild hall where anyone who wanted to work in the chaos control field gathered to acquire jobs and turn them in. It was a tall beautiful building made almost entirely of white marble that shone brightly when the light hit it. There were countless tables where groups rested after jobs or waited for their groups before them. The Wizard was the youngest in the hall and the only one that was sitting alone.

“But there are plenty of other Wizard’s here in the hall that would be way bett-” he started to reply but was cut off by the giant man.

“If he doesn’t want to come then leave his ass,” a female voice said.

The young Wizard looked at the woman and felt like he should look away because of her outfit. She was wearing a blue bra that barely covered her nipples, revealing her perfectly shaped breasts. Her clothe shorts revealed every inch of her toned legs and didn’t cover her ass entirely. She was staring at the Wizard with an unamused look, telegraphing to everyone that she was ready to leave.

“But this is an easy job,” the man said. “It’ll be great to get you some experience, kid. What’s your name?”

“Um…” the Wizard hesitated.

“See he doesn’t even know his own fucking name,” the woman said in disgust. “Chet, he would freeze under even the smallest amount of pressure. Leave him, he won’t cut it.” She turned and started walking away from them.

“Oh would you stop being so rude Meg,” a bubbly female voice said. “He would do great! Besides, the great one will watch over us! What was that name, bud?” She had short blonde hair and beautiful green eyes that the Wizard could get lost in for days. She was wearing white robes that covered considerably more than Meg’s outfit. The Wizard recognized that clerics usually wear these types of clothes when not in battle armor.

“Uh, my name is Thamiar, and I specialize in lightning spells, but I know all the basic elemental spells.”

“Wow, did you rehearse that a few times?” Chet was still laughing and had barely taken notice of the conversation between the women. “No wonder you haven’t gotten any jobs. Lightning can be unpredictable sometimes, even worse for a beginner, Justine, maybe we should find someone else.”

“Nonsense!” Justine yelled, drawing the attention of everyone in the guild hall. “You said it yourself Chet, this is an easy job, great for him to get some practice!” She winked at Thamiar. “What do you say, Thamiar?”

“Uh, um,” Thamiar stammered. “Sure if you don’t think I’ll create any issues for you.”

“Then it’s settled!” Chet squeezed his shoulder and pulled him up from the table. “Come sit with the rest of the group, while I go register the job for us.” He started pushing Thamiar towards a table that Meg was sitting at.

There were three other people sitting at the table drinking with Meg, from what Thamiar could tell Meg was some kind of archer. One of the guys at the table was dressed in all black, but Thamiar couldn’t see his face behind the mask and hood he was wearing. The other two other guys were obviously twins, both had on light armor and short swords on their hips. Thamiar looked forward to seeing them fight together in battle. As he sat down, Chet walked to the counter where teams registered themselves for jobs.

“Oh by the way I’m Justine!” Justine pointed a finger at Meg and smiled. “You’ve met this sourpuss of a ranger Meg. The dark one is Brad, he’s good at hiding and gathering info. The twins Jack and John are the best sword fighting team in the city! I heal everyone, especially Chet when he runs up and attacks blindly. You’ll fit right in! Just follow our lead!”

Thamiar started to feel uneasy looking at all of these adventurers who were obviously way more experienced than he was. Although, they had said that this job was easy so he shouldn’t have too much to worry about at all. He just needed to keep his training in mind and be ready to cast his spells.

Thamiar looked over at Chet to see what was taking so long, usually teams could register for jobs in a matter of minutes. As he looked he saw the woman behind the counter look at him past Chet, but look away after they made eye contact. Chet started talking and finally signed the paperwork and headed back to the group.

“Alrighty, we are all set! We can run through some training tomorrow, and then we can take little Thamiar on his first job as a big boy!” Chet slapped Thamiar on the back just as he was taking a sip of water and he spilled it on himself. The entire group, save the guy in all black laughed at him loudly.

Thamiar looked around at the group as they laughed and wondered how they weren’t at all nervous for the job coming up. He wondered if after he got more experience he could be this calm before a job.

Chet broke into his thoughts. “Ok, go home and get some sleep, be at the northern training ground as early as you can in the morning. Thamiar we’ll see what you got and work you into our formations.”

All of a sudden Chet had started to sound professional instead of the relaxed attitude he had been showing before. Maybe Thamiar really would be ok with this group of fighters. He would find out in the next few days.

Thamiar woke up before the sun came up the next day, his nerves were getting the best of him. He was worried that they would see his magic and not want to take him on the job anymore. If that happened he would never be able to find a team to work with in the future. Then he would end up being one of the Wizards who only uses his magic to entertain people on street corners.

He decided that he would go to the training ground early to see what they had in hopes that he could prepare before the others got there. He got up, threw on his blue robe, pouch with extra magical components and grabbed his staff. He knew it would be about a 30 minute walk to the training ground so he grabbed his basic spell book to review on the way. He had to cast light from his finger to read on the way there. Before he knew it, he was standing in front of the training ground.

The sun was just starting to rise, so he figured the others would get there soon enough. No time to waste then, he needed to scout out the training ground.

It wasn’t the most impressive training ground, it was mostly dirt with some practice dummies made out of hay and some of wood. It had a large open area where fighters could practice without having to worry about hitting anyone else with a sword or mace. It was surrounded by fifteen foot high stone walls, anyone on the inside would have to intentionally try to fire something over them.

Thamir figured they would want him to fire any attack spells he had at the training dummies, judging how fast and accurately he could cast them. The biggest problem that was holding him back was that he could only cast his spells about ten times before he became too exhausted to move. It would be less if he needed to put more energy into just one of those spells. That was the only thing keeping him from target practice before they arrived.

He was only there for about an hour when Meg showed up. She was in a much more modest outfit, although it still clung to her body and showed her curves off perfectly. She had some light leather armor protecting vital areas of her body, but it left plenty of room for her to move around. Thamiar couldn’t even begin to count the number of arrows in her quiver, but knew she wasn’t going to run out anytime soon. As she was walking in she was stringing her longbow.

As she walked in she looked up and locked eyes with Thamiar and gave him a look of surprise. “Hmpf, I’m usually the first one here. Trying to get a little extra practice in before you inevitably fall on your face?”

After how she had acted the day before he wasn’t surprised at what she said. She apparently didn’t want an answer since she just kept walking towards the dummies out of earshot from him.

Everyone else from the group showed up in less than a half an hour. Chet called him over to the dummies. Thamiar was mentally prepared to fire off his spells to the best of his ability. As soon as he was online he started to charge up his best lightning attack, but Chet stopped him.

“Hold on there kid,” he said, holding up a hand signaling him to stop. “Even some experienced wizards can only cast about 20 spells. We have a time limit on the job so today is all we’ve got. So I've got some questions before you go killing yourself with your spells.” He poked Thamiar on the forehead with that last statement.

“Oh, uh ok. What do you wanna know?”

“How many times can you cast?” Chet asked in a serious tone.

Thamiar winced, he had hoped that he wouldn’t have had to say the pathetic number out loud. “Only ten.”

Chet let out a laugh. “Only?! For a young kid that just graduated, that's pretty normal kid. Have some confidence. Ok, and you said lightning is your best correct?”

Thamiar just nodded after that reaction.

“Ok that’s fine, there should only be goblins in the cave, we might have to deal with a hob or two, but that should be it. Ok, when I say threat, fire off your lightning as quickly as you can at the wood dummy. Got it?”

Again Thamiar just nodded and then got into a readied stance.

The rest of the group had stopped practicing their individual skills and Thamiar thought he could cut the silence with a butter knife. Time seemed to have stopped in his mind and it felt like the entire day had passed before finally Chet yelled, “Threat!”

Thamiar’s hands glowed with magic that quickly formed into lightning and he concentrated to push it towards the wooden dummy about 15 yards away. The lightning hit the dummy dead center and created a black circular burn mark where he had it. Thamiar guessed that it had taken him just over a second to fire it off, that was one of the fastest castings yet.

“One second flat by count Chet.” Brad said from a corner. He had been so quiet that Thamiar forgot he was there.

“Not bad kid, we can cover you easily while you cast that. Ok now run through the other elements and then we will get you up to speed on formations.”

Thamiar fired off the rest of the elements just as fast and accurately. After they understood his skill level they spent the rest of the day showing him patrol and combat formations. Before he knew it the sun had gone down and they were leaving the training ground.

“Good job kid. Ya have a future with us if you can do well tomorrow. Go home, get some sleep and meet us at the city gate tomorrow bright and early.” Chet was wiping his brow of the sweat he had worked up from practicing with his ax.

Thamiar was tired, but proud of himself for the way he had cast his spells. He even got a few favorable looks and winks from Justine that had really boosted his confidence in his own abilities. This group really seemed to know what they were doing and they were teaching him quite a bit. He thought that just maybe, he would be ok.

The group was standing about 100 yards away from a cave opening after about two hours of the most boring walk Thamiar had ever been on. He had no real way to tell how long it had been, but it seemed like the sun hadn’t moved all that much since they left. No one else seemed to be bothered by the walk, at least not as much as he was. They had all acted as they always had, joking and talking normally. Now, Chet had gathered them up to go over the final details of the job.

“Ok this is a simple job, there are an unknown number of goblins in the cave. They have been said to be led by a hobgoblin, but that one only shows up periodically. They have been raiding some nearby towns that have little to no guard patrols to help. Some women and children have been taken and some men have been killed in the towns. They might have something good for us to take, but it is not likely. To get your kills in and have fun. Questions?”

Thamiar was once again surprised at how quickly his demeanor changed when talking about the job. He was usually laid back and relaxed, always joking and making fun of the nearest person to him. Except Justine, he never made fun of or poked at her. Thamiar chalked that up to not wanting to piss off the one person that could heal you when necessary. Not a bad strategy honestly.

“Um, how often do you want me cast?” Thamiar asked nervously, his voice was almost shaking.

Chet raised an eyebrow at him. “Try not to cast unless you see that one of us needs help, or if you see the hobgoblin. Your lightning should make quick work of ‘im when he pops his head up.”

Thamiar nodded his head. He actually had a million more questions, but didn’t want to seem annoying or more inexperienced than he was. Although he was very inexperienced and they all knew it.

“Don’t you dare fucking hit me with that lighting you brat.” Meg was staring at him, he thought she could kill him with just that.

Before he could respond, Brad motioned for them all to get down and pointed at the cave.

“Two guards coming out,” he said almost inaudibly.

The group disappeared behind trees and bushes before Thamiar realized what happened. He must have reacted slowly since he felt a hand grab his shoulder and pull him down behind a bush.

“Can’t give our position away just yet, hide faster next time,” Meg hissed at him. “I will kill you myself if you jeopardize any of our safety.” The daggers coming out of her eyes made it clear how serious she was.

Thamiar just nodded silently and noticed that this group had him lost for words more than he usually was. It didn’t matter, he needed to focus on the job they were about to start.

“Two guards, meg you shoot one when Brad takes the other one.” Chet nodded to the two of them and Brad disappeared into the bushes. Thamiar blinked and missed Meg drawing her Bow and sighting in on a Goblin.

Time seemed to freeze for Thamiar and he never took his eyes off Meg. Finally after what seemed to be forever, Meg’s arrow flew into the neck of the goblin. Thamiar didn’t even see where the other Goblin had gone, but Brad stepped out from behind a tree a moment later. He crouched his way over to the cave opening and peeked his head inside. He then gave the all clear sign to the rest of the group and told them to move to the cave.

“Ok Thammy, don’t use your magic unless i tell you too or your life is in danger. Also don’t run away when you see the first goblin up close like the last guy.” This joke brought a laugh from the entire group, although it was more of a chickle.

Thamiar felt embarrassed even though he wasn’t the one they were talking about. It must have been obvious because he made eye contact with Justine who looked sympathetic and mouthed “you will be okay.” Great. This job just started and he was already being babied, not how he expected it to go. He broke eye contact with her and just looked down on the ground. Shortly after, the group silently entered the cave with Thamiar safely in the middle.

As they moved through the cave it ended up going much deeper into the side of the mountain than Thamiar had expected. Now and then they would run into small groups of goblins, but each time the group effortlessly dispatched them. Thamiar started to think that he wasn’t going to be necessary at all. Until Chet signaled for him.

He pointed to a goblin, but it was bigger than any of the ones they had seen so far. It was at least two feet taller than the others and was actually wearing armor with two swords on its back. For the first time during this job Thamiar actually did want to run away from it. If Thamiar didn’t know better he would have sworn that its eyes were bright red.

“Test number one thammy. That is a hobgoblin. It looks scarier than the others but it just needs a little more of a kick to go down. It’s much faster though, so you will need to take it down with one hit. Do you think you can do that?”

“Y-yes,” he said, stuttering. He tried to control the shaking “I will just use a little extra power in the lightning so I won’t be able to cast my full ten times.” He started to reach for his staff that he had secured to his back, it would be easier to channel the stronger magic through it. His shaking was so bad that as soon as he took it out, he dropped it. He winced waiting for the sound of it bouncing off of the rocky floor of the cave, but it never came.

He opened his eyes to see that Justine had caught it and was smiling at him. “It’s ok,” she whispered. “Take a deep breath and concentrate. You can do this. Worst case scenario we take him out instead.” Her smile calmed him more than he thought it would and he started to wonder if that was a cleric trick. He had heard that they had some abilities like that, but he needed to focus. He nodded and took the staff out of her hands, he would have to thank her later.

He pointed the staff at the hobgoblin that was probably 50 feet in front of him and rested it on a rock. The last thing he needed was to miss completely and alert it of their presence. The faster he did this the faster it was over. He started to concentrate and gather the magic that he needed. Instead of gathering one blast around his hands he channeled the amount for two into the staff. Once the staff was lightly glowing he concentrated hard to form it into lightning. Two seconds later lighting went soaring across the cave, momentarily lighting up the entire area and connected with the hobgoblin.

It let out the loudest screech Thamiar had ever heard and he thought he had to have killed it. He was wrong. The hobgoblin reached for its swords and began to screech again, likely warning the rest of the cave. Thamiar had no time to waste; he repeated the process and hit the hobgoblin with another lightning bolt filled with the power of two. It fell to the ground lifeless.

The group all stared at each other silently, waiting to see if any reinforcements would come. They were expecting to hear the small screeches of many goblins running to help. Except they only heard one roar that sounded like it came from a monster that was much larger than the hobgoblin Thamiar had just killed.

“What was that?” Thamiar said, looking around. “That sounds way bigger than a hobgoblin…”

Chet looked at him cheerfully. “Don’t worry we know where it hangs out and we aren’t going anywhere near it.” Chet Shot a glance over to Justine.

Justine looked at Chet with a forced smile that Thamiar had not seen before. “Yeah Thamiar, don’t worry about it, we won't have to deal with that this time around. Someday we will come back to deal with it though.”

Thamiar didn’t know the group that well, but he felt that something was off about that interaction. He almost immediately cast the idea from his mind. He decided that he should at least trust Justine.

“Ok,” Chet said. “So the stuff they took from that town should be right down one of these upcoming caverns. There might even be some stuff that we can keep for ourselves.”

“That's not why we are here Chet,” Justine replied in a tone that sounded like she was forcing happiness. “We are here to clear out the goblins that have been terrorizing the towns in the area.”

“Yeah, I know that, but it won’t hurt if we could come out of this with some extra stuff for ourselves right?” Chet had a dejected look on his face that almost made Thamiar feel bad for him.

They continued going through the caves for another fifteen minutes, but they hadn’t run into any more goblins. Thamiar thought that maybe they had cleared most of them out and just had to find the last few.

Thamiar was so lost in thought that he hadn’t realized that he had walked in front of the group. He stopped to look around and noticed that he had walked into what had seemed to be the end of the cave. Instead of seeing a horde of things that had been stolen from towns there was a single gem the size of his head sitting on a pedestal. It was a bright shimmering blue that was also giving off magical light that lit the entire room.

As he was taking in this part of the cavern and the gem he felt chet’s hand on the back of his neck. “Hey kid,” he whispered in Thamiar’s ear. “You really did a good job, but this is why we are really here.” Chet then buried his ax into Thamiar’s leg, nearly cutting it cleanly off.

Thamiar screamed in pain and horror as the ax cut through every muscle, tendon and bone in his thigh. He immediately fell to the ground clutching his leg and trying to comprehend what was going on. He looked up at Chet who was smiling wickedly at him.

“Oh no that’s not where we want you, you are blocking the door. How are we supposed to leave if you are lying right there?” Chet picked Thamiar up with the ease of a fully grown man picking up a newborn baby and threw him to the right of the opening.

Thamiar hit the ground and lost his breath from the impact. As he was lying there trying to catch his breath, he heard what sounded like a low growl that made his heart stop for a moment. He turned his head to look behind him and he saw two goblins standing in front of an ogre that was holding a giant wooden club.

“Justine!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “Please help me! I don’t want to die here, please!” He looked frantically around for Justine.

When he locked eyes with Justine, the look in her eye was completely different than it had been before. The happiness that was there before was completely gone, replaced with a sinister look that made Thamiar want to run away.

“Ignorant boy,” Justine said in a voice that didn’t even sound like hers. “You really believe that a group like ours would hold your hand through a job? You are nothing but bait for the ogre and his elite guards over there so we have time to grab the life gem and get away. Now we don’t have to worry about it.”

She then ripped the gold emblem that represented the great old one off of her armor to reveal a red backwards “F” representing Featal the evil god of torture. As she did this, Thamiar could see Brad sprinting to grab the gem. It all happened so quickly that Thamiar barely comprehended it all. Brad was back with the group and had already stashed the gem away before Thamiar had completely regained his breath. They all started walking away and he could hear their laughter fade into the distance.

Thamiar looked back and the two elite guard goblins were walking towards him with evil smiles on their faces. At that moment both his breath and the pain came rushing back to him. He had been used and betrayed and the people that were responsible were going to get away with it. However, that wasn’t going to matter in a moment since the goblins were probably about to feed him to the ogre.

“No.” he said under his breath. “No! You will not get me without a fucking fight.” The anger was swelling up inside of him. He had fallen for a girl that he thought was cute and she used him to get to a gem, likely for a large payday.

If he used a lightning bolt that was equivalent to two he could probably kill the goblins in two casts. The issue would then be that he would have to channel the rest of his power and cast it at the ogre in order to actually kill it. Before he could finish his thought process he realized that goblins were getting too close for comfort.

He began to channel magic into each of his hands and shaping it into lightning. It took longer because he had to double the power, but he got the first cast off before any of his enemies realized what was happening. The goblin on the left twitched and slumped to the ground dead. Thamiar immediately started concentrating the magic into his hands again.

The other goblin now knew what was happening and started sprinting at Thamiar wielding a short sword.

Thamiar felt himself tire from the first casting and it took him even longer to form the magic he was gathering into lightning. The goblin got within five feet of him and jumped at Thamiar. Just before he could swing his sword to take Thamiar’s head off, lightning struck him and he dropped his sword and died. However the goblin already had momentum and his body slammed into Thamiar ending up on top of him.

The ogre laughed and started saying something in a language that Thamiar could not understand. He assumed it was something along the lines of you look tasty little fool. He tried to move the goblin’s body off of him, but he wasn’t strong enough and was still tired from so much casting. The ogre got up and started slowly walking towards him laughing evilly.

Thamiar didn’t have time to keep trying to move the goblin body, he felt himself starting to lose consciousness. He could only get one hand in the direction of the ogre. He could hear his instructors telling him that he shouldn’t cast multiple levels of strength with only one hand or you might lose an arm. He had no choice, it was to risk an arm or definitely die as ogre food.

He started to concentrate the rest of his power into his one hand. He slowly started to black out, but kept gathering the magic in his hands. His arm started to hurt as all of the magic power he had left gathered at his fingertips and started trying to form it into the lightning.

The ogre was no more than a foot away when he had finally formed the lightning and fired it off. At the same time the world went black as he lost consciousness from expending the last of his energy in that attack.

“Well, at least I tried and if it didn’t work, hopefully I won’t feel the ogre’s teeth when it eats me.” He closed his eyes and resolved himself to accept his fate.

Thamiar blinked his eyes open as the world slowly started to fill with color again. He couldn’t move, but assumed that was because he had used up the last of his energy. He looked around and saw the ogre’s eyes inches away from his own. He let out a scream thinking that he had woken up just in time to be eaten, but the ogre’s eyes didn’t move. He realized that the ogre was dead and his last attempt to save himself had somehow worked.

Good. He would eventually get out from under the dead Goblin and when he did he would get revenge on the group of people that lied to him. He wouldn’t kill them, that was too good a punishment. He would use the most forbidden form of magic and enslave them for as long as he was alive.

Necromancy was the only possible revenge for what they had done.