Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

The Troublesome Apprentice

Anslem Franz sat uneasily in a small brick room, lit only by a dying candle on a table in the middle of the room. With each flicker, shadows seemed to swell and shrink in the room, dancing a maddening dance. As he watched the flickering shadows, Anslem tried to calm his racing heart by counting the seconds that had passed by since a servant had led him here. Unfortunately, he had restarted so many times that he had lost count. It was amusing, in a sickeningly ironic way, that his fear of the dark and shadows had only grown since joining the Grey Order. He had witnessed the horrors that could be done with the wind of shadows, making a man lose his memory, assuming a mocking facsimile of another, and changing the very way a man may act. What other horrors could be done with actual shadows, and with the more powerful spells available to the Magisters of the order?

The creak of an opening door sent his heart hammering, and it did not calm at seeing his… current Master walking in the room. Magister Regimand briefly scanned the room, as if looking for things beyond the sight of mortal kin, and then took a seat at the opposite end of the table. There was a silence in the air, an uncomfortable silence that seemed saturated with tension.

"Anslem," Magister Regimand began after an uncomfortable amount of time, "do you know why you are here in this room?"

"Nnnn...no, Master Regimand. I… I don't."

Magister Regimand frowned but offered no further incentive to speak. Time stretched painfully, seemingly going on forever as the sweat continued to bead down the small of Anslem's back.

"I… guess it would be because I messed up again, Master Regimand."

"Yes, Anslem," Magister Regimand stated, "you did, as you say, 'mess up again.' You failed a simple stakeout and then proceeded to lie to my face about it. How you thought that was something you should do is beyond me, but I have no use for an apprentice who can not even count the number of people entering and leaving from the front door."

Anslem flinched and tried to shrink in upon himself. It didn't help. Nothing helped. He had heard what would come next at least twice before. It was like a ritual at this point.

"You have great potential Anslem , and that is why I agreed to be your master as you learned the secrets and mysteries of the Grey Order. However, you seem incapable of learning the most basic skills and fundamentals of any wizard from the Grey Order. As such, I divest my responsibility for you. No longer will you and I be master and apprentice. No longer will I instruct you in the secrets and mysteries of our Order, and no longer will you seek me out for such instruction."

Choking back tears, Anslem responded, "As…as… as you… as you say, Magister Regimand."

"However," Magister Regimand continued, "I do believe that there is something of worth in your body, and I hate being wrong. As such, I have taken the liberty of securing another Magister to be your Master. They will be here within the month, and until they do arrive to take responsibility for you, you will be confined to your room."

Anslem could barely hear the soft sound of something sliding across the table over his efforts to keep from openly weeping, but upon looking up, he saw a book in front of him.

"I would suggest," Magister Regimand said as he stood up, "that you take that time to study the material I have just gifted you. It will serve you well."

And with that, Magister Regimand left the room. And all that remained was Anslem, a flickering candle, and a mysterious book. Upon the cover of the book was a simple title, "A Primer for Dwarven Culture." Shaking his head, Anslem took the book and simply held it, and waited for the servant to bring him back to his quarters.



Anslem found himself, a month and change later, in the same room of brick with a flickering candle on a simple table. The only thing different was his knowledge of Dwarven society, what they found important and what to avoid. How this information would help him he didn't know, as the Dwarfs were not known for having any wizards. He would likely soon learn though, as his… new master had come to take responsibility for him. The door opened, and a middle-aged woman stepped into the room. But that was all he noticed before his eyes were drawn to the pool of shadow at the woman's feet, a pool that swirled and danced like a living well of water. He couldn't tear his eyes from that deep, dark shadow and the promise of terror residing within. His heartbeat quickened, sweat began to bead on his brow, and his tongue had suddenly gone dry. And then… there was darkness.




The feeling of shifting was the first thing he understood, as reality slowly came back to him. There was wood underneath him, and he seemed to be moving on a road, given the irregular bumps. Sound came next, the rumbling of a cart, the wuff of a large animal, and the scratching of a fountain pen on paper. Cautiously he sat up, looking around to gain his bearings. The middle-aged woman he remembered before darkness had claimed him was next to him, sitting up against a massive wolf-like dog, who had sprawled out and seemed to be resting as well. The woman was dressed in the traditional clothes of the Grey Order, but with what seemed like a witch-hunter's hat resting atop her scalp. For some reason, and to his immense relief, her shadow was gone, like it had never existed. A quick inventory of her revealed that she had a great sword laying next to her, as well as some sort of staff, but the most peculiar thing at the moment was her ability to write something without a care for the jostling of the cart. Anslem watched in strange fascination as the pen wrote smoothly, with any hint of jarring or disturbance.

"If you wake in a strange location next to a stranger, the last thing you should do is simply stare at a pen."

Anslem flushed and began looking around at anything other than the mysterious woman. There was no follow up comment, no questions to answer, simply silence. He was growing to hate silence. As such, he decided to break the silence.

"I'm terribly sorry Master, but I don't think I've caught your name."

The pen stopped writing, and the woman looked up with a questioning eyebrow and asked, "Is there any reason you would need my name?"

His eyes darted towards his feet and the tips of his ears burned like fire. "No Master."

There was a moment of silence, and then a sudden slap of flesh. Looking up, Anslem found his Master's hand slowly sliding down her face.

"Wrong answer Apprentice. Always try to continue a conversation with a stranger if you are seeking information. Find what they will freely give and what they are reluctant to talk about, and from that piece together a means to pump more information out of them. It seems that Regimand wasn't wrong. You need to relearn all the basics."

"I'll endeavor to do my utmost."

"We'll see what that is, won't we? Now, cast Aethyric Armor."

Half remembered formulas from books came to the forefront of his mind. It had been a while, at least a month, since he had practiced this spell, and he had never studied how to do it all that in-depth. Opening up his witch sight, he studiously ignored the massive fog bank which swirled around his Master and grasped at Ulgu to begin the spell. Almost immediately, things went wrong. The winds thrashed and tried to escape him, but he poured his willpower and energy into containing and constraining it, making it do what he willed. And then his Master gestured, and all of the Ulgu lept out of his control to flee outside of the cart, grounding itself into the earth passing them by.

"If you can't cast a spell, refuse to cast it. If the winds are running wild, ground the energies and pray. I'm surprised Regimand hasn't killed you himself if you are incapable of even that. We will start with the very basics, and I will force you to relearn everything. And, even though you haven't properly asked, my name is Dame Mathilde Weber. You will call me Master Weber for the duration of your time as an apprentice. Is that clear, Anslem?"

"Yes, Master Weber."

"Good, now get some more sleep, it is a long journey by cart to the Chapterhouse in Karak-Eight-Peaks and we will have a lot to do in the upcoming days. You'll need your strength."

A/N: A thought that there could be a Shadow Wizard who was scared of darkness and shadows tickled me funny. The idea that Regimand would play Apprentice Hotpotato with Mathilde and "gift" her this most troublesome apprentice made my muse go into overdrive. I hope you enjoy, and as always, critiques and criticisms are welcomed.