Ugh. Yes.
That incident.
Now you remember why you were trying so hard not to think about it.
Honestly, the whole situation is a godsawful mess that you are equally terrified and mortified to have partaken in.
You also suspect that your drinks were spiked.
Well, there's nothing you can do about this except for being optimistic and hoping it will all blow over. In twenty years or so, when Asummar is too senile to remember your face or why she's angry with you. It's not like she has an extensive spy network that will helpfully remind her the instant you show up in a Carashid town.
You might or might not be getting too paranoid. On the other hand, you might be not paranoid enough.
Desriq or "Scion" in Kipassan is supposed to be some sort of a religious advisor to the given city's ruling council, as you'd gathered from your lessons in the Kiqala University, a practice established some three hundred years ago by an overly religious king. Rashid the Third, if you remember correctly. The reality is more complicated.
You are being unfair to the late Rashid, you suppose. He didn't establish this policy only because he was a fanatic zealot who half-bankrupted the whole Federation by the end of his reign by trying to build not one, not two, but four Grand Temples at the same time, which has incidentally resulted in a succession war when his son declared he'd like to continue from where his Dad left off and effectively destroyed monarchy in Carashid ever sin-
No, you know what, Rashid was pretty freaking stupid, but, you may be forced to admit, not all his decisions were.
The main problem with the Scions, as you understand it, is that they wield power. Not political power and, quite often enough, not magical power, which you suppose you have to thank Yirrik for since, whatever ungodly terror Asummar is, at least she's not a mage. Not a good mage, at least.
No, the Scions wield the power apparently bestowed by the Gods themselves. If someone is really notorious for being the best at something, one morning they may find that they are. Asummar, as a result of her ( and nobody sane would actually say it aloud where she can hear you ) misspent youth, found herself in the position of the best duelist on the continent. No, really, she killed the previous title holder in a duel, so now she's the Champion, Scion of Contest. Or "most esteemed Desriq" in your country, because her prowess means she's spiritually close to Yirrik's Aspect of Struggle or something.
What it means for you is that Rashid the Third formally legalized the popular practice of the Scion veneration, no one has revoked his decree even after the monarchy's dissolution, and now, three hundred years later Desriq Asummar Ih-Laren wields more political power than any six members of the Saal's city council. Of course, if she wasn't relatively restricted by the council's oversight it would be probably ten times worse for everyone involved, and of course, she has already been called out ( repeatedly ) on her actions, but the simple fact remains: out of your last five companions in misfortune two are dead, one is a vegetable, one isn't sleeping with anyone, ever, and the poor sod who thought it would be enough to just flee to another city ended up dead in a ditch two weeks later. He was also an infamous gambler, but you'd rather not take any chances, thank you very much.
You continue mournfully gazing at the forest.
... Well, that's enough with internal whining.
For now, you are traveling to Deloni, the City of Coin.
Formerly a dependency of the Kipassa Principates, it and three other cities in the region fought free blah blah a lot of words meaning Ghoor-Ca made a powerplay in the region and covertly instigated a rebellion only to find out that four can play this game, when the other three major powers supported the Free Cities' independence from the Caesians' invasion twenty years later. From then on, the Free Cities and their informal capital have served interminably both as the trading hub and the stop gap between Ghoor-Ca Empire and the rest of the continent.
Hopefully, you'll manage to get to Kipassa after that. Deloni is nice, you guess, but you don't quite feel you'd be safe enough in what is undoubtedly the largest den of spies this side of the Caellir Ocean. Ghoor-Ca and Jisrem are not an option. The news from what impressionable scholars have started calling "the Broken Kingdom" is frankly terrifying, and between Ghoor-Ca and Asummar... you'd probably choose to stab yourself with a rusty sword in your stomach.
You are keeping your options open.
You sigh heavily. When you finally get to the damnable city that someone decided should be located two days into the Festing Forest, you'll be finally able to earn money with some honest work, something you're good at, which is...
Er.
Well, huh. So what are you good at, actually?
[] You're not a half-bad duelist yourself. Not nearly good enough to face against the Scion of Contest, but well, nobody is. Nobody yet. You're planning to travel to Kipassa, where it's a common practice to hire sellswords in order to represent the offended parties in a formal duel. That's infinitely safer than staying in Carashid because duels are almost always to the first blood, healing magic is a thing, and you haven't accidentally slept with your opponents' children. ( Duelling is an art of single combat often suspect to a specific set of rules or code of honor. That said, it doesn't mean you can't fight dirty. You most certainly can and will, if you have to. The duelist's main attributes are Body and Mind. The secondary attribute is Spirit. )
[] You are a priest. Well, you haven't finished your education and haven't been formally inducted and probably never will be, but that's really unimportant. You were trained to feel your connection to the divine, which allows you to call on the Aspects of your chosen God(s). Or that's what you're telling to your gullible acquaintances. Basically, you can manipulate the energies in your body and the outer shell of your soul in order to accomplish what someone uneducated would call a miracle. Believing in something really helps to focus, though, and it's not like the Gods aren't real, it's more like they aren't really paying too much attention, what's with being personifications of the fundamental forces and principles of the universe. That you have to run away from your country because a brute with a sword is more religiously important than you is a little humiliating, but not unexpected. But well, you have plans... ( Being a priest means being an angrish philosopher in this setting, but not really. Committing - yes, committing - miracles requires convincing - or maybe believing hard enough - the universe you and the god you represent are right-er in the given situation than the other guy/law/rule-of-nature/whatever. The priest's main attributes are Spirit and Soul. The secondary attribute is Mind. You are also expected, but not required, to follow one of the Four Gods. More on that later. )
[] You are an alchemist. Alchemy is less about finding out how to create gold from thin air and more about finding out how to explode air in the lungs of your enemies. Or make some really good alloys, you guess. It's really just a category of magic specializing on imposing temporary changes on the world through the application of will and manipulation of energies around you. You are especially good at manipulating Aer, the element of Change and Mutability, named so because it's most commonly found in air. You can pursue your studies almost anywhere, but having a rapier ran through you once or twice would somewhat complicate things, so you consider running a prudent step. ( Magic is somewhat like science. Basically, the structure of the universe is such that any prolonged application of will may change or disable some of the existing laws. You don't convince anyone you are right, you just tell everyone to shut up and do as you say. And then hope that the backlash won't murder you, so maybe you should've started with something easier. The alchemist's main attributes are Spirit and Mind. The secondary attribute is Soul. )
[] You are a wanderer. Thankfully, it's not a fancy word for a homeless vagabond. Well, technically you are homeless and a vagabond, but that's not what being a wanderer means. However, you think you are more okay to leave your home behind than you would have been otherwise. What mages externalize, you internalize instead, achieving fits of superhuman strength and dexterity, endurance and perception. It requires inhuman concentration of will on what you want to achieve and an excellent understanding of human anatomy, but you manage most of the time. Of course, air friction is a bitch, so you have to pay attention to that, too. Not to say anything about the wet squelching sounds your muscles make when you accidentally move too fast for your body to withstand. Or that one time- ( What it says. The funny thing is, a human's body is apparently more real than, for example, a rock. Unless it's a really important rock. So you can use your body to break that rock. Unfortunately, maintaining that no, your body is absolutely fine and that kick shouldn't tear your own leg off is in some ways more difficult than maintaining that the rock is bad and needs to die. It's a metaphysical problem wanderers resolve by almost solipsistic application of will and rigorous training regimen. The main attributes are, therefore, Body and Spirit, and the secondary is Soul. )
A/N: so yes, they are classes, but they are also an outlook on the universe around you. This by no means prevents you from combining different classes, ( and there are more than four, these are just the ones you have available from start ) and no class is ever pure vanilla fighting or magical one, but your starting class does matter. Maybe even more than your country of origin. I will write from the perspective your class gives you on the world surrounding you, and the first instinct of a wanderer or a duelist in a dangerous situation would almost always be bashing your opponent's skull in or stabbing them really hard, and not, for example, convincing the universe they have an ice popsicle through their chest and it really fucking hurts. Or making the said popsicle. And stabbing them with it really hard. So yeah, choose who you want to play as.
Oh, and it doesn't work as "quadratic wizard, linear warrior", it works more like "the smart, the quick and the lucky survive, and the others don't". Yep, time for me to wrap this up.
