1st of Rainfell

The Grand Enchanter sent for me today, informing me that my last trial not only placed me first - as expected - but that it caught the attention of the Duke of Tala’an. I didn’t bother arguing with him about taking on the job. He let my family take me out for far too many banquets for me to have any space for any arguing. That means I’m spending the rest of tonight preparing for a 2 week journey to his estate. I can’t believe I’ll be losing 2 week off of my chances to prepare for more trials, when I only have 3 more to go before I can finally earn my way out of the college and into the Magi Quarter. At least I’ll get to travel out of the city again. It’s been nearly 6 months since that happened last.

Funnily enough, I don’t even know why I’m going yet. The Duke decided to keep the manners private, requesting to only talk of it in person. I’m not sure it’ll even be my area of expertise but knowing the nobles, it’s most likely some request in some struggles with his mistresses.

11th of Rainfell

A week and half into the awful trudge of nothing but rain, and the first interesting thing that happened is the broken wheel of the carriage today. Of course, the rider the College hired for me was just incompetent enough to not have a replacement. Which meant that I had to get out into the hailing downpour to repair it. All while Justinian watched my every move like I’m about to run off and give up my entire life’s studies of trying to earn at least some degree of freedom in favour of becoming hunted by the Cathedral. Who ever said that the life of the College’s Sorcerer wasn’t utterly exhilarating. I’m only glad I bothered looking into the protective spell for my journal before leaving or these pages would have been soaked into nothing by now.

15th of Rainfell

After I repaired the wheel nothing really happened besides even more downpour than I have seen in years. And that’s saying something living in the College of Averr. It did however mean that the carriage made slower progress than hoped so we should be arriving a day later than predicted. About time, seeing as I started hating the walls of this carriage by day 2. If the Duke doesn’t grant me at least a proper guest room I can’t guarantee I won’t purposely mess up his requests - my reputation be damned. I made the mistake of taking a servant room once in my rookie days. I think I’ve earned enough prestige to never have to deal with that again.

Though I still can’t stop thinking about the secrecy of the request. The more time that passes the more unusual it seems when considering how much money he surely had to spend on hiring the College’s current best.

16th of Rainfell

He’s insane! Utterly insane! The meeting couldn’t have gone worse if I begged the Blessed One herself for it to.

I maintained as professional as I could of course but the damned fool wants me to resurrect his wife that the idiot killed in a fit of rage. The thought of him keeping the body somewhere the entire time...

Now of course I dealt with necromancy here and there with the nobles, they’re always feeling entitled to even the dead. But usually they only ask for some minor stuff such as asking the passed matron for the locations of their heirlooms or such. I have no problem with necromancy. Magic is magic. But the Cathedral certainly shuns it as much as they can. No wonder the Duke didn’t request it outright.

If the Cathedral found out I’d be facing something probably worse than death. And on top of it all, i don’t even think I’m capable of resurrecting a person. Though perhaps... I don’t think I’m not.

Either way, I can’t accept the task, what would I tell the Grand Enchanter of the task? Or worse yet the Empresses own Death Speakers would sniff out the magic I cast.

No I’ll have to reject it. Offer him some alternative. I’m not messing up this close to earning my way back to my rightful status of nobility because he can’t control his rage.