At the moment, I find it hard to believe that I was ever so impressed by old Professor Theodria. His mind was as closed to new thoughts as an Adamantite strongbox reinforced by enchantments. There was no way that he believed that there could be another way, another way of knowledge far greater and more powerful than his own. Because deep down he was a coward who was afraid of those who dared to question the primitive and antiquated understanding of the world that he considered an irrefutable truth, a way of thinking that he clung with all his might like a dog to a bone. .

The school principal was a cowardly and dogmatic fool whose position of power and influence was based on a weak-minded attachment to the knowledge and practices received from others.

But looking back, as much as I may despise my memories of Professor Theodria, that is nothing compared to the hatred and contempt I feel, even now, towards that shitty Inquisitor, sow sonic, rotten sewer rat, Felix. Crissinger.

Inquisitors! May the plague take them away. May they rot in the depths of the hell of their own creation and burn perpetually on the pyre, strangled by their own intestines, as they have sent countless thousands to their deaths; innocent and guilty alike. Although in my personal experience, more innocent than guilty.

They dare to call themselves Templars, Holy Warriors, Holy Knights, Paladins. But they are a totally different scum, the Inquisitors have something that makes them stand out, because in truth they carry out their own obsessive imaginary hunts and exorcise their own demons from their sleeves.

They are a plague; worse than anything that the madmen who play at bringing demons and infernals to the material plane can summon.

They claim to be holy and true servants of the gods, but they spread suspicion like a disease. Their irrepressible paranoia and pathological distrust of others cow, terrorize, intimidate and end up sowing the seeds of fear and mistrust in people. It could easily be described as his special power, unique to the Inquisitor profession and all the repulsive variants of it.

No one can live up to the impossible and demanding ideals and expectations of an Inquisitor, so all are sinners of some fault. And since they are the representatives and instruments of the gods' divine vengeance on the earthly plane, anyone they suspect of heresy is immediately held guilty. Of course, anyone who dares to disagree with them is a heretic.

They are mentally unbalanced, obsessive and irrationally paranoid characters. They will burn, drown or execute anyone regardless of age or sex without mercy. They are completely devoid of mercy, and most of them lack any kind of reasoning ability. They promote fanaticism and mortification of the flesh, hardly knowing its power. They generate discontent and spread paranoia in their wake.

Their idea of ​​justice is to subject the accused to one of their barbaric interrogation processes. They extract confessions, false or true, through torture, and many of the victims of this treatment succumb before they come to face the final punishment that the inquisitors have imposed on them, much to the disappointment of those villains.

Few escape the snooping suspicious intentions of the Inquisitors, not even members of their own cursed class.

Inquisitors are dangerous individuals whose mere words can provoke mass hysteria among the inhabitants of a town and foster anxiety which results in riots and causes an otherwise peaceful crowd to scream for blood. Anyone who is slightly different can end up dead; hanged, burned on the pyre, beheaded, dismembered or if possible drowned in a river. All this because of people's fear of what they do not understand.

I hate them all with a burning black passion, but the worst of all was Felix Crissinger, I'm sure he was a demon in human form.

I am not an expert in Demonology, but I am sure that something dark was hidden behind the facade of that Inquisitor.

♦ ♦ ♦

The remainder of the first month of spring passed in a whirlwind of excitement for the recently admitted apprentice to the Genbofen school of magic.

Despite the promising signs at the beginning of the month announcing the arrival of spring, it now seemed that winter had no intention of loosening its icy grip on the city. In fact, the weather seemed to worsen and the temperature dropped again as the days and weeks passed, until on the 21st day it seemed that the incessant current of the river itself could freeze and thus stop the maritime traffic .

However, the cold weather did not keep the increasingly enthusiastic Viktor Drichey away from his studies. With each passing day, he began to feel that he had truly found his life calling, his profession. Indeed, the passion he felt for studies burned so strongly inside him that he barely noticed the cold in the attic room that he shared with his fellow student Erich Lieter, a cold that dampened his clothes and even the blankets. the bed, as if enthusiasm warmed him and protected him from the cold of this terrible time of year.

Due to the cold, it seemed like a bad joke to call it 'first month of spring', a more accurate name would be to call it 'fourth month of winter'.

For Viktor, the month passed by going to school each day to attend classes taught by Professor Theodria, and other veteran members of the school.

Much of the time was also spent preparing potion ingredients, spell catalysts, special ink for writing in spell books, parchment paper, and other materials used by Magicians in the practice of their profession.

To begin with, Viktor was put to work preparing potion ingredients requested by the respected and learned Professor Ulbert Hinsteil, whose clients included members of the nobility, respectable adventurers, and some merchants.

But then, after only five days of service to Professor Hinsteil, Viktor was called to the rooms of Professor Theodria himself.

“You are proving talented, young Drichey. You seem to have an almost intuitive understanding of arcane magic ”the professor told him during the meeting.

And that was it. Viktor was now an apprentice to the headmaster himself.

When he was not taking care of the tasks that Professor Theodria now entrusted to him, Viktor spent as much time as possible in the library.

The librarian, one Korbus, boasted that the Genbofen School of Magic library rivaled the library of the Imperial Magic Academy itself in the capital and according to Korbus, the library contained some rare texts that could not even be found in the deepest vaults of the Republic, but there are of Transylvania, on the other side of the Black water lake.

Erich continued to carelessly attend to his tasks at the School, and when word spread that he was Viktor's roommate, the wayward student's mentor, or rather his supervisor, Professor Plegeus, he stopped Viktor in the corridors of the School. on more than one occasion to complain about Erich and burden Viktor with the responsibility of convincing his defiant and neglected roommate to attend class.

One of these incidents took place when Viktor and Herwin were leaving one of their shared classes.

Herwin was bringing Viktor up to date on the latest wild rumors about the 'Tomb Raider' when a deranged white-haired man, skinny as a skeleton and gaunt as a plague victim, rushed out of a door a few steps away. steps ahead of the two young men. He looked up and down the corridor, his soot-stained face transformed into a mask of fury.

Viktor immediately recognized the elderly professor.

"May the gods curse him!" exclaimed the old man, whose outburst of anger caused him to cough a phlegmy cough. "Where is that insolent motherfucking son of a rotting sewer rat whore?"

Then her wild, needle-like pupil eyes settled on Viktor.

"Viktor! Where is young Lieter? Where is that rascal?

Viktor and Herwin stopped short. Everyone knew Professor Plegeus, Erich's long-suffering tutor. He was famous as an expert in the field of alchemy, as well as being slightly feared as someone irascible and unpredictable.

"Uh ... I don't know, Professor Plegeus," Viktor replied nervously, hoping his tone didn't reveal the uncertainty and hesitation he felt.

"Don't you know? Don't you know? You're staying with him, aren't you? Isn't that what I've heard? Hey?

"I haven't seen him today, Professor," Viktor added, feeling he blamed him for Erich's absence.

Herwin shifted his gaze from Viktor to the wide-eyed professor and back to his partner, but he said nothing.

“Maybe spending his poor father's fortune on drinking, I suppose, in one of those disgusting bars on the docks, or maybe even in bed with some cheap whore.

Plegeus grabbed Viktor roughly by the front of his blouse and brought his face close to his curved nose like a bird's beak. The professor's face was pockmarked and his unruly white hair seemed to sprout from every area that wasn't dirty from the soot of some grotesque unstable experiment, and for some reason his breath smelled of sulfur.

Indeed, Professor Plegeus was reputed to be one of the only members of the school who was still actively experimenting and attempting to broaden the scope of their science rather than simply passing on previously received knowledge and honing delicate skills such as enchanting objects, the inscription of scrolls, the preparation of potions with proven formulas and the control of mana for the spells.

Viktor found himself staring into the bulging, pin-tipped eyes of the maddened master alchemist.

“Is it any wonder that he entrusts her with all the worst tasks if he never bothers to show up? That boy has to learn respect. How can he expect to practice even the lowest level spell if he has no respect whatsoever? "

Viktor glanced over Plegeus's shoulder, unable to bear the professor's needle-pointed gaze any longer.

The room beyond the door Plegeus had opened was a smoke-darkened, soot-blackened room, dominated by a massive brick fireplace. Viktor could feel the heat radiating from the bricks inside the laboratory.

Huddled by the side of the fireplace was an even dirtier boy with soot, with slightly pointed ears, apart from the rags he wore as clothing, he had a metal collar that marked him as a slave. The boy's job was apparently to keep the fire going, watch the cauldron hanging over the flames, and help prepare ingredients.

The birch stick that Plegeus used to whip the boy if he ever neglected his chores hung on the wall beside him. The rest of the room was crammed with stills-covered wooden workbenches, reagent tubes, and mortars filled with brightly colored components.

"Well, the next time you happen to bump into Erich, tell him that if he ditches me again, I'll have to talk to the principal about his situation at school," Plegeus snapped.

From what Viktor had gathered from his occasional conversations with Erich at the tavern, the Lieter estate heir would be safe as long as his father continued to pay the school fee. And Erich's father would do it as long as it kept Erich away from the family ranch.

In terms of his practical ability and mental acumen, it soon became apparent that Viktor was a fast learner and a skilled practitioner. By the time the luminous skies of spring had replaced the icy cold of winter, it seemed that Viktor had learned as much in those few months as his roommate had in the past two years, if not more. Well, currently, Viktor is ehorgullesia for being able to use magic level 0.

Yet despite the obvious resentment and bitterness that Erich made no effort to hide from Viktor, the latter's passion for magic seemed to be rubbing off on the loft roommate who began to attend school more regularly. Or, as Viktor was willing to admit, the change could be due to the latest warning he had received after Plegeus' latest complaints to the headmaster.

But perhaps he was intrigued by Viktor's passion. Perhaps it was just the challenge of mutual competition, what he needed to revive his ideas and try again.

In any case, Viktor soon learned that Erich's apathy was partly motivated by the fact that, try as he might, he simply did not have the natural talent that Viktor possessed in magic. And for this reason, Erich became increasingly jealous of Viktor.

"I like you, Viktor," he had said once, as they shared another bottle of wine that Erich had gotten. “But that doesn't mean I don't passionately envy and hate you. You are a simple and innocent country boy without question, but you possess a keen intellect, and a dexterity that could rival that of Theodria himself. "

Erich emptied the glass and refilled it halfway. Viktor had hardly tasted the wine, having found it to go to his head quickly if he wasn't careful. Erich, on the other hand, seemed capable of emptying a bottle by himself without being noticed.

“I don't think you realize how talented you are,” Erich continued. “But others do see it, including Theodria. That could give you two opposite results. It is possible that he sees you as a rival and humiliates you at every opportunity that comes his way, but I think he is too arrogant for that. So it could mean that you were counting on his favor. And either of the two could explain why he has made you his personal apprentice; it could be to improve you or to keep you on your site. I may not have the ability to become a famous magician, but I know people.