In Moonglow´s Lycaeum, many students learn the structures of the arcane arts and how to bend them to their will. Some of them realize that magic isn´t their craft and leave the Lycaeum to find a different occupation. Others control the powers with ease and shape them with a snap of their fingers. This story is about one of the less talented ones, who came to the Lycaeum with a heart full of hope - and one year later left it with his dreams shattered. His teachers told him he would never have the means to do magic correctly.

Standing in Moonglow with his belongings tied to his back and looking at the busy merchants, adventurers and craftsmen at the bank, he was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of lonelyness. Where should he go? What should he do now? Back to his parents? No way! They were happy that he had moved into the Moonglow student´s hostel from their home in Britain, and he did not miss them either. Besides he had not completely lost the burning urge to learn more about magic arts.

So he wandered through the streets, aimless, and unsure about his future. After a turn of the street, a gathering of some people attracted his attention. They were all standing around a man that talked to someone from the Lycaeum. The men seemed to haggle, until the one in the middle of the gathering turned away from the other, with a dissatisfied expression on his face, again adressing the group that stood around him.

This time the former student with his package ready for travel listened: "Now, good people! There has to be someone with a bit experience in magic here that would like to become my assistant! I am paying well!"

Of course our desperate young man saw the oppertunity of his lifetime standing in front of him, dressed in a black robe, and heavily gesturing to the crowd. At once he raised his hand and shouted "Here! I have some experience with magic!"

The robed man fixed his eyes on him and smiled slightly. The two of them then began to talk about the conditions being offered, but the young man was far too happy to be again able to work with magic to care about how much gold he earned. And it really didn´t matter for him, as food, drink and a bed was provided and the contract was not time-limited. So after the bargain was struck, he joyfully walked through the gate his new master had opened. On the other side, he emerged in a very hot place, a building, but the rooms were without windows. Never having been one that liked the cold, he did not care too much. His master showed him a small room with a sleeping place and a chest, where he should live from then on. On the way the building turned out to have no windows at all, and on a question about it, his master told him not ever to leave the building, because dangerous monsters dwelled outside, which was the reason why there were no windows. The question on where they were stayed unanswered by the master.

The following days were full of novelties for the young man. He learned that the building was inhabited by more men than merely his master and that all of them were mages. The building they lived in was divided into two parts, connected by a bridge from the second story of the one house to the rooftop of the other. As he came out there for the first time, he was surprised to see the whole complex seemed to be situated in a cave of some sort. Looking down to the cave floor, he saw many creatures moving there, some giant spiders and fiery beasts he had never seen before. The advice by his master shot in his mind and he silently wondered where he was.

All the mages were busy researching some rituals and translating very old looking tomes with mysterious symols all over them. Everything they expected the new assistant to do was to catalogue the names of hundreds of tomes they stored in chests in the cellar, and to cook the meals. After two weeks of this labour, he wondered if he would ever be allowed to work with magic himself, he had seen the mages trying spells and rituals, but they always sent him to bed before they did. He only knew because he once sneaked from his little room and beheld them through the half open doors to their main research laboratory.

One day, as he was cleaning the work desks with the ancient tomes on them, he found a sheet of paper under one of the books which a mage seemed to have forgotten there. It was a partly translation of the tome lying on top of it. Curious as he was he skipped through the lines and what he read took away his breath - it was a description of a ritual summoning an ancient demon lord and binding it to the will of the summoner.

From then on, the young man sneaked from his room regularly and tried to find out more about the ongoing research by the mages. He did not know where he was, or what his masters were up to. And he wished more than once that his ability in magic would at least allow him to use the "Recall" spell. Not knowing what the mages wanted to do, he feared for the worst.

After listening to what the mages spoke before, while and after their rituals for a week, he knew what they were plotting: They wanted to free one of the banished Shadowlords and use it´s power to overthrow Minax´s leadership of her faction, unite it with the Shadowlord´s army and take control over the whole Felucca facet, which meant a tyranny of evil would arise.

Deeply shocked by that plan, the young man lay in his room and could not sleep. He tried to think of a way to get word out of the cave, whereever it might be. Because he could not let things develop without trying to prevent the Shadowlord from being summoned, he finally decided what he would do. Without making any suspicious noises, he started collecting some things from his chest he thought he might need on his way through the cave to bring word of what he knew to honorable men. Even the thought of dieing on the way did not make him hesitate, he even calculated his chances of survival would be very small. But even in the case he died, he wanted to make sure that if the right people found his corpse, they could warn the world of what was coming. So he started writing on a paper he stole from the mages, and made sure that the reader, whoever it might be, would instantly get the paper to the right authorities. If the reader would trust that the note told the truth, that is.

After he made sure noone was in the hall outside his room, he lit his candle, opened the door and made his way to the kitchen as silently as he could. There he took some food and a waterskin with him. Sneaking to the front door, he silently passed the entries to his master´s chamber, where he could see a flickering of light under the door. It took him more than ten minutes to sneak past the door soundlessly, because the floor was rough stone covered with a bit of sand, which made suspicous noises when stepped on too hastily. The front door was locked with a huge lock, but as the mages did not expect someone to flee from inside their building, the rusty key hang on a peg next to the door. Slowly the former student of magic, that did never have anything to do with stealth prior to this, removed the key from the peg and put it in the rust covered lock. After listening for two minutes if there was any sound in the house and ensuring there was none, he started turning the key counter-clockwise. A cringing sound erupted from it moving in the rusty lock until finally, there was a snapping sound and the door was unlocked. Frightened anyone could have been attracted by the snapping of the lock, the young man stood like stoned.

Realizing that if anyone should have heard, his only hope of survival was to flee, he opened the door and stepped out into the immense heat of he cavern. Before closing the door, he put the key back on the peg and prayed silently that noone had heard him.

Outside the building, the cavern seemed endless in the dark. The only light source being his candle, he started walking into the dark until he did not see anything but blackness on all sides. After continuing on for a while, he saw a red glow in the dark, and walked towards it. He reached a crater filled with glowing red lava, radiating heat. Sweating he turned away from the lava lake and tried to calm down. His heartbeat was extremely high and he was frightened. Suddenly he noticed his candle burning down in front of his eyes. After the candle was gone, he would be lost in the dark, without any chances of getting anywhere!

Quickly he stood up and wanted to resume his travel, as a faint sound reached his ears. The sound came from the direction he was walking in all the time, so it could not be one of the mages. He ignored the chance that one of them could have gone out here and was returning now and walked towards the sound.

As he drew nearer, he could recognise the sound as being the sound of battle. Humans shouting, the sound of steel striking, and some other noises, probably not human. Reaching the site, he saw two knights fighting a red reptile of some sort, and they were winning by the looks of it. Silently he waited for the outcome of the battle. The reptile was finally slain and the two knights handshaking. They must have been drinking some night sight potions, because they acted like in broad daylight and did not see his flickering candle.

The young man stepped out of his cover and greeted them with the respect due to a paladin. At first the men jumped and were confused, but shortly after they realized that he was no threat. He quickly told them what he knew and gave the piece of parchment he wrote in his room to them, and told them it was of utter importance to prevent the ritual the mages were plotting. Although the two knights did not seem very convinced by the story, they said they would inform some mages as soon as they´d come out of the caves. The young man thanked them, bade them farewell and started his journey back to the building, hoping to reach it before anyone noticed his absence. Luckily, he found the house in the dark, opened the door, locked it behind him and sneaked back to his room, lay on his sleeping place and waited the night through.

The next days were not very eventful, the mages continued researching and the young man that stumbled into the middle of an adventure catalogued the tomes. Then one day the mages sent him into his room after luch, and told him to stay there. Of course he was suspicious that the mages would perform the ritual at that day. As they did not think of him as a threat and did not lock him up in his room, he could easily get to his usual listening place. There he ducked and waited for the mages to do something, although he hoped they would not.

But they did. They started chanting around a pentagram on which they had piled some reagents, bones and body parts. From the paper he had found he knew that there had to appear two hovering globes which then have to be brought together to finish the summoning. Over the piles of reagents on the pentagram, the air began to flicker in a light green colour, and a small globe was formed, shining in the room. Then one of the mages walked forward, arms wide spread and started chanting in a mystic language. Before the mage´s face, the second globe formed. Slowly, but purposefully it moved towards the other one still hovering over the pentagram.

The young man knew that he had to act now, if he ever acted. Noone would come and help him now. His message seemed lost. The knights had never delivered it. He swallowed. What could he do? There was nothing to do. But he knew he would probably die as soon as the Shadowlord was summoned. Perhaps the mages would feed him to it. Or do to him whatever they did to the people they had the body parts from. The second globe had travelled half the distance to the first one by now. The chanting of the mages grew louder and the globes glow increased. The former stundent of magic swallowed again. Then, in one fluid movement, he stood up, pushed the door open and started running. Before any of the mages could react, he was running into the laboratory and leaped with all the strength he could muster. He leaped into the second globe. A flash of lightning lit the room, and the mages were thrown backwards and stumbled to the ground. As they looked up, they saw the globes had vanished, together with their assistant and all their reagents.

Some weeks later a troop led by a mighty mage entered the caves in search for gold. Deep inside the earth they found a hideous building inhabited by some followers of dark magics. The troop fought, and rooted them out. In the study the mage found some tomes on how to summon a Shadowlord. The things he found made him believe that the mages would have summoned one if he and his troop would not have come here in time. This news was brought to publicity and made the mage very famous and respected. Everyone wanted to congratulate him on saving the world, he was even offered a position in Lord British´s court.

Two knights sat in a tavern and drank ale after ale. They of course had heard the news and deep in their minds, burned into their heart, they had the image of a young man, warning them that a great danger would come Britannia´s way. Who was the young man? Where is he now?

Noone remembers his name.