Chet dan Gorst was on a road trip. He’d recently been suspended from wizard college and his parents had cut off his allowance in a fit of chagrin. Aggrieved, he scraped together what coin he had on hand, which turned out to be considerable, and bugged out.
Chet was the son of an immensely wealthy and influential noble family. When he showed an early talent for the Arcane Art of Conjuration, it was guaranteed he'd be attending the preeminent Lord’s College of Wizardry, not far from the estates of his family. But Chet didn’t need talent to be accepted to an exclusive school, he was rich after all.
And attend he did. Chet loved the freedom of the campus, and he fell into college life with gusto. He was inducted into the Fraternal Order of the Jeweled Skull, an exclusive and elusive Order with storied rumors, and spent all of his time in the company of his fraternal brothers. Freed from the shackles of his familial home, he took to wine, spice and girls with equal enthusiasm and shortly made a reputation for himself.
As a student, Chet was indolent and insolent. Classes were rarely attended, what with his taste for fine wine, his access to quality spice, and his keen eye for companionable women. He was vaguely aware that many on campus disliked him. Students rightfully resented the contempt he showed them and professors justifiably regretted seeing him in their classroom. Somehow though, through all of the resultant haze and distractions, he still managed to excel in his exams. His secret? He was a huge nerd of the Arcane Arts, and he relished in wielding his knowledge of the Arts to put the riff-raff in their place, be they officious mages or lowly plebeians.
Chet had geeked out on magic early in life. He’d read voraciously as a kid, from his father’s vast and cultivated library, and the mystical and magical were his obsessions. Despite having a natural talent for Conjuration, he always knew his true love was for the art of violence. Combat magic. Killing monsters with spells. He was a connoisseur and devoured everything he could find on the subject.
Chet had delved widely and deeply and cherished one subject above all. The arcane Principle of AOE: a theory postulating that the best pursuit of combat effectiveness was utilizing spells that could drop multiple enemies all at once. He was a mega fan. He yearned to study all such spells and publish his own famous treatise on the topic. He did have one other beloved subject: the apocryphal Principle of DOT. Damage over time. So lethal. Alchemical and Philosophical calculations had long postulated its existence, but a unifying thesis had yet to be published. Chet was captivated by such metaphysical theorems and was at his happiest pondering esoteric Principles or delving into arcane lore.
Despite a lazy disdain for school, he’d occasionally get a stroke of inspiration and tear into some subject or another. Early in Chet’s junior year, he began scheming about his senior project. All seniors at the Lord’s College worked on a special final project: that of creating their very own Arcane Focus, an indispensable device for their future as a professional wizard. An Arcane Focus was usually constructed from a wand or staff or orb or other thoroughly pedestrian object. The base ingredient he’d settled on, however, was of an exceedingly novel sort, one worthy of his lofty eminence. Tragically however, it proved to be the instrument of his expulsion from the college. And all because of Mistress Sabine.
Mistress Sabine was the dean of students and a celebrated witch. She was also an undisputed WILF and endless stories were shared among the students about her. One particularly salacious story caught Chet’s attention and ignited a flash of sublime genius. Mistress Sabine was rumored to have secretly in her possession a peculiar, onyx phallus. This extraordinary totem gave her the power to resist all would-be paramours. The whispered rumors also spoke of a sacred ritual, performed in strict privacy. Regardless of the breathy talk, Mistress Sabine was formidable and unassailable, of that Chet knew well. She’d cruelly crushed the lascivious advances of greedy nobles coveting her wizardly might, leering, shoddily-dressed faculty members, and even, astonishingly, the thirsty, vermin-riddled student body of the esteemed college, Chet included. Chet’s most excellent plan was to procure this fabled object for himself and make it into his Arcane Focus. Epic.
One afternoon, Chet deviously snuck into Sabine’s quarters. In his trembling hands was a rare scroll pilfered from his father’s collection. With the help of the scroll’s magic, he managed to discover the hiding spot for Sabine’s prized possession and he promptly made off with it. Over the next several months, he worked feverishly in isolated secrecy as he fashioned Sabine’s distinctive totem into his Arcane Focus. During that time, the college spun up into some kind of undisclosed crisis. No one spoke of it, but the harried school administrators scuttling about appeared to be in great alarm. Meanwhile, Mistress Sabine took an unexpected sabbatical.
How the mighty finger of judgment became pointed at Chet, he never found out. He’d triumphantly completed his senior project over a year early and was basking radiantly in his own glory when they summarily hauled him into the dean’s office. Despite a lot of yelling and stern looks, whatever they had on him wasn’t proof enough. Ransacking his quarters turned up no incriminating evidence either. Chet was too clever to let them find his stolen treasure so easily and he’d hidden it with exorbitant care. But whatever they did know was convincing enough to get him suspended, despite his indignant denials, followed shortly by the wrath of his informed and subsequently mortified family.
Now Chet was on the road. He reveled in frequenting debauched locales and hanging out with odd or unsavory fellows. And despite lugging along a small fortune in coin, he quickly squandered it all on immensely frivolous, rapturous nights, memorable for all involved. Now Chet was living on promissory notes and scrounging for beer money, too proud to turn his path toward home.
