Vango | A Scholar and his Debts

[Unfie]

1. Don't buy things you can't afford yet. To include a costly apprenticeship in the Arcane Art of Conjuration.

2. Read the fine print when interest rates on suspiciously accessible loans are claimed to be "just a little higher than the market average."

3. Protect thine legs from Sergio.​

I devised these rules following a series of personal blunders that would have violated each and every one of them. I'm proud to say that I'm now a responsible man with clear boundaries. Boundaries that have been surrounded by rabid dogs demanding what is owed.

Luckily, the coin does sometimes flip in favor of the pauper. Fate spared me (briefly) from having my kneecaps rearranged into what my loaner called his "little art projects," which meant I had just enough time to get as far away from that wretched city as possible. A temporary solution, but an effective one. And yes, my sudden departure will be seen by many as a desperate attempt to escape financial obligations of an eldritch design, but the reality is this: I'm chasing risky business ventures in foreign lands that will someday allow me to pay the interest in full. Creative problem-solving. And as the saying goes, you have to lose money to make money. If there's any truth to that at all, I'm perfectly positioned to be next in line as a very wealthy man. Debt-free. With a three story manse and a full staff to wait on me. My friends in the industry, if I had any, would commend such bravery.

Relief washed over my soul some few hours ago when a mysterious ranger informed me that I could save weeks of travel by cutting through the Snakewood. Which he kindly clarified by saying that "a man of my undesirable stock would definitely die in the Snakewood." That amateur clearly had no idea what he was talking about, and I had no interest in seeing the Snakewood anyway. I'm only two days from the city of Proskur now.

With every step I take, the road seems to stretch just a little bit longer. Expanding faster than the light of a yawning star that yearns to know its final destination...

Actually, I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. I'm dehydrated, and the wicked weeds of mania have already started to crack through the foundations of my mind. Why did I bother dedicating years of my life to the study of forbidden arcane knowledge if I can't even conjure a waterskin to show for it? It should be so simple. It should be the simplest thing. Godswar be damned!

Like the brave explorer of Maztica so elegantly mauled by tigers, I expect a warm welcome at my final destination. If I can manage to survive that long.

 

[Unfie]

Dear reader,

If you are reading this, then I am dead. Or I have become an extremely wealthy man, and the contents herein have been auctioned off to a charitable organization of my choosing.

My name is Vango. I was apprenticed to a self-proclaimed "Magus of the Silver Scroll" for several long, agonizing years. I was also slow to realize that there's no such thing as an "Order of the Silver Scroll," and my mentor was not a powerful wizard at all, but a huckster and a fiend. His lessons were as useless as they were expensive, but how was I supposed to know that? Secretive wizarding orders, both real and fabricated, have one thing in common: it is actually completely impossible to find any source material to verify their existence. So I had a fifty percent chance of getting the real deal. Those were the best odds I ever had and I still lost all my chips.

In summary, I wasted years of my life unraveling the ancient mysteries of arcana under a mentor so incapable that I never even learned how to invoke a cantrip. My consolation prize is that I can very clearly articulate the radius of a fireball, describe what happens to the human body when encased in a layer of stoneskin, and a number of other magical phenomena (at extreme length). But I am incapable of performing any of these feats myself.

My wealth of knowledge has become as vast as it is useless. I am perfectly sick to my stomach right now.