storiesofrimbeldal

[storiesofrimbeldal]

This might be a weird first chapter, having in account you probably have just read the prologue to this book, but I believe this story, that took place more than a year before I could obtain my actual position, is important for the reader, at the least, to comprehend later stories in this book.

Is because of this, that, with the approval of Gunda to do so, I will tell you the story of how I met this curious girl, and how I befriended her.

It was a cold winter morning. The breeze entered through the cracks in the wood of the shed my adoptive father had left me now long ago. My body wanted to stay in the comfortable warmth of my bed, but my mind knew I had too much to do that day.

In the time this story takes place, I was only 20 years old, but I and Vimac already got as well as we do nowadays. So well, in fact, that he had decided to invite me to one of his reunions with the royal family, so I could meet them, as the Master Alchemist of then was too occupied to come.

This was a very special occurrence for me. At the end of the day, I was meeting some of the most powerful people on the Kingdom, perhaps even in the entirety of the Earth's surface.

Since Vimac invited me, and I had accepted, I had thought of making something special for the royals. In my tribe, they had always taught us children that we should give something special to the important people we meet.

I had decided to make them an ornate piece from wood. I had handcrafted it during the last three months, carving the shapes, from the big to the small, polishing it, and varnishing it with an alchemical mixture I was very proud of, which gave it a brilliant look, and a great protection against Nature's forces.

Some would called it my "Magnum Opus", but, really, it was simply a handcrafted gift to give a good first impression.

For the readers that are curious about the decoration's look, it was a centaur, holding a bow and arrow pointing towards the left. The reading was in Latin, as Vimac told me it was "a fancy language for fancy people". Translated, it said: "My bow is by your side". It was the best phrase that didn't sound overly pompous. It was all then surrounded by flowery details, of vines and roses, growing from the border of the lettering in the bottom.

Vimac had told me to dress as I usually did everyday, so I did, tying my trusty utility "half-kilt" around my waist. It should be obvious what I mean by "half-kilt", but, for the people that might not understand it, remember that we centaurs can't exactly wear normal human clothes.

After dressing, and cleaning myself, I took the present, and bestrided towards Rimbeldal, impatient for getting to know such important figures.

When I arrived to the Tower of Magic, Vimac was sat on a stool, near the big window, with his trusty pipe on his mouth, reading a book, as he usually did. When he saw me enter, he quickly put the book away and got up, greeting me.

I won't go into the details of dialog here, mainly because my memories are dusty, as one can only guess, but I remember he got to talk almost an entire hour about the royal family, before the real deal arrived.

I remember perfectly the look on their face when they saw me. Gunda was behind Ruura, like kids do when they meet strangers, and I remember her taking a peek, looking at me, and opening her mouth, in obvious disbelief.

Her father and mother went through the usual presentations, and I gave them my present, which Ruura obviously loved, though Arion only gave a nod of approval, that, as Vimac would later explain to me, was his way of expressing gratitude.

But the funniest and most memorable thing, was when, after the presentations, Gunda "whispered" to her mother "Did you see? He's a centaur!". It was obviously accompanied by a sush to her and a sorry to me from her mother. I told them it was nothing, and I told the, as I later would discover, 13 year old girl that, yes, I was a centaur, indeed.

The reunion was long, and I can say with certainty, that, for my younger self, it was very much uninteresting. I had to keep myself awake at times to avoid being disrespectful. Too much talk about budgets, about politics… Uninteresting things.

One of the most interesting things, was the girl seated next to me, almost every half minute, peeking at me, "secretly". She seemed very interesting, and I don't blame her. As I have explained, and as the reader must know by now, centaurs are quite rare, nowadays.

When the reunion finished, it was already lunch time, so Vimac decided to invite us all to one of his "magical banquets", quite literally. He always did the joke with the last year students, and I still found it funny. He cast a spell, and food appeared in front of all of our eyes, as was usual. I heard Gunda mutter a "Finally!", as I saw her mother looking at her with a grin.

The food was great, and the conversation was not excluded due to the eating. In fact, now I was also participating, and it was no longer so boring. Ruura asked me where I came from, and how I got here, and I told, over a few drinks, my entire story to the royals.

They were shocked at points, and Arion said he actually recalled the day the notice of the black market arrived to the castle, and he remembered dispatching the guards to investigate and close it.

Following the statement of her father, Gunda curiously asked me if I knew where the other centaurs where. That was something I had actually never looked into, and I sadly had to tell the girl that I didn't know anything about their whereabouts, though Arion told me the guards hadn't seen any centaurs at the black market. This will come back in a later story, but, for now, let's continue.

The food was excellent, and, after eating to our heats' content, we continued talking. When everything was said and done, around four o'clock, Gunda, as always, surprised me with kind of a random question. She whispered it to my ears, like she didn't want her parents to hear, though it was obvious they heard her, when she asked me: "Can I ride in your back?".

The question left us all silent for a moment, the awkwardness and spontaneity of it making me blush a bit, before Vimac exploded into laughter, followed by Arion, both driven by the drinks they had had. Ruura could only tell to Gunda that what she said was rude, but I said that there was no problem if she wanted to.

I asked her if she had ever rode in horseback, and she told me that she in fact had not. She told me she had a fear of the beast kicking her off. I told her she shouldn't need to have those worries with me, and asked her parents if it was good with them if she wanted to go on a ride. They told me that, as long as I was good with it, they were too.

Ruura told her child to take care, and we went down the tower to outside the school. I let the little girl sit on my back, and told her to get comfortable for the ride. When I asked her where he wanted to go, she told me she wanted to go to the forest, so we did.

I started slow, but, once Gunda gained security on herself and on me, she asked me t o go faster and faster, until I was galloping at a healthy rhythm.

There was a point where she got thirsty, so I took her to a pond I knew around the forest, actually not so far from the shed I then lived in. We both sat on the side of the clear water, and drank as we wanted.

After drinking, we were silent for a few minutes, before Gunda broke the ice, with a question I won't forget: "Are we friends?". It shocked me more than it should have. In that time, outside from the people in my tribe, I had never had more friends than Vimac. Of course, I had colleagues, I knew people, but… No real friends.

During my days as a student, no one dared to approach me. And I can't blame them. I was weird, and I didn't fit with anyone. I still remember, when Romeo died, I felt as alone as the day they captured me. Yet here was this little girl, from the royalty, no less, asking me if I wanted to be her friend.

The only logical response was yes. What else could I answer, really? I later was proud of the decision, when she told me thanks and hugged me. Later, I would learn she had been home-schooled all of her life, and she had met no more than the people that lived o the castle.

Many people also looked at her wrong. The nobility thought of Arion as a "traitor to the pure nobel human blood", since he married an Hybrid peasant. And all that anger carried on to Gunda. Nobody wanted to be her friend. But now she had found one.

I don't know how much we hugged each other, but it felt like forever, to be honest. When we finished, we went back to Rimbeldal, and said our goodbyes.

Since then, Gunda came almost every day to visit me. From her visits, and her future as a monarch, she also got to meet Vimac better, and forma bond with him. When she started studying Magic, she always came after class to ask me how had the day gone, and it wasn't rare seeing her until late around there.

For some time, she even became kind of a lab assistant to me. She seemed to make a new friend in school every day, and she would always tell me about it.

She would sometimes ask me to ride in my back, and I would always gladly accept.

But, with the death of her mother, and her acquisition of the throne, she had less free time, and it could really be felt. She didn't come as much, now only twice or thrice a week, and the Alchemy Tower felt empty without her.

With time, she got more time, but things aren't, and probably will never be, like they used to be. That said, every Sunday we go out to the fields and she loves to ride. I'm proud to say I take these opportunities to teach her how to hunt, and she gets better every day.

We will always be friends, whatever happens.

[storiesofrimbeldal]

Prologue

Welcome, my dear reader. My name is Zuberim Oolas, and, as of writing this book, I'm the Master Alchemist, on the School for the Thaumatological of Rimbeldal III, and I have always thought that said title is too long, especially when everyone knows the aforementioned school as simply "Rimbeldal". That is how I will refer to it through this compilation, for the sake of clarity, and of mine, and the reader's, sanity.

Thaumatology is a noble group of sciences, and a science in itself, studying what is not usually explained by standard sciences, like the flow of Mana, or the principles of Alchemy. As the avid reader might have guessed, Alchemy is my expertise inside of said group.

Anyways, many people will still be asking "What exactly is Rimbeldal?". Well, officially, it is a school for the thaumatological, as the full title implies. I shall now explain what the word "thaumatological" means, at least in this case.

That said, in Rimbeldal, "standard" sciences, like Physics, and Mathematics, are still studied, though, in comparison, they're relatively bland, if I can say so myself.

Sadly, this book is not about the working of Alchemy, or of Magic. Instead, I want to focus on the "shenanigans" that have and will occur in Rimbeldal, over my stance in here.

In this prologue, I wish to introduce you, the reader, to myself, and some other prevalent figures that will later be important to this compilation. I shall then start with myself.

I was born in a small tribe, north of the nearby river, in the summer of 4296, though the exact day is not of interest here. I should have noted this before, but, in fact, I am a centaur. Many people are shocked seeing centaurs nowadays, and I don't blame them. We're not a species in the brim of extinction for nothing.

It might have been due to said scarcity that, when I was no more than a kid, the entire tribe where I had been raised, where I learned to survive, and to defend myself, was burned down by a party of raiders.

I saw my family, my friends, and most of the village, killed in front of my eyes. To my luck, or, in that moment, my disgrace, a different faith waited for me. I was sold as a slave in the black market, with two other of my people.

That was when I met Romeo, a rich old man that bought me, not without haggling with the raiders first. He said he wanted me as a mount for his children, but, when he brought me to his home, an old shack in the middle of the forest, I remember him, telling me not to worry, as he didn't have any children, and he wasn't even married.

When I asked him what he wanted to do with me then, he only answered to me that all creatures should be free, and the guards were on their way to close the dark market already.

As an be obvious, I felt like if I was in a novel, and I asked him tons of questions, from why he lived so poorly if he really was so rich, to why he decided then to buy me, and more.

His answers are not for this book, but, I can say, from my later experience, Romeo was one of the greatest persons I have ever met. He bought me to substitute the vacuum of her wife dying during the labor of his firstborn, who would die months later of a malformation.

His story with me is, again, for another day, but my eight years with him, were defining to me. He taught me everything he knew about his old profession as an alchemist. I was there when he peacefully died of old age, in his bed.

When that happened, I was sixteen years, and I was truly flabbergasted to know his will left everything to me. It's not like he really had anyone else, but, still, I again felt like I was in a novel.

I won't get into details, due to this section getting too long already, but I managed to get a degree in Alchemy at the near city, Licaea, in no other place than Rimbeldal. There, my professor helped me get a place, as one of her colleagues, and, through a lot of effort, coincidences, luck, and accompanying stories, that I might talk about, in this very book, I advanced rapidly, to being the youngest Master Alchemist, at the age of 23 years.

Vimac is a weird character. I got to know him during my years as a student. Well, everyone did. He would appear around the classes almost at random, saying he forgot something, or that he needed to borrow a thing, always noticing a class was on too late. That was always accompanied by a puff of smoke and a disappearance, as well as the whole classroom cheering for him.

It was, and still is, a weird thing, but it's been a joke at the school for almost a century. Oh, that's right! I forgot to mention, nobody knows what race Vimac is exactly. He always disguises himself as a human, and he does it so well, nobody knows yet what he is exactly.

Personally, I don't care what species he is. I just know he's very old and gets angry if you ask him. But, luckily, or perhaps tragically, for me, I'm good friends with Vimac since I entered the staff of Rimbeldal.

We even have our own competition, where we try to see who can discover something in their field faster. We still don't know who is winning, but we sure love to keep saying we ourselves are winning against the other.

I should also note, Vimac is the Master Wizard, Director of Rimbeldal, and the Real Counselor of Licaea. This guy has it all. He also knows The Archives like the palm of his hand, and that's why we all call him "The Archivist", as a funny nickname.

I don't know much about him, neither does almost everyone else. He is one of those mysterious, yet very well known, figures.

Gunda is a weird girl. It suffices to say that she is younger than m,e, and yet she reigns over the entire Kingdom of Alixus. She's a fourth generation Hybrid, and actually the first Hybrid to get the throne of Alixus.

As I said, she's very weird. Don't get me wrong, she's a great leader, and she has even studied in Rimbeldal, and she's great with magic, but, she is very extroverted, and sometimes even a bit childish…

That said, I get along well with her, at least so I think. She comes various times a week to see Vimac, and she always strolls through the Alchemy Tower to ask about my work. She's very nice, and has one of those personalities that solve every bad day.

She's the daughter of Arion III, and a peasant woman called Ruura. Her mother, rest in peace, was a great woman which I only knew for a few years, from her showing up to the reunions Arion had with the professors of Rimbeldal, which is also the first place I met Gunda, but that story should wait.

Arion is still alive, but, after the death of his fiance, he seceded from the throne, and left it to Gunda, saying he didn't feel like he was fit to govern anymore.

Sam was one of my students. As of writing this book, he has already moved out of the city, but I'll be sure to send him a copy of this book when I finish it.

He was a very intelligent, yet troublesome student. He has become something of a legend, in only the time it took for him to get a degree on Alchemy. Even now that he is no longer studying here, his name still crosses the corridors like a lightning bolt, shaking everyone up.

One of the tales that I haven't included in this compilation, that has to do with this character, was a shrine built to him just after he graduated and left the school, by a group of first years. That is the kind of influence that kid left around here.

Apart from all of that, he was a very good student, and he always stayed until late with me in the Tower, always wanting to learn a bit further.

He is a part of the reason why I brought myself to write this book, though I believe it won't take long until the students take the stories in here as the Christian Church took the Bible... Well, I can only hope that is not the case.

And with that, those three people are the ones more important to this compilation, and, whilst it might seem like I'm a bit egotistical, being my section the longest, by far, I swear by myself, that, if I had more information on these people, that isn'0t contained later in this book, I would have dedicated more writing to them.

With that all out of the way, I don't know when I'll publish this book, or if I'll even do so, but I believe it is time to get to the real stories.