Date: Sunday, April 29, 2001 10:32 PM Subject: The lives of the Senior Apprentices Greetings,

Let's look in on our party... it's about halfway thru the third year. All of you wear the gold-edged red belt of a Senior Apprentice. The first three months were very surprising for Raven. The elder druids ordered her to start spending her mornings tending to the sick and wounded in the poor neighborhoods of Seagate. Further, she was instructed to spend an entire month working as a barmaid in a local pub. Raven has no idea what that was all about... being a barmaid is pretty much completely opposite anything she would normally choose to do. Every evening she spoke to more people than she would have in an entire month with the druids. Healing the sick was much more satisfying, and Raven found that she made lots of friends amongst the little children she cared for. The only times the party got to see Raven were the nights she got off work early enough to meet them at the Book Wyrm. After the three months had gone by Raven found herself summoned to appear before the Druid Circle. She was stripped of all man-made objects, and transported deep within a primal forest. There she was told to remain for the next season, and forbidden to speak for that entire term. As play resumes, Raven has just this fortnight returned to Seagate. Her skin is quite tanned from the sun, and she alternates between long silences and friendly chatter with her friends. She's now spending her days studying Earth Magics with Master Nigel Greenworth... probably the most powerful Druid Spellcaster in the Guild. Every few weeks she's allowed a question-and-answer session with Dean Robert Darktunnel, a dwarf who is a world authority on blood sacrifice and dark druidic magic.

Jaden has become very pale, spending every waking minute in study. He's through with his work with Cathrin, and now studies with Martin the Farseeing, a halfling who is an expert wizard, and master of location and vision magics. Fortunately, Martin is quite the gourmand, and delivers half of his tutoring over plates of food, either in his quarters or in one of the nicer restaurants in town. Fortunate, because otherwise Jaden would be as slender as a broadsword turned sideways. Blackhawk has been forcing him to get exercise.... it usually works something like this: If Jaden doesn't show up for morning weapons practice, Blackhawk and Stephen go find him and drag him down to the courtyard fountain and throw him in. After one or two frigid baths Jaden started to make a serious effort to remember to show up. More to the point, each time he forgets Blackhawk and Stephen have a harder and harder time overpowering him. Which is probably what that devious Blackhawk intended, anyway.

After the better part of two and a half years of unsuccesfully trying to get his hands on restricted Guild histories... Stephen suddenly finds his cup running over. He still doesn't have access to the closed stacks, but he has begun studying with not one but THREE Masters. He has to get up before sunrise, to receive instruction in countless esoteric subjects from the Guildmistress, Kali! After that, he gets almost an entire two hours of weapons training... starting off with Doric, and fighting anyone who shows up for a workout. Then he's off to listen to the rather long orations of Sir Albert Bonnedenson, who talks at length about the history of warfare in Alusia. There are two big payoffs for spending the time with Albert... First, he has been known to tangent off and start talking about various aspects of the Wizard Wars. Second, he has started letting Stephen borrow some of his books on the same subject. And, even if it isn't all Stephen's favorite subject, Sir Albert DOES know a lot about strategic warfare. He had a lot to do with the sucessful planning behind the Battle for Seagate.

Lastly, Stephen spends his late afternoons and evenings studying with Master Kryan, Master Bard and Personal Troubador to His Grace, the Duke of Carzala. Stephen's evenings are spent assisting Kryan by lugging instruments and playing accompaniment behind Kryan. After everyone goes to sleep, Kryan teaches Stephen songs in a quiet whisper.

Of course, every non-designated minute is spent reading books and socializing, and so Stephen's popularity (and the gossip about him) is climbing steadily. He tries very hard to meet up with the party on the weekend evenings.

Blackhawk has stopped patrolling on a regular basis to focus himself on his studies. He spent a very intense three months studying with Mistress Amelia, an incredibly capable Ranger who has recently retired after 50 years of exploring Alusia. She has considerable skill as a Cartographer, and she is working on creating the first complete map of the Continent. Amelia doesn't use books or write things down... she lectures, and then makes her pupil (she only teaches one at a time) recite back long passages from memory. Her practical exams are legendary, and the stuff of endless Guild stories. After lecturing Blackhawk at length about the poisonous snakes of the Sea of Grass, she took him into a room in which there were six mesh cages. She chained his wrist with a six-foot chain to a ring on the floor. "One of these cages contains a snake that is non-poisonous," she said. "In its cage is the key to the lock. The other cages hold the poisonous varieties we have just discussed in your training session." "Choose wisely."

Another time she made Blackhawk prepare a dinner for the two of them... and the ingredients she set out ahead of time were primarily fresh mushrooms, half of which were deadly poisonous. And.... she made him take the first bite.

After managing to complete his studies honorably, Blackhawk was sent off to the Fastness of Girwyllan, to apply his Ranger skills alone for a season in that vast untamed wilderness. He hasn't talked about it much since he returned, but he apparently encountered a Sylph who befriended him and taught him many secrets about the Fastness.

MacGyver has had the honor of being made a research assistant to a Master Mechanician named Mortimer, who is the world's greatest authority on Dwarven Steam Cannons and Traction Engines. Mortimer speaks Dwarvish better than some Dwarves, and an Ancient Elvish dialect that virtually no living elves remember. MacGyver helps build scale models and mock-ups for Mortimer for four hours each morning. After lunch, he studies with a Gnome Tinkerer named Hooldan, who builds elaborate clockwork traps for the wealthy nobles of Seagate. In the evenings, he practices more secretive arts under the tutelage of Master Crambelly, who is rumored to be a Guildmaster of *another* guild in Seagate. As our next playing session begins, the characters are spending their first free weekend in six months together.