A Dumpy Tale (1)

Once upon a time, there was a land that was being tyrannized by a dragon. (Thus, we estabish a fantasy setting).

Our protagonist was a normal, boring lad, living and working in its parents' farmhouse, doing farm chores along with his many older and younger siblings. He was living a regular life, but he felt that he was special, meant for something different. (Here we go for a traditional medieval-like fantasy, but maybe I did not succeed in my intent)

 

At least he would want to be a butcher, or  a blacksmith, but he was fed up with all the manual labor, the mud, carving the fields with the oxen-driven development plow, the long journeys from sun to sun.

A career change was not an option in his position, so he decided that he would flee his ordinary existence to find adventure and something more exciting. At least he will try to join the army to see other places, other faces.

And as there is a dragon tyrannizing the region in our story, he vowed to get rid of it, sometime, somehow.

So he prepared a small bundle with a few things and his favorite axe (which he kept in the suitcase of the left) and left in a full moon night. He had a small idea of where he could go to join the army to get some martial training, probably in the next city. It was not far, specially if he was to use a small shortcut that he and his siblings new that crossed a small forest.

He was precisely in that forest, which was much more difficult to traverse in the middle of the night, when he heard some strange noises. He thought of many monsters that were said to roam the lands (there is a dragon on the story so other monsters is clearly a go). He wielded his axe at the ready and advanced slowly, worrying about not being attacked by the back. He could heard some kind of voice and followed it. Then he appeared in a clearing and saw in the corner of his eye some small creature that run away into the deep of the forest when it saw him. In the middle of the forest was a small, human like creature that thanked him vigorously for scaring the unidentified beast. He introduced himself as Gnomi the Gnome. 

When asking about how to repay his perceived debt with his perceived saviour, our protagonist told him about his newly started journey. Gnomi the Gnome explained that he worked for some kind of mage that lived not far away from there, just outside the Dragon's reach and might be able to help him.Having some sort of direction for the first time he decided to follow along.

By the way, it is going to get confusing if we do not give our protagonist a name so we are going to call him... Dumpy McFarmy

Some time after (how much is up to you to imagine, but I am thinking a day a and a half sounds reasonable) they arrived to a solitare stone tower in the middle of another clearing in the middle of another forest.

Gnomi the Gnome explained the whole affair to the great Falcony the Wizard. Begrudgingly, he accepted Dumpy McFarmy as its pupil. Falcony the Wizard recently turned 247 years old, so it was probably it was the dreaded two centuries and a half that all wizards pass through at that age when they find themselves with no heirs and no apparent presence in the history of the world.

(Insert 80's training montage here, with some epic music à la "Eye of the Tiger", but with the most boring images you can imagine. Reading, walking, looking at stones, more reading, more walking, more reading, tending some animals, reading, reading, more reading, walking, a little bit of fencing, reading, walking, more tending animals, a weeny little bit of some kind of magic, reading and reading).

Falcony the Wizard finally uttered the words:

- It is time, you are ready.