On the 22nd of Cloudburst, 872 years after the Divine War, Casimian Trillinez entered the world of Avalon for the first time in the center of the city Mercinae. I am Casimian and this is what I recall of my past. I was quickly befriended by the good people of Mercinae such as Mage Hero, Mage Arabella, and Mage Tragnarion. It was soon after the good graces of these people I decided to join the Mages guild. I spent my earliest times roaming the land trying to orient myself to its great vastness.
Upon my journeys I came upon one whom was to become one of my greatest friends and allies Droggy, the Wild. Droggy introduced me to many a gold quest and equipped me with essential magic by use of his talents as a Loremaster. He was quite generous and often simply provided his services to me without any charge. However, Droggy was not without enemies and I was soon introduced to the harshness of battle that would shape my future forever.
I spent much of my time following Droggy about the land learning from him its many intricacies. It was on one such an occasion I met my greatest adversary whom was displeased with Droggy’s combative nature, or more specifically his success in killing off most of Thakria. We were amongst the clouds chatting about what new quests and adventures we could do went the whole world seemed to cry in anguish. A darkness so bleak that one could barely see suddenly set upon the land as mid-day turned to instant night. I found myself losing manna at an steady rate and unable to use an entire area of my magical skills called Candescence which depends upon the light of the stars. Just as I was quaffing a magical potion to replenish my manna, prepared by none other that Droggy himself, I felt a sudden gust of wind and flapping of robes. Suddenly the world around me spun into great melee as Droggy fought for his life against immeasurable odds. With a quick wave of Droggy’s staff light was shed upon he whom was soon to become the meaning of hate to me The Lord, Shaitan with his pet Fenrir, wolf of Armageddon. The battle raged on as I stood there helplessly. Due to my lack of knowledge I was unable to aide my good friend whom soon met his demise at the hands of the aforementioned Sorcerer.
This occasion was not entirely significant in itself for the simple introduction of my future enemy. But, it was soon after the battle that I met she whom would define my purpose in the lands of Avalon forever. As I quickly descended the clouds and found my way to the pool of life whose magical forces had resurrected my friend, I beheld for the first time the divine grace of Andromeda the goddess of Dreams. Droggy introduced me and soon after I decided my patronage. Through many months of conversation with Andromeda I finnally obtained her acceptance into the order of dreams. Soon after my induction to the order of dreams I was asked to help build a new city from a town called Springtown. The few inhabitants of Springtown all had their patronage with Andromeda. Thus, there was only a handful of citizens Tarkus, Sirrus, Calagan, Droggy, Dankworth, Elfish, myself as well as a couple others (my memory fails me).
Although I did not know the land that well, due to Droggy’s training in gold quests I was soon to find my place in the city-to-be by collecting gold from gold quests. This was necessary in order to keep Tarkus and Sirrus with enough gold to continue buying commodities to build the city, and these two really know how to spend money. So I spent a great deal of my early life riding about Avalon on my ever not so faithful white dragon, and it greatly aided my ability to navigate this vast land. It was not however an easy task by any means. For the repeated attacks and thieving by many such as my old friend Xandamere the wandering merchant (the kind of friend that tries your patience) made it necessary to occasionally use a bit of gold to replace my stolen items. To further complicate my life the Mages guild was seeing its own difficulties. The recent departure of some of our greatest fighters, amongst them Tragnarion and Hero, had caused a power vacuum that our arch-enemies the Sorcerers guild decided to capitalize on. It was a time of great strife for the Mages whose eldest members included Ioiad, Clematis and myself all of which were fairly new to the land. We were repeatedly killed, stripped of possessions, and had our guild defenses removed. Thus, membership dwindled as no one seemed to be interested in helping us and had it not been for the strength of our brotherhood, we may have lost the guild. However, through all the difficulties neither Ioiad, Clematis, nor I ever abandoned the guild or failed to aid each other. It was during this time that I had managed to gain the attentions of Shaitan after having recently killed several would-be-attackers (all of whom just happened to be Thakrian). Shaitan had noticed the intensity with which I was collecting gold for my fellows citizens as well as myself and the recent killing of his side kick Xandamere only gave him an extra excuse to attack.
I had found an important document obviously dropped by some careless courier addressed to the king of Mericinae. When I was in the midst of visiting the good king to return the document I suddenly saw a blazing gate open before me. I quickly diverted my route off the road just as a huge hoard of demons came screeching, groaning, moaning, flopping, drooling, ect. around a nearby corner. Being a good Mage and having listened in earnest to the teachings of my tutor Kazayn I immediately stopped and converged all the rituals I had previously prepared for such an event. Just as I had finished I was blown out of the safety of my magic by a demon and out onto the road in front of The Lord Shaitan. There he sat mounted upon his great mutt with a large toothless grin spreading ear to deformed ear upon his hairless skull in the midst of scores of demons. I once again recalled the teachings of my tutor as I converged my rituals and set them to attack Shaitan. But I was greatly outnumbered, outclassed, and under-powered to do battle with Shaitan. None the less I held ground munching lestagii and other healing herbs while chugging potions to cure the diseases, curses, and damage he wreaked so quickly upon me. All the while I made attempts at killing him in vain. I cast a web spell, he dodges it. I cast a feeble spell, no effect. I cast a handburn, it does not even effect him at all. By this time I am covered by a slime demon, tripped by his imp, and webbed by his balrog. The battle was short, the demons jumped me and while they held me immobile Shaitan, not content to simply kill me, made me one of his undead. There was nothing I could do to stop him, he was over fifteen times my strength in magic and abilities not including some divine powers he had recently obtained. At first being fairly new to the land I thought I was lucky and he had chosen to show me mercy as he left through a magical gate. Then he summoned me to one of his holes across Avalon in the city of Thakria by making use of the vampirism he had given me. There with the aid of Prudence his hand maiden I was stripped of every earthly possession I owned at which time he sent me to the ships of death. I had lost over 20,000 gold worth of personal possessions setting me back two full months of hard work and there was no way I could get it back. My despair was so great I had decided to leave the land forever and continue my existence in another more hospitable realm. It was through my patron Andromeda and a fellow citizen Tarkus that I found the strength to carry on. With Andromedas aid and Tarkus’es generosity I was soon back to my original strength. I honed my hatred for Shaitan into the pinnacle of my interest and vowed he would pay for his deed anyway I could find.
Since Shaitan was diametrically opposed to my patron it was easy to weaken his cause and further reduce his power by simply doing that which I had already pledged to do, support Andromeda. This of course drew his attention to me many more times, but with each attack I continued to refine my ability to fight. Although I would never consider myself a foremost fighter in Avalon, I did begin to pick up enough skill to protect myself. Soon after this the tides of fate favored the Mages and several new strong members joined in a short period of time. The new members included those such as Meneleus, Taz, Vilon, Sparky, Katynar, and Cephlo. The added strength of the new members changed the responsibilities of Ioiad, Clematis and myself to those of elder members of a guild which in fact we were. To further allow our growth Shaitan had at this time started focusing his attentions on the upcoming ordination for which he was favored. This allowed me and my fellow citizens to once again concentrate on building the Springtown into Sringdale the city without any large setbacks. Night and day Sirrus and Tarkus ran the land in search of commodities and collecting gold when able. Meanwhile I focused my entire attention on supplying them with more gold. The end result was a rapid period of expansion in which we finally started allowing more citizens to join the city, and eventually even allowed non-order members to join. During this time the land saw the ordainment of its most recent god Lazarath the god of pain, from the mortal avatar of Shaitan, as was somewhat expected.
The loss of Shaitan caused an immense power vacuum in Thakria which turned the tide of power from evil to good. With Thakria’s decline Springdale flourished as the one true 'neutral' city in the land. This should have allowed the 'good' cities such as Mercinae and Parrius to flourish. But, due to war between Parrius against Merinae and Thakria all these cities met with economic hardship which in effect ended the war with no victor. With the reduced hostilities the Mages guild saw a quick return to stature and became the great guild it once was. It was then my beloved patron, as well as a few fellow citizens such as Rithos, asked me to start a new guild of the Mages profession in Springdale. Never able to refuse anything of my patron, I set upon designing the guild for Andromeda as part of an immense southern tower in Springdale. It took some time but I finally finished and construction is almost complete now. In return, I was asked and accepted the Guildmasters position for the first guild in Springdale now known as the Wizards guild. My only hopes are that it may flourish and strengthen the city I helped build as well as my patron for whom I always wish to do my best.
Written by Casimian. Last changed 27/3/97.
