Hark, ye friends! Surely you heard the great thunder upon the hill this week last? Aye, up where the wizards hide in their enclaves. That was no mere storm among the stones. I have the true tale, if you'll sit and listen. And mayhaps you'll slake a thirst or two? Kind of ye, goodman, too kind! I know the story from the lips of the folk who saw it, so you should take my word!
A great and unwholesome movement there's been in the Black College of late. That jumble a' ruins upon the hill has given the city fair fright for several generations, I dare say. Old King Roland the Wise cleared it of its most vile offenders when he slew the Black Order in his heyday, but the place has sat there like an evil spider upon the hillside ever since. I suppose it must've offended adventurers since the very day Roland drove out the sorcerers. There have been legend and rumor about it since afore then, with popular whispers having it that the College was the residence for ghosts, or demons from the Seven Hells, or worse. And folks seemed, for a long time, to fall ill mysteriously and die and oft they'd live within a few blocks of that cursed verge.
So it was with some keenness to the ear, sharpened hearing as it were, and softness on the soles that I spent my nights spying out the mysteries of that place. For I saw a shining band of folk go in and ne'er return. And then there came another troupe of adventuring folk. They changed their number and attacked the place a few times. They must've disturbed something within; something dark.
For this week past, a cloud of shadow gorged forth from the College. Men of jet stone, two in number, walked from beneath its archway. They rumbled up the Wizard's Hill to the walls of the Schola herself where they set to work tearing out the golden sigils upon the Imperial Wizards' curtain wall. When mages came to investigate, the things went to work on them. Within short order, a handful of mighty wizards were felled by stony fist and jet-black strength. Sorcery rolled off their shoulders like water on the slate, dear friends! If you can believe it, they felled mage after mage, none doing so much as a hurt to the beasts!
Lightning bolts there were, and mighty rivers of fire. But nothing could stop the onslaught. At last the secret council of the wizards emerged from the depths of their School to confront the visitors at their gates. There was shouting, and blasts of power the likes of which the city has not seen in two Ages past. At last the stony wardens fell, their skin of flint and jet cracking little by little until it gave.
But the greater bulk of the Schola was destroyed. I saw 'em fall! Four old men emerged as the victors, and they made haste to the ruins of the old College. Another magical battle ensued, though between whom and what I couldn't say. When I returned the following morning, they were hustling out of there with donkeys laden with books, chests, ink, parchment, scrolls, and wood. The Schola and the College... all abandoned. Can ye believe it?
Game Effects: The Imperial Wizard kit is effectively closed. All imperial wizards with the kit lose access to the Schola's resources and are no longer required to report to it. Future wizards with Schola background are assumed either to have survived the massacre or to have been out of the city when it was committed.
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