released November 23, 2018

Synth, piano, harpsichord, filing cabinet, box fan, omnichord by Phranick
Cover photo by Studio Lovina w/additional editing by Phranick based on a small incantation he learned while in...well nevermind

***

"Where do you want to go that you haven't been?" she asked.
"Everywhere," he responded with a smirk, "everywhere I've never been."

Jisemme laughed softly, and sighed. Phranick was hardly a mentor, though she had learned much from him. He was a collaborator, someone far more willing than most to share what he had come to know.

Yet never a mentor. Too stubborn! Too prone to foolish decisions.

From the first time that she met him, face down in the mud in the Mere of Dead men, having fallen from a gate that was opened nearly 20 feet above the ground, Jisemme knew that Phranick was a shitshow.

On that occasion of their meeting he stood up, cackling like a Zhent in a bloodbath, and just started screaming "IT WORKED! HAHAHAHAHA IT WORKED!" and waving his arms wildly.

He hadn't seen her yet. He looked up at the stars, then solemnly said to what he believed only to be the murky night sky -

"but...how am I to get back?"

And Jisemme had her turn laughing, to his startling surprise.

Those many years ago.

She never traveled with him, though she often wondered how the air of "Earth" felt upon the lungs, or if the breezes of "Krynn" would whisper to her as those of Faerun had for years.

When she thought back, she realized had she followed his lead she would likely have been dead many times over. He thinks it's funny, and that she's correct. This is their way.

"But really" he said followed by a long drag of halfling pipeweed, "anywhere that would have me, I suppose"
"They could do worse than a hedonist mage"
"Maybe so. Nevertheless, that is what they will get in any case."

He stood then, with a noisy effort. They'd been sitting all day participating in a very long goodbye. Jisemme liked to talk, Phranick liked to talk and they both loved to laugh and so it was many hours into the evening before they took their leave.

"Well the hour grows late. Goodbye, my great friend" he said, as he opened his arms wide for the capture.

"Until next time," she said. "One of these days, I'll ask you to take me with you."

"And I shall take you! We will destroy all of the taverns in all of the realms and capture all of their songs. It will be the most holy of villainy. We will most certai-"

"Shut up. Someone's probably waiting for you, dork"

She pulled something small from a pouch, whispered the name of an incantation and slowly disappeared.

***

we know the winds could take us,
so we dance

and then, when the winds threaten us
we rest

finally, when we have stood strong
and the storm is but a menacing breeze

we dance again
as they blow
into the distance

forever

***

"But...this is just...you are just reproducing the sound, you're not actually DOING anything?" the jester said.

Phranick sighed and narrowed his gaze at the annoying little man. The court jester, in the service of King Azoun. With his beady little eyes and scraggly beard. Sure he could get quite the laugh when in his own element - but he didn't understand ART. Magic nor music.

"Nevertheless, thank you for the preview and while it's...lacking in imagination...it is not too offensive for His Lordship in...any other ways."

Magic is not cheap, so these gigs were necessary, though Phranick would much rather be performing in a squat in San Francisco or a guild in the seediest parts of Suzail for a fraction of the gold than spend even 10 minutes in the presence of the sycophants of monarchies.

Such is this life.

"I will be back in exactly five minutes," he squealed, as he turned over a sandglass. "Then it is time, so be prepared!"

"Yes, this isn't going to be easy I suppose," he thought to himself.

The weird wizard went over in his head what he was going to perform. He would start with the piece the jester hated, preceded by some added context in the form of a monologue. Never done this before, but that little fucker got under the skin of the mercurial mage.

Just as these thoughts began to settle into a rhythm..."ahem"

He saw the irritating jester, tapping his foot.

"I suppose then," he said looking sternly and without bemusement into the Jester's eyes, "it is time."

Unsettled by his suddenly serious tone, the Royal Court Jester and leader of the Court's Acting company who has followed his king not only into taproom, but also once into battle, leveled his gaze at the sorcerer.

"And remember. No fire."

Phranick half-smiled. "Worry not, there will be none."

After travelling through a long hallway with pictures of relatives Phranick didn't know from battles he could not understand, he was brought in front of the king. Two hulking guards to either side in with a crest of Purple Dragons on their shields, Queen Filfaeril beside him.

"Thank you for coming Phranick. You find yourself here highly recommended as someone who will not mince words. I've called upon you because my wonderful wife and I...we have reason for melancholy and therefore our usual entertainment will not suffice."

Phranick raised an eyebrow, and though of the Jester.

"Should your subjects know that you feel the entire range of human emotion? Surely a monarch does best with a strong hand," Phranick said.

The Jester gasped, and stepped forward to speak in protest "SIR, the Lord is..."

Azoun raised his hand and the man's squeaky voice stopped immediately.

The King removed his crown, leaned forward, and leveled his gaze at Phranick. "Tell me, travelling wizard whom I do not know and have heard of only once, how does one lead in trying times?" He leaned back, "Be certain I like your answer."

Phranick allowed a tense moment to unfold.

"That, I cannot say, milord," Phranick bowed deeply. "But I do know that to lead anyone one must be able to lead one's self."

And he waited, silently reaching for components from a pouch that hung from his belt.

"Go on," said the King.

Phranick let the syllables fall from his tongue as he wove his hands in esoteric patterns and pointed behind himself, where an unnaturally dark globe appeared from the crescendo of his command. He then stepped back into the darkness and began chanting.

The words and motions were second nature, and he would grab the needed items from his several belt pouches easily - having separated them in chronological order for the piece he was to perform. The first, an illusion that would place a gradient blue in front of the milky black orb he had conjured. Then atop that, a vignette of a young child-king in contemplation fades into another of an old, wizened man weeping by a holy symbol the King would not understand.

"To lead is a bold and dangerous endeavor. To lead without knowing one's self is dangerous," Phranick's spell altered his voice nearly an octave deeper.

He then stepped from the orb of unnatural darkness and through his illusions, waved his hand upward, and they traveled the same up and through the vaulted ceiling of the throne room.

"Good King, trust that you know what you're doing. Trust that your melancholy is what will bring you the peace and wisdom you must know. I am not from your world, and know nothing of what troubles you, and therefore your Kingdom"

"However, my Lord, if you do not know yourself that can be excused. However if you refuse to take time to understand and know the desires and travails of your subjects?"

He let the sentence linger, like a threat

"I have heard stories of Kings across the Multiverse at Large who lost their way because they paid little attention to their subjects"

Phranick waved his left hand, swallowed a strange looking mushroom from his right and flinched a bit as he conjured another image behind him. This time it was that of a young man, younger than the King at least, staring in a mirror, in bizarre clothes. A strange, square mirror, with an odd device hanging from the wall ejecting what appeared to be hot water. Staring blankly, the man was holding a straight razor to his arm. There was a strange altar to the right and in front of him, both made of porcelain.

"This image behind me, and the music that accompanies it, is a representation from a land far away of a man named Leonard. He is questioning his worth and considering taking his life. Remember, Lord, that we ALL question our worth and our value and the righteousness of our purpose. Is this process worth anything if it isn't...melancholy?"

Then, one last reach in the pouch for some fine dust of a metal long forgotten and the audio that it would produce.

The song played. The King wept.

Phranick got paid - and it turned out he quite liked this gig, after all.