Savage Tide: ECL 9 Guinet Westenwold gnome illusionist 3, master specialist 4, shadowcraft mage 2: Journal 2

Okay, boys and girls: if you're like me approximately twenty years ago, you've just finished unpacking in your new room at ye Ancient Unmistakable Magickal Society Concerning Spells, Their Usage, And The Teaching Thereof.  Finally, you've left behind the cold waters and the fishing nets that you'd resorted to partaking in to pay for all this, and the occasional incidental raiding parties that you didn't really have a choice in, but who's complaining when you get a cut of the loot?  Okay, so maybe your experience isn't exactly like mine.  (If it isn't obvious, I finally remembered what Krakenheim is.  Despite what you may be thinking, I can actually recommend the place.  But I'm getting sidetracked.)

Your eyes are probably sparkling and your mind is reeling with the majesty of all the magic you're about to learn so much about.  I mean...yeah.  It's magic.  That is the right way to be feeling right now.

But here's the thing: they don't tell you, as a prospective illusionist, that you're probably just going to end up as a major image slave for some adventuring party you've never even heard of.  The feeling you'll get when you realize they could actually cast it themselves, but they need their hands free for a good vigorous tug on their wand of fireballs.  Worse still, it's not even an interesting image they're asking you to make, just project the once-living visage of this abomination onto the skeleton we've animated and try to keep up as we order it to slowly (well, fairly quickly) lumber over this hill.  Where's the art?  Where's the creativity?  A familiar could do this job.  And furthermore: statistically, you're incredibly likely to be captured by a demon.

They tell me the experience is invaluable but I'm really not sure I can put any of this on a resume.  If I use them as references they probably won't bother to respond to the sending (oh, sorry, I was in an antimagic field...).

The reason for all of this, my friends?  Well, illusion is a crowded field.  Something like 80% of young gnomish wizards become illusionists, and while numbers aren't available for other races, my personal anecdotal evidence says up to 10% of them do, too.  Do you really think the Sultan of Zeif needs a gnome like you to put up unbelievably tasteless permanent images in his boudoir?  Last I heard, he can actually do that himself.  And more power to him, I say; really, what is home decor without the personal touch?  Now, if you want to hear about a really bad job, look up the sorcerers he has clean the place after hours with prestidigitation.

But enough about Corusk life.  Gnomish nonsense like this is why I left the place, and why, if you're somehow reading this A. at all and B. in Corusk, you should get out while you can.  That attitude is why the big burly norskmen down the hill (and even the less burly one who minded the general shop and you sort of fancied but never said anything) all shake their heads at you when you talk.  I mean, it's also because you're a gnome and the Fruztii aren't exactly the picture of cultural sensitivity.  But the attitude definitely isn't helping. 

(Aside: Seriously?  "Fruztii?"  Do they know how silly that sounds?  I mean...I guess it's unlikely anyone's brought it up.  I guess that's why the cartographers just write "frost barbarians" in that corner.)

See, what I've actually just described above isn't a picture of a young woman (yes, young, I'm not even 80 yet) stuck in a dead-end job.  It's a story of adventure!  Saving...something!  The world?  Maybe.  Almost definitely we're down here for a really good reason.  I mean...nobody would come down here just for jewelry, right?  It makes people "strangely evil"?  Yeah.  I know.  I've seen it happen.  Well, maybe some jewelry is just that bad.

There are gnomes in Corusk who clip their toenails with the kind of power they use down here to usurp kings.  Ultimately, I'm not sure who I pity more.