DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE Poem: To my esteemed friend Deius of Rubesbridge;, by Gwydion Miller

My shadow grew very slightly larger today, I am quite certain of it! For all that you tell me that my senses are failing me in my age, I could not be more confident that that bastard Nillux has cast another one of his divination magics- probably engineered a brand new spell that he knew I would notice, just so he could show off. Well, if he thinks he’s that damned smart, tell me why he’s not conjuring up a fireball inside my large intestine? The fool hasn’t even cracked the simplest of my wards, yet he still insists on spending weeks at a time manufacturing new sets of eyes to watch me, to the point where I’m starting to think that he’s just doing it to piss me off. Being honest with you, it may be working, too- not only the constant itch of someone watching you, but the sheer lack of sportsmanship! Myself, I’m a reasonable man, I set up a few Arcane Eyes and maybe a dozen casts of Clairvoyance, and this sniveling toad decided that that’s just not good enough for him, has to have mind-bonded rats eating all the food in my bloody pantry and an enslaved demon to keep watch over me through my damned shaving mirror. He hardly even tries to kill me anymore, you know that? I haven’t had to Counterspell a bolt of lightning on my way to the grocer for nearly two weeks, and I waste all this time setting up a scanning system, go through the effort of imprisoning a dozen souls in a magic contraption, even consort with a dirty gnome to make the thing fit on the front of my carriage, and what do I find? The man hasn’t even tried to set up a single explosive glyph on a single road in the entire city! I tell you, you spend a week without blowing something up in a wizard duel and you might as well give up your hat and retire, for all the effort you’re putting in.

I say, though, and it’s quite painful to be unable to put too much detail in here (since the prat will almost certainly read this), I think I’ve got the man smoked. You remember how I got his fifth son with that acid pit a few years back, right? And how he got me back with my third eldest with that meteor? Well, I finally got around to inspecting the mess that it made and I think that the dunce managed to leave a couple of his skin follicles on the thing. I can’t say much more, but I think that I can magic up something right proper for this arsehole, really show him what’s what! I say, you spend two hundred years trying to kill a man, you’d better make sure that you kill him proper, none of that magically-induced-heart-attack nonsense. Anyways, I manage to stamp out this cockroach and finish mopping up the rest of his inbred line, I say we round up a couple of the lads and go out for some drinks- on me. Hope this letter finds you well, send my love to Sybil and the boys, and hopefully I’ll see you in a couple of weeks, hey hey?

Friendly regards,
Magus Dominatus Argentus Necklethorn, Esq.

P.S: Hope your sister’s feeling better after that bout of lycanthropy- I know an excellent herbalist in Stolham if you’re in need, and an even better “herbalist” in Malhots if that more tickles your fancy.

P.P.S: Nillux, if you’re reading this, which I know bloody well you are, I’ll see you in hell, you greasy, shite-encrusted, moronic, rodent-like, beady-eyed, tasteless, incompetent, ghoul-sodomising, goblin-romancing sack of subpar sweetrolls in a cheap robe