Meghana Gets Banned from the Tavern

[shaker_e]

"Wizard who is NOT a sorcerer OR a warlock and furthermore how dare you" - Making Up Adventurers, Cohost, 2023

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"Can you walk me through it one more time?"

Meghanna the Magnificent held her head in her hands and groaned in frustration as the musclebound swordswinger seated opposite her stared blankly. "Okay. Okay!!" She slapped her palms on the tabletop, making the various dishes rattle, drawing attention from other diners. She had had 'a few' drinks, and was perhaps a little tipsy. Just a little. "It goes like this."

"Magic is woven into every fiber of the world. Everyone has a little in them - even someone like you! It's in everything, and around everything, but most people can't see it or do much with it normally. Some species CAN, though, and when one group has power the others don't, you know how that usually goes, right? Of course you do. And people looked for protection, and they prayed, and finally something answered, and empowered their believers. Clerics. They are GIVEN magical power from beyond. Still with me?"

The fighting man nodded, looking as though he was trying to find an excuse to leave and failing. "R-right..."

"Now, not everyone is lucky enough to be loved by gods. Some people have to PAY for magic. With their soul, with service, with sacrifice - whatever. The point is, it comes with a cost, and at the pleasure of their patron. They buy their power. That's your warlocks, your witches, anyone who talks about 'pacts' - pactbearers. They're given a tome, or a weapon, or-"

"A tome! Like a grimoire!"

"NOT a grimoire! That's diff'rent! Don't interrupt!" Meghanna took a long drag from her wineglass, and filled it, and took another, letting the bottle roll away on the table. When did that go empty? "It's different. Anyway. So next there's your... Your bards, their songs tap into... Some sort of, the.. song sung during creation. I'm not exactly clear on that one. They can access magic through music. Neat. Everyone loves a song. Anyway." Another drink. The small wizard was a little red in the face.

"Here's where you ticked me off, pal. 'GoOd eVenINg SorCeReR' my ass. Sorcerers. Sorcerers won the lottery. They see the magic around us, and they swim in it like fish. It comes as easily as breathing, doing magic. And they look at all the rest of us and smirk and ask why we have to do it this way, with our notes, with our flutes, with our BOOKS, why, why don't we just DO it like they do? WELL MY GREAT GRANDPA DIDNT SHTUP A DRAGON OR A FAE QUEEN OR WHATEVER, NOT ALL OF US ARE SO LUCKY, PALLL!" She reached across the table and took someone else's wine, slamming it down. The entire common room was watching her, now.

"NOW, wizards. Magisters. Magi. Magusesssess. No one does our magic for us. We have to study. We figured it out for ourselves!! Learn to stare at the cube till you see the hypercube, turn your mind inside out and rotate it in four dimensions and SEE. Learned that if you stand facing precisely 32.75 degrees southwest and say," she climbed up onto the bench as she spoke but her next words were a discordant jumble of consonants, painful to hear let alone write down. "Then you hold your hand just so, and then you -" she seemed to draw something in the air, and somewhere behind the dumbstruck fighter the wall to the street outside simply ceased to be, leaving the other patrons shouting. "Then you can do THAT!"

"Please settle down, miss, I didn't mean any offense!"

"I'm not offended!! Not mad!! Lemme show you how not mad I am!!! Getta loada THIS!" She whipped a piece of chalk from her pocket, and with the chalk in her left hand and the bottle in her right began to draw a circle on the rough wood of the table.

Outside a few puzzled onlookers had gathered to stare at the inn's vanished wall, only to be pushed aside by dozens of fleeing patrons as the common room emptied, except for the wildly laughing little wizard standing over her magic circle. Light blazed, and a massive blast of pink smoke flooded out into the street and surrounding neighborhoods, sparkling with glitter, fireworks exploding in the air above.

"WIZARDS RULE, FUCKERS!"