Blog

The Best Teacher

When Enigma started on the path of a planeswalking detective, he was overly confident in his own abilities, thinking that his mind and magic would be enough to carry him through even the most harrowing perils. And like many such young fools, his folly lead to assailants coming from his hide. Unlike many unfortunate fools, his quick thinking and reaction time spared him from the worst of it.

Yet, the experience was a necessary one because it made him realize how important it is to have self-defense skills to fall back on. Thankfully, with the full facilities of the Magistrum at his disposal, it wasn’t difficult to find tutors in the martial arts, especially swordplay. In time, he grew comfortable with the weapon, learning parries and disarm techniques to quickly neutralize threats before using magic to knock them out.

With these techniques in hand, the mind mage senses another in a long line of people who grow scared when he begins to peer too closely into their secrets, but he’s not the same fool he once was. In an instant, dispelling the concealment spell on it, he draws his sword and prepares to fend off a corrupt official’s henchman.

This was indeed an ambush: Just not for the mage. His would-be assassin had only just realized they had been lured into a trap.

This piece from LittleBadWolf back in November of 2020 is something of a pseudo sequel to these two works. In a sense, this is the finale to an implied short story that follows through all three.

After getting ambushed by an assassin, and barely fending them off, Enigma undergoes basic combat training. Armed and prepared, he’s ready to turn the tables the next time a similar situation comes up.

This is, strangely enough, my first “completed” story, even if most of it is left to the imagination. It’s difficult to call it long-form storytelling with a straight face, but everyone needs to get started somewhere.