The gavel fell as Galix put down his recording quill for the last time, his indentured debt to the church finally paid in full. Stairing across the courtroom, he made eye contact with the skeletal clerk servitor to whom he had served as the redundancy scribe. The dust-covered skeleton readied quill, parchment, and pen for the next case, as it had done for decades. Galix stood from his desk, stretching, as another meaningless embezzlement trial concluded, likely ended by some unknown bribe that would never be recorded.
The domed gothic ceiling of the court, adorned with frescoes of book-toting skeletons, caught Galix's eye as he stretched. He had always enjoyed it. Nostalgically, he recalled the first time he had seen it—his own trial. He had stood accused, along with seven other apprentices of House Reverez, of gross negligence. The failure of the great professor, Lord Reverez, in his attempt at ascension to lichdom had been historic.
The clergy, the college, and nobility all needed answers and someone to blame. They didn't understand. Any one of a hundred things could have gone wrong, causing his old master to fail to rise on the third night. No proof was ever presented of wrongdoing, but the eight apprentices were assigned the blame regardless. For his part the “poison dragon liver” had been flawless. The priests, in all their wisdom and devotion, had no idea how the arcane wonders of their own god actually worked. He and his peers at that trial were handpicked as the best and brightest—discarded for what? The demands of the church's pride.
Galix knew his life as a mage in Eiselcross was over; the clergy had seen to that. His reputation and name were forever tarnished here. He would prove them wrong. His would be a story of greatness, succeeding where his master had failed. But where? To the south, another city? His studies as a prodigy had been halted, and he needed time to begin again. Time and allies.
Galix, leaving quickly, found his musings cut short by one of the temple guards. With the case ended, along with his served time, the prodigy mage was unceremoniously expelled from the cathedral into the town square.
Ironically, he found himself standing next to the exiled elvish woman whose case he had just recorded, Salrasi.
An awkward moment and nod, “Hey.” Further acknowledgment was delayed by the sudden ringing of a bell and a commotion across the square.