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The Academy is out for a week to celebrate the coming of Autumn. I should be catching up the grading of the scholar’s scrolls and do have many stored in my horse’s saddle bags. Yet I keep becoming busy. I do admit that some of that business was in enjoying my favorite dragon hunting and combat simulation/practice. Other business included dragging my clothes down to the river to wash.

I also need to send owls and carrier pigeons to my students with their next assignment of summation. They will have to write a paper rather than take a test, for history is about what you know, not choice a, b, c, or d. That doth mean that I shall have to examine yet more scrolls.

Alas, the high priest and worship requirements and rituals are taking up a lot of time. A whole lot bigger.

‘ Twould be a day for rejoicing normally, for the academy had given me my bi-weekly stipend. Alas, after I didst pay mine tithes to the high priest. The Warlord has demanded the rest in exchange for continuing to live in my hovel. Forsooth, there is not even enough to go to the market for supplies and mine cupboards do run bare. ‘Tis truly depressing.

It is finally Autumn. While some may mourn the passing of Summer, when one lives in the City of the Sunbird Summer is not a good thing. Forsooth, it is similar to winter in the wondrous lands to the north. The temperature is too extreme. Autumn means we can go outside without dying from heat stroke. Verily, the ice mages are paid a fortune to keep us from perishing from the heat.

Yet, despite the greatness of Autumn in this land, I yearn for those of my homeland to the northeast where the air becomes crisp and there is an energy that cannot be denied. Indeed, it gives the approach of the Feast of Simhain a special magic. My heart aches at the memory and the sadness of being banished to the heat and aridness of the land where I now dwell. All is not lost, though. At least we have been blessed by the gods with a beautiful storm tonight. We have seen not only rain, by thunder and lightning as well. It reminds me that we are not completely forsaken in this land.

My familiar is insisting on my attention, not caring that I need to get back down to the river to continue cleaning my clothes. For tomorrow is the day of the moon and that means I must have something to wear to the Academy.

What is worse is that I did not get to the market this weekend and must find time to make a sandwich for lunch… or so I thought. I’m out of bread. ‘Tis most disconcerting, especially as I am not a witch who has ever made homemade bread. I get mine from the market place.

A trip to the market place was necessary, anyway. For I must by red scrolls and ink for my scholars. It is part of the simulation they are doing. I have already encountered a satyr and nymph who can not get their heads wrapped around the concept of a simulation, by the way. I also need more hair ties. The tiny ones keep getting lost. I do not know where my familiar is hiding the bigger ones.

Unfortunately, my hovel is located within a mile of a stadium where gladiators dress in the colors of a winter bird that isn’t even found in the City of the Fire Bird and fight over a ball made of boar’s skin. As I returned from worshiping the Great God today, I found myself on heavily congested roads. Indeed, the path to my hovel was blocked by many carts and carriages. It was most bothersome, but many of the drivers held their horses back so that my horse, and that of one of my neighbors, could get through.

Luckily one of the drivers caused his horses to make a loud sound of alarm right before a runaway carriage, that was off the road and on the dirt and dead grass came charging through. If not for the alarm, this errant driver and his cart of death would have likely have struck me. ‘Tis the third time in a week that I have seen a cart driving their horses off the road on the gravel, for they must think themselves too good to wait with the rest of the horses and their riders or the cart drivers. This time it was on the King’s Avenue that is marked 99. The other times it was the one marked 67. Is this not what the king’s guard are supposed to stop? Where are they when needed. This errant cart driver will kill an innocent maiden or a hard working farmer someday!

I am thankful that most riders and drivers are courteous and considerate to those trying to return to their homes. It is the dangerous few that cause us to have to be vigilant.

I would have written this last night after my weekly Search for the Dead, but my familiar kept jumping in my way when I tried. He feels he is neglected and let me know it quite verbally when I returned to the hovel last night. He then jumped up on my writing table and would not stay down, instead he meowed at me most ferociously about how he is not worshiped as he is deserved.

Upon my investigations into my own dead ancestors I discovered that my paternal grandfather, the auspicious and infamous Grampy St. Thomas entered the king’s realm in a covert manner and was not truly a citizen of our kingdom. He didst come from the land north of us from those who speak like unto the Frankish peoples. This explains why many of his claims in life do not match with our king’s records nor with the evidence found from this other kingdom. It also explains why his father, who didst also enter our kingdom in a covert manner that does not follow the king’s law, changed the family’s name from Lebret de St. Amand to St. Thomas, it ’twas verily a method to fool the king’s guard. ‘Tis no wonder that his first wife’s father was a deserter from the land across the pond.

I have no fear from the warriors of ICE at least, for they target those from the kingdom to the south. Also, the honorable Grampy Thomas, who was called Asbury, married a woman whose family didst fight for our kingdom with our first king who establish this great desmesne upon this land.

Still, after all these years, the truth was discovered. For dead men still have tales to tell.

Huzzah! Verily, my spells for the Syllabi Gauntlet have been approved by the grand wizards at the college of Rio Salado. It was a cause for much rejoicing as there was little time to enter back into the gauntlet and brave the traps set within. Now my goblins, elves, satyrs, and nymphs may continue learning the King’s History.

‘Tis the first of the month, which means I had to travel through the grueling heat of Firebird to pay the minions of the warlord who owns my hovel. As I have mentioned, the rent has gone up this year by 100 shillings a month. This is due to all of the people moving into the area, truly we are being invaded. The minions have joined with the other minions of warlords and raised the rent everywhere. They can do this as the invaders keep staying. They immigrate from nicer areas that do not have extreme heat for some reason.

We used to relegate the elderly who moved here to the community of Sun City, but alas, they now keep moving further south; not wanting to admit they are old. ‘Tis ironic that they would move to sun valley and retire if they do not want to admit they are now elderly.

I had to make this long journey to the warlords minions after going to worship the God Lord. That trek, to the chantry, was not bad. It was unbearably hot, but I was only constrained by one elderly man who could not get his overly large horse to move at a reasonable speed. I was, finally, able to pass him as the other horses were moving amiably. The journey back was free of slow moving mounts and gave me time to make the long walk to the Warlord’s minions before they went on their long break to feast upon their lunches. Verily, I wish I got such long breaks to feast.

I have battling the mighty gauntlet of The College of Rio Silado. ‘Tis the Syllabi Gauntlet. Forsooth, the beasts are mighty and the spells must be cast just so. I have been approved by the magistrates on two of my passes, but they are still reviewing the other four. The gauntlet holds many tricks to stumble any witch or wizard and spells that should work sometimes do not, for the casting is blocked by a hex. I am hoping I do not have to go through it again.

Meanwhile, I am learning how to cast the spells for the Turnitin Guild. They who doth collect my scholars writings for me. They will allow me to more easily comment upon their scrolls. For some of them seam to have had orcs who were dropped on their heads as babes writing their scrolls for them. I have had to take time out of their lessons to remind them what a scholarly scroll looks like. Today, they also learn about the religion of the Puritanical People.