[WP] In vino veritas

...

It was a fresh vintage of his own creation, picked from fields lush and infused with the life of the surrounding areas. The soil outside that carefully crafted zone was dead and dry under such influence, rocky and terse to a pale comparison of its former glory, but inside the seals and weaves of the magic's touch: The ground was vibrant. Life blossomed beneath the simple game of concentrations, held in place by overwhelming magical prowess of a Mage beyond his years.

Wine Harvesting was one of the few tasks of seeming normality that Gillian still took seriously.

Perhaps it came hand in hand with immortality, but Gillian had been a functional alcoholic longer than most people could trace their family lines. After the first thousand years, sleep alone will no longer get one's mind far enough from the world to rest with contentment; subtle assistance is often required, lest the dullness of reality seep in deep.

Some rare few might argue the semantics of the first of such statements: Certainly there was the odd noble-blood fanatic who had their dusty old lineage manuscripts to point them back a few thousand years or so. Magic imbued parchment could stand the passage of time almost as well as he himself could, and there were still some people of that nature and art scattered or sprinkled about here and there among the outer kingdoms. At a general average though, Gillian knew it was the truth.

A few thousand years and counting, but he still appreciated a good Wine as much as when he'd first discovered the beverage. As he strolled down the perfectly crafted steps to the cellar of his grand and noble keep, he let his fingers trace out along the many perfectly formed glass bottles, the wooden shelves and barrels made and imbued with magics of keeping, preserved from time and ages.

The perfect glow of glass and colors greeted his eyes, smiling jewels in the cool crypt of earth. None else but Gillian himself were permitted to enter this place without permission, and rarely did he permit them in any such case. Only once every dozen years or so, he might allow a few hand selected to carry down what seemed most promising- but no more often than that. It was a capsule in time, this basement.

Many things rested in its cool embrace, not simply wine but also the occasional shipment from the Dwarven Whiskey, barreled from the Far Western Mountains of his territories. It was fair to say that Gillian preferred wine dramatically to the few competitors offered, but he wasn't one to rule things out- although with honesty he'd never been much for liquors. Try as he might to blend the burning sensations in his throat from the liquids with herb and pipe, they were almost always too unpleasant for him to savor.

It wasn't the pain that bothered him to such a degree, considering Gillian could just magic that away without a thought, but the flavor. For some reason he'd yet to find a spell that might mask such flammable tastes. Too fierce, too aggressive to enjoy. He'd tried them all, over the years.

Of the other options and varieties, beer and Mead were in another camp: entirely beneath him. Those were for peasants to brew and consume in tragic nights of drunken debauchery, or for Orcs to drink in copious quantities, but Wine... Chilled wine, especially in the hottest seasons of the years: There was a drink for the ages to admire. Its legacy held in the highest courts, the most pristine of pedigrees throughout countless Royal courts.

But so perfect this nectar of the gods as it might be, wine wasn't as simple a thing to obtain.

The pilfered corpses of dying Kingdoms might be under his command and banner, but Orcs, undead, and Demon-spawn were terrible tenders to the grape and vine. If such a thing was possible, they seemed even worse at the process of refining the fruit. Much as it pained him, Gillian had been forced to commit actual human lives to such a task, or be placed in the position to oversee it all himself.

He actually been extremely tempted to do exactly that, after the fifth poisoning attempt found its way past his lips, regardless of how tedious the process might be.

At least seven generations of enslavement in most cases, and Gillian would have though such trivialities put to rest among the headstones. Human beings were fickle beings though, difficult to a point of absurdity at times. Rule a majority of the planet's largest continent, possess the armies and magical capacity to easily continue on and ravage the rest of the world- yet some anger youth working in a winery might still try and pour cyanide into the barrels with the fleeting hope Gillian might drink it and keel over dead.

Wasn't that just the truth of it, though? Most people probably would, at least in the human settlements still beneath the iron rule of his law. He taught them little beyond his destructive and whimsical might- little of what his powers were truly capable of beyond what was need to keep them compliant. Some rare few still thought him mortal as a result it seemed: That he might actually be killed by such an effort.

For Gillian, he would rip out the nearest available soul: Chew and swallow. The problem, whatever it happened to be, generally resolved itself from there. From wound to poison, it made little difference.

Casually, he let his fingers settle on the gleaming color of green glass, tinted something darker in its contents beneath: Today's choice. The wine was over five hundred years old, but as he traced the magics that held it stable, felt out with the finely controlled forces of nature that beckoned and bowed under the currents of his breath's wind- he knew it was barely past a full moon's passing since it was sealed.

His Goblet appeared as he willed it, and the bottle tipped and filled with practiced ease as scents of grapes and wood flooded up from the glass. His first sip passed his lips with a grin of content emotions- not quite happiness, but not disappointment either, before he once again ascended the staircase back into the light of day; just as he did every morning.

The world had become dull with the years and seasons. More stale and boring with every passing day, it pained him, but Gillian could wait patiently for that to change. He'd put the motions to do so, enormous efforts in fact, and he'd see them through until the next challenge presented itself. Step by step, Gillian rose along the tower until the cold winds whipped from the Eastern lands, frigid air clasping at his robes and beard. He drank deeply, relishing in its magnificence.

On the horizon of the rising sun atop the tower, Gillian smiled at the approaching shape: Fully aglow with the red and orange violence of the sun's heat.

Finally.