Standing on a stool while his mother pinned and hemmed his robes was one thing. Submitting to being stuck with what he felt certain was the twelfth pin in a row was more than he could bear.

"How much longer is this going to take? Lorien the Luminescent is unaccustomed to being subjected to this sort of torture,” Bill huffed. “Other wizards have professional robe makers to tend to their robes. Professional robe makers don’t stick their customers with pins.”

“Oh you with that Lorien nonsense,” his mother mumbled around a mouthful of pins. “Why you can’t just be content to use the name your father and I gave you, goddesses rest him, is beyond me. I know you get to choose once you’re seventeen and done with your training, but honestly, you could have been Bill the Brilliant, or Bill the Bold. You're not an elf, you're a human, and you come from a good family that loves you.”

“But Mum, Lorien sounds so much more majestic than Bill! I need a professional image that will sell me and what I can do!”

Bill's mother snorted. “What is it you can do? I watched you sit your examinations. You turned a chicken into a toad that still had feathers, and when you tried to conjure water out of nowhere, it came out as tea.”

Bill’s cheeks flushed red, but he said nothing. If the chicken had held still, it might not have ended up a feathered toad. And tea... well.

That could have happened to anyone.

“Still I suppose that's a talent to have,” his mother mused. “Tea, out of nothing! Makes me want to keep you here at home with me and trot you out at parties. Think of it! My son, the teapot.” She chortled at her own humor.

Bill struggled to get down from the stool. “I won't be made the butt of the joke, Mother.”

“Oh settle down. If you can't take a bit of teasing from your dear old Mum, then you won't last a day out there in the real world. There.” She leaned back to look at her work. The hem was even with the robes just brushing the tops of Bill's shabby boots.

“I wish we could afford new boots for you,” she mused.

“I wish we could afford a professional robe maker,” Bill grumbled.

“Well if I could afford to send you to one I would, but I can't. You'll either have to make do with Mumsy's sewing, or sew it yourself.” Phyllis stood and dusted off her knees. “I don't know why you're such a grouch. Your father gave everything he had so that you could go to school, and have we heard so much as a thank you? No, we have not! Not one!”

“Thank you Mum,” Bill mumbled. “I do appreciate you, you know.”

“Yes, well you've got a funny way of showing it. They should call me Phyllis the Patient, for putting up with you,” she grumbled back, but she smiled. “Right, take them off so I can finish them up, then go down to the inn and check the board. You never know, something new might have been pinned up since you checked this morning.”

After shucking the too-big robes, Bill grabbed his wand and shoved it in the pocket of his trousers before trudging toward the village noticeboard. He could have been there in minutes, but instead he dawdled, gazing around as he walked. The longer he took to get there, the longer it would be before he had to go home, still unemployed. He skirted around the back wall of the apothecary, winding his way past the Alchemy District and the pet store.

The buildings in this part of town were uniformly shabby, run-down, and unimpressive: most were beginning to crumble at the edges and some even had visible cracks in their walls. They were constructed from the same cheap materials as his own house, bricks and wood from the surrounding countryside outside the Lerastir walls, and roofs of thatch obtained from nearby Babin.

He turned the corner and was hit with the usual hustle and bustle of the midday traffic, of stall owners bartering and peddling their wares, of guard armor clinking, of babies crying.

For a town that produced almost nothing of its own, Lerastir somehow managed to be the center of commerce and culture in West Nimrien. People of all races traveled here to meet, and to barter. Bill thrust his hand in his pocket and jangled the two brass noudas together. On his way from the far side of the market to the noticeboard, he spent one on a serving of peas fried in butter and salt, and the other on a cone of sugared nuts.

Bill pushed past a handful of people to get to the noticeboard, leaving granulated sugar in his wake. He held his breath and scanned the jobs.

He cursed, and then blushed slightly as the elderly woman next to him tutted disapprovingly. He had hoped that the answer to his problems would have appeared since he last looked, but there was nothing new. Even poking under the scraps of parchment didn’t turn up anything new.

He stumbled back a few steps, his mother’s voice echoing in his mind.

What’s wrong with that one? Well, Mum, I don’t want to take a job cleaning someone’s house after two years of learning to be a wizard. Plus you always tell me I’m rubbish at cleaning.

Why won’t you give that one a try? Because, Mum, small children either dislike me on sight and cry until I leave, or they laugh and jeer at me.

He had to believe the world had more in store for him than a life of drudgery in sodding Lerastir. His shoulders slumped, and he kicked out at an innocent stone before heading for his house.

His mother’s voice continued to play in his ears: Ask around, see if any passers-by need any work done. Odd jobs are still work. No thank you, Mum. He hadn’t stooped that low yet, and he didn’t ever intend to. Lorien the Luminescent did not beg. He wrinkled his nose in disgust.

Unfortunately for Bill, when one finishes wizard academy firmly in the lower half of their class, there aren’t too many jobs being handed out. Most people, when hiring a wizard, prefer to hire one who won't accidentally blow up their castles.

To put off the moment when he would have to tell his mother there was still no suitable work available, he took another route home past the court of Lerastir. He weaved through a series of marble pillars, skipped along the edge of a fountain, and gave his approximation of a smart salute to a statue of Emirkol the Chaotic. The structures here were much more a feast for Bill's hungry eyes than his own neighborhood. He lived among cottages, shabbiness and dreary colors. Here were mansions, towers and bright banners of wealthy families everywhere.

“Oi you. Kid. State your name and business,” came a voice. Bill turned to see a guard giving him the hairy eyeball. He straightened himself up to his full height before answering.

“I am Lorien the Luminescent, a wizard and your better, and I am tending to my own business,” he declared, his voice only cracking once.

The guard looked him up and down. “A wizard? Where’s your robes then? And your beard? Seems like a better name for you would be Stephen the Shite,” he snickered.

Bill clenched his teeth and screwed his face up for a second. Was he really that hopeless? Nobody took him seriously—not even his own mother.

“I could turn you into a toad for saying that to me,” he threatened with narrowed eyes.

The guard just shrugged. “Toad food would be a lot cheaper than mutton and mead. Go on then. Do your worst, or bugger off.”

Taking a deep breath, Bill racked his brains for the right incantation, then slumped when he realized he had no idea what it was. It wasn’t his fault though! He’d been ill the day they went through turning people into toads. Though it pained him to admit it, the chance of showing himself up badly was greater than he cared to risk.

“Right then,” he said. “I’ll let you away with a warning, but let this be a lesson to you not to speak with such disrespect to your betters.”

Bill did his best to keep his back straight and his pace slow as he strode away, even though the guard’s laughter rang in his ears. Once out of sight, he shoved his hands deep into his pockets and kicked at a stone.

“I could have done it,” he told himself. “I just didn't want to.” And to prove it to himself, he pulled out his wand, flicked it in the direction of the stone, and was gratified to see it turn into a clod of earth. A small bit of magic, sure, but he’d pulled it off, hadn't he? That guard didn't know what he was talking about.

“Stephen the Shite?” he scoffed. “I'm Lorien the bloody Luminescent, that’s who I am. But they ought to call me Lorien the Lenient for holding back.”

He still didn't want to go straight home, so he doubled back to the Sage and Flagon and went inside. A few die hard regulars slumped over the bar nursing flagons of ale, and an older couple sat eating at a table. Bill walked up to the counter, puffed out his chest, made sure he was standing up as tall as he could, and ordered an ale.

“What you want an ale for, to give to your daddy?” the innkeeper laughed. “Come back when you've got a few hairs on your chin. I don't sell ale to kids.”

“I have got hair on my chin!” Bill protested. “Look!”

He pointed to the solitary hair that had sprouted from his chin a few days earlier. It was sort of delicate, which made it a bit hard to spot, but it was there! “So can I have an ale or not?”

“Not,” the innkeeper said with a tone of finality. “Tell you what though, you can have a goat's milk on the house, I'm that sorry for you. That do you?”

Bill stormed back out of the bar, ears burning at the cackles and titters that followed him.

Of course, since he was already having a crap day, Fate just had to send his arch nemesis to meet him outside the inn.

Trevor, or “Trevor the Triumphant” as he had so sickeningly dubbed himself, had been in the same classes as Bill all the way through their wizard training. In terms of ability, they had been evenly matched, but Trevor scored a couple of marks higher than Bill on almost every test—and he never let Bill forget it.

“What were you doing in the inn? Buying ale? You know they won’t sell to you,” Trevor sneered.

“So what? It isn't as if they’d sell to you, either!”

“Bet they would. I look older than you. At least I have hair on my chin.”

“I have got hair on my chin! It’s right here!” Incensed, Bill took a step forward and shoved Trevor in the chest, hard.

Trevor barely swayed.

“You’re a wimp, and a hairless-chinned loser,” he taunted. He shoved back, and Bill went sprawling into the dirt. “And that’s what you get for messing with your betters!”

Trevor strode off, leaving Bill to pick himself up and dust himself off.

Obviously, Lerastir and all who dwelt within it were against him. He blinked a few times, then rubbed his eyes hard. Lorien the Luminescent did not cry. Especially not in public where anyone could see him.

He turned and began trudging home. Even if his mother was an annoying pain in the bum sometimes, at least she would make him a hot meal.

“Bill!” Phyllis called, right on cue as he walked in the door. “Come and peel the potatoes, darling. We’ll have shepherd’s pie for lunch, shall we? And I’ll put the cheese on top, just the way you like it.”

Had anyone else been around to see, and had he not just suffered such a humiliation at Trevor’s hand, Bill might have commented about how Lorien the Luminescent was too important to be peeling potatoes. After the day he'd had though, he wasn’t feeling all that luminescent. He walked over to the pile of potatoes, but stopped on the way to give his mother a hug.

“What was that for?” she asked him, surprised but pleased.

“Nothing,” Bill mumbled. “I just love you, that's all.”

The two worked together in silence to prepare lunch. Once it was in the oven, Phyllis addressed the troll in the corner.

“Did you look at the board?”

“I did, but there's still nothing suitable there,” he said. He was sort of telling the truth: there was nothing there that interested him.

“That's funny. When I looked last night, there were at least half a dozen ads wanting people for odd jobs or childcare,” she remarked.

Bill stared at the table, gritting his teeth. “Mum, stop! Do you think Dad would have wanted me to waste my wizard training on mucking out someone's stables, or changing dirty nappies? I don’t! I think he would have wanted me to have adventures—the kind of adventures he never got to have.”

Phyllis banged his plate down in front of him. “And I think your father would agree that I can't keep running this family by myself! This lunch is an entire afternoon's work worth of food, and it’s one meal! You can't just sit on your backside waiting for someone to hand you your dream job ‘someday’. I need you to help me now.”

“I'm trying!” Bill exploded.

“You’re not trying hard enough!”

The argument paused long enough for the two of them to eat. Phyllis ate slowly, chewing each bite twenty times as was her custom. Bill, on the other hand, bolted his food down in an attempt to get away from the table—and his mother’s scrutiny—faster. He felt his mother’s eyes on him, and cringed under the weight of her gaze. She might not still be nagging verbally, but her expression said everything.

He couldn’t take it any longer.

“You know I can’t settle for menial labor when I could be doing something so much better. I won’t!”

“Lunch is over,” his mother said, whipping his half-finished plate out from under him and dumping it in the sink. “I think you need to ask yourself what’s more important: your stubborn pride, or eating. The reality is, the way things are going, if you don’t get off your backside and find work, I can’t afford to keep you.”

Bill scowled, pushed his chair away from the table, and stalked out of the house without a word. He fully intended to slam the front door behind him, but then he saw the glossy, rich looking envelope pinned to it. It bore his name, his wizard name, in flowing red calligraphy.

He detached the envelope from the door, looking up and down the street. Both ways, the street was empty: he didn’t see anyone who could have delivered the envelope. But then, he thought, they had been inside long enough to cook, eat, and fight over lunch.

He scrutinized the envelope, turning it over in his hands. It was made of paper that people like him and Mumsy could never hope to afford. He had never held a piece of paper this expensive in his hands.

His hands trembled as he sat down on his front step and carefully tore it open.

Lorien the Luminescent (Bill), the note read.

The Collector requests your presence at his home at ten tomorrow morning. This meeting is for the purposes of hiring your services as a wizard for one (1) quest. The nature of this quest is sensitive and will be revealed at said meeting.

If you do not wish to accept this engagement, do nothing. If your intention is to attend the meeting, leave your name and rank on a piece of parchment on the steps of the Collector’s home by no later than sundown tonight.

Please be advised, it is expected that you will make any necessary arrangements prior to arrival, as acceptance of this quest will mean immediate departure.

Bill read the message three times before it sank in. Of all the coincidences, right after he had fought with his mother about money and his lack of a job, one really had fallen right in his lap. He leapt up and punched the air, letting out a whoop of excitement. Everyone knew the Collector. He was world famous in Lerastir for his huge house full of beautiful, valuable things—and he had a quest for him, Lorien the Luminescent! Finally, word of his greatness had reached the appropriate ears.

“I'm going out, Mum!” he yelled, and sped off toward the prosperous district where the Collector lived.

When he got to the Collector’s house, there were five slips of parchment present already, four weighted down by stones and one pinned right to the door by a small dagger. That one read “Sestra of Lerastir. Thief.”

Bill rummaged in his pockets, then paled. “I didn’t bring any bloody parchment,” he swore. “My big break and I forgot the bloody, bloody parchment.”

“Oi. Kid.”

Bill knew that voice: it was the guard who had mocked him earlier in the day. He stiffened, squaring his shoulders. The guard merely smirked, and shoved a piece of parchment and a stick of charcoal at him. “Looks like we can change your name from Stephen the Shite, to Fergus the Fortunate,” he quipped.

“Why...?” Bill began, then changed his mind. It was probably better not to tempt fate by calling attention to this apparent change of heart.

“Cos I ain't a toad yet, see?” the guard answered Bill's unasked question with a shrug. “Figured I been spared by your gracious whim.” He winked, and walked off whistling.

Bill scribbled “Lorien the Luminescent of Lerastir, Wizard” on the parchment and studied the ones already on the step.

“Callania of the Six Seas, Ranger”.

“Elion of Befalls, Bard”.

Bill placed his name above “Nalyn of Peaddena Plateau, Fighter” and “Torbek of Pacot, Cleric (Servant of Ophina)” and let out a shaky breath.

Trevor the Triumphant could eat his heart out, because Bill’s name was on the Collector’s front step, and Trevor’s was not.