Thal left shortly after the peculiar conclusion to his peculiar interview, having no reason to be sat in a tavern slightly drunk at midday. He heeded the advice of Hunter and left for the Westgate markets to buy a dagger. His mother had been paying him a wage for his time in the shop - after subtracting the cost of the potions he destroyed - and he figured he had saved enough to afford one. He hadn’t figured his day would take him here, buying his first ever weapon while moderately intoxicated.

I guess life has a way of surprising people like that.

Thal found a blacksmith’s near the Gate and approached a man standing behind a workbench. He was as tall as Thal, but much older. His hair was blonde and curly, his eyes blue and several shallow, faded scars were set into a round and fair face. Over the sound of hammer meeting steel the man called out to him.

“Hail atmer!”

Thal looked to his collar; he couldn’t see that his gills were showing.

“Don’t worry” the man said “I have a talent for finding other non-humans in this city.”

Other non-humans.

If this man wasn’t human then… “Hail korrigan!” he called back. It made sense; the round face and curly hair.

“Ha!” laughed the man, “Excellent guess, now what can I do for you?”

Next I must admit to an unfortunate shortcoming in the data gathered for this book. There is one population that has been regrettably difficult to quantify, and that is the population of Korrigans. Unfortunately the uncanny resemblance between Humans and Korrigans rendered our visual surveys useless.

Knocking at random households in Korrigan neighbourhoods also failed as, without exception, at every household that was Korrigan my team were invited inside for a meal and amiable conversation. The friendly nature of Korrigans began to seriously jeopardise our deadlines and that particular line of investigation had to be abandoned. Thus I regrettably must disclose that the following figures are all extremely rough estimates calculated from quite sparse data.

Demographics – Manfred Yaites

Thal explained his situation – leaving out the part with the ale – and that he was looking for a small dagger.

“I believe, young atmer, that I have just the weapon for you.”

With that the man ducked into the shop and returned with an object wrapped in cloth. He set it on the table and unpackaged the bundle to reveal a gleaming, silver-coloured blade; flat and narrow with a leather-bound handle.

“The metal of that dirk is called Silversheen. I imagine you’ve heard of it” Thal had read about this before.

“It’s silver alchemically bonded to steel” said Thal, “the silver will deliver harm to undead and lycanthropes, and the mixture of the two metals is stronger than silver on its own.”

“Ha!” barked the old man again “The boy knows his metals. I figured a being of the deep, such as yourself, would have use for a blade that doesn’t rust. And this one is good. Very good. I should know; I made it myself.”

“Impressive.” Thal hoped it was impressive, knew nothing about metals outside of what he had read, but he sensed he had chanced upon no run-of-the-mill blacksmith.

“You’re far too kind. Now if you wish to purchase this blade, it’ll cost you five hundred Oros.

Thal felt his eyes widen slightly as he rolled the number around in his mind. With everything he had saved at the shop, he had maybe two hundred Oros to his name.

“For you…” the blacksmith interjected “Four hundred. You seem like a good lad”

“Do you have anything a little cheaper?” Thal asked only a little sheepishly. In the end he walked away with a second-hand iron dagger, used scabbard and belt for sixty Oros.

There were still several hours of daylight left, so Thal set off for the college. He had a lot to talk about with his old mentor. He found Hobse sitting calmly behind his desk.

“You seem nervous, lad.” The old gnome eyed the scabbard hanging from Thal’s belt; “I suppose they offered you the job? And if memory serves, they plan on leaving tomorrow?”

It was not a real question; Hobse’s memory always served. Thal just nodded in response.

“Have you ever killed someone, Hobse?” Thal asked, surprising himself.

Though it was a question his mentor must have been expecting, as he answered without pause.

“No, my boy, I can’t say that I have…” Thal almost hoped that Hobse had, just so as he could shed some light on the subject.

“I’ve never been that sort of mage you see, always an academic. I’m afraid what you’re about to embark upon; it’s uncharted territory for myself. Well, for a lot of mages I suppose.”

Hobse took off his spectacles to clean them with his sleeve.

“I’m afraid” he continued, “that this is one discipline of the arcane with which I can be of no assistance. I’m sorry my boy, but this is something you’ll have to figure out on your own.”

In Thal’s memory that was the first time Hobse had ever said those words. It was unnerving. The old gnome cleared his throat and continued;

“But I do have something you can take with you, something that may be of more use than my advice would be in this instance.”

With that Hobse pulled opened a drawer in his desk and set several small tomes atop.

“I know you’ll be on the road, but it’s important you never stop your reading.” A typical Hobse-ism. “And this is a book I think you’ll find particular interest in. It’s about Atmere mages. I was told it covers in some detail Atmere mage culture, Atmere spellcasting and some basic techniques you could practice. I can’t be sure of course, the whole blasted thing is written in Atmere.”

“Hobse, that’s amazing.”

Thal had never found anything about the Atmere in the school library, or in any of the bookstores in the city, and not for lack of trying.

“I can’t imagine the lengths you had to… Thank you, Hobse.” He picked up book and opened it to the first page.

The old gnome chuckled, “Your curiosity is infectious lad, but you’d better be heading home. I imagine you have some explaining to do to your mother.”

Today had been a troubling day for Thal, but those were the most ominous words he’d heard so far. In his mind there was only one scenario which he could leave the city; he needed to construct a lie. A bloody excellent one. On his way home Thal stopped at a little soup-house he knew to think of an alibi and eat something. He wasn’t sure if all mothers had a nose like a bloodhound or whether it was only Tharmisa. Either way, he needed to mask the scent of ale on his breath.

Delving into vocabulary shows us just how different Atmere culture is to our own. Notably, there are at least 15 words for “water” that I know of, and they are distinct. If you use the incorrect word, you would be describing another kind of water, which would confuse the sentence…

Now, the grammar up to this point has been tricky. For the rest of this chapter it’s going to get even trickier. As we have covered, in Atmere, verbs almost always come at the start of the sentence. Now we’re going to look at some of the many exceptions…

However, because of the use of these “particles” that define whether a word is the subject or object of a sentence, many simple sentences can be constructed with the words in any which order (aside from the verbs, of course) and as long as these “particles” are in the correct places, then the sentence will still make sense…

Excerpts of “The Atmere Language Explained” – Elior Panarin

By the time Thal came around, the sun was setting on a familiar scene; a pale stone shop-front set with slight windows and an old oak door leading out onto a wide, flagstone-paved street. Most of a day had passed since he had been so abruptly snatched away from his post behind the counter inside. Before the door lay even half-way open Tharmisa called from behind the counter.

“Thal? What could have possibly kept you for so long?”

“Hobse said he has a job for me.” Thal tried to speak the words swiftly, but not so swiftly as to seem unnatural, just as he had rehearsed in the soup-house.

If I can lay down enough details early on, she won’t have the time to ponder if it’s true or not.

“I…”

“What in the world is that?” She was angry. Already.

How does she always…

Thal followed her gaze to his side; he was still wearing the scabbard with his new, not-new dagger.

My nose and now this. Maybe I’m not as good at lying to my mother as I thought I was.

He had only his alibi prepared, so he ran with it;

“I’m going to be leaving the city for a few days, Hobse has a friend who lives out in the country. He usually visits him every so often to bring potions, supplies and things. But he’s getting too old to make the journey, so he asked me to do it.”

“But why do you have a dagger?” his mother asked.

“I’m not sure. Hobse just gave it to me” replied Thal.

I hate improvising.

“I mean it’s not anywhere dangerous, I’m taking a pretty well-travelled road to a farming village. I guess maybe things were different back in his day.”

Thal had put a lot of thought into his story, but under his mother’s gaze all the details he had ironed out earlier seemed to go up in smoke.

“Let me see it” she asked, but it was not a request.

Thal drew the dagger from its scabbard. His mother took it from him and held it, with hands that made Thal’s grasp on the thing seem clumsy. She scanned the blade closely, her eyes running off its edge like a whetstone.

“And what? He just keeps this in his desk?” Her stare was still firmly affixed on the weapon.

“I guess? Like I said, he’s getting older.” Thal attempted to feign nonchalance, but he heard his voice as he spoke.

I’m not sure even I would believe me.

“Okay, you can go. And you can take this with you. Just don’t go waving it around like it’s a toy. This thing is sharp, you could hurt yourself.”

“Really? It’s okay?”

Idiot. What innocent person would say that?

Tharmisa arched an eyebrow. Thal spoke quickly, eager to be upstairs before she could change her mind.

“Thank you! I should start packing. I need to leave early tomorrow, and if I don’t start now I won’t get any sleep. Thanks again!”

“Tomorrow?” Tharmisa exclaimed, but Thal was already most of the way up the stairs.

That last part – at least – had not been a lie. It was getting late, and he wanted to get a full night’s rest before going on his first manhunt. After deciding what he considered appropriate manhunting attire – his travelling clothes, apparently – he set about choosing what to bring in his pack. Once the books Hobse had given him had all been stuffed in alongside a few small spellbooks of Thal’s own there wasn’t space for anything else.

I wonder if this is a problem all adventuring wizards face.

At any rate, once Thal had managed to cram a few personals into the bag, fit a waterskin to the side and strap his bedroll underneath he was ready to go. Thal decided he should change into his travelling gear, put on the pack and fit his new scabbard to his belt. He wanted to test the ensemble, ensure it was appropriate for walking in. Also, he wanted to see how he looked. He imagined himself standing among the adventurers he had seen in the tavern earlier. Unfortunately, the reflection was not that of a formidable wizard about to set out on an epic adventure. He looked like a nobody going for a stroll.

This won’t do.

He took off the pack and the belt and changed into his apprentice robes from the college. Though they seemed less than appropriate for travel, with to the dagger hanging from his belt he was starting to look like the dangerous wizard he wanted to be. He even took his father’s ring out from his drawer and put it on, deciding he liked the way it looked.