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.Gromph didencounter one master, Havel Duskryn.As he passed, Gromph bowed and said, "Master Duskryn.""Prath Baenre," the tall, thin Master replied, rubbing his weak jaw and obviously too involved in whatevertroubled him to query "Prath" about his business.Gromph hurried through hallways lined with paintings, sculpture, and framed magical writings until hereached the apprentices' wing of the complex.There, he encountered two of the new class of apprenticessearching for a tome in the apprentices' li brary.Neither spoke to Gromph, and he made his way toPrath's austere quarters.Like all apprentices, Prath lived alone out of a stone-walled room five paces on a side.His sparsefurnishings consisted of an uncomfortable looking sleeping pallet and a small zurkhwood desk and chair.Books, papers, ink, a glowball, and three inkrods were neatly organized upon the desktop.Prath wassurprisingly fastidious.Gromph's own chambers as an apprentice had always been in disarray.Gromph walked through Prath's doorway and pulled the door closed behind him.The moment the latchcaught, a magic mouth whispered, "Welcome back, Master Prath."Gromph smiled.An apprentice could be flogged for casting spells frivolously, though the masters usuallyturned a blind eye to the practice.In truth, using spells for pranks and entertainment made an apprentice'sotherwise harsh existence a bit more bearable.It also encouraged creative thinking in the use of spells.When Gromph had been an apprentice, he had kept an invisible wine service in a corner of his quarters,complete with an unseen servant to pour it at his command.Smuggling the wine into Sorcere had been adifficult challenge.Prath's violation looked minor compared to Gromph's.Gromph slid into the chair behind the desk and leafed through Prath's papers.He saw from the notes andformulae written there that the apprentice was in the process of learning a series of progressively morecomplicated augmenting transmutations.Gromph spent a moment reading over Prath's observations.He decided first that Prath had potential; he decided second that it was time to get on with his work.He had several preparatory spells to cast.He pushed the papers aside.Gromph's own magical robe had extradimensional pockets that organized their contents according to his mental urgings.Prath's robe contained no such enchantment, and Gromph found sorting through his spell components an unfamiliar chore.Still, he took it in good spirit, found the various items he would require, and cast.He first sprinkled a pinch of diamond dust over his head and whispered the words to a protective spell that would ward his person from detection.The spell was not as powerful a shield against scrying as a stationary screen, but it would serve to defeat most scrying attempts.Next, in preparation for the spell traps he would encounter in the fortress of House Agrach Dyrr, he cast a series of wards that protected his flesh for several hours against negative energy, fire, lightning, cold, and acid.If the spell traps did more damage than his wards could absorb, his magical ring eventually would regenerate it, provided the damage did not kill him outright.Not even his ring could bring back the dead.Third, he withdrew from his pocket a tiny vial of glassteel containing a dollop of quicksilver.After pricking the tip of his finger on the edge of the duergar axe at his belt, he squeezed a few drops of his blood into the vial.He then smeared the tips of his fingers with the admixture and incanted the words to one of his most powerful spells, a dweomer that would whisk him back to his offices should certain contingenciescontingencies that he would have to articulate as part of the castingoccur.His fingers traced glowing lines in the air as he recited the incantation.Presently, the spell was completed but for the articulation of the contingent triggers.The magic of the spell sizzled around him, awaiting his words.He thought for a moment about the nature of the spell traps he would face then whispered the triggers aloud "Should my body be rendered involuntarily immobile or be materially consumed by magical energy of any kind, should my soul be trapped or otherwise imprisoned, should my mind become enfeebled or otherwise unable to function." The spell soaked into him, there to await a triggering event.Gromph had only another step or two to take before he moved against House Agrach Dyrr.Moving his hands through another intricate gesture, he spoke the words to a spell that rendered him invisible.With another whisper, he modified the magic to cause the invisibility effect to last a full day rather than its normal duration of but an hour or two.Finally, he called upon the ongoing transmutation that allowed him to change his shape and mentally selected the form of an incorporeal, undead creature a literal shadow.The magic seized him, and his body grew dark, shadowy, and insubstantial.His flesh grew light but his soul grew heavy.He was suffused with dark energies.Prath disappeared; a living shadow replaced him.Gromph felt his existence stretched across multiple realities.He felt solid to himself, as did all of his equipment, but his "flesh" tingled, and most of his senses felt dull.He could not hear or smell and the loss of sensation disconcerted him
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