Introduction: So, there I was (the best war stories usually start that way.) August 6^th, 2005 a GM asks for a character. I trot out Keen, with changes, then have to withdraw her instantly. It seems that the site this GM is using has a rather unique user agreement; Anything you post becomes property of the site owners forever, including any derivatives. This is a derivative of the original Keen. Site owner and several users thought it was fair, after all, he was supplying the site... He was ‘protecting their copyrights.’ Idiots.

Keen Again

A Proposed Background Story;

Wearing her best black robes Scholar Keen Louise ‘eTelelia topped before the High Priestess door. She had been here before, several times before. Well, nearly weekly since she’d started taking active classes the nineteen year old had to admit. This time though had been a real corker. Trying to create a footbridge across the stream Pharr, she’d managed the feat. A footbridge had appeared, complete with shoes. It had taken all three instructors to banish the thousands of feet back to whatever impossible realm she’d managed to call them from.

‘They can rebuild the South tower’ she thought to herself. ‘Its not like that many people were living there anyway.’ Just the seniors she reminded herself, remembering that her own room had become nothing more than a mass of rubble in that accident. That had been no minor stumble, she’d made hash of the spell and knew it well in time to stop and retry. ‘I’m getting thrown out.’ she realized. ‘Dad is gonna throw a cow.’

Knocking had on the hewn Rowen door Keen walked in the instant she heard the command to enter. One would expect quarters used by the High Priestess to be massive, ornate, built of all the best. Instead she entered a room not quite half again as large as her once shared quarters (‘may they rubble in pieces’ she thought) lined with book and scroll shelves with a simple but comfortable looking bed shoved under some shelving. Stopping in her accustomed place, a slight off colored stone in front of the battered desk, Keen awaited her fate.

“Keen” the much older woman whispered. “I spoke with the headmaster. I spoke with your instructors. I even woke the High Priest from his afternoon nap. Your book work is excellent, your cartography a joy to behold, your illustrations lifelike. With a mind like yours, why can’t you make a simple spell work correctly?”

“I have Mistress” Keen reminded the woman. “When Johnatin broke his leg, when Elizabeth was scalded. These times, many like them I have preformed flawlessly.”

“Yes. You did. Which is why instead of binding you forever, then tossing you out of this school is not the sole choice. When it matters. When it is important, your spells are letter perfect, your casts flawless. Yet you cannot even create a simply winter cape as instructed.”

“Neon yellow was rather garish” Keen admitted. “But it was warm.”

“More than a little garish” the High Priestess corrected, unable to stop a giggle. “You have been a break in the monotony of seriousness this place is unfortunately steeped in. Regrettably Keen, your nineteen now. More than an adult. Yet you still have this impossible jinx upon you. Even worse, it will remain upon you all the days of your life, so say the coins.”

“My future dies on the turn of a coin” Keen asked.

“No jokes girl. Not this time. Several people were hurt, some badly by that footbridge you called into being. I cannot turn my face from this. You are too dangerous to continue within any school. Still you are too talented to bind. Too intelligent to regulate to a life as a farmers wife. So I grant you a choice. Binding, or the Chair of Destiny.”

Ice grew within the small woman’s veins. Almost no one had ever sat in that chair and been heard of afterwards. She had heard of the stories about what hells people were sent to, for their failures. Only the High Priestess could sit in it without fear. “Binding, or Hell” she asked. “What difference is there? Either are an end to me.”

Laughter was her answer. “Child, woman you may be but you listen too much to false stories. The chair will send you to a place where you may be useful. A place where you should have been born. It does not kill. Sit in the chair, don’t take the binding. I’d rather not have to watch as your spirit is slowly crushed by hard work, yearly births and the knowledge of what might have been. That is true hell for those like you and I. In any case, I have spoken with your family. Though your mother wishes you to Bind. To marry, your father believes the choice should be yours alone. You have until after dinner tonight.”

“But...”

“After dinner tonight. Released.”

Keen shivered in fear. Returning to the hall outside the High Priestess’s quarters she felt tears falling down her cheeks. Her life was at an end. She would become some farmers wife, living her life knowing what she could have been, feeling the power within her, yet forever denied. “I’d rather die” she told the cold stone walls. Her decision so simply made she headed for the library. They would allow her the journey she carried, filled with the rules of magic and a half dozen or so student example spells. They couldn’t take that away from her. Dinner was hours away, it was not even lunch as yet. Hours she could use in the library, copying.

Thus so it was. After dinner, still dressed in her best black robes Keen walked up to the High Priestess. “I would sit” she told the woman.

A smile bloomed for a moment on the older woman’s face. “You will go to where your skills will be of use. I charge you though, never speak of us, other than in general words. No names, no specific descriptions. My last order to you Keen is to become the best you can become. Do that, I will always be proud of you.” Standing from her ornately carved chair the High Priestess made way for Keen, actually stepping down one step. An honor, for the few moments it would take Keen to sit, for the Destiny Chair to determine her fate, she would be higher than the woman she almost worshiped.

Sliding her right hand into the shoulder leather carrying case, one made of the best dinosaur leather her parents had been able to afford, Keen stepped up to the chair. For several seconds she stared at its simplistic design, for in truth is was nothing but a carved wooden chair with bone inlay. Turning to face the room, to face her friends, her fellow students, she gave them a tiny wave goodby, and sat.