Divination. A cornerstone of all schools of magic. Clerics and Priest looking to their gods for guidance, arcane casters channeling their magics to scry different places. Rumors persist that even the shaman of the Non Praying Creatures have their own methods of divination (There are, of course, no official studies on the matter). It was often a time consuming process and for the untrained could even use up multiple spell slots to get a proper viewing, thus only specialists tended to get into the art. Adventurers almost never used such magic, preferring to focus their training on spells that were immediately useful in the moment...

Wizard though enjoyed experimenting with new things...

As spring turned to summer Wizard found her magical stamina had improved. With her spell slots increasing to 5 so did her options to pursue higher magics. When she'd gone to gather new books to study she'd found the dusty copy of 'The Inner Eye' mixed amongst the old spell books of past adventurers. It immediately caught her interest, explaining the art of divination as a straightforward procedure. It ditched much of the flowery theatrics she'd heard so much from fortune tellers and treated it like a proper subject of study. Her free nights disappeared into candle light and within a week she felt she had a solid enough grasp of it to make an attempt of it. She waited until her monthly bleeding, knowing she'd have three days to work without worry of adventuring...

A crystal ball was simply out of the question but from what she'd read any reflective surface could work. Citing examples of mirrors or pools of water being perfectly viable for a focus. So one bucket later she began the preparation rituals. Some light enchantments on the bucket in question to act as a proper focus. Clearing her scrying area of any magical interference. As far as she knew no other mages were roomed next to her so it should work fine. Ignoring a few puzzled looks she received as she brought the half filled bucket through the guild hall and up to the second floor she placed it in the center of the room. Taking a moment to catch her breath and rub her sore arms she wondered if perhaps she should start working on her physical stamina as well. Shelving that aside she took a seat by the bucket and took a few deep breaths to calm her heart and clear her mind. Focus was one of the key tenets of divination, a cluttered mind could only lead to cluttered visions after all.

Fortunately she'd learned proper meditation techniques back at the academy. With each slow breath she could feel herself pulling away. The muffled din of the guild hall fading away, focusing only on the calm water in front of her and the flow of her own magic.

"Visus... Futurus... Locus...Notitia." As the incantations were spoken colors and shapes began to form. She had no question or location she was directly seeking so according to the book she should receive a general vision of the future... "Scry!" The world faded and the colors began to form more solid.

A Sword with a Hilt of Balanced scales...

That was the symbol of the supreme god isn't it? Was this about Cleric?

A cascade of white and gold trail up to a shadowed face, eyes covered with a strip of white…

No, someone else.

Behind the figure a stream of water swirled around, sounds of a crowd filled the air. The setting around the figure morphing in a bright city…

Hm, that doesn't look familiar. It's not the capital at least… I wonder where-

The blindfold is torn off to reveal vile yellow eyes with horizontal slit pupils. The background dropped from sunny city streets to dark ruins. In the shadows more sets of eyes appeared The crowd noise morphing into grunts and squeals…

Goblins!... well if it's my future that shouldn't be surprising. Of course goblin quests would be in my future.

A hand reached through the shadows, Through the vision...

Wizard gasped, it was getting harder to breath. As if the hand was choking her somehow... but this was just a vision. wasn't it?

A single eye full of hatred and malice glee blotted out the others...

Wizard could feel herself lifted off the ground, the individual fingers tightening around her torso, her ribs creaking under the pressure of the giant green hand. What.. was this? It feels so real! The book never mentioned anything like this-

The world around her blurred... behind the the great beast stood a shadowed figure, humanoid with a skull mask and black robes. With a motion of offering a large mirror faded into view. It's surface rippling like a pond, showing several different places.. Before it could continue the mirror was blocked by a missive shadow filled with eyes. Not Goblin eyes, something else. Something unnatural...

Wizard could barely focus on the vision as she continued to struggle to breath. Her trance refused to break...

Blood everywhere... River of red drifted down from above her. Floating inside it were bodies of men and women. But among them were more familiar faces... High Elf Archer, Dwarf Shaman, Lizard Priest... Warrior & Cleric... and finally a single worn helmet floating along...

She began to hyperventilate, despite the crushing feeling on her lungs, fear rose and tears came to her eyes. No.. This wasn't a vision this was a nightmare. Why couldn't she stop it? She tried to move, to escape the crushing grip only managing a few weak flails.

Laughter... deep unsettling laughter. Somehow the Goblin seemed even bigger, it felt like her bones were breaking... it opened its mouth wider and wider as if it would swallow her whole. It grew closer and closer

and suddenly it all stopped. A warmth appeared in her hand and seemed to spread out over her body and the images disappeared. The crushing feeling left her, she gasped deep breaths to refill her aching lungs. She was left floating in nothingness, helpless to the invisible flow around her. Within that nothingness came a blinding light.

Wake up… My Child... A warm caress touched her cheek.

Wizard's eyes shot open to see the ceiling of her room. Her breathing was ragged and she was damp with sweat and water. The bucket had been knocked over from her flailing. She sat up shakily placing a hand over her face, desperately trying to regain her composure. The nightmarish images playing on in her mind on loop.

"I… I need to clean up…" she brought her hands down to steady herself only to feel something in her left. Unclenching her shaky fist she saw a small worn symbol. A collection of wings in a circular design. The symbol of the Earth Mother. It fell from her hand to the floor as she broke down crying… from fear or elation she didn't know. It wasn't until late afternoon that her hysterical episode subsided enough for her to properly clean up… She went over the book once more that night looking for any explanation for the frighteningly vivid vision. The only consolation it brought was that divination could work very differently from one caster to another. It was less than comforting. What she needed was clarification, but there were no Diviners in the Frontier Town. The hard working and hard living folk on the frontier had no need for such frivolous occupations. So she set the event aside. Recording what she'd seen to parchment and focusing back on the present. There were still quests to take and goblins to kill after all…

AN: The City of Water Arc Begins and Volume 2 Begins...