Rahil Radgman took an intense pride from his caste as magician’s assistant. True, had he spent more time in the gymagico instead of playing calvsola with his friends he could have been tracked level 1 or maybe even 2 magician like Zambyan Rothmister, but he was glad his slacking kept him at magician’s assistant. As a magician’s assistant you worked with level 10 and higher magicians. As Rahil was talented for an assistant, he worked with higher magicians and higher magicians got the exciting placements. So that’s why Rahil Radgman got sent on the top secret mission to Coralende’s Styx Moon and Zambyan Rothmister stayed at home on the bench awaiting deployment.
Of course, his parents had been very disappointed with his caste as magician’s assistant. At the time every Assmachestani knew the prophesized ReTurn was near and every Assmachestani parent dreamed their offspring would be caste high to hero in the fast approaching ReTurn. Neither Rahil’s alpha mother nor his beta-hat father casted very high (he was a level 3 producer and she a level 4 cultivator) but they had high hopes for their gama-hat son. A magic wielder in their family! They were the envy of every family on the block (In their barraro, the Rothmisters were the only other family to have one).
So imagine the Radgman’s disappointment when Zambyan casted level 2 magician and Rahil only assistant. By nature of being the only two families with gamma-hats, the Radgman’s and the Rothmister’s became immediate rivals; each family hoping on the edge of their seats that their gamma-hat would be the first to walk, the first to talk, the first to read, the first to wield, the first, first, first, FIRST! Rahil hated it. It was his parents’ constant comparisons, a major motif of Rahil’s life, that made him avoid the gymagico. Sometime around the age of 6, Rahil decide he no longer needed the pressure of constant competition with Zambyan. So he stopped caring. His parents however didn’t give up so easily. But Rahil didn’t really give up; he just changed games. Instead of spending time at the gymagico where he was bound to find Zambyan working on casting, he spent hours manipulating his calvsola ball and he became known across three barraros for his skills. Unfortunately, the news didn’t make it to his parents or worse yet, it made it but they didn’t care.
But a passion for calvsola wasn’t what pushed Rahil from competing with Zambyan; the idea of competing pushed him away. During cultivation they were told over and over again that they all need to work in perfect harmony like a colony of bees so that Assmachestan would one day return to its former glory. While no one else modeled this attitude for Rahil, he latched onto it and stopped competing with Zambyan. It’s unlikely the young Rahil was conscious of this but that was the undercurrent that drove his actions. Yet even if Rahil would have been able to vocalize his misgivings, it wouldn’t have corked his parents’ disappointment or soothed their persistent nagging. “You don’t know how good you have it. A gamma-hat! Don’t you see how high you can rise.” “You’ve been given the gift of a century and you’re going to squander it playing calvsola?” “What I would give to be a gamma-hat.” “One day you’ll see how big a mistake you are making.” But true to his spirit of non-competitiveness, Rahil did everything, everything except compete with Zambyan, to ease the tension with his parents: he did all the chores and more without complaining, he never grew irritated from their constant criticism, he always came home before curfew, he did not meet with people his parent’s disapproved, etc. So after years of being “let down” imagine their excitement when Rahil, their little Rahil, not Zambyan, was the first to go into action.
Rahil, of course, was even more excited but for slightly different reasons. Sure deep down he was thrilled to have put the cocky Zambyan in his place, but on the surface he was ecstatic to be one of the very first front-liners of the ReTurn. He had the honor to reveal the glory of Assmachestan to the rest of the known universe. He was living the legend. He was making the brave new world. He was totally stoked.
Even so, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for the small exploratory Foggistani fleet heading to investigate the anomalies on the Styx Moon that was about to enter all hell as they entered a freak nitrogen storm that was, at that moment being cast, with Rahil’s assistance, by a level 13 magician.
