Ask a Wizard

The story is set in the sprawling, magical metropolis of Archon, the capital city of the continent. Magic is common but tightly regulated. The College of Arcane Resolution (CAR) is a massive, cathedral-like structure that manages all magical interactions with the public.

Wizard Thistlewick, Thistle, Bramble works in the Ask a Wizard office. He is the lowest, most public-facing level of the CAR. It’s a chaotic, noisy room filled with dozens of desks where junior wizards and clerks handle mundane magical problems: broken wards, misplaced teleportation keys, cursed garden gnomes, and the like.

A seemingly ordinary peasant woman named Elara approaches Thistle’s desk. She’s not asking for a grand quest; her request is simple: “My house key keeps turning into a very angry moth.”

Thistle, sighing, runs a basic diagnostic spell, assuming it’s a minor hex. However, when he tries to file the request in the SIDR, the Scroll violently rejects the entry, glowing with a dangerous crimson light—a color reserved for prophecies and world-ending threats