Ehlissa's Story (a Castle Greyhawk Prologue) - p. 1

Once upon a time, there was a young woman named Ehlissa, and she lived
in the City of Greyhawk. Of course, so did about 30,000 other people,
so that alone did not make her particularly special. Nor did she feel
particularly special. True, her parents had managed to afford the
tuition for her to attend the University of Magical Arts, but so had the
families of many young ladies. The standard curriculum for ladies,
which did not seem remotely special to Ehlissa, consisted of learning to
read magic, plus a simple mending spell, and useful cantrips for
magically washing clothes, concealing blemishes, and plucking eyebrows.
The final spell before graduation would be an incantation for conjuring
an unseen servant that could do even more chores. After graduation
would be a ball, where the ladies-in-magic would be allowed to dance
with the new journeyman magic-users and seek out a prospective husband.
At least, this was the tradition, but it was an old tradition and these
were more enlightened times. Male and female students were now allowed
to interact well before graduation and even take the same classes. This
was a good thing too for Ehlissa, because she was often mistaken for a
man and would have once received demerits for being mistaken for a man
on the wrong side of the college, or for being a disruptive influence in
the classroom. Ehlissa steadfastly refused to engage in the practice –
so popular at the time – of plucking off the majority of her eyebrows,
probably because she happened to have large, bushy eyebrows. And she
felt much more comfortable in men’s cote and hose than she ever did in a
corset and dress...

This particular day, she had just finished with classes for the morning,
had doffed her classroom hood and gown, and was wearing a particularly
manly pair of boots she had borrowed from her father. Her boots had
worn thin, and money for replacement boots was scarce for merchant class
families paying university tuitions. Of course, had she looked more
demure and lady-like that day, then nothing special would probably have
ever happened in her life. Destiny favors nonconformity.

“What ho!” a young man called out to her as she was leaving the main
entrance for the front lawn of the walled complex. The young man was
thin, with lightly-tanned skin, black hair revealed as his classroom
hood fell back, and just the hint of a moustache. He immediately struck
her as boyishly handsome. That he had donned his hood and gown before
entering the facilities was somewhat of a breach of protocol, though at
least he was still in the compound. “Are you in Freyson’s class?” he
asked nervously.

“What?” Ehlissa asked back, surprised by this stranger’s informality.

“Freyson? Divination? What about Vantolainen for conjuration?”

“I don’t—“ she began.

“No, I don’t recognize you,” he continued, “but I thought you might have
enrolled late since I last attended class. I was – oh no,” he said as
he spotted two young men approaching them. One was a paler fellow with
a blonde-moustache and wearing a long green cote that parted at his
codpiece and ended over his thighs. This man stared at Ehlissa’s new
companion with an angry glare.