The Gate Traveler

Rabban walked into his favorite tavern, at least in this city, his anticipation for a refreshing tankard of ale quickly turning to disappointment. The ale, to his dismay, was warm! The very thought of warm ale was enough to make his blood boil. He marched up to the barkeep, demanding an explanation for this unforgivable offense. Warm ale was a sacrilege, a travesty that he simply could not tolerate.

The barkeeper apologized and explained that the regular mage that chilled the drinks quit, and he hadn’t found a replacement yet.

Rabban was speechless and didn’t even know how to react to such severe and shocking circumstances.

After a short deliberation, he decided to spend one of his precious ability points on a spell to chill his ale. After scrolling through the Ice Magic Spells list, he found a spell that suited him just fine. It was a channeled spell, and he rarely liked those, but he would sacrifice for ale.

He channeled the spell on his ale, and its temperature dropped rapidly. Suddenly, it froze solid. Rabban stared at it in utter disbelief.

How?

Why?

What did he do to deserve this?

He turned over the tankard and banged it on the table a few times until the frozen ale fell out. He took out his knife and chipped off small pieces of ale and sucked on them. Finally, he had enough. He stuck the knife with all his power in the middle of the frozen ale and began licking it like a popsicle.

It wasn’t perfect, but frozen ale was still better than warm ale.

You couldn’t win them all.