[ PI ] The longer a spell takes to invoke , the more potent its effects . A single wizard has been casting a spell for hundreds of years . Today , he is finally done .

In a remote tower, amid the Mountains Impassable, stood the black tower of Leomund the Gray. Half a world away, in the midst of the Desert Foreboding, stood the white tower of Magnus the Red. 
 
 Leomund the Gray, a once great magus, had not been seen or heard of for over a century. Magnus the Red, a sorcerer of incomparable power, rarely ventured outside the boiled sands of his desert. That the two should be in the same story is somewhat unusual in itself. 
 
 Magnus was not known for his skills in divination. He tended more towards the `` blow it up'' school of sorcery. It is rare, indeed, however, to find any magic user who ca n't recognize an omen when he sees one. And its not like Magnus was particularly bad at it. So when he saw the omens that pointed to something astir in the ether, he cast his bones. The answer, surprisingly, came back Leomund the Gray. A few more castings, a greater endeavor into divining then Magnus had done since he was an apprentice, and he had his answer 
 
 It seemed, somehow, that Leomund had been working some casting, a single spell, for nearly a century. The spell would be finishing soon. With such a long casting time, nearly anything could happen. A spell of that size could rip all of the magic out of the world, or worse. It could possibly, considering it would be coming from the middle of the Mountains Impassable, destroy all life on the planet. Magnus' imagination ran wild with the possibilities. 
 
 Soon, however, he gathered his wits about him, collected his portents and readings, and teleported himself to the depths of the Forest Eternal, and the Emerald tower of Elexander the Blue. Together, they poured through Magnus' finding, and Elexander cast a few of his own. The great spell confirmed, they called out for assistance, from a non-magical source. 
 
 It took the assassin five of the six months that he had to navigate to the black tower. `` They were n't kidding,'' he'd thought more then once, `` when they named these the Mountains Impassable.'' Luckily, his goal was not to pass through the mountains, only make it to the Black tower. And make it he did. Assaulting a wizard's tower is a tricky business. Most would say that only another wizard could have a chance to succeed. This assassin, however, knew better. He knew that a wizard would actually have a worse chance. Because wizards, no matter what they called themselves, or how much different they said they all were, largely thought the same. And its much easier to set traps for someone that thinks the way you do. 
 
 An assassin thinks much differently then a wizards does, and therefore, should have a better chance of breaking into a tower. This was, however, the first time this particular assassin had cause to test his theory. He'd never heard of anyone else succeeding in such a mission either. Which is why it took him almost two weeks to even attempt to get inside. Once inside, he crept through the tower at a painfully slow pace. Room by room, sometimes step by step, constantly checking for traps, deadfalls, runes, hexes, or anything else that would cut his mission short. In the end, he walked through the door with only a few moments to spare. He saw his quarry, Leomund, sitting in the center of a hexagram, circled by candles. He pulled the crossbow up, and fired a the wizard's heart. An unseen force flashed into existence, and knocked the bolt aside. Reloading quickly, he believed he had just enough time to take the second shot. Leomund, however, opened his eyes just before the assassin pulled the trigger. With a final word, his incantation finished, and a black bolt of energy lept from the floor and engulfed the assassin. 
 
 `` Just in time,'' Leomund thought, slowing standing and stretching out his legs. Spells to preserve his body through the ritual had helped, but there is no way one can sit so long in a single position, and not be a bit sore afterwards. He looked back at his notes, mostly faded from the century of disuse. The omens had been right. In the end, he'd used only a fraction of the power he had available to smite his attacker. But one can never be sure. If an assassin is going to try and attack a wizard, in the heart of his tower, its safe to assume they'll bring wards against magic. No amount of warding could have held of that spell though, not with a century of casting behind it. `` I wonder why that assassin wanted me dead.''
