[ TT ] All apprentice mages are required to visit the five high temples located around the world before graduating . The temples rarely stay at one spot for long , however .

I decide to rent a room at the inn to escape the rain. The constant, drizzling, cold, grey rain. The Pine Barrows are my least favorite destination in Poraya for that reason alone. Even the strongest cloud dispersal spell only lasts for about an hour in these parts. 
 
 I stomp inside and set my muddy boots next to the hearth. They'd be soaked through again as soon as I set out tomorrow, but it would be worth the gold piece I'd had to spend here to be able to slide my foot inside without that disgusting wet squelch that sends a shiver down my spine every time. The innkeeper brings me a pair of woolen slippers, soft and comfortable. They're a bit too small, but nothing that a minor expansion charm ca n't fix. I thank him with the deepest bow I can muster, still dripping onto his stone floors. The innkeeper's son offers to help me with my bags, but there are delicate instruments and potions inside. I thank him for his offer and flip him a silver Bay coin in gratitude, then levitate the trunks upstairs with me. A shocked gasp circulates around the hall as the other patrons realized who I am. 
 
 I change into my dryest set of robes from the very bottom of my trunk, then return to the main hall of the inn. The other travelers pretend to be engrossed in their meals, but I can feel their eyes boring into me hoping for another hint of magic. The conversation was roaring when I'd entered but has now fallen deathly silent. The innkeeper beckons me to the bar and places a steaming bowl of stew in front of me. *Bless this man*! 
 
 The room remains silent. I take a bite: beef and barley with carrots and spring onions. With my enhanced senses, I can hear the whispers: 
 
 `` Are you sure he did magic?'' 
 
 `` Aye! His bags were flying, I tell you.'' 
 
 `` I do n't buy it.'' 
 
 I clear my throat and turn back. All pretense has gone out the window, and twenty sets of eyes are glued to me. They wait for something to happen. Anything. 
 
 Demons spring from the floor around me, ten feet tall and made of flickering red flames. They grimace and howl ferociously, and the crowd ducks under their tables in fear, but still trying to see what happens. A longsword appears in my hand, not of shining steel but crisp, clear ice. With an elegant flourish, I slice through the fiery apparitions, and all dissolve into puffs of steam. There is a stunned silence, then raucous applause. I turn back to my stew with a smile; that's always my favorite parlor trick for such situations. 
 
 A merchant approaches with a mug of ale, a silver Bay, and a loaf of bread: the traditional offering in the Pine Barrows for a weary traveler. Anyone who provides for you in such fashion is owed a debt: your tale. I sigh and greet the man. Ca n't he see that I already have food and drink of my own? But I'm not one to turn away a new friend, particularly when my quest depends on information. Who knows *who* may be able to help me? 
 
 He hands me the mug first. `` Difficult journey, friend?'' 
 
 I nod and reply with the expected response `` Less so with new acquaintainces.'' The process is ritualized, like a dance we have to go through. I wish he'd just work up the nerve to finally ask what a wizard is doing in this part of the country. 
 
 He pulls up a stool next to me and waves to the innkeeper for a second mug for himself. `` You have business in these parts? My caravan runs between every town from the source of the Canagra River to the coast, so if you need directions or aid, I'm your man.'' His sealskin cloak denotes a substantial amount of wealth for someone from these parts. Maybe he *could* help. 
 
 `` I'm searching for the Eighth Temple,'' I tell him. 
 
 He does n't seem to understand. ``'Ere's only seven temples,'' he responds, mouth full of bread. The bread he was supposed to be giving to me, although I did n't really want it. 
 
 `` So they say,'' I respond, going back to my stew. `` But someone else built those seven temples. Someone powerful enough to cast the Time Bubble spells that keep the Teachers young even after a thousand years of training new students. Someone who could make buildings the size of an entire city disappear and reappear without warning. For all we know, they're the reason magic exists in the first place. And the Teachers all say that there was a Founder of each Temple who left. Those Founders have to be somewhere.'' 
 
 `` Ca n't be,'' he responds immediately, with scornful derision apparent in his voice. 
 
 `` Oh, you've trained at the temples like I have?'' I lash out. `` You know the Teachers as well as I do? You've earned admittance to their rank like I have? You've plumbed the depths of the library for years as I have?'' It's a bit angrier than I had perhaps intended, but I'm tired of explaining myself and my quest. He is the one that asked for my story in the first place! 
 
 He sips his beer. `` Someones else woulds have seen it by now.'' His Barrows accent, concealed when he first appraoched me, begins to leak through `` Hell, even I seen the temple one year when it appeared in the forests between Korad and Murad!'' My mind reaches back to the charts I'd made tracing all the locations of the temples over the years. Yes, the Illusion Temple had been in this region about thirty years ago. 
 
 `` That assumes that the Founders want their temple to be found,'' I retort. 
 
 `` Or yous just a fool,'' he says, palming the silver Bay that was supposed to be a gift to me and walking back to his table. `` Good luck on finding your non-existent Temple.'' 
 
 I go back to my soup. He is n't the first who doubted that it existed. He wo n't be the last. But I know the Eighth Temple is there somewhere.
